The irony of the likes and dislikes · 6:11pm Apr 29th, 2015
(Warning: personal rant coming up, filled with opinions and all those things people hate. This is probably going to get ugly.)
Is it just me, or is the likes-dislikes bar not very indicative of the actual quality of the story? It almost seems like if a story has too many likes, it's just not that good.
Now I admit, there are many legitimately good stories with 1000+ likes. I won't deny, there are damn good writers on the site.
But then there's stories like Anthropology, which have an incredible 7000+ likes and 100,000+ views. And I can't bear to read a single word of it. I know, I know, judging a book by its cover, but this is just such a terrible cliche - yet another story about Lyra fapping to humans, despite that entire backstory comprising of one second of season one. But that's a whole other rant. Point is, i'm sure it's a good story with lots of fans, but it just sticks in my craw that something like this has more likes than half my favorites list put together.
Not enough? How about Best Night Ever, a groundhog day clone with ponies in it that somehow has nearly 4000 likes. I really hate this story, because without even reading it I can tell you EXACTLY WHAT WILL HAPPEN. Blueblood will live the grand galloping gala over and over again until he does it right. How does something like this get 3800 likes when everyone knows the exact plot?!
On the other side of the spectrum, there's stories like At The Mall and Cleanup On Smile Five which, despite only having relatively meager amounts of likes, are each good enough quality to pass for an actual episode of the show. Combined, these have less than a tenth of the likes of Anthropology, and yet these are the first two stories I favorited on the site. Not even kidding.
Bottom line? Next time you see a 10,000-like story in the featured box, pass it on by and go down to the real gems in the "new stories" and "recently updated" sections.
Here are some of the stories I read with over 1000 likes that I didn't really like:
My Little Dashie- The most well-known and overrated story I have ever read. It didn't make me sad at all.
Her Weight in Affection- Chrysalis ends up in the human world. Hmm, this is interesting. I think...OH HELL NO!
Dressing Room- I feel torn about this fic; the idea in the fic is very creative, but I wasn't moved by the events in the story. I guess it wasn't my cup of tea.
Know Your Mare- First half of the story was entertaining to a certain extent (I loved the song sequences), but the second half of the story when the author tried to make a story out of a bunch of short chapters dampened my mood.
The fic is currently in my Faves list, but I'm thinking of removing it due to me going "meh" on most of the chapters in the 2nd half and the author writing a few more "bonus" chapters even though it was completed several months ago.(See the EDIT note below)That being said, you are right when you say that the likes-dislikes ratio is not indicative of the quality of the fanfic; some people may like it due its creativity and the "wow" factor, while others will be disappointed due to its corniness.
EDIT: It was a tough decision, but the fact that the author decided to extend "Know Your Mare" after 131 chapters and the fact that he wrote a few more "bonus" chapters after 200+ chapters had made me decide to remove the story from the list and place it in my other bookshelf.
I didn't care for the story with Nyx that was so bland I can't remember what it was called.
Agreed...I just started my first fanfic, and been editing it and trying really hard to make it good. But it has half likes, half dislikes. I know I'm not a wonderful writer, but I feel like with as hard as I'm trying to make it better, it doesn't deserve that many dislikes
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You have to take views into account, and what does it take for a story to be noticed by its niche audience. If a story has 1 like per 100 views, that may not sound great, but it's better then 1/1000 even if the 2nd is more liked overall
Some readers pass stories by unless the tagline catches them.
Some viewers read through, some skim.
Many don't bother liking or disliking
Many think it's rude to dislike
A tiny few only dislike
Some will give a courtesy 'like' as long as it wasn't so bad they felt the need to stop part way in.
Maybe fans of one character or theme are more courteous with likes then fans of another.
My advice is join groups. The readers who would like your story can easily miss it.
Anyway, theres a lot to consider, and I'm sure you don't want to make a career out of figuring this stuff out.