May
1st
2015
The oddity of the Featured box. · 5:56pm May 1st, 2015
First, I'm absolutely thrilled that something I wrote was popular enough to make it. It blew my mind, and It took several hours for me to calm down enough to truly appreciate the fact.
Second, I find it hilarious that my story is currently dancing with a porn story for its position on the 10 slots. The fact that last night it was in position number 5 from the top down, with two porn stories after that was perfectly fine to me. Those always seem to sit there for a while, and the good ones usually take an act of god to remove.
The "hotness" rating that gets you featured is pretty much nothing but a "clicks on the story divided by time" function. So long as it's in there and you keep updating, it'll stay forever.
3034201 So what you're saying is that despicable individuals may exploit this to move a story up? hmm...
Nope, I'd rather go finish my space ships.
3034207
It's hardly even an exploit, that's just how that thing works. It's why a story that got featured once gets featured pretty much every time it updates, afterwards - all the people that follow it push it back to the top as they all click the newest update at roughly the same time. It's sloppy design, but eh.
3034207
3034217
This is based on my observations, but here's how I understand it to work:
The first 6 or 7 slots are for brand new stories that lots of people are visiting. This has less to do with the actual rating and more to due with the volume of traffic - I've seen a couple bad stories make these featured boxes due to comment wars. The amount of traffic needed to keep a story in the top 6 or 7 slots increases with time so no story can remain there forever (diminishing returns so the stories will change).
The bottom 3 slots are for existing popular stories that just updated. If you post a new chapter and your story is better-rated than at least one of the stories in the bottom 3 slots, then your story will appear there for a while, or until a more popular story replaces it (had this happen to me one time within 30 minutes of posting).
Featuring in the "new story" slots pretty much guarantees featuring in the "updated stories" slots when you post new chapters, but stories that gradually attract a large audience can also easily get in the "updated stories" slots even if they didn't feature when they first posted (like mine).
3034217
3035190
Shachza is correct. The bottom three slots are reserved for updated stories that have already been featured. Knighty said something about this in a blog post sometime back in '12 or so...
Also, the majority of people don't seem to know about this, because every other blog post/story that I have seen is either 'Oh mah gerd, I've been featured' on a story that was initially featured 7 months ago, or 'Oh mah gerd, My story has been featured five times !!!1!ONE!' when in fact stories can only be featured once and reappear on the bottom 3 when updated.
3035264
Not quite. The bottom three slots are for well-rated stories that just updated. It is not a showcase for already-featured stories. My story was not featured when it first posted (or even after the first update or two), so if the bottom three were just a showcase for previously featured stories, then mine would never have ended up there. But it has, so they can't be.
3035450
You don't have to update your story for it to be featured. It can be featured at any time. I've seen stories suddenly become featured after a several month hiatus due to the story being referenced by someone popular.
It isn't called a feature box for nothing. If t included popular but non-featured stories, it would have to be called the 'featured, and any other mildly popular story box'.
3035487
3035190
Makes sense, thanks. I'll only get excited once, though, I promise.
Congrats. I like the possessive nature Ted has with regards to HIS cultists. I also like the off to business attitude he has in fixing problems he sees and mentally calling out things he hates then saying something different or more tactful. "Why is there a filly in my salad?" The hero in the villins body stepping up as an anti-hero and becoming what HIS people need even when they think they need the opposite is very unique and quite interesting. It deserves the favorites spot.