All~ =D I agree with you totally. I mean, I remember when Adam first put up this feature. My rankings were in the 20's or 10's. Then it was in the 70's-80's and now I'm currently exactly 40. The rankings should not just be based on the posting of blogs and such. I mean, what if someone is posting and posting just to get a higher rank and tries to reach the top of the game. That wouldn't be fair... Maybe the ranking should be more complex. I think it should also include submissions, commenting (no spam of course), & how much you contribute to theO.

And here I just ignore it since I don't have the information or rather variables that Adam uses for determining the ranking. >_>

-Sabrina

I've gotten to where I simply ignore it and no longer care what it means. If Adam were to be a bit more straight forward I might be interested, but usually he is not.

~Crystia

I agree, I just realized that today actually. I usually post just about everyday but haven't for the last couple of days. My ranking eventually drops three places with each day I didn't post 'nd I'm like, "OHHHHHH". So yeah, I'd like more clarification on how the system works ~__~ It's useless to know your ranking if you don't even know why you got that rank in the first place =P

i'm with you a little bit on this one alla. and the reason i can't be full way is because i'm not paying attention to numbers but i have noticed iconx's numbers will jump a huge amount in short times. one day it will be 150 the next 180 the next 140 etc.

I don't really think the link feature is that fair. i wanted to see what they all said so i refreshed a lot and the same sites repeat multiple times.

i'd be interested in helping out if i could.

Don't care, it would just be nice to have some specifics on why it's there and how it works, for sure. In a week, both of my worlds have dropped about 400 places.

I believe that a regular date should be made regarding the ranking updates. Sure, if everyone finds out that he updates on Saturdays or something, then most will update on those days, right? But, at least, it will even out some major fluctuations.

It's hard to find a trend with regards to rankings if the updates themselves are as random as the founder... :D

It is a bit strange, but basically I agree with those people who have already said that 1) they don't really care that much (although I do care when it comes to my Doujinshi Parlor world, as that's fandom specific), and 2) it's likely a mixture of lots of different elements, so it seems rather easy for someone to tip the balance.

I really don't know much about how this works though. I think I like the idea of separating the fandom worlds from the personal ones, though.

I've gotten where I simply ignore the rankings. I'm positive that how often you update effects a lot it since I go from around 75 to 500 all the time since it was implemented. It literally jumps all over the place so I outright ignore it since that kind of inconsistency makes it unless in my eyes.

To be honest, I kind of wish I could toggle the results in my back room off since I find that kind of result more irritating than useful.

@Desbreko:

Well really, there isn't a way to take the popularity completely out of the equation. And to a certain extent, I don't believe it should be gotten rid of.

I don't think it has anything to do with actual quality, as that's pretty subjective and not something an automated algorithm can calculate.

Yeah. So from that angle I understand the problem, and the reason for using frequency of updates and number of hits to compensate.

But then you look at the nearly seven and a half thousand worlds that have been created at the moment. And assuming that maybe half of those are never used, you still have about thirty-five hundred worlds to rank, of which only about 225 (estimated from my last tally) are devoted to fandom and approved. That's a huge amount of personal worlds muddying the ranking waters, despite the (seeming) ease of separating them from the others. I mean, you select a genre for your world from the category list right off the bat, so anything tagged as Personal could be easily set in its own area. Rankings there could still be done (as kind of a pseudo-competitive thing), but it wouldn't affect the fandom sites as much . . . which is what the current TheOtaku is geared for, yes?

From what I've gathered, it's still basically a popularity ranking. It just takes into account a bunch of different variables weighted at varying importance so that people can't manipulate it as easy. (myO's rankings were based purely on page views and it was full of people who artificially inflated their hit count.) I don't think it has anything to do with actual quality, as that's pretty subjective and not something an automated algorithm can calculate.

That said, it seems like it would be difficult to tweak everything just right so that none of the variables are over- or under-weighted. On one hand you want an accurate ranking, but on the other you want to keep the numbers from jumping around too erratically. I imagine a good balance is still being searched for.

@TimeChaser:

Yeah, see, I'm not really concerned by it, either. But it's apparently supposed to be there for something, not nothing. Ostensibly it's to sort fandom-based worlds, but then I think there should be a mechanism to either exclude the personal worlds (which conceivably isn't difficult) or set the personal worlds in their own sorting division, separate from the fan worlds (which again shouldn't be difficult).

Stuff like that.

yea the rankings do jump randomly... i hope you and the rest of the mods/staff can figure something out :3

I've noticed a frequent jump in rankings too. After my election day post, I went from #34 to like #16, and I've been fluctuating in the 20s since then.

The ranking system really means nothing to me. However, if someone 's explanation isn't up to snuff.....or what people said it was, I can understand your frustration.

Yeah, I haven't posted in a week now so my rank has went from #86 to #159 in the past couple days.

I wish it was simpler. =.='

I think the top however-many posts are ranked real close with one another, so each time one person posts and gets a lot of comments, like you just did, then everything is thrown and it looks like shenanigans. That's just my theory, anyways. I dunno why the system work the way it does, or maybe he's tweaking and not telling us. *shrugs* I dunno.