Reorganization of Reviews Section

[Scott]

Currently the "Reviews and Discussions about Specific Books and Series Forum" has 4 subforums

-Classics
-Non-Fiction
-Sci-Fi/Fantasy
-Crime/Thrillers/Mystery/Horror

And then the rest ('other fiction') is listed in the "Reviews and Discussions about Specific Books and Series Forum" itself. This is a sort of system that evolved on its own as when the forums were younger and less active there were no subforums and all the Review and single-book discussions where in the one forum. I am thinking it might make more sense to not have the "Reviews and Discussions about Specific Books and Series Forum" host any topics of its own but rather have it only host the exhaustive list of different genres by creating a new subforum in addition to the other 4 entitled "other fiction" that would host all the books currently kept in the main reviews/discussions-of-specific-books forum. It will be a little bit of a pain to reorganize. However, I feel this would make it a little easier to navigate and would make it easier to add new genres in the future. Before I make a significant change I want to ask for feedback about it. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

I am also trying to think of any other genres that might be good to add to the list. I don't want to many genres as that might make it harder to navigate and would lead to confusion if a book could fall into more than one genre, but I also would like as few genres lumped together in 'other fiction' as possible because that is also not very user-friendly. The one genre I am most considering adding is for romance/erotic, but again my biggest concern is that this could create a confusion where 1 book could both be one of the genres like horror and be a romance and/or erotic book. I could of course specify that the romance section is only for books that do not fall into one of the genres, i.e. romance books that are NOT Classics, Non-Fiction, Sci-Fi/Fantasy or Crime/Thrillers/Mystery/Horror.

Please give me your thoughts.

[nagathachristie]

The bookstore does a pretty good job of separating literature from romance. I would say in most stories, it is easily distinguishable.

Many books feature a romance in the story, but it is not the main focus of the story (ie I read a story where the main character uncovered a Knights of the Templar secret, and worked with an anthropologist to solve the secret and stop Nazis from doing something drastic. In the end he falls in love with her but that wasn't the point of the story.)

Many romance books focus on the love aspect even in the summary. A few authors have books that are harder to distinguish - ie I find some Linda Howard books in the romance section, and some in the fiction/literature section, depending on her plot.

Maybe authors could choose the main genre for their book? Sometimes when I write reviews, I write subgenres too (my first review had suspense but it was truly a romance) so that people who read it have a more clear idea of what they might want to read.

I'm totally in for a romance section. It would also help reviewers choose better books to review.

[Zannie]

I think it is a great idea.

How about a "non-fiction" "action/ adventure/ geographical" "Historical" or "Religious/Spiritual" just a few suggestions. You don't need to do them. All the best

-- Sun Sep 08, 2013 7:29 pm --

Or "historical/geographical"

[Scott]

I have added a romance section and have followed through with my plan to reorganize the reviews section by turning what was the "review and discussions about specific books" into a new subforum labeled 'other fiction' and having the new "review and discussions about specific books" forum host that and the other genres and not host any of it's own topics. In other words, not the "review and discussions about specific books" is no longer it's own forum with subforums but is a forum category of a subforums.