Story and Chapter Ranking: Likes per Unique Views

This suggestion is inspired by the discussion here and is hinted in this thread.

Currently, the "quality" of a story is measured by total Likes.
So a story which a 1000 chapters (each with 1 Like) will be higher rated than a story with 9 chapters where each chapter got 100 Likes.
If there are two stories with the same Likes per chapter ratio, the one with more chapters is rated better, though the numbers imply that they are equally good.

So currently, the "quality" of a story is rather measured by quantity.

It currently also doesn't matter how many readers actually read the story to achieve the number of Likes.
If you have a chapter with 10 Likes which has been read by 10,000 readers, it will be rated equally to a chapter with 10 Likes which has been read by 100 readers.


So I would suggest using a ranking which bases on "Likes per Unique Views"

A "Unique View" will be counted for every logged in user who opened the chapter for the very first time.

The sum of Unique Views is the set of readers who had the chance to give the chapter a Like.

So the rating would be

Code:

Rating = Chapter-Likes / Unique-Views

The higher the rating, the better the chapter.

Same can be done on a story basis.

Code:

Rating = Story-Likes / Unique-Views-of-all-chapters

Advantages:
- results in more meaningful ratings.
- smaller quality stories can get more attention which can lead to more motivated authors who are more likely to continue their stories.
- self-regulating rating (high rated stories attract more readers. If they think that the story isn't that good, they won't leave Likes and therefore reduce the rating. This also works against upvoting.)

 

Love this idea!

I hope it gets added soon.

 

I think my main concern would be that (in my opinion) certain categories and kinks are easier to "like" than others, especially since likes are visible on a user's profile. Homosexual stories for instance might be at a disadvantage under this system.

Also, many times "likes" don't actually reflect the quality of the chapter. Sometimes very short chapters with a popular kink or idea get a lot of likes, likely the readers trying to prod the author to follow through with the idea in the next chapter. There are other factors besides quality that get the readers to like a chapter. We writers think about and give importance to likes far more than the readers do I suspect. lol

Finally, there is something to be said for regular output of chapters. 1000 chapters with 1 like each does indicate something worthwhile. Not sure what, but something.

That said, I see why you guys like the idea though. Trying to reflect quality over quantity.

I don't have any strong opinions on this, just thought I'd bring up some counter points. I'm just here to write and have a good time.

 

Yeah, I explicitly use "Likes" as a guide to which chapters get an update. That said, I don't have any opposition to the idea, since my "Likes" should still work, it would only affect story/chapter ranking.

 

Well, I don't think so.
Sure, if readers don't press the Like button to avoid revealing that they like a certain fetish, this would make the rating "lower" though we also have this now. Basically, you would have this with every system where the readers aren't honest.
So I think it would rather be advantageous for special kinks. If you have a special kink, the numbers of readers would be significantly lower than for a common kink.
Let's assume we have a total of 1,000 readers.
50% are into a common kink and read the story with this kink -> 500 actual readers
10% are into the special kink and read the story with this kink -> 100 actual readers
Now let's assume that the stories are equally good and every 10th reader presses the like button.
common kink -> 50 Likes
special kink -> 10 Likes
This is the current rating which implies that the story with the special kink is pretty bad in comparison to the common kink story. (20%)
The rating with the suggested system:
common kink -> 50 / 500 -> 0,1
special kink -> 10 / 100 -> 0,1
Here, the rating would be the same.

Now if you assume that only the half of the readers of the special kink "dare" to push the like button, the rating would be 0,05 which would be even 50% instead of 20%.

Probably we do...
Though after all, it is still a rating as we display "Top Stories" based on that numbers.
(Though currently, it is more a popularity meter.)

That there are two pretty bored users? ^^

 

It's not about the popularity of a kink, but the likelihood it will get liked. The counter-intuitive thing is that many of the most popular kinks are EXACTLY the same kinks that people might hesitate to rate. Last I checked ten out of ten of Literotica's top read stories were incest stories. The top rated stories were all fantasy and romance. A big disconnect there.

At least in the current system a less like friendly story might make it to the top list through sheer volume of readers. In that new system it will always be at 0.05 (to use your number) no matter how many folks like it. Easily likable stories with a fraction of the reads and likes would fare far better.

"Though currently, it is more a popularity meter."

I personally don't see anything wrong with that. Popularity is a lot easier to track and rank than any attempt at measuring quality. The Gamer is massively popular, they deserve that top spot. It would feel weird to me if some much smaller story held that spot.

 

I tried to solve the problem of quantity over quality with this suggestion. Either will work for me.

It does feel a little weird that if i decide to read a bit of a story and discover it's not for me, i hurt it's ranking a bit. But I think that's fine as long as there are still the current sorting options.

Likes per Unique View is a bit awkward for a drop down menu. Maybe something like highest quality?

As for the fetishes people are ashamed to like, I don't know much about that topic. However, I think it would effect all stories with that fetish equally, so if someone searched for "forced gay" and sorted by Likes per Unique View, they would still have a good chance of finding a high quality story or under-rated gem.

 

The Gamer deserves its top spot, yes, it's true. I would argue some of the others, such as Apex Seed, DONT. Still others, such as At The Cabin are more or less clinging to their spots by inertia.

 

Hmm, yeah. A drop down menu with "Highest Rated" (most likes), "Most Viewed" (view count), "Highest Quality" (likes per view), "Hottest New Story", etc might be a pretty great idea. Maybe get rid of the Top Stories list altogether.

 

There might be a relation to the fact that the Likes are visible on your profile, though that would be a matter of another suggestion to hide Likes for everyone but the Story Owner / Editors.

Incest stories around here get a lot of attention.
There is an incest story around which has about 28 Likes per chapter with a 100+ depth.

Why write a chapter with 1,000 words to get 10 Likes if you can write 10 chapters with 100 words and get 80 Likes?

Yes, but if you are ranked higher due, a higher ranking, you get more attention. If the story doesn't deliver what it promises, the ranking will decrease.

Popularity pushes popularity. (Exposure. If you don't have "access" to something, you can't even decide if it is good or bad.)

Popularity suppresses creativity. (Just take a look at popular music.)

If a story deserves a top spot, it will hold the spot.
Otherwise, it wouldn't deserve the top spot, would it?

And if there is an undeserved change of ranking — which could I imagine in the beginning — it could be an incentive for readers to develop a feedback culture.

If a story would reach those spots which don't deserve it, the additional reads through exposal would decrease the rating rapidly. (self-regulating)

If you don't continue a story, you obviously don't like it, so this seems to be justified.

I used "Likes per Unique View" only to show its meaning and especially to give a distinction to "Views". I would simply name it "Rating"

Just to be clear, it is about Unique Views and not about the current View count stat. The current View count stat is pointless.

 

Much as I've wished for something better, NEVER GONNA HAPPEN, top stories are here to stay.

 

I started a proper point by point response...but I just don't have the energy. LOL In my opinion the current system is not perfect but it is simple and easy to measure. The popularity of something indicates that there is something there that a lot of people enjoy. Quality is much more tricky to really measure for a variety of reasons.

Honestly I'm good with whatever the powers that be want to do as long as I can still do my thing.

 

That's how THEY win you know, drain your energy till you just give up...

 

Gak! They got me! Rosebud....

 

You stated your opinion and assumptions, so while you obviously don't have to answer, I might still respond to those points to provide additional information about them or state an opposing opinion.

Unique Views are simple and easy to measure as well.

Yes, and that says nothing about the quality of it.
Popularity can be caused by sheer exposure.

 

The power of the 'mere exposure' effect has been vastly overrated in recent years: people seeing something over and over is at least as likely to cause it to begin to annoy people as it is making them like the thing they constantly see.

As an example: the raw volume of suggestions for shaking up top stories has gotten us no closer to actually doing it, but that same volume clearly indicates many are sick of the static list we have now.

 

Exposure is the whole point of the rankings: the stories that people don't see are the stories they never read. However, the idea that front page presence drives views seems to only be correct to a point, Blondie's Adventures has been sitting in "Notable Sex Stories From Backers" for forever, but hasn't been updated in two years and has a very modest number of views/likes.

 

If two equally good restaurants opens at the same time, one at the main street and the other one in a dark back alley... which would be more popular?
If two equally good songs get released at the same time, one from a big label which gets the song played on radio stations and the other from a smaller label with less influence... which would be more popular?

Sure, "nobody" wants to hear Last Christmas anymore but that's another story. (Though it's still popular enough to be heard every year.)

Actually, there are almost none suggestions which aim at the Top Stories.

 

Whenever I finally get home tonight, I'm going to prove you so flagrantly wrong you will be asking for the license plate of the STARSHIP that ran you over.

 

I have underestimated my shier degree of exhaustion, see you tomorrow morning.