Displaying word count alongside views, rating, etc.

[StillStunned]

Didn't you mean XL-erate?

I thought "accelerate" sounded close enough.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I thought "accelerate" sounded close enough.

If you're going to make it in the world of puns, you have to go the extra mile.(says the girl that just sits in awe as you and Wanda go at each other.)

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Not really. Word count metrics are typically derived from identifying the text characters between blank spaces. The density of the words vary considerably ("I" and "elementary" would both count as single words), which is why sites will place limits on the number of characters and not the number of words. Consider Lit's limits on title length as an example.

I remember from the typing classes I took as well as business experience in the office equipment industry that the "average" word was considered to be made up of five text characters. Using this average, if my longest story here (178K) had the number of words counted, it would be 35,600. I don't believe the average reader would recognize the word count any more than they recognize the character count when it comes to deciding whether or not to read the story or be influenced by its length. What they do recognize when they get to the bottom of the first page, is that there are a total of 51 pages until the end. The number of pages would be even greater on a mobile device.

I honestly don't understand the argument.

Do you think people look at the word count to go "Well, that's gonna take me X minutes to read, I like it!"? I kinda doubt that. But I do believe that readers would use it as a rough estimate of whether or not it's worth clicking on your story.

I saw more than enough comments from people complaining about stories being too short. I even got comments myself that complain about my sixteen-page story being too long. And I, myself, try to avoid all the 750-word projects being posted as "stories". I think it would help correct the overinflated view numbers authors get.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Would anyone else find this helpful?

I realize that there is not a lot of space, especially on the phone version of the site.

Emily

I wouldn't mind having this information displayed. Also, as you said, it would be great if it were possible to download the story with one click in whatever format. SOL, for example, has this functionality. Even if the story has multiple chapters, you can download them all as an integral E-pub or PDF, which is really nice. AO3 lets you download the story in 5 different formats.

 

[StillStunned]

I think it would help correct the overinflated view numbers authors get.

Overinflated, how so? Does a view have more merit somehow because the story is longer?

A click is a click. Readers open the story to see whether they like it. And some prefer short stories, and some prefer long ones. I'll often see something like "14.9k words", and sorry, I'm out. I don't have time for that when I'm browsing for a little inspiration.

 

[intim8]

I don't care on my dashboard, I know how long my stories are, but on the lists for readers - new, top, etc - it would be incredibly useful. A dream feature would be allowing sorting of the lists by word count (as well as rating)

There would be a few consequences for authors. Fewer views, for one, but a somewhat closer correlation between views and actual reads. And probably fewer views and reads for longer stories.

And speaking of views vs reads, it is not very technically difficult to track clicks through to pages and even scrolling. We could see if a reader finished, and if not, see almost to the exact line they stopped at.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Overinflated, how so? Does a view have more merit somehow because the story is longer?

A click is a click. Readers open the story to see whether they like it. And some prefer short stories, and some prefer long ones. I'll often see something like "14.9k words", and sorry, I'm out. I don't have time for that when I'm browsing for a little inspiration.

Because, as I mentioned in another comment before, there are multiple things readers don't see until they open the story. Lengths is just one of them. Tags is another. So are contest entries, Author's notes, references to other stories I may be required to read first, etc.

All of those things will result in readers opening a story and then closing it again without even reading the first paragraph. Had they known about those things beforehand, they wouldn't have clicked on it in the first place. The result are overinflated view numbers.

Now, this may not be seen as a bad thing. But I also see authors in here regularly create threads about the abysmal view-to-comment/fav/rate ratio.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I think we're getting side tracked here(surprise surprise) My understanding is the Dashboard @EmilyMiller is referring to is My Works, which is not visible by anyone but the author(as far as I know). When I open a story, all I have to do is look to the right at the story info and the word count, likes, and favorites are right there. Pretty sure she's just asking for an authors convenience thing since she works primarily on her phone and would like to track that metric, but I could be mistaken. It has happened once before, I think. I could be mistaken

 

[EmilyMiller]

Because, as I mentioned in another comment before, there are multiple things readers don't see until they open the story. Lengths is just one of them. Tags is another. So are contest entries, Author's notes, references to other stories I may be required to read first, etc.

All of those things will result in readers opening a story and then closing it again without even reading the first paragraph. Had they known about those things beforehand, they wouldn't have clicked on it in the first place. The result are overinflated view numbers.

Now, this may not be seen as a bad thing. But I also see authors in here regularly create threads about the abysmal view-to-comment/fav/rate ratio.

Views are an awful metric, but it’s the same for everyone.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think we're getting side tracked here(surprise surprise) My understanding is the Dashboard @EmilyMiller is referring to is My Works, which is not visible by anyone but the author(as far as I know). When I open a story, all I have to do is look to the right at the story info and the word count, likes, and favorites are right there. Pretty sure she's just asking for an authors convenience thing since she works primarily on her phone and would like to track that metric, but I could be mistaken. It has happened once before, I think. I could be mistaken

This

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

What I would truly love to see, though, is category on the favorites list. When someone follows me, I usually go and look at what else they have favorited. Category would be nice so I can decide what else they like I might want to look at.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I think we're getting side tracked here(surprise surprise) My understanding is the Dashboard @EmilyMiller is referring to is My Works, which is not visible by anyone but the author(as far as I know). When I open a story, all I have to do is look to the right at the story info and the word count, likes, and favorites are right there. Pretty sure she's just asking for an authors convenience thing since she works primarily on her phone and would like to track that metric, but I could be mistaken. It has happened once before, I think. I could be mistaken

I understood what she meant and I agree completely. But no reason not to expand on her idea, especially considering that other large story sites offer these functionalities. AO3 has a nice dashboard for example, while SOL is utterly lacking in that sense. Both sites display tags and word count to readers even before they click on a story, which I think is also helpful.

 

[alohadave]

What I would truly love to see, though, is category on the favorites list. When someone follows me, I usually go and look at what else they have favorited. Category would be nice so I can decide what else they like I might want to look at.

I just thought of something. In searches and the author's story list, seeing how many times a story has been favorited may work better to see how popular a story is than a strict score method.

Not that the faves should be involved in the calculation, but if a story has a rating of 4.7, with few faves, I might wonder why. And conversely, a 3.8 with a ton of faves might be a clue that a lot of people like it, despite the score.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Would anyone else find this helpful?

I realize that there is not a lot of space, especially on the phone version of the site.

Emily

Not only am I all for this, I have actually already officially recommended it.

Countless times I have seen a story and thought, "That looks interesting. If I can read it in under an hour I will," only to click on it a see that it's 30k words. Probably even more often I look at an author's submissions page looking for a sampler and wish that I knew which ones were the short ones.

I don't understand why word counts aren't just displayed next to titles, Decriptions, views and scores etc. The coding for that could be implemented and tested in like an hour. Furthermore, tags should be listed right under the description. The coding for that could be written and tested in a weekend. There's no real excuse.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

They can always scroll down to the bottom of Page One to see how many pages there are.

Either way, it means that the reader has to actually click on the story before deciding if he wants to read it. This doesn't make sense. The reader should click on the story after deciding to read it. How much of our view count is inflated by people clicking and then thinking, "oh, too short," or "of too long" or "of, there's an anal tag" and closing the tab? It's annoying for the readers' experience and it's inaccurate for the writer's metrics, and there's no real excuse for it. It's just poorly designed site navigation.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think we're getting side tracked here(surprise surprise) My understanding is the Dashboard @EmilyMiller is referring to is My Works, which is not visible by anyone but the author(as far as I know).

I think that word count and tags should be listed next to title and description anywhere that the story is listed, be it dashboard, new lists, submissions page, category lists, top lists, anywhere.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Either way, it means that the reader has to actually click on the story before deciding if he wants to read it. This doesn't make sense. The reader should click on the story after deciding to read it. How much of our view count is inflated by people clicking and then thinking, "oh, too short," or "of too long" or "of, there's an anal tag" and closing the tab? It's annoying for the readers' experience and it's inaccurate for the writer's metrics, and there's no real excuse for it. It's just poorly designed site navigation.

Sounds to me like a solution in search of a problem.

 

[EmilyMiller]

All my stories are in series - even if they are not chaptered works. It really does seem that the series are ordered according to the story within them that appears earliest in the alphabet - even if that story is, say, the third in a manual ordering.

Weird.

Emily

 

[pink_silk_glove]

All my stories are in series - even if they are not chaptered works. It really does seem that the series are ordered according to the story within them that appears earliest in the alphabet - even if that story is, say, the third in a manual ordering.

Weird.

Emily

Did you just reply to the wrong thread?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I think we're getting side tracked here(surprise surprise) My understanding is the Dashboard @EmilyMiller is referring to is My Works, which is not visible by anyone but the author(as far as I know). When I open a story, all I have to do is look to the right at the story info and the word count, likes, and favorites are right there. Pretty sure she's just asking for an authors convenience thing since she works primarily on her phone and would like to track that metric, but I could be mistaken. It has happened once before, I think. I could be mistaken

I'm not arguing, but I am curious as to why any author would need this site to tell them the word count for a story that they have already written and published. That is the only reason I can imagine for making the metric visible on the dashboard versus places where readers would see it and likely benefit from it. It is not a number that changes, so "tracking" it seems unnecessary.

Maybe someone can explain this to me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm not arguing, but I am curious as to why any author would need this site to tell them the word count for a story that they have already written and published. That is the only reason I can imagine for making the metric visible on the dashboard versus places where readers would see it and likely benefit from it. It is not a number that changes, so "tracking" it seems unnecessary.

Maybe someone can explain this to me.

So I can add them up easily.

Or do a pivot table by category.

It’s hard to maintain a list on a phone.

Emily

 

[Paul_Chance]

Yes.

In general, I'd like to see better metrics across the board for Authors. Word count and page count would just be two.

What would also be helpful are:

1. Page Views (so you can see the bounce rate)
2. Previous page (where did the come from)
3. Next page (where did they go after finishing your story)
4. Time on Page (give you a better idea if they actually read the whole story)

 

[BobbyBrandt]

So I can add them up easily.

Or do a pivot table by category.

It’s hard to maintain a list on a phone.

Emily

Okay, using your phone limits your personal data accessibility so you are looking to the system to do that for you.

The fact remains that the metric wouldn't change once published. When you create the pivot table, don't you save that in some fashion or do you create a new one each time you pull the data from the site?

 

[EmilyMiller]

Okay, using your phone limits your personal data accessibility so you are looking to the system to do that for you.

The fact remains that the metric wouldn't change once published. When you create the pivot table, don't you save that in some fashion or do you create a new one each time you pull the data from the site?

You can’t really manipulate more than one set of data at a time - it’s super limited compared to desktop. And I consider myself a good user of Excel on a PC