Popularity re: content – I don’t wholly agree that unpopular fics don’t need to be counted, or that their unpopularity is fair cause for excluding them, even if it’s because HD readers don’t, in some collective way, appear to like the content. A few reasons for that: (1) People may not like the content at the time or in that place, but it could be that a fic never got readership because it was before or after its time in some way, or didn’t find the right venue. So, a fic that took some avant garde literary risks and was published on ff.net. Or fic that dealt with X trope in a moment when X trope was overdone or uncool for whatever reason. (2) People are not always willing to admit to reading certain types of things that they really like. For instance (and this is anecdotal, but I’ve heard similar other things from other people), I have a fic that’s a rarepair involving menstruation kink, bloodplay, dubcon, noncon, and werewolves, and it looks relatively unpopular. But it’s my third most-read fic, on fanlore as an example of menstrual kink, and has more secret, only-viewable-to-the-author-and-then-only-anonymously bookmarks than a much more conventional fic with 2x+ the kudos, and 8x the bookmarks of my H/D fic with the next closest number of kudos. So clearly there’s an audience for it – it’s just not an audience that will (for reasons I completely understand and sympathize with) own that publicly. But assuming that this was unpopular would, I think, be a mistake. Something can appear unpopular or not especially well-liked but still have quite a readership, albeit a silent one.
Which brings me to another point re: popularity: how would we quantify it? Because I agree that it matters, but don’t think there’s one metric that can capture it, both for the reasons above and for the reasons you give re: kudos for Bond.
So, what if we created a scale?
1 – In the bottom 20% for views and/or less than [a number determined by the norms at each database] kudos/favorites, and/or never recced 2 – In the second quintile for page views, and/or in the second quintile for kudos/favorites, and/or recced 0-1 times 3 – In the third quintile for page views and/or the third quintile for kudos/favorites and/or recced 1-2 times 4 – In the fourth quintile for page views and/or fourth quintile for kudos/favorites andor recced 2-3 times (or, recced enough to have earned a hot rec in the daily snitch, which could well increase readership) 5 – In the top quintile for page views and/or kudos/favorites and/or considered a classic (included in lists of classics)
Not all stories would fall neatly into one of these categories, such that a discussion of whether pageviews or kudos or recs was the better measure of popularity. Or we could assign scores that aggregate these factors, such that a fic’s score could be between 1 and 15.
Granted, I’m not sure if this is totally germane to the question, but in terms of how to account for popularity, it’s a thought. It also might add some nuance to the data – for instance, could distinguish between whether there are a lot of bottom!Draco fics and whether there are a lot of bottom!Draco fics being read.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2015-03-20 10:57 pm (UTC)Popularity re: content – I don’t wholly agree that unpopular fics don’t need to be counted, or that their unpopularity is fair cause for excluding them, even if it’s because HD readers don’t, in some collective way, appear to like the content. A few reasons for that:
(1) People may not like the content at the time or in that place, but it could be that a fic never got readership because it was before or after its time in some way, or didn’t find the right venue. So, a fic that took some avant garde literary risks and was published on ff.net. Or fic that dealt with X trope in a moment when X trope was overdone or uncool for whatever reason.
(2) People are not always willing to admit to reading certain types of things that they really like. For instance (and this is anecdotal, but I’ve heard similar other things from other people), I have a fic that’s a rarepair involving menstruation kink, bloodplay, dubcon, noncon, and werewolves, and it looks relatively unpopular. But it’s my third most-read fic, on fanlore as an example of menstrual kink, and has more secret, only-viewable-to-the-author-and-then-only-anonymously bookmarks than a much more conventional fic with 2x+ the kudos, and 8x the bookmarks of my H/D fic with the next closest number of kudos. So clearly there’s an audience for it – it’s just not an audience that will (for reasons I completely understand and sympathize with) own that publicly. But assuming that this was unpopular would, I think, be a mistake. Something can appear unpopular or not especially well-liked but still have quite a readership, albeit a silent one.
Which brings me to another point re: popularity: how would we quantify it? Because I agree that it matters, but don’t think there’s one metric that can capture it, both for the reasons above and for the reasons you give re: kudos for Bond.
So, what if we created a scale?
1 – In the bottom 20% for views and/or less than [a number determined by the norms at each database] kudos/favorites, and/or never recced
2 – In the second quintile for page views, and/or in the second quintile for kudos/favorites, and/or recced 0-1 times
3 – In the third quintile for page views and/or the third quintile for kudos/favorites and/or recced 1-2 times
4 – In the fourth quintile for page views and/or fourth quintile for kudos/favorites andor recced 2-3 times (or, recced enough to have earned a hot rec in the daily snitch, which could well increase readership)
5 – In the top quintile for page views and/or kudos/favorites and/or considered a classic (included in lists of classics)
Not all stories would fall neatly into one of these categories, such that a discussion of whether pageviews or kudos or recs was the better measure of popularity. Or we could assign scores that aggregate these factors, such that a fic’s score could be between 1 and 15.
Granted, I’m not sure if this is totally germane to the question, but in terms of how to account for popularity, it’s a thought. It also might add some nuance to the data – for instance, could distinguish between whether there are a lot of bottom!Draco fics and whether there are a lot of bottom!Draco fics being read.