Category/Subcategory/Classification organization

My advice is to make categories of the largest things that need characters, genres and classifications. Using eFiction to host fanfiction firstly seems to work best. I find that using categories such as the actual anime shows, ect works best. Then you can make a subcategory, or a classification for rants and articles, and include the characters if a rant has to do with a particular character. Make a misc category, and include the general (all/no fandom) articles and rants there.

I made a links archive and came under similar problems, because I included links to actual stories, C2 groups, websites, rec sites, ect. I also had the regular classifications as well as types of relationships (possible major category to sort all the fandoms into). Well I just set it up with the categories being the fandoms, and created C2 group classifications, and website subcategories. It works well and if you mess up, at least the info is in the correct category so you can edit it easily later. I have major categories for Original, and Misc. The only hard part is that I had to make subcatgeories for every fandom to keep the websites in a category separate from the fanfiction listings.

I'm curious what you meant by "types of relationships." I have a vague idea, but I'm not sure... something like romantic, platonic? That doesn't seem to make sense given the example you gave me, but again, I could be wrong.

Also, is it possible to make sub-classifications (e.g. would it be a mod)? For example if I had one classification set as Type, and I wanted certain sub-types to be available if AND ONLY IF someone selected a certain "main" type, would that be doable, or likely cause for more confusion?

For example, let's say I had a Main Type of: Fanfiction.
A sub-type could then be: Shortfic, Songfic, etc. People could select multiple sub-types, though, but no sub-types that DO NOT belong to fanfiction, e.g. Editorial. Also, I imagine some sub-types (like Shortfic) could have sub-sub-types, like Drabble, Double Drabble, etc.

I'm wondering if trying to organize it in the manner I'm imagining would require too much time and effort, rather than working with the implementation that's already in place and working so well for others.

The types of relationships I use are: Family, Siblings, Friends, Comrades, Enemy, ect.

You can't make subclassifications. If you want subtypes, you will want to put them under categories. In my site, I have subcategories under the main fandoms, like "websites" under" Harry Potter". I have all the fanfiction additions under the Harry Potter category, and for links and such I put them in the subcategory. Then I have a classification to list what TYPE of item it is. You would put Drabbles, Articles, ect there.

I will send you a link so you can see it.

Yes, it's better and easier just to use the script the way it was meant.

Okay, I think I'll use the fandoms as Main Categories and their seasons/arcs as Sub-Categories. Everything else will be a classification of some type. But I am concerned about one thing, though I doubt it'll be a huge issue- what about crossovers? I can't remember if a story can belong to multiple categories or not (and if it does, is it uploaded twice, or is it simply DISPLAYED twice, once in Category A and once in Category B?)...

Also, is it possible to have a classification be specific to a category, the way characters can be? I'm thinking about some video game fandoms like Final Fantasy X or Star Ocean; they're all in the same universe, so it doesn't make much sense to separate them into different fandoms. But having them all lumped together with no way to sort them between X and X-2, or Star Ocean 1, 2, or 3 means it would be very unweildy fic-wise; how would people know which fics are for 1, 2, or 3? I wanted to make a classification specific to that category, but all the other site-wide classifications would still apply. Is that possible, even if subclassifications aren't?

You can put things in more than one category. They are merely displayed twice.

You can not have classifications specific to categories. You cannot have sub classifications. Classifications are just the way they are. 🙂 The same classifications show up on every area, there is no way to limit them. You can either just list the subtypes and have a really long list every time, or you can take the subtypes and make another classification, like I did for relationships, but it will still show up everywhere. I could have put relationships in genres.

If you want subclassifications, you will have to make them subcategories.

I suppose due to the number of fandoms where this sort of (pardon the pun) sorting is necessary, would it be possible to do a mod (and if you say it is, I'll make the appropriate request in the Mod Request thread) that basically mimics what the Characters feature does, allowing you to create classifications specific to a category? It seems like you could (theoretically) just copy all the character info and simply change what it's called (the id in the database and so forth), right? Or is that over-simplifying it?

I think that's over-simplifying. I'm pretty sure you'd have to edit a lot of pages. Off the top of my head, the browse feature, searches, and admin interface, stories and summaries, etc. It's possible, just a lot of work.

...allowing you to create classifications specific to a category?

As I said before, you can't make make classifications specific to categories. There already was a mod request posted in the mod forum about that, two actually, but only one is really relevant here.

https://efiction.org/forums/index.php?topic=5191.0

Least you be mislead, I don't really know how to mod eFiction. I can look at small things other people have done, and change it a little, but that's about it. Even when I do that, it's a guessing game to see if code from one place can just be copied and pasted somewhere else and have the archive still work, let alone do whatever it is I want it to do. Usually it doesn't, lol. The things I know are things I've read on this forum, as I read just about everything, and things from my own experience working on my own archives. If you are going to try and create a mod like this, you will probably have to do it without the help of the top three posters on this site, from what I've read of the responses.

I think I've got it (mostly) worked out now, without any need for modding. I still think subclassifications and/or category-specific classifications could help, but it's not necessary for me right now.
Thanks for the help!