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On Watches, Favorites, and Flattry
15 years ago
🙐✿🙖 This post on Websnark reminded me of one of the reasons I don't like how transparent watch/fav mechanics are on the furry art sites that use them. Or rather, the cake metaphor being discussed there seemed apt to describe why favorites is a pretty useless metric. (Do I appreciate getting faves and watches? I guess. But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it either way.)
So, every FA user gets a favcake (it's chocolate!). One user only faves pieces zie really digs; zie may fave somewhere around 10 pieces a month, if that. If we say zir cake gets divided up among those pieces, they all get a decently big slice of cake, right?
Another user faves pretty much every piece they full-view. That may be 10 pieces a day. But somehow zir cake slices aren't smaller, because favcake only comes in distinct units: A favcake has infinity slices all of a set size.
Since the slices, unlike Flattr-cake slices, don't convert into money, this shouldn't matter, right?
Not quite. That's where my second objection comes in. Artist A may have gotten an average of one fav apiece for zir submitted art. They're all "big slice" favs, but there's no way for zir to see that. Artists B and C have a lot more favs, say... five per submission. They'd all be tiny slices, if favs were like Flattrs, but again, there's no way to see that.
So even though A, in Flattr terms, would get a bigger mushed-together cake slice, zie is left sitting there wondering what zie did wrong since B and C get so much more attention. Which likely leads to zir striving for more of those thin little cake slices. And maybe, some day in the future, finding that the users who gave zir those big slices, back then, have lost interest in zir art as it became more like B and C's.
By which I mean to say two things, I guess:
1. Watches and favs are reader tools, not popularity contests. I really wish sites wouldn't put so much weight on informing artists who faved or watched them since last time they were on.
2. Everyone has different ideas for how to use these tools; I'm pretty stingy with my favs, and I've seen people who hand out 10+ favs in a matter of minutes. Neither is wrong, but it further devalues such tools as means of gauging popularity.
By the way, if I could ask for one feature to be included in an art gallery? It'd be for the artist to not be informed who faved a piece, but for aggregate information to be available to viewers, sort of like Amazon's "people who bought this also bought these items" or Belfry's "readers of this comic also read these comics". That way the tool is returned to where it should be. To the consumers.
So, every FA user gets a favcake (it's chocolate!). One user only faves pieces zie really digs; zie may fave somewhere around 10 pieces a month, if that. If we say zir cake gets divided up among those pieces, they all get a decently big slice of cake, right?
Another user faves pretty much every piece they full-view. That may be 10 pieces a day. But somehow zir cake slices aren't smaller, because favcake only comes in distinct units: A favcake has infinity slices all of a set size.
Since the slices, unlike Flattr-cake slices, don't convert into money, this shouldn't matter, right?
Not quite. That's where my second objection comes in. Artist A may have gotten an average of one fav apiece for zir submitted art. They're all "big slice" favs, but there's no way for zir to see that. Artists B and C have a lot more favs, say... five per submission. They'd all be tiny slices, if favs were like Flattrs, but again, there's no way to see that.
So even though A, in Flattr terms, would get a bigger mushed-together cake slice, zie is left sitting there wondering what zie did wrong since B and C get so much more attention. Which likely leads to zir striving for more of those thin little cake slices. And maybe, some day in the future, finding that the users who gave zir those big slices, back then, have lost interest in zir art as it became more like B and C's.
By which I mean to say two things, I guess:
1. Watches and favs are reader tools, not popularity contests. I really wish sites wouldn't put so much weight on informing artists who faved or watched them since last time they were on.
2. Everyone has different ideas for how to use these tools; I'm pretty stingy with my favs, and I've seen people who hand out 10+ favs in a matter of minutes. Neither is wrong, but it further devalues such tools as means of gauging popularity.
By the way, if I could ask for one feature to be included in an art gallery? It'd be for the artist to not be informed who faved a piece, but for aggregate information to be available to viewers, sort of like Amazon's "people who bought this also bought these items" or Belfry's "readers of this comic also read these comics". That way the tool is returned to where it should be. To the consumers.
It's a kind of unhealthy trend to base one's self-esteem off favs and watches.
Seriously. It's kind of nice to see the "xF" little thingy up in the corner when I come on, but it's hardly the end of the world! (Also, I find it odd that only the artist can see who's faved a piece. Logically if I like something, other people who like it may have other things faved that I might like, and I miss out on those just because I can't see who's faved this hypothetical random piece some random artist drew.)
I do wish more people would comment more, though. I get a lot of mystery watches without favs or comments, and it'd be nice once in a while just to know what people like out of me. If someone favs something and watches me at the same time it gives me an idea, but I really don't know what most of my watchers are actually doing it for. I'm not above weighting my writing choices based on what people would be most interested in, but I really don't know what my watchers want.
I do try to comment on at least a few things a day, so long as I can think of something worthwhile. And I try to respond to every comment I get with something at least as worthwhile, to make it not feel like a waste of time to bother to leave one in the first place.
Oh, I agree about the commenting, in that light. It's nice to find out why people liked something I did (though I at least usually only post one or two things as a time, so I have a pretty good idea where most of my watches have come from, as they tend to show up fairly shortly after I post something new). I just get annoyed when people think they can demand I use the tools made available to me as a consumer-of-art in the way they dictate. I comment where and when I want to, and that's the end of that, yanno?
I admit I don't tend to reply to comments here unless they have discussion value. ("Hot!" does not have discussion value. Comments consisting of complete sentences, especially if there are more than one, usually do.) But I've stated that ahead of time, and I'm happy to reply to more in-depth comments. I think I got kind of burned out on responding to simple "I like" comments during my time on Yiffstar.
It's still nice to have comments on stories, though, if someone likes it. There's a lot in 40 pages that could be the reason they faved it, and without some feedback I get no idea what on earth people are reading my stuff for.