Holy wowza. · 3:38pm Nov 28th, 2012
Well, I can safely say I never expected this. Yesterday, Flitter was rated #3 on the top listing of all FiMFic stories. I am blown away.
It seems to have shifted around a bit since then, though, which prompted me to do some calculation work on the whole ratings system in general. More on the exciting math later, though.
First, it's time to invent some rating categories! I used some clever url hacking to see the top rating versions of all relevant categories Flitter was posted in, and, well, it just blew me away some more.
I had been wondering where all of these random faves came from, mind you, especially when someone congratulated me on my story out of the blue, in a thread in a forum of a totally unrelated FimFic group. Makes me wonder how most people found the story, really.
Anyway. At the time I post this, Flitter is:
* the #4 story on all of FimFic
* the #1 OC story
* the #1 Changeling story (gotta love that new changelings character tag)
* the #1 Adventure story
* the #2 Romance story (and #1 finished Romance story. Told you I was inventing categories 
)
For those interested in the url hacks I used, one was inserting character IDs taken from the html source of the "add/edit story" page into the Mane 6 search urls, the other was adding the "order=top" parameter to the urls. Both functions SHOULD be available in the normal story browsing controls, in my opinion, but well, we all know FimFic is kinda buggy.
On to the ratings calculation:
The rating of a story is calculated really straightforwardly. It's the percentage of upvotes as compared to the total amount of votes:
rating = upvotes / (downvotes + upvotes)
To calculate the amount of upvotes needed to counter a specific amount of downvotes to achieve a specific rating, this formula can be derived:
required upvotes = rating * downvotes / (1-rating)
For example, at this moment, the highest rated story on fimfic has 1057 upvotes, and 11 downvotes.
1057 / (1057 + 11) = 0.9897003745318352
So, it has a rating slightly above 98.97%
Now, let's see what we have to do to get this same rating, on a story with 12 downvotes.
required upvotes = 0.9897 * 12 / (1-0.9897) = 1153.0909090909 (calculated with non-rounded values)
Difference = 1153.0909090909 - 1057 = 96.0909090909
This means that, to get back to that rating after one downvote, that story would need more than 96 additional upvotes. The highest ratings are VERY sensitive to downvotes, especially if they don't have thousands and thousands of upvotes. And very few fics do.
Mind you, there seems to be some mechanism to balance this for stories with less or more votes. I saw a story with no downvotes and 163 upvotes, and it ended up between fics with a rating of 98.93 and one with 98.64, which would indicate something along the lines of 2 virtual downvotes added to the calculation. Not a clue how this works though. On the other hand, Sunny Skies seems to have a lower rating value than its position in the list seems to indicate, but it has about 4000 upvotes.
On that note, please do be sportsmanlike when voting, and don't go downvoting other stories to get your own, or your favourites, higher in this top. If you haven't read a story, don't rate it, even if you dislike its premise or subject. You've seen the difference one single downvote can make to a story's rating. Note that faving a story has no effect whatsoever on the rating, so always remember to upvote if you fave.
I guess this is it for my rambling. In a few months, the links to the top rated lists above will undoubtedly show some other stories on their top spots, and the only relevant piece of this blog will be the rating compensation formula, and maybe my url hacks. But eh. I felt like rambling today.
Anyway, you guys are awesome. Keep rocking.
YAY!
I was just giving a few of the Changling fics a read, and I have to say this does deserve that #1 spot for finished, and I'm pretty sure what holds the #1 overall :P
On a related note, Equestria Daily rejected my submission 2 times in a row, and I stopped bothering trying to get it posted there.
548053
That was for the Romance category, though.
548055
EqD prereaders are strange and incomprehensible creatures.
548090
They are. They seem to judge stories more on technical writing style details than on actual overall quality
Seriously; if I hear one more person whine about "show, don't tell" just because I describe some details in writing rather than character interaction...
548113
Indeed.
Also: Flitter is best changeling fic?
*completely fails to be surprised*
Congratulations.
I guess you could say...
you weren't prepared for this.
548204
To be fair, many authors haven't discovered the Changeling tag yet; it's pretty new. I know none of Wanderer D's writings include it so far.
548224
Unlike Twilight though, I wasn't prepared for passing the test... especially since I didn't take one
548296
I mean regardless of tags.
...I'm saying Flitter is a brilliant story.
*gives up and just shovels unrefined compliment on your head*
548304
Thank you, thank you... I really need it in these difficult times. Woe is me, I'm not first on the whole site!
On a more serious note... as the blog shows, all it takes is a few downvotes to totally murder the story's current rating, so yeah, I'm not getting too attached to these 15 minutes of fame
First I notice that your story is #5
The next day it's #6
Now it's #3 of all time!?
Well fuck. But then again, you totally deserve to be in the top 3 (or top 10 at the very least).
548405
Once again proving my point on downvotes and the fleeting nature of high ratings... a single downvote threw the previous Romance top story five places down
On the other hand, no matter what happens after this, I can now truthfully say Flitter has been, at one point, the top rated story in every category it is listed in
Wow, Changelings are finaly getting the own tag, finaly, it is so hard to make changeling fanfic when you can not put changeling tag into it, usualy it ends up with Chrysalis tag on it, and her involvement not need to be big.
Ohey Now I'm #1. Like, totally, completely, #1
So frikking screenshotted for the future
http://i.imgur.com/DVMi4.png
Good, goood... so the mind control device is working then?
Once I've finished testing it out some more I'll make the world bow down and watch ponies!
how do you sort by character
548925
I kinda explained that. You first go to the "browse" button at the top of the page. When you mouse over it, you will see icons for the Mane 6 appear. Click on Twilight (or any of the others), and you'll see an "&characters%5B%5D=" (or "&characters[]=", depending on your browser) parameter appear in the url. The number behind that is the character ID.
You can look up character IDs in the html source of the New Story page. Mouse over your user settings (the button next to Dashboard) and open Stories. Click "Add Story". Scroll to the characters, and, for the character you want to search on, right click on the image and find out the filename.
Then open the html source of the page, and look for that name. For example: "discord.png". When you find it, look at the code of the checkbox right before the image tag. You'll see it has [value="53"] in it. That's Discord's character ID.
Now, in the url you got from opening the Twilight Sparkle search, or some other pony, simply replace the number behind "characters%5B%5D=" by that 53.
To sort by highest rated, also add the "&order=top" parameter behind it.
The final url will be:
http://www.fimfiction.net/index.php?view=category&characters%5B%5D=53&order=top
And bam, a search for all stories with Discord, sorted by rating.
CONGRATULATIONS MY BROTHA!
you donge good!
549758
Well, it's thrown back about 120 places now, due to some more downvotes. As I expected. Ah, well. Fun while it lasted, I guess