This is another approach of organizing categories. It uses some parts of TheDespaxas' suggestion in this post and some of RicoLouis' approach. The difference is, that there would be 3 levels of categories (instead of 2). The first level would describe the setting like Science Fiction, Fantasy or School. The second level would describe the involved groups of persons like Teen, Milf, Lesbian. The third level would describe fetishes like Group Sex, BDSM or Anal. That way, the existing stories would keep their current category, though they are part of different category levels. The missing category levels of existing stories would stay "empty". Searching wouldn't change in general but would have additional options. If one category filter is chosen, the remaining categories of the other two levels would still available as filters and could be chosen as well. For a new story (or when editing a story) the story owner could choose a category of each level but have to choose at least a category of one level. Here an example how the structure could look like (not sure about, if everything is classified correctly) Setting: - Fan Fiction - Fantasy - Science Fiction - (Modern World) - ("School" (educational environment)) Involved Groups of Persons: - Bisexual - Gay - Interracial - Lesbian - Mature - MILF - Transsexual - Teen Fetishes: - Cheating Spouses - Erotic Couplings - Fetish - Exhibitionist & Voyeur - Incest - BDSM - Group Sex - Humor & Satire - Mind Control - Non-Consent - Non-Erotic - Romance - Swinging - Toys & Masturbation (not sure about these): Miscellaneous Non-English (dated)
Non-English I think should be made a separate fourth layer, listing all the major languages from Google translation which defaults to English, then eventually phased out of existence completely, while Miscellaneous should be booted up to settings.
Actually, Non-English is a layer on its own since we have the new site as you can choose the language in the story settings (10 languages + "other") So for Non-English it would be the question, what category they should get (maybe no category at all?)
Cheating Spouses Incest Group Sex Swingers These four could move up on your chart since they are more focused on the who then the what. The first two would be broken down to wife, husband and brother, sister, son, daughter, cousin, mother, father, aunt, uncle, nephew, niece. Group sex could fall in either depending on the who since it can be all gay males, all lesbians, all bisexuals, or any mix there of.
My thoughts for these: Cheating Spouses would include at least one of the partner is a relationship to cheat. The secret lover and the cheating part could be classified as the group of persons. e.g. Mature - Cheating Spouses, Lesbian - Cheating Spouses, Bisexual - Cheating Spouses. (differentiation between Bisexual Males and Bisexual Females would be nice as already suggested) The same would apply to Swingers. e.g. Mature - Swingers, Milf - Swingers, Bisexual - Swingers For Group Sex I would rather assume 4some (e.g. mature 2 on 2), 3some (e.g. 2 young men on a Milf), gangbang (e.g. a teen with some men). So it can also be straight-only. For non-straight combinations, it would be either gay, lesbian or male bisexual or female bisexual (in very rare cases it could be both gender bisexual) On Incest, my first thought was also "Who". Incest would fit very well with all "Who" categories, though it would also fit well with some "What" categories like "Exhibitionists&Voyeur", "Erotic Couplings" or "Group Sex". e.g. Gay - Incest (brothers), Teen - Incest (siblings), Milf - Incest (mother and son), I think the "Who" categories are kind of unspecific in matters of age and gender. (basically the same issue as with the bisexual category)
Just do what porn hub does, have a massive wall of pictures that is semi sorted based on popularity. The reason Porn hub does is that way is because a video of your liking probably isn't more than three clicks away. Youtube does similar stuff but it more tries to predict what you want to watch these days. Homepage (not a click) -> Categories (1) -> Outer space (2) -> Video (3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-click_rule There is ALWAYS going to be more categories than you can think of and setting up a system that forces you to keep updated them is setting yourself up to fail. It doesn't matter that this is erotica it is about it being a large data set used by a large number of people. It would be much better to have a set of known presets and then a custom category section with suggestions. That way users of a similar mind will clump together slowly. Obviously it won't run itself because you can't let the "Mr. Hands" story section get very big but it will allow for a more natural growth. Probably....
Lake Nine? I think you're off: by lightyears. You are, as I have in the past, trying to make the BEST the Enemy of the Good. The system as it exists now is failing: not only failing in terms of performance metrics but failing the "Three Click Rule" you are touting, which the very page reference you give for it states doesn't hold up under scientific scrutiny. I, for one, would rather make a dozen clicks to get ONE story which exactly matches my personal fetishes that I didn't write: than get a hundred stories with three clicks NONE of which are a good match. As it stands now if I want to find a story that's a good fit for my personal interests, I have to click first a category, then a search parameter, such as 'most liked' to weed out the lame 1-page stories with no sex, at that point, generally, I have to click a third time, on the search bar, and then TYPE (each keystroke of which counts as a click,) something like "Dragon" and then, unless I am SUPER lucky, click through five or six pages before I find something promiseing: which as predicted by Sturgeon's Law has a 90% chance of not being what I'm after ANYWAY! Now, compare the system described in the first post: Click 1: Setting: hold, scroll to option, release keystroke. Click 2: Involved Groups of Persons: hold, scroll to option, release keystroke. Click 3: Fetishes: hold, scroll to option, release keystroke. Click 4: Search. Click 5: Enter Story. Much closer to your supposed 'three clicks' ideal than before, isn't it?
More clicks the more likely people will be frustrated and give up. Slight changes not major overhaul would likely work in favor of reducing the number of clicks.
