Snowflake Challenge 9: Brag About Yourself

[impala_chick]

I still don't really understand what hits mean on AO3? I'm assuming it means the amount of times my fic was clicked on, but for that reason I avoid looking at the hit count - it's always way higher than kudos. Oof, I guess people had to click away from it.

ANYWAY, this post is supposed to be about good things! So, I'm quite proud of the fic I've written with the most kudos on AO3. My top two stories are Merlin/Arthur stories, but even though they're in a huge fandom I'm proud of the way they turned out. Waiting is Such Misery has 792 kudos and Whatever You Want to Be has 673 kudos. They were written in 2019 and 2020, and both deal with a canon divergence scenario. Third place is a Stony fic I wrote for Marvel Trumps Hate. Interestingly for me, the top three are all rated T. Waiting is Such Misery also has the highest number of hits, but the rest of the list sorted by hits is significantly different from my highest kudos list. My first, second, and third highest kudos fics are also the three highest bookmarked fics, although in a slightly different order.

Comments

[sjh2009]

Hmm, I always thought hits meant the number of people who had clicked on the story, but that wouldn't make sense if that is lower than the kudos, because to leave kudos you have had to click on the story. How weird!

Any way, congratulations on your stories, the stories have obviously been enjoyed by many people. I always enjoy canon divergence stories as it's interesting to see where people take the characters.

Thank you for sharing.

[impala_chick]

Oh yep, I meant to say higher. But I've learned some valuable alternate reasons for why the hit count might keep climbing over time, like people going back to old tabs or reading again. Thanks for coming by my journal :)

[argentum_ls]

Hits are the number of times the story has been opened from a unique IP address. This does include everyone who has clicked on the story. It also includes every time a tab with the story open in it gets reloaded. So, if someone is like me and they keep dozens of tabs open for stories they plan to read—and the browser gets reloaded with those open tabs—the story will rack up hits. I’m personally responsible for dozens of hits on some stories.

IOW, don’t assume hits are from people who clicked away from the story.

In general, a kudos to hits ratio of 1:10 is really good. If it’s any lower, that becomes truly impressive. But, always keep in mind that as stories age, the hit count will increase while the kudos don’t simply from people coming back to re-read a story they can’t also re-kudos.

[impala_chick]

Oh, thank you for this! Those are great alternatives that I hadn't considered before. I like knowing a base line/average for the ratio - that helps me put my stats into context.

[dreamersdare]

I was gonna come on and give reassurances about hits to kudos ratio, but the commenter above me has already explained it perfectly :)

[impala_chick]

Hooray, I learned something new!

[sjh2009]

That makes more sense. I have to admit I've been back more than once to a story. With the hits always being so much higher it always makes me wonder what the people thought of the story. Did they click on it by mistake, did they like it but couldn't be bothered to give kudos or comments or did they hate it, lol.