Are they like the featured stories or just ones that have been recently made/updated?

Featured stories are in the feature box which is as the top of the page.

New stories are to the far left below the feature box. Updated stories are the middle column with popular stories are to the far right.

~Have a good one.

1435820 The popular stories are semi randomized from a pool of stories which have received a lot of activity.

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Ah, I figured it used the old "has the most readers" system. *sigh* I miss being able to see how many other people were reading a story with me. It made it fun to race.

~Have a good one.

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