Reader Fame

[Queenfisher]

I am learning more and more about the site, but so far I noticed that there is the Famous/Rising/Known Author labels, but none for Readers? If there are, and I'm just stupid -- sorry!

I'm not sure if this is weird to ask about, but would it be possible to allow some recognition for Readers? Based on number of comments on different books, for example? Or liked comments from the Authors, or the number of Followed Authors in the Reader's profile? The most simple solution would be the amount of books the Reader is following and the amount of chapters read in them, and maybe the amount of reviews written.

Above all, if the Reader has nothing published at all, but is just exclusively on this site as a Reader -- can there not be made a special label like "Star Reader" or something like that? For members who are both Readers and Authors, there can be both labels displayed? Or depending on their personal choice?

I feel like Author recognition is a great thing, but in web novel format, the Readers are just as important and so would warrant recognition as well. Plus, good Readers are indispensable to all Authors, so it's a symbiosis ^^.

(There are plenty of famous movie and book critics in the outside world. Most writers would die to be read or reviewed by a specific critic, so Reader Recognition seems a pretty natural thing to tap into).

Edit.
The actual suggestion to implement which I posted much later in the thread:

1. The easiest way to implement it, in my head, would be to link it to likes to comments in the stories. Like, you get 500 likes on any comments on any stories, and you receive an upgrade to your Reader label. The next label change would be at 1000 likes, and et cetera.


2. More than that -- Reader Fame is a wrong way to call it, especially if what it does is essentially motivate the writers, or both the writers and readers to interact. I would call it Reader Identity, or Recognition instead, with ranks bearing titles like:

-- Engaged Reader (say, 250 likes)

-- Devoted Reader (~500 likes)

-- Motivational or Encouraging Reader (750 likes)

(yes, they're silly, but you get the idea)

-- And the ultimate one -- The Inspiring/Inspirational Reader (1000 likes).

 

[Saileri]

Decent idea, but if not introduced properly it could be a double-edged sword. The number of comments on different books seems fine. Make it work alongside read/bookmarked/favorited chapters/series perhaps. If it comes to writing reviews, it could potentially lead to an influx of them just for the sake of "getting recognition" as a reader. That could work for and against the authors at the same time, as you can imagine I guess.

This should be handled carefully if ever.

 

[Queenfisher]

But how is this significantly different from authors writing more books, or chapters, to the same effect? We all struggle for recognition, and does it really matter what kind of writing is done if it's grouped safely in separate categories (reader/writer)?

Regarding the double-edgedness... I'm unsure of what you mean. As long as reviews actually are legit -- seem like they've done their research and read at least 50-75% of the published material to make it a review and not just a note for self ("I don't like this" around the 1st chapter), then I see nothing double-edged for the writer. Could you explain?

If anything -- look in the Review and Feedback section on this forum. I think most Writers would actually love to be reviewed more... then again, maybe I am mistaken -).

All I mean is that being a devoted Reader is also a non-zero-effort work, and such work would benefit from being rewarded. (I am myself a Reader as well as an Author. I take my Reading very seriously. I was once writing academic reviews of short and indie movies, so yes -- it can be a serious job if one makes it so. Reading takes time as much as Writing does, and commenting and reviewing even involve a lot of... ironically, writing!).

I mean of course, if the review is like two words "I like!" or "This sucks!", then sure! But that's something solved by the prerequisite to what constitutes a review (a certain number of words, and a certain number of chapters tagged as read), for example.

I don't mind just talking about this, too. This topic is overall very interesting -).

 

[GDLiZy]

What would be the requirement that isn't easily abusable and won't encourage spam?

 

[Friend]

I shuddered a bit, thinking of all the ways this could be misused, by a certain type of troll. I believe all Authors will at some point get this; some unknown deadbeat just wants to make a name for his/her/its self, and so goes to whatever story just updated, and ... attempts to destroy the writer's morale. Er, at least this seems the case. It's happened to me, at least once.

Honestly, if this rewarding thought is to be effective, any reader accolades should be per story, and granted by the Author, not by system computation no matter how great a coder Tony is. Or at least per story at first, with maybe an optional threshold later to do multi-level accolades later, the more story accolades they get in time. Because otherwise, a Reader could like one story and be commenting so positively, and get said accolade -- while in another story he/she/it may not even like or care about ... think this accolade gives them a right to speak out and post spurious comments.

Even just looking back into my past chapters, finding the most positive side of it ... heck yeah, I have a few commenters I'd like to award for such comments or positivity which they've given. But also I know, some of these same commenters might not like so much other stories.

The "double edged" nature comes in when you give a Reader a boon, which they use to some unintended consequence on down the line. A boon on one side; a curse on the other side.

Most writers would die to be read or reviewed by a specific critic

Well I cannot/will not presume I'm ever so great as to anyone wanting my readership, for critique reasons; but in the end, why not just ask?

 

[Queenfisher]

That's why I began a thread -- to talk about it and see if there can be a workable solution. The thing about the spam reviews is again -- not the question of whether motivating or praising the reader is bad but the question of what constitutes a review, like I said above.

Giving boons to Readers who care about what they do and obviously are devoted Writers of Non-Fiction that meta-contextualizes Fiction -- is a definite plus, at least in my eyes (maybe I'm alone like that, though). I have seen very devoted and engaged Readers who are so nice you just feel a bit sad they aren't being recognized for what they do.

There is this short SF story called "The Last Reader" about the world of content creation that leaves almost no recognition or motivation for those who consume the content, but only for those who create it. Thus, leaving the world without Readers, with only Writers who aren't being read because of this. It's fun to speculate about, I guess ^^.

Rewarding trolls obviously should not be encouraged. But then, nothing would stop a troll from review-bombing anyone even without a boon. They should be punished in both cases. So I'm clearly not talking about such examples, but of those that write seriously and encouragingly about novels. They are also Writers of a sort, no?

And to approach that, there needs to be:

-- a way to reward Readers by engagement with the book OR the author (one of the first things I offered in my OP), not necessarily decided by reviews;

or, and

-- a way to apply more specific rules for what constitutes a review (which I also mentioned above already).


These two things are not mutually exclusive. Reader recognition =/= review abuse, especially if review abuse is given better rules of what makes it a helpful/valid review and what doesn't.

 

[Queenfisher]

Well I cannot/will not presume I'm ever so great as to anyone wanting my readership, for critique reasons; but in the end, why not just ask?

Because asking is filtering. Only a few authors would ask, and only a few readers would ever respond. Venn's diagram of all readers is not necessarily going to align well. Plus, this forum is NOT visited by all people on SH (the majority of readers don't have the need to), so the filtering is even narrower in this case.

In regards to "dying to be reviewed by a specific critic" -- I was quoting the traditional publishing industry and the mainstream critiquing community at large -- youtube, goodreads, amazon, and such. It is a class of people directly involved in writing and reading, and it's not a small fraction either. More than that -- some of them help spread knowledge of books and movies, which... seems like a good thing???

Sorry if I'm being silly +_+. I was only wondering. (Please don't beat me >_<).

And ah! -- I am not saying I am a super special reader myself -- just that I genuinely like reading well-written reviews and comments, and some critics are as important in studies on literature as authors themselves! Does that not make them writers, too? Only writers on non-fiction?

 

[LostLibrarian]

That's a hard problem. More or less all systems that give the users some kind of reward for activity (titles, badges, levels, etc) end up with more spam. Because a system can't make out, what's useful and what's just spam. So something based on activity might just give more "First" comments and alike.

So for any system to work, there has to be some kind of filter. Which in return either makes a lot of work (a neutral person has to decide) or will end up being used in other way (e.g. readers or author decide what was "good"). That'll just end with an echo chamber effect where only positive reviews are good reviews or only positive comments are good comments.


Which brings us to the important question: will badges or titles for readers actually change the site in a meaningful way? Will more readers make their way to SH and be active, because they can earn titles? Or will readers stay because they got a nice badge? And honestly... I don't know. But I always never saw those author badges, so my focus is probably skewed...

 

[Friend]

Anyway Queenfisher I do support your suggestion; I only wanted to point out my own worries. By all means, if we can give accolade or boon to the readers who participate, and do so well, then I'm for it!

 

[Ral]

From what I can get around here, SH is a author-centric. Such feature would be very low priority, if they would somehow consider it.

 

[Moshi]

That's a hard problem. More or less all systems that give the users some kind of reward for activity (titles, badges, levels, etc) end up with more spam. Because a system can't make out, what's useful and what's just spam. So something based on activity might just give more "First" comments and alike.

So for any system to work, there has to be some kind of filter. Which in return either makes a lot of work (a neutral person has to decide) or will end up being used in other way (e.g. readers or author decide what was "good"). That'll just end with an echo chamber effect where only positive reviews are good reviews or only positive comments are good comments.

I mean, an easy method would just to use the "was this review helpful" as a (semi-neutral) criteria to filter out spam and the like. Just make the badge criteria something like "50 people thought your review was useful", which can be completely automated, and people are rewarded for quality over quantity.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Sounds fun <3

 

[LostLibrarian]

I mean, an easy method would just to use the "was this review helpful" as a (semi-neutral) criteria to filter out spam and the like. Just make the badge criteria something like "50 people thought your review was useful", which can be completely automated, and people are rewarded for quality over quantity.

That might work though I could still see a situation where only "5 star reviews" get a useful for a well-liked story. Somewhat creating an echo chamber where the one line review with five stars earns a badge, while the honest 4 star review won't get it. Though maybe it would also go over well without a problem... I'm glad I don't have to decide such things :D

 

[AliceShiki]

Is there any point to this? Like... I dunno, seems like a really meaningless feature.

 

[CautiousTitan]

I seriously doubt that this will be implemented by Tony. The reason that Authors have titles in the first place is to encourage them to write. It also gives a certain sense of credibility when a reader sees 'Well-known' or 'Famous' Author. Also, the chance of a reader checking out another reader's profile is slim. In contrast, there's a higher chance that a reader will check out an author's profile. So even if the feature was implemented, it wouldn't really serve much use.

 

[Friend]

It's the inverse of swatting bad commenters, haters, trolls. A way to commend those who do comment with positivity or gratitude or genuine critique even.

In reality we should never have even one troll. But human nature being what it is ... sometimes we authors will want one or the other for our readers or reviewers. Either a 'Saving Scribble' award for good conduct ... or a giant 'kill switch' for the trolls and other fanatic deadbeats.

 

[AkalE]

Fame.... Aah the life!
It would be wonderful.... Red carpets, Champaign and interviews...
No? Meh I'll settle for whatever I can get then :(

 

[Goswick]

A reputation system like Royal Road has might be a good idea, but idk

 

[Ace_Arriande]

While I don't know about a good way of implementing this for readers that doesn't just encourage/reward spam seeing as how a more complex system would probably require a ton of effort that would be better spent on more important features, I do like the general idea and would especially like to see a way to reward people for reviewing stories.

 

[Sabruness]

Maybe Authors could be able to give some sort of recognition to chapter comments on their novels that they particularly like? Like readers speculating back and forth on chapter developments, foreshadowing and plot points... or just making chapter related jokes that they liked?. We have the thumbs system already but that's anonymous likes.

For anything more complex... any workable ideas are beyond me.