Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The stats on AO3 fascinate me. And irritate me. I have a tendency to get annoyed when a fic of mine that I don’t particularly like has more hits than I think it should. While both hits and kudos are an interesting way of monitoring things, I think the most interesting is conversion rate. What percentage of those who visit a fic take the time to leave kudos?
And, also, what does that conversion rate mean? That the fandom is more engaged? That the people are more polite? That the writing is better? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, by the way.
So I decided to take a look at my own fic in terms of conversion, and I was quite surprised.
Top 10 by Hits
Top 10 by Kudos
Top 10 by Conversion %
(For some reason, I’m hugely thrilled that the Smash fic made it onto both of the later lists.)
Now, almost all of the ones in the conversion list are older fics, smaller or less active fandoms, and lucky to make it into double figures in terms of hits. But it doesn’t take away the fact that people are more likely to click to leave kudos for them than they are for others. Is it because they’re just thrilled to have anything to read at all? Are older fandoms nicer? I honestly don’t know.
It doesn’t stop me thinking about it though :)
