How Lists Are Calculated

[HeyAll]

I used to think that for Hub and story stats, hearts were only favorites, and lists were total favorites + 'read later.'

Today I had a new story posted.

It got 2 favorites/hearts & 8 'read laters' = 10 (2 favs + 8 read laters)

On the Hub, I have 10 heart symbols. For the List symbol, it's 18.

So it looks like hearts are favs + read laters.

And Lists are the total, plus the number of 'read laters' added again.


I noticed the same thing for my last story which came out on Saturday.


Just something to think about.

 

[NotWise]

I've been confused to the point that I don't know what the hearts and lists mean. I've seen favorites post on my most recent story without the hearts count incrementing. On a recent little-read story, I went back and counted all the favorites and lists that showed up on All Activity, and it didn't agree with the site's count.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Some things are not meant for we mortals to comprehend. Hearts are trump. always, in any game.

 

[TadOverdon]

What's a "read later?"

 

[SimonDoom]

What's a "read later?"

When you open up a story, you can either favorite it (with a heart) after you've read it or click a bookmark symbol to put it on your "read later" list.

What makes this complicated is that the numbers can be different on different lists and locations -- my home page "works" list, the numbers at the story itself, the numbers on the various toplists, and the numbers on the favorites and followers lists. They often do not match.

I've seen what HeyAll has seen. Sometimes the "favorites" for a story will click upward, even though it appears that readers have merely bookmarked my story rather than favorited it. However, the favorite/heart numbers often do NOT appear to match the combination of bookmarks and favorites.

What may be happening is that readers bookmark a story and later favorite it, but the favorite doesn't show up late on my Latest Activity page. All the author sees on the Activity page is a bookmark. I suspect this is what is going on.

My Activity page suggests that a high percentage of reader responses are bookmarks rather than favorites. But when I review the daily MyPublishedStories data download that is available on my Works page, it's clear that the column In Reading is favorites and the column Reading Lists is favorites + bookmarks and there are more favorites than bookmarks.

 

[TadOverdon]

Okay, I don't see it on my Works page - just views, ratings, favorites and comments.

Okay, wait, it's on the Works Activity page? I've never seen that note - just that someone has favorited or commented, or that a story has been submitted/returned/published.

 

[NotWise]

Okay, I don't see it on my Works page - just views, ratings, favorites and comments.

Okay, wait, it's on the Works Activity page? I've never seen that note - just that someone has favorited or commented, or that a story has been submitted/returned/published.

For the Activity pages, the issue is over what the heart means. If you download the stats file (small download icon on the top right of the works list) it has two columns of numbers with confusing descriptions about lists.

Personally, I can't make the numbers work out.

 

[SimonDoom]

Okay, I don't see it on my Works page - just views, ratings, favorites and comments.

Okay, wait, it's on the Works Activity page? I've never seen that note - just that someone has favorited or commented, or that a story has been submitted/returned/published.

Look more closely at the "favorites" that you get on the activity page. Some have heart symbols, and some have bookmark symbols. A heart means a favorite. A bookmark means "read later."

I think what's happening, although I don't know for sure, is that people bookmark a story first, read it, and then favorite it, but Literotica doesn't tell the author when a bookmark becomes a favorite. So the Activity page results don't match up with what we see in our statistics. But this is just my best guess.

 

[TxRad]

In passing, I will check the readers who favorite me. Some time, by the time I check their favorite authors list, I'm not there. It still shows on the authors page list as being a favorite but it is not. Things happen faster than the system can keep up with.

The numbers will never match up.

 

[TadOverdon]

Oh, okay, I see. Thanks!

 

[HeyAll]

Here's another interesting tidbit for people to try:

If you read-later your own story, then check your story stats, the heart/favorites will remain the same. No effect.

But if you if you favorite your own story, your heart stat will go up.

But if someone else read-laters your story, then you check your stat, the heart will go up.

 

[lovecraft68]

I admit to having no idea what the list feature is, and at this point no desire to know or care. Being favorited as an author seems to have remained consistent, but story favs are down, although not as much as comments.

Last I looked my contest story I think said 63 lists, but maybe I saw it wrong and I have a superstition about never checking the numbers until they declare the winners so I won't go back and look, I only checked over the weekend because of the typo issue.

 

[TadOverdon]

I admit to having no idea what the list feature is, and at this point no desire to know or care. Being favorited as an author seems to have remained consistent, but story favs are down, although not as much as comments.

Last I looked my contest story I think said 63 lists, but maybe I saw it wrong and I have a superstition about never checking the numbers until they declare the winners so I won't go back and look, I only checked over the weekend because of the typo issue.

Right now, I pay attention mostly to followers and whether a chapter stays in the "hot" zone, and I haven't tried to figure out a lot of the other stats. I was surprised that I missed the "read later" thing altogether, though.

 

[SimonDoom]

I admit to having no idea what the list feature is, and at this point no desire to know or care. Being favorited as an author seems to have remained consistent, but story favs are down, although not as much as comments.

.

One reason faves probably are down is the creation of the bookmarks. In the past people would favorite a story to indicate they wanted to come back to it later and read it. I did that quite often. Now the bookmarks serve that function, so it stands to reason there are fewer favorites.