Site Post » Featured Box Update FAQ (April Fools' Joke) · 4:47pm Apr 2nd, 2015
Hi guys. So after our announcement earlier about changes made to the Featured Box, it's clear that there's been some confusion about exactly what's happened. A lot of people are unclear about exactly how the new mechanism works, a lot of others are worried as to how the new mechanism might affect them personally, and a handful of people are probably still under the impression that the whole thing was an early April Fools' Joke. This being so, we've put together a quick FAQ that should hopefully help explain things in more detail.
Before we go any further on this, I'm going to state for the last time that yes, the change is real. There's been a lot of confusion on this matter on account of the announcement's timing, and we're hoping that this post can finally put that to rest.
Now...
Are you guys serious?
We said as much for the last time up above.
How could you guys possibly think that giving a boost to authors with more followers was a good idea?
It comes down to your perspective on whether the Featured Box exists primarily for the sake of the authors or for the sake of the readers. While authors might prefer to have totally even chances of making the Featured Box, it was felt on the staff's end that it was ultimately readers that drive the site overall. From this viewing of the situation, it gets a bit easier to understand the change. The ideal is more readers reading more of the stories in the Featured Box more consistently, and the statistics show convincingly that more-followed authors tend to put out more content that readers will "eat up." So to speak. The change makes a bit more sense if you consider the goal to be maximizing the numbers overall.
Okay... I don't agree with that, but them's the breaks. How exactly does the change work?
After some asking around, I've been put at liberty to explain the details behind the change, so here we go.
First up, I have to say that you really shouldn't worry about this causing you problems. The multiplier for authors with more followers really isn't that big, and probably won't be forcing too many people out of a feature they otherwise would have earned.
Now, the change is fairly complex in terms of raw numbers, but the basic concept behind it is fairly simple. Essentially, you'll want to imagine a logarithmic curve.
Imagine for a moment that you have an author with 0 followers and an author with 2000 followers. Imagine also that the author with 0 followers has a heat multiplier of 1.0x and the author with 2000 followers has a heat multiplier of 2.0x. Following the logarithmic curve in this situation, you'll see that the curve is actually pretty favorable to authors closer to the middle-bottom of the pack, and approaches a soft cap of diminishing returns for authors at the top of the pack. This is part of the reason that you shouldn't worry. The other part of it is that, again, the multiplier for authors with more followers really isn't that huge relative to authors with fewer followers, and won't deny very many people features they would otherwise have gotten under the old system.
Well... okay. But I still have questions and/or disagreements!
Well, I don't know what to tell you, man. The change happened a little while back and is here to stay. If you didn't notice anything weird prior to the change, you're not likely to notice anything weird after the change. As always, you're free to put your opinions forth in the comments, and we'll be sure to read and respond to them as best as we can. It's also probably worth noting that nothing I said in any of the questions above is true in the slightest and that the whole thing from start to finish was an elaborate april fools' joke. Beyond that, I'm not sure what else can be said to help make things more comfortable for people who disagree with the change.
I'm a numbers nerd and would like a better explanation of how the logarithmic curve works, please!
With pleasure! Here's a blogpost by someone that should hopefully give you a pretty good idea of how logarithmic curves work and how it might apply to the heat multiplier:follower count relationship.
The key explanation for the difference between logarithmic growth and linear/exponential growth (which is how most people probably feared the change would work) can be identified in this passage here:
Here, improvement works on a logarithmic scale. As you get better, it gets harder and harder to improve. Elite athletes expend enormous effort to shave seconds off their best times. Novice athletes can shave minutes with just a little practice.
Logarithmic growth is the first type of growth. This is where you see a lot of progress in the beginning, but continuing progress is more difficult.
Now imagine a different graph. This time you’ve build a new website you update regularly and you’re measuring subscribers. This graph would likely look very different:
This is exponential growth, the second type of growth. Website traffic is often exponential because as a blog attracts more readers, there are more opportunities for word about the blog to spread. A blog with zero traffic also has zero word of mouth.
I’ve noticed most things tend to be either logarithmic or exponential growth. Despite this, linear progress is what most people expect. We tend to expect things to move in the same direction or rate as they have in the past. This violation of our expectation leads to some mistakes in how we set goals and act on them.
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Hope that answers everyone's questions with regards to the change. We understand that the change might have worried some people when it was announced, but as can hopefully be seen now, there's really nothing to worry about. Sorry to have caused you guys the concern. Get hype for Season 5, and have a nice day!
I <3 logarithms
So who actually read the blog? Lets take a look....
I have a feeling that this might be a lot easier to swallow if there's some sort of accompanying spotlight or "feature-box"-style thing for lesser-known authors and fics. Some sort of, I dunno, weekly or bi-weekly post featuring a number of good but poorly-represented writers and their works...
Y'know?
I hoped that was a very stupid April Fools.
I guess you could technically have fucked it up even more. Not by much.
I think I get it. Math and Computer language is not my forte.
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I do recommend a full reading of the blogpost before drawing conclusions on your thoughts about the change.
For anyone who didn't read that far into the blog before commenting.
Why is there chocolate in my pocket?
I was REALLY hoping this was an april fool's joke. Super disappointing to hear.
edit: APRIL FOOLS HAHHA
2936688 from what I see, even someone with 100 followers has a good chance as someone with 500 followers.
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I continue to recommend a full and careful reading before drawing conclusions.
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It's like this is a site for reading words or something.
How stupid would that be, right?
2936700 right. Actually, to save my brain more trouble, I'll just say that you all know what you're doing and leave it at that.
2936702 Only the fimfiction elite are allowed to actually read the words.
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Reading words only available for Fimfiction Gold accounts.
All the butthurt from the skimmers in the crowd....
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As long as it works right.
>tfw people can't read
wow you'd think a site dedicated to
you know
stories
would contain people with the comprehension level of at LEAST a fourth grader
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Arch pls
You dirty trolls, you. Hiding the fact that it's a joke in the middle of the blog
. Why do people still believe these announcements you post on April Fools Day? Seriously?! If you guys are going to make an important, legitimate announcement, I doubt you'd make it on April 1st. Besides, the FimFiction April Fools Prank has become a tradition.
2936728 Read the blog a little closer and it might make more sense. I'm no math genius and it made sense to me after a close reading.
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huehuehue
April Fools jokes tend to be un-funny enough even when they occur on April 1st.
OMG, that was awesome. I'm dieing over here laughing at the people who cant read. Hell you even bolded and underlined it for them. This is just too much. You guys are awesome.
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It's an April fool's joke. A really mean spirited and trying-way-too-hard, but it's an April fool's joke.
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>Edited 5m, 35s ago
The bold and underline was edited in after the post.
So...
You pretty much told everyone how the feature box already works and called it a new feature.
Good show.
I honestly hadn't been sure if this was an April Fools joke or not. It seemed both like a reasonable idea and one guaranteed to incite controversy, especially the "we've already implemented it" aspect.
In any case, it does seem understandable when one treats the featured box as a place for readers to find popular stories and not as a winner's circle for authors, especially when taking the logarithmic growth curve into account.
Conclusion: I am okay with this.
Fair play continuing an April Fools joke onto April 2nd. I suppose that's innovation in some sense of the word.
G2 Obselesence: trollin brones like it's 2012
Given that this is a site based around people reading and comprehending written English, the reactions to this are very disappointing. I am clearly still overestimating the average person.
2936744 That's your opinion. Mine is that they're funny. If someone believe something this ridiculous, announced on April Fools Day, that's their fault. People need a sense of humor.
I still stand behind this being really mean for a joke, and I pretended to be Peppy Grayskull for the day. I shudder to see what people think when they go through the archives of my posts yesterday.
Christ, people are still going to be thinking this was a real thing weeks from now...
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You might be a bit more certain as to whether it was an April Fools' joke if you give the whole thing another reading.
Okay, but why should I believe you when you say this is an april fools joke? You're basically saying what people are already afraid you might say, and openly declaring that we can't trust you to be honest about it :P
And, this isn't April 1st anymore.
Guys, I have a feeling that he's joking.
Like Christmas, April Fools will continue to bleed further and further into its surrounding days, until everything that happens in the months of March and April is guaranteed to be a complete and total lie.
Jolly good show, lads. Have some donuts, on me! We can sit and watch as everyone else proceeds to click the link to the blog and then immediately scroll past to post comments without reading what exactly is going on here. It's sure to be all in good fun.
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WORDS MEAN THINGS, PEOPLE
I'm sure a lot of ponies will read most of the post, be angry, and not read the underlined portion. I was very close to assuming this was the way things worked. You can't honestly expect people who disagree with the stated changes to read a wall of text where you defend those changes. There's no reason for them to search for a "joke" when it's no longer April 1st and you have repeatedly said it's not a joke.
I'm sure a few ponies will leave the site after reading the first part of this entry. Hopefully you won't lose many good authors. But it was marginally funny, and that's what counts when you provide a service for thousands of artists, right?
I don't care, personally, but this is a bizarre way to run a service.
Jumping to conclusions! Anger frustration, didn't bother to read the whole thing! RAWR!
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...
Was that bolded and underlined the entire time?
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Apparently only science nerds like me...
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Not the entiiiire time, but for a reasonably large portion of it, yes.
... Right there in the middle, yup. Even in the middle of the paragraph, where it would be harder for someone skimming to notice. It was underlined and bolded, though. You could have gone the extra mile to make it more arcane (apparently, at first, it was that arcane), but overall, well done.
I think I finally get the April Fools jokes here. Didn't get em in previous years, but I laughed this year quite a bit.
It is a mean spirited laugh, though, and later I might feel a little bad about it.
Truly, this was the April Fool's joke that FimFiction deserved.
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Yeah, this is a fair point. And I mean, I read the whole thing except for the disclaimer because said disclaimer was posted under the "Any more questions/concerns?" section, which I didn't really look at seeing as I didn't have any at the time. Yeah, it's a joke, but it's a poorly executed one that was only invalidated right at the last second. There are failures of reading comprehension, and then there's seemingly putting a great deal of effort towards deflecting attention away from the passage of greatest importance.
Well played, gentlemen.
2936720 Oh yeah, when's that shit coming back?