Silly question time: "Lists" on the stories pages?

[wastelandwriter]

I've been here forever and I should know this, but I don't.

On the front page for a given story category, when it shows new, popular, and random stories, each title has a few icons and numbers under it: rating, views, favorites, comments, lists.

What exactly does "lists" mean? Is that the same as bookmarking?

I take for granted I'm gonna feel really silly and the answer has been in front of me all along, but I'm not seeing it.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've been here forever and I should know this, but I don't.

On the front page for a given story category, when it shows new, popular, and random stories, each title has a few icons and numbers under it: rating, views, favorites, comments, lists.

What exactly does "lists" mean? Is that the same as bookmarking?

I take for granted I'm gonna feel really silly and the answer has been in front of me all along, but I'm not seeing it.

Not silly at all. Much about this Site is not at all obvious, and even those of us who've been writing here for a while get confused, especially with the Site changes. And some of us, like me, get easily confused.

The "list" icon means, I'm pretty sure, the combined total of favorites and bookmarks. In other words, people who've either favorited your story, or marked it for future reading. The reason I'm pretty sure it's the combination is that the list number is ALWAYS higher than the favorite number.

 

[HeyAll]

The sad thing about lists (bookmarks) is that it reduces the number of favorites on a story.

 

[SimonDoom]

The sad thing about lists (bookmarks) is that it reduces the number of favorites on a story.

But don't they make the favorites more legitimate? A "favorite" that is made without reading the story and is intended only to mark the story for reading later isn't a real favorite, is it? From my standpoint as an author, I'm glad to see somebody bookmarking my story so they want to read it later, but it's not the same thing as somebody who's actually read the story and thinks so highly of it they want it to be on their favorites list.

 

[KeithD]

I don't think the "list" icon has been there all along. I think this is a fairly recent addition.

 

[HeyAll]

But don't they make the favorites more legitimate? A "favorite" that is made without reading the story and is intended only to mark the story for reading later isn't a real favorite, is it? From my standpoint as an author, I'm glad to see somebody bookmarking my story so they want to read it later, but it's not the same thing as somebody who's actually read the story and thinks so highly of it they want it to be on their favorites list.

That's good point, but once a story leaves the Hub, the story will be left with a smaller number of favorites than it would have had prior to the invention of bookmarks.

And people do seem to use the bookmarks and bookmarks.

I recently saw someone bookmark my story, then later came a bad review. lol

 

[LAHomedog]

I don't think the "list" icon has been there all along. I think this is a fairly recent addition.

Me too.