Sep
14th
2014
The Last Roundup: An Alternate Featured Box · 11:41pm Sep 14th, 2014
Hopefully you've already seen this journal of Obselescence's, but I just wanted to repost it and say I'm tangentially related to this. (So tangentially related that I didn't even know what it was called until seeing this journal myself!) If you follow my fic recs, you'll notice I tend not to read anything really new unless it's something I've already read, but I told Obs I'd toss that stuff his way if and when it comes across my desk.
So yeah, if you're sick of the featured box being filled with crap, go check this out instead! The Last Roundup: Now with 100% less Derpygate!
(Also the group has the best group banner ever.)
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PresentPerfect · 269 views
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Since yet another source of fic recommendations is exactly what I needed, I of course immediately joined the group. Hell, since they are open to suggestions I'll even try to remember (and probably completely fail to remember) to make some.
And yes, best banner ever.
What's this, features by living, breathing, thinking individuals instead of a mindless robot or a reader with the literary knowledge of a 2nd grader (who also happens to at least be living and breathing)?
Oh yeah, I'm in.
They even kept it real by including a disgusting incest clopfic~!
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Given that John Perry was kind of entranced by that story, I'm actually considering reading it myself.
Y'know, one day in the far-flung future. c.c
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Lawl
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Sadly, this has been done before to little effect. The problem is inevitably that these aren't posted on the front page.
Well, the problem is that any system is going to be flawed. The problem with having "live people" do this is that they're only going to find stories that they know about, which means chances are good that they'll almost all be recycled from the popular/featured story box or from their friends and other people they follow.
There are something on the order of 550 stories per week, which means that they can't really realistically comb through all of them to find the good ones. So they'll miss lots of good ones in theory.
Not to say it isn't a noble effort, but there's a reason such things happen.
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I think the whole point is to go "hey, this shit from the featured box isn't a waste of your time, and oh yeah, here's some random shit too". So instead of ten random stories staring at you, it's seven, five of which might be from featured, and all of which should be interesting at the very least.
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I understand. Hopefully it will go better than previous such projects have.
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I'm sure it's a form of hypocrisy to complain about the featured box when I've made it on there, but...
I don't know. It strikes me that a system designed to make popular stories more popular is inherently flawed. By their very nature, those are the stories least in need of a boost.
Even if the selectors are biased, at least they're giving it an effort.