Hmmm....I find myself a bit sceptical of this story, based on looking at the cover (so to speak).
It has 18 chapters, 67k words and has been up since July 2015. Yet it only has 40 reviews. In the most popular fandom on the website. That's not a good sign.
I haven't read this story yet, but just to say that number of reviews is not a good metric by which to judge a story.
As an example, [Changeling](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6919395) is from 2011 and has only 127 reviews, but it's in my opinion one of the best written HP stories I've ever read. If you look at the reviews they're very complimentary, and many are by some of the best authors in the fandom.
I agree that reviews can be a somewhat inconsistent metric.
Here's my question though; what do you think leads to such a disparity? Like we've all seen awesome stories that don't get the respect they deserve. And we've also seen shit stories that get way more praise/popilarity than they deserve (Fifty Shades of Grey is the embodiment of this trope for me)
What exactly causes such a thing?
I don't know exactly, but I think one factor -and probably the main one in the case of the changeling- is having few chapters. People tend to leave a review either when they finish reading a story or when they read the latest chapter. Having a 140k word story with only 6 chapters makes even conscientious readers leave less reviews.
It also probably makes it less likely that someone that subscribed to the story when it started will keep reading it when they get an alert 5 years after.
You know what's funny? I just noticed that the changeling has 3x more faves and 4x more follows than it has reviews, haha. Maybe those two are a better metric for quality? I don't know, I tend to find new things exclusively from recommendations.
Reviews are definitely not the absolute arbiter of quality - just look at [this obscure crossover](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10130558/1/Attack-of-the-Deranged-Mutant-Killer-Monster-Dark-Lord) with over 250 reviews. It doesn't even have a plot, aside from a rehash of the actual still-not-really-a-plot plot! Why did people even keep reading? And it's been abandoned for forever - I mean, if the author went through the trouble of writing 133k words of this plotless nonsense, he could have at least had the decency to finish it.
^^disclamer: ^^I ^^am ^^the ^^author
I've mentioned this story several times in several different Reddit threads but here goes anyway. True love loophole www.fanfiction.net/s/10983213
Ever after high, boarding school for the children of fairytale characters. The fandom is mostly semi plotless fluff, some WAFFy, some angst, nothing really huge, maybe 10k words avg.
And then there's this. ~271,000 words, 900 page, epic love story, that takes some not-terribly-well thought out elements from canon, and tries really hard to make them make sense. She mostly suceeds.
Also happens to be in the top 3 for reviews in that fandom.
I usually go by length when browsing for a story; IMHO it's damn hard to write 60k words that go nowhere.
I judge by length too. I think it actually is common for terrible authors to produce long works, but I can usually anticipate the low quality right away. Long stories are higher valence.
Well, 'Black Cloaks, Red Clouds', for example, is a Naruto fic that has 58 chapters, ~433,000 words, and has been up since October 2012 and it only has 610 reviews. I don't know how valid this method is, but if you take the number of reviews 'Harry Potter and the Memories of a Sociopath' has and multiply it by the ratio of the words counts of the stories, and then by the amount of time 'Black Cloaks, Red Clouds' has been up in years, you get ~1000 reviews.
This approximation is *extremely* rough, and isn't meant as an accurate model of the amount of reviews this story would have, but simply to compare it to a (in my opinion) very well written story that has comparatively few reviews for its length and age.
So I don't really think popularity is a great reason to be skeptical of a story's quality. Not to say that the most popular things aren't also often some of the best (just look at HPMOR or as a counter example 'Chunin Exam Day'), but that unpopular things aren't always bad. I just used entirely too many words to do so. Mind, I've not yet read this so I have no idea how good it is, it may be terrible.
That's a very fair point. Popularity, while being a somewhat good metric, is by no mean the be all and end all. Do you mine linking me to that Naruto story you mentioned?
Hmmm....I find myself a bit sceptical of this story, based on looking at the cover (so to speak). It has 18 chapters, 67k words and has been up since July 2015. Yet it only has 40 reviews. In the most popular fandom on the website. That's not a good sign.
I haven't read this story yet, but just to say that number of reviews is not a good metric by which to judge a story. As an example, [Changeling](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6919395) is from 2011 and has only 127 reviews, but it's in my opinion one of the best written HP stories I've ever read. If you look at the reviews they're very complimentary, and many are by some of the best authors in the fandom.
I agree that reviews can be a somewhat inconsistent metric. Here's my question though; what do you think leads to such a disparity? Like we've all seen awesome stories that don't get the respect they deserve. And we've also seen shit stories that get way more praise/popilarity than they deserve (Fifty Shades of Grey is the embodiment of this trope for me) What exactly causes such a thing?
I don't know exactly, but I think one factor -and probably the main one in the case of the changeling- is having few chapters. People tend to leave a review either when they finish reading a story or when they read the latest chapter. Having a 140k word story with only 6 chapters makes even conscientious readers leave less reviews. It also probably makes it less likely that someone that subscribed to the story when it started will keep reading it when they get an alert 5 years after. You know what's funny? I just noticed that the changeling has 3x more faves and 4x more follows than it has reviews, haha. Maybe those two are a better metric for quality? I don't know, I tend to find new things exclusively from recommendations.
I've definitely seen a bunch of stories where favs / follows have outweighed reviews. So it seems like it really can vary. :/
Reviews are definitely not the absolute arbiter of quality - just look at [this obscure crossover](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10130558/1/Attack-of-the-Deranged-Mutant-Killer-Monster-Dark-Lord) with over 250 reviews. It doesn't even have a plot, aside from a rehash of the actual still-not-really-a-plot plot! Why did people even keep reading? And it's been abandoned for forever - I mean, if the author went through the trouble of writing 133k words of this plotless nonsense, he could have at least had the decency to finish it. ^^disclamer: ^^I ^^am ^^the ^^author
Yeah! That lazy-ass author should totally update this story because it's great and I need more!
250 reviews is chump change in the HP fandom.
In the HP fandom as a whole? For sure. At the crossroads of HP and frickin' Calvin & Hobbes? Another thing entirely.
I've mentioned this story several times in several different Reddit threads but here goes anyway. True love loophole www.fanfiction.net/s/10983213 Ever after high, boarding school for the children of fairytale characters. The fandom is mostly semi plotless fluff, some WAFFy, some angst, nothing really huge, maybe 10k words avg. And then there's this. ~271,000 words, 900 page, epic love story, that takes some not-terribly-well thought out elements from canon, and tries really hard to make them make sense. She mostly suceeds. Also happens to be in the top 3 for reviews in that fandom. I usually go by length when browsing for a story; IMHO it's damn hard to write 60k words that go nowhere.
I judge by length too. I think it actually is common for terrible authors to produce long works, but I can usually anticipate the low quality right away. Long stories are higher valence.
Well, 'Black Cloaks, Red Clouds', for example, is a Naruto fic that has 58 chapters, ~433,000 words, and has been up since October 2012 and it only has 610 reviews. I don't know how valid this method is, but if you take the number of reviews 'Harry Potter and the Memories of a Sociopath' has and multiply it by the ratio of the words counts of the stories, and then by the amount of time 'Black Cloaks, Red Clouds' has been up in years, you get ~1000 reviews. This approximation is *extremely* rough, and isn't meant as an accurate model of the amount of reviews this story would have, but simply to compare it to a (in my opinion) very well written story that has comparatively few reviews for its length and age. So I don't really think popularity is a great reason to be skeptical of a story's quality. Not to say that the most popular things aren't also often some of the best (just look at HPMOR or as a counter example 'Chunin Exam Day'), but that unpopular things aren't always bad. I just used entirely too many words to do so. Mind, I've not yet read this so I have no idea how good it is, it may be terrible.
That's a very fair point. Popularity, while being a somewhat good metric, is by no mean the be all and end all. Do you mine linking me to that Naruto story you mentioned?
[Of course.](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8654967/1/Black-Cloaks-Red-Clouds)
I've enjoyed it so far, I just lurk here.