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Why The Featured Box Bugs Me · 12:23am
Hi guys!
Let's talk shop!
Take a seat. This might get lengthy.
So, uh, there's this thing on FimFiction that folks call the Featured Box, and recently there were a couple changes made to the way that it works.
These changes bug me.
You see, the way it used to happen was that there'd be five fics up on the Featured Box at any given time, chosen by the top five most popular fics according to an algorithm based on -- from what I understand -- how new the fic was overall, how many views the fic had in x amount of time, how many upvotes it had in x amount of time, etc. Essentially, sufficiently popular fics from within the last two days or so were eligible to get featured.
But, relatively recently, this set-up was changed. Instead of five slots devoted entirely to hot, new, and recently-posted stories, there would only be three Featured slots for new fics. The other two slots would be repurposed to feature sufficiently-popular older fics as they were updated. The premise was that the old Featured Box focused too heavily on flash-in-the-pan one-shot fics, which tend to drum up more immediate hype than ongoing chapter-based fics (which could take a few updates to really hit their stride).
So, if you posted the first couple chapters of your planned Epic Fic, you were generally less likely to draw attention and get Featured than a guy who wrote a self-contained one-shot story of similar quality. Unless your currently-incomplete story managed to be recognized as a masterwork within the first couple chapters or so, there was a solid chance that you'd get outcompeted by people whose stories were already finished.
The new set-up changed that by making it so that, if your incomplete masterwork managed to draw enough attention to itself when it was posted, it could be Featured EVERY TIME YOU UPDATED IT. Granted, that applies to everyone else, so your fic isn't likely to be Featured for long, but that's HELLA better than nothing. People who write longer, multichapter fics are finally on a relatively competitive footing with people who write shorter, self-contained one-shots. Which I think we can all agree as fair. Or about as close to it as we can hope for.
Don't get me wrong here. I absolutely love that older, multichapter fics are getting the chance to be Featured now. On the whole, I think this change was a Good Thing.
The problem is the other end of things: newer, recently-posted stories. Because when two Featured slots were dedicated to older fics, the Powers That Be also decided to TAKE TWO FEATURED SLOTS AWAY from the new fics.
Which should be sort of obvious, but let me explain why that's a problem.
I'm sure some folks, at least, have noticed that the the first three slots of Featured Box these days have become pretty stagnant (read, the three slots dedicated to newer stories). As in: the first three Featured Fics don't seem to be changing very often. Now, assuming it's not just our imagination, this is a problem. Nothing against the folks who are writing all the Featured stories, but I hope we can agree that it doesn't seem very fair when getting Featured these days almost guarantees you four days up there, at the minimum. There are plenty of other authors out there who'd like to be Featured too, after all!
Generally speaking, there's a certain timeframe after new stories get up into the Featured Box where it's basically impossible for anything else to get Featured. This is mostly because a Featured Fic is getting a huge amount of exposure, by simple virtue of being Featured, so while a newly-Featured fic is still fresh, it's basically impossible to dislodge. This timeframe has pretty much always existed, to a certain extent, since long before the changes made to the Featured Box.
So why do I take issue now?
The changes to the Featured Box made this timeframe TOO DAMN LONG.
I can point out exactly one readily apparent reasons for why this is so:
-The fourth and fifth most popular fics are no longer getting featured.
That's it!
See, the thing is that, in the old system, you didn't have to get into the top three most popular stories to get into the Featured Box. You only had to make top five.
It doesn't take a genius to see that top five is easier to get into than top three.
Under the old system, up-and-coming stories that could make it into the top five by the skin of their teeth could get themselves Featured. And from there they could use the resulting exposure to climb up the ladder. The top three most popular spots stayed relatively fluid, because newer fics in the fourth and fifth spots were getting themselves featured, and using the resulting popularity surge to dislodge fics in the top three.
That's no longer the case. Fourth most popular fic and fifth most popular fic are now no more likely to be seen than sixth or seventh most popular fic.
So the top three most popular stories are safer from competition than ever. This in turn leads to a Featured Box that only sees significant change every four days or so. Barring force-of-nature fics that just rocket to the top.
I hope we can all agree that this isn't the ideal Featured Box, and that we'd like to see more stories get time in the spotlight.
Well, there've been a fair few proposed solutions to this issue, but here are probably the two simplest:
-Set a hard cap on how long a new fic can stay in the Featured Box. After 2-3 days, it's out, and new stories can get in.
-Add two more Featured slots for new fics, so that we can have 5 slots for new fics (like we used to) and 2 slots for old fics (like we do now). This gives us the relatively fluid Featured Box of old, while still allowing older fics to get their due.
Barring technical complications I'm not aware of, either or both of those solutions would "fix" all the problems involved with a stagnant Featured Box.
It's notable that the second suggestion was brought up when the changes were first made to the Featured Box. And it was rejected for reasons that I still don't entirely understand. I'm given to understand that Knighty doesn't actually see a problem with the Featured Box as it is now, but it's hard to understand why. Nothing but nice things to say about the guy, given that he runs the place where all our beautiful stories can be posted up, but it sure would be nice to hear back from him on the concerns. My main hope is that Knighty'd express a willingness to talk things out, and hopefully either provide consideration to the suggested changes or a detailed explanation as to why they can't happen.
In the absence of that, though, is this rant.
tl;dr: Cutting the number of Featured Box slots devoted to new stories down to three has made for a stagnant Featured Box that only really changes every four days or so. This is probably not an ideal set-up, and it would be nice to hear from Knighty as to what can be done about these concerns.
Thanks for listening, guys.
Peace out.
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Comments ( 23 )
I think the major problem is how popularity is set up in this in the first place. Reference heavy stories, popular authors, and metafics will automatically get the brunt of reviews, clicks, and thumbs ups. So regardless of how original, well written or well developed a story may be, it may not attract as much attention as this weeks "hey, I made an amusing title or meta reference" fictions.
I'd probably be comfy with either of those options, though I'm leaning more towards having a quicker swap-cycle for features. I can deal with three spots(could see it as added challenge even), but having a single fic spend the better half of the week sitting there gets a little grating over time, mostly because everyone's missing out on all the other potentially great stories that might come out within that time frame.
I agree. The top 3 spots now remain the same for days. I remember way back when we had all those blogs about rule changes and stuff, a number of suggestions were made to improve the feature box. One of them talked about a limit on how long a story can be in the feature box without getting updated. I believe Poultron mentioned that he thought the limit was far too long at 3-4 days (can't remember exactly how long he said it was). Anywho, I believe he also mentioned something about talking to Knighty about this, but obviously nothing has come of it yet.
All that aside, I like both your suggestions.
>>205162
This is true to a certain extent, but it doesn't really impinge on the primary issue of "The Featured Box is stagnant."
A note on the new system is that significantly fewer "trollfic" type stories seem to have seen time Featured since the change. Not sure if that's related or not, but it's not really relevant to the problem either way.
I'd be interested in seeing an entirely different Featured Box for the latest updates. It would take a while to code, but the result would be true harmony between the Most Popular and Most Recently Updated fics. Mind, I'd have no idea where they'd put it with their current layout, but I think the result put in would be far more worth it in the long run than the effort spent.
Of the two options, adding a couple more slots would be the most practical of the solutions presented. If they could make it into a five-per, that would be the best.
Obsel I agree with you 100% Hell I've even stopped voting on any story until it leaves the top 3... It makes a difference but not one that we'd notice. I'm with you in wondering why Knighty didn't just give us the extra slots. His reason didn't make sense to me when we finally got it out of him. He basically didn't want to clutter up the page with too many feature stories. I thought what we have now was a great compromise, but as time goes by it seems to be getting worse and worse.
You should just send this to Knighty, see what he says.
>>205186
I think the recent ban on meta and circle-jerk stories has helped clear out the clutter as well.
There have been a few places where I've read or heard that Knighty has programmed this site to be more for the readers than for the authors. So, if readers really like a story, and it gets featured, then it stays up there until the readers get tired of it. Or, as you pointed out, another story comes along to oust it.
I'm of mixed opinions with regards to the feature box to begin with. It's nice to get up there and gain more exposure (and I would be lying if I said I didn't care if I never did get featured), but it also raises a sense of competition within the community, for the wrong reasons. I believe writing should be an endeavor that helps build an authors skills, along with having fun. Making the feature box should be the accumulation of all that an author has learned and an acknowledgment that he/she has written as close to perfection as they can. Recently though, I've had the feeling that authors treat the box as a challenge to beat out other authors and claim they are the best. It really rubs me the wrong way.
Well, we'll see what comes of this, or anything at all. This site is still young and already one of my favorite places to visit. More changes could be on the way and we can hope that they will be for the better!
Also, nice use of Iron Will! The dude rocks!
Ciao!
>there would only be three Featured slots
>You only had to make top five
>that only sees significant change every four days or so
>that only really changes every four days or so
[link]
>It doesn't take a genius to see that top five is easier to get into than top three
>>205296
Finally, a detailed explanation of the flaws with the featured system in addition to the most feasible solutions.
I wish Knighty would have given an actual reason for opposing more featured slots. It would have been infinitely more enjoyable than getting the runaround from the admin of the effing site.
You should send this to him and see if you can effect some change or get some actual answers.
I think there could also be another alternative
Restore the Featured box to the five it was, but also restore the old brown box, and use it for chapter updates of formerly featured stories.
See, the problem is the feature box is crap, but it's always been crap. The difference is it used to be crap and heavily biased one way or the other. Now it's pretty unbiased balanced crap at least.
Well the old box was crap because it mixed older and newer stories so newer ones would get bumped off whenever older ones updated, creating a mad jumble of old and new stories and multi-chapter stories being able to heavily exploit the system..
The 2nd box was crap because stories more than a week old were never featured, no matter how popular they had been and how often they updated, making multi-chapter stories stagnate for new readers after a while.
The new box is, while still crap, much better at it's compromise than either of the 2 previous iterations. Now the only problem is that multi-chapter fics are up for an even shorter period of time since they all only share 2 slots, and that new fics are less diverse, allowing the top fics to stay longer than necessary since newer fics have less ability to gain momentum.
But it's not like there isn't a top 55 most popular list on the front page anyway. Maybe the box should just be replaced with that list in a scrolling window?
Well said. I used to find at least one new interesting-looking fic in the feature box every day, but now it takes far too long for them to change. I'm personally a fan of the "add more slots" solution myself, but either one is better than this.
(Also what is with that message about MicTheMicrophone up there)
>>205674
I actually find the top 55 list non-useful because selecting fics by titles is the worst method besides random selection. Those 6-line descriptions in the feature box are pretty important.
>>205770
I just usually click on the top 10 and read the synopses. But I'm just old fashioned.
New idea. Have TWO featured boxes. One with five slots for new hotness, and one with five slots for updated hotness.
I concur
>>205674
>>205782
Wouldn't that make pages take even longer to load? Not to mention where you would stick the second box without losing aesthetics.
>>206126
The feature box synopses id often cut off so I have to click anyway, plus it does not show tags or rating. And I also base most of my reads on user comments so I need to visit the page anyway.
I have no problems Mouse 3 clicking to open 10 tabs and take a look see through all 10 of the top popular fics to see if I want to read any. Not like I'm strapped for time anyway if I'm on a fanfiction website. Plus, it seems a shame not to take advantage of every feature the site offers to try and find a good fic.
Then again, I only find about 5% of the fics I read via the feature/popular/front page. Most are through EqD posts.
I know the feeling-- Every time I see a fic, good or bad, get featured for several days, it makes me feel... uncomfortable.
When I got my feature for 4o2? It lasted TWELVE HOURS. And I've seen shorter, before the change.
Expanding out to 7 would be logical, and more or less a necessity. Some people don't have any other way to find fics, given their massive distrust of EqD.
>>205460
>>207808