(no subject)

[alaterdate]

I...really don't like knowing how many people clicked on my fic. I think I said something about this on twitter before yeah.

its different than having something in a paper or magazine or even reading a piece to a group bc its constantly out there AND always telling you how many people interacted with it - joejoeia

I know people tend to only leave Kudos when they really like something and a comment almost never, so I try not to mind the hit to kudos ratio & don't expect comments at all. However, knowing 20, 50, 100, 300, 500, 1000! people clicked on my thing freaks me out. Even if they left within the first sentence 😵 I'll never know how many people actually read it, but they at least saw part of it and that's still shocking 😱

I'm absolutely chuffed to bits when something I wrote gets bookmarked though. It's unfathomable, yet pleasant. I can't quite pin down why I find hits so dreadful though. Perhaps I am internalizing the hits to kudos ratio because I know other people care about it? Or it's part of the mortifying ordeal of being known!? lol.

Comments

[bemused_writer]

I'm always amazed at the number of hits compared to everything else as well. XD If it helps, a lot of those hits will be from people rereading it and other factors, so it's not always a totally accurate number. If it really bothers you, I think you can turn the counter off?

I have a fascination with these kinds of statistics, so I'm always checking mine. XD I'm just so curious which story gets the most attention, whether that changes, etc. It doesn't really effect what I focus on, but I like to know what draws the people in.

I love it when people bookmark my stuff as well. So many people just use their browser's bookmark function, so it's especially nice when someone does it on AO3 proper.

[alaterdate]

I kind of only recently started using AO3 so I'm still unfamiliar with the site. (I barely learned how to search for specific tags within a fandom lmaoooo. I would always just have google find stuff for me.) I'm not sure how/if I can turn the hit counter off, so either I'll find somehow or live with it. I think I just have a lot of anxiety as a new fanfic writer >_<; Unlike posting art on tumblr it's waaaay easier to find a rando's (i.e. my) work on a site like AO3.

Hmm, that's an interesting way to use the statistics! It does make me happy if a fic I like a lot or even one I didn't think anyone would look at gets more attention than I expected. Maybe I should start thinking of them as numbers and not eyeballs (*>﹏<*)

I used to use my browser, but I've made it a point to use the bookmark feature now because I know how good it feels to see that someone has done so. And I'm working on leaving comments on everything I read too (even though it's sometimes hard to articulate exactly why I liked something). \(^__^)/

[bemused_writer]

Getting used to AO3 can take a little getting used to, that's for sure! If you need any help with it, I'd be happy to offer tips on what I've figured out over the years. ^^ I double checked the bit about the hit count, and it looks like there was some way of removing it, but I can't seem to find it on my side of things. Regardless, there is some CSS I found that you can add to a custom site skin to remove it all the same if you are interested in doing something like that?

I'd definitely just think of it as numbers. That way it's more of an interesting "Oh, let's see how this fluctuates" and removes the pressure. ^^

I also used to use my browser, but that proved to be a bad idea when I no longer had access to the computer, so now I've swapped to using the site as well. XD

[alaterdate]

Phew, it took me almost all day, but I puzzled together a userscript to hide the hit count on AO3 for me, and I can turn it back on with the click of a button if I want. THOUGH making a skin probably would have been easier tbh since it already has the AO3 coding in it. (I legitimately don't have any idea what I'm doing when it comes to coding, only what I learned from messing with Tumblr themes back in the day lol).

Thank you for the offer, I'd love to hear your tips! I don't even know what I don't know when it comes to AO3 though 🤔

[bemused_writer]

It sounds like you did a good job, though even if coding isn't your thing! I've been working on understanding more of it myself, but it's still a work in progress. ^^" If you ever do decide you want to make an AO3 skin, it's actually easier than I thought it would be. You can base it off of one of the official, preexisting ones and then just change colors, font size, and such in the wizard.

As for tips, I'll tell you the ones that took me a surprisingly long amount of time to figure out (you've probably already done so!):

1) You can filter what language you're looking for at the very bottom of the filter strip.

2) Just the fact we could make skins took me ages to realize. XD

3) In your "History" section, you can filter between everything you've ever clicked on and what you've specifically marked as "Read Later." You can also turn off recorded history if you don't want that.

4) You can add tags to your bookmarks to make them easier to find for yourself. You can also mark a story as a "recommendation" or you can mark it as "private" so no one else can see.

5) Collections are best used for events, like Big Bangs. A lot of people try to use them as a recommendation list, but it's possible to hide stories in that list, which means your story could be accidentally hidden without your realizing.

Anyway, hopefully some of those are useful. ^^

[alaterdate]

OOH, thank you for these!

[bemused_writer]

No problem! ^^