Categorization

[KeithD]

One of the most useful features of Literotica (and a relatively recent addition) for me have been the category hubs. When the categories go away, wouldn't the hubs, with their useful apples-to-apples comparisons/information, go away too?

 

[kurrginatorX]

Sorry about "intersexed."

When all is said and done bisexual even more doesn't belong in gay male.

Why can you not fathom that a man sucking a cock is a homosexual act? I think I know why: To acknowledge as much would end the argument, and you wish to remain as relevant as this thread allows. About sum it up?

my stories https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=3938682&page=submissions

 

[KeithD]

Why can you not fathom that a man sucking a cock is a homosexual act? I think I know why: To acknowledge as much would end the argument, and you wish to remain as relevant as this thread allows. About sum it up?

my stories https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=3938682&page=submissions

Homosexuality is a preference for man-on-man sex, not a sex-is-sex-is-sex preference for getting it off regardless of the gender of one's partner, which is bisexuality.

I think you probably need to stop considering yourself bi and acknowledge that you are a homosexual, which I'm getting the impression is something you don't want to do.

 

[Bramblethorn]

"No earthly reason" -- that's going too far. You may believe that, on balance, Literotica's use of categories is inferior to some other system, but you cannot rationally argue that there is "no earthly reason" for its system.

Well, I'll grant "legacy reasons" is a reason...

I'm on earth, and I'm generally a reasonable person, and I think the system is OK. Not perfect, maybe, but OK.

It may well be okay for your particular writing/reading profile. Several of us here have explained why it's not great for ours.

Categories exist everywhere, including online in systems like Amazon or Spotify. Categories relieve consumers of the need to think about what they are looking for and let them look via preexisting categories. Sure, they could use a filter/search system instead, but they might find such a system more work than they want.

I'm not familiar with Spotify, but the way Amazon's "categories" work - with recognition that a book might fit in multiple categories, and the ability to find books at the intersection of categories - is much closer to the "filtered" approach than to Literotica categories, in terms of what it allows.

1. The reader doesn't have to think about creating a search. If the reader wants a recent incest story, the reader just visits the current incest story hub. There's nothing easier than that.

We could make things even easier for that particular reader by scrapping all the non-incest stories and only hosting incest. Saves them the trouble of having to click on "incest".

But, not everybody likes the same stuff. Filtering provides vastly more flexibility for the readers whose tastes are more specific than "recent incest stories", and it doesn't have to significantly increase the difficulty of finding stuff.

We're not talking about making readers write their own SQL here. For the reader you propose, it's just a matter of changing the button next to "incest" from "maybe" to "must have" and clicking a "Find Stories" button.

2. There's historical information easily available about popular and highly-rated stories in particular categories. Again, it's easy, and it doesn't require as much thinking as a filtering/searching system.

Why do you think filtering wouldn't allow readers to identify popular/highly-rated stories?

Set your category of preference to "must include". Set results to "order by rating" (or even make that the default option). Hey presto, you have the top-rated stories by category.

Only, now you can also identify the top-rated "lesbian SF/F romance" stories, or whatever other combination floats your boat.

3. It's familiar. Literotica has been this way for 20 years and its readers expect it to be this way. It's part of the value of the site. Presumably, many of its readers regard these familiar features as having value. That can't be dismissed.

http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Is-ought.html

I don't see how this argument differs substantially from "well the roof has been leaking for 20 years, so I guess the people who live here like it that way".

I would be astonished if even 10% of the readers on this site today were following in the first couple of years. People come and go over time; even among authors, who presumably have more investment here than the average reader, there's a lot of churn.

4. It may not work for some of the less popular, hybrid categories, but it works really well for the most popular categories, and therefore it probably works just fine for the great majority of readers and authors.

This is sheer speculation. We have no data on how many potential readers and authors looked at the site and moved on because the categorisation system doesn't support their preferences. We have no data on how many who stay despite the site's limitations rather than because of them.

I'm sympathetic to authors who claim it doesn't work for them, but there's a balancing act to be made and it's not clear why that balancing act should give more due to the minority at the expense of the majority.

It's also not clear why this would make life worse for the "majority", or indeed who the "majority" actually is here.

Again, you seem to be greatly exaggerating how difficult a filter-based system would be to use.

The system works fine for me (although I would like better search/filter tools), so you can't tell me that I'm totally irrational for thinking there's reason to keep it the way it is.

Okay. I will add "it works for SimonDoom" to "legacy reasons" as reasons for keeping it the way it is.

5. Scrapping the current system would entail significant costs for many readers and authors. My guess is that many, many readers never do searches. They just use categories and hub pages to find stories. Those readers will be pissed if you scrap the current system.

In the context of this discussion, what this effectively means is: readers who are interested in gay, lesbian, or similar content (or even those who are open to that content) should go on putting up with mediocre search functionality, because some folk can't cope with a system that requires them to push two buttons instead of one.

If we really have so many folk who can't cope with a single navigation change after twenty years, just give them a "quick search" button for each of the old categories. That way they can get pretty much the same stuff they used to get, without requiring the rest of us to go without useful navigation.

One of the most useful features of Literotica (and a relatively recent addition) for me have been the category hubs. When the categories go away, wouldn't the hubs, with their useful apples-to-apples comparisons/information, go away too?

A lot of the hub functionality could be reproduced in a filter-based system. For example, say I want to view the top 100 lesbian romance stories, I'd check "lesbian" and "romance" as "must have", and select "order results by rating". For new stories, same but "order results by newest first".

Include filters for stuff like "posted in the last year"/"last month"/etc. and "random order", and you have pretty much everything that the current hubs support.

 

[SimonDoom]

In the context of this discussion, what this effectively means is: readers who are interested in gay, lesbian, or similar content (or even those who are open to that content) should go on putting up with mediocre search functionality, because some folk can't cope with a system that requires them to push two buttons instead of one.

Search functionality is a separate question, apart from categories. Lit could keep its category system AND greatly improve its search capabilities. I've long thought that the search capabilities should be better. But that's not, by itself, reason to give up the current category system.

I agree wholeheartedly with something you said: it's sheer speculation. We don't know what the needs/preferences of site readers are on these questions. I'm sure some are dissatisfied, but that many are satisfied.

I'm curious if gay/lesbian/bi/transgender authors believe that their stories are not getting the views they might otherwise get because of limits in the Literotica system, and, if so, why they believe that's so.

 

[KeithD]

I'm curious if gay/lesbian/bi/transgender authors believe that their stories are not getting the views they might otherwise get because of limits in the Literotica system, and, if so, why they believe that's so.

To get views for bi stories, they would have to be provided some sort of equal access here that other stories are. This Web site doesn't accommodate them as bisexual. They have to pretend to be something else and then risk being told they don't belong where they wound up. I thought I covered this earlier.

All aspects of gay male stories are lumped into one category here for reader acceptance in contrast to hetero stories, which enjoy over twenty separate theme categories, so of course they are disadvantaged to hetero stories here (and I've had unknowing readers comment that the stories are in the wrong category and downgrade them when they would certainly have been downgraded if I put them in another category). (There even are category awards, so there's a advantage of over twenty to one for hetero stories here over gay male ones in that aspect.) That said, I think the volume of readers of gay male stories here is better than at exclusively gay sites, so that's not a reader problem.

I get higher ratings from the same gay male stories at exclusively gay male sites (but that's no surprise). I wager I have the most experience with what happens to gay male stories here in comparison to other categories because I not only am the most prolific gay male author here, under my previous account (with three times the number GM stories of the second most prolific GM writer here) but I also have a healthy file that covers nearly all of the rest of the categories here.

Lesbian themes are tolerated more in the hetero categories here than the gay male ones, I think, so the issue is, I imagine, less with them.

I've written transgender category stories but not enough to speak to them. Haven't had a large volume of readers for those stories here.

 

[SimonDoom]

To get views for bi stories, they would have to be provided some sort of equal access here that other stories are. This Web site doesn't accommodate them as bisexual. They have to pretend to be something else and then risk being told they don't belong where they wound up. I thought I covered this earlier.

All aspects of gay male stories are lumped into one category here for reader acceptance in contrast to hetero stories, which enjoy over twenty separate theme categories, so of course they are disadvantaged to hetero stories here (and I've had unknowing readers comment that the stories are in the wrong category and downgrade them when they would certainly have been downgraded if I put them in another category). (There even are category awards, so there's a advantage of over twenty to one for hetero stories here over gay male ones in that aspect.) That said, I think the volume of readers of gay male stories here is better than at exclusively gay sites, so that's not a reader problem.

I get higher ratings from the same gay male stories at exclusively gay male sites (but that's no surprise). I wager I have the most experience with what happens to gay male stories here in comparison to other categories because I not only am the most prolific gay male author here, under my previous account (with three times the number GM stories of the second most prolific GM writer here) but I also have a healthy file that covers nearly all of the rest of the categories here.

Lesbian themes are tolerated more in the hetero categories here than the gay male ones, I think, so the issue is, I imagine, less with them.

I've written transgender category stories but not enough to speak to them. Haven't had a large volume of readers for those stories here.

I wonder if having an option system of subcategories would help. You could publish your story to "gay male" or "bi" or to a subcategory within that category.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yes. More segregation and division is definitely the answer. More categories! Lots more! (Non)Humerous Bisexual Asian BDSM Incest? Why not. Pansexual Non-Binary Neo-African Romance in short story, novella, novel format obviously. Each of those is pretty important and definitely not going to turn into an empty wasteland. We could even let the authors create their own categories on the fly! I'm gonna call mine Snowflake Central!

https://media1.tenor.com/images/86de69721595a46f2384aa50a1e8ba12/tenor.gif?itemid=4867464

 

[AwkwardMD]

(In case the sarcasm went over anyone's head, making many more specific categories would result in even fewer readers venturing off the beaten path. AO3 and ASSTR are perfect examples of trying to do the right thing and shooting themselves in the foot. Then take a look at HF and see how they use a very simple filter system with a massive array of media that, in their own way, rivals Literotica in scope.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm curious if gay/lesbian/bi/transgender authors believe that their stories are not getting the views they might otherwise get because of limits in the Literotica system, and, if so, why they believe that's so.

I thought several of us had already been pretty clear in this thread that we believe that. I have strong reason to think it's so, based on looking at how my views respond when I post new content.

In order of posting, my stories on Literotica include:

- "A Stringed Instrument" - 14-part contemporary lesbian romance story.
- "Counting To Eleven" - one-shot lesbian story, mild BDSM.
- "Riddle of the Copper Coin" - one-shot lesbian cross-cultural romance story with two parallel storylines (one contemporary, one Arabian Nights) and poetry.
- "Anjali's Red Scarf" - 4 parts to date (still in progress), contemporary lesbian cross-cultural romance-ish story with mild BDSM.

(Omitted some others that are less relevant to this discussion.)

I wasn't really sure where to put Copper Coin. It could have qualified as any of Lesbian, Romance, Interracial, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, or NonHuman, but in the end I put it into SF/F. The other three went into Lesbian. (I'm leaving out some others that aren't relevant to this discussion.)

Important: while it's in a different category, it has a LOT of the same elements as Stringed Instrument and Red Scarf. People who like the one will probably like the other, and the things that people mention as positives about SI & ARS also get mentioned in feedback about CC.

If category didn't matter, I'd expect that posting a new story would result in a bump in views for similar stories, regardless of how they're categorised. People read the new story, and the ones who like it go looking at the author's Submissions page for more of the same.

As you can see from the graphs, this does happen for other stories within category. The first chapters of Red Scarf caused a very clear bump in Chapter 1 of Stringed Instrument, with smaller but still visible bumps for the later chapters and for Counting To Eleven (which has the lowest rating of all my stories). But there's nothing visible for Copper Coin. Looking closely at the numbers, there is some bump, but it's much smaller than the bump for the stories within Lesbian.

The implication is that readers who enjoy a story in Lesbian aren't automatically going to go looking at what the same author has posted in other categories, even if it might have the same elements they enjoyed. This is consistent with discussions I've had with readers - people who enjoyed Red Scarf, and then went to my other Lesbian stories for more of the same, but never thought to go check out Copper Coin because it was in SF/F, not Lesbian. (But enjoyed it when I did point them at it.)

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure that story missed out on a bunch of views because people who might enjoy the romance elements, or the lesbian elements, aren't looking for those things in SF/F. Something that a better system would fix.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I wonder if having an option system of subcategories would help. You could publish your story to "gay male" or "bi" or to a subcategory within that category.

Literotica has 33 story categories, not counting Non-English.

If you want to create subcategories to support all possible two-way combinations of those categories (e.g. "Gay Male Romance", "SF/F Horror", etc. etc.) you'd need 33*32/2 = 528 subcategories. To support three-way combinations, e.g. "Lesbian SF/F Romance", you'd need 5456 categories.

Even allowing for the fact that not all of those combinations need be created (e.g. probably not a lot of crossover between Non-Erotic and Erotic Couplings), that still seems prohibitively unwieldy.

 

[SimonDoom]

I thought several of us had already been pretty clear in this thread that we believe that. I have strong reason to think it's so, based on looking at how my views respond when I post new content.

In order of posting, my stories on Literotica include:

- "A Stringed Instrument" - 14-part contemporary lesbian romance story.
- "Counting To Eleven" - one-shot lesbian story, mild BDSM.
- "Riddle of the Copper Coin" - one-shot lesbian cross-cultural romance story with two parallel storylines (one contemporary, one Arabian Nights) and poetry.
- "Anjali's Red Scarf" - 4 parts to date (still in progress), contemporary lesbian cross-cultural romance-ish story with mild BDSM.

(Omitted some others that are less relevant to this discussion.)

I wasn't really sure where to put Copper Coin. It could have qualified as any of Lesbian, Romance, Interracial, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, or NonHuman, but in the end I put it into SF/F. The other three went into Lesbian. (I'm leaving out some others that aren't relevant to this discussion.)

Important: while it's in a different category, it has a LOT of the same elements as Stringed Instrument and Red Scarf. People who like the one will probably like the other, and the things that people mention as positives about SI & ARS also get mentioned in feedback about CC.

If category didn't matter, I'd expect that posting a new story would result in a bump in views for similar stories, regardless of how they're categorised. People read the new story, and the ones who like it go looking at the author's Submissions page for more of the same.

As you can see from the graphs, this does happen for other stories within category. The first chapters of Red Scarf caused a very clear bump in Chapter 1 of Stringed Instrument, with smaller but still visible bumps for the later chapters and for Counting To Eleven (which has the lowest rating of all my stories). But there's nothing visible for Copper Coin. Looking closely at the numbers, there is some bump, but it's much smaller than the bump for the stories within Lesbian.

The implication is that readers who enjoy a story in Lesbian aren't automatically going to go looking at what the same author has posted in other categories, even if it might have the same elements they enjoyed. This is consistent with discussions I've had with readers - people who enjoyed Red Scarf, and then went to my other Lesbian stories for more of the same, but never thought to go check out Copper Coin because it was in SF/F, not Lesbian. (But enjoyed it when I did point them at it.)

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure that story missed out on a bunch of views because people who might enjoy the romance elements, or the lesbian elements, aren't looking for those things in SF/F. Something that a better system would fix.

That makes sense. It's consistent with my own observation. When I post a new story, older stories I posted in the same category get a significant boost, while older stories posted in other categories get little or no boost.

Eliminating categories might give a boost to stories that would have been posted in other categories, but it might not. It might also cause a reduction in the boost that would have gone to older stories that were posted in the same category. It's possible there would be a net loss in the boost to older stories. It depends on what assumptions you make about reader behavior. I tend to think -- this is speculative -- that a great many readers are lazy, and that if you take away the easiest possible categorization/search tools it will adversely affect the amount of story searching. Categories are useful for lazy readers of easily categorized stories. I suspect that's a high percentage of the readers here, who come back time and again looking for pretty much the same thing.

I think AwkwardMD is correct about the downside of creating more categories, which is why I've usually been opposed to the idea of creating more categories when the subject has come up. I wonder, though, if you created optional subcategories, which allowed readers to search for stories in the larger category, or, at their option, in smaller subcategories, it would reduce the problem.

Another possibility would be to relax the exclusiveness/"trumpiness" of categories and allow authors to publish stories in more than one category, and give them more freedom to publish them where they wish.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure that story missed out on a bunch of views because people who might enjoy the romance elements, or the lesbian elements, aren't looking for those things in SF/F. Something that a better system would fix.

Good data, and the "back bump" on older stories is evident.

I don't track anything close to that level of data, so I rely on gut feel to assess the bump effect from my new stories. This last year my postings have been few and far between (writing a stupid big thing) - just two Sci-Fi/Fantasy, one I&T and one Romance in twelve months. Each time, I reckon (gut feel only) there's been a bump pretty much all through my story file (57 pieces), even back to some of my very first stories (as evidenced by out-of-the-blue faves and even comments). I wonder if that's because I write across several categories and my readers are prepared to wander into other areas, whereas your audience is more single-category oriented and perhaps more reluctant to wander?

Don't know, this is all just speculation - but I wholeheartedly agree the categories need to be helped along by easier to use filters and searches. Even the tags at the top of the stories would help.

Of course, I flatter myself by thinking it's EB's slow meandering style that my readers like, regardless of category. But that could just be me, being delusional .

Edit: I've just read Simon's post, where he reports only bumps within the same category. Maybe it is just me, being delusional...

 

[SimonDoom]

Edit: I've just read Simon's post, where he reports only bumps within the same category. Maybe it is just me, being delusional...

To be clear, I get some bump to older stories in other categories, but it's much smaller. I recently published an I/T story, and I get big bumps for 3 days for other I/T stories, I got modest bumps for some of my exhibitionist stories, and smaller bumps still for stories in erotic couplings, sci fi, bdsm.

I'm all for more robust and fine-grained tag/filter/search capabilities on the site. Something that would be super useful would be for a reader to be able to create his/her own new story hub, with filters that would provide new stories tailored to the reader's preferences on a daily basis.

On your comment re your stories: I would not be surprised if the category effect is less prominent, because you are a less genre-oriented author. My stories tend to be fairly tightly focused on certain erotic themes that usually fit neatly within a category, so it makes sense that there would be distinct reader groups for my different stories. Your stories fit less neatly in categories.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Another possibility would be to relax the exclusiveness/"trumpiness" of categories and allow authors to publish stories in more than one category, and give them more freedom to publish them where they wish.

There is no inherent system built into Lit that enforces this. Readers enforce this by downvoting and negatively commenting when they find stories that don't meet their category-defined expectations (and you can't redefine those meanings in the minds of readers). If only there was a way to put these stories together, but to allow the reader to hide the ones they knew they wouldn't be interested in... like a... oh what's the word for when you want to sift out some things but show others?

 

[AwkwardMD]

It's On The Tip Of My Tongue!

 

[kurrginatorX]

Yes. More segregation and division is definitely the answer. More categories! Lots more! (Non)Humerous Bisexual Asian BDSM Incest? Why not. Pansexual Non-Binary Neo-African Romance in short story, novella, novel format obviously. Each of those is pretty important and definitely not going to turn into an empty wasteland. We could even let the authors create their own categories on the fly! I'm gonna call mine Snowflake Central!

https://media1.tenor.com/images/86de69721595a46f2384aa50a1e8ba12/tenor.gif?itemid=4867464

I love you.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=3938682&page=submissions

 

[SimonDoom]

There is no inherent system built into Lit that enforces this. Readers enforce this by downvoting and negatively commenting when they find stories that don't meet their category-defined expectations (and you can't redefine those meanings in the minds of readers). If only there was a way to put these stories together, but to allow the reader to hide the ones they knew they wouldn't be interested in... like a... oh what's the word for when you want to sift out some things but show others?

This seems perfectly doable. Give readers the ability to indicate, by the use of tags, categories, content, author, etc., stories they do NOT want to see on their personal new story hubs. Creating a tool for readers would help readers avoid stories they don't want to see, and presumably it would reduce annoying downvoting for authors.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I love you.

https://cdn.xl.thumbs.canstockphoto.com/young-beautiful-woman-pretending-to-shoot-with-her-finger-stock-images_csp22638355.jpg

 

[ElectricBlue]

On your comment re your stories: I would not be surprised if the category effect is less prominent, because you are a less genre-oriented author. My stories tend to be fairly tightly focused on certain erotic themes that usually fit neatly within a category, so it makes sense that there would be distinct reader groups for my different stories. Your stories fit less neatly in categories.

I reckon you're right. Maybe it's what happens when you're not a penguin, or one of Ogg's puffins, or one of Bramblethorn or MD's ladybirds. Or, maybe it's coz I can't decide what I am and wander about like a free-range hen .

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think AwkwardMD is correct about the downside of creating more categories, which is why I've usually been opposed to the idea of creating more categories when the subject has come up.

It's not my preferred approach either. If we had to keep the existing category system and the only options for change were "create more categories", then maybe splitting Gay and Lesbian would be better than nothing. But that's just a band-aid solution.

Another possibility would be to relax the exclusiveness/"trumpiness" of categories and allow authors to publish stories in more than one category, and give them more freedom to publish them where they wish.

We have this already, only Literotica calls it "tags", and a tag-based approach is exactly what AwkwardMD and I have been advocating in this thread.

Though, as noted there, it needs better search/navigation functionality than we currently have. Otherwise, somebody who wants to read e.g. gay BDSM still has to trawl through lots of stories in either "Gay" or "BDSM" looking for the smaller number of stories which fit both, and other readers are still going to complain about finding gay content in other categories.

This seems perfectly doable. Give readers the ability to indicate, by the use of tags, categories, content, author, etc., stories they do NOT want to see on their personal new story hubs. Creating a tool for readers would help readers avoid stories they don't want to see, and presumably it would reduce annoying downvoting for authors.

Exactly. Like one of those systems that filters out unwanted particles from air or water.

 

[Bramblethorn]

When all is said and done, intersexed does not belong with transgendered, end of story.

Ironically, your last sentence above is an example of absolutist category policing. In the absence of a tag search, T&C is probably the first place I'd look if I wanted to find intersexed content, on the basis, where else would it be?

This is one of those things where fetishes and reality point in different directions for categorisation.

IRL: "intersex" and "transgender" are very different things. While intersex and trans people do encounter some of the same issues - and some intersex people are also trans - there are also important differences. In some cases trans advocacy and intersex advocacy come into conflict, particularly around issues of childhood medical interventions.

By that standard, having an intersex character doesn't have any bearing on whether a story should be in T&C. You'd just categorise it according to the other aspects of the story.

IPL (In Porn Land): "woman with a penis" is a fairly popular fetish. AFAICT most of the people with that fetish aren't too fussed about why she has a penis, whether she's a trans woman who kept her phallus or a cis woman who got zapped by the Growadick Gnomes or an intersex woman who was born that way.

If we categorise by fetish, and assume that "Transgender/Cross-dressers" should be interpreted as The "Women With Dicks" Fetish Category (WWDFC), then technically some intersex characters would belong in that category. (And a transgender woman who no longer has a penis would not.)

BUT, important: the versions of "intersex" that fit into this particular fetish are basically fantasy that don't bear much resemblance to RL intersex people.

So a realistically-portrayed intersex character probably doesn't belong in T&C under either of those standards, unless there are also trans/CD themes in the story.

OTOH, having looked at the story that sparked this thread, I think it's more of a WWDFC story than a realistic portrayal of intersex. So in this case we're back to the question of whether stories should be classed by RL definitions or by fetish.