Implemented Fairer sorting of lists

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SealJohnson

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Currently, the trending lists, tag rankings and series finder—indeed, pretty much everything on this site—are by default sorted by total views.

Total views is a pretty meaningless stat, and using it as the primary means to sort series is, to be frank, screwing over a lot of series posted here.

Why is it meaningless, you may ask? Because the total number of views depends on the number of chapters posted. And a chapter can be any length.

A series with lots of tiny chapters is going to have many times more total views than one with fewer, larger chapters, even if they have the exact same number of readers and the same number of words written. This puts authors in a difficult position. Either they have to game the system by dividing their chapters into tiny snippets posted separately, or their series are less likely to get discovered, and don't get read.

A somewhat related problem: the current trending list creates a massive snowball effect, where the only series being viewed are those that already have the most views. This kind of thing is a problem everywhere, but the trending lists on other sites such as Royal Road are much more successful at getting readers to view new stories. Here, it's mostly the same titles, week after week.

Many of the stats shown next to series in the various lists are equally unhelpful.
  • Number of chapters: Not a valid unit of measurement. A chapter can be any length.
  • Chapters per week: Same problem.
  • Favourites: Depends on the number of chapters.
  • Total views: See above.
Here are some stats that are actually useful for sorting / showing in summaries:
  • Average views: Total views / number of chapters.
  • Number of words: Unlike number of chapters, this accurately represents how much has been written.
  • Words per week: Much more meaningful than chapters per week.
  • Number of pages: Many readers don't know how long a 'page' is, but it's certainly more meaningful than number of chapters.
  • Rating: A bit iffy sorting by ratings, because they're so easily abused. Only useful if you take into account the total number of ratings as well as the overall score (e.g. something with a single 5-star rating should not beat something with a 4.9 average and 50 total ratings).
  • Number of readers: This would probably be my pick for default sorting stat.
 
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yansusustories

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I think that regardless of how you sort the titles the snowball effect you mentioned would be the same. If you sort by views, then the stories with the most views will get even more views. If you sort by the number of readers, then the stories with most readers will be on top of the list and get more readers than the ones at the bottom of the list. It would be the same for any other method of sorting in my opinion. This is undoubtedly unfair but I don't think it is something that can be changed.

Considering that, I actually think it's not that relevant by which parameter the lists are sorted. I don't think views are that bad though. Sure, initially a series with more chapters might get more views if there are the same numbers of readers. But I think it's a little too simple if we think of it this way.
Not every reader reads the whole book (and not every reader favorites every chapter). In fact, it's natural for the views to decline with more chapters because some people will inevitably find that the novel isn't for them and thus drop it. They can do so whenever they feel like it so even if there are a lot of chapters in a novel, they might not benefit from that since a reader won't necessarily read them all.
I also believe (maybe that's a little naive) that a novel will be read if it's good or that at least people will be more likely to stick around (and thus create more views) if it's not that bad. Thus an author that splits up chapters into many little chunks just to get more views might lose readers if it doesn't fit the story. On the other hand, I do believe that there are stories that might benefit from being told in shorter chapters. This probably seems to be beside the point. In fact, I just wanted to mention that I don't think most authors are or would be writing shorter chapters just for the stats.

Other than that, I agree with you that words as a statistic would probably be easier to imagine than pages (Is the average length of a page even defined somewhere on Scribble Hub? My program normally counts a page as about 350 words. I certainly can't imagine that.) and that it might be a nice statistic to have.
I could imagine that having number of chapters + average chapter length (This is one statistic I like!) + words might be a good middle ground. And I think that having a statistic about that for the last week or maybe month would be great.
Edit: It would be great to have that kind of statistics not just for sorting the lists but for each novel in general so readers could check.
 
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Tony

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Currently, the trending lists, tag rankings and series finder—indeed, pretty much everything on this site—are by default sorted by total views.

Total views is a pretty meaningless stat, and using it as the primary means to sort series is, to be frank, screwing over a lot of series posted here.

Why is it meaningless, you may ask? Because the total number of views depends on the number of chapters posted. And a chapter can be any length.

A series with lots of tiny chapters is going to have many times more total views than one with fewer, larger chapters, even if they have the exact same number of readers and the same number of words written. This puts authors in a difficult position. Either they have to game the system by dividing their chapters into tiny snippets posted separately, or their series are less likely to get discovered, and don't get read.

A somewhat related problem: the current trending list creates a massive snowball effect, where the only series being viewed are those that already have the most views. This kind of thing is a problem everywhere, but the trending lists on other sites such as Royal Road are much more successful at getting readers to view new stories. Here, it's mostly the same titles, week after week.

Many of the stats shown next to series in the various lists are equally unhelpful.
  • Number of chapters: Not a valid unit of measurement. A chapter can be any length.
  • Chapters per week: Same problem.
  • Favourites: Depends on the number of chapters.
  • Total views: See above.
Here are some stats that are actually useful for sorting / showing in summaries:
  • Average views: Total views / number of chapters.
  • Number of words: Unlike number of chapters, this accurately represents how much has been written.
  • Words per week: Much more meaningful than chapters per week.
  • Number of pages: Many readers don't know how long a 'page' is, but it's certainly more meaningful than number of chapters.
  • Rating: A bit iffy sorting by ratings, because they're so easily abused. Only useful if you take into account the total number of ratings as well as the overall score (e.g. something with a single 5-star rating should not beat something with a 4.9 average and 50 total ratings).
  • Number of readers: This would probably be my pick for default sorting stat.

I know the current trending is pretty useless right now and that'll change in the future. The current trending is pretty much just a placeholder until I can implement something better. I can't give you an exact time frame of when it'll actually get implemented but I'm working on the site every day. As of now, I'm currently working on the poll feature and that should be done within a week.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll re-visit this thread when I'm ready to implement the changes.
 

Jemini

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As a writer who works their freaking butt off writing chapters that are 4K words long and puts out releases at a rate of 4 per week, I think these changes would be very important and very welcome for me in particular.

The last day view count is helpful, but it still suffers a lot of the same issues mentioned here if someone is gaming the system by releasing multiple short chapters per day. My chapters are long enough I could cut them up and spread them around, but that would really harm my ability to set up narrative through lines and overall drop my story quality.

TL;DR, I'm biased, but my vote is that this should get top priority for the next project after whatever project you're working on is finished.
 

FriendlyDragon

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The last day view count is helpful, but it still suffers a lot of the same issues mentioned here if someone is gaming the system by releasing multiple short chapters per day.
Yes, I agree. I find it quite annoying that someone can just create ten short chapters and release spread out throughout the day and get on the top of trending. I see it happen a lot and it works most of the time. I didn't really complain since nothing is stopping them and it's a legitimate strategy to get exposure for your novel but I would like to see a change.
 

XianPiete

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As a writer who works their freaking butt off writing chapters that are 4K words long and puts out releases at a rate of 4 per week, I think these changes would be very important and very welcome for me in particular.

Are you saying those of us writing smaller word count chapters aren't working our butts off writing? I find this kind of rude. I write as time permits and post multiple times per day as I finish up. I understand some of you might think I am trying to game the system by posting so often, but the reality is that I finish that many of my "smaller chapters" per day. As of right now, my average chapter length is showing as 1263. FriendlyDragon who seems to think those of us at the top are gaming the system, has an average chapter length of 1676. We aren't talking about a huge difference in length of chapter, merely how much more often I write a chapter.

The number two novel, Ero Dungeon has an average word count of 1693. World Keeper an average word count of 2337. The Immortal and His Little Sorceress average word count of 1588. The Reincarnated Vampire has an average word count of 4289. That's the rest of the top five. Just to be clear, I started my series last month on the 23. My previous series here only had a tiny number of views and I wrote just as often as I do now. I don't release at any set time of day, I don't post chapters from another site and use the publishing tools to set a specific time of day... I just write and release. If people like your work, you get views. If people aren't in to it, you don't. There is no magic formula.
 

Jemini

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Are you saying those of us writing smaller word count chapters aren't working our butts off writing? I find this kind of rude. I write as time permits and post multiple times per day as I finish up. I understand some of you might think I am trying to game the system by posting so often, but the reality is that I finish that many of my "smaller chapters" per day. As of right now, my average chapter length is showing as 1263. FriendlyDragon who seems to think those of us at the top are gaming the system, has an average chapter length of 1676. We aren't talking about a huge difference in length of chapter, merely how much more often I write a chapter.

The number two novel, Ero Dungeon has an average word count of 1693. World Keeper an average word count of 2337. The Immortal and His Little Sorceress average word count of 1588. The Reincarnated Vampire has an average word count of 4289. That's the rest of the top five. Just to be clear, I started my series last month on the 23. My previous series here only had a tiny number of views and I wrote just as often as I do now. I don't release at any set time of day, I don't post chapters from another site and use the publishing tools to set a specific time of day... I just write and release. If people like your work, you get views. If people aren't in to it, you don't. There is no magic formula.

Oh, you definitely work your butt off. I've seen your average word count and chapters per day, you definitely write more words than I do and deserve the top spot for your hard work.

You have pretty much put out the perfect work for the current model of the algorithm, and you got there with hard work. I can see where you would be upset by the idea of talk about changing the system, and you have every single right to be. You are also biased on this issue though, so do understand that there are other writers who are writing stories that are good quality and deserve every bit to be on the top list but are not so tailored to the current algorythm and also can't tailor themselves to the current algorythm due to aspects that are actually integral to their story telling model.

My story really is written in such a way that I cannot break it down into smaller chapters and game the system the same way you do. If I did break it into smaller chapters, I could be in the top 10 regularly as well, in fact I have been up there a few times already before the "treadmill" became a bit faster (got muscled out by a bunch of people that were even better than the crowd I was competing with before at the time.) So, I know I am not lacking in quality. The only thing I'm lacking in is a fair system that looks at overall quality rather than things set to appeal better to the very simplistic model being used right now.
 

XianPiete

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You have pretty much put out the perfect work for the current model of the algorithm, and you got there with hard work. I can see where you would be upset by the idea of talk about changing the system, and you have every single right to be.

I honestly don't care about the system. I write because I enjoy writing. I love getting feedback and seeing that people enjoy my story, as anyone would, but I don't write for views.

I only took offense at the character assassination of people writing more often or writing shorter chapters as being inferior writers in some way, that is completely uncalled for and should not be the argument made for changing a system of sorting novels.

I honestly don't believe there is a true "fair" system of ranking novels. Any method you use is going to shuffle they same stories to the top over time. Popular books rise to the top and then being at the top they will continue to have more exposure than newer stories.
 

Jemini

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I honestly don't care about the system. I write because I enjoy writing. I love getting feedback and seeing that people enjoy my story, as anyone would, but I don't write for views.

I only took offense at the character assassination of people writing more often or writing shorter chapters as being inferior writers in some way, that is completely uncalled for and should not be the argument made for changing a system of sorting novels.

I honestly don't believe there is a true "fair" system of ranking novels. Any method you use is going to shuffle they same stories to the top over time. Popular books rise to the top and then being at the top they will continue to have more exposure than newer stories.

Well, my quality would suffer if I made the chapters shorter. As I have explained before, this has a lot to do with style. My style and the tone I have set for my story simply do not work well in short chapters.
 

Jemini

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I would like to bring this subject back to people's attention by pointing out a relatively more new series that really proves the need for a re-assessment of the ranking system.


This is an absolute gem of a series that is on the top list constantly despite having long chapters, a less frequent posting rate, and having an overall low (by comparison) chapter count. The reason it is constantly on the top list is because it is just incredibly good writing.

The thing is, there are plenty of other series that have similarly good writing, but are being forced down by series of lesser quality that get there purely by gaming the system by either posting multiple chapters a day or just having a high chapter count. You might notice that the average star ranking of the series on the top list is around 4.2. This is among the first series ranking above 4.7 to make the top list. This shows that the current system really is favoring system gaming over actual quality.

(NOTE: I would like to point out that there are some exceptions to the rule such as World of Women, which I would describe as something of a psychological horror with an erotic theme in which society itself is the monster. It is incredibly well written, and I think the only reason why it has a rating as low as it does is because people don't like their erotic themed material to actually challenge them by being well written and going down a dark path.)

Perhaps some kind of multiplier can be added in for the average star rating among reviews written on the series? (Counting reviews only in order to avoid unfairly down-ranking world of women, which is treated far more fairly in the reviews which star-rank according to the actual writing quality since they don't feel they have to express their discomfort in the material through a lower ranking and can just express it in text.)

Anyway, I am thinking the formula would be "Views X (total review stars / reviews X5)" This would give a multiplier that is less than 1, and the multiplier can default to 1 for series that have not received any reviews. It would have the problem of being vulnerable to malicious actors, but outside of deliberate sabotage it would add an element of actual quality to the formula and weaken the series that just game the system.
 

XianPiete

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I would like to bring this subject back to people's attention by pointing out a relatively more new series that really proves the need for a re-assessment of the ranking system.


This is an absolute gem of a series that is on the top list constantly despite having long chapters, a less frequent posting rate, and having an overall low (by comparison) chapter count. The reason it is constantly on the top list is because it is just incredibly good writing.

The thing is, there are plenty of other series that have similarly good writing, but are being forced down by series of lesser quality that get there purely by gaming the system by either posting multiple chapters a day or just having a high chapter count. You might notice that the average star ranking of the series on the top list is around 4.2. This is among the first series ranking above 4.7 to make the top list. This shows that the current system really is favoring system gaming over actual quality.

(NOTE: I would like to point out that there are some exceptions to the rule such as World of Women, which I would describe as something of a psychological horror with an erotic theme in which society itself is the monster. It is incredibly well written, and I think the only reason why it has a rating as low as it does is because people don't like their erotic themed material to actually challenge them by being well written and going down a dark path.)

Perhaps some kind of multiplier can be added in for the average star rating among reviews written on the series? (Counting reviews only in order to avoid unfairly down-ranking world of women, which is treated far more fairly in the reviews which star-rank according to the actual writing quality since they don't feel they have to express their discomfort in the material through a lower ranking and can just express it in text.)

Anyway, I am thinking the formula would be "Views X (total review stars / reviews X5)" This would give a multiplier that is less than 1, and the multiplier can default to 1 for series that have not received any reviews. It would have the problem of being vulnerable to malicious actors, but outside of deliberate sabotage it would add an element of actual quality to the formula and weaken the series that just game the system.

When you are at the top of the trending list you get a ton of one-off accounts made by jealous authors who will rate you series one, two or three stars to drive your rating down.

Longer chapters do not mean better stories, that's entirely your opinion. Those of us who write more than you can or do, do not deserve to be accused of "gaming the system." I write the way I write and I release the way I release. As does, Karami, as does Ace. We are fairly consistently one two and three on the trending list. Recently a couple of authors who write from their cell phones have jumped up as trending when they released a large number of short chapters at once, but they eventually drop down the list when they can't maintain that pace.

If we can get the star system to exclude people who make accounts just to post a single star or jealous authors who use a single star to get back at people they dislike from the forums, I would be all for it. I Personally feel the star system is garbage and should be tossed out, It does nothing positive in my opinion. If we are trying to encourage authors to write we should have a positive system in place instead of a "rating" system that is easily abused by the anonymous.
 

lnv

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Why not just make it views * words? This will make it more fairer in terms of trending, (though those with shorter chapters would still have an advantage in featuring, there is no going around that though)

@XianPiete - I think Tony cleans those up from time to time. I have seen 1 star reviews disappear from a bunch on novels. The thing about the trending list in general is that those not on trending are more likely to be found via keywords. Aka, those people are looking for said genre to begin with, those on trending list are subject to a more general audience, even ones who don't like a genre. Now of course there is featuring on NU, but in those cases most people would read the summary and if they don't like it move on. But if you are trending, someone might go "let me see what makes this so popular even though I'm not fond of this genre"

There is always the option of the system Anidb uses which weights people's votes based on how they vote in general. So someone just giving out 1 stars(or 5 stars) would be weighed less than someone giving a more variety of ratings. So create a bayesian rating system would probably output more fairer ratings and prevent abuse of anonymous 1 stars. (I would also exclude any ratings that have not read 3 chapters at minimum unless it is a short story of course. Unlike NU, SH can actually see what a person read)

End of the day, there is no perfect solution, but it's better than nothing...
 

Jemini

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When you are at the top of the trending list you get a ton of one-off accounts made by jealous authors who will rate you series one, two or three stars to drive your rating down.

Longer chapters do not mean better stories, that's entirely your opinion. Those of us who write more than you can or do, do not deserve to be accused of "gaming the system." I write the way I write and I release the way I release. As does, Karami, as does Ace. We are fairly consistently one two and three on the trending list. Recently a couple of authors who write from their cell phones have jumped up as trending when they released a large number of short chapters at once, but they eventually drop down the list when they can't maintain that pace.

If we can get the star system to exclude people who make accounts just to post a single star or jealous authors who use a single star to get back at people they dislike from the forums, I would be all for it. I Personally feel the star system is garbage and should be tossed out, It does nothing positive in my opinion. If we are trying to encourage authors to write we should have a positive system in place instead of a "rating" system that is easily abused by the anonymous.

You fairly consistently are at the top, but you also fairly consistently release 4 chapters a day. Shorter chapters does not mean that your quality is lower, but it does mean that your place is undeserved. Would you still be in the #1 spot if we divided your daily view count by 4? I know being told your position is undeserved cannot feel good, but how do you think it feels to other authors who are trying to write really high quality to have that quality ignored by you using some gimic that takes advantage of the system?

This is the issue, you do not hold the #1 spot because your story is the best one on the site. It is, by definition, gaming the system in order to be #1 whether you mean to or not. There is a lot more to respect Reincarnated Vampire for for consistently being in the top 10 due to the fact that none of the artificial things that undeservedly would raise a story higher apply, it gets all those views because around 4X the people are attracted to each and every chapter as opposed to the other series.

On a per-chapter basis, it really is looking like Vampire Girl is the one that really deserves the #1 spot on the site due to how popular it is. There are also several other series that are the same. Also, Ninetailed-Furball (Reincarnated Vampire's author) did a poll asking about whether or not they should shorten their chapters in order to get a higher position. The vote went overwhelmingly to keeping the chapters long. This verifies that audiences actually do like the long chapters better.

So, all things point to the current model artificially favoring things that are not what the audience actually wants.
 
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DaoFox

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When you are at the top of the trending list you get a ton of one-off accounts made by jealous authors who will rate you series one, two or three stars to drive your rating down.

Longer chapters do not mean better stories, that's entirely your opinion. Those of us who write more than you can or do, do not deserve to be accused of "gaming the system." I write the way I write and I release the way I release. As does, Karami, as does Ace. We are fairly consistently one two and three on the trending list. Recently a couple of authors who write from their cell phones have jumped up as trending when they released a large number of short chapters at once, but they eventually drop down the list when they can't maintain that pace.

If we can get the star system to exclude people who make accounts just to post a single star or jealous authors who use a single star to get back at people they dislike from the forums, I would be all for it. I Personally feel the star system is garbage and should be tossed out, It does nothing positive in my opinion. If we are trying to encourage authors to write we should have a positive system in place instead of a "rating" system that is easily abused by the anonymous.
Completely reasonable and a fair assessment. Do note that you are debating (arguing?) with someone who will not change their view or wording regardless of what you have to say or bring to the table. Their opinion is set and must be 'true'. If you post chapters of shorter length than them, you are simply "gaming the system" in their eyes and apparently that is a 'fact' that cannot be argued despite your schedule and writing style being very different to their own. because apparently verbosity is to be rewarded.

On the topic of rating, what sort of system would you like to see in place of star ratings? the 5 star system is almost uniform across the industry, from sites like amazon, goodreads, etc and most review systems are keyed into a 5 star system. royalroad as we know allows for specific ratings on the grammar, story etc but those are ultimately a 5 star rating system too.

I have suggested previously on NU that things like ratings be restricted to verified users and that reviews limited to an even smaller group who can write proper reviews with as unbiased a grading system as possible. but some people argue that restricting who can write reviews means many stories will go without one and that those who do get them, will have reviews from people who are "biased yet pretending not to be". Though quite frankly, I believe that the only people deserving to write a review are those who are particularly invested in that genre, because they are more prone to compare the story to others like it, rather than some random series that has almost nothing in common. and lets face it, if the person writing the review doesn't like the genre in the first place, how much weight can we actually put on their ratings? ratings and reviews are not a place for the ignorant or "freedom of speech" claimants.

I only read specific genre's and gravitate towards or away from series based on the composition of the tags associated to it. as such when I write reviews, I do so for that story in regards to its genre as someone who enjoys reading them and has a backlog of titles and experiences with which to compare. Even if someone tried to force me to review something outside of my field they would find I won't even bother reading it, let alone leave a poor rating or review because of not liking what it is clearly labelled.
 

lnv

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Completely reasonable and a fair assessment. Do note that you are debating (arguing?) with someone who will not change their view or wording regardless of what you have to say or bring to the table. Their opinion is set and must be 'true'. If you post chapters of shorter length than them, you are simply "gaming the system" in their eyes and apparently that is a 'fact' that cannot be argued despite your schedule and writing style being very different to their own. because apparently verbosity is to be rewarded.

While Jemni's wording is a bit harsh, intentionally or unintentionally, it isn't exactly wrong. That posting more shorter chapters gives you an advantage.

Of course you don't want to end up in same scenario as CN novels where people chapters are artificially lengthened either.

But looking at it from perspective that more releases gives you more featuring on NU, it wouldn't exactly be an issue to balance out those writing long chapters in trending.

I have suggested previously on NU that things like ratings be restricted to verified users and that reviews limited to an even smaller group who can write proper reviews with as unbiased a grading system as possible. but some people argue that restricting who can write reviews means many stories will go without one and that those who do get them, will have reviews from people who are "biased yet pretending not to be". Though quite frankly, I believe that the only people deserving to write a review are those who are particularly invested in that genre, because they are more prone to compare the story to others like it, rather than some random series that has almost nothing in common. and lets face it, if the person writing the review doesn't like the genre in the first place, how much weight can we actually put on their ratings? ratings and reviews are not a place for the ignorant or "freedom of speech" claimants.

While I understand what you are saying, I half agree on this part and half agree with the others. It isn't good to restrict who reviews things, but obviously verified users would give more credibility to a review. So why not just have both but highlight the verified reviews and give verified reviews a boost of 1 like + 20%. So a feature review with 10 likes would count as 13 likes in sorting. This will give verified users an advantage and more featuring in their reviews while at same time allow for everyone's voice to be heard.


I only read specific genre's and gravitate towards or away from series based on the composition of the tags associated to it. as such when I write reviews, I do so for that story in regards to its genre as someone who enjoys reading them and has a backlog of titles and experiences with which to compare. Even if someone tried to force me to review something outside of my field they would find I won't even bother reading it, let alone leave a poor rating or review because of not liking what it is clearly labelled.

While I am same, unfortunately that isn't the case for many people. Remember how on NU, some went out of their way to leave 1 star to all BL novels? There will always be such people unfortunately.
 

Jemini

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While Jemni's wording is a bit harsh, intentionally or unintentionally, it isn't exactly wrong. That posting more shorter chapters gives you an advantage.

Of course you don't want to end up in same scenario as CN novels where people chapters are artificially lengthened either.

This is exactly the point. It is not about shorter chapters = poor quality. It is about shorter chapters having an unfair advantage over long chapters, which some writers may have every reason to post longer chapters and for their writing style the long chapters may improve their work. (Note: For their writing style. That's not to say longer chapters are better, it just means that this author's writing style wouldn't do as well with short chapters.)

It is not a matter of short chapters being lower quality, it is a matter that a 4 star story that posts 1300 word chapters beasts a 4.8 star story that posts 4000 word chapters. I think the 4.8 star story should beat the 4 star story, chapter length has nothing to do with it, but unfortunately in the current system the chapter length actually does have a big influence in favor of shorter chapters.

Also, it's not just that more frequent postings are featured more on NU. There is also the fact that if you post 4 chapters per day, each reader reads 4 chapters and thus it counts 4 views, compared to only 1 view on the longer chapter novel. Once again, it's not that the chapters are short makes it bad. It's that if the chapter's weren't so short, it would not be getting anywhere even close to the high position on the boards that it is getting. This is why I keep using the term "game the system." That is because it quite literally does fit that definition if the short chapter length is literally the only reason it's rating so high.

(Again, not that it wouldn't rate high otherwise, but it likely wouldn't rate AS high.)
 

XianPiete

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Do note that you are debating (arguing?) with someone who will not change their view or wording regardless of what you have to say or bring to the table. Their opinion is set and must be 'true'. If you post chapters of shorter length than them, you are simply "gaming the system" in their eyes and apparently that is a 'fact' that cannot be argued despite your schedule and writing style being very different to their own. because apparently verbosity is to be rewarded.

I am not an unreasonable person though, I polled my readers and if they would like to see the format of my novel change to longer chapters I will oblige them. I don't need the "number one" spot to feel good about myself. I just write my story. If no one was reading my story I would still be writing it. I suppose if I were to increase my word counts to 4000 per chapter and release more than one chapter a day I would still be accused of cheating somehow to get views. I purposely kept my chapters concise, I could easily write 4k words a chapter and if my audience would like that I will.
 

Jemini

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I am not an unreasonable person though, I polled my readers and if they would like to see the format of my novel change to longer chapters I will oblige them. I don't need the "number one" spot to feel good about myself. I just write my story. If no one was reading my story I would still be writing it. I suppose if I were to increase my word counts to 4000 per chapter and release more than one chapter a day I would still be accused of cheating somehow to get views. I purposely kept my chapters concise, I could easily write 4k words a chapter and if my audience would like that I will.

Well, I'm sure people would still accuse you, but it would also be with some respect. It would take a ridiculous amount more effort to post multiple 4K word chapters a day. Thing is, if you increased your chapter size to 4K words, it would place you on a level playing field with the longest chaptered stories on the site. If you are still able to make more than one chapter a day on that standard, that's just you putting in the dedicated effort, and there's no arguing with that.

Again, this whole thing of taking my words to mean "longer = better" is a very superficial and incorrect read of the message. The message is shorter = unfair advantage. An unfair advantage that can, as demonstrated by the example of your story and Reincarnated Vampire, make up for close to a full star ratings' difference.

EDIT: Also, you may say you don't really care about view count, but there are other stories that deserve to have the chance to be seen by the viewers. If you don't care about view count, then why is it that you, in addition to the short chapters, post 4 chapters per day? You must realize that getting the separate view hits for all 4 of those chapters is going to inflate your view count. Karami posts chapters that are about 2K in length, but it is 1 chapter per 2 days. Karami has short chapters, but there is no way to say that he's gaming the system due to the fact that he has such a high position despite short chapters and 1 chapter per 2 days. His position can not be said to be by any unfair gaming of the system.
 
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lnv

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This is exactly the point. It is not about shorter chapters = poor quality. It is about shorter chapters having an unfair advantage over long chapters, which some writers may have every reason to post longer chapters and for their writing style the long chapters may improve their work. (Note: For their writing style. That's not to say longer chapters are better, it just means that this author's writing style wouldn't do as well with short chapters.)

It is not a matter of short chapters being lower quality, it is a matter that a 4 star story that posts 1300 word chapters beasts a 4.8 star story that posts 4000 word chapters. I think the 4.8 star story should beat the 4 star story, chapter length has nothing to do with it, but unfortunately in the current system the chapter length actually does have a big influence in favor of shorter chapters.

Also, it's not just that more frequent postings are featured more on NU. There is also the fact that if you post 4 chapters per day, each reader reads 4 chapters and thus it counts 4 views, compared to only 1 view on the longer chapter novel. Once again, it's not that the chapters are short makes it bad. It's that if the chapter's weren't so short, it would not be getting anywhere even close to the high position on the boards that it is getting. This is why I keep using the term "game the system." That is because it quite literally does fit that definition if the short chapter length is literally the only reason it's rating so high.

(Again, not that it wouldn't rate high otherwise, but it likely wouldn't rate AS high.)

As I said, I agree with you in terms of fairness. BUT, I don't think it is necessary to name examples in this case or highlight saying a 4.8 novel is better than a 4 novel. Remember, the importance here is to make the system as fair as possible, not to make enemies with authors who might be taking advantage of the system (intentionally or unintentionally).

There are many factors that go into a rating that can influence things one way or another, broader genre appeal, how they get traffic and etc. My novel gets a 4.48 rating on RRL and 4.7 rating here, part of that is due to readers on RRL padding my score here. There are also methods of manipulating things that I can think quite a few. It is hard to judge what belongs where, because no 2 circumstances are equal.

Do not put the horse before the cart, let us focus specifically on the fairness of the system and how we should improve it without saying X is better than Y. (I know this wasn't your intention) but this argument is turning personal and that is detracting from the point.

In my opinion, there are 3 advantages that posting more shorter chapters more frequently over long chapters:

1) You get featured on NU more often
2) You get better placement on trending
3) You show up more often on the front page listing

One solution I can think of that would be more fair to everyone, not encouraging word filling while also not encouraging shorter chapters more often might be unique views/week. This would get precisely how "popular" a story is. To handle the featured issue, you can limit to featuring once per day(this will still give advantage to those who post daily over ones posting a 2-3 times per week but nothing you can do). As for the 3rd advantage, there isn't much that can be done there. Maybe to put how many words per chapter average next to each story?
 

DaoFox

『Silkmaid』『Queen Sylvia Glasscrest of Arya』
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While Jemni's wording is a bit harsh, intentionally or unintentionally, it isn't exactly wrong. That posting more shorter chapters gives you an advantage.

Of course you don't want to end up in same scenario as CN novels where people chapters are artificially lengthened either.

But looking at it from perspective that more releases gives you more featuring on NU, it wouldn't exactly be an issue to balance out those writing long chapters in trending.



While I understand what you are saying, I half agree on this part and half agree with the others. It isn't good to restrict who reviews things, but obviously verified users would give more credibility to a review. So why not just have both but highlight the verified reviews and give verified reviews a boost of 1 like + 20%. So a feature review with 10 likes would count as 13 likes in sorting. This will give verified users an advantage and more featuring in their reviews while at same time allow for everyone's voice to be heard.




While I am same, unfortunately that isn't the case for many people. Remember how on NU, some went out of their way to leave 1 star to all BL novels? There will always be such people unfortunately.
I never understood why people would waste their time going through a genre they hate just to rate it negatively -.- people like that shouldn't be permitted to rate anything or leave reviews, because they have no intentions of doing so objectively on a series merits or failings, but 100% personal bias.

as for Jemini's wording, its not so much harsh as it is self-entitled. My personal experience with Jem is they read into your response what they wish to see, infer meanings not present in your posts and argue their entitlement down to the letter.

there are issues with people who post for the trending screen time alone, which is an issue in itself and rightly so, however, the novels who choose to write at this length, do so because they know their target audience.

those who write novels of 1k or 2k words per chapter do so for a different audience than those who write 3k+ chapters. It's almost laughable to assume that "trending" titles need to be fair, because the audience are who decide what ends up there. yet Jemini repeatedly accused Xian of "gaming the system" because he writes shorter chapters. that is an argument based on personal convenience. additionally claiming that a story that has received a higher rating is more deserving than one with a lower rating. scores are subjective and that series of 4.8 rating may have only 10 ratings, while the 4 rating may be the result of 50+, in this scenario which rating is more deserving? perhaps when a rating of 5 from 1-3 ratings comes along, does it deserve to rank higher? what if there is a single 0.1 difference? how many people even rate a series compared to those who read it?

if there is really such an issue with people "deserving" more screen time based on trends, just artificially induce a split, if a series has an average word count below 2.5k it goes in List A and if it has a higher average it goes to List B. though this defeats the simple point of being impartial to the series being displayed, on anything besides their 'popularity'.

Jemini's complaints are ultimately biased, as is almost anyone else's on the topic, one way or another. they feel the system is robbing them of much 'deserved' screen time. On the sole basis that they chose to write longer chapters.

The trending system is slated to be fixed but none of the suggestions so far come close to actually making it any fairer than its current state. Ultimately, different people want the system to give a skewed result in their favour. besides, those series who hold steady in the trends are the only series worth making comparisons to, yet people are determined to argue that these shorter series are less deserving of their ranks, going so far as to claim their only redeeming merit is their release frequency, despite not sharing any similarities to their own work.

Someone can only claim this as a factual statement when the story they are complaining about shares enough similarities to their own that the length of chapters or frequency of their releases become the part of the sole deciding difference to how their traffic fares. rather than treating the faster release of shorter chapters as a multiplicative factor based on word count, perhaps they should first compare the average views per chapter that story is receiving. A comparison that is impossible because such a situation would instead reveal a high likelihood of plagiarism to have occurred.

will I click on a trending series? occasionally. after reading the synopsis, how likely am I to continue to the 1st chapter? only as likely as the synopsis is to my taste. and on the account I do start reading the series, the instant I decide it isn't worth continuing, you can expect to see a drop off in views for the following chapters compared to the earliest. now how much of an impact will people claim I have made when the gap between total views and total/average chapter views remains?

No industry is "fair", the creative arts including writing, even less so. Writers don't even get a say in how well received their work is, lest all writers be international award winners simply for putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.

I am not an unreasonable person though, I polled my readers and if they would like to see the format of my novel change to longer chapters I will oblige them. I don't need the "number one" spot to feel good about myself. I just write my story. If no one was reading my story I would still be writing it. I suppose if I were to increase my word counts to 4000 per chapter and release more than one chapter a day I would still be accused of cheating somehow to get views. I purposely kept my chapters concise, I could easily write 4k words a chapter and if my audience would like that I will.
All the power to you. the fact this even gets brought up is ridiculous, with the validity of the argument credulous. The only people who feel the need to drag others down are those with a personal inferiority complex. the skilled and talented do not fear others like them, only those who feel mediocre in comparison lash out at those who out perform them. It's almost as if people want to win popularity through verbosity.

out of curiosity... How many people have actually criticised you for your releases in the way Jemini has before this thread?
 
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