A Modest Proposal · 2:24pm Aug 13th, 2015
So, on Bad Horse's blog, Titanium Dragon just remarked this:
Clearly the best writer on the site is followed by you, bookplayer, Wanderer D, Obs, Cold in Gardez, GaPJaxie, Ghost of Heraclitus, Skywriter, and absolutely no one else.
Hmmmm 
so, followers who have more followers than me. And IDEALLY that would include almost anypony but I gotta work from 678 or so, being not perfect in my obscurity. The complete list of all my followers who have MORE followers than me:
A Bag Of Vicodin, A Follower, Abramus5250, Admiral Biscuit, Art Inspired, Bookplayer, Chatoyance, CyborgSamurai, Eristotle, GaryOak, Manes, Obselescence, RazedRainbow, ROBCakeran53, Shakespearicles, Skeeter The Lurker, Skywriter, Sleepless Brony, Steel Resolve, Swiper The Fox, Tchernobog, The Descendant, Wanderer D
Total follower count for that very awesome list: 34,477 followers of (my followers that have more followers than me/are better'n me)
I'd seriously like to see anypony top that. No, let me rephrase that: I want to go and follow anybody who can top that, because they must really have something going on. I really truly want a chart of THIS metric so I can see all the other ponies that skilled writers enjoy. I bet there'd be surprises in the list. And it's self-correcting, because if you gain lots of followers through people referring to the list, you drop off the list! 
That's the thing. Popularity charts are begging to be gamed, aren't really a good thing, aren't really pony enough and so the followers chart has been removed from Site Statistics. That's fine, unless you're one of the top few I guess.
But THIS is different because it would be a dynamic chart of exactly how much awesomer every writer's follower list is, from how recognized THEY are! It works right down to the low low follower levels. It singles out those who have grabbed the attention of writers who presumably know what they're doing in some way, and if it brings you big follower numbers YOU DROP OFF THE CHART right away!
It's beautiful 
I want to see it in action, and I want the honor of being the #1 pony on that list for about ten seconds, and then to say hello to a bunch of new followers who hopefully will have fun reading a million word pony series that's still happily underway. After all, some very cool horses have already been enjoying it, and NOT telling their followers about the goodies they found
And if I'm not the #1 on that list, I seriously want to see who is because they must be amaaaazing…
Awesome! And I just wanted to say by the way, thanks for the advice at Bronycon! It really meant a lot to me Applejinix.
Very interesting!
Also, for someone who loves Applejack you sure use a lot of Rarity faces
3316953 I started out identifying completely with Applejack, as I work that way and can get as tired without giving up.
Then, somebody (actually an adorable Canadian girl I'd crushed on super hard) told me I was out of my mind because I clearly wasn't Applejack, I was Rarity. She'd roomed with me at a con and become friends and we'd been through some stuff, and I had to take the idea seriously.
It became clear that such was my destiny!
So my avatar is Rarity disguising herself as, and trying to be, Applejack. Which she has done more than once, mind you!
Wait, that list is for better writers than you, right?
...Why the hell am I on that list?
Unless I misread it...
~Skeeter The Lurker
So, my total came out to somewhat less: 20,419. That's bats, Soundslikeponies, Wanderer D, Hoopy McGee, Cold in Gardez, Art Inspired, Vengeful Spirit, Bronystories, Tchernobog.
However, that's out of only 68 people on the site who have more followers than me, so not bad.
But! I think I know someone who can beat you, and I'm gonna go check...
Yup!
xjuggernaughtx has 423 followers, and a total among his more-followed followers of 35,417.
(Daemon of Decay, Regidar, Skywriter, Horizon, Manes, Twinkletail, Gleaming, Bradel, Ebon Mane, FanOfMostEverything, Autumn Breeze, Hivemind, Noble Thought, Blacksilverflames, Abramus5250, LoneUnicornWriter, Georg, BronyWriter, Vengeful Spirit, Seether00, PresentPerfect, RBDash47, Steel Resolve, CanterlotGuardian, iloveportalz0r, RainbowBob, Lilith911, Skeeter the Lurker, Tchernobog, Paleo Prints, Biker_Dash, Follower, bookplayer.)
Edit: I'm gonna bet that PresentPerfect is up there too, but I'm not doing the math for him.
3317024
I think it's for more followers.
3316977
No wonder I follow you. Both Rarity and AJ are best pony.
3317024 Thank you darling
but it is not precisely that.
You're more influential because you DO write and edit and such, and you have a higher follower count by a large margin, than I.
You've not misread a thing: you belong on that 'more followers than me' list. It's a mechanical list. It's a way of handling the idea of 'influence' that doesn't require any curation or anybody actually issuing value judgements on what's good or not. In that light, you are a better horse than I because you've got a larger follower count. Thus, you will always get more attention and continue to get a larger and larger follower count (apparently something you consider unjust!) no matter what I do. That's how the internet and public known-ness works. I can write two more books and give a dozen panels and it won't matter, you are more important because internet.
BUT, with this way of doing it, it depends entirely on how many of your readers are also high-ranking writers. You're a high-ranking writer with more followers, but I think with my seven books I've cast a wider net than you. So, with this metric, you'll still rate 'cos you've edited and written and are known to popular ponywriters, but your higher follower count actually sets a higher bar for you, and I suspect the resulting ranking will not have Skeeter The Lurker rated as a more important writer than moi
Feel free to run the numbers and post here. And I missed my chance to try and bully you into writing more, this Bronycon. Would you like me to PM some 'write more, dammit!' to you since I didn't get to say it in person? I remember you being writersblocked, which should not be; I want to see you creating freely, oh more-important horse
2meta4me
3317071
Ahhh, alright. I didn't think to count it on a mechanical level.
Now, y'see, I don't honestly think that's true. I have, and always will, maintain that it is not how many follow you, but who follows you.
For example, a guy from EqD w/100 follows following than someone with 1000 following. If that makes sense.
Was there ever any doubt about that? You write, and you write damn good! If that hasn't helped you in the long run, I'd be shocked, honestly.
Always fun to look on the meta side of things, ain't it? And do feel free to poke me for things I'm doing writing wise!
~Skeeter The Lurker
3317059 Wow! You see? I bet everybody in my readership who's more popular (or way more popular) than me has names like that right at the tip of their hooves.
Because to score on this metric, they need to be read BY YOU and other horsefamous, and known by you to be good and worthy of more attention than they have, but other people don't know it.
So, other people don't know who the 'hidden gems' are, but YOU know, and would probably recommend that I check out this xjuggernaughtx (and so I shall)
But here's the thing. The ALGORITHM would pop this hapless horse out at the top, even higher ranking than me which is quite a trick. I wonder who else we can spot who'd rank superhigh? The algorithm would automatically turn up every single one, but for those of you horsefamouswritepones reading my blog, you can just think of 'who do I follow and love who doesn't get the followers they deserve, but I know a bunch of good writers like them?'
Off to look at xjuggernaughtx
oooo! I read a Scootaloo fic, and it was GOOOOD 
Is there an easier way to do this than just going through and counting…? Like a way to sort a follower list? Ah, well.
It seems my total comes out to 41, 851. Just over a third of my followers have more followers than me.
So... uh... I decided to check how I'd come out. I figured I had a pretty good shot at being high according to this metric. I think there are a few other people who might come out high, too—Chris, Themaskedferret, and DuncanR come to mind quickly.
Anyway, here's my list of authors following me with more followers than me.
And that comes out to... Umm... 58,153 followers. Not unique, of course.
3317139 Yeah, the easier way is to have a computer do it for you. It's super-trivial if you have access to the numbers.
And we have a new high score! Congrats, Burraku_Pansa! er, I mean, Congrats, Bradel!
Hmph.
I rate, but I'm nowhere near as unsung as I thought 
3317145
To be fair, two of them (1225 followers' worth) have been sitebanned. And another eight of them (7037 followers' worth) are people I've honestly never heard of, despite the fact that they're following me....
3317139
Actually, that's a damn impressive number, especially if we start considering other ways to measure what Applejinx is talking about. You're getting over 40,000 follower-followers, and you're doing it with less than 200 yourself. That's a very high average follower-follower count, and quite probably among the highest on the site (unless there's like, a guy who's been followed by Pen Stroke and nobody else).
3317153 No mechanical system is perfect. My score is partly affected by me working to help ponies with things like Quills and Sofas, though I haven't been anything like a Bronycon writing liason for some time and haven't been around on Skype. Therefore, ponies following me hoping to curry
my manefavor, will be less in number because it doesn't seem like I can do stuff for them, necessarily.As you are a curator for the Royal Canterlot Library and a pre-reader for Equestria Daily, there's bound to be SOME folks following you just because you're considered seperately important. Heck, if I thought there was any chance my Trixieverse book series would get into the Royal Canterlot Library, I would be feeding you peeled grapes and polishing your
horshooves in an instant!But that will never be the whole story. Just one element. In some ways this mechanic is singularly good at pointing out the 'ponies everypony should know' regardless of WHY they should know them. It's all good
3317160
...I really oughtta read your Trixieverse stuff. It's been highly recommended to me by someone whose taste I respect.
It's just so looooong, though...
3317156
It almost sounds like you're proposing a sub-method of Applejinx's method. How far can we take this?
Edit: Also, it probably bears mentioning that I think this system might be skewed towards reviewers/editors/etc. like us. We can tend to have a lot of high–follower count people paying attention to us, making it easier to get them as followers.
3317142 Oh, think you're going to come in here and steal my thunder, eh, Bradel?
Well, let's just check some of bookplayer's math, shall we? Who's in my list...
Now let's just tally this up... hmmm... carry the three. A-ha! bookplayer's count was wrong. I'm actually at 37,097! So, um, still 21,056 behind you. Damn your undeniable talent! I'll get you next time, Bradel! NEXT TIME!
3317181
Oh, there are a lot of different ways I can think of to look at things like this. One that's popular in academia is something called an h-index, which for this problem would be looking at the raw number of followers people would be putting on the list Applejinx is proposing. That's got its own problems, but it does get rid of the skewing effect of having, say, Pen Stroke in your follower list (since he'd provide a huge block of 7000 some odd followers to the count).[1]
Doing "average follower count of followers" would also make some sense, and move toward the original idea TitaniumDragon suggested, but again I don't know how useful it is to just pick whoever Pen Stroke follows with the least non-Pen-Stroke followers.
Honestly, I think Applejinx's idea is pretty good. I'm sure there's no perfect measure for something like this, but the above isn't unreasonable. I think it might be good to try to skew it a bit more toward people who have higher average follower-followers, but I think that's part of the idea of only looking at people who have more than you, so you don't get to pull lots of littler guys along for the ride. I'm not really sure. I do think it's an interesting question.
As for the editors thing, I think you're probably right that they'd tend to score high because of low overall follower counts (for writing less) and high follower-follower counts (because people who write more appreciate them). I know I picked up some of my followers in weird ways, though, like picking a fight with Akumokagetsu over his pillow fight story and managing to end up having a point without being an asshole. That got me both him and RainbowBob, who have a whole mess of followers between them, for essentially pulling a "Somebody's wrong on the internet". I dunno, I think I just encounter people in weird ways. Tons of people have no idea who I am, too, I think.
I don't understand this whole internet fame thing.
[1] I've tried looking at a site-wide h-indexes on follower count, too, and my memory was that, half a year or so ago, we had about 500 people with 500 or more followers? But that's not what we're measuring here.
3317210
3317181
3317165
3317061
3317059
Here's a challenge:
Do this for Pen Stroke.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3317224
Pen Stroke:
Total count: 0
Pen Stroke, officially the least important author on the site.
3317226
Pfffftttttttttt.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3317224 I've spoken with Pen Stroke on a few occasions. For all intensive purposes, that makes him a follower of mine. I'm adding him to the pile!
3317246
A cool guy to chat with, ain't he?
Totally has his follow somehow.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3317250 Very laid back and pleasant. The anti-xjuggernaughtx, if you will.
3317072
I've gotta:
Green thumb that comment. When my oldest sister was attending CalTech and we would drive up to visit, I used to dread going out to dinner with her and her friends. Because the tradition at CalTech is that the youngest non-math major at the table has to figure out how much everyone owes including their tips. And I, of course, was a classics major...
Mike
3317253
Oh yikes. That must have been fun with loads of people...
~Skeeter The Lurker
3317222
Yeah, it is meant to be literally 'total number of followercounts' but I see what you're saying.
If the follower count is allowed to overlap, then if you have Pen Stroke you count 7000 or so, and then it might be more difficult to add more no matter how many other good authors are following you. That seems… undesirable. It's not about the specific followers, it's about how many good writers are paying attention. So if you can only count each follower once, it becomes 'how broad of a net can you cast' and you're compelled to interest writers with very different followerbases. On the bright side, our little clique-circles of po-nepotism become downgraded.
If the follower count is just the number for each writer, a person following each of the authors could be counted many times. That becomes much more strongly 'how many good writers are actually paying attention' without worrying about why they're considered good, or by who. If you're read on a large scale that's good enough. I like this one, especially if you can use an API to just grab follower count. It would hammer the server less, you'd just cache everything and keep checking back to update individual records, and you only have to iterate over a person's follower-list once rather than do it and then check for overlaps.
You do realize that Pen Stroke is kind of a rounding error because there are THAT MANY other ponies who are well over 1000, 2000, or even 3000? There is no reason to worry about that 7000-horse chunk. The numbers we're talking about are in the 40,000 to 50,000 range and may go higher. And if Pen Stroke or Skirts or Wanderer D are reading somebody with only a few hundred followers of their own, is it not just that the lesser known writer should count as 'unsung'? They're doing something right.
3317226
Pen Stroke is the least unsung ponywriter on the site. On this we can happily agree. And rightly so!
No no.
3317165
Bradel, if you intend to read Trixieverse you'd best get moving. It's already seven books and more than a million words, and an eighth is planned, and I got a fine idea for a NINTH at Bronycon. My hero was Terry Pratchett so if you think you can catch up, good luck to you
And the first few chapters of the first book are NOT as bad as Trixieverse fans keep claiming they are
you just have to not take yourself or it too seriously. As soon as Twilight gets involved and starts going unicorn crazy, that's when it starts coming into its own. Doesn't take terribly long, and soon you'll know if you like it. It is quite all right if you do not. I always staunchly defend people's right to not be into the ponymadness that is my books, even while I cheerfully write more of them 
3317407
Two things:
I love you.
But... butbutbut... You were so close to having the full set!
3317421
So did the pony who spotted me randomly riffing on James Joyce's 'Ulysses' in the middle of a Trixieverse book for no particular reason. You'll know it when you see it
I'm on that list! Yay!
radiotimes.com/uploads/images/original/73101.gif
I like your idea! But also keep in mind that your total of 34,477 is a lot of duplicate followers for the several authors.
personal net score: 15,086.
Huh.
(for what it's worth, out of 52 followers.)
3317788
Sure, but it's duplicate followers selecting the various horseworders they like. Nobody's forcing them to just pick one, so it all works out when everybody's being compared using the same algorithm. I like allowing them to duplicate, otherwise it disproportionately favors writers who have all kinds of readers, across wildly different genres. That's cool too but it's a distinct thing.
And indeed yay!
You are indeed! And I hope you like the new book that's going to begin after a decent post-Bronycon recovery time.
3317822
>hype intensifies
3317863 The folks on my minecraft server (which I don't post things from anymore, come back Bad Horse! It's safe!) already know a lot about that
There will be a kirin. Because what Ponyville needs is an aristocratic, 'indigo' (but actually pink) tourist come to enjoy the earthy pleasures of the farm. And who does not tolerate evil, because kirin simply do not abide evil, you know. Ask Tree Hugger. We'll get to find out how she became such good friends with Fluttershy (hint: not in bed, but in a dramatic moment). Tree Hugger will tell you all about how amazing kirin are. At length.
3317142
Soooo.... I followed up some more, and I checked out DuncanR, Chris, and Themaskedferret.
Turns out I was wrong about DuncanR. He's really popular in some big-name circles, but doesn't have the general reach I expected.
Chris, on the other hand, is pretty huge. He made it to 52,424 follower-followers at the time of counting, off 52 distinct authors.
But the big surprise here is Ferret. Or, well, not really a surprise—not if you know Ferret. She has 0 stories and 153 followers. And 88 of her followers (more than half) have more followers than she does. And when you add up all their followers, you get...
62,090
So it looks like we've got a new champion.
3317994 Dang! That is one popular ferret! She is incredibly friendly and nice, though. Who knew being personable would net such great results?
I have 238 followers, and of them, 45 have more followers than me:
Total all that up and I get a score of 38,527, which seems pretty respectable. But I don't really know how to feel about it.
I definitely have some followers because of my writing, even on this list. Feels good. An unknown number of followers are following me solely because of Seattle's Angels which... well, IMO, that doesn't really deserve an author follow, but earlier in the thread this metric was described as one way to measure "influence", so sure, I can accept this. Arguably the point of reviewing is to influence people into reading stories, so sure. Even look at people with 0 stories of their own, like Ferret, and you know that she's earned all that through her tireless EQD work and all of that story editing, which... that's awesome. Pure awesome.
But.
I bolded 27 of the names above. This subset of people is the people who are, really, just friends. I've either chatted with them on forums, collabed on projects with them, met them at conventions, and the like. Sure, some of them (even the wildly prolific RainbowBob with 3540 followers) have told me that they do enjoy my writing, so they sorta count as both friends and fans. And I've also followed some people just because they're friends and I want to watch them and support them, so I don't feel like following friends is an abuse of the system or anything like that. And since they're all friends, I'm sure they'd signal boost my stuff, so they do indeed meet the criteria of "influence".
But since they're friends first and foremost, it doesn't really feel like I air-quotes "earned" those. Those are follows that I got, not because of my skills or merits, but because of my personality or just being in Quills and Sofas at the right time. And when those friends count for 25,305 of my follower-followers (out of 38,527), I just end up feeling like I padded my numbers.
EDIT: Then again, I reran the test on a certain nameless individual who has publicly gotten in trouble a few times for trading follows for follows. Despite having hundreds of direct followers, they only have 10 with more followers, for a total of 10,386. So perhaps there is something to this.
3318169 Given that the score would likely just highlight you for more attention, and that you'd end up getting some more (but not astronomical numbers) of followers from ranking on the 'unsung' metric like that, can you really consider it so unjust, though?
Granted Ferret is an anomaly (zero stories probably ought to get you off the list as it guarantees you have no 'readers', only followers), it doesn't seem wrong for you to score 38,527 at the moment. You could use a few more followers, you write stories :)
3318210
>Applejinx is watching you
>an old friend from way back in the Ponychan days
>MFW yet more ponepotism
static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130724231902/mlp/images/thumb/1/1e/Twilight_screams_after_becoming_a_human_EG.png/800px-Twilight_screams_after_becoming_a_human_EG.png
Thankies!
"Just" is an odd concept here. Everyone wants a signal boost. Some people arguably deserve a signal boost. The question then is, who deserves it more than somepony else? In theory, the biggest score here, like Bradel's or Ferret's, should indicate that they have the biggest discrepency and really should deserve a second glance. (Of course, you are allowed to make your own informed decision; no one should be forced to follow someone just because of an algorithm.) But then you yourself decided that Bradel's RCL work "counts" but Ferret's lack of stories disqualifies her.
So then do my friends count? Do my friends need to like my writing? What if they think my writing blows, but they still like me as a person?
Put another way, let's pretend that we're one year in the future. This system is officially implemented and charted, and thanks to it, the site has reached a bit of an equilibrium. One day, RainbowBob (3540 followers) convinces an RL friend to join the site and write a fic. The fic isn't that great, but solely because they're RL friends, Bob and a few other authors immediately follow him. As a result of being followed by a few popular authors, this new guy shoots to the upper tiers of the chart. Is that just? Did the new author earn these follower-followers, or was it just ponepotism? Or is it merely enough that Bob, having thousands of followers personally, can simply be a trendsetter?
Then again... I suppose we do see this with the Featured Box nowadays, where one author gets all his friends to upvote him, and he shoots up into the box. Is that "just"? He does have several people who like him and like his stories, and the FB is ultimately measuring "heat", so that counts, aye? Yet it definitely feels like he used his friends to game the system. *shrug*
3318266
I actually think "friends" are perfectly reasonable in this paradigm—because friends tend to be people you have, if anything, even more influence over than run-of-the-mill followers. Also because my goal is kind of to become friends with as many people as possible. Horse famous is great, I suppose, but what I really like is when people actually like me. This might actually be a common point with Ferret and I. I think we both kind of try to be the sort of people that other people want to interact with in the community. I'm not quite as snuggly, but I think I can forgive Ferret for beating me on that count.
Also, I kind of suck at my RCL and EQD jobs, so it's hard for me to credit them for much.
Seriously, though, if I had to drop people I'm actively friends with from my list... Well, (1) that'd put me in the very unenviable position of deciding who counts as my friend and (2) even being a bit conservative, I'd probably have to remove about half the people I named on my list.
It also doesn't help that I'm kind of a groupie, and I really, really want to be friends with all the cool kids horse-famous writers.
My point is, Pav, despite being horribly biased on the question, I think friends should count.
Here via Ferret's signal boost. I ran my own numbers mostly out of curiosity; with almost 700 followers (and a lot of people here citing me as one of the followers giving them a boost) I figured I wouldn't be much in the running, but it turns out I've got 32 more-horse-famous folks watching me for a total of 40,524. I guess this means I need to get to publishing more so I can rocket up the list and sell out!
If I only had 600 followers instead of my current 689, the total would be 44,352. So the differences are pretty substantial from picking up new readers! In fact, I just lost 681 "attention from the top" points within the last two weeks, because I just nudged past Pascoite.
(My list: Abramus5250, Appleloosan Psychiatrist, Bad Horse, 3317059, CanterlotGuardian, Chuckfinley, Cold In Gardez, Corejo, darf, Eakin, Foals Errand, GaryOak, gearsofsolitude, Georg, GhostOfHeraclitus, HoofBitingActionOverload, Hoopy McGee, Jake the Army Guy, JohnPerry, KelloggsKookieKrisp, Majin Syeekoh, Masterweaver, MrNumbers, Present Perfect, 3317088, 3317072, SPark, Steel Resolve, The Elusive Badgerpony, TheWraithWriter, Titanium Dragon, Vengeful Spirit)
3327973
I had a similar thing where I lost about 1400 by passing Steel Resolve in recent months. At the time I was very excited, but in this game the higher you climb the farther you drop.
3328005 Well, in this game the higher you climb, you're not unsung anymore. Other ponies know you exist and tell stories! And you can continue on the basis of folks having some idea who you are and what you do.
...So, an honest question, what is the benefit in knowing all of this?
3331262 I already found a good writer I'd never heard of before, xjuggernaughtx
That's the only benefit, discovering good writers you HADN'T heard of. There's no correlation between goodness and popularity, but people continue to like good stuff once they're aware it exists. So, this just finds good stuff you're less likely to be aware of.
3331269 Oh. Well yeah, that is a good benefit. ^^
This is sad. I have no idea how you guys are calculating your numbers, and I work with computers for a living. Sigh.
(Waits for one of the statistics crazies that live on this site to do the work for me)
Is there a way to sort followers by number of followers they have? Otherwise I'm too lazy to do this right now, but since I have a quite mediocre Writer most of the time, I'm guessing my number for this game is in the 20,000 is there a way to sort followers by number of followers they have? Otherwise I'm too lazy to do this right now, but since I have a quite mediocre Writer most of the time, I'm guessing my number for this game is in the 20,000s
Of course, that number would be a lot higher if Pen Stroke and Brony Writer, both of whom I have ruined with at conventions three times, followed me.