Blog News time!
Sad Tag
I'm adding a sad tag, since everyone wants it. I don't really have the memory required to go back and relabel everything right now, but if you guys email me stories you think need it, I'll start changing them from "Normal" and "Grimdark" to "Sad", the same way I have been with emails for Star tags and Author tags. I wish I set this up when I was relabeling everything with stars.
Star Tags
Star Tags are....weird right now. I think people are scared to vote below a 4 or something. I might axe the entire system, but at least the majority of 5 star stories are good. It's filtering some of the less amazing stories out. I've checked other fic websites, and they seem to suffer from the same problems. Either people don't vote at all, or they are all 5's. I am not sure how to combat this other than ask you guys to vote honestly. It's anonymous, so you shouldn't worry too much about insulting someone.
Quality Control #2
I am getting piles of emails now with some of the most random and strange fics ever, more so than usual. I don't want to completely flood the blog with these, and some of them really are just straight up awful (I had a dirty diaper fic earlier...) All I can ask is that you guys be somewhat reasonable... If you wrote a fic in 5 minutes it's probably not something that needs to be added.
I might add a 500 word requirement or something later on, mainly because people seem to really like taking advantage of the new "bump on update" system. I've received a few stories that were literally just an introduction today, and one that just straight up stopped in the middle, with a promise to continue later.
Also please proofread. I don't have time to dig through all of them. The best fics on the blog are the ones that authors took a lot of time with, even if the star system isn't accurately reflecting that.
Interview with Daniel Ingram
This is actually really exciting. I got an email from Tekaramity a while ago giving me some info he received after talking with Mr. Ingram, and we both agreed that it might be in our best interest not to publish it, just in case it was too much. An hour later I get another email saying Daniel is willing to do an interview for Equestria Daily. It will not be a live interview, and I agreed to let Tekaramity do the actual question asking, but as you have seen from THIS post, we are using questions from the community as a whole for it. Obviously we won't have time for all of them, but we are choosing ~15 of the most-interesting ones for it.
That's it for this one! See yah again at 900k!
38 comments:
Fancy that. We don't dare rate when the fanfics need to be 20% cooler.
ReplyDeleteHah, five ratings at one star avarage? I think they're taking your advice!
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteIt's good practice at least!
I'm pissed when there are okay stories that are getting five stars (ie. After-Mare Day Gras, Stuck), and they are getting much more attention and "popularity" than really good ones that have four stars or less (ie. Luna's Question About Love, Apples and Acres). And then there are super short stories that have just started that are already at five stars. What the heck guys?
ReplyDeleteMight I suggest using more of a 'thumbs up' or 'like' system? I'm not a fan of the thumbs down and dislike since it's all about friendship up in hurr, but I feel that a tally-based rating system will get more accurate results (especially when people are more inclined to vote only when they love something).
ReplyDeleteThoughts?
@Bejoty
ReplyDeleteI tried getting a few thumbs systems to work, but none of them agreed with my template.
I don't like the sound of "Sad" for the tag. How about "Drama"?
ReplyDeleteThe Sad tag is a good idea. I think grimdark should be more war stories (though that's because I kept reading it as Gridmark), and sad should include things like Bittersweet.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the quality control. People (myself included *points to first version of Rejection*) are always tempted to do the bare minimum, which can result in some truly horrible stories. Though I think the majority of what's posted is actually really good (even if it's not my style).
And if you could ever get a thumbs up system working that would be great. I always either rate 4+ or not at all.
Also, yay! 700k!
@Hawkysu
ReplyDeleteAlso, yay for interview!
I think a thumbs up based rating system would be biased toward popular ships and stories that end up at the top of the blog overnight, and sort of leave older, less known pieces out in the cold.
ReplyDeleteThumbs up and down seems like a reasonable middleground
ReplyDeleteAlso about time we got a sad tag.
I don't really get this star system. Sometimes I have chance to vote and sometimes I can't find those stars.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteSome say you need to be logged into your google account to use them.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteThey tend to appear for me; if they don't, refreshing usually brings them up. I'm always logged into a Google account, if that counts for something.
sweet news on the interview :3
ReplyDelete-i agree with the 500word count unless its an extremly specific topic or its meant to be short and it has to be quite good at that, the pony chan's are rather inendated. i don't even go to fanfiction.net anymore their catagory's are busted.
Make 4.5 stars = 4 stars. Problem solved. Maybe.
ReplyDeleteActually I have no idea.
Is there a way to do a 10 star system? I know we are getting into deep shit here, but maybe you should just reset the whole damn thing and make a public announcement for people to vote a bit harsher.
ReplyDeleteI mean for gods sake 3 stars is still "liked it".
Quality control is something that is subjective, I'm afraid. As for the rating system, people tend to only leave commentary for something which they really like/severely dislike. If it's something on the middle ground to them, chances are it'll get sidelined.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I've been wondering for a while as to why "OC" ponies are frowned upon.
Assuming "OC" means "Original Character", I think there would be room for expansion if proper steps are taken to ensure that it doesn't end in a blatant mary sue episode.
I've been thinking of writing an OC story that can utilize the current "Sad" tag for a while now, but I wonder how reception would be like if OC is disliked in general.
@Sethisto
ReplyDeleteGreat minds think alike. And minds like ours too. :p I have been keeping an "emotional" check box for each story but just a few hours ago I changed it to "sad" because that's pretty much what it means. (My latest reply about it even mentions that I put it there despite there not being a label for it.)
I used descriptions and user comments for each story to figure out which got the tag. As of now there are 35 sad stories on the sortable table. So authors, please check your stories and post corrections if necessary.
@Lotte
Pull up some of the OC stories ("There's a tag for that!") and see what the ratings and especially the comments are about it. That plus reading a few of the stories for yourself should give you a good list of dos and don'ts at least.
just out of curiosity, did you read this "diaper fic"?
ReplyDeletedid you like/hate it?
Was it the content, style or format in which it was presented that made you like/hate it?
was the main character applejack?
Who me? im just an anonymous user!
Here's a request: please configure Blogger so that off-site links open in new tabs. I think most users would agree that it would make the website navigation easier.
ReplyDeleteyou've got a lot of fics incoming, by the sound of it, so there may be only a couple of options besides "bumping the blog like crazy" or "dumping the lot somewhere else".
ReplyDeleteYou could request beta readers who will report back whether they think any particular story is worth posting or whether it needs to be improved first, take some of the load off.
Five minute intros and stories that stop dead in the middle should not be posted. Unreadable walls of text or badly hashed-together anti-grammatical monsters really need editors way before unleashed on an ususpecting public...
I guess it comes down to a blog like this being a bad structure for fanfics. I'm not familiar with blogger, so is there a way to drop in posts that do not show up as blog posts, but appear as some sort of side-bar links? I think I'd potentially be happy with a separate fanfics page like the list you have now, where series get some sort of "updated" sign, one-shots get a "todays jumble of fanfics" expandable entry and we stick to the stars system for the more prolific and proficient authors (the two not necessarily being one and the same).
anyway, that's my two bits.
You could try a like/dislike system, and have them sorted into broad percentage categories. I know Youtube does that. If someone has an opinion in the middle, they probably won't vote anyways.
ReplyDeleteI'm in favor of a like/dislike system if possible. Though to be frank, if you look at YT stats you still get the same problem. Really bad videos tend to get a 50/50 split between likes and dislikes, and OK/good videos get almost all likes and maybe %2 dislikes.
ReplyDeleteI think the best thing to do would be to have a split rating based on user-given ratings and individual item view-counts or something. But I can't recommend you any ways to make that into a practical form.
I always get a little uncomfortable when I hear "Quality Control" since I always know there's something I'd like getting filtered out. But I think back to the piles of content on dA that I simply can't keep up with. I'm just gonna trust in your judgement, Seth. You've got my trust. Please don't smash it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCan we have a story archive where anyone can upload any story they've written and then make a post for the exceptionally good ones?
ReplyDeleteI think 3 stars should be "didn't like bu didn't dialike" or "meh".
ReplyDeleteThen like/dislike and love/hate.
The interview should be pretty interesting, couldn't post any questions as they had already been posted. Here's hoping for confirmation on certain things.
As for the 700k+ view count, I predict that it will reach 1 million by the beginning of April, midway at the latest.
@Sandman
ReplyDeleteThe blog seems to be chugging along at +20~25K / day. It might reach the million mark before April.
The interview will stick mostly to FiM's & Mr. Ingram's past & present, since he checked with the producers and can't really talk about future episodes. (Par for the course, here.)
But I've compiled the best questions thus far, and I'm hoping to hear back from him this week. With luck, it won't be a very long wait.
Okay, I've been very much against unfinished stories being on the blog for a while now. ANyone who knows me in the IRC rooms will vouch for my anger & rage at this. Yeah, sometimes my stories or spamfics may be short or have a grammar error here & there, but they are at least a complete story with beginning, middle, & end.
ReplyDeleteNow, I can understand the want for feedback on an unfinished story. Oh, can I understand it... I'm a writer as well! (Some people may not understand why I get a lot of likes, but I look at it as the junk food effect. Sometimes, you just want something light that makes you smile. Not everything can be OMGWTFBBQEPIC!!!! But that's neither here nor there...) So, do what a LOT of us fanfic writers are doing... Use pastebin or google docs to get live feedback from friends willing to proofread! Come to #mylittlepony on the irchighway network or #brony on the geekshed network and ask for opinions! Trust me, you'll get them!
Also, I may end up writing a primer for spamfics to help act as a buffer. Surprisingly, they're not as easy to write as some think! ;) Ah, well!
In closing, I find it a good show of different tastes for different folks on this site. Like Anonymous up there was confused how my Mare-Day Gras story got 5 stars (While I'm still scred someone admitted to clopping to it. WTF, man... WTF!), yet one of the stories they claim is great (Luna's Questions About Love) I personally feel has jumped the shark into 'Just kill it now' land. Ah, well... Opinionated S.O.B. out to go bak to writing... I wanna finish the rough draft of this serious romance fic before fleshing it out & proofreading it to be on the blog later today. Ciao!
As a suggestion, I think shipping fics need a tag for the pairing
ReplyDeleteSometimes, you don't even know what you're reading, it just says "shipping"
Needs a tag to separate clean and innocent shipping stories from more... hot and heavy shipping stories.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I don't think that the real problem is the star system. First, any system will be the same - "Well, I didn't hate it, so I'll go ahead and give it thumbs up/ like."
ReplyDeleteI think the ratings may just look kind of skewed because there are so few people using them. Thousands of hits per day, but fics like "Junior Speedsters Forever" still only has like, 12 ratings total. When more people give ratings, you'll probably see things panning out more properly.
On a side note, I'd kind of like to see the star system integrated into the archive somehow, so that I can open up the archive page and see which stories are 5, which are 3 etc. etc.
Awesome to hear about the interview. I have to ask, was this sparked by the link to Mr. Ingram's website that I posted earlier in the comments for "No DVD or Soundtrack planned for Ponies" post? I'd e-mailed him some time back to offer my congratulations on the unexpected success of FiM, but never thought of the interview angle (though Equestria Daily wasn't as big then as now).
ReplyDeleteAlso, a dirty diaper fic? Seriously, guys? :P
I'd like to read the dirty diaper fic. Where can I find it?
ReplyDelete@"Can we have a story archive where anyone can upload any story they've written and then make a post for the exceptionally good ones?"
ReplyDelete- FanFiction.net
- deviantART
- Google Docs
- Many, many others...
Write it. Throw a link into the /co/ pony thread (or wherever). If people like it will probably get picked up; if it gets good feedback then send e-mail with the link and, please! a title, description, your pen name, and what labels should be on it. (If it's a 'shipping fic. but has multiple main players then throwing in the actual 'ship, say Gilda/Spike etc., would be helpful too.
Explicitly sexual or horrifically gory stories aren't posted here (except for a few that push the envelope — only as examples, of course!). For those AdultFanFiction.net may be the best bet for exposure, other than repeatedly posting the Google Docs link in pony threads.
@"I'd kind of like to see the star system integrated into the archive somehow, so that I can open up the archive page and see which stories are 5, which are 3 etc. etc."
Right now you can use the "Categories" pull-down to select "Star-number" and get a list of stories with those ratings. These lists are updated manually right now, and with over 250 stories so far it's very hard to keep on top of changes.
@Roy G. Biv
Specifying "WIP" (work-in-progress) or chapter story, versus "complete" when sending the info to Sethisto would be great. But again, trying to get information from writers is like trying to herd cats. Feral cats. On cocaine and meth. With lasers on their heads.
@Fairy Slayer
ReplyDeleteThe category thing is fine (and it's obvious that implementing changes is a lot of work)...buuut there is a pretty big difference between "I want to see all 5 star stories in blog entry form" and "I'd like a list of titles of stories about Twilight that have shipping and are 5 stars."
There should also be a
ReplyDelete[comedy] or [funny] tag.
Some shipfics aren't just about sex and kissing
jcghvjkh
ReplyDelete