I'm sure there's actually a reason for the same stories to be featured. But it kinda feels like it's a repetitive cycle of having the same stories be featured, over and over again with a completely different story outside of the usual cycle to be on top for a few days only to disappear. And while I'm sure that those that keep getting featured are well-deserved, part of me can't help but think it's a case of... dynasties? for the lack of a better term. Where, due to these stories already being established and consisting of multiple chapters, stories, branches, and whatnot, as well as many of them letting the wider public a chance to contribute to them, are fed more and more chapters, stories, branches, and whatnot. I suppose that's a good thing as you would want newcomers to read the best of what the site can offer as a hook, line, and sinker. As for some, I think it's discouraging to see the same covers, the same names, and the same titles stay there longer than some authors here, thinking it's futile to make their own stories and simply move on. I'm personally not one of these people, I suppose I'm one of the types of people who don't want to read long and established stories because of how long and established they are, personally speaking.
Do you mean the top ten stories on the sidebar of the homepage? Those are based on 'rating', or total number of likes. The reason they don't change often is because, well, they're the top ten. It takes a huge number of likes to break into that list (over 45,000). For instance, the 11th highest rated story, Lois Lane's Night Out, would still need about 2,000 likes more than At The Cabin to appear on the list. I think that a variety of factors owe to the popularity of these stories, and in many cases, actual writing quality is a very small one, so I'm not sure they should be considered the "best" of the site's offerings.
For a top list, I would prefer something that is based more on quality, not just on popularity. It could also be interesting to have some top list that is mostly based on recent changes/quality/popularity.
Good idea. Sporcle (quiz site) for instance, lets you list the most popular based on forever/last year/month/week, and allows you to list it based on genre too which is quite handy (e.g. there are quite a few genres on CHYOA I'm not interested in, so as a reader looking for something new and a decent standard, I might browse the top10 of the last week in the foot-fetish genre, or something like that). I wonder too if an option to view the top 10 most favorited would be worth looking at.
If the site re-calculates likes based on the chapters that are actually up, I'm sure At the Cabin would drop from the top 10. I recently deleted a big number of my chapters from there. I know it's unusual for the author/creator to say something like this, but I'd really love to take At the Cabin out of the top 10. I recently created a new, improved version of the story, and having At the Cabin in the top 10 all the time only distracts potential readers from checking out the story I really want them to be reading.
There are only a few hundred likes difference to the current 11th, so that might happen anyway. You're overestimating the influence from At the Cabin on your new story. Times have changed a lot since you initially published At the Cabin. Now, stories have to compete with many other stories and it's way more unlikely for a story to have a rocket start. So changes to At the Cabin's visibility won't change the popularity of your new story. I even think that sabotaging At the Cabin in any way would rather lead readers to not read your new story out of principle.
You might be right, I don't know all the factors that influence it, of course. My impression comes mostly from observing facts and reactions from readers over the years. A few factors I'm sure about, others not so much.
Going from my experience, At the Cabin gets new favorites almost all the time, even when there's a few days without chapters. My other stories, though, only get favorites for the span of time they appear in the front page after being updated.
