The LOEG · 3:01am Aug 7th, 2012
NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS
Hello, FimFiction! This is the League of Extraordinary Gentlecolts (and One Gentlefilly) speaking. We have temporarily hijacked your communications so as to make an important announcement. We may or may not apologize for the inconvenience.
Over the course of the past couple weeks or so, we conducted an experiment of sorts, which may or may not have shed some light on our suppositions as authors and members of this community. We honestly don’t know. We have, however, collected some interesting-looking data. We’ll post it all a bit further down, so try to bear with us. Get ursine. Find your inner grizzly and make it growl.
The basics of our experiment were relatively simple: We got a whole bunch of authors in a room together and asked, “Hey, what would happen if we swapped stories with each other and published them under our own names?”
And then we did it.
It started as a jokey one-off comment on #fimfiction that ended up growing into something much bigger than we could have predicted. We just asked people we knew if they’d want to get in on something like what we were proposing, and they asked people they knew, until we had about 25 authors from all corners of the fandom. Each of them interested in a collaborative story-swapping.
We honestly hadn’t predicted that the League would be as vast as it became, but with as many authors from as many different backgrounds as we had, we saw the opportunity to not only have fun, but to learn. We had authors who were popular enough to be established names in the fandom, and we had authors who were, in comparison, completely unknown.
So we figured that there was a golden opportunity here for us to figure out the mechanics of popularity here. We asked ourselves if a popular author’s stories received recognition solely on their own merits, or if they had a popular author’s name attached to them — or maybe some combination of the two. It’s a somewhat common saying on Fimfiction that “stories are popular because their authors are popular,” so we decided that, while we were having fun, we could test the truth of that statement.
With that in mind, we worked to have popular authors trade stories with relatively less popular authors. If a popular author’s story became famous when posted under a lesser-known author’s name, we figured that would say something. And if a lesser-known author’s story got academy awards under a popular author’s name... we figured that would say something too.
There were few rules as to what we could write. We would write only things that our paired author would be comfortable with, keep it all mostly in good taste, and include a particular phrase shared by all League stories (which you are welcome to try and find).
Really, the best part about this may’ve been that it produced a lot of great stories from a lot of great authors for the pleasure of a lot of great readers. If you read something you enjoyed by an author you’ve never read before, you WIN. If you read something you enjoyed by an author you already love, you ALSO WIN.
Despite what the cold reality of life may tell you, we’re all winners here! Dad, Mom, and your Elementary-School Gym Coach were right after all. Thank you, adult role models. For everything.
Anyway, to keep things from dragging too much, we all will discuss the findings and personal perceptions on our blogs (listed below).
So without further ado, The Gentlecolts and their stories:
Posted on the 24th of July:
Short Skirts And Explosions - I Met a Pony In Hell (And We Kicked Ass Together)
Chromosome - Anno Domini
Posted on the 29th of July:
AestheticB - Twilight Sparkle Gets A Free Salad
Arcainum - Twi Hard 2: Twi Harder
Posted on the 1st of August:
Fenix - The Cellar
Ciroton - Shadow Over Ponyville
Posted on the 3rd of August
Alexstrazsa - A Sound in the Forest
Lucky Dreams - Hoofprints in the Snow
little robot bird (aka lam) - A Glasshouse Butterfly
Kits - I Do
Posted on the 4th of August:
Obselesence - Into the Everfree
Butterscotch Sundae - Fluttershy’s Infernal Adventure
Wanderer D - Tiaras, Spoons, and Feathers
Norse Pony - The Rough in the Diamond
Posted on the 5th of August
Pen Stroke - Fluttershy Wishes
Nines Tempest - Pink Dream
Cold in Gardez - Things Could Be Worse
Rusty the Brave - All Jokes Aside
Posted on the 6th of August
Sleepless Brony - By Celestia’s Name
Hidden Brony - The Literary Appeal
LOEG MIA (but worthy of their place in the League)
Blueshift
Brian Blessed Pony
Zay-el
Gravekeeper
All fics can be found at the "Official LOEG Repository"
Also, several members of the LOEG have posted their own blogs and thoughts about this whole ordeal (blogs updated as posted):
- AestheticB
- Alexstrazsa
- Arcainum
- Blueshift
- Brian Blessed Pony
- Butterscotch Sundae
- Chromosome
- Ciroton
- Cold in Gardez
- Fenix
- Gravekeeper
- Hidden Brony
- Kits
- LittlerobotBird
- Lucky Dreams
- NinesTempest
- Norse Pony
- Obselescence
- Pen Stroke
- RustytheBrave
- Short Skirts and Explosions
- Sleepless Brony
- Wanderer D
- Zay-El
So, this has served its purpose and I'm taking it down now. ~WD
Such a bunch of naughty ponies, and such a damn interesting experiment. Been fun to watch and see the results! I Do and Glasshouse Butterfly are both adorable and amazing stories regardless.
I can't believe some of the most influential and popular authors on this site would go behind our backs to betray us and make fools out of us. This sickens me. For shame.
Been off to a bit of scheming. Sneaky sneaky.
Now, EVERYTHING is as it seems
273261 In particular, I truly thought Kits above such tomfoolery and nonsense. He seemed like such a stand-up pony, and then he goes and does something like this? How dare he! It's monstrous!
273261
273266
This is what you get for snuggling behind my back (and not filming it) ;_;
i.imgur.com/vESj1.gif
i.imgur.com/s3AoP.gif
... wait.
what just happened?
You clever bastards.
statistical data compilation time
I'll post the google doc when I'm done
gamesprays.com/files/resource_media/preview/gentlecolts-pack-5006_preview.png
So what you're saying is, is that SS&E got his featured story from another guy? Wow. I seriously wonder what would've happened if the guy went with his own story.
273268
Hey, it was only behind your back because you didn't roll over!
What was this supposed to achieve?
273280
Look at Pen Stroke and Nines Tempest
Nines' featured under Pen Stroke's name.
Pen's languished with next to no views under Nines'.
273281
make more noise next time. >:|
273289
Now that's an invitation~
273289
Kits has got that right. Nines and me seem to be the example of the expected result. But there are some that didn't fit the expected norm as well as we thought they would.
Okay, now I really -do- understand everything.
273285
SCIENCE! And testing if the author has effect on a story's popularity.
I do wonder how to draw data out of this however. After all, the popularity is still determined by 2 variables in this model: Story quality and author.
It seems near impossible to keep either variable constant so no valid data can be determined about the relation between the 2.
Speaking as someone who's almost a complete outsider to this fandom, I have little choice but to judge stories by their descriptions and contents, because I have no idea who's good or bad as an author - or who's famous. Or infamous. I just don't know.
Anyway, I love things like this. Almost a shame it can't happen again.
dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_TwilightWut.png
I thought the description styling was off for the ones that I tracked, but I still tracked those of whom I follow.
Funnily enough, I tracked both of SS&D's and Chromosome's stories (I follow both) and Cold in Gardez's and Rusty the Brave's stories (neither of whom I follow).
I must however admit that I've been too busy to actually read them even at this point.
MUHAHAHA
I was in chat when you came up with this.
I REMEMBER IT.
TBH, I didn't notice a single one of these stories. Does that make me a bad reader?
This is pure frickin' genius. Nuff' said.
Okay, so who really wrote this blog post? Spill!
273285
Functionally? It was really just an exercise in fun loving group building.
Philosophically? It was an examination of whether quality dictates popularity, or reputation. Do people read your stories simply because they're well known, or because they're good? Are unknown writers unknown because they're bad, or simply because they've no reputation?
From what I've seen so far of the viewcounts (at the time of writing, so this may not hold now that the jig is up) it is the truth. Viewcounts do seem to be skewed towards the better known authors, independent of swapping.
this really made my day!
and for the record: i did think it was a little strange of how the style of certain authors seemed "off", not that the stories in question wasn't good, the style of writing was just different
273329 we can never trust them again!dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/sillyfilly_Twilight_Sparkle.png
I wondered about that logo. I'd been noticing it all over. No explanation until now.
Here I was thinking it was some kind of ponilluminati.
...
I was right.
273285
Have you ever heard of the Judgment of Paris? It's an extremely influential wine-tasting experiment. The Parisians believed that they made the best wine in the world, and that they could distinguish between good wine and bad. However, they were bamboozled twice: first, they were given good wine and told it was both good and bad. Second, they were given American wine and French wine and told to taste them blind. When they believed the good wine was bad, they gave it poor ranks. Secondly, they gave the American wines better scores than the French, which they had believed for centuries must be superior.
Same thing here. The favorite box believes that good stories only come from good authors, just like the Parisians. They only put the ones that pretended to be from good authors up in the box, regardless of the actual quality. They ignored the stories that, however good, were published by lesser-known authors.
Honestly, I don't feel good about it. I feel awful. Firstly, I felt bad because I wanted to read an SS&E story that I never heard about. However, I also feel guilty that the only reason I didn't read it was because it wasn't by him. Thirdly, I felt bad that I only read the Chromosome story because I thought it was an SS&E story.
It's always been my thought that stories got featured by a combination of writing skill, the popularity of the base premise (HiE, shipping, etc.), the popularity of the author, and pure, dumb, unabashed luck. That being said, when you DO post up the results of the experiment, can you post the time they were posted to the front page?
The question remains: where is the interesting looking data? On each individual blog post? Call me lazy if you will, but I'd rather read through a compilation of all the gathered data than read all those blog posts. Not that they are without merit, of course.
And... I really don't believe that this "study" is valid, to be honest. I mean- all of the authors that swapped stories are already pretty well known as good/great writers (for me, at least), making all this collected data very, very dubious.
You guys should've, IDK, chosen more... less-known authors that also casually frequent the chat. Yes, the mediocre ones (not to be derogatory). The ones who have 20 followers if lady luck smiles upon them. The ones who do write passable/good (and coherent) stories, but not the great ones. Then you'd have really interesting results.
so... ok
I knew All Jokes Aside wasn't quite Gardez, and not because of meticulous word-usage study, but because of the indentation style. And there was something off about that new Pen Stroke story as well. What's more, Anno Domini never saw the light of SS&E's
shrineworkshop on /fic/.Of course, I still never guessed that you guys were doing something like this. The old comments on all of these fics are certainly interesting to read now that it's out there.
Well played.
273351
Who ever could you mean?
273379 Everyone in the chat who isn't well known out there. I'm not trying to be specific, Wilhelm.
273351 We got several authors and I certainly don't know the works of all the usual channel users. I read a lot of fics here for approval purposes, but seriously... it's all that could be done at the time and after the nightmare it was to coordinate this small amount of writers, bringing up a lot of others would have been unmanageable.
273389
Yeah, but who would be a choice?
* Cough Wilhelm Cough *
I mean...
You saw nothing.
273340
So a story by an author with an established reader base is going to get more views than a story from an author without an established reader base? Shocking. Authors become popular because they promise and consistently deliver a degree of certainty as regards to quality. Of course, luck is a factor as well, as is the subject matter of the story. But the idea that one story will be more popular than another because more people are reading it isn't some great revelation - it's actually extremely likely.
273343
The feature box is automated, though. I get what you mean, however. People are influenced to favour something that seems popular or notable. It's the "sheep factor", everyone wants to be seen doing what others are doing.
That's the real, insidious problem behind the feature box - more and more, it's being filled with cheap gags and dubious clop rather than any work of fiction that invokes thought and inspiration. It rewards cheap stories and tells the layman "this is what quality writing looks like". That's encouraging more people to write cheap stories and is creating a culture where nobody strives to be better readers or writers. This apathy is going to kill the fandom, I swear.
Can we please instead get some sort of group that finds notable stories basied on literary merit rather than cheap lols? That way, unknown but skilled authors will get the publicity they deserve, and even those who are rejected will learn to improve themselves and aim for a higher standard.
273294
Yeah. You two REALLY highlighted the popular because >popular meme. Lam and I had the opposite happen. Which is totally weird.
Hah. I'm glad that it wasn't 100% popular authors got noticed; it gives me hope that quality writing can still get noticed.
Gee, I never would have figured out that someone with a thousand subscribers would get more views than someone no one had ever heard of before if you guys hadn't done this experiment!
Can you try and figure out if water is wet next time? That seems like something that only the LOEG can figure out!
273394 Well, why didn't you state your interest to Mr. D, then? You silly Willy.
273393 Quite true... I hadn't thought about management... Hmmm... well, I'd suggest pestering knighty or P. about it, but I think both have a lot on their hands already. Still, if it had, say, 20 authors in total (10 good/great paired with 10 passable/good), then it'd offer some interesting results.
What I find most amusing is that I haven't read a single one of these. Although several are on my to read list.
273405
Because I heard that talk about it, but only a little bit.
And I'm rubbish.
I'm not exactly sure how you can objectively measure something like this. If a story that is published under a popular author's name gets popular, how are you supposed to tell if it's because of the name attached to it, or because of the quality of the story? Even if you say the story is "bad," maybe enough people liked it that it got popular anyway. If you say it's good, then the point of the experiment is moot.
I also frankly have no idea why this was posted to the front page of fimfiction. Not sure this is entirely relevant to the site itself, but at least it's not a post about an EQD contest or something.
So yeah, I didn't read any of those... I do have Pink dream saved to read later, but I didn't even see the author of that until just now.
Congrats on the experiment though.
how did I not see those author links the first time... geez
Well for my part, the conclusion is I am more likely to read stories from an author that has previously written things I like
(Read the story posted by RustyTheBrave, liked the one that he actually wrote better now that I have taken note of it)
On factor to consider for those two is I submit stories I like to groups, the other did not have that.
If I had to guess what the results would be......
The publishers with more followers would get a far higher read count.
Stories with more refined grammar will keep readers for the long run but won't matter if the one-shot is good.
I knew Wanderer D something was up when I read the first few lines of "your" new story/ title. You have never written about Cheerlie aside from in passing along with the fact you had just finished Three Sisters' special story and you have never been known to release a new story within such a short time. Plus all your stories are stories with some shipping not stories about shipping.
except for that one real dark shipping story. But honestly that's more of your style.
273396
Equestria Daily.
I have a bit more to say about this, come to think of it.
The results of the experiment – especially in regards to the explosive SSnE/Chromosome swap – are not surprising. An author's popularity does far more for a fic's exposure than its actual quality, simply because of FIMFiction's signal-to-noise ratio. There's a lot of fanfiction on this site, and most of it doesn't have wide appeal. A lot of it is written by very inexperienced authors, or about topics that only a subset of pony fans want to read about, or with enough technical errors to make it plain unenjoyable to read.
If you find a few good authors/ones you personally like, perhaps from EQD or the Feature Bar, you watch them and you read their other work, because then you can know what you're getting. Author-blind archive diving is just much more likely to frustrate you and waste time than, say, consuming the works on a single author's page and then looking at who they're watching to do more of the same.
Is that a problem with the site or the fandom? No, of course not. It's just the nature of things.
Author pages are like Google Adsense links and the front page is like a random stretch of highway with some billboards – you're just more likely to find something relevant to you in the former.