The currently available categories don't make much sense

[insertnamehere]

After putting some thought into the category system, I feel that some of the current categories are unnecessary or suboptimal. I am in favour of keeping single categories, as the purpose of such a system is to allow readers to sort stories based on their most central, generic theme. To me, this suggests that overly specific categories are inappropriate, as well as categories that don't convey meaningful information about the stories contained within. It kind of feels like CHYOA is tailored to individual sex scenes, not entire stories.

I also think it's important that certain "hardcore" elements of stories should be made known to readers without forcing authors to lock their stories in categories that aren't really correct. Let these be "flags" or something. The idea is that a story can still be Science Fiction or whatever, but alongside its listing would be something like, "Contains Incest and Gay." Incest and Gay aren't its categories because it's not about those things - it just includes them.

Call me a control freak, but here I present my take on improvements to the category system, to be added to the rather large pool of such suggestions.

Changes:
BDSM - Keep, and also add a flag for BDSM.
Bisexual - It only contains 90 stories. Make it a flag, but I'm not sure about its status as a category.
Cheating Spouses - Keep. The existence of netorare as an entire genre persuaded me as such.
Erotic Couplings - Discard. I have no idea why this category exists, but all stories that involve sex between two or more entities involve erotic couplings. There is already a romance category for stories that are about relationships.
Exhibitionist and Voyeur - Keep.
Fan Fiction - Probably keep...? I feel this is an outlier as a category, since fanfic is necessarily 'about' something other than the source material, but then, the source essentially dictates the most important theme. It's hard to get into Star Wars porn if you don't already enjoy it, regardless of the other themes present.
Fantasy - Definitely keep, and I do appreciate the distinction from Science Fiction. That said, there are two definitions of fantasy used on CHYOA: DnD-esque settings and characters, and teenage-boy-gets-magic-powers-and-harasses-women or its ilk. These have little in common, and a reader browsing Fantasy will find only half of the stories there match what they expect. I go into further detail on this regarding Mind Control, but I will say that I think the magic-powers stories have no place in this category.
Fetish - Discard. Fetish? Which fetish??? A story being under Fetish just means it's not vanilla, much like 99% of stories on CHYOA.
Gay - Keep and add as a flag.
Group Sex - Keep. This is a less than popular category, but I understand how stories can be structured around the central idea of group sex.
Humor & Satire - Keep. Not too popular either, but stories that are designed to be funny above all else would be out of place in any other category.
Incest - Keep and add as a flag. Some might disagree, but there are plenty of stories that don't merely use incest as a tool, but a focus.
Interracial - Keep... I guess. I'm guessing this is here because it's the sort of category you'd see on Pornhub, for example, but it doesn't make sense for a writing medium. Still, over 200 stories tells me people use it.
Lesbian - Keep and add as a flag.
Mature - Keep and possibly add as a flag? It's not morally questionable or anything, just kind of repulsive to think about old people fucking. Could be my personal preference.
MILF - Discard. First off, the whole point of a MILF character is that she's either mature or related to the protagonist. Both of these are better described by other categories. Second, it's an underused category at 90 stories.
Mind Control - Change to Magic Powers, or possibly Fantastical Events to accommodate free-use stories. The name might not be immediately obvious, but I think the regular-guy-gets-magic-powers stuff currently found in Fantasy is much, much more similar in style and theme to Mind Control. After all, Mind Control is just a popular subset of magic-powers stories.
Miscellaneous - Keep, actually. There's always going to be completely wild and uncategorisable stories. They need a place.
Non-consent - At least add as a flag. Not sure whether it's worth keeping around. It's popular, but I feel that's just because a lot of stories happen to include non-con and have nowhere else to go. The category seems in some ways too broad and in others too niche to really work.
Non-english - Discard. This is useless for a multitude of reasons that I assume I don't need to elaborate upon.
Non-erotic - Keep. Could also possibly work as a flag.
Romance - Keep.
Science Fiction - Keep.
Swinging - Not sure. It's another underused category because it's rather specific. It's the sort of category you'd see on a porn video site, not an erotica site.
Teen - Keep. It's a little vague, but a lot of stories are specifically about life as a uni freshman (for instance).
Toys & Masturbation - Discard. I know this is cruel. Perhaps I should send a card and chocolate to all 20 authors that have written in this.
Transsexual - Keep and add as a flag.

New additions:
Category: Horror, or Supernatural, or whatever. Can't believe this doesn't already exist. I always see stories perfect for this category that end up filed under Fantasy, or Non-consent, etc.
Flag: Game. For stories that are very variable-intensive and have some challenge or reward element. I'm talking stories like Goodbye Girls or Becoming a Warrior, not merely stories that happen to use Game Mode. Works doubly as a flag because it allows stories to still be correctly categorised as Exhibitionist or whatever, and also because there are certain members of the CHYOA community that evidently despise Game Mode with a passion and wish to avoid it at all costs. Their loss.
Category and Flag: Furry. I don't see this too often, but I think that's a result, not a cause, of its lack of categorisation. It just seems like such an obvious distinction to account for. Of course, I am among others in that I would rather know in advance if a story involves furries, so it's necessary as a flag.
Category: Celebrity. Making this explicit might introduce legal issues, I don't know. Still, seems to be a popular type of story and one worth categorising.
Category: Superheroes. I see this concept a lot too, though it might be too specific, since these otherwise fit into Science Fiction. Still, I think there's a distinct thematic difference between your average Sci-Fi story and your average superhero story.

That's pretty much it for my musings. I understand that if the category system were to be updated, regardless of how one went about it, it would be a huge pain in the ass. I hope at least some of my ideas and observations here are worth considering.

 

[MidbossMan]

Mostly I like this; I do anticipate there could be some difficulties getting authors to specify where their newly moved stories end up. Not sure if the easiest way would be to move them to somewhere like miscellaneous and let authors resort at their leisure or perhaps have a grace period before the change is implemented warning the author to move the story or else it is thrown in miscellaneous.

In particular I would agree that the fantasy tag probably needs to be broken down a bit, to separate the sort of high fantasy stories from stories that are "living a fantasy" in the sense unique to erotica. It could be we should just have a super powers genre or such. Though, as I believe you suggested, we also need some kind of superhero genre so that guys with mind control amulets aren't mixed in with flying guys with capes.

I also agree some of these currently called genres in our system would work better as flags. Like, there's bi-sexual stuff everywhere, but if its bi-sexual in a fantasy world people are going to choose fantasy as the genre. Ditto more pressing concerns like incest or noncon, both which can be triggers for people but which often don't really describe the "genre" of said story.

 

[insertnamehere]

Mostly I like this; I do anticipate there could be some difficulties getting authors to specify where their newly moved stories end up. Not sure if the easiest way would be to move them to somewhere like miscellaneous and let authors resort at their leisure or perhaps have a grace period before the change is implemented warning the author to move the story or else it is thrown in miscellaneous.

Yes, this is my greatest concern. It's true of pretty much every suggestion, though, that users of the site will need to make their own changes to suit.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

I like the list you posted, but I think we should consider everyone has it's own mental categorization. There's no thing such a "perfect tag system".

Interracial - Keep... I guess. I'm guessing this is here because it's the sort of category you'd see on Pornhub, for example, but it doesn't make sense for a writing medium. Still, over 200 stories tells me people use it.

Classic overused black males steals our women?

Category and Flag: Furry. I don't see this too often, but I think that's a result, not a cause, of its lack of categorisation. It just seems like such an obvious distinction to account for. Of course, I am among others in that I would rather know in advance if a story involves furries, so it's necessary as a flag.

Are we talking about fantasy characters who are covered in fur or people indulging in costume play in reality? I can see it as a flag,of course, not sure about story.

Category: Superheroes. I see this concept a lot too, though it might be too specific, since these otherwise fit into Science Fiction. Still, I think there's a distinct thematic difference between your average Sci-Fi story and your average superhero story.

I think this one to be unneeded, just cause it's a popular theme, it doesn't justify a whole category for it. By the way, wouldn't it be clear it's a story about superheroes in the headline?

Anyway, I think most of the confusion come from the fact there are essentially two types of stories: plot-centric ones(fantasy,sci-fi, horror,fanfic) and kink-centric ones.
This second group comprises all those "pornhub" categories, as you said.
Of course you can build a whole story around, interracial, incest, non-con, but they would be better suited as flags, imho.

 

[dingsdongs]

The whole concept of categories could definitely use some improvements

Be it new additional ones, like mentioned in this topic, or i believe it was already suggested in another topic that it should be possible to put your story in more than one category at the same time.

For example one Main category and two additional ones. Obviously you shouldn't be able to put your story in all categories at once, that would defeat the purpose of categorization as well

 

[insertnamehere]

I think this one to be unneeded, just cause it's a popular theme, it doesn't justify a whole category for it. By the way, wouldn't it be clear it's a story about superheroes in the headline?

Superheroes are both popular and markedly different from Science Fiction stories that aren't about superheroes. People who access the Science Fiction category are usually either looking for superhero stories or sci-fi stories, but not both. Superheroes is such a unique spin on the concept of sci-fi that I think it justifies a category in its own right.

Also, arguably, most stories' categories are guessable based solely on title, subtitle, description and image. The purpose of categories is to organise, not to advertise.

Anyway, I think most of the confusion come from the fact there are essentially two types of stories: plot-centric ones(fantasy,sci-fi, horror,fanfic) and kink-centric ones.
This second group comprises all those "pornhub" categories, as you said.

A good observation. I agree.

Of course you can build a whole story around, interracial, incest, non-con, but they would be better suited as flags, imho.

This is where I disagree. They should exist both as warnings and as categories. If stories are commonly central to a general theme, then that theme is deserving of being a category. While it is possible (and, indeed, likely) for a story to focus on both a particular story element and a particular kink, the point of categorisation is to recognise which of these takes precedence. Oftentimes, it will be the kink, not the story element.

. . . it should be possible to put your story in more than one category at the same time.
. . .

Yes, it's that discussion that inspired me to make this suggestion. I believe that allowing multiple categories, regardless of how it is executed, degrades the purpose of the category system. The overwhelming majority of stories have no use for more than one category, because there is always going to be one distinct aspect of a story that determines its category, to the exclusion of all other aspects. Even if you write an epic fantasy adventure in which the protagonist develops a relationship with her sister, you should know whether the fantasy, incest, or lesbian aspect is the most important.

If you allow two categories (even one "minor"), then nearly all stories from here on out will be in two categories, to the detriment of the system, and to little benefit as it's not necessary for most of them. If you allow three, that's even worse. The tag system already lets stories specify their themes for readers. A category system should allow for clear, distinct and specific browsing of a broad type of story; if your idea deviates from this, then you're not suggesting a modification to the category system, but a replacement that achieves something totally different.

 

[gene.sis]

Let these be "flags" or something. The idea is that a story can still be Science Fiction or whatever, but alongside its listing would be something like, "Contains Incest and Gay." Incest and Gay aren't its categories because it's not about those things - it just includes them.

Flags as "warning signs" for stories are basically additional categories.

On a per chapter basis, it might be interesting but how would you ensure that every chapter gets flagged accordingly?

Erotic Couplings - Discard. I have no idea why this category exists, but all stories that involve sex between two or more entities involve erotic couplings. There is already a romance category for stories that are about relationships.

Not sure about the exact definitions but I'd think that Romance is more about love while Erotic Couplings is rather about sex.

Fantasy - Definitely keep, and I do appreciate the distinction from Science Fiction. That said, there are two definitions of fantasy used on CHYOA: DnD-esque settings and characters, and teenage-boy-gets-magic-powers-and-harasses-women or its ilk. These have little in common, and a reader browsing Fantasy will find only half of the stories there match what they expect. I go into further detail on this regarding Mind Control, but I will say that I think the magic-powers stories have no place in this category.

Magic power stories usually fit Mind Control, though there is certainly an amount of World Control as well.

Fetish - Discard. Fetish? Which fetish??? A story being under Fetish just means it's not vanilla, much like 99% of stories on CHYOA.

Where would you put diaper play and similar?

Non-consent - At least add as a flag. Not sure whether it's worth keeping around. It's popular, but I feel that's just because a lot of stories happen to include non-con and have nowhere else to go. The category seems in some ways too broad and in others too niche to really work.

There are so many stories that are solely about non-consent, so I don't see any reason why it should be discarded.

Non-english - Discard. This is useless for a multitude of reasons that I assume I don't need to elaborate upon.

Agree... though these stories would then have no category. How would that be fixed?

Horror, or Supernatural, or whatever.

Supernatural is basically another part of Fantasy.

Not sure about Horror. I think a lot of the stories that might fit into that category would scratch the Extreme Violence rule.

Furry. I don't see this too often, but I think that's a result, not a cause, of its lack of categorisation. It just seems like such an obvious distinction to account for. Of course, I am among others in that I would rather know in advance if a story involves furries, so it's necessary as a flag.

Lit has a category Non-Human that also fits several other stories that might hard to fit right now.

I believe that allowing multiple categories, regardless of how it is executed, degrades the purpose of the category system.

I think that depends.

Looking at a single category would obviously give you more results.
But if you have a category level for setting and file every story to a setting, would any story be in the wrong category?

But if you have more category levels, you actually have a lot more categories as each combination would work as a category on its own.
So you could "have" a category "Contemporary Lesbian Romance" or "Science Fiction Interracial BDSM"

you should know whether the fantasy, incest, or lesbian aspect is the most important.

I'd say that all of these aspects are crucial and that every single part can be a deal-breaker. (e.g. you might be interested in Incest stories but Fantasy bores the hell out of you)

If you allow two categories (even one "minor"), then nearly all stories from here on out will be in two categories, to the detriment of the system, and to little benefit as it's not necessary for most of them.

If there are different levels (category categories?), all stories would fit in a category of every level.
(Allowing the authors to choose 3 categories from all categories would be a different thing.)

 

[insertnamehere]

It seems you look at categories as being a way of advertising the contents of a story. This is a purpose I think flags would achieve. A category system should exist to organise the available range of stories - and indeed, the current system appears to be trying to organise more than advertise. Sure, a formalised tagging system would be great, but it's still not a category system per se. It's a bit like how you can go into a library and work out the contents of a book by reading the blurb, or you can ask a librarian if they know of any books that have X, Y and Z elements. These are both great, but the books are still organised into biographies, novels, etc. I'm not saying we need to reinvent Dewey Decimal System, or that we even necessarily need categories at all (though I like them). It's just that any category system must achieve a certain purpose in order to actually be a category system.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

Not sure about the exact definitions but I'd think that Romance is more about love while Erotic Couplings is rather about sex.

Yeah but, isn't "erotic couplings" just the blank for when the story is not about incest,non-con, lesbian, etc..
Is that really necessary?
I mean, it's so dull, in all honesty reading the tag "erotic coupling" never ever gave me any kind of feeling about a story other than "the sex in this one must be so vanilla the author didn't know where else to put it".

 

[gene.sis]

It seems you look at categories as being a way of advertising the contents of a story. This is a purpose I think flags would achieve.

Well, if you use flags as warning signs, they can't serve for advertising.
If flags can be used for advertising, I assume they will end up like tags and most stories will feature every flag.
(Though there might be a difference between flagging chapters vs. flagging stories.)

A category system should exist to organise the available range of stories - and indeed, the current system appears to be trying to organise more than advertise.

Let's say you have toy blocks of different shapes and colors.
To organize them, you have a compartment for every property. ("1D")
So: square, round, triangular, green, red, blue
Now we sort in some blocks:
Red square -> square
Blue triangular -> blue
Green round -> round
Red square -> red

Now we have two similar blocks in two different compartments and if we take a look into the compartment for triangular blocks, it's empty. (Though there is a blue triangular block somewhere.)

Now if we would have compartments in two dimensions ("2D")
Dimension 1 = shapes: square, round, triangular
Dimension 2 = colors: green, red, blue

   S  R  T
G  O  O  O
R  O  O  O
B  O  O  O

Now the blocks are actually organized and we can find every block by all of its properties.

Browsing (1 dimension):
1D: We only find half of the blocks that actually fit the property. (about 1/6 of all blocks. The other blocks that fit the property can't be found.)
2D: We find all blocks that fit the property (1/3 of all blocks)

Searching (2 dimensions):
1D: (doesn't work)
2D: We only find the blocks that fit both dimensions. In the above example, it would be (about) 1/3 of the results in contrast to one-dimensional browsing.

That means that 2D narrows it down in two-dimensional searching and returns all fitting results in one-dimensional browsing.

If you add another dimension (e.g. material: wood, plastic, stone), you would have:
Searching (3 dimensions):
3D: We find blocks that exactly fit the requirements. (About 1/27 of all blocks, about 1/9 in contrast to one-dimensional browsing, 1/3 in contrast to two-dimensional browsing.) In many cases, this might narrow down the results too much.
Searching (2 dimensions):
3D: We find blocks that fit two of three properties. So we find about 1/9 of all blocks.


The crucial requirement is, that every dimension only allows certain properties. So you can't define a block that is square, round, and triangular at the same time. It must consist of one shape, one color, and one material.


So a three-dimensional category system would categorize stories and it would do it pretty precisely.
The main thing is that the classic category browsing will return more results, though all of them would still be correct results.


Another example could be the organization system in a library.
They might sort their books by:
- genre
- the first letter of the author's name
- the first letter of the book's title
That is basically a three-dimensional categorization system as well. (Even though it's pretty clunky without computers.)

And the dimensions above aren't very helpful for the organization on CHYOA.


So I'd go for the dimensions:
- Setting (about 4 options)
- Involved groups of persons (about 8 options)
- Fetishes (about 14 options)

(The following numbers assume that all stories are distributed evenly among categories. Even though that isn't the case, the numbers give a rough clue about it.)
3D - search for 3 dimensions: 0,2% of all stories
3D - search for the dimensions S and I: 3,1% of all stories
3D - search for the dimensions I and F: 0,9% of all stories
3D - search for the dimensions F and S: 1,8% of all stories
3D - search for the dimensions S: 25,0% of all stories
3D - search for the dimensions I: 12,5% of all stories
3D - search for the dimensions F: 7,1% of all stories

1D - browsing the categories we have right now: 3,7% of all stories (only showing about half of the fitting stories.)

tl;dr
I'd say that having different dimensions of properties would make up a categorization system.


Obviously, allowing authors to choose 3 out of 27 isn't a proper categorization system and would only lead to "advertising"

Sure, a formalised tagging system would be great, but it's still not a category system per se.

If you have predefined tags, it might help to reduce the mess a little but it doesn't avoid the over-usage of tags. (= tag list longer than the chapter)
The stories that have all imaginable tags now, will then have all possible tags.

Yeah but, isn't "erotic couplings" just the blank for when the story is not about incest,non-con, lesbian, etc..
Is that really necessary?
I mean, it's so dull, in all honesty reading the tag "erotic coupling" never ever gave me any kind of feeling about a story other than "the sex in this one must be so vanilla the author didn't know where else to put it".

My story AW is filed in Erotic Couplings.

I wouldn't call it vanilla but I have no idea where to put it otherwise.

The closest categories would be
- Cheating Spouses... but technically, he isn't cheating
- Fantasy... the story is set today and the fantasy element is only necessary for the mechanics of the story but not for the story itself.

 

[insertnamehere]

Well, if you use flags as warning signs, they can't serve for advertising.
If flags can be used for advertising, I assume they will end up like tags and most stories will feature every flag.
(Though there might be a difference between flagging chapters vs. flagging stories.)

I meant advertising in the sense of "letting a fact be known," not in the sense of "attempting to sell a product." So, to advertise to shoppers that the supermarket floor is wet, one would place a "FLOOR IS WET" sign.

Let's say you have toy blocks of different shapes and colors.
(etc.)

Your example is all very well and good, but it's a false equivalence. Stories do not have exactly one distinct setting and exactly one distinct fetish and exactly one distinct group/person involved. I could write a story that strongly includes both elements of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but is otherwise totally vanilla. Or, maybe the fetish changes drastically between branches. The point is, while I now have the option to choose multiple categories for my story, I cannot choose the most appropriate ones. My story must be categorised by fetish (in addition to other dimensions), but it lacks a fetish by which to be categorised.

Which is why I see a one-dimensional category system as being optimal. All stories, without question, have at least one distinct element by which they can be primarily identified - or at least, I presume no mod would approve a story that is literally devoid of content. It might be the genre; it might be the fetish; it might be the relationships; it might be something completely different. By your example, a majority of stories likely would, to varying degrees of accuracy, fit into the 3D model. However, most of those stories are primarily central to one of those dimensions. A story about orcs pillaging a village and fighting wizards and knights is so much more about the Fantasy aspect than the Non-Consent aspect, giving it the option to also be categorised as Non-Consent isn't as much of a bonus. A multi-dimensional category system redefines what it means to be part of a category: as it stands, being in Exhibitionist means that your story is primarily about exhibitionism, whereas in this model, it would mean the story merely happens to include more exhibitionism than any other fetish. That's not a category system I consider to be particularly useful.

If you have predefined tags, it might help to reduce the mess a little but it doesn't avoid the over-usage of tags. (= tag list longer than the chapter)
The stories that have all imaginable tags now, will then have all possible tags.

Hm, good point, though I would consider this to be marginally better than what we have now. It would be possible to discipline those who abuse the tag system, but that would be a lot of moderation work.

 

[SeriousBrainDamage]

My story AW is filed in Erotic Couplings.

I'm sorry, gene.sis, I wanted to be funny, but it probably came out as derogative.
I don't know, maybe it has something to do with my being non native english speaker, but I fail to understand the meaning of "erotic coupling" as a tag.
Long ago I thought it involved "couples", but that is not the case.
If it's erotica we're talking about, of course there will be sex, if not of a specific kink, ol' plain male-female sex, what's the point of tagging it?
Your story maybe should be categorized something like "real life fantasy".

Which is why I see a one-dimensional category system as being optimal. All stories, without question, have at least one distinct element by which they can be primarily identified - or at least, I presume no mod would approve a story that is literally devoid of content. It might be the genre; it might be the fetish; it might be the relationships; it might be something completely different. By your example, a majority of stories likely would, to varying degrees of accuracy, fit into the 3D model. However, most of those stories are primarily central to one of those dimensions. A story about orcs pillaging a village and fighting wizards and knights is so much more about the Fantasy aspect than the Non-Consent aspect, giving it the option to also be categorised as Non-Consent isn't as much of a bonus. A multi-dimensional category system redefines what it means to be part of a category: as it stands, being in Exhibitionist means that your story is primarily about exhibitionism, whereas in this model, it would mean the story merely happens to include more exhibitionism than any other fetish. That's not a category system I consider to be particularly useful.

With the almighy power of branching, a story could take major turns away from the intended script.
A story about orcs pillaging a village, has per se a strong characterization, that's right. It would be ok to put it in "fantasy" and be content with it.
BUT, the story itself could be a canonical hero quest, could be all about orcs raping maidens, could turn into a BDSM story where a character gets pegged and spanked, could stress a lot impregnation and breeding fetishes, and could be all these thing together, one for every main branch.
Also, the author could imagine all these kind of outcome at the start, and put all these tags/flags/kinks in the description of the story headstart, even if the development of some of these will be never carried out.

I think for the sake of finding new content, one single category isn't enough. It just flattens out things too much.
On the other hand, tagging system is boud to be misused.

 

[insertnamehere]

With the almighy power of branching, a story could take major turns away from the intended script.
A story about orcs pillaging a village, has per se a strong characterization, that's right. It would be ok to put it in "fantasy" and be content with it.
BUT, the story itself could be a canonical hero quest, could be all about orcs raping maidens, could turn into a BDSM story where a character gets pegged and spanked, could stress a lot impregnation and breeding fetishes, and could be all these thing together, one for every main branch.

Yes, exactly. This would then be a Fantasy story, because that's what the story is about. Individual branches might take on other categories in addition to the Fantasy element, but the story is defined overwhelmingly by the fact that it is Fantasy. As it stands, you will never find a story in the BDSM category that just so happens to include BDSM at one of many paths; the only stories (correctly) filed under BDSM are ones that are entirely about BDSM. I consider this to be an important aspect of the system that should be retained, and one that would be lost with the allowance of multiple categories.

Also, the author could imagine all these kind of outcome at the start, and put all these tags/flags/kinks in the description of the story headstart, even if the development of some of these will be never carried out.

They really shouldn't. Tags and the like should never show up on stories that don't already contain the associated content.

I think for the sake of finding new content, one single category isn't enough. It just flattens out things too much.
On the other hand, tagging system is boud to be misused.

I think the single-category system would be fine if only the available list of categories sufficiently reflected the sort of content that actually appears on the site. The current list may not be ideal, nor might the list I have suggested, but an ideal one is possible. We can have the best of both worlds.

 

[gene.sis]

Stories do not have exactly one distinct setting and exactly one distinct fetish and exactly one distinct group/person involved. I could write a story that strongly includes both elements of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but is otherwise totally vanilla. Or, maybe the fetish changes drastically between branches. The point is, while I now have the option to choose multiple categories for my story, I cannot choose the most appropriate ones. My story must be categorised by fetish (in addition to other dimensions), but it lacks a fetish by which to be categorised.

You could choose the most appropriate one from each dimension.
In the case of catch-all stories and widely branching stories, a one-dimensional categorization system will create the same issue.

All stories, without question, have at least one distinct element by which they can be primarily identified

I could write a story that strongly includes both elements of Fantasy and Science Fiction

This example story has two of these elements.

However, most of those stories are primarily central to one of those dimensions.

That actually depends on the property of the dimensions. E.g. a currently non-existing category "Old&Young" would be more meaningful than "Mature" or "Teen" because the latter imply no variation from their age group.

A multi-dimensional category system redefines what it means to be part of a category: as it stands, being in Exhibitionist means that your story is primarily about exhibitionism, whereas in this model, it would mean the story merely happens to include more exhibitionism than any other fetish. That's not a category system I consider to be particularly useful.

A fantasy exhibitionism story is primarily about exhibitionism.
A science-fiction exhibitionism story is primarily about exhibitionism as well.
A contemporary exhibitionism story is primarily about exhibitionism.

The setting is not a fetish so they can't be in competition with each other.

Hm, good point, though I would consider this to be marginally better than what we have now. It would be possible to discipline those who abuse the tag system, but that would be a lot of moderation work.

Yes. (I'm not a fan of the tag system at all.)

I'm sorry, gene.sis, I wanted to be funny, but it probably came out as derogative.
I don't know, maybe it has something to do with my being non native english speaker, but I fail to understand the meaning of "erotic coupling" as a tag.
Long ago I thought it involved "couples", but that is not the case.
If it's erotica we're talking about, of course there will be sex, if not of a specific kink, ol' plain male-female sex, what's the point of tagging it?
Your story maybe should be categorized something like "real life fantasy".

Don't worry. I'm not a native speaker as well, so I probably just didn't get it.
I actually thought about it a while before opting for Erotic Couplings.
Yes, Real Life Fantasy might work, though I don't see it in the current Fantasy category side by side with orcs and elves.

Well, maybe Erotic Couplings is the category when there's nothing left after the process of elimination.
I mean, rough sex can be consensual what means it isn't non-con and might not fit BDSM as well.

It's just that any category system must achieve a certain purpose in order to actually be a category system.

Yes, exactly. This would then be a Fantasy story, because that's what the story is about. Individual branches might take on other categories in addition to the Fantasy element, but the story is defined overwhelmingly by the fact that it is Fantasy. As it stands, you will never find a story in the BDSM category that just so happens to include BDSM at one of many paths; the only stories (correctly) filed under BDSM are ones that are entirely about BDSM. I consider this to be an important aspect of the system that should be retained, and one that would be lost with the allowance of multiple categories.

This works for Fantasy because you (usually) can't change the setting and no matter what, you can always say it's Fantasy.

Similarly, you could find a story that is filed under BDSM that has non-con branches (that isn't BDSM)
Though you could still say it's a contemporary story as it bases on the rules of the contemporary world.

And any science fiction story can always be defined by the setting as well.


So a Fantasy story that is about going around and having adventure would rather be an Adventure.
And then, you could also have a Science Fiction adventure (travel from/to different planets/space stations with different-minded people/creatures.)
Or a contemporary adventure like in a school where you would cover several categories like enf/enm humiliation, BDSM (detention), Milf, Teen, and so on.


(I could imagine marking one dimension to emphasize the importance of it, though that might not be simple enough.)

Hm... basically, you don't even have to call the setting a category.
Language, gender, and POV are all ways of categorization and can already be used side by side. (As search filters)

 

[brevdravis]

IMHO, categories really are more a form of marketing than anything else. Bear with me here because I spent way too long working as a video store clerk and often saw serious dramas categorized as "Comedies" because people buy comedies more than serious dramas. (First one that comes to mind is the extremely serious British film about the entetainment corps during WW2, where the only jokes were the occasional guy in drag and John Cleese doing some silly walks at one point. Not funny, but marketed as a comedy)

So, yeah, really categories are just the video store section that the story is gonna get shoved in. Corporate stores generally have the main genres solidified, but you'll find things like "Ghosts of Mars" in Action/Adventure rather than Science Fiction because of marketing choices.

Essentially, the Categories are just the general sections of the store that people run to. As it is, some sections have a bigger collection of ONE or two Series but that doesn't invalidate the collection IMHO. If the store owner wants to reorganize, say create a "Greatest Hits" section or a "Curators Choice" section, it's perfectly reasonable, and seems to be what a lot of customers like. (Almost every indie video/book store has a "Staff Picks" section which reflect only personal taste. It's IMHO kinda nice, and I liked it when I worked in retail... Hated customers but that's another story involving too many women asking to speak to my manager.)

Tags... are the little flashing red lights on the movie poster. Too many, and nobody's gonna notice em. Too few... and anybody who doesn't like that ONE thing ain't gonna read it. Not personally a system I use other than to warn folks what the ENTIRE theme of my story is. I don't like tags, but I understand their use in searches, and thus tagged my story with the only search I ever do.

 

[Marinus18]

After putting some thought into the category system, I feel that some of the current categories are unnecessary or suboptimal. I am in favour of keeping single categories, as the purpose of such a system is to allow readers to sort stories based on their most central, generic theme. To me, this suggests that overly specific categories are inappropriate, as well as categories that don't convey meaningful information about the stories contained within. It kind of feels like CHYOA is tailored to individual sex scenes, not entire stories.

I also think it's important that certain "hardcore" elements of stories should be made known to readers without forcing authors to lock their stories in categories that aren't really correct. Let these be "flags" or something. The idea is that a story can still be Science Fiction or whatever, but alongside its listing would be something like, "Contains Incest and Gay." Incest and Gay aren't its categories because it's not about those things - it just includes them.

Call me a control freak, but here I present my take on improvements to the category system, to be added to the rather large pool of such suggestions.

Changes:
BDSM - Keep, and also add a flag for BDSM.
Bisexual - It only contains 90 stories. Make it a flag, but I'm not sure about its status as a category.
Cheating Spouses - Keep. The existence of netorare as an entire genre persuaded me as such.
Erotic Couplings - Discard. I have no idea why this category exists, but all stories that involve sex between two or more entities involve erotic couplings. There is already a romance category for stories that are about relationships.
Exhibitionist and Voyeur - Keep.
Fan Fiction - Probably keep...? I feel this is an outlier as a category, since fanfic is necessarily 'about' something other than the source material, but then, the source essentially dictates the most important theme. It's hard to get into Star Wars porn if you don't already enjoy it, regardless of the other themes present.
Fantasy - Definitely keep, and I do appreciate the distinction from Science Fiction. That said, there are two definitions of fantasy used on CHYOA: DnD-esque settings and characters, and teenage-boy-gets-magic-powers-and-harasses-women or its ilk. These have little in common, and a reader browsing Fantasy will find only half of the stories there match what they expect. I go into further detail on this regarding Mind Control, but I will say that I think the magic-powers stories have no place in this category.
Fetish - Discard. Fetish? Which fetish??? A story being under Fetish just means it's not vanilla, much like 99% of stories on CHYOA.
Gay - Keep and add as a flag.
Group Sex - Keep. This is a less than popular category, but I understand how stories can be structured around the central idea of group sex.
Humor & Satire - Keep. Not too popular either, but stories that are designed to be funny above all else would be out of place in any other category.
Incest - Keep and add as a flag. Some might disagree, but there are plenty of stories that don't merely use incest as a tool, but a focus.
Interracial - Keep... I guess. I'm guessing this is here because it's the sort of category you'd see on Pornhub, for example, but it doesn't make sense for a writing medium. Still, over 200 stories tells me people use it.
Lesbian - Keep and add as a flag.
Mature - Keep and possibly add as a flag? It's not morally questionable or anything, just kind of repulsive to think about old people fucking. Could be my personal preference.
MILF - Discard. First off, the whole point of a MILF character is that she's either mature or related to the protagonist. Both of these are better described by other categories. Second, it's an underused category at 90 stories.
Mind Control - Change to Magic Powers, or possibly Fantastical Events to accommodate free-use stories. The name might not be immediately obvious, but I think the regular-guy-gets-magic-powers stuff currently found in Fantasy is much, much more similar in style and theme to Mind Control. After all, Mind Control is just a popular subset of magic-powers stories.
Miscellaneous - Keep, actually. There's always going to be completely wild and uncategorisable stories. They need a place.
Non-consent - At least add as a flag. Not sure whether it's worth keeping around. It's popular, but I feel that's just because a lot of stories happen to include non-con and have nowhere else to go. The category seems in some ways too broad and in others too niche to really work.
Non-english - Discard. This is useless for a multitude of reasons that I assume I don't need to elaborate upon.
Non-erotic - Keep. Could also possibly work as a flag.
Romance - Keep.
Science Fiction - Keep.
Swinging - Not sure. It's another underused category because it's rather specific. It's the sort of category you'd see on a porn video site, not an erotica site.
Teen - Keep. It's a little vague, but a lot of stories are specifically about life as a uni freshman (for instance).
Toys & Masturbation - Discard. I know this is cruel. Perhaps I should send a card and chocolate to all 20 authors that have written in this.
Transsexual - Keep and add as a flag.

New additions:
Category: Horror, or Supernatural, or whatever. Can't believe this doesn't already exist. I always see stories perfect for this category that end up filed under Fantasy, or Non-consent, etc.
Flag: Game. For stories that are very variable-intensive and have some challenge or reward element. I'm talking stories like Goodbye Girls or Becoming a Warrior, not merely stories that happen to use Game Mode. Works doubly as a flag because it allows stories to still be correctly categorised as Exhibitionist or whatever, and also because there are certain members of the CHYOA community that evidently despise Game Mode with a passion and wish to avoid it at all costs. Their loss.
Category and Flag: Furry. I don't see this too often, but I think that's a result, not a cause, of its lack of categorisation. It just seems like such an obvious distinction to account for. Of course, I am among others in that I would rather know in advance if a story involves furries, so it's necessary as a flag.
Category: Celebrity. Making this explicit might introduce legal issues, I don't know. Still, seems to be a popular type of story and one worth categorising.
Category: Superheroes. I see this concept a lot too, though it might be too specific, since these otherwise fit into Science Fiction. Still, I think there's a distinct thematic difference between your average Sci-Fi story and your average superhero story.

That's pretty much it for my musings. I understand that if the category system were to be updated, regardless of how one went about it, it would be a huge pain in the ass. I hope at least some of my ideas and observations here are worth considering.

Miscellaneous and Fetish often seem to be used interchangeably. The big thing is that there is only 1 category allowed so it's a difficult question when deciding. It's not "Which are applicable?" but it is "which is the most dominant". Some categories like Non-English, Science fiction and cheating spouses are fairly specific. However some like fetish, miscellaneous and non-consent are quite vague and usually exist together. "Fetish" especially is really vague since it can mean any kind of non-traditional sex. This very often is forced or done via mind control so in the majority of fetish stories those two categories work just as well.
I think keeping "milf" is a good idea though since milf stories are so numerous. It helps that they have their own category. I think adding "humiliation" will also be good since it would separate the consenting fetishes from the non-consenting ones. Also I think rather than "furry" there should be "non-human".

I think many of them would have merit if you could choose multiple ones. Or maybe have one primary category and several secondary one. "Rulebook" for instance would have "mind control" as it's primary category but would have separate ones in "milf", "fetish" and "fan fiction".

 

[Marinus18]

IMHO, categories really are more a form of marketing than anything else. Bear with me here because I spent way too long working as a video store clerk and often saw serious dramas categorized as "Comedies" because people buy comedies more than serious dramas. (First one that comes to mind is the extremely serious British film about the entetainment corps during WW2, where the only jokes were the occasional guy in drag and John Cleese doing some silly walks at one point. Not funny, but marketed as a comedy)

So, yeah, really categories are just the video store section that the story is gonna get shoved in. Corporate stores generally have the main genres solidified, but you'll find things like "Ghosts of Mars" in Action/Adventure rather than Science Fiction because of marketing choices.

Essentially, the Categories are just the general sections of the store that people run to. As it is, some sections have a bigger collection of ONE or two Series but that doesn't invalidate the collection IMHO. If the store owner wants to reorganize, say create a "Greatest Hits" section or a "Curators Choice" section, it's perfectly reasonable, and seems to be what a lot of customers like. (Almost every indie video/book store has a "Staff Picks" section which reflect only personal taste. It's IMHO kinda nice, and I liked it when I worked in retail... Hated customers but that's another story involving too many women asking to speak to my manager.)

Tags... are the little flashing red lights on the movie poster. Too many, and nobody's gonna notice em. Too few... and anybody who doesn't like that ONE thing ain't gonna read it. Not personally a system I use other than to warn folks what the ENTIRE theme of my story is. I don't like tags, but I understand their use in searches, and thus tagged my story with the only search I ever do.

That some people abuse a system does not mean the system should not be there. If you don't have a system to categorize things in people will just get hit with choice paralyses and walk out. Also in here it isn't a store that's trying to sell to anonymous people. It's people all liking the same thing. People select the categories that they do because they like them and they want to attract other people like them.

 

[insertnamehere]

It's not "Which are applicable?" but it is "which is the most dominant".

Yes, this is was the point of my suggestion. Allowing stories to have two or three categories isn't much different than allowing them to have fifty categories. What's the meaning of allowing that specific number of categories? 2 and 3 and 50 are just arbitrary numbers. By having just one category, you're saying that it is the dominant theme in the story, rather than reducing the category system to a collection of, "Oh yeah, one of its five branches is about Non-Con, so that's a category, and there's a brief scene where they play a Science Fiction videogame, so that counts, and I don't know maybe there'll be some Transsexual characters somewhere down the line, so I'll just throw tht in too." There's a fine line between merely improving the category system and making a story's categories utterly meaningless.

I think keeping "milf" is a good idea though since milf stories are so numerous.

There are a grand total of 90 MILF stories on this site. In comparison to 15,000 total stories. They're a rounding error and can easily be filed under Mature with no loss. They are most certainly not numerous, by any definition of the word.

I think adding "humiliation" will also be good since it would separate the consenting fetishes from the non-consenting ones.

I'm not sure what you mean. How so? Humiliation can be both consenting and non-consenting.

Also I think rather than "furry" there should be "non-human".

This isn't a bad idea; it's more befitting of an actual category, as opposed to a mere fetish. My only gripe is that the existence of a non-human category would imply, at least to newcomers, that CHYOA is accepting of bestiality.

I think many of them would have merit if you could choose multiple ones. Or maybe have one primary category and several secondary one. "Rulebook" for instance would have "mind control" as it's primary category but would have separate ones in "milf", "fetish" and "fan fiction".

It was the discussion of this idea that lead to me creating this thread a few months back. I see several irredeemable issues with this idea that I've outlined in my previous posts on this thread.

That some people abuse a system does not mean the system should not be there. If you don't have a system to categorize things in people will just get hit with choice paralyses and walk out. Also in here it isn't a store that's trying to sell to anonymous people. It's people all liking the same thing. People select the categories that they do because they like them and they want to attract other people like them.

While I generally agree with this statement, I would like to voice my disagreement with the bolded sentence. I think it's actually very important, when suggesting changes to CHYOA, to recognise that this is not true at all. The site has a considerable diversity of users with different goals and wildlu different tastes and standards. It is crucial that this is kept in mind when trying to determine what is best for the site as a whole.

 

[Marinus18]

Yes, this is was the point of my suggestion. Allowing stories to have two or three categories isn't much different than allowing them to have fifty categories. What's the meaning of allowing that specific number of categories? 2 and 3 and 50 are just arbitrary numbers. By having just one category, you're saying that it is the dominant theme in the story, rather than reducing the category system to a collection of, "Oh yeah, one of its five branches is about Non-Con, so that's a category, and there's a brief scene where they play a Science Fiction videogame, so that counts, and I don't know maybe there'll be some Transsexual characters somewhere down the line, so I'll just throw tht in too." There's a fine line between merely improving the category system and making a story's categories utterly meaningless.

50 is way too many but just having 1 is too limiting. Since knowing which is the absolute number 1 is not really applicable a lot of the time. Having 3 gives you the options to be more specific and more inclusive without having the categories lose all meaning.

There are a grand total of 90 MILF stories on this site. In comparison to 15,000 total stories. They're a rounding error and can easily be filed under Mature with no loss. They are most certainly not numerous, by any definition of the word.

That is because like I said before you can only have 1 category. Milf stories are incredibly common but they usually slightly fall under a different category.

I'm not sure what you mean. How so? Humiliation can be both consenting and non-consenting.

It can but humiliation is still the most common thing to accompany non-consenting fetish. It's also the most common one of them all. Though usually not as the main thing. Having humiliation is one of the categories would help separate the humiliation fetishes from the non humiliating ones. Again though this is assuming there will be multiple categories allowed.

This isn't a bad idea; it's more befitting of an actual category, as opposed to a mere fetish. My only gripe is that the existence of a non-human category would imply, at least to newcomers, that CHYOA is accepting of bestiality.

Well if they think that they'll find out pretty quickly that this isn't the case and can be dealt with on a case by case basis. Also "furry" can imply it has to be anthro when it really doesn't. Bestiality means non-sentient. Also in bestiality stories it's still usually about humans so "non-human" doesn't really suggest that. It suggests it's about creatures that aren't humans which is not the case with bestiality stories.

While I generally agree with this statement, I would like to voice my disagreement with the bolded sentence. I think it's actually very important, when suggesting changes to CHYOA, to recognise that this is not true at all. The site has a considerable diversity of users with different goals and wildlu different tastes and standards. It is crucial that this is kept in mind when trying to determine what is best for the site as a whole.

I get that the site is diverse but the circumstances just are not the same. What that person was describing was people abusing the system by improperly categorizing their stories. However I don't see why that would really happen. In a video rental store it's expected that people rent a movie and then never rent it again even if they liked it. After all if they liked it then they likely would just buy it at the store. People choosing the categories here are looking to attract the people that love the stories just like they do. After all here it's not a matter of consuming and then discarding.

 

[Sthaana]

I'm honestly not sure that categories are even hugely necessary, honestly...

When I first started browsing this site, I didn't go looking for "Erotic Couplings" or "Teens" and I certainly wasn't looking for the next Dune or Lord of the Rings, I was looking for specific sexual content that I was into for the express and unambiguous purpose of jackin' it. If that happened to be in a cool fantasy setting, all the better, if it was just in a normal, modern-day setting, well, if it was well-written and hot, no problem.

Still, trying to figure out how best to direct people towards the stories they like isfun to discuss, so at the risk of getting too noodly and intricate, I think that four aspects can be used to categorize stories

Primary Coupling: Male/Male, Male/Female, Female/Female (maybe add more exotic categories like Futa, Trap, Reverse Trap, Trans, etc. maybe also Incest)
Perspective: 1st Person Male etc.
Setting/Genre/Worldview: Fantasy, SF, Horror, Romance, Urban Fantasy, Spy Fiction, Comedy, Grimdark etc.
Sexual Tone/Main Sexual Content: Aggressive, Fluffy, Dirty, Romantic, Incest, NonCon, Vanilla, BDSM, ENF/M, Interracial, Group, etc.

Let the writer enter 1-3 of these when creating a story to set the tone and let the tagging system describe the specific sex acts detailed in the individual chapters.