Ah, I guess I could have phrased that better.
The way I draw the line between light novels and novels is that the former is written for entertainment and the latter for some literary purpose (i.e., it’s art).
The problem is that we are just moving to another unsolvable question (“what is art?”). Also, novels can be entertaining (obviously!) and light novels can be well written.
Still, I guess that sums up my feelings about both categories:
Light novel → I can read that drunk and/or tired and still have a good time (assuming I like the content)
Novel → I’m reading it for a more intellectual purpose. I’m going to need my brain to enjoy it.
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I’m sure you know this already, but that delineation really doesn’t intersect with reality much, or we’d have to move almost all genre fiction into the “light novel” category (and a bunch of light novels out of it). And then argue about what has literary merit endlessly. 
I strongly disagree. Or maybe you are overestimating my reading capabilities while drunk.
For me, that’s literally where I would draw the line, though. In most cases, “I know it when I see it”, as they say (what I called a “vibe check” in my original post). There’s a noticeable difference between the writing style of light novels (at least the ones that are adaptations of なろう style web novels) and novels (even genre novels).
天冥の標 (series) | L37 is a SF series (so, genre), but it’s absolutely not a light novel.
On the borderline side of things, I can think of クォンタムデビルサーガ アバタールチューナーI | L29. Also SF, but definitely closer to my internal light novel line. It wouldn’t faze me if it was put in either bin (currently registered as novel).
図書館の魔女 (series) | L37 is fantasy (so, genre), but definitely not a light novel. I’d say the same about 鹿の王 (series) | L36.
On the other side of things, 記憶屋 | L29 is registered as a light novel, but I wouldn’t mind if it was in the novel category.
I think classifying them on writing quality is a working definition (or, at least, a meaningful one, since it tells me what to expect from a book). I don’t see any way to do that in a consistent way, though (and if we tried, we would trigger an endless discussion, as you said), so I would rely on the feeling of the person adding the book (or resources like MAL, but that’s just delegating the decision to a different person).
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My equivalent gauge is when I’m tired. For example, I can read 本好きの下剋上 in pretty much any state (barring particularly complex scenes, e.g. those that get into deep political discussions), even when lacking sleep or after a mind melting day at work.
I can’t really comment on this in Japanese because I don’t read a ton of variety, but for English at least I’m not sure I even know what “literary purpose” means. For me, either a book is enjoyable or not. Either it’s written such that I don’t notice anything irksome or it draws my attention in a negative way. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book and thought “wow, the writing was so profound, my life is now enriched by having read it” (i.e. the writing never draws my attention in a positive way; it’s either neutral or bad). On the other hand, I’ve definitely felt “wow, the story/characters/setting was so interesting/entertaining, I’m really glad I read this and want to read more”. Light novels seem to hit the “bad/irksome writing” note more often than novels, but both have equal potential to be enjoyable or terrible.
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The first “true” light novel I read (I think it was はたらく魔王さま! 1 | L30) was a bit of a shock, since I had never read anything like that in another language. Even pulp (which is not really known for its highbrow content) felt different, so I think it’s hard to draw a direct comparison?
Things might be different for a younger audience (than us, I mean), since light novels are now published in other languages (translated from Japanese), so they may be familiar with it already 
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Unfortunately I think we’re also lacking a common basis for discussion a bit, because we haven’t read a lot of the same books.
But, let’s say we published a Harlequin Romance book in Japanese. I think we can broadly agree that these are complete dreck with no literary merit, and you could read them while drunk. Are they light novels? I don’t think many people would agree.
And, there are a lot of light novels that I don’t think you could read while drunk. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list from my library (and I’ve excluded things I think you could read while drunk but that I nevertheless think have literary merit):
I can’t think of any real argument of how these wouldn’t be considered light novels when you could show pretty much any random Japanese person one and they’d tell you it’s a light novel.
I can definitely see the desire to change it from a meaningless marketing term to something that indicates quality, but I think it would be even more confusing when no one else is using it that way.
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Dare: Reread 新世界より while drunk!
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The term “light novel” simply isn’t well defined, according to Japanese Wikipedia. I just don’t see any quick and easy way for Brandon to objectively apply the light novel label.
If it were me, I’d remove light novels as a book types category and leave it instead to the (eventual) tagging system. I think the high level categories should be generally agreed upon formats (fiction vs non, novel vs short story vs comics, etc.) and not about vibes. And you gotta consider the future, when the website expands to include other languages. The light novel category isn’t applicable to most other languages, unless you take the stance that it’s simply juvenile/young adult literature.
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Actually, I would probably put all the Harlequin books I have read in the light novel bin (if I had to sort things between light and non-light novels) While they don’t have the typical writing style of light novels, in terms of content and “intent”, I think they do belong.
I have no idea, obviously, but I’m adding those to my to-read list 
Thanks for the recommendations.
There’s always going to be borderline cases… but actually the point is moot here, since that’s not a light novel
That’s a very good point. I also think that a specific tag makes more sense in terms of implementation.
(That being said, I’m still interested in the “light novel or not” discussion, regardless of it ends up changing a category or a tag).
Edit: forgot to say
That’s absolutely true. However, things seem to have be done that way so far (otherwise I can’t figure out why 記憶屋 | L29 is in the light novel category)
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I think that’s right. While ideally there’d be a sophisticated, leveled, taxonomy for the site, in all honesty I think flat tagging (based on voting) is probably the most realistic and feasible way to go.
But, like @Naphthalene says, discussing what exactly a light novel is has value.
Please don’t take what’s on the site as necessarily a standard haha. Like I said, our only guiding directions come from AniList & user requests… we do our best but when you have to manage 30,000+ books, you can’t think too hard on these things
I’m happy to change things from Light Novel → Novel or vice versa if you submit feedback.
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There’s nothing to say every language has to have the same categories, though I’d be curious to know how Brandon feels about that from a technical perspective. I think light novels should continue to be called out in some obvious way. If it’s convenient to switch it from category to tag, I don’t think I’d care much, as long as it’s available in search and filterable on my library page.
Oh I know it’s not a light novel. I just wanted to give you a challenge. 
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I mean, allowing admin configurable top level book formats for different languages isn’t really all that hard. It really depends on how common we find ourselves in this scenario in other languages and how much benefit we think we could derive from it.
The major boon for putting light novel into a tag is simply because i like the idea of voting dictating it… since it’s a somewhat nebulous concept. Happy to do whatever though, if we find that’s an issue 
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I said it jokingly, but I actually now honestly wonder if it would be possible to use doc2vec on the free preview of books?
Edit: someone already trained a model on the top なろう series, too! 小説を読もうの累計ランキングをDoc2Vecで解析する - I want to lead an easy life.
Or that, I guess 
New 多読 challenge just dropped, I see
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I would 100% put that in the novel category.
Yeah, I don’t think LNs are necessarily inferior to or easier than novels. 本好き is much more complex than some of the novels I have read so far. 
Honestly, physically you kinda just know that something is considered/marketed as an LN when you see it. Which is why I find the bookmeter classification as a book format rather than a genre/category so interesting. Makes me wonder where they get their info from… I think they are affiliated with amazon…
Personally, I think reducing the main categories to things like novel, short story, non-fiction, poetry, graphic novel, comic, etc. or even just the 4 umbrella categories: drama, fiction, non-fiction, poetry and leaving details to a tagging system would be best. The cover, any tags and the あらすじ will give people the information they need.
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I absolutely love 本好き myself, and I think it’s very well written for a light novel, but it still has the light novel feel for me. Especially when the main character’s internal voice goes “解せぬ” and the like.
Wait, they do that? Where is it shown? I’ve never seen it 
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Underneath the cover:
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… that’s neither the case on the mobile version of the site nor on the mobile app 
That explains why I never noticed.
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I see. I do most of my interneting on computer. you could force the mobile browser to give you the desktop site, but that’s probably not comfortable to navigate. 
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I don’t get it. ライトノベル is a book format? My books are 文庫, 単行本, ペーパーバック, 単行本（ソフトカバー）. I don’ t even see the difference between most of those. Another one I haven’t logged is 新書, and then there are ライトノベル. I’m more confused than ever about what a light novel is supposed to be.
What would drama be in this context? Theatre play?
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more or less. Something written like it’s meant to be played. Those are the four types of how literature has been categorized traditionally… all of these categories have sub-categories (such as comedy or tragedy for drama or memoir, essay, … for non-fiction or mystery, romance, … for fiction), which could be done via tagging. lightnovel would be a subcategory of fiction.
See, I read any of those “labels” and I can imagine exactly what the book looks like… the approximate size, the feel in my hand, the thickness… 
Japanese books are very standardized, which makes for a very neat bookcase look.
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