Muse's Success

I’m curious to know how the ‘browse stories’ order is defined.  If I order by rating, it’s all over the place.  A 6, a 5, then some 7, then a 5…  Shouldn’t it be in numerical order, from highest to lowest?

The front page list also seems random. Is it ordered by number of reviews, rating, or some other hidden combination?

Cheers,
M.

It’s ordered by a ranking.

It takes into account both reviews, and ratings as well as the user level (don’t think the profile exposes this any more, but the outdated FAQs linked at the bottom of each page has a list) of the person doing the rating. Reviews are worth slightly more, with that amount changing based on whether the review has been found helpful or unhelpful. So I guess you could say its weighted.  If myself or Darkthorn rate something, we have the same amount as influence as a newly registered member. Guests have less influence then members (and like members, we do our best to ensure that they can only rate once per listing, of course there are easy ways around it though), in theory this is to prevent abuse.

This ranking (calculated every six hours) is used for both the front page and the Browse Stories pages.

It needs revising. If you or someone else reading this wants to come up with a better system, even just a Word Document describing the system, I would be happy to implement it and see how it goes (first in a sandbox, then we can make it live).

The displayed rating is just the sum of all ratings divided by the number of ratings. At the moment this only includes ratings from clicking the yellow stars or updating the bookshelf. No distinction is made between guests or members, but this is exposed in the development version of the code (I will get this out sometime - damn assignments/exams and ideas - keep thinking of things to add - have tried to control myself - the update will mostly benefit authors rather then readers though).

The problem with ordering based on rating is that if a story has only 1 rating, and that rating is 10, it is going to be at the top of the list. This isn’t a problem (well it is, but its different) with sites like Digg that get thousands of ratings a day, but we just don’t have the volume (and no answered my topic to help with the promotion side of things).

I should for now and have done this from the start, change Rated on the Browse pages to Ranked.

I hope this makes sense.

I like the formula you use for the front page popular listing; I think it works well, and allows a bit of balance so people can’t easily skew the listings.

But not so much for the browse section.

You have the option to sort by highest rated, lowest, most and least reviewed.  If that’s what I choose, that’s what I want to search by, not the popularity ranking.  I want to see what stories have 10 stars, and what stories have one, listed from highest to lowest.  If you want to search by popularity, then why not include most/least popular in the list, and use the formula?

"The problem with ordering based on rating is that if a story has only 1 rating, and that rating is 10, it is going to be at the top of the list."

But that’s what I want to see.  Just rating, not popularity. 

You have over 300 stories in the list.  If a story only gets one rating, no matter how good, at the moment it is unlikely to be found with the search system you have.  But it still might be a good story, and worthy of further attention.  More people might read it and add their rank; giving, in the long run, a better indication of quality.

But if you hide everything away that doesn’t get attention, then you end up with only the stories already getting attention, getting attention. 

The popularity ranking is important, but so is the ability to search by other values.  Otherwise every search comes up with the same stories, which is incredibly frustrating.

Can you see where I’m coming from?

Cheers,
M.

Yes, I see your point. I’ll make the change/update tomorrow. :)

Wow, that’s got to be the easiest persuasive argument ever! But I’m grateful, and looking forward to the updated browse function.

cheers,
M.

That might be the case. It’s less lines to implement then your persuasive post. :P I’m very open to ideas on how to improve the site. In the end, I think it’s what the web fiction community makes of it. Anyway, it’s implemented as promised. I changed the text for the current option to Most (Default) and Least Popular. Highest and Lowest Rated are now new options in Sort Order, and work as you described. :)

Chris, that’s awesome and works perfectly.  Thank you!  I’ve already found something new that I’ve marked to read.  The listing has thrown up all sorts of hidden gems.

Thanks for listening and for the quick implementation.

Cheers,
M.