Story authors

Obviously, you did not pay attention to the comments that were made. Your "recommended stories" algorithm is being gamed, and it was pointed out.

"Number of likes" - Did the comments not mention "like farming"?

"Number of chapters" - Did we not mention stories trending toward minimum length rather than a natural story break, sometimes by filler characters at the end?

"Thumbnail and Description" - Really?

"Newness" - Great, so this works completely backwards to "number of chapters"?

You want some suggestions?

Consider length of chapters ... longer being better.

Might as well dump likes as they are too easily gamed. Maybe number of comments instead?

If authors are holding off on uploading a new chapter until they get a few more likes or comments, then why not just give them the feedback they desire.

Most authors on this site upload their stories for free, so the only reward for them is the likes and comments they get.

It takes a second to like a story and probably less than a minute to write a comment. If you've enjoyed the story then why not give something back. That will then encourage more authors to upload, which is of benefit to everyone.

Are you under the impression that this relates to the comments made?

We were discussing how well, or not, your algorithm works.

In practice, giving them feedback would help and perhaps solve the issue... but in today's internet age, any feedback -good or bad- is good no matter what. Commenting and viewing a story I don't find interesting is equally supportive as someone who does.

In regards to the algorithm, I understand the 'newness' weight added to newly written stories. But, it doesn't incentivise long running, continously updating stories. Therefore incentivizing people to make short stories to grab attention at the top of the section.

Thus leading to the main issue at hand, users putting up 'like requirements' and leaving the story incomplete, moving on to a new one that will generate more attention and take up room at the top of the page. This all pushes other story creators down, thus forcing users to scroll down and search hard for good content.

In summary, the algorithm is easily manipulated. Any feedback is good/doesn't matter to the system. New/concurrent stories are pushed down by multiple stories by a single user.

To be honest, I really doubt things will change here. The only thing that can change is the way we write and how we'll be posting here...for better or worse. Unfortunately if I want my future stories to be read/seen I now have to take in account how this site works, rather than letting it go.

I appreciate you at least being aware of our feedback, and I hope it will lead to improving the site.

Edit: I believe a redesign of the stories section would help, putting 'newly updated', 'new story', 'trending' and 'recommended' all in one page without filtering. That way users can identify new, high quality content without digging around.

Sadly, as I like to write short self-consistent stories, each with their own characters and themes, in a more literary style, I find that they face a very heavy disadvantage.

I could instead write a story with no grammar, no punctuation, where the title is only " gets fat", and the "story" is deliberately just random blabbering about higher and higher numbers showing up on the scale, some poorly written sexually explicit (but in no way erotic) parts which are just laden with expletives without any coherency, then break it up into dozens of very very short chapters (laden with whitespace), and I would get many orders of magnitude more views.

No, I must resist the temptation...

How can likes be easily gamed?

Some users have been putting requirements, "5 likes = 1 new chapter"

Thus, people will arbitrarily follow that rule to keep the story going, liking it to see where it goes. However eventually due to the story's poor quality or the writer giving up, the story will never finish as it won't meet the requirement established. (Or the author gives up and posts a new story with the same requirements)

It's unnaturally adding likes thus 'gaming' them.

As an author who use to “game” for likes it wasn’t my intention to just make it to the top of the board or whatever

When I first started posting on ff I had worked really hard on my first 2 stories yet they both didn’t probably add up to more than 30 likes combined

That was really discouraging and since within a week of ending my stories they were both no longer on the list either

I honestly was asking for likes so I would one be more motivated to write and two so it would become more relevant in as many lists as possible

I never pressured the comment section tho
The comments were for anyone who was keeping up with the story

I would as them where they think the story should go next (since I was writing it as the likes grew) and try to add as many of their ideas as I could

The reason that I later on changed my 5 likes per chapter to 10 likes isn’t because I was “farming” for more likes it was because it was hard for me to keep up with adding a chapter for every 5 likes

I understand everyone’s point in this form

But not every writer out there that’s asking for likes is doing it to get to the top of the leaderboard

When I was working on my 5th or 6th story I suddenly started getting so many hate messages on this issue

Which really affected me mentally and made me delete all my stories from ff

I honestly couldn’t open ff without feeling uncomfortable and unsafe for weeks

I use to find ff as a safe place where we could all share our stories and fantasies

I could have easily started an earnings account,posted a chapter a week and made a little money out of my stories (Which is probably the only way I’d get back to writing on ff if I by some miracle feel comfortable)

But that’s not what I really wanted to do in the first place

Anyway I hope I didn’t leave anything important out

Xoxo-Mia

Mia, I never thought of you as someone gaming the system for likes. I am sorry that all that happened to you and you deleted your wonderful stories.

I hope you will someday write again for free or pay on FF. Don’t think that a few meanies represent the bulk of people here. Don’t forget: Every single one of the likes you received was from an individual who wanted you to keep writing so that readers could continue to enjoy your stories.

In the meantime, perhaps you can post your stories on deviantart, dims or elsewhere.

I’ve written here for a long time, and having even a few people push that like button is very rewarding. I hope you stay connected to the writers and readers here.

Just an added note.

I am pleased to be one of the top listed authors.

However, much of that comes from writing a lot. My 53 stories average about 14 likes, and I only have 5 stories which have more than 30 likes.

I’ve been in a writing block for quite a while, and I feel I owe readers here endings to two of my most popular stories before I move on with new stories.

This has me stuck. If anyone has suggestions to help, please let me know.