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| - __NOWYSIWYG__ Okay, it was discussed partially in this thread, however the topic deserves a more in-depth discussion. Currently, we had very few categories for fanon genres, with it being either under 'story pages (fanon)' or one of the few specific genres such as 'crossover' or 'romance'. For the sake of locating a few of the more obscure fanfics that do not fall under any of these stories, it would be possibly beneficial to add several categories; Original Character, ATLA and LoK. It could also be an advantage to add the category 'after the war'. Of course, these will have to be defined, but I believe they could be useful in locating a specific type of story. In my view, an 'after the war' story is one that deals with the repercussions of the Hundred Year War, even though it is open to interpretation. An OC story is one in which the main character is an original character - although canon characters can make appearances. ATLA and LoK are fairly self-explanatory; these stories would have characters from either series. As I mostly contribute to the fanon side of the wiki, I think these may help sort out stories into more general categories, possibly helping to locate fanons that are similar. It can also be used to give a rough estimate as to the number of each type of story, because there are many genres we just don't have categories for, and so many stories are a lot more difficult to find as they can only be seen under the 'story pages (fanon)' category. Thoughts, comments, arguments? 03:40, April 23, 2013 (UTC) I like this idea. It would certainly improve navigation a lot, and with the number of stories on the fanon portal getting close to a thousand, it’s something that we could really use. However, I think we need to define each of the new categories before we finalize any major changes.
* “After the war” fanons I feel needs a more specific definition than the one you gave. Dealing with the “repercussions of the Hundred Year War” could mean pretty much any fanon that takes place after ATLA. Even fanons with Korra or the Avatars after her take place in a world that was strongly impacted by the war. I would suggest that it has to take place shortly after the war, that it has to be closely related to ATLA and that it has to feature the Gaang as central characters again. For instance, Mage’s Avatar- Aftermath and Burning Earth is definitely an unambiguous after-the-war fanon. His next fanon, Sons and Daughters, doesn’t really fit that because while the Gaang are major characters, there is more focus on the next generation. His more recent fanon, It All Ends, involves the Avatar after Korra, is well beyond after-the-war, though some major events in the story involve consequences that can be traced directly back to the Hundred Year War.
* Even though ATLA and LoK are self-explanatory, it should state that there is a strong focus on the events of either series. Also, if we have an after-the-war cat, won’t it make more sense to have during/before-the-war cats instead of a generic ATLA cat (although then again, that could be the parent category for all)? The after-the-war category would already heavily intertwine with that, so I feel separating them more cleanly would help for navigational purposes.
* Perhaps an “another Avatar” category? Those have become pretty popular, especially with Legend of Korra in the mix on the canon side.
* It may be too early for this, but I would find it nice to eventually categorize certain fanons, like romance ones, by the ships: Kataang/Maiko/Tokka/Makorra/Korrasami/etc. Even if the number of relevant stories isn’t large yet, I’d like to think it will be some day. -- 04:16, April 23, 2013 (UTC) I'm slightly against those "After/before/during the War" categories, just due to it's superfluously. It makes much more sense to create an "ATLA/TLoK/OC" category than a War focused one (the OC character would cover both the fanons with a new Avatar, as stories like SHiE, which has Aang as the Avatar, but is telling the story of an OC). Having the ATLA category there nearly always means already that it is during the War or somehow related to it. In any case, it would take care of some disambiguation regarding whether or not some fanon falls under it, cause listing that the TA must be the main character would exclude fanons like The Legend of Rohan -which also took place during the war if I'm not mistaken. I see little merit in creating shipping categories. Why it may certainly help some looking for certain ship fanons, where would that end? Take the Korrasami category for example. As far as I know, I'm the only one who has written 2 stories featuring that ship, so that category would contain 2 fanons. What is then anyone stopping them from adding a new category featuring their ship? Or would we restrict those to the ships that are on the shipping page? And what with fanons where one shifts from Makasami to Makorra to end with Korrasami for example? (hypothetically speaking of course) I think that those shipping categories could be more or less considered as being covered if we create "ATLA/TLoK" categories, since one then knows in which fanons s/he at least has the chance to encounter a certain ship without actually having a shipping category. 07:03, April 23, 2013 (UTC) I agree with Lostris on the superfluosy of "After/before/during the War". I do like the ATLA, TLoK, OC idea. With that, I also like the another Avatar idea of ARG. What about centering the main character; ATLA character, Korra character, Original Character (other than avatar), Original Avatar (of course, with better naming)? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nozus (wall • contribs) 10:57, April 23, 2013 (UTC) I think those names are fine, although I don't like the name 'Original Avatar' - what if I choose to do a Kyoshi story, like Kyoshidude? Perhaps 'Alternate Avatar', meaning one that isn't Aang or Korra. ARG, I understand what you mean about the after the war cat, but I don't think all stories set after the war are after the war fanons. If that makes any sense. I haven't read many that aren't, so I'm going to use my story as an example of one that doesn't really deal with anything after the war, except the characters are aged up a little. I think an after the war cat should have a political aspect, such as Air or the stories that you have mentioned; I haven't read It All Ends, however taking your description at face-value, I wouldn't consider it an after the war fanon because it doesn't deal with the challenges faced directly succeeding the end of the Hundred Year War. I like the idea of ATLA and LoK being parent categories, and we have before, during and after the war cub cats, and before, during and after the equalist revolt sub cats. Is it usefully to have an 'alternate avatar' cat when we have an OC category? I've no idea how many there are, so it's entirely possible that it will be highly advantageous when trying to navigate. Re: Shipping Cats, the biggest issue I have found is there is very little diversity. I mean, Kataang and Zutara are massive ships - I doubt there would be too many stories using the other categories. As Lostris pointed out, there is the possibility of having the relationships change and adapt during the course of a story, which would throw the category out of whack, if you know what I mean. I'm not against it, but if you bring in those sorts of categories, why limit it. Why not have 'Aang (fanon)' categories, etc? One more point I think it would be good to mention, is that the are many fanons that don't fall under a genre category, simply because there isn't a category for them. I understand why we don't have an action category - a lot of stories feature action - however I've noticed many of them aren't action fanfics. Another point is that many genres have been rejected simply under the belief (whether its true or not) that there aren't stories that have that category. How do we know whether there are any spiritual stories, or friendship pairings, because we don't have those cats. I think there is great potential for previously undiscovered stories to be found if we broadened the scope. Such as, if we do introduce more genre-specific categories, and shipping categories, many stories that were unknown might be fond because a reader might be in a particular mood for friendship Tokka, or crime Borrasami. 11:31, April 23, 2013 (UTC) With all this, there is one thing that we must keep in mind: yes, we can create all those categories, but we are not FFN. We do not have a category for everything, neither do we need one. Our categorization system has worked rather well thus far. That doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement -like an "Avatar: The Last Airbender (fanon)", "Legend of Korra (fanon)", and "Original characters (fanon)"- but that doesn't mean we have to start implementing minor categories just because we can, neither do we need a category for every genre -especially not when the truth is that many of the stories don't have a predominant genre or the authors will eventually add all the genre categories to their story just because 1. it's more categories to add and 2. their reasoning will be that it applies cause their story has drama, romance, deals with the spirit world, has a lot of action, etc etc. To sum up, I am for the creation of an "Avatar: The Last Airbender (fanon)", "Legend of Korra (fanon)", and "Original characters (fanon)" category, but that is all I see beneficial to create for navigational purposes without it getting out of hand with a gazillion categories available. It is now already the case that a lot of newcomers do not know how our categorization system works, thus it often happens that someone else applies the necessary categories. How is a third person supposed to decide whether or not a story is a drama or a spiritual story based on a small plot overview and perhaps a chapter? 14:28, April 23, 2013 (UTC) Per Lostris. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nozus (wall • contribs) 19:22, April 23, 2013 (UTC) I get the fact that we shouldn't try to imitate sites like FF.net, but mightn't it make sense to have certain shipping categories? I'd like to think that it would certainly attract more readers to romantically-based fanons of their shipping preference, especially with such a large shipping fanbase for ATLA and LoK. To avoid the difficulties of having such categories and deciding if a fanon fits the bill, one would have to impose qualifications for those fanons to be considered shipping fanons.I'm not exactly sure what these qualifications should be, however; I'm not much of a shipper and can't really say what falls within the bounds of true shipper fanfiction. All I do know is that there would have to be narrowness about the selection--like how there was the idea of an After the War cat mentioned above. The way of choosing if a fanon is really about a specific ship would have to be concise, just like how choosing if a fanon is specifically what people think of as "After the War" fanon must be concise. I don't hang around the fanon side of the wiki very much at all, so I don't know how many readers there are on this wiki who go for shipping. I just don't want to let the idea of shipping cats go to waste for a fanbase which is so ravenous about shipping in general anyway. Anyone have any ideas of how to make it work? 20:38, April 23, 2013 (UTC) Many stories here that feature the gang follow the canon line -thus all of them would have the Kataang, Maiko, and Sukka categories, which would in turn render that category useless again if nearly all the stories have it. The "Romantic stories (fanon)" category only counts 30 pages as it this. I believe that category stands just fine on its own without further division in like 20 Kataang stories and a few others. 20:43, April 23, 2013 (UTC) Unless there is a canon-pairing, fanon-pairing and crack-pairing categories added, which would take after the dominant shipping - like my Taang stories would be fanon-pairing, with a Kataang story featuring Tokka would be canon-paired. That said, I don't actually see the need for these cats as of this very minute, simply because, as LL stated, a majority of these stories follow canon whippings, and if it doesn't, 9 times out of 10 it's a Zutara. Perhaps if there is an exponential increase, there might eventually be a need for it, but not yet. It's always good to have these ideas out there, though ^_^ Lostris, are you opposed to an 'alternate avatar' category? I haven't seen your opinion on it. I personally think it might be a good cat to use, perhaps as a subcategory of an OC fanon. I like the three suggested - ATLA, LoK and OC,and I think they would serve as better navigational tools. 07:29, April 24, 2013 (UTC) I think the "Alternate Avatar" category (defined as something along the lines of "Category comprised of the fanon stories featuring a different Avatar than Aang or Korra") is sort of superfluous if we were to create an "Original character" category (defined as something along the lines of "Category comprised of the fanon stories featuring originally created characters as the main characters of the story"). Even stories telling the tale of Avatar Kyoshi (of any other named Avatar in the series) for example would be OC fanons as well, as those stories would feature their backgrounds and they are largely unknown. Even though there are bits and pieces given by the series, the majority of the story will still be own interpretation of their characters as a whole, thus it seems superfluous to have both of them there, and seeing as how the "OC (fanon)" category would encompass more stories, that one has my preference. 08:05, April 24, 2013 (UTC)
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