I'm confused by some of the subcategories. For instance, I'd like to see "radio shows" as a subcategory, as they follow certain conventions and are, generally, serials. I assume they fall under "audio plays and spoken word" but there's a difference, to me, of something like the Star Wars audio version, which is a single one-time story and something like The Shadow, or the original soap operas, with more of an ongoing story.
Also, the subcategories for Animation, Comics, Manga & Other Sequential Art don't really seem to be consistent. We're separating out DC, Marvel and Manhwa, but leaving Anime and Manga as a block? Given that there are generally differences between the anime and manga versions of stories, I'd like to see it handled like the comics/movie divide of superheros -- an anime, manga and "all media" category. I'd also like to see a different labels for animated and live action film subcategories, to avoid confusion.
The comics category is also missing, well, comics. There are comics that aren't DC or Marvel. But maybe Mickey Mouse now falls under Marvel after the Big Mouse bought them and ElfQuest under DC for the cooperation they did a few years back. But then I wonder were The Darkness and Fix and Foxy go.
'Fandoms may also belong to a category but none of its subcategories. That subset of fandoms that belong to a specific category but none of its subcategories will be viewable.'
So they would probably just be under 'Animation, Comics, Manga & Other Sequential Art' without actually being in one of the subcategories.
Which is problematic because now you'll have Futurama, Archie Comics, Mutts, R. Crumb, and The Lion King all in the same subcategory with no further filtering.
But right now they're just all in the huge top-category with no subcategories at all, which is even more unwieldy.
And there's not really much point in making a subcategory for, just tossing a number out there, three fandoms that actually exist on the archive. The proposal says that they aren't fixed and as more fandoms get added, more subcats can too, but having too many overcomplicates thing.
Oh, no, if it's something with, like, two fandoms, that makes perfect sense, but animated movies and television shows should definitely be split out, and I don't really see why we're giving Marvel and DC (both commercial brand names) top billing when we could have "comic books" or "comic serials." which would satisfy a lot of things that do belong in the same category without giving a privileged place to a commercial brand. (I say this as someone who writes Marvel fic, BTW)
Thank you for your feedback. Currently those fandoms would fall directly under the top category with no submedium. However, we’re open to changing that and welcome input on what such a submedium should contain and be named.
I assume Anime and Manga are together because the majority of us who write in those fandoms have repeatedly pleaded for them to stay together. In most cases, while there may be minor differences between anime and manga versions, adaptations are so similar in storyline as to be interchangeable. Of course this doesn't hold true for 100% of anime and manga but series with large differences are the exception rather than the rule. The custom in anime/manga is that fans rarely specify which medium they're writing for and many write about some hybrid of the two versions, so separating manga and anime versions of series would pretty much be a gigantic headache for everyone involved.
I think the real problem is that it would increase confusion for the average user, who isn't going to expect these categories to be separate, won't understand why they are, and won't be sure where to look. It will also add complication to wrangling anime and manga fandoms, as wranglers try to decide if a fandom is sufficiently similar to appear in both categories (as it is, some fans do specify with some series, but it's relatively rare to have to make a judgement call about whether "Series (anime)" and "Series (manga)" should be synonyms or subtags of the same meta tag. If you split the categories, it will imply to users that they ought to be specifying version, because the archive obviously considers them distinct enough to split, which will increase the frequency of such decision-making. Organizational decisions can drive user behavior in undesirable ways, and that's something worth considering when planning categorization like this.
The current submedia division isn’t final. We appreciate your feedback! The end results will also depend on the results of counting up how many fandoms would fall into a given submedium. The current grouping of anime and manga together was in response to the fact that is customary and expected among many fans, and to the difficulty of separating the two given the high degree of overlap. The current interface design will hopefully prevent the identical submedia names from being confusing or ambiguous, but we’ll keep your concern in mind when evaluating the final coded design.
Comment on Call for Feedback on Category Change Proposal
Terrie Wed 18 Sep 2013 05:36PM UTC
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Irene (Guest) Wed 18 Sep 2013 06:00PM UTC
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dizmo Wed 18 Sep 2013 06:28PM UTC
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teaberryblue Wed 18 Sep 2013 07:23PM UTC
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dizmo Wed 18 Sep 2013 07:29PM UTC
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teaberryblue Wed 18 Sep 2013 07:36PM UTC
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(10 more comments in this thread)
LadyOscar (Category_Change_Workgroup) Thu 19 Sep 2013 04:40PM UTC
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wednesdaysky Wed 18 Sep 2013 07:59PM UTC
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Terrie Wed 18 Sep 2013 08:36PM UTC
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undomielregina Wed 18 Sep 2013 08:56PM UTC
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Subarukun Thu 19 Sep 2013 11:22AM UTC
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LadyOscar (Category_Change_Workgroup) Thu 19 Sep 2013 04:38PM UTC
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