Poll: Ride the Recommendations

[thefourthvine]

isiscolo has an interesting post about the effect recommendations have on readership. (This is as judged by website statistics - part of her ongoing series on readership, feedback, and website stats, which I secretly suspect is a plot to make us all want websites. Or, for those of us who have websites, to make us want to put some actual content on them.)

This has been something of a theme with me recently. See, I do this whole recommendations thing so strangely that it is a constant delight to me that anyone reads or uses my LJ. So it never occurred to me that my recommendations might have effects on, say, readership or feedback. But first I had a vidder telling me my rec of her vid had a noticeable effect on downloading, and I swooned from joy. And then fairestcat and isiscolo pointed out to me that sometimes you can see actual feedback on stories that probably is the result of your rec! (Like, sometimes people say, "Here from thefourthvine," which is just the coolest thing ever OMG.) More joyous swooning followed. (If this keeps up, I'll need a fainting couch, and doesn't everyone want a good reason to buy a fainting couch?) And now isiscolo is saying - well, basically, that LJ recs have an effect, but only current recs; back recs on LJ aren't used as much. (Note: I am excessively over-simplifying her post. Please read it and ignore my summary.)

Me being me, my basic reaction to this was, yes, joyful swooning, and much burbling along the lines of: YAY! People sometimes read the things I recommend, and how neat is that? (Way neat, if you were wondering. Way, way neat.) But my secondary reaction to her conclusions was: hmmm. Perhaps I should update my memories or stop using tags or in some way make my LJ more, you know, useful to people.

And you are the people I want it to be useful to. Plus, I have a sick spouse at home and a bunch of work to do. You know what this means: it's time for yet another poll! (You can totally put "post fewer polls" in question five, by the way.)

[Poll #878107]

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/solo____/]

I read almost all of your recs, even often the ones for fandoms I'm not into, but I do actively avoid some things; this wouldn't be worth mentioning if one of the things weren't SGA, of which you post a lot, so I guess that means I ignore quite a bit of what you post simply through that.

Everything else, I read, and often go to check out. :-)

[macey-muse.livejournal.com]

So. Did you know your recs journal is recced? (And, yes, that does mean I am sad enough to read recs recs.)
I came here through 37flavor's top-of-page links, first. Then, awhile later I was browsing glitterati (where, by the way, this is described as 'Possibly the most-read recs journal out there: the author has a addictive, smart style in reccing, which makes reading the recs almost as much or more fun as reading the stories, regularly updated and heavy on description.' Ego-boosts are nice ^_^) and clicked, then thought, hey! This looks familiar...
Back to the poll, specifically the backlog section. Yes, I do read back - but I don't tend to use your fandom links, I just flick back through the pages. Reason? Each time I go searching for, say, SGA-fic, I get to the rec post just fine, that bit works. But then I get distracted by the shiny Hikaru no Go (one of the cool things about this lj - you rec obscure animanga that I can't ever find! Yay!) and never get round to reading the SGA... :( But I can't think of any way to solve that, so, we of short attention spans are doomed to suffer from sparkly side-tracking-ness. Oh, the agony! ^_^
For the 'do-you-read' bit - I have been known to pick up new fandoms from nothing more than a by-word on an ff.net user page, so you'll probably give me at least 3 new fandoms just from reading things I know nothing about, if the recs are tempting enough. Which they are. Scrubs, for example - I now need to find out more, after reading the Scrubs/SGA you recced a while back.
So, in conclusion - shiny = good, Slashy Awards = shiny, and also, I have the attention span of a slightly dazed magpie. Oh, and that there's a reason I don't comment...

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

I read parts of the posts. (Feel free to say which parts in the comments.)

I definitely read the intros. As for the recs:

If I'm currently reading in the fandom then I tend to treat your recs more as positive reviews -- I know you'll have said nice things, but I want to see it for myself before I get others' opinions. So if I haven't read the story before I tend to read it first, then come back and read your rec. If I've read the story before I'll certainly read your rec -- before rereading the story if I remember it, after rereading the story if all I remember was the happy glow of good fic.

If it's not a fandom I'm reading at the moment, either because I don't know it or I have fandom fatigue, then I'll read your rec first and then decide based on that whether or not to read the story. (Though recs that start "All you need to know about this fandom is HOMOEROTIC NINJA PIRATES WITH ROBO-MONKEYS!" will probably have me reading the story before I read the rest of the rec.)

[giddygeek.livejournal.com]

I got feedback just because there was a note in this poll. From people I hang out with on IRC, but still! Thanks. ;-)

[kitaloon.livejournal.com]

I refused to be constrained by a ticky box, because although I read stuff you've recced in my fandoms, most of what you rec isn't. So every now and then you'll come out with another SGA fic or something and I'm happy, but you manage to suck me in to fandoms I never would have dreamed of. DCU, for one, and HnG, neither of which I've particularly experienced in the canon.

In fact, I'm going to be strange and contradictory and say that your recs in fandoms that aren't mine are my favorites, because it's like a whole new frontier.

[chalcopyrite.livejournal.com]

I usually read what you have to say about the stories, even if I have no intention of reading the story. Also, your recs lure me outside what I consider my established fandoms on a fairly regular basis.

[akussaset.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm sorry, but I didn't take your poll, because I CANNOT BE CONFINED BY SIMPLE QUESTIONS. (Actually, my browser did something weird and gave me the results instead of the poll.) But anyhow, I did want to reply!

I read your recs, and while I usually only click through to the ones in fandoms that I'm already involved in, sometimes I pick up new fandoms from them (Eight Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Ward Sidekick Partner: or Dude you sound like a NAMBLA member comes to mind, because it was PURE LOVE). Also, I usually start here as a reference for getting into a new fandom. So YAY. You do such an awesome job! Your recs are spot-on, and your comments always make me laugh. I'll start leaving your name as how I got here so more people can tell you. :-)

Also, I friended you, is that okay?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. In fact your name is tossed around like, "TFV sent me to your story," as if anyone who's anyone would know who TFV is.
(Don't believe me? Check this out (http://community.livejournal.com/sga_flashfic/259748.html?thread=13120676#t13120676).)

Icarus