Does anyone remember a time when The Gamer, Chyoa edition wasn't number 1 in the top sex stories list? Or for that matter when the top 3 or 4 on the list were not the same as always? The bottom of the list does change up a bit, and there is a story of the week that changes. But I feel more can be done to highlight the excellent stories that dwell in the mid to lower regions of the likes and views list. There is so much good content on this site that gets overlooked. I'm not sure what I'm suggesting here, but I feel a conversation needs to be had about doing more to support and highlight the work of authors often over looked.
I mean, look at the numbers. I try hard, dammit, and have more chapters than any other story in the top ten, but there is no way in cocksucking Christ that Lois Lane's Night Out is getting over 100k likes. The thing is, top-rated stories tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies: the really popular stories get the most attention, which leads to more likes, which leads to them being the top-rated stories and getting more attention. Not sure how you would overhaul that, unless you went to something like "here's the top ten stories that got the most likes in the last ten days," and even then there would probably be some overlap.
I'll overhaul it based on the three "Types" of filters that the site already uses to refine search results (Stories, Chapters, and Authors) and using a particular metric for each to differentiate how they are being rated (Favorites, Bookmarks, and Likes) For stories, my suggestion would be a "Most-Favorited" in the Past Day, Week, Month, Year, All Time differentiation. I choose favorites as a metric since favorites can only be done once per user for a story. It's also a lot more informative of how invested users are to a story since a favorite means they want to get notifications any time that story gets updated, as a "like" doesn't reflect that level of investment to the overall story. All-Time is most likely the same list as we have now, but since a lot of those favorites are likely from its legacy and longevity, I'm guessing the list would be more fluid for the daily and weekly filters if something like this is implemented, and it will highlight newer stories that are getting traction from multiple unique users. For the Chapter Top 10 List, I'm suggesting the metric should be bookmarks and not "likes". Although "Likes" may reflect the quality of that chapter, a bookmark goes beyond that and shows how interested people are in the continuation of that particular chapter/branch, since a bookmark will notify users when a new chapter after that chapter is added. Also, bookmarks can be used fluidly per user, as they can remove a bookmark without notifying the author and adding the newer bookmark to the latest chapter in the branch, making the Top 10 list even more fluid and ever changing at the lower ends of the time filter. The "Notable Authors" section should also be overhauled for the purpose of discoverability as well. Don't base it off of Awards, but the amount of likes that author has received within the same time filters, since that's more reflective of the author's writing activity and quality; in comparison to the Awards System that gatekeeps "Notable Authors" to those who've been on the site from the beginning, as one award is specifically given for being a Day 1-er. You can change that to a "Hall of Fame" section for recognition, but there should be a different list that can be constantly updated for authors as well to help discoverability. Using all three metrics like this per type would give more meaning for each metric a user can give as well, and doesn't limit Rating to just "likes" resulting in the inflation of the importance of "likes" while downplaying the importance of the other metrics. Just my 2 cents. I'm sure there are imperfections to this system that I haven't thought about, but I'm just saying an overhaul can be done if CHYOA cares about growing the discoverability of newer stories on the site and bettering its recommendations to users.
I'd be down with a ranking of "The Authors you Like Most, liked This." Naturally I tend to follow, favorite, and like the authors that are writing things that appeal to me, and they tend to follow, favorite, and like things that would also appeal to me. I've admitted to snooping through the likes in my follows' recent activity to find what they've enjoyed and that's been fruitful to me, so a more formalized way of tracking it would help too.
I agree that it could do with some work. A relatively easy first-pass would be to change it from 'all time' to 'last X months'.
I agree with @saktongmanyak in creating a "Top", "Most Liked" or whatever filter for different time parameters to see what people are really enjoying/reading now. I know there are a bunch of stories on here that are over 5-10 years old and they might still be near the top (overall or in a category) because they were heavy favorites back in the day but only get a trickle of likes and views now. Yet, these stories haven't been updated in years and don't actually get that many views/likes currently, but to @Zeebop 's point, an author with a popular story now may not get the same traction for their story, even if theirs is the story people might be into now.
For me, it's about the not so popular but well written and excellently crafted stories that need help with exposure to a wider audience on the sight. It's almost like we need a book club type thing, where a group of top authors and site management read and recommend a few stories each week. Just something to give authors a helping hand. But a lot of the ideas here are great and should be looked into.
Long time reader on here and 1000% with the frustration of that being basically unchanging. Having it set for "Best this year! " or something not stretching back to the site/db creation. Not sure of a perfect solution. So just echoing here...
I do. That was the time when At the Cabin was at the top forever. Do you mean "Readers who liked this, also liked ..."? Currently, the "Rating" of content is based on the absolute number of Likes, so it basically favors stories with many chapters. (popularity times chapters.) My preferred solution to calculate the "Rating" would be to divide Likes by Unique Views. (Not the currently shown number of Views but the number of logged-in users who had opened the chapter and thus had the chance to Like the chapter and did or didn't like the chapter.) This might already lead to some kind of self-regulation as high popularity might lead to more users and if they don't push the like, the Rating goes down. For top sections, I could imagine having a calculated number "Score" that would determine the order of the elements. New content interaction (Likes, Favs) would add points to the Score. At the end of each time interval (e.g. each week), the current Scores of all stories would be reduced by a certain percentage. (E.g. 5%. The higher the percentage is chosen, the less old interaction is worth in the long run.) The higher the Score of a story already is, the higher is the weekly reduction. At the same time, the addition to the Score would be the same for each story.
When I found CHYOA the bes stories was really good starting place. Now, having been here for a while and having taken a look at all top stories at one point or other, I wish for something that would present stories rated higher but below the top 10. For example picking ten random stories from top 100 or something that tuns out to be sensible and changes every time I visit the main page or at least every few days.
Maybe do something like what NexusMods do to their mods? They have a list of all-time more popular mods that also have the same problem of self-prophecy as popular stories here, but they also have a list of more popular mods among those from the last 30 days. Maybe additional top 10s with stories added, maybe in a few ranges, like one month, 3 months, and one year, could help new stories. Also, allowing an option to see stories in popularity order beyond position 10 would help too.
Rename the current top 10 into "Hall of Fame" and move it elsewhere while putting "Top 10 from last 30 days" as the main page thingy.
