So, I've been doing a lot of housekeeping with categories that has been accumulating for a while. The Shock Ending category has been reinstated for Admin/RCaDC use only (notify staff if you think it should be added to a pasta), and the long-since depreciated (no longer used) Death and Original Content categories are being cleaned out. The Category Listing and Category Rules pages were also consolidated and tidied up a little bit for clarity.
During all this, I've encountered a few things that I think are worth considering. Obviously, nothing will be changed before appropriate feedback is received, but I'd like some opinions on all of these topics/suggested changes.
Topic: Should the Dismemberment category be depreciated (removed)?
Reason: Do we really need it as a category? What purpose does it serve? Is anyone searching for it? It seems a lot like Death was, functionally speaking, and as far as pastas go, I don't think it's something we should be encouraging the use of. Not that it can't be used well if it's subtle, but usually... it isn't. Usually it's "THERE WERE BLOOD AND GUTS AND APPENDAGES EVERYWHERE AND IT WAS SO SCARY I THREW UP ON THE PS3" and so on and so forth.
Topic: Should the Television category be renamed as "Television/Movies?" Should Movies get its own category?
Reason: Until further notice, I've assumed the Television category also includes movie pastas. We could go with either of the above options to formally address this, or, we could just make it noted on the category page that it includes movies and leave it at that.
Topic: Should a Music category be added for the occasional pasta that is a spin-off of a song or genre?
Reason: This one's pretty self-explanitory. Those pastas exist, and right now we have no way to categorize them.
Topic: Should BEN articles be allowed to share the Video Games tag?
Reason: BEN articles don't go in the Zelda category, and Zelda articles don't go in the Video Games category. Does this mean that BEN articles should also not be tagged under the Video Games category? There are undoubtedly pastas involving BEN invading other, non-Zelda video games, so I'm honestly not sure what call to make on this one.
Topic: Should Jeff the Killer and Jeff-Inspired be considered mutually exclusive categories?
Reason: As far as intent goes, the former is supposed to be for articles about Jeff or Jane, while the latter is for Jeff/Jane-like characters who aren't actually Jeff or Jane. I notice many pages have both tags and think this should be addressed.
Topic: Are creepypastas submitted to this site required to be creepy?
Reason: I recently encountered an article that, while very sweet and well-written, had nothing the least bit creepy or "horror" about it. It was essentially just a MLP sob story fanfic. It's not stated anywhere in the site rules or Quality Standards that creepyness is required, but I do think it's pretty much common sense for a creepypasta site, and should be added to them.
Please share your opinions, community and staff.