Top Writers Section

[Usoki]

I know this isn't really about a top writer list, but since Sev mentioned a new rating algorithm, I thought I'd mention this.

What if, instead of weighting votes, we had a system that ignored outlying votes? Anything too far away from the average vote is still left for everyone to see, but the actual number isn't used in the story rating average. As new numbers are added, all of the ignored data is re-examined, to see if it still counts as an outlying rating.

Example 1: A story is great, and has four votes- 8,9,9,10. This is clearly a good story. Someone angry guy comes in and says "I am angry I hate you" and rates it a 1. With the old system, the rating would plummet. With this system, the coding would say "The current average is a 9. A 1 is way too far away. I am ignoring the 1. The average is still a 9." Then someone else comes along, and rates it a 7. The coding says "The current average is a 9. A 7 is pretty close to this. I won't ignore it. The average is now 8.6" The angry vote has been ignored, but the reasonable vote has been added.

Example 2: A story is terrible, but two friends came along and rated it 10. Someone recognizes it as terrible, and votes it as a 1. The coding says "The current average is a 10. A 1 is way too far away. I am ignoring this vote. The current average is still a 10." But, all is not lost. A few more people come in and vote it a 1. The coding says "The current average is a 10. But, hang on, I've got another 1 vote. I am no longer ignoring these 1 votes. The average is now (whatever)." And if we get enough low votes, the coding will say "Hang on, the current average is 3. These 10 votes are way off. I will now ignore these 10 votes, even though I once counted them."

I could swear there is a formula for judging data sets like this, but damned if I can remember what it was. Heck, I don't even remember what the name of this method of analyzing data is called.

[Dragavan]

On the topic of Tp Writers Section, I don't exactly like the idea of this as it has been suggested so far. I'd prefer having a spot set aside for kind of an "editor's choice" list of stories. This is something that would have to change every so often (like every month or quarter or whatever) to make it have some kind of meaning.

It would just be a regular member listing their list of suggested stories for you to read. It would not be random, or based on any votes, or anything. It would simply be that person (who would have be identified as it being their list) giving a list of stories they think others should read. The list should have a set number of stories, so each person's list is the same length, and it should not be allowed to include any stories by the person whose list it is. It should also not be allowed to include more than a set number (like 2) stories from the same author, so it doesn't just become a "hey, read this author" list.

The upside would be a list you can judge not only on the stories in it, but by the taste of the person who made the list. If you trust their taste, you know you will most likely like these stories, but if you read a couple and realize they have different tastes than you, then you can choose not to read any more on that list.

The downside is that it would be more work, since it would have to be manually changed on a regular basis and would require users to submit lists. It would also mean that if a new reader sees this list and they don't care for the choices, it could make them think the whole site was not to their tastes... but that is also a problem with any list, no matter how it's made.

I guess it could also be set up to be a randomly rotating set of lists presented by users. Each user could submit a list, which would have to be vetted (to make sure it fits the rules and has no mistakes in it), and then it could be added to the list of lists. When the page loads it will randomly choose one of the lists (which could also have a weighted system if you wanted to go that far) and display that one that time.

[donteatpoop]

I like the last thing you said there Drag, which was almost what I was saying with "recommended reading." I think replacing the random stories on the main page with 'recommended reading' (or editors choice if you want to call it that), and then having a random selection from various users lists. I think that's a swell idea.

[Usoki]

Really, in my mind, there's no way to create a "top writers" or even a "recommended reading" section without creating some elitism. And I don't see how that's a bad thing. I'm awesome. And so are pretty much everyone else who cares enough about writing and the site to participate in the forums. If people can't think to see who's active in the forums, and then read stories by those people? I'm not sure I want them around. That's what I did. Stories like Another Monday Morning were pretty awful, but that's what happens when you let John Q. Public dink around on the internet. The people active in the forums could write well, and that was all that mattered.

Now, as far as eliminating bias while still being happy and fair, Drag's list idea seems like the most neutral, since you are aware from the beginning that it's one person's opinion, and since the shown list changes, it won't be too horribly broken. There's no mysterious council deciding what does or does not go in this category. You certainly can't trust any one category, be it votes or word count or loose ends. I don't know how easy such a thing would be to implement, though. And I don't entirely know why we need such a thing. Has anyone, besides Ves, shown an interest in it? If people leave the site after only looking at two or three stories... well, again, do we really want them here? Are they so lazy that they can't even look around for a story with a competent amount of grammatical skill? Or at least length? I mean, if we do create a new section, we should make sure it is different enough from "Popular" or "Highest Ranked" to warrant the effort going into it.

Someone mentioned that we have a tournament page for this sort of thing. No. Just... just no. It's a start, but that doesn't mean it's sufficient. Overlooking the fact that not everyone participates in these... they're very structured and limited in scope, not to mention the fact that they don't happen very often. I might be the only contest winner who could make a case that my best work happened to win a contest. End's Necromancer certainly doesn't apply, DEP and Ves both have awesome non-contest works... and that's all off of the top of my head. I could find a lot more if I cared enough to tab off of the forums.

I feel like we have this discussion every few years- and every time it happens, we bicker for a bit, and then give up on it. In all honesty... at the end of the day, it's Sev's site. Whatever he wants to do, I can't really complain all that much. I'm actually highly amused by the thought of selling space to people. Granted, I would hope that Sev would have some sort of quality control as to who he'd let buy space, but... it's not a terrible idea. It won't net him much profit, but it will settle our argument quite soundly. Only good stories could qualify, and the part where you have to buy it settles all elitism arguments- either you pay for it, or you don't. There are no "active in forum" or "frequent voter" qualifiers.

[donteatpoop]

Spinoff idea: What if we have a "featured story" every month. Just one.

The story will be selected by voting in the forums. Anyone who comes into the forum can vote, even if they join the forums only to cast their votes. One vote per member per month, cannot vote for yourself.

No one story can be featured more than once and we could have a backlog of stories that have been featured in the past.

Something maybe at the bottom of the story lists on the main page that says "[insert month] Featured Story: [link]title of story and name of author[/link]]"

And then underneath:
"To vote for future featured stories, see [link]this forum thread[/link].

Or some such shit.


This way we can be elitist as fuck, but do it in an open and all inclusive way.

[Locke]

This way we can be elitist as fuck, but do it in an open and all inclusive way.

I like the way you think. Again, I don't care that much one way or the other - and I think the site is fine as is - but this one seems like the best idea I've heard so far. If the site ever garners enough new writing to make the vote each period different and interesting, we could append the non-winning choices, as with the IWT, and make it almost an e-zine, sort of a periodical genre review (I realize I'm reaching with that one. Insofar as any of the ideas appeal to me, though, I still support this on its own more realistic merits).

Might throw it up there as a highlight just above the "popular stories" heading on the main site. Not sure how that would look.

Actually, I have to take issue with "popular stories."

The underlying point of all of this is to give the quality stories some promotion over the junk. "Popular stories" is the first category people see on coming to the site, and it's broken. As I recall, it counts hits for each room, giving an advantage to entries like HOID and AMM; the fact that they're at the top of the site as "most popular" is also self-perpetuating, in that they will continue to be clicked more than other stories (popularity breeds popularity). It might not be a problem if the really "public" ones like AMM could turn the increased attention/contribution into continuously good reading, but that just isn't the case.

Meanwhile, when I glance at "Top Rated," almost all of the higher-rated entries with a lot of ratings are good. I think one of the best things we could do to promote the good stuff is remove "popular stories" from the front page, and possibly fix it so it doesn't count hits for each room and bias the longer stories. Replace it so that "Top Rated" is the first thing visitors see, and adjust the category to favor stories with more than a given number of ratings (or exclude those with only a few, or give a weighted score to those with more).

It seems like an easy idea to implement; I'm not saying we shouldn't also have a "featured" story or stories (which would garner additional ratings for those and help counter any "Top Rated" front-page bias), but I thought I'd put this up for discussion as something that should help.

[Cat2000]

I like your idea, DEP. I think it has a lot of merit and doesn't seem as exclusive as a list of 'top writers' might be to either potential new members or already-existing members.

[Vesnic]

Sigh...I just knew this would spin out.

First of all, we're talking two separate potential changes here:

1.) A "Recommended Writers" section to help newcomers find the good stuff without having to slog through all the bad stuff.

2.) A weighted rating system, Story of the Month, author recommendations, or other changes that would require some real work on Sev's part.

Everything in category 2 is groovy and I'd like to see some of it happen. However, I'd like to stress again that my initial suggestion is really still a separate consideration, if for no other reason than that it's really really easy and doesn't involve us arguing for months over just the right algorithm. This is how we get stymied sometimes. I'd rather see something happen and try its legs for awhile than get stuck in committee indefinitely.

People have sort of assumed that my idea is elitist, but it's really not. My amended idea of presenting a "Recommended Authors" list fills in a gap, especially for newcomers trying to familiarize themselves with the site. It can also serve to jog the memory of old-timers who are looking for inspiration and aren't sure where to find it. Awhile back, I started a thread asking this very question of the community, and Poop responded that I should check out FunkyMango's work. If FunkyMango had been on a sizable list of recommended writers, I could have just consulted the list. Nothing on the list is written in stone, and I really did envision it as having a fairly large number of names on it. It is not a Top 10 list or other such exclusive thing. It still seems to me like the easiest and fairest way to ensure that authors who've been messed over by ratings still have a chance to be read.

[donteatpoop]

... Which is of course why I called it a 'spinoff idea'.

I guess I could have just made it its own thread, but I figured why bother. Maybe we can have a vote on all the suggerstions and see which one we stand behind?

[End Master]

Ves, you've still got a bunch of people supporting your idea in general, they're just coming up with different ways to go about it. Isn't this a good thing? Some of the stuff suggested so far is even bringing me around to the idea. (Not completely, but then I'm difficult like that)

If we do it the quick way you suggested, you might as well have come up with a list of 25 recommended authors (In no particular order) like this:

Vesnice
Funkymango
Morathi
Celticfrostqueen
Usoki
Katiewroteit
Donteatpoop
Dragavan
Lucid
Dan2
NCPolice55571
Apotheosis
Cat2000
Jeffisthebest
Yazzman
Ghost
Urnam0
Spartan008
Calen
Poopypeanutz
BatCountry
Judgewall
Foxydwarf
EnderWiggin
ChubbyTeletubby

I mean we cold go that route, but I don't think it would change much as you think. I dunno though, maybe all of you tend to get tons of PMs from noobs asking all these questions about what stories they should read (Is this the case? Because I rarely get any messages on here). We certainly don't get many of those questions even from the noobs on the forums from what I've seen.

Plus I'm pretty sure we'd still be arguing who should be on there. Maybe somebody thinks Foxydwarf sucks. Maybe someone else thinks Ghost doesn't belong on there since he only wrote one story. Maybe someone else thinks Joebwoy belongs up there instead of DEP. (LOL at that last one)

[Usoki]

Ves, I can't help but think that we have two entirely different thoughts on where facts end and opinions begin.

Now, yes, I will freely admit the rating algorithm is an entirely different suggestion and isn't really a part of this discussion. This is why Dragavan created an entirely different thread to continue that discussion.

I fail to see how "Story of the Month" or "Author Recommendations" are completely separate and different issues from "Recommended Writers". Seriously, the only difference between these three things is determining who is the person doing the recommending. One is a vote, one is a biased opinion, and the last is... done by the forums? I'm kinda fuzzy on that aspect of it. What's the difference between asking DEP in the forums and reading a list made by DEP and others?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't elitism an entirely subjective concept? I don't see how "you assume it is elistist but it's really not" makes any sort of sense. It's more like "we think that it is elistist, but you think that it is not." And you are more than entitled to think that it's not elistist. But you don't get to say what I should think. Just because it's your idea doesn't mean you get to dictate facts about how we should react to it.

And, yes, I'm being terribly nitpicky here... but if you're going to complain about how we're all getting off-topic when, in reality, we're still going strong and discussing the issue at hand? Then I guess it needs to be said. Now, yes, we're having a spin-off of ideas instead of putting your exact idea up for a yes-or-no vote, but... I'm with End. Isn't it better this way?

[donteatpoop]

The forums one is 'vote in forums' and 'only one story is featured monthly.' If that helps in clarifying what I was talking about suckisucki.

[Dragavan]

I dunno though, maybe all of you tend to get tons of PMs from noobs asking all these questions about what stories they should read (Is this the case? Because I rarely get any messages on here).

No, the only questions I ever get are about when I'm going to finish Days in the Dorm... The only story people seem to care about. Porn.

[Vesnic]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't elitism an entirely subjective concept? I don't see how "you assume it is elistist but it's really not" makes any sort of sense. It's more like "we think that it is elistist, but you think that it is not." And you are more than entitled to think that it's not elistist. But you don't get to say what I should think. Just because it's your idea doesn't mean you get to dictate facts about how we should react to it.

The idea of elitism is subjective to a point, sure, but it's also a very strong descriptor with an equally strong negative connotation, so it should be used carefully.

What I reacted to was the fact that my idea very quickly got pigeonholed as "elitist" without anyone asking for clarification or really attempting a dialogue to express their concerns. Putting their own ideas forth without first really understanding mine is not the same thing as having a dialogue. Just as you say I shouldn't tell you what to think, I say you should consider thinking a bit before you start bandying words like "elitist" around.

The "it's all a matter of opinion" reasoning is being taken too far here. There are existing standards for judging something as "elitist" or not. You can call a turnip elitist, and you have a right to that opinion, but it doesn't make you correct or even in the right ballpark of correctness. Don't let yourself get too ridiculously post-modern. No one seems to have a problem with the contests, in which forum members subjectively judge stories and determine some to be better than others. Likewise, no one seems to have a problem with the idea of a rating system which would make some members "more equal than others". In comparison to these two standards, my idea was far less advanced on the snobbery scale, which is why I suspect that this word was thrown out more as a matter of convenience to easily invalidate my argument than as a real point of conviction.

As for people suggesting their own ideas, I think that pretty much sums up what the forums are all about. However, I believe that the way in which this is done is sometimes detrimental to things actually happening and it quickly becomes more about battling egos than about the issue at hand. Everyone throws in their two cents and at the end of the day, nothing happens. This is why I went out of my way to come up with an idea that left the ratings system totally alone and which necessitated an absolute minimum of time and resources in order to be achieved, while still meeting what several people have suggested is a real need on the site. Since I was the one making the suggestion, it would have been nice if certain people had taken the time to see where I was coming from and made suggestions vis-a-vis the proposed concept. That's how most debate works. If you have your own motion to make, do it like Drag did, in a different thread. Or integrate the two somehow. Or at least show some indication that you've given more than lip-service to considering the first idea.

Would it really be the end of the world to just support someone's suggestion and let it have a trial period? If people don't like it, it can always be changed. I am a little troubled by the ferocious nay-saying that seems to accompany many new notions here, not just mine but others' as well.

Is it your right to be an argumentative nitpicker about absolutely everything? Sure.

Is being an argumentative nitpicker about absolutely everything the best way to encourage an endeavor to grow and change and remain flexible? That's debatable.

[End Master]

What are you talking about? People HAVE given more than lip service to the idea. Everyone has stated their position or positions quite clearly along with other solutions to the idea.

Some people didn't like it, some did, but had other approaches to the idea and DID integrate their ideas with your original one. Nobody here just said "I HATE IT AND FUCK YOU!" they all explained WHY they didn't like it. The only person who really used "elitism" was me, and I didn't call it elitism so much as I used the cruder term of "circle jerk" (And my elitism comment was more for the weighted rating system DEP was proposing and we've already decided that was for another thread) which I genuinely thought it came across as and I stated why.

I mean if we are going to be the ones picking a top authors list, it's obviously going to be a personal preference thing and we're still going to be bitching at each other much like we're doing now. Even if we some how do it in this pure logic vulcan way, it's really not going to be that much different than the top story list. Which makes it a bit redundant. If it's going to just be a list that one person made up, well I think you know what the problem would be with that approach.

You're talking about how you're suggesting something new and how we're all resistant to change, but haven't you just made a couple threads complaining about how you don't like some of the new changes on the site, like the star system, brief story descriptions and the intro pages (All of which I agreed with you on) because you like the old way better?

Just using those examples, it's obvious that bringing change for the sake of changing something is not always a great idea and not to knock Sev, because we know he's a busy guy with a lot going on right now, but really it's not just that simple of a thing of "If we don't like it, we can just change it back!" because Sev tends to disappear for long stretches at a time, so we could get stuck with this "great new idea" that everyone comes to the conclusion that it ultimately sucks for three years. And I think you know that's a possibility considering you were pretty upset about Sev not incorporating the IWT stat stuff right away when he first mentioned years ago that it was on his list of things to do.