Notability Standards for Webnovels/Webcomics

[Jinsye]

I feel like this is something that definitely needs to be codified.

What are our standards for webnovel verses? Inspired by these two threads.

Currently, multiple staff members have given statements regarding this.

Well, I suppose that we might be able to lessen our requirement to 100,000 views for the initial chapter of webnovels if what you say is accurate. We still need some safeguards in place after all.

Hard to say. As you've said, it's an expansive work (too many chapters). The overall view count is reasonably high but accounting for how many things that is divided between, it isn't really. Being able to see the viewcount of the first chapter would be ideal. Taking it with a grain of salt, web traffic seems unusually low for something with so many views.

The number of reviews is decent, and there does exist a (barely maintained, insofar as I can tell) wiki for the thing. The webnovel site it is hosted on reports it as being very popular on that site, although truthfully, looking at the "power ranking" system they have going on, I have doubts as to whether that actually means much. It seems to be a case where the top weekly views for a given piece of work are like. 1000, ish, in that ballpark. And this one isn't the top one.

Considering that I have written shortstories with that many views, I don't think that is that impressive for a first chapter alone.

Given, first chapter views are basically a matter of clickbait, so I wouldn't take that as the primary measure anyway. Average views IMO are more expressive.

So, that leads us to a question of "What is notable?"

Initial/single chapter views are difficult and require a lot of guesswork. Because a lot of sites don't give those stats. In the threads mentioned above, we have people going "Well, this similar webnovel had 95k views in its initial chapter and the rest are more popular, thus it should be more than 100k". It also only lets the top of the top webnovels in anyways, which I'll get into later.

Average views actively punish verses for having writers that keep on going. Worm has 302 chapters and peaked at around 1.3 million monthly views. A simple average viewcount per chapter removes a lot of the nuances and greatly underrates seemingly popular verses.

To go into more stats, a little bit of digging told me one of the most popular webnovels on Japanese website "Shousetsuka ni Narou", known as Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (also known as That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime) hasn't even breached 1 million total views (it has 900k evaluation points, which is based off of views, comments, and evaluations. Even assuming that there are extra viewers unaccounted for it'd definitely have a really low mark) in its over 300 chapters. Is it now not notable despite being one of the top stories on the website?

Most of the Royal Road items also have high views but lots of chapters, so average viewcount doesn't work. We also can hardly determine individual chapter viewcounts most of the time. So are we just going based on vibes?

By most of these metrics, both Worm and the webnovel iteration of Reincarnated as A Slime would probably have to be deleted. So, what exactly determines "notability"?

(Most of this applies to webcomics too but I can't find a lot of stats for those)

 

[SweetDao]

Absolute peak, I'll be there to support.

 

[Astral_Trinity439]

To go into more stats, a little bit of digging told me one of the most popular webnovels on Japanese website "Shousetsuka ni Narou", known as Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (also known as That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime) hasn't even breached 1 million total views (it has 900k evaluation points, which is based off of views, comments, and evaluations. Even assuming that there are extra viewers unaccounted for it'd definitely have a really low mark) in its over 300 chapters. Is it now not notable despite being one of the top stories on the website?

Just to cIarify, as an EngIish SIime reader myseIf, SIime on its officiaI site has quite Iess views as it is onIy in japanese, and its EngIish viewers are far more then that. For exampIe, even on just a singIe EngIish site, it has more than 5 miIIion views, and that is given it was upIoaded on that site 5 years ago since the EngIish transIation came in Iater, a bit before 2020, not even its originaI airing date which was 2013~2015.

AdditionaIIy, on sites where it was upIoaded even after that, after 2020, it reached 13000+ ratings, which just goes to show how many views it got there.

Even I, as a sIimereader, onIy discovered the japanese site far after I had finished reading the entire Web NoveI, specificaIIy when I joined scaIing. So using the views on that site was base is, weII, unfair.

 

[Dark_Soul20189]

Sorry to say, but WN Tensura has breached over 400 000 000 views... I'm not sure where you got the statistics. Butt this was announced by Fuze himself when he got the anime going

 

[Sebas-S.P-san]

Just in case you didn't know, Tensura exists not only in Shyosetu, but in several pages of novels that you can easily find, if you add all that up, and in the different languages it is translated around the world, it far exceeds the required amount.

In short, close to your point of view about WN Tensura, it is very wrong.

 

[SweetDao]

People, the whole point was never about Tensura, it was just an example.

 

[Lycoris4812]

Its kinda impossible to see the individual views of each chapter. You would need to ask the author, but I'm not sure if they can even see it either.

 

[Astral_Trinity439]

People, the whole point was never about Tensura, it was just an example.

Clarification is never too bad, especially when such a topic can be brought up later on, why not just answer it before it was even made.
But yeah, I get where you're coming from. I'd say 2 to 3 comments clarifying the verse in question is more than enough and there is no need for more for a thread that does not even directly talk about it.

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I think indexing verses based on popularity is a rather arbitrary and subjectively discriminatory way of doing things.

We have no way of applying a scale that works across all forms of media at once and popularity between countries is completely dependent upon culture and global impact. Of course an IP like Star Wars is going to have international appeal and popularity. But does the fact that we've never heard of any Bollywood film exclude them from being indexed? We are not the arbiters of what's popular and what's not. We should judge media based on their own merits and context.

 

[SweetDao]

We should judge media based on their own merits and context.

This is fine and all, but could you clarify, in-depth, if possible, what you mean by this?

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I think if a piece of fiction was created without the sole purpose of being battleboard fiction, it should be allowed on the wiki.

How will we enforce this? Simple, the rule enforces itself. We can smell battleboard fiction a mile away and it usually lends itself to the same buzzwords and rhetoric. Any sufficiently good piece of battleboard fiction ceases to be battleboard fiction on the basis of being good writing. It's a problem that fixes itself.

 

[SweetDao]

I think if a piece of fiction was created without the sole purpose of being battleboard fiction, it should be allowed on the wiki.

This much I agree. That's the best way so that any story could get a chance to be indexed on the wiki.

How will we enforce this? Simple, the rule enforces itself. We can smell battleboard fiction a mile away and it usually lends itself to the same buzzwords and rhetoric. Any sufficiently good piece of battleboard fiction ceases to be battleboard fiction on the basis of being good writing. It's a problem that fixes itself.

I agree with this and even with "special cases" where a certain "obscure" novel reaches high-tier, staff members are needed to accept the rating in the first place, so they should be the one seeing if it's battleboarding garbage or something worth it.

However, it seems like it's not the current views of some staff members, so, once again, we definitely need a staff thread about it.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I think if a piece of fiction was created without the sole purpose of being battleboard fiction, it should be allowed on the wiki.

How will we enforce this? Simple, the rule enforces itself. We can smell battleboard fiction a mile away and it usually lends itself to the same buzzwords and rhetoric. Any sufficiently good piece of battleboard fiction ceases to be battleboard fiction on the basis of being good writing. It's a problem that fixes itself.

I disagree profoundly. This is a slipshod approach to the ordeal that ignores huge amounts of context. By requiring notability we ensure it is easier for the given piece of work to be fact-checked and proofread- if someone can contribute stories written by their author friend that only 50 people have read, then we descend into a rather silly state of affairs. Notoriety also tends to keep the quality of the wiki's contents up by ensuring more users are willing and able to contribute to a verse's upkeep- you see literally dozens of verses being condemned to deletion for the sole sin of having no active supporters. It also prevents the wiki from being a cesspool of verses nobody has ever heard of- this, in turn, affects things like staff efficiency, since those staff who still actively evaluate threads must (in your version of the wiki) now deal with twice as many threads, half of which are about things they can't actually evaluate properly, due to lacking materials. Our active staff body is already, in this moment, insufficient to deal with the sheer quantity of threads and calcs and questions and so on being made. Opening the wiki to verses of zero import only makes the problem leagues worse.

The list of reasons obviously goes on for some time.

Also, not all of us can. "smell battleboard fiction from a mile away", I mean. Certain people vehemently voted against the SCP thing on the basis that none of those stories were battleboard-based even while the writer of one of the stories admitted it was (just not VSBW). The rules ought to cover where man makes his errors.

 

[SweetDao]

Also, not all of us can. "smell battleboard fiction from a mile away", I mean. Certain people vehemently voted against the SCP thing on the basis that none of those stories were battleboard-based even while the writer of one of the stories admitted it was (just not VSBW). The rules ought to cover where man makes his errors.

To be fair, in the humble beginning of SCP, it was rather tame and safe to index, it's only later that it became a shithole.

The whole problem right now is this:

Officially published works that have reached a high level of notability will be considered for inclusion within the VS Battles Wiki.

It is impractical to set hard defined viewer number limits, however, in general, preference shall be given to officially published works or at least very popular privately published standalone original works that are not fanfiction.

This, no matter how you take it, is subject to interpretation. Sure, it gives leeway in how we can or can't index a verse, but it's so vague it could mean anything.

You explained to me that "a novel on Amazon will be accepted if it has around 500 reviews" after you asked Agnaa, so now we don't need a number of views anymore? Is 500 reviews "popular" or considered "high level of notability" as explained in the editing rules? A novel having 40 millions views, even if those are some weirdly inflated views, is easily more "popular" than said novel on Amazon though. Do you see the problem? We, as users, don't know how to work with those guidelines.

We're talking about Webnovels because it's the topic at hand that has been severely debated this month, but we could do the same with other stuff.

When is a "steam game" eligible? When it has a certain number of reviews? When we check on steamdb the number of player it has? Do we therefore set an arbitrary number of players it needs to have at its peak to index? Or do we do an average player count instead? Or are steam games directly excluded from this sort of requirement due to them being "published" by Steam itself? Would you accept a game like this, who only has 500ish reviews and only had 1K players at launch?

I'm sorry if this post is overwhelming, I have no ill-intent, but frankly, the whole debacle of "popularity standards" has become very annoying for some users, including me.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Being subject to interpretation is by design. The purpose of our staff is to apply interpretations fairly.

You explained to me that "a novel on Amazon will be accepted if it has around 500 reviews" after you asked Agnaa, so now we don't need a number of views anymore? Is 500 reviews "popular" or considered "high level of notability" as explained in the editing rules? A novel having 40 millions views, even if those are some weirdly inflated views, is easily more "popular" than said novel on Amazon though. Do you see the problem? We, as users, don't know how to work with those guidelines.

We work on precedent. I recognize normal users don't really have ways to interpret it well, and that sucks and is a flaw of the system, but I don't think there actually can be a flawless system. I also don't think that the presence of one flaw necessitates something like Oven's vision of the rules, which is that there are no rules. That has more flaws than this.

For precedent, we have used views in the past, but that is inconsistent from platform to platform- a million views on YouTube isn't the same as a million views on this webnovel site. A million views on YouTube is the benchmark we've used, but the webnovel site would probably require much less- but that's a requirement for a single entry to have that many, whereas it is unclear how many a single entry has on this webnovel you're wanting to work on. Hence the malaise.

Reviews can be an alternative means of gleaning notoriety, sure. I've mentioned a lot of things in relation to this discussion in an attempt to make an interpretation because the ideal metric is closed off to us at this time. One would not normally be expected to interpret the activity of a different Fandom wiki in order to try to decode how popular a given thing is. This is an issue almost unique to this particular verse.

When is a "steam game" eligible? When it has a certain number of reviews? When we check on steamdb the number of player it has? Do we therefore set an arbitrary number of players it needs to have at its peak to index? Or do we do an average player count instead? Or are steam games directly excluded from this sort of requirement due to them being "published" by Steam itself? Would you accept a game like this, who only has 500ish reviews and only have 1K players at launch?

Reviews would be a fairly good indicator of notoriety, yeah. 500 is on the low end but that game also only released like a week ago. I'd accept it.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

(and for what it's worth, I don't interpret you to have ill-intent, nor do I hope others do me; the internet is an impossible place and most people do not give me any reason to raise hostility on it; we must be able to discuss, that's the point of the forum- you're chill)

 

[Lycoris4812]

Reviews can be an alternative means of gleaning notoriety, sure. I've mentioned a lot of things in relation to this discussion in an attempt to make an interpretation because the ideal metric is closed off to us at this time. One would not normally be expected to interpret the activity of a different Fandom wiki in order to try to decode how popular a given thing is. This is an issue almost unique to this particular verse.

Quick question, how many reviews should a webnovel have? If reviews can be applied to them.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I am unsure. As I've said, all things are open to interpretation, and the number of reviews a thing has to be considered valid depends on the environment in which it exists (same ideology as the view thing, for YouTube above). However. I am not familiar with this subsection of fiction, nor this particular site. So I don't know what makes sense.

 

[SweetDao]

We work on precedent. I recognize normal users don't really have ways to interpret it well, and that sucks and is a flaw of the system, but I don't think there actually can be a flawless system. I also don't think that the presence of one flaw necessitates something like Oven's vision of the rules, which is that there are no rules. That has more flaws than this.

I understand this, truly. However, right now, reading a meager "high level of notoriety" is not satisfactory enough. Why can't we use some examples in the editing rules or somewhere else?

For example, a point about Amazon novel, then a point about Webnovels (the website), a point about steam games etc etc. It would definitely help clarify for users.

Because, while I don't want to be seen as "that poor guy", I did work on the profile and cosmology of a verse that "can't be indexed" due to popularity. I'll not cry over it, but it should've been a thing I should know beforehand. Asking staff would've been a good way, but seeing "800K views" on the original platform it was published in (Korean webnovel website) seemed more than enough for me. Turns out, it isn't.

A million views on YouTube is the benchmark we've used, but the webnovel site would probably require much less- but that's a requirement for a single entry to have that many, whereas it is unclear how many a single entry has on this webnovel you're wanting to work on. Hence the malaise.

Why that "a single entry"? Like, please, I'm being serious here, why a single chapter need to have that many views? Is a webnovel having 50 millions views somehow less acceptable than a single chapter having a million?

If you had told me "the novel needs 50 millions views", it would've been a high demand, but at least it would've been understandable. Right now, if I take your word on it, a webnovel in perdition, with a meager hundred of views in all of its subsequent chapters could be indexed "just because the first chapter was popular enough and reached 1 million views".

One would not normally be expected to interpret the activity of a different Fandom wiki in order to try to decode how popular a given thing is. This is an issue almost unique to this particular verse.

Yeah, like you said, it's insane that we need to go to such great length. For what, ultimately? "So there's some barely living wiki, a few posts on Reddit, some activity on Twitter and the original stats on webnovels so that should be fine"? That seems even worse of a method that anything. You seem to be okay with going to such a length, and it's all to your honor, frankly, but would other staff go to such length? Not everyone has time or energy to do this, especially since, like you said, there aren't infinite staff members available at all time.

Reviews would be a fairly good indicator of notoriety, yeah. 500 is on the low end but that game also only released like a week ago. I'd accept it.

I appreciate your opinion on it, but would it be unanimous within staff? If I had to ask Ant, Oven, Agnaa, would they say the same? This has been a recurring thing, even in this thread, that staff members doesn't share the same views, surely due to the vagueness of the editing rules, so how can I be sure it will not get deleted afterward if I ever work on the verse?

(and for what it's worth, I don't interpret you to have ill-intent, nor do I hope others do me; the internet is an impossible place and most people do not give me any reason to raise hostility on it; we must be able to discuss, that's the point of the forum- you're chill)

Sometimes, when re-reading my posts, I can see how some people could interpret it with ill-intent (due to crude or direct wording), which is clearly not what I want, so I prefer to state that just in case. Also, it could be interpreted as me "going after you" when, obviously, you've done nothing wrong, and you're a cool guy too.

 

[Astral_Trinity439]

I am unsure. As I've said, all things are open to interpretation, and the number of reviews a thing has to be considered valid depends on the environment in which it exists (same ideology as the view thing, for YouTube above). However. I am not familiar with this subsection of fiction, nor this particular site. So I don't know what makes sense.

Just gonna say this in case it adds up anything. I have written a fanfiction on that site, aka mwebnovel, and while its not even near the power-fantasy type or even power-focused in general, it was relatively easy to get to, like, an overall 100k views on that site. Compared to that, the same fanfiction, in more time, barely reached 20k views on another novelsite.

Alternatively, said site seems to be more focused on power fantasy verses that have a ton shit of high-end powers, such as cultivation genre, or another genre that is famous there, Reincarnated with a System. Also note that Cultivation stuff is very common there, and I really mean it when I say that.

There is also the fact that novels on that site that have a sort of a contract with said site, which is like a I hire you as an author unique to our site in exchange for money, tend to get far more views because they are regularly featured on the front pages and in recommendations. They also tend to have a lot more ratings. For instance, my fanfiction, which had 100k+ views, had not a single review, meanwhile other novels whose authors are contracted to that site tend to have a lot more ratings even in their early stages when they are below half a million in views.

A few other things:
large number of chapters: This is relatively common in any novel from that site. If I might say, the authors try to make a novel have as much chapters as possible since that attracts more views, and thus, more money.

VIP Chapters: Now, on the topic of money, most of the contracted novels only give free chapters of around 50~60, sometimes even ~30, with the rest of the hundreds of chapters all being paid chapters. So you'll, in average, need a few hundred dollars to read even a single novel in its entirety, from what I have heard.

Scalers: There are, from the novels I have read, many scalers there. But it generally depends on the novel in question. Some novels I read have had only a few comments from scalers, and most of them were unanswered and unread by the author, while some had many, with most of them being answered by the author himself. An example of the latter is this, which tried getting accepted a few months ago but being badly rejected. Said exemplary novel has a dedicated discord server, which I was once in too, and I must say, there was quite a bit of scaling there.

However, as I said, this depends on novel to novel, so judging case by case is the best way to that, but also a lot time taking due to the extremely large amount of chapters for most of the more popular novels there.

 

[Sebas-S.P-san]

I have a question.

Is it acceptable if a wiki member creates a web novel, would it be allowed here even if it has the necessary requirements?

I heard from a user that no, but also that I wasn't sure, so I was wondering that.

 

[SweetDao]

Is it acceptable if a wiki member creates a web novel, would it be allowed here even if it has the necessary requirements?

If this user is a user of the forum or close to powerscaling, no.

 

[Phoenks]

This looks like it should preferably be a staff thread. A lot of things to go over that could significantly alter indexing on the wiki.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I understand this, truly. However, right now, reading a meager "high level of notoriety" is not satisfactory enough. Why can't we use some examples in the editing rules or somewhere else?

For example, a point about Amazon novel, then a point about Webnovels (the website), a point about steam games etc etc. It would definitely help clarify for users.

Because, while I don't want to be seen as "that poor guy", I did work on the profile and cosmology of a verse that "can't be indexed" due to popularity. I'll not cry over it, but it should've been a thing I should know beforehand. Asking staff would've been a good way, but seeing "800K views" on the original platform it was published in (Korean webnovel website) seemed more than enough for me. Turns out, it isn't.

Providing concrete values can unjustly disqualify certain verses from different contexts- for example, something published across multiple mediums may find its views and ratings and so on unfairly divided, not meeting any given qualification. Still, the rules could be adjusted, if someone were to find a way to do so well.

Why that "a single entry"? Like, please, I'm being serious here, why a single chapter need to have that many views? Is a webnovel having 50 millions views somehow less acceptable than a single chapter having a million?

If you had told me "the novel needs 50 millions views", it would've been a high demand, but at least it would've been understandable. Right now, if I take your word on it, a webnovel in perdition, with a meager hundred of views in all of its subsequent chapters could be indexed "just because the first chapter was popular enough and reached 1 million views".

Let's take your webnovel for example. There are 44 or so million views, but also over 3,000 chapters. The rules as they are prevent series of being simply longer length from appearing to be fitting our rules on the subject, simply because all further iterations of the series provides more net views. Take it to the extreme and you'll see what I mean- a series might have 1 million requisite views on YouTube, but that is divided between 100,000 videos. We should not index videos with only 10 views each.

Now. Your situation is not as extreme, but divided evenly, it still only has 13,000 average views per chapter. So it is important to us to know how many the highest chapter has (which tends to be the first).

Yeah, like you said, it's insane that we need to go to such great length. For what, ultimately? "So there's some barely living wiki, a few posts on Reddit, some activity on Twitter and the original stats on webnovels so that should be fine"? That seems even worse of a method that anything. You seem to be okay with going to such a length, and it's all to your honor, frankly, but would other staff go to such length? Not everyone has time or energy to do this, especially since, like you said, there aren't infinite staff members available at all time.

It sucks, yeah. Not much else to say about it, at least it isn't a frequently relevant issue.

I appreciate your opinion on it, but would it be unanimous within staff? If I had to ask Ant, Oven, Agnaa, would they say the same? This has been a recurring thing, even in this thread, that staff members doesn't share the same views, surely due to the vagueness of the editing rules, so how can I be sure it will not get deleted afterward if I ever work on the verse?

Nothing is. Ant might not voice an opinion, Ovens is of the opinion that we shouldn't have these rules (see above) and I'm unsure if he would operate by them, Agnaa probably would. The issue is staff members do not consistently abide by democratically created rules, which is a difficult topic to handle (and is a lot deeper than this thread entails). Regardless, to answer the end question: because there would be discussion beforehand that allowed it. We would not need to look to precedent, as this would be the precedent. Unless rules were to change, it would theoretically be fine.

This looks like it should preferably be a staff thread. A lot of things to go over that could significantly alter indexing on the wiki.

If this yields a want for rule changing, then maybe, but as it stands, I think discussion including normal users is basically fine. A staff thread doesn't seem necessary at this exact moment, might later.

 

[Phoenks]

Simple, the rule enforces itself. We can smell battleboard fiction a mile away and it usually lends itself to the same buzzwords and rhetoric. Any sufficiently good piece of battleboard fiction ceases to be battleboard fiction on the basis of being good writing.

I disagree. I'll give a quick example of why.

If you take a look at a lot of power fantasy ("domination fantasy," where the main point is to have a protagonist who succeeds at becoming strong and basically acting as a stand in for the viewer to feel a sense of accomplishment), there are regions where that genre is simply more geared towards becoming what some would consider "battleboard fiction."

Most notably, China and its Xianxia and Cultivation Fantasy genres come to mind. They use the same buzzwords that are incredibly likely to land them ridiculously high level abilities and tiering on this wiki. Practically by nature. Yet I wouldn't call those battleboard fiction. Xianxia can be traced back tens to hundreds of years, with the same phrases and concepts stemming from works long before people started these boards. That's simply a result of the culture and environment that those novels follow.

So no, it really isn't easy to tell a lot of the time with things of that nature. And often times, that stuff also isn't well written either. (It isn't even really meant to be)

- - - -


Anyway, this notability requirement is going to be arbitrary pretty much no matter what. But I think you should always evaluate the series' apparent popularity based on its environment.

For example, YouTube is a super site that gets 2.5 billion monthly users. A significant portion of the entire world.

Webnovel gets 75 million monthly users by comparison.

To try and equalize 1 million YouTube views to 1 million Webnovel views in ridiculous as a result. The potential audience they have is like 33x smaller.

And what even qualifies as a "view" to both sites could be completely different. They could also have varying degrees of bots making up traffic.

There is so much nuance to this that Sir Ovens suggestion of "index everything" almost seems more logical by comparison to drawing some arbitrary, subjective line that is bound to be broken and crossed time and time again.

 

[SweetDao]

Providing concrete values can unjustly disqualify certain verses from different contexts- for example, something published across multiple mediums may find its views and ratings and so on unfairly divided, not meeting any given qualification. Still, the rules could be adjusted, if someone were to find a way to do so well.

"Concrete values" here is quite a loose term, you'll have to admit. Views aren't enough, reviews aren't enough, popularity on the website itself isn't enough, when will it ever stop? Or more so, when will they hold values? Case-by-case basis is fine but... well, would be pretty annoying as time passes.

Needless to say, I'll still stand by the idea we need some sort of reference. A line saying "A webnovel having X views total would be indexable" or "A webnovel having X average views would be indexable" would, at the very least, clarify the mind of users. Although, I would still think the requirement is idiotic in its current form.

Let's take your webnovel for example. There are 44 or so million views, but also over 3,000 chapters. The rules as they are prevent series of being simply longer length from appearing to be fitting our rules on the subject, simply because all further iterations of the series provides more net views. Take it to the extreme and you'll see what I mean- a series might have 1 million requisite views on YouTube, but that is divided between 100,000 videos. We should not index videos with only 10 views each.

Now. Your situation is not as extreme, but divided evenly, it still only has 13,000 average views per chapter. So it is important to us to know how many the highest chapter has (which tends to be the first).

Just to clarify, this is not "my novel" since I'm uninterested in the one Lycoris mentioned in his CRT

I understand the idea on Youtube itself, vaguely. I don't see how can that apply within a webnovel environment. This isn't sane by any mean. Taking back your example, we would index that series if one of the 100,000 videos reached 1 million views, is it truly better?

Also, that whole "average views per chapter" needs to stop. You can't know for sure. Doing "total number of views divided by the number of chapter" is flimsy at best. I'll be honest, the most recent chapters? I doubt they even reach a thousand view, because people following novels on a daily basis aren't as many as one might think. I used the example of TBATE last time, but look at the difference between the older/newer chapters:

Spoiler: Older

Spoiler: Newer

Mind you, it's one of the most popular novel on Tapas, easily. It has 26.1 million views too, almost half of the one Lycoris wanted to index. (different websites tho).
Also, on another topic but still related to this. Let's assume we could be able to see the individual chapter views, what is stopping someone from simply boting the number of views to get the verse of the wiki? No one will know. I'm sure only lunatics would do so, though, but you get the idea, I think.

No matter how I see it, "number of views" is an imperfect metric to gauge a webnovel or any verse, truly. It can serve as secondary evidence, let's say, but certainly not as the fundamental requirement.

It sucks, yeah. Not much else to say about it, at least it isn't a frequently relevant issue.

Just so you're aware, right now, some webnovels that doesn't fit the standards are currently on the wiki. I did some search, they are decently popular, by all means, but not "VSBW indexable". If the verses were accepted (with a CRT or not, that much I'm unaware) and still present to this day, it brought no harm whatsoever to the wiki.

The issue is staff members do not consistently abide by democratically created rules, which is a difficult topic to handle (and is a lot deeper than this thread entails). Regardless, to answer the end question: because there would be discussion beforehand that allowed it. We would not need to look to precedent, as this would be the precedent. Unless rules were to change, it would theoretically be fine.

I don't mind staff members having different opinions, else the forum wouldn't be able to function properly. What I feel is problematic is the fact that there is no common ground to work with due to how vague the terms the staff members are working with. Ant advocated for "a million view on a single chapter" while Agnaa stated that "it could be toned down to 100K views if it's from a less populated area, such as Korea" something Ant initially disagreed on until he was fine with 100K views for any webnovel, it seems. But, again, where is the statement on the editing rules? Worse, isn't the editing rules themselves explaining that a hard-cap of views is impractical?

From my perspective, one of a normal user, it seems no one agrees on anything, beside the vague idea of "popular" that they may have in mind.

And what even qualifies as a "view" to both sites could be completely different. They could also have varying degrees of bots making up traffic.

Just about this, I'm almost certain Webnovel index views not by "a person clicking on the novel/reading a chapter" but instead when the novel itself appear on your screen, as a recommendation for example. Although, I might be confusing myself with another website.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

"Concrete values" here is quite a loose term, you'll have to admit. Views aren't enough, reviews aren't enough, popularity on the website itself isn't enough, when will it ever stop? Or more so, when will they hold values? Case-by-case basis is fine but... well, would be pretty annoying as time passes.

Needless to say, I'll still stand by the idea we need some sort of reference. A line saying "A webnovel having X views total would be indexable" or "A webnovel having X average views would be indexable" would, at the very least, clarify the mind of users. Although, I would still think the requirement is idiotic in its current form.

Agree to disagree, I guess. Most verses on the wiki surpass notoriety standards, so it clearly does "stop". In this case, there's just a great deal of obfuscation, and it is very much borderline.

The requirements as they are, are largely functional. Any option seems imperfect, and I don't see a good reason to entirely gut the current system.

Just to clarify, this is not "my novel" since I'm uninterested in the one Lycoris mentioned in his CRT

Fair enough. Forgive the verbiage, then, if you will.

I understand the idea on Youtube itself, vaguely. I don't see how can that apply within a webnovel environment. This isn't sane by any mean. Taking back your example, we would index that series if one of the 100,000 videos reached 1 million views, is it truly better?

Also, that whole "average views per chapter" needs to stop. You can't know for sure. Doing "total number of views divided by the number of chapter" is flimsy at beast. I'll be honest, the most recent chapters? I doubt they even reach a thousand view, because people following novels on a daily basis aren't as many as one might think. I used the example of TBATE last time, but look at the difference between the older/newer chapters:









Mind you, it's one of the most popular novel on Tapas, easily. It has 26.1 million views too, almost half of the one Lycoris wanted to index. (different websites tho).
Also, on another topic but still related to this. Let's assume we could be able to see the individual chapter views, what is stopping someone from simply boting the number of views to get the verse of the wiki? No one will know. I'm sure only lunatics would do so, though, but you get the idea, I think.

No matter how I see it, "number of views" is an imperfect metric to gauge a webnovel or any verse, truly. It can serve as secondary evidence, let's say, but certainly not as the fundamental requirement.

I don't know what the issue here is. Having already acknowledged that the threshold for a web novel is lower than the threshold for a YouTube video... what's the deal? The issue of views arises because this instance doesn't show us how many views a first chapter has, and the external information appears insubstantial in terms of evidence to help us.

I believe you when you say that older chapters have a great deal more views. That much seems obvious, and proves true across all mediums- people will eventually lose interest, so all those who started something may not finish something. Were we talking about your example web novel, it would be acceptable. As it stands, we don't know the metrics of this one, though, and it doesn't surpass a point where it seems obviously, self-evidently, acceptable.

Botting the verse does seem like a legitimate concern, or at least one I lack an answer to- we're vulnerable to that, definitely. I just don't think it happens much. S'pose it's technically possible though, sure.

In your opinion, what is the best way of gauging popularity for a web novel, if not views?

I don't mind staff members having different opinions, else the forum wouldn't be able to function properly. What I feel is problematic is the fact that there is no common ground to work with due to how vague the terms the staff members are working with. Ant advocated for "a million view on a single chapter" while Agnaa stated that "it could be toned down to 100K views if it's from a less populated area, such as Korea" something Ant initially disagreed on until he was fine with 100K views for any webnovel, it seems. But, again, where is the statement on the editing rules? Worse, isn't the editing rules themselves explaining that a hard-cap of views is impractical?

From my perspective, one of a normal user, it seems no one agrees on anything, beside the vague idea of "popular" that they may have in mind.

This is just sort of going over previous statements, but, yeah. It's imperfect.

The thing about the wiki is that we ultimately will agree on something. It may take a long time to take shape, beginning as a vague idea from some user (perhaps not even a staff member) and being processed by the wretched bureaucracy into some functioning policy or end decision. It's why these things have discussions surrounding them.

The truth of the matter is that the world cannot be 100% consistent within itself while also maintaining all of its values. Look to the real world, where actions have consequences- even there, rules are applied inconsistently, based on the judgement and estimations of people entrusted to make those judgements and estimations. Lawyers, judges, jurors, auditors, senators, representatives, so on and so forth. All are entrusted to make judgement, because while the rules are what they are, they require the judgement of man to do anything at all. I do not claim this cannot lead to unfairness, or inconsistency- I claim that this is the best way to handle things, and that the best we can do as part of it is to try to avoid inconsistency and unfairness where we may. The staff requires dedication, then, to this task.

 

[Rikimarox2]

Haven't read all the posts except for OP, but for Webnovels, we should absolutely count Pirate Sites as well. Majority of webnovels (based on my experience) are read on pirate sites.

An example on a thread that the OP linked, Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse. By itself on Webnovel, it has ~40+ Million views, which is nice, though the average view count will be low since it constantly updates a chapter or two every day.

However, there are also many, many pirate sites, that also have millions of views. A few examples (for Infinite Mana, hopefully I don't get screwed because of showing pirate sites):

Spoiler

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

Admittedly, I am unsure whether the ratings and views are taken from a specific time from the Webnovel page, however, considering how popular those websites are and how many users keep engaging, I'd say it is still quite a bit of views. Really, we can't just assume the number of views from the Webnovel page alone, as the majority of readers are just pirates reading it somewhere for free.

 

[SweetDao]

Agree to disagree, I guess. Most verses on the wiki surpass notoriety standards, so it clearly does "stop". In this case, there's just a great deal of obfuscation, and it is very much borderline.

Well, I mean, I don't want to bother you to death with this, so like you say, I'll agree to disagree.

The requirements as they are, are largely functional. Any option seems imperfect, and I don't see a good reason to entirely gut the current system.

I get it and I agree with you. Maybe "gutting the entire system" is largely extreme, but nothing stop us to revisit it to some extent.

Fair enough. Forgive the verbiage, then, if you will.

Don't worry, I don't mind at all.

I don't know what the issue here is. Having already acknowledged that the threshold for a web novel is lower than the threshold for a YouTube video... what's the deal? The issue of views arises because this instance doesn't show us how many views a first chapter has, and the external information appears insubstantial in terms of evidence to help us.

1) No mention whatsoever it is the case on editing rules.
2) Arbitrary number of views, going against said editing rules.

Those are the two most self-evident problems. However, it's not all.

Let's go with the postulate that, to get a webnovel I like indexed, I need one of its chapters to be 100K views. I check, and I see it's only, idk, 70K for the most popular one. Assuming I'm not a lunatic to bot or refresh the page 30K times, it means I would have to...arbitrarily wait for the novel to get those 100K views when perhaps the novel is concluded since months or years? It feels...pointless? Maybe it's not the right word, but my first thought would be "why?". Maybe I'm being obsessed by a certain point of view, so perhaps my argumentation is biased (it surely is), but waiting for a thing to get to an arbitrary number of views when nothing will change in the novel, no new chapters, no new characters, no new sentences, is certainly special to me.

I hope that you can understand the "feeling" that I'm trying to convey here, even if the words aren't necessarily the right ones.

Were we talking about your example web novel, it would be acceptable. As it stands, we don't know the metrics of this one, though, and it doesn't surpass a point where it seems obviously, self-evidently, acceptable.

Just so I have an idea, what would be, according to you, "self-evidently acceptable"? Obviously, don't say something like "The whole Earth know about it" but just your personal opinion on the matter that is still somewhat reasonable.

Botting the verse does seem like a legitimate concern, or at least one I lack an answer to- we're vulnerable to that, definitely. I just don't think it happens much. S'pose it's technically possible though, sure.

That's one of the reason I would be against using views as a primary source, personally, but then, no matter the choice the forum makes, there will always be potential problem.

In your opinion, what is the best way of gauging popularity for a web novel, if not views?

Let's talk about the most evident one. If the novel is considered, idk, top 10 in popularity, it should be indexed, no question asked beside, perhaps, the quality of it. (Although, I doubt a powerscaling work would reach that much popularity in the first place.)

But that's clearly not what you're asking, the important matter is the "middle-ground".

Personally, I would go with a multi-faceted review of it.

• Number of comments
• Number of reviews
• Views (total)
• Power Stone (in the case of Webnovel specifically)
• Collections
• Likes
• Age of the webnovel
• Intent behind the writing (at the very least to filter the obviously malicious one)
• Author background, to some degree. If the guy is popular or has a history of delivering good/popular webnovels, it should be a factor.
• Patreon or similar platform author's revenue.

That's the ones I can think on top of my head, obviously I could explain each one if needed.

Just so I can share you my view on it, Lycoris' novel would pass the "popularity requirement" for me. The "quality" one, however, that's another topic.

Also, now that I think about it, would it be an idiotic idea to have "staff appointed members" to review if a fiction can be indexed or not? Or perhaps a public thread like the one with layered hax for fiction to get evaluated beforehand?

The thing about the wiki is that we ultimately will agree on something. It may take a long time to take shape, beginning as a vague idea from some user (perhaps not even a staff member) and being processed by the wretched bureaucracy into some functioning policy or end decision. It's why these things have discussions surrounding them.

Honestly, I just want to understand the requirement when reading the rules. I would be happy if at least that much could be clarified within the editing rules page.

The truth of the matter is that the world cannot be 100% consistent within itself while also maintaining all of its values. Look to the real world, where actions have consequences- even there, rules are applied inconsistently, based on the judgement and estimations of people entrusted to make those judgements and estimations. Lawyers, judges, jurors, auditors, senators, representatives, so on and so forth. All are entrusted to make judgement, because while the rules are what they are, they require the judgement of man to do anything at all. I do not claim this cannot lead to unfairness, or inconsistency- I claim that this is the best way to handle things, and that the best we can do as part of it is to try to avoid inconsistency and unfairness where we may. The staff requires dedication, then, to this task.

I understand and hear you, sir, I just wish for it to be more understandable by everyone.

If it was written verbatim, "your story need 1 million views", I doubt anyone would feel the statement is ambiguous. Not saying that there will be no discussion about it (like if a 950K novel would qualify, for example) but at the very least, every staff members would have a basis to work with.

 

[BestMGQScalerEver]

Haven't read all the posts except for OP, but for Webnovels, we should absolutely count Pirate Sites as well. Majority of webnovels (based on my experience) are read on pirate sites.

An example on a thread that the OP linked, Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse. By itself on Webnovel, it has ~40+ Million views, which is nice, though the average view count will be low since it constantly updates a chapter or two every day.

However, there are also many, many pirate sites, that also have millions of views. A few examples (for Infinite Mana, hopefully I don't get screwed because of showing pirate sites):

Spoiler

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

Admittedly, I am unsure whether the ratings and views are taken from a specific time from the Webnovel page, however, considering how popular those websites are and how many users keep engaging, I'd say it is still quite a bit of views. Really, we can't just assume the number of views from the Webnovel page alone, as the majority of readers are just pirates reading it somewhere for free.

I do think pirate sites are a pretty good measure of general popularity considering people dont like to pay and that all the ones that could be added to the wiki are also all typically paid novels with large chapter count that require extremely high amounts of money to fully unlock.

 

[BestMGQScalerEver]

I do think pirate sites are a pretty good measure of general popularity considering people dont like to pay and that all the ones that could be added to the wiki are also all typically paid novels with large chapter count that require extremely high amounts of money to fully unlock.

The author of Shadow Slave also jokes about his novel being the #1 most pirated webnovel and well you can see the huge discrepancy in the views and how many people actually do just pirate (monthly) instead (mind you this is only one site)

Spoiler

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Haven't read all the posts except for OP, but for Webnovels, we should absolutely count Pirate Sites as well. Majority of webnovels (based on my experience) are read on pirate sites.

An example on a thread that the OP linked, Infinite Mana in the Apocalypse. By itself on Webnovel, it has ~40+ Million views, which is nice, though the average view count will be low since it constantly updates a chapter or two every day.

However, there are also many, many pirate sites, that also have millions of views. A few examples (for Infinite Mana, hopefully I don't get screwed because of showing pirate sites):

Spoiler

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

Admittedly, I am unsure whether the ratings and views are taken from a specific time from the Webnovel page, however, considering how popular those websites are and how many users keep engaging, I'd say it is still quite a bit of views. Really, we can't just assume the number of views from the Webnovel page alone, as the majority of readers are just pirates reading it somewhere for free.

I'd like to ask, out of curiosity...

Why? Isn't this free to read? Why pirate it?

 

[SweetDao]

Why? Isn't this free to read? Why pirate it?

Some website (like Webnovels) uses "premium" chapters features. Like, you could have the first 100 chapters for free and then the rest of the story needs some sort of payment.

 

[BestMGQScalerEver]

Some website (like Webnovels) uses "premium" chapters features. Like, you could have the first 100 chapters for free and then the rest of the story needs some sort of payment.

Ya you get contracted by Webnovel/qidian and chapters at a certain point are locked.

 

[deonment]

Some website (like Webnovels) uses "premium" chapters features. Like, you could have the first 100 chapters for free and then the rest of the story needs some sort of payment.

And to add onto this, even when they let you "unlock" more chapters you get on average anywhere from 2-4 chapters per day, which for these hundred or thousand chapter long novels, is ******* obscene
I would almost argue that the stats on pirate/aggregator sites is a better metric tbh because if someone enjoys a novel so much they actively go out of their way to pirate that says something

 

[Sir_Ovens]

I disagree profoundly. This is a slipshod approach to the ordeal that ignores huge amounts of context. By requiring notability we ensure it is easier for the given piece of work to be fact-checked and proofread- if someone can contribute stories written by their author friend that only 50 people have read, then we descend into a rather silly state of affairs. Notoriety also tends to keep the quality of the wiki's contents up by ensuring more users are willing and able to contribute to a verse's upkeep- you see literally dozens of verses being condemned to deletion for the sole sin of having no active supporters. It also prevents the wiki from being a cesspool of verses nobody has ever heard of- this, in turn, affects things like staff efficiency, since those staff who still actively evaluate threads must (in your version of the wiki) now deal with twice as many threads, half of which are about things they can't actually evaluate properly, due to lacking materials. Our active staff body is already, in this moment, insufficient to deal with the sheer quantity of threads and calcs and questions and so on being made. Opening the wiki to verses of zero import only makes the problem leagues worse.

The list of reasons obviously goes on for some time.

Also, not all of us can. "smell battleboard fiction from a mile away", I mean. Certain people vehemently voted against the SCP thing on the basis that none of those stories were battleboard-based even while the writer of one of the stories admitted it was (just not VSBW). The rules ought to cover where man makes his errors.

I understand these concerns. However, my issue with popularity based indexing is that it's wildly subjective. To give you a glaring example, Star Wars is an immeasurably popular verse compared to something like Slime. Yet, band for band there are more active users talking and working on Slime than Star Wars. Page quality is also not dependant on popularity either. No More Heroes has way better sourced and formatted pages than Jujutsu Kaisen (no offense) and the former was all done by one guy while the latter has an army of users working on it daily.

I know we joke about having no faith in our users to powerscale properly and with integrity, but some trust must be placed on them to add profiles to our wiki that meet quality standards. We all start from somewhere after all.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I understand these concerns. However, my issue with popularity based indexing is that it's wildly subjective. To give you a glaring example, Star Wars is an immeasurably popular verse compared to something like Slime. Yet, band for band there are more active users talking and working on Slime than Star Wars. Page quality is also not dependant on popularity either. No More Heroes has way better sourced and formatted pages than Jujutsu Kaisen (no offense) and the former was all done by one guy while the latter has an army of users working on it daily.

I know we joke about having no faith in our users to powerscale properly and with integrity, but some trust must be placed on them to add profiles to our wiki that meet quality standards. We all start from somewhere after all.

disagreements aside, why would I take offense to a slight against JJK lol

 

[Sir_Ovens]

Twas no offense to the JJK crowd.

Also I'd like to add that with media made specifically for battleboarding, nobody is just gonna slip it onto the wiki and not make matches with it. Usually pages like that will generate huge attention on the forum and can be taken action against there. The pages that go under the radar more often than not are pages from established verses that everyone is aware of cause they already know there's nothing out of the ordinary there. That or low tier pages cause nobody is threatened by John 9-B beating their favourite character in a vs match.

 

[Rikimarox2]

I'd like to ask, out of curiosity...

Why? Isn't this free to read? Why pirate it?

As the others mentioned, only the select portion of the beginning chapters are free (Usually the first 50 chapters), anything afterward requires "coins", and to unlock all chapters require quite a lot of money for a novel. Which is why everyone just goes to pirate site because paying like 200-300+ dollars for a novel isn't exactly something everyone can do.

So, the huge number of views you see in webnovel, a large portion of them are people buying the chapters.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

As the others mentioned, only the select portion of the beginning chapters are free (Usually the first 50 chapters), anything afterward requires "coins", and to unlock all chapters require quite a lot of money for a novel. Which is why everyone just goes to pirate site because paying like 200-300+ dollars for a novel isn't exactly something everyone can do.

So, the huge number of views you see in webnovel, a large portion of them are people buying the chapters.

But presumably not, though. Presumably that's why the pirate sites have so many. Some number of views on the main site are suckers people who paid for it, but a substantial amount of people seem to just pivot to piracy.

Still. Reckon this probably settles the issue of notoriety, if its net views are just horrifically spread out (and that seems to verifiably be the case). At least, it seems reliable enough in my opinion. It'd be wiser to mention this on the actual thread for this verse.

For the record, because this thread isn't strictly about the Infinite Mana hubbub, I stand by the notion that the OP and some messages in here exaggerate the issues with the system as it is, and that in its current form, the system is achieving a balancing point between being well defined and not being overly restrictive. I don't really see the issue with allowing for human evaluation rather than an overreliance on any one stat- truthfully, I may be confused as to what the point of these posts is. It seems to me people agree with the notion of any number being arbitrary, or too ignorant of the many instances of context, or what have you- but people still seem to want this to be the status quo, to codify (for example) 1 million views on YouTube as the requirement. I don't really understand it at all.