Did You Know?

Stories under 4,000 words aren't eligible for the Feature Box.

Comments

[Professor Plum]

Yep

[CyberCommand]

this makes sense now but ive seen fics with less than that in the box though

[zaponator]

I actually did know that.
I honestly can't remember where I heard that, but it's been that way for a long while now.

[Arcainum]

Isn't it dumb? I understand the thinking behind it but a single glance at the box shows that it failed. Now instead of dumb 1000 word one-shots we get dumb 4000 word one-shots. And I can't post tweaked Thirty Minutes Ponies and hope any more =p

[Dunsparce]

It's stupid. Stories can be good and not 4k words. They should make it harder to get into and word limit free

[RTStephens]

I thought the cutoff was 2,500. I was half-off.

[star1wars3]

I had no idea

[RBDash47]

1061995
That's EqD, though they seem to be reconsidering.

[Scribblestick]

Did not know this. It's good to know, at least, and it would be nice if site mods were more upfront about it.

[BR]

This changes...Everything.

[PoweredByTea]

I've suspected there was something like that in effect ever since Skywriter wrote Martial Bliss. It skyrocketed to the top of the hot list and remained there for days on end but it never got featured. Word count: about 1300 or so.

On the other hand, Twilight Sparkle Makes a Cup of Tea (word count: 1600 or so) by GhostOfHeraclitus was featured. I'm pretty sure. I remember because when I saw it up in the feature box I realized I'd forgotten to follow him. So I guess that rule was implemented between 24th Oct 2012 and 12th Nov 2012.

So, the limit is at 4000 words then. Good to know for future reference.

[RazedRainbow]

Yeah. Also, incomplete fics that make the featured box the first time around (since the change to the 4000 word limit, I believe) can't get into the featured box when they update—at least from what I can tell.

[Telaros]

So THAT is why there are so many clopfics on the front page!

Most epic multichapter fics are 2500-3500 words a chapter. The Braggart and the Bug series was only accidentally discovered and that started off with smaller chapters. Small example since currently on chapter 10 of the third story in the series.

Holy crap. So if SS&E only did 3k word chapters, we'd not see their stories unless it got propped up there by a mod. I heard way back a discussion to do something like this, but I thought the word count was at 2500 to be features which was 500 less than EQD standards. SHOCKING NEWS but seriously, it totally explains why clops get more features! (and much like Tattle-Tale in the Chronicle after Snap Happy disappeared for a year, FimFic can't live without their clop and foalcons now!)

Man, all that rage and broken hearts from authors and it was just because they were a few hundred words off or a thousand despite having good likes and views. Well, now they know! (hope this is a red post to let all the site authors know xD)

[An Unimpressive]

Last I heard, Neighty was working on a change that allowed shorter fics to get featured, but they had to overcome a small penalty based on how shy of 4k words they were.

I haven't done jack for moderating for about the past month, so I'm not sure where that's at.

[horizon]

1062084
Actually, clop dominates the Mature featurebox because it simply gets more views. In the first 24 hours, I got about twice as many eyeballs from my EqAD feature as I did from my EqD features. (The good news is that EqD has a longer tail of referrals.)

But, yeah, if you've got a continuing story with 2k to 3k word chapters (as my longer stuff is going to), this is a really good reason to write multiple chapters up front before you ever submit the story.

1061963
The policy started in late 2012. Comments on the original post have a little more detail (and some response from site admins).

[Mindblower]

Hm. Does this apply if, say, I were to publish the first two chapters of a story, and although neither chapter on their own breaks 4k, in total they add up to something like 5k?

[oberon]

The threshold should be 2/3 of the mean chapter lentgh.

[Karach]

Um... Forgive me for asking, but does it matter?
I mean, does anyone even looks at the thing anymore?

[k64speed]

1063472 Well, that box is certainly useful for those first joining, as it gives new members a chance to find a place to start reading. ( < It helped THIS newb, surely. )

Also, this was something I missed back when I read the submission rules. o_0