You may have noticed that we had a couple, ah, 'badfics' come through here recently. I took care of one of them, looks like someone else took care of the other. (Thanks, whoever that was.) But that reminded me that I wanted to talk about something.

Bad Horse (Who is pretty good, by the way, you should take a gander at him if you haven't run into him already) recently posted a blog about selection systems and their effects on writing (Which you should really go read. Fair warning, it's quite long. Especially with the comments). This lead to an interesting discussion about how the site's various rating systems could be improved, among other things, but that's not really my point. I realized, as a result of that discussion, that I at least am not really interested in well-rated fics. I'm really not. They are, well-- bland. What I'm really interested in, is great fics that I wouldn't have otherwise discovered.

What does this have to do with you? I'm not entirely sure. This group originally started when me and Periphery were talking about highlighting good fics that never received much attention. So we said 'fics with a low view count' (not much attention) 'and a good rating' (as a proxy for quality). Which is fine, it's a different sort of system, but it's the one we specified. The 'problem', as I approach it, is that that gives us a high concentration of 'merely eh' stuff like Hot Chocolate, A Day in the Life of Opalescence, and The Fiddler's Lament. And there's nothing wrong with that, I've read two of those and they're fine, but they're memorable mainly for their blandness. And what I'm really interested in... How shall I put this. I loved John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, once I finally read it. I never would have read it if it hadn't been suggested to me as a really, really great book, though. (Even then, it took a bit of pestering.) I'm not suggesting that the fandom produces stuff on the same level as Steinbeck (Who knows, there might be, but that's not the point), but that's not entirely the point. True Colors (in our archives) achieves what I'm after. So does The Colour You Bleed, which is not, but you probably haven't seen, since it passed five hundred views months if not over a year ago. I recommend both of those, unilaterally, because they're just that good.

So what does that mean? I dunno. I want to do something with this idea, but it doesn't have to happen with this group. This group, meanwhile, represents an interesting idea, even if it doesn't work very well. There might be a group that already does what I want, and I just need to go find it. Or, I might end up creating a new one. I really don't know yet. But let's talk about it.

Bonus: the Problem With Threads
The last thread I posted pretty much died. Which is too bad, because that is a conversation we really need to have. (Maybe we can have some of it here.) But, apart from sgtnolisten's reply, I didn't really notice that anyone else had commented. No one gets notifications for comments in the threads, just for replies like regular comments. I'll check in latter tonight as well as tomorrow evening, but I don't know if that will be enough.

Yeah, I removed one last night that had more negative votes than positive. I read the first 2 1/2 chapters or so, just to see if the ratings were deserved, and it really was bleh.

It kinda frustrates me, though, because there doesn't really seem like there is a great solution, and the method this group uses is just okay. You can ignore ratings and let anyone submit anything they recommend, but that'll most likely end up with lower overall quality. Some of it's just individual opinion, of course, because even your absolute favorite story is probably going to be disliked by at least a few people. Ratings certainly aren't perfect, but at least it tries to remove some of the bias.

Really it just boils down to the overall problem with Fimfiction itself, there's just sooo many stories here that most will slip by unnoticed, and it's hard to know which ones you'll find most worth reading. I really wish the site still had that recommended stories function that's been gone for a while. That used to lead me to all kinds of interesting stories I wouldn't have seen otherwise. Of course it kinda broke after a while and every story linked to the same few recommendations. Maybe it really only worked when there were still only a couple thousand stories on the site.

I don't know, I don't really have any answers. I guess that's why the group just continues on as it has, when I'm not even sure how many views it generates for the stories here.

And yes, it is rather annoying how you don't get any notification about thread comments.

You know, that hits on a lot of the key points in the discussion linked above -- the really good stories create controversy; and the rating system works merely okay. The most interesting idea, in my opinion, was that maybe the dislike button doesn't get used enough.

What I think I want to do, is have a group that focuses on really, really great stories, and screw the ratings. Not totally, I guess, if you've got a lot of downvotes that probably indicates a problem. But don't care about them a lot. A view cap, that goes up for older fics, and then let people suggest fics, but they have to be confirmed to make it into the folders.

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You might be interested, one of the guys in the thread said that a way he went about finding new stuff to read was to look through the 'favorites' lists of people he was following. Think that might help for you?

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I've done that a few times, but they usually seem to be mostly full of stories I've already read. Plus I don't actually need more stories to read. I already feel guilty about not yet reading the 653 stories in my Read Later list.

But yeah, a confirmation system would work too, as long as you actually manage to read everything, and the group depends on the moderators' personal opinions. Kind of a trade-off, so I'm not sure which would work better.