AO3 Stats Memes: no... comments?
I've seen these AO3 stats memes popping up in my flist for a couple of days now, and I'm sorry if I haven't commented on each one of them. It doesn't mean that I don't like them or feel the urge to snob them, just that I've been rather busy with my betas, translations for the OTW October Drive, helping out crack_broom with tidying up their archive, and what
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I know I personally didn't include comments because I saw lightofdaye's post, and he didn't include comments. In true sheep fashion, I just copied what he did. Additionally, the comment function at AO3 is deceiving because of two reasons:
1. Like nightfalltwen has pointed out, the ability to leave "kudos" has drastically cut down on the number of comments left at AO3. I personally prefer to read and leave comments on works at LJ, but I don't tend to use AO3 as more than an archive.
2. The comment count is deceiving. If you're trying to search for stories where the most number of other people left comments, then that can be difficult since -- like LJ -- AO3 counts all comments left, which includes my replies. Currently, The Third Sign has 12 comments, but 4 of them are me replying to comments.
Personally, for what it's worth, I adore comments, and I wish that more people left them. Just hearing (or seeing) what people specifically liked about a story makes my day a little better.
As for which stories topped the hit counts for my meme, I'm totally not surprised. The most popular one features Lily Luna having sex with five different men (not at the same time). I am surprised that my Marcus/Katie fic from interhouse_fest a few years ago is so popular, given it's only a PG-13 rating (same goes for two of my Bill/Fleur pieces -- no graphic sex scenes).
Just my two cents. :)
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I have to admit, first of all, that I only saw memes from my flist, and I've just clicked on yours but it's flocked, so I cannot access it. But if the story you're referring to is "Meet Me in the Red Room" (yes, I might just know the title by heart), I can tell you that it's in my "Marked for Later" and I cannot wait to get to it... (Lily Luna is my favourite character evaaahhhh!) So wait for your hit count to go even higher.
I see. I do love to read on AO3 rather than LJ, in fact I wished that all fests would double post their fics like some are doing. For me, it's just so much easier when there are multiple chapters and I find it easy to bookmark them and get back to them later too. I love that website, but of course I volunteer for them, so I might be biased.. *sighs*
The comment count is extremely deceiving on AO3 (that's something, in fact, that I don't like), but that, in my opinion, could have been one more reason to add them to the stats, since they would have shown the actual comment count (because the stats show the thread number, not the total comments). Of course I've got people replying to existing threads by mistake instead of starting a new one, so even that might be slightly off. But you know what? Seeing people at least mentioning comments and maybe complaining about not getting as many as they used to on other archives would have warmed up my heart - in the sense that I would have known that they cared about receiving comments. Like that, I got the feeling that people didn't care about comments anymore. And in fact, Torino, who started the meme, said that it's a useless stat to her. And that was very saddening for me, but she writes drabbles, which is a slightly different genre from mine, so I probably don't understand the mechanisms of those (I only have three on my account).
As I said, if your most popular stories are not Explicit, then super congrats - and I mean it - because they must be remarkable stories. But talking about the whole archive and not just one person: compare this story's stats: Hailey Potter, the Cock Slut with this: Pursuit of the Jackalope (or, Fantastic Friends and Where to Find Them). The second one is one of my favourite stories on the internet, it is written breathtakingly well, and Stereolightning is one of the best authors I've ever had the fortune to read. But the discrepancy between the two stories' statistics is mind-blowing. Especially since the first one is just plain terrible (from what I gathered from a quick skimming through, tbh, sorry I can't be more precise, but I really couldn't get past the first chapter). u_u
So yeah... and.. hmm, I love Bill/Fleur, I think I have to go to the Archive and have a look at your fics now.. xx
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I just love comments, period. And I'll second what a lot of people here have said -- you leave fantastic ones. Those are the kind of comments a writer dreams about. I think kudos have a place, but I don't think anything can really replace comments. I don't think number of comments is a meaningless stat by any means, but it can be deceiving -- and it may not be a measure of which stories are truly the most popular since not as many people leave comments these days.
You raise an interesting point about fests run on AO3. interhouse_fest has an archive there, for folks to post after the fest is over. I've only participated in one AO3-centric fest (rarewomen), and that is the sole reason (in my opinion) my Patil-centric gen fic has such a high hit/kudos count -- it was written for that fest, and it was never posted in a community on LJ (aside from my personal LJ archive).
"Hailey Potter, the Cock Slut" just sounds terrible, so kudos to you on even attempting to read it! I think AO3 mainly makes it easier for readers to find sexual content, which is why it's so incredibly popular (with the tagging system, which I fully admit I am terrible at).
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Well, you, Nightfalltwen, Cryptaknight, and the others who have replied to this post inspired me to do something about comments. I'm very excited and cannot wait to start putting my plan into action. But you're very sweet, thank you! I love to leave comments just as much as I love receiving them. Oh yes, "popular" doesn't mean "loved", does it? I think I've already been corrected once for the wrong usage of the word..
Oh yes, I love when fests have archives on AO3, it's so much easier to find everything under the same tag. :D And I see what you mean with AO3-centric fests, I've never participated in one - and when I did (kind of--for Smutty Claus last year) my entry was ridiculously bad, so I really cannot use it to compare it with my other stories. But I'm sure those stories are more popular, since you get the attention of the people on LJ and on AO3.
Curiosity killed the cat with that story. It was ugh. AO3 makes it too easy to find what you crave. I'm looking forward to the "Halloween" tag to start to come up this year! I'm in a spooky mood right now. (And I'm OCD so I tag my works in a maniacally meticulous way. And kink tags bring you so many hits.. ;D) Hehe. xx
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On 1342 works, I have a total of 728 comment threads.
The highest number is 20 on a 25 part holiday Snarry from 2012, 15 on a 29 part Teddy/James from this year, then 9 on a one-shot H/D which featured on my Kudos list.
After that it drops to 3 things with 7 threads, 2 things with 6, there are ten a piece for both 5 and 4 comment threads, then 35 for 3 and 98 for two. That totals about 200 of the 728 leaving 528 things with one comment thread each.
So when I say useless, what I am getting at is this. Of course two multi-part things are very high on the list. The difference between 7, 6, 5, and 4 (a total of 25 pieces) is practically nothing. I see no other pattern whatsoever. Why 35 have 3 and 98 have 2, who could possible get any meaning from that?
That isn't to say I don't appreciate comments. I do. Which is why I still post on LJ because I get comments here instead of Kudos. I can't get the stat as easily but I still get more comments per drabble/ficlet on my own journal here than I ever do on AO3 and, of course, fests tend to have more.
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What I gathered from the comments to this post is that people are disillusioned with comments - especially on AO3 (thanks to kudos, maybe?).
I think you're right when you say that you have a high number of shorter works and drabbles on your account, and that reviewers don't always know how to review such works because they are - in fact - too shorts for comments. I personally would still believe that those fics of yours with seven or six comments are more popular/loved than others, but that's my point of view and you don't have to share it at all.
I am really happy to hear that comments are important to you too - as well as all the other people who replied here. Everybody is longing for more feedback, and that's wonderful - I particularly like the fact that my worries about them have been quenched. :) x
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