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

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

fanfic is something I'll occasionally discuss/defend with the people on my flist, my mother included. Slash, unfortunately, not so much

*winces in sympathy*

Yeah. I'm happy to share my fan fiction love with all the world, but not my mother. (She wouldn't be upset. She'd just read this LJ all the time, and probably leave comments, and some things just should not be shared between mothers and daughters. Really not. *shivers*) So I admire your bravery in talking about FF to your mother at all (well, I have, on occasion, but only, you know, vaguely), and I can totally see why you'd want to avoid having someone like me on your friends list, since there's really nothing else in my LJ.

I blame you for several fandoms I never meant to pick up

*beams*

This is what I like to hear. I am a vector for fandoms! It's a great source of personal pride.

So thanks for, y'know, just generally being cool. It's appreciated.

Thank you, both for the compliments (always fun to hear) and for stopping by and saying hello. It's very nifty to hear from lurkers, because - well, I want to talk to you guys. And now I have!

*waves happily*