City of IF

Chinaren · Posted: Sun May 03, 2009 11:26 pm Post subject: Genre Categories

(This topic was split from the thread A Slight Change which is polling on whether to use genre tags in Sci-Fi and Horror storygame topic titles.)

Without trying* to start a debate here, I've always been an advocate of changing our categories slightly.

That said, if it's not Skiffy or horror, currently it should go in HEM, which stands for:

Humor, Experimental and Misc.

Hence you may fit in the misc.

Actually, a more radical change around could make things a bit easier, but it would be a little work:

IMHO we could have: Fantasy & Scifi, Humor and Experimental, and Fiction. Fiction being anything that isn't in the other two.

A separate Horror and (optionally) Mature fiction category too maybe.

:2c:

*But we've never had to try to start a debate on IF. ;)

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Strange, I was thinking about categories and that, too. Came up with some totally different ones, though! :lol:

There are so many - Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Historical, Romance etc. etc. but with the volume of SGs at the moment, a fourth district might be spreading our SGs a little too thinly.

Also - as already pointed out, it is very difficult to establish where some SGs sit and their genre focus changes from time to time. When I moved Half Empty Hero's Solace to Skiffy it was based on the fact that it promised to be grittier than most - I have to admit, one of the characters setting their victim alight was one of the deciding factors! :D

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

What if we had three main categories, (these names can be changed of course)
Light hearted:
This forum doesn't necessarily mean humor, just doesn't much of any death, dismemberment, pain, evil winning out etc. That the tone of the story is well, light.

"Dark": (I was thinking the name evil, but I wasn't sure it would be as well understood)
Anything that is the opposite of the light hearted forum. Can include comedy. (dark humor)

General:
Anything that isn't too far one way or another.

Here is where we would need some forum scripting or what not.

Each story creator gets to choose 1 tag from a few different sets of tags for their story. These of course can be changed latter if the author changes aspects of the story latter.

Each forum reader can choose the order in which stories appears according their tag order preference they choose in settings. Thus the forum would list stories according to their tag preference. So if I chose comedy as my number 1 tag, all the threads & SGoTM forums would have comedy listed first. If I choose fantasy as my second category- all the threats that have both comedy and fantasy as their tags would show first, then all the ones that have comedy, but no fantasy tag, then all the ones that have fantasy, then comedy tag.

Readers can also tag stories as favorite, then they would always be first, before anything else.

With tag system like that, we could combine all the story forums even.

IF'n awards could be given for different tags (best comedy, best drama, best horror, best romance etc.) If a story has a tag that doesn't fit it, then readers will know and not nominate it for that catagory.

We wouldn't have to force people to choose tags, they would have lots of incentive to choose tags on their own.

Ok maybe it isn't feasible right now? But I still wanted to share the idea.

scissorkitty · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 5:35 am Post subject:

I kind of like TPs idea, and I like the idea of a new district- but I also agree with Crunchy that we'd be spreading out SGs a little thinly..

What if we created a new SHARED area? For instance- if each existing district had a... umm.. lets call it the Back Alley where all the grittier/more adult stories lingered- still within their normal "neighbourhood" (HEM, Skiffy, FF... etc)- but what if all the Back Alleys were somehow sub linked together? Kinda like REAL back alleyways, which always seem to lead into eachother?

That way- all the grittier things would be kept in a seperate classification- without necessarily having to create a whole new category- and also readers looking for that kind of thing could have the fun of skulking around where they (possibly.. ahem.. Cren) feel most at home!

Chinaren · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 5:47 am Post subject:

I've seen similar tag systems on other writing sites, and it works okay, but it's not my favorite method of sorting stuff.

However, it's all moot, as this would need coding, which IF doesn't have atm.

I agree about spreading things thin, hence my idea of:

Fantasy AND Skiffy, Humor and Experimental, and Fiction (which could include horror and anything else).

Generally Fantasy and Sci-fi are fairly obvious, though of course they can overlap*. If you're in doubt, stick it in fiction.

*It would be great if you could add a story tag so it appeared in several forums, but I don't think that's really needed just now.

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

To me, Fantasy, Skiffy and HEM do have their unique 'flavour', HEM being more light hearted, Skiff being a little more macabre and dark, and Fantasy being about things magical and otherworldly. TP's idea of these flavours makes sense and perhaps a slight tweak would help make the distinctions between the three clearer.

However, even with a slight change, or the more radical change C'ren is proposing, what exactly is the problem that adjusting the categories would solve?

Is it that nobody can find a SG that suits them? Is it discouraging writers from writing? Is it stopping people from trying out SGs that they might not normally try out? Or is it just that it doesn't look 'neat and tidy'?

Storygames often change their focus as they go through. Take C'ren's Avarice - That started in Fantasy, but it developed into a post apocalyptic sci-fi/horror story based on the fables for suggestions feature in the SG. Or Rai's Galleons - that one started out with its main focus on comedy but became a grittier sci-fi later on. It started in HEM and was later moved to Skiffy.

Going back further, D-Lotus's Confession Box - that was a crime story, yet it did just as well in Fantasy Forest as it might have done in Skiffy or HEM.

So - regardless of any changes we make to the categories, storygames will still change their focus, and still may need to be moved between categories as a result.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter where a SG is placed or what genre it is supposed to be (which often comes down to a matter of opinion anyway). If a SG is of a good enough quality, people will find it and will play it - even if it may be of a genre those people don't usually read. I think the beauty of not meticulously making sure everything is correctly labelled and filed away in its little box is that people can browse and find unexpected treasures in genres they might not necessarily have chosen.

So - bearing in mind the capabilities of these forums, the most we can do is change the names and descriptions of the three existing districts and/or create a fourth, (all of which may result in needing new artwork and a change to the Flash toolbar at the top of the page) - what is the problem we are trying to solve? What would be the benefits?

Or maybe if it aint broke, don't fix it?

The White Blacksmith · Joined: 02 Apr 2006 Posts: 2629

I like the system we have now. I can always see the red tags at the top of a chapter and so if I'm not looking for a particularly violent story (or other... C'ren, I'm looking at you) I steer well clear of the red text. The idea about 'Light' 'Dark' and 'General' seems good, but would need snazzier titles. Jester Park (perhaps without the 'Jester', as these would not nessicerily be humour) and the Forest will still be fine, but I think 'Skiffyville' would need a bit of work. I like The Wrong Side of the Tracks, myself.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

A additional thought with the tag idea (yes I know we lack knowledgeable scripters right now) SoTM & IF'ns could also be tag options. Furthermore, SoTM forums could be threads within main forum (whether subdivided into individual forums or not, though with tags we would hardly need separate forums [other then SoTM's and the non-story forums] in the first place.)

Ok on to CF's questions.
For me, the current forum categories mean almost nothing to me. So I am forced to go by writer recommendation (would you please read this for me) or just reading the first chapter of X story by random, or by whether it is a SoTM.

So IF as a whole accomplishes it's goal of friendly colluding of writers, a social and creative collaborative site.

But for the purposes of finding the stories you want for the fun of reading, not so much I think. And I think a large part of that are these unclear forum categories & lack of tags.

That would be helped by having more clear forum types like I described in the first part of my earlier post. A renaming would definitely be good. (I mean I don't have anything specific against the names I thought up, but as Blacksmith points out, they are a bit lacking in character) We wouldn't need to be any more meticulous with the sorting with the new forum categories then the old. It would just mean a bit more. Which should also help us sort them a bit I think.

Lastly, I don't see any reason for linear stories to be in a separate forum, or for them to not eligible to earn their own forum SGoTM style (yes I know the SG stands for StoryGame, just drop the G then) It limits writers in having to have a SG, or not. With little room for the middle ground. For example, what if a author wanted to offer votes for those parts of the story where it really counted, but not for when it doesn't/not just because they have written so much of the story? We tie the authors hands a bit by requiring such a clear delineation between SG, and linear.

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Okay. Linear's outside the scope of this discussion, but just to clarify, it is a seperate district because this site's main focus is Storygaming. Linear authors are able to run polls and seperate discussion threads alongside their stories and have done so in the past. The ILS (Interactive Linear Story) covers the middle ground between Storygame and Linear. Kalanna Rai has been working on some developments for Linear which she will unveil when she's ready.

Back on topic:

I'd like to hear from more people whether or not they perceive a problem with the current category set-up and why, before we can identify what, if anything should be done about it.

Perceived problems raised so far: From TruePurple - Categories are meaningless and do not help in finding the storygames you want to read.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

Not entirely meaingless, just not much help in finding the type of stories you are interested in either. The lines between the forums are kinda fuzzy, picking up different meanings/flavors that aren't obvious from reading the forum category (which is why they aren't much help) Basically yes CF, but not quit to that degree. It is just a bit more nuanced then "meaningless".

Though for me I find them mostly meaningless, but I that might just be my tastes.

scissorkitty · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 3:43 pm Post subject:

I guess you're right, Crunchy. When it comes right down to it, I don't have a problem with how the SGs are sorted right now. Sure, it might be nice if things were "tidier", as you say.. but it's not worth wreaking the whole system over.

Anyone who wants to sort their SG into a more specific genre could do so at any time NOW by talking about it in the "Shameless Advertising" threads.

For instance...

"Eterna Familia- Not just your run of the mill fantasy, also ridiculously convoluted, possibly sci-fi genetic twists and mysteries! Why, so twisted is this genealogical pool, you can't even FIND this thing in the Fantasy Forest. It's ludicrous! It's funny... it can old be found...

Check out Skitty in jester Park instead!"

Or, you know. *ahem* Something like that.

Reiso · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 3:56 pm Post subject:

I wouldn't call the current categories meaningless at all. They're somewhat generalized, but we can't practically address that without only pleasing some of the people some of the time. Fantasy alone can be sub-divided into several categories, such as High Fantasy, Romantic Fantasy, Action Fantasy, etc... these are real distinctions made by publishing houses. And I don't even want to touch on the enumerable arguments that would spring up surrounding genre confusion. If you don't know what I mean, all you have to do is consider that Lord of the Rings can accurately be categorized as horror. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Anyway, going through all of the possibilities for each genre would be ridiculously impractical, and my opinion is that if we're not going to do it right, then there is no agreeable way to only half do it, or any point to. So keeping them generalized seems simplest. If anyone follows me that far, I would also like to say that as long as they stay generalized, I don't see how light dark and heavy (or whatever they were) are anymore meaningful than the genres we have. In fact, they're not even genres, they're just moods.

The only issue I ever had was the name "Skiffiville". It seems almost insultingly silly for what it is. But other than that, yeah, basically I think they're fine the way they are. The current system keeps SG authors free to experiment, and is very clear and familiar. I really don't think it is asking too much of a player to read a paragraph or two of a Storygame in order to figure out what kind of Storygame they are reading, and make up their mind whether they like it or not, whether or not it is the genre they had in mind. I like those kind of surprises myself. Besides, when did we start assuming our players were so lazy? I mean really, is it that hard and time consuming to figure out? Or am I like super-hyper skilled at it and just don't know it? This almost seems like a non-issue to me, a lot of hoopla over nothing. Not to offend anyone... just my 2 cents.

Okay, maybe a nickle.

o-)

DeadManWalking · Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 1005

I agree with the point on the idea that the forums are too generalized.

However, i don't think there are enough storygames to validate the separation of things into new forums.

For example, in Skiffy we have maybe six storygames with updates in the last three or four months. This may not be as much of a problem in Fantasy Forest, but in HEM there's only five.

I don't think it's actually possible to spread ourselves much thinner on the non-Fantasy fronts.

This is mainly because of the concentration of IF on Fantasy.

But i do think the idea of a Back Alley is a good idea, especially in Skiffy. Mainly because, although i agree with CF's point that the forum's do have their own feel and that Skiffy's is more gritty, there's gritty as in sand on an alien planet and gritty as in OH MY GOD THE SAND IS ACTUALLY PARASITES THAT ARE EATING UP AT MY FEET.

While i do see that Sci-Fi and Horror do intermingle in many ways, there are Science Fiction works that are clearly very different from horror storygames. And while I am open to different ideas, i feel like there should be some way of separating the two clearly.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

scissorkitty, Reiso, your missing a point. This thread is not about breaking down overall genres into smaller genres. That is another issue.

What does fantasy or sci-fi tell you about what kind of story it is? Not much.

But whether a story has a positive, negative or neutral tone does tell you something about what kind of story it is without breaking it down very much. It should also help keep the forums more even in number of threads.

scissorkitty · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 6:32 pm Post subject:

I don't agree that we're missing the point, True. I think Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Humour or Misc... I think these are all valid forms of classification, and they do indeed tell you a lot about the story. Think of it as a library- the racks are classified using the above subsections, and then its up to the author and the bookjacket to sell the reader on the story (or in this case, the SG) by describing the tale and tone in more detail. Using this method, authors just need to write a descriptive prologue for their stories to head them off- a practice that is becoming more and more popular anyway.

Chinaren · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:05 pm Post subject:

I have to agree with Skitty on the last point, I don't think that we need further breakdown of story categories.

To answer CF about the 'problem':

This subject has reared its head several times over the years. I've always been in favor of having a 'General fiction' category, but have always been outvoted.

The 'addition' of a Fiction category though, has a knock on effect. To keep the number of categories down to three, the addition of a Fiction section would mean we'd have to rearrange the other sections.

Hence my suggestion above. Actually, another way of doing it would be to keep Fantasy and Skiffy seperate, and replace the Humor with Fiction.

The reason being is that any humor stories would automatically be either Fantasy, Scifi or Fiction, so they could just be deposited in the relevent place.

Hence we'd end up with: Fantasy, Scifi and Fiction categories.

*I guess I should have pushed this through during my time as mayor! Dropped the ball on that one.

DeadManWalking · Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 1005

So basically what you're suggesting is that we just rename HEM fiction?

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

I would point out that there is no real difference between science-fiction and fiction (as opposed to fantasy) Both are just stories set in a reasonably realistic setting that reasonably obey the laws of our universe as we know them- as in science. Sci-fi can technically be set in the past in a low tech environment too, you know. (google the genre) So I find it absolutely silly to have a separate forum for two terms for the same genre.

I totally disagree that information about whether a story is fantasy or fiction tells us much about a story. You could have two versions of a story, except one uses magic, the other uses some quasi science to accomplish things. That really wouldn't change what kind of story it is much. That's just window dressing, the frame around the picture. You read the story for the picture itself. And those categories don't tell you much of anything about that.

@DMW
No that is not what he said, that is not how things are now, if you ask me. For starters, hem has humor, and skiff has horror. Which would be different with what he suggested.

Reiso · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 9:53 pm Post subject:

TruePurple wrote: scissorkitty, Reiso, your missing a point. This thread is not about breaking down overall genres into smaller genres. That is another issue.

Since breaking down the genres into smaller genres is only raised for its relevance as a less practical alternative to changing the existing genre names, I think it is quite clear that we haven't missed that point at all. Which, by the way, was an opinion, so your response would have been far more accurately stated as "you seem to have missed a point". You do not know what we are or are not capable of seeing.

TruePurple wrote: What does fantasy or sci-fi tell you about what kind of story it is? Not much.

Um, yyyes it does, it tells us whether or not its genre is fantasy or sci-fi. That's what those are. Genres.

TruePurple wrote: ...there is no real difference between science-fiction and fiction...[etc]

I think I understand what you're getting at. Westerns, Romances, and anything by Sylvia Plath or Tom Robbins are usually found in "Fiction". These stories could not be anymore different from each other, and they are all fiction in the same sense that sci-fi is fiction. But either all stories are the same and there is no need to separate them, or even genres with many commonalities are still distinct from each other. You can't have it both ways.

TruePurple wrote: I would so disagree that information about whether a story is fantasy or fiction tells us much about a story. You could have two versions of a story, except one uses magic, the other uses some quasi science to accomplish things. That really wouldn't change what kind of story it is much. That's just window dressing, the frame around the picture. You read the story for the picture itself. And those categories don't tell you much of anything about that.

This is an excellent point. There are only so many stories, no matter how we dress them up. There are theories that there is a very fixed number (I think it's like six or eight or something like that), and that's really cool to think about. But what you are talking about is plot structure, which is not genre. Did I miss something again, or aren't genres what we are talking about? You just seem to be suggesting that instead of separating our stories by their genre, we separate them by their plot-type, or by how light or intense they are, which is just simply not the way the site is organized.

Scheherazade · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 10:03 pm Post subject:

TP, there actually is a difference between sci-fi and fiction - one includes the other.

At the most general level, stories are divided into fiction and non-fiction; fantasy (of all types) and sci-fi (also of all types) both fall into fiction.

Reiso, I'm pretty sure that figuring out if you like a story or not is a fairly common skill (unless that's just me as well ;)) It generally only takes a few minutes to read the first chapter of any story, and most of the stories here are a true pleasure to read, even if the story itself may not be to your tastes. Besides, the author has presumably worked relatively hard to write this chapter; do they not deserve even that little time?

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Chinaren wrote: To answer CF about the 'problem':

This subject has reared its head several times over the years. I've always been in favor of having a 'General fiction' category, but have always been outvoted.

The 'addition' of a Fiction category though, has a knock on effect. To keep the number of categories down to three, the addition of a Fiction section would mean we'd have to rearrange the other sections.

Hence my suggestion above. Actually, another way of doing it would be to keep Fantasy and Skiffy seperate, and replace the Humor with Fiction.

The reason being is that any humor stories would automatically be either Fantasy, Scifi or Fiction, so they could just be deposited in the relevent place.

Hence we'd end up with: Fantasy, Scifi and Fiction categories.

*I guess I should have pushed this through during my time as mayor! Dropped the ball on that one. - C'ren - you still haven't said what the problem is as you see it. For example, is it that you cannot find the storygames you want to read? Is it that too many SGs seem to be in the wrong category? Why in particular did you want to change the categories? That's what I'm getting at - need to understand what people are perceiving as the 'problem' before they offer their solutions! ;)

Smee · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Posts: 5215 Location: UK

Interesting debate, and thanks for everyone who has contributed so far. Please keep doing so, particularly from people we haven't heard from yet. Is the current genre forums misleading to you, do they make it a problem for you to find the storygames you want to play?

Even though we don't yet have a defined problem to solve, at first glance I like Chinaren's original idea of Fantasy/Sci-fi, Humor / Experimental / Fiction. But then part of my cringes at the supersized forum that would be Fantasy/Sci-fi compared with the others.

TP - as the only one currently trying to explain a specific problem, I'm trying to understand your point. Is it that you're only interested in reading say.. dark and gritty stories, of any genre, and hunting them out is tricky?

If so, then a rearrangement by the tone of the story would solve that. But then it'd simply give the same problem to those who don't care whether it's light or dark and just want to read fantasy with no sci-fi. We're not solving a problem, only shifting it around.

For what you seem to want, the [tag] system (much how blogs work) seems to be the only solution, but one that isn't feasible at this time.

It's a shame that the small individual threads can't have their own blurb lines, a bit like the SGoTM winners get a small paragraph to briefly describe their stories. That might help with quick identification of a story before reading it.

Keep the thoughts coming folks,

Happy Debating :)

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

@Scheherazade

Science fiction and fiction are the same thing. If you disagree, I challenge you to tell me the difference.

When someone says fiction as a genre, they usually mean as opposed to fantasy. In other words, if qualifies for the fantasy genre, it does not qualify for the fiction genre.

If we are going to get technical, fiction genre is any story that is made up, that didn't actually happen exactly like that (or as near as you can get it with available information) But we don't have any autobiography SG', since that is a oxymoron. :P Clearly Chinaren disagrees with your take on the "fiction" genre definition(unless he meant "miscellaneous", which in case I would think he would just say) Chinaren, wouldn't post a suggestion that is nonsensical through and through, and if it was that technical definition, it would be a nonsensical suggestion.

Reiso wrote: breaking down the genres into smaller genres is only raised for its relevance as a less practical alternative to changing the existing genre names,

Reiso wrote: So keeping them generalized seems simplest.

You weren't arguing that we should change the existing general genre categories because the only alternative would be to break the general genre down into smaller sub categories. You were just arguing against breaking down the general genre forums into smaller sub categories. The topic is not about breaking the larger categories down into many categories.

Reiso wrote: But what you are talking about is plot structure, which is not genre.

The meaning of genre is a type, a category. A way to sort something, like stories. Plot structure has everything to do with the character of a story & its type.

Fantasy verses sci-fi/fiction has almost nothing to do with the character of a story & it's type. A fantasy murder mystery structured and charactered and described exactly the same as a sci-fi mystery, will still be a murder mystery! It will still read like one! Whether the murder was done with a spell, or a gun. Same with it being a comedy, or a horror, or a drama, or psychological, or what ever else. Any of these can be set in a fantasy frame, or a fiction/sci-fi frame, without much of any effect on the essence/type of whatever story.

Reiso · Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 11:55 pm Post subject:

Hmm, well Purp, we evidently have two very different views on the matter. I am bewildered as to how we can draw such different conclusions from the same set of facts, but that is what free will is all about, I suppose. I'll just have to disagree and leave it at that.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

Nearly missed this post, good thing I looked back.

smee wrote: But then it'd simply give the same problem to those who don't care whether it's light or dark and just want to read fantasy with no sci-fi. We're not solving a problem, only shifting it around.

Well if the difference between fantasy and sci-fi at their core was significant, that would be the case.

But whether the world works by magic or other irrational forces, or scientific principles as we know them, it is only background. Only tools to the characters and plot.

Let me ask you this, does changing the color of the site from green to orange or red change the essence of the IF site? If you had a forum story telling website link list, would you categorize them by color of the site? No of course not. To me, it is not all that much different (ok this example is a bit more extreme, but I am just trying to make a point)

My feelings are, if we are going to separate stories into different forums at all, we should use categories that really matter to what makes a story. Else there is no use, no function, to it.

I would also point out again, I think this change would also help even out the forums in thread numbers better. And clearly that matters, it is why "horror" and "sci-fi" are in the same forum, even though those are completely different category types.

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Can we try and keep to the point - which is to identify what, if anything, is wrong with the categories as they are. Then we decide what needs to be done to rectify it, and if that involves playing around with genres we can get to discussing that if and when the time comes.

So far there are only three points made from what I've read :

From TruePurple - The categories are (mostly) meaningless.

TP - you need to elaborate on this a little, explain what you find mostly meaningless about 'Fantasy', 'Science Fiction and Horror', and 'Humour, Experimental and Miscellaneous'. What is preventing you from finding a story to read? This would help a great deal for the rest of us to understand what you're getting at. I'm getting the feeling that you find plot style more of a defining category than genre, but please can you clarify.

From Reiso, TheWhiteBlacksmith - Skiffyville is not a good name for a category.

Scissorkitty - There is actually no problem with it at the moment, nothing worth wreaking the system over, and we can still shamelessly advertise to draw attention to our stories.

Does anyone else agree/disagree with these points, or are there any other problems that people see with the categories as they are right now?

I want to move on to identify which (if any) most people agree with, probably via a poll, and then we can get on to deciding and applying a solution.

Reiso · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 12:59 am Post subject:

Just to be nitpicky and make your life more difficult Crunchy ( ;) ), I don't think Skiffyville is a bad name. Actually, I quite like it, I just always felt it was kind of silly for what it is. But that is just my personal taste and I'm not the sort to make a big deal out of it when most others seem happy with it.

So no, for the record, I have no problem with how the genres are currently organized. Like you, I am still not understanding what the problem is.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

Basically we are discussing the change Chin suggested as opposed to mine. DMW felt that it would basically be renaming HEM. Which means he thinks that, that is pretty much how things are currently.

Also, fantasy verses fiction argument is fantasy forest verses skiff arguement. In other words, we are discussing things as they are pretty much.

Though I would be really curious to hear how people would define the sci-fi side of skiff. Would you feel that a story set in ancient fuedal japan, with no magic or mystism at all would be sci-fi? I think it qualifies, so does wiki. But I don't know what you lot think.

Quote: what is preventing you from finding a story to read? This would help a great deal for the rest of us to understand what you're getting at.

If I wanted to read a passionate romance, a clue filled murder mystery, action packed fighting story, a drama, a family dynamic story, a story that is light and fun, or full of death(but not a horror), which forum would I go to? I haven't a clue. Aside from horror and comedy categories, which are mixed together with other stuff in unmarked threads anyways, any more specific "genre" of story could be in any main forum.

Fantasy verses fiction/scifi doesn't really tell you much of anything at all about a story's type. And misc isn't even a real genre, it's just a bin to toss anything that doesn't fit.

If I am looking for just about any kind of story, the forum types as they exist now would more likely then not, not give me a clue about where to look to try and find it.

If the way to find out what is in a story, is by either reading the first chapter of a random story, or by going to "shameless story advertisement" thread, then why not just throw all the stories together in one forum then? What is the point of having separate forums in the first place then?!

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

@Reiso - Noted - the renaming of Skiffyville is a minor niggle, so I'll take that out.

Thanks Purp, that was most helpful. First up:

TruePurple wrote: Basically we are discussing the change Chin suggested as opposed to mine. DMW felt that it would basically be renaming HEM. Which means he thinks that, that is pretty much how things are currently.

Also, fantasy verses fiction argument is fantasy forest verses skiff arguement. In other words, we are discussing things as they are pretty much.

Though I would be really curious to hear how people would define the sci-fi side of skiff. Would you feel that a story set in ancient fuedal japan, with no magic or mystism at all would be sci-fi? I think it qualifies, so does wiki. But I don't know what you lot think.

We are putting the cart before the horse here - discussing the solution before we've identified the problem. Until Chinaren actually explains the problem he sees with the categories, and how/why his solution would fix it, there is no point discussing re-naming, recategorising, or which genres should go with which. Now, the next part of your post is relevant:

Truepurple wrote:
Quote: what is preventing you from finding a story to read? This would help a great deal for the rest of us to understand what you're getting at.

If I wanted to read a light hearted romance, a murder mystery, action packed fighting story, a drama, a family dynamic story, a story that is light and fun, or full of death(but not a horror), which forum would I go to? I haven't a clue. Aside from horror and comedy threads, which are unmarked anyway, any more specific "genre" of story could be in any main forum.

Fantasy verses fiction/scifi doesn't really tell you much of anything at all about a story's type. And misc isn't even a real genre, it's just a bin to toss anything that doesn't fit.

If I am looking for just about any kind of story, the forum types as they exist now would more likely then not, not give me a clue about where to look to try and find it.

If the way to find out what is in a story, is by either reading the first chapter, or by going to "shameless story advertisement" thread, then why not just throw all the stories together anyway? What is the point of having separate forums in the first place then?!

The last point is one that I cannot answer as I wasn't around when the three categories were originally created. There are some people contributing to this thread who were, and I hope that they can step in and explain why the seperate categories were created. :)

Okay, so to summarize TP's point, with the categories generalised in the way they are, if you were going to look for something of a specific genre like a murder mystery it is difficult to know in which category to start without trying out the first chapters of various stories.

Most other people who have posted so far have either said they do not see a problem with the way things are at the moment, or have yet to explain what they see as being a problem.

I'll leave this until tonight GMT for any other views and comments on what the 'problem' is, before we move forward. :)

Chinaren · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:31 am Post subject:

Turple wrote: Science fiction and fiction are the same thing. If you disagree, I challenge you to tell me the difference.

I can't be bothered to look up the technical definition of sci-fi, but the generally accepted definition is a story set in the future/alternative universe, usually, but certainly not always, involving space travel/space ships/aliens and the like.

As I think Reiso said before, Science fiction is a sub-genre of Fiction, as is Fantasy and all the others.

So whilst they are 'the same', they are also different, insomuch as a story about cowboys on the range* is a 'western', and a story about an alien race wanting to blow up the world is 'sci-fi'.

If I read a scifi story, I expect to see death rays and teleporting, not something about the life of a thirty something love lost editor in new york*.

Aunt Murple wrote: When someone says fiction as a genre, they usually mean as opposed to fantasy. In other words, if qualifies for the fantasy genre, it does not qualify for the fiction genre.

I see what you mean, and I generally agree here. See the answer to CF below for more.

Mr. Burple wrote: Chinaren, wouldn't post a suggestion that is nonsensical through and through,

Um. Not sure I agree with that, thinking back on some of my posts. :D

Old Green wrote: - C'ren - you still haven't said what the problem is as you see it.

Okay. IF usually concentrates of Fantasy SGames, though there are Scifi and horror ones. The problem comes if you wish to post a SGame set in, for example, a high school about some angst ridden teen* pining for some Emo lad or some such.

This would currently have to go in HEM, and most people are expecting humor in there, which this most definitely isn't.

Or a western, or a gritty story about the thirty-something editor of a New York magazine.

If we renamed 'HEM' to 'General Fiction', then all these would fit in nicely.

IMO.

*Unless there's a shapeshifting monster from the planet Zork in there somewhere.

Reiso · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 2:49 am Post subject:

Crunchyfrog wrote: The last point is one that I cannot answer as I wasn't around when the three categories were originally created. There are some people contributing to this thread who were, and I hope that they can step in and explain why the seperate categories were created.

I was around then, though my memories of it are vague--this is going back something like 5 years. I am a proud second gen mod, but my memory was never my strong point, and I was out of traction for quite a long time.

Anyway, the only thing I can clearly remember is that there were mostly only fantasy stories in the beginning, so separating out the genres was a non-issue of the time. But as the size of the site grew, two things happened: Key's workload got bigger, and more non-fantasy Storygames came about.

If I am remembering this right, his solution was to create the rudimentary genres of Fantasy, Horror and I think humor, and deputize his first moderators of those categories to help lighten his load. So there is the very functional quality of helping to divvy the work up in categorization, no matter how we choose to classify things. I came in sometime shortly after Smee had convinced Key to create the Open Forum, so what I remember of that is based on what I was told at the time.

I want to say I was a strong proponent of adding a sci-fi category (sounds like me), and that though that never happened, it eventually got thrown together with horror and future in skiffy, and they added misc to humor, but I don't remember when they started calling it HEM. The reasoning at the time was that none of the individual genres that made up skiffy or hem merited their own category because there simply weren't many of them compared to fantasy. I believe that fantasy remains its own category because Key's original focus was on that genre (interFABLE was the original name of the site), and that's the way he wants it, so (rightly so, this being his site and all), that's the way it is.

All this flashes me back to uncounted debates over giving other genres their own forums (I can remember romance and westerns being suggested at one time), and the answer has always been pretty much the same. When there's enough of them to justify their own category, then maybe they'll get one. In the meantime, keeping things the way they are theoretically keeps things a little more balanced. It's not just about the readers/players being convenienced, it is also about keeping the site running smoothly, which benefits everyone.

I suggest if you want a particular category of story (however you classify it) to be easier to find that you both write storygames in that category and encourage others to do so as well. If and when there are enough of them, we'll have to do something with them. In the meantime, we don't just snap our fingers and declare what the site is, we take it for what it is--what all of us have made of it together--and accept it for that, and do our best to keep it a fun and easy place to be. Well, most of us do, anyway.

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

Thanks, C'ren and Reiso.

Now we're getting somewhere!

TP's problem - With the categories generalised in the way they are, if you were going to look for something of a specific genre like a murder mystery it is difficult to know in which category to start without trying out the first chapters of various stories.

C'ren's problem - Anything that doesn't have any Fantasy, Sci-fi or Horror about it logically belongs in HEM - (for the Miscellaneous) but there's a problem with it being labelled as Humour AND Miscellaneous because people are expecting humour.

The reasoning behind the current set-up:

Three districts moderated by seperate people lessen the workload, keep the site balanced and easier to run
IF primarily started out as Fantasy, and the Horror and Humour categories came in later. Sci-fi was subsequently added to Horror and Misc/Experimental added to Humour.
There was no reason to break up into further genre categories as it would spread the storygames too thinly.

Stats, May 5 2009:

FantasySkiffyHEM
SGOTM 6
(5 active)SGOTM 4
(all active)SGOTM 2
1 finished, one inactive9 Non-SGOTM active in past 2 months3 Non-SGOTM active in past 2 months2 Non-SGOTM active in past 2months

The stats for the three categories still show that IF's greatest focus is on the Fantasy genre, with some interest in Sci-Fi and Horror, fewer in HEM.

To me, looking at the storygames in their current positions, there is a lot of crossover and many of them could sit happily in any of the three categories and still be right. Just as some examples, Shatterglass is a horror-style fairytale in Skiffy. Nexus, a rather twisted and slightly mature themed fairytale is going well in HEM. Fraternity of Bastards is in Fantasy probably for the good vs evil part of the genre but it could, for the violence, sit just as happily in Skiffy.

~ ~ ~

Now we know what the perceived problems are and the background of the current set-up, lets consider solutions, and whether applying them would make any difference.

Here are my suggestions for starters:

For TP's issue, SGs never sit clearly in one box or another and in many cases they can evolve from one to the next. No matter how you label or sort the districts, you'll always end up with SGs in places you least expect them to be and if you're searching by genre you'll have to read the SG itself.

This could be much more easily solved if authors got into the habit of writing a short 'blurb' paragraph at the top of their thread. This shouldn't be an enforcement, just a best practice.

Benefits for the author - it might snag in new readers. If it gets nominated for SGOTM then the blurb is already prepared. It also helps if they want to shamelessly advertise.

Benefits for readers - Readers who are searching by genre will instantly know whether they're reading something that leans towards the genre they like.

For Chinaren's issue - C'ren has already suggested a solution, and my suggestion is a variation on that.

Subtitle Skiffyville the 'Darker Side of IF', and re-name Jester Park General Fiction and Experimental.

What might help resolve both:

Put the Main Forum descriptions to much better use. You can get up to 100 words in a forum description so there should be no reason why we can't come up with a suitable paragraph to explain what it covers.

SGOTM forums are of course self-explanatory. :)

The White Blacksmith · Joined: 02 Apr 2006 Posts: 2629

Generally, if something is a particular genre that maybe hasn't been seen on If before, it gets around by word of mouth. If is basically a word of mouth site. Stories start off being read by one or two people then, if it looks good and continues, other people get told of it as well. If something is interesting (e.g a story set in feudal japan) that maybe hasn't been seen here much before, news spreads faster.

As a side note, I don't really think we need new/different forum categories. If someone wants to advertise a sg as a 'western' or a 'romance', that gets around by word of mouth or they can put a little note in their topic title. I tend to read stories if I see advertising for it, or if it's only just started out. Stories that have just started can become anything, and if I see advertising I will learn what it is from that.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

Chinaren wrote: So whilst they are 'the same', they are also different, insomuch as a story about cowboys on the range* is a 'western', and a story about an alien race wanting to blow up the world is 'sci-fi'.

What if the cowboys had laser guns and rode into towns in spaceships(like say, the show firefly) & the aliens were just foreigners noone knew nothing about, who had grenade launcher they wanted to blow things up with?(and noone else even knew of explosives) Which would be "sci-fi" and which would be "other fiction"? Would that change the stories much? One is still a cowboy story, and the other is still invading foreigners trying to blow things up.

You are talking about stereotypes Chinaren, and I have read different stories here, and the authors here have time and time again defied those stereotypes. The categories I spoke of don't require stereotypes to fit in.

CF wrote: With the categories generalized in the way they are, if you were going to look for something of a specific genre like a murder mystery it is difficult to know in which category to start without trying out the first chapters of various stories.
Yes that is definitely part of it. And your idea was good CD.

But let me ask you guys a few questions to hopefully bring this into focus.

What is the purpose of having different forums for stories? Only to divide workloads?If so, does that workload look even to you guys? (look at CF's data)

Do you guys think forum types should aid in finding a story type at all?

Do you think the forum types do aid in finding a story type at all?(besides horror and comedy) If so, please explain the type of story that belongs in each main forum as they currently are.(please leave out stereotypes)

Crunchyfrog · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 3998

TruePurple wrote: Chinaren wrote: So whilst they are 'the same', they are also different, insomuch as a story about cowboys on the range* is a 'western', and a story about an alien race wanting to blow up the world is 'sci-fi'.

What if the cowboys had laser guns and rode into towns in spaceships(like say, the show firefly) & the aliens were just foreigners noone knew nothing about, who had grenade launcher they wanted to blow things up with?(and noone else even knew of explosives) Which would be "sci-fi" and which would be "other fiction"? Would that change the stories much? One is still a cowboy story, and the other is still invading foreigners trying to blow things up.

You are talking about stereotypes Chinaren, and I have read different stories here, and the authors here have time and time again defied those stereotypes. The categories I spoke of don't require stereotypes to fit in.

TP - See my comments above re SGs crossing genres. As I previously explained, it doesn't matter which way you dice it, by mood, by story type or by genre, you will always have SGs in places you don't expect, or SGs evolving through genre, and storytype. You will always have to read the first chapter to know what you are getting, regardless of how categories are set up. That is the nature of the beast, get used to it.

Even though nobody else seems to share this problem you have with finding a storygame you like, I have still contributed a suggestion that encouraging authors to write blurbs might make it quicker to get an overview.

TruePurple wrote: CF wrote: With the categories generalized in the way they are, if you were going to look for something of a specific genre like a murder mystery it is difficult to know in which category to start without trying out the first chapters of various stories.
Yes that is definitely part of it. And your idea was good CD.

But let me ask you guys a few questions to hopefully bring this into focus.

What is the purpose of having different forums for stories? Only to divide workloads?If so, does that workload look even to you guys? (look at CF's data)

Please re-read Reiso's post for the answer to that one.
Quote:
Do you guys think forum types should aid in finding a story type at all?

So far nobody else has perceived finding story types a problem. Refer to Whitey's post above.

Quote:
Do you think the forum types do aid in finding a story type at all?(besides horror and comedy) If so, please explain the type of story that belongs in each main forum as they currently are.

Again, please re-read Reiso's post, and my suggestion on forum descriptions.

TruePurple, now that we have identified the problems there is nothing further to bring into focus. We are now looking at solutions to your problem and whether they are workable. Please re-read the thread and contribute a solution if you have one. If you don't have one, then step back and let the rest of us get on with it; you should feel honoured that any of us are spending any time on it at all. It all evolved from your suggestion box comments for tags on Skiffy SGs anyway.

Cheers
CF

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

Ok fine CF, this thread is one huge favor to me, thank you. Still, glib answers won't get us anywhere.

cf wrote: regardless of how categories are set up...

I didn't disagree, but there are degrees. We could have most stories fitting very well into the forum type they sit in, or the forum type be nearly completely meaningless. If we depend on stereotypes like Chin spoke of, we are going to get much more of the latter, since IF'n stories often defy stereotypes & because stereotypes offer too narrow of parameters for stories to easily fit in. That is part of why skiffy is so empty, the narrow stereotype of what constitutes a 'scif-fi' from a Chin perspective. Many skiffy stories don't even belong in the forum they are in, if we go by Chin's stereotype of 'sci-fi'.

Quote: Do you guys think forum types should aid in finding a story type at all?
Raiso speaks of the cause/history of the different forums. Not the purpose.

Quote: Do you guys think forum types should aid in finding a story type at all?

Whitey spoke of methods that have nothing to do with forum type. So it was not related to my question. If Whitey's methods are truely more then sufficient at finding any particular story type, then there is no real purpose in having the different forums have actual typing. They should be forum A, forum B, & forum C, with better names, for dividing up mod workloads.

But I think there is room for more ways of locating a type of story. And I think forum type should aid in that, even if you don't. Since there is no harm in adding one more aid to help find a story type. I can see only benefit from that.

Quote: Do you think the forum types do aid in finding a story type at all?(besides horror and comedy) If so, please explain the type of story that belongs in each main forum as they currently are.

Reiso's post does not answer the latter part of this. Suggesting that it does is a glib reply IMO. As for your forum description idea. Fine, how would it read for each forum? Let us hear it.

How would anyone else make each forums description read? That answer would be mostly the same as answering my question. The purpose of the question? See establishing what story type belongs in what forum right now, will help provide the bases for any discussion of change.(whether to change or not, and if so, to what)

I would repeat, if you are going to do me this huge favor of listening to me, then please listen to me! I do not feel you are hearing what I am talking about CF, or even trying. And I get the impression you feel the same, that you feel I am not hearing your answers. But I am, they are just not necessarily answers to my points/questions IMO.

Chinaren · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 3:10 pm Post subject:

Zurple wrote: Chinaren wrote: So whilst they are 'the same', they are also different, insomuch as a story about cowboys on the range* is a 'western', and a story about an alien race wanting to blow up the world is 'sci-fi'.

What if the cowboys had laser guns and rode into towns in spaceships(like say, the show firefly) & the aliens were just foreigners noone knew nothing about, who had grenade launcher they wanted to blow things up with?(and noone else even knew of explosives) Which would be "sci-fi" and which would be "other fiction"? Would that change the stories much? One is still a cowboy story, and the other is still invading foreigners trying to blow things up.

Then it would be a sci-fi story. Didn't you read my footnotes? And Firefly was scifi too.

Zurple wrote:
You are talking about stereotypes Chinaren, and I have read different stories here, and the authors here have time and time again defied those stereotypes. The categories I spoke of don't require stereotypes to fit in.

No, we're talking about genres Turp, and I think most of us have said what needs to be said, so I'm hanging up my boots* on this thread now.

CF has spoken, and what she's said seems good for me! :D

*Space boots.

TruePurple · Joined: 18 Sep 2008 Posts: 256

The genre of sci-fi, is the same as that of fiction, anything that is set in a realistic setting according to known rules of the universe.(or reasonable close anyway)

Anything else is stereotypes you impose on it. What you were talking about. with aliens and cowboys are your stereotypes you impose on a genre that do not exist otherwise.

Firefly is a cowboy movie. Same as any cowboy movie movie set in the wild west with "pea shooters" The only real difference is background. Well and firefly didn't use the tired old wild west movie standbyes much, if at all. Both are "science fiction".

So Chin, are you contradicting yourself? Are you saying sci-fi has nothing to do with aliens blowing things up or the other stereotypes, but just high level of technology in a story(coupled with no magic?)? If so, those are just setting tools, which as I pointed out before, really tell you nothing about what kind of story it is!

Man, it frusterates me that even those that are really trying(or at least appear to be), and even quoting some of the material that explains it (even spells it out IMO), fail to see the points I have been trying to make. I shall think on it some and try to see if there is some possible way to explain it differently.

In the mean time, may I please get a answer from a few people as to what kind of story they think belongs in each of the three main current forum types? How you would describe each of these forums?

DeadManWalking · Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 1005

This may simply be my definition of it, but Fantasy to me has always been more about the story, and Sci-fi always more about What If.

By what if, i mean authors who took a look at society and asked themselves what if ____ happened or was true? How would that change society?

e.g. What if there was a planet which consisted almost wholly of desert? (Dune, for the most part)
What if the Axis had won WWII? (The Man in the High Castle)
What if psychic powers existed? (Ublik)
What if an extraterrestrial disease came to Earth from Space? (The Andromeda Strain)

Fantasy to me has always been more about epic quests. I'm not saying that Science Fiction is without plot, or Fantasy without interesting backgrounds, but I'm saying that Science Fiction seems less about the characters and more about society and the way things would differ from how they are now.

(Yes, this would mean i would not consider Star Wars as Science Fiction. It deserves to be categorized with other Science Fantasy stories, where Voyage to Arcturus and other early so-called Science Fiction wither)

And to answer TP's bolded question, i believe things are pretty much fine the way things are, although a couple stories may need to be shifted a bit here and there to find proper categorization, at least by my definitions. However, my definitions aren't necessarily seen as right by all, so i'm leaving that one lie for a moment. I do agree with what's been stated before about changing HEM's name to something more general. As the dump pile of miscellaneous stories, of which we IFians have many, it contains enough weird and wacky formats that it should be emphasized in the name. Of the active storygames, there are only one or two humorous ones.

scissorkitty · Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 4:47 pm Post subject:

Crunchyfrog wrote:

This could be much more easily solved if authors got into the habit of writing a short 'blurb' paragraph at the top of their thread. This shouldn't be an enforcement, just a best practice.

Subtitle Skiffyville the 'Darker Side of IF', and re-name Jester Park General Fiction and Experimental.

What might help resolve both:

Put the Main Forum descriptions to much better use. You can get up to 100 words in a forum description so there should be no reason why we can't come up with a suitable paragraph to explain what it covers.

SGOTM forums are of course self-explanatory. :)

Okay, I'm perfectly satisfied with these explanations- i think SGs should all have descriptive paragraphs at the start- and the mods of each district could enforce this. Not only would it increase potential readership and allay mis-reads, like you said.. but if that SG happened to win a SGOTM or something, the explanatory blurb would already be written, and there would be less of a lag between winning and advertising the story (while waiting for lazy authors like myself to get around to it.. *lol*).

It's funny.. i had actually forgotten about Jester Park altogether! Here's a question: If Jester Park is for humour.. then why is humour also part of HEM?? Doesn't that essentially remove that little obstacle?

Fantasy Forest = Fantasy Fiction
Skiffville = Science Fiction
JesterPark = Humorous Fiction
HEM = could become HORROR/HARDCORE fiction

and anything else could just be sorted at the 3 chapter point, when it comes time get promoted to a district. If its confusion, we could poll the readership of that tale as to which area it would best be moved into.