Medium: BUG: Publications List
BUG:3: Ranking Publications seems to have a problem
Each publication can register for up to 5 tag phrases. For instance, Adlers Writing has registered for the 5 tags:
MICROFICTION
FICTION
FLASH FICTION
SHORT STORY
VERY SHORT STORY
Readers can do searches on these tag phrases and should expect to find all publications, for that tag, ranked into some order. Some “engagement order,” so the more “engagement” the higher on the list they should be. My guess is it is total number of fans (for that tag). So, all fans for that tag for all stories in that publication are totalled and stored. That makes sense to me and fits with most of the data.
BUT there are some anomalies and I will highlight one now.
Looking at my favourite tag MICROFICTION, because I use it and there is a limited amount of data, so should be easier to spot a problem.
Search for MICROFICTION and you get a list of 16 publications that hasn’t changed for at least a month:
To Search
Search in the status bar(top line) and selecting the MORE on Publications…
Make sure not in a Publication.
Type in MICROFICTION press Enter
Select MORE Publications
…see part screen shot below (the MORE on PUBLICATIONS is pressed)
…which gives the following list:
Microfiction-Publications-08 July 2018
- Adlers Writing
- 50-Word Horror Stories
- Micro Fictions
- 100 Words of Speculation
- Fifty-Worders
- Incumbent Memoirs
- Kim Kardashian Has a Kold . . . . zero stories
- Microfiction
- What exactly Is Microfiction? . . zero stories
- One Minute Reads . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Fan
- Fault Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Fans
- One Sentence Love Stories . . . . .0 Fans
- Micro-Fiction and Short Stories . . at least 3 Fans
- One Minute Read
- The Shorties
- Neil Dixon — Writings . . . zero Microfiction
Things of note:
There are only 16 publications that have MICROFICTION registered as a tag. This is hardly surprising as there are many other more widely used tags.
The list and list order hasn’t changed in the last month. It is still the same, today, publication date 12th July.
Adlers Writing is top of the list. This is not surprising as it has specialised in Microfiction and has over 16 MICROFICTION stories some with many fans.
Publication 50-Word Horror Stories has a lot of stories tagged MICROFICTION (52) but each with not that many fans, but it is not surprising to be at number 2.
The publication Kim Kardasian has a Kold has NO stories (so NO microfiction) and yet it is placed ABOVE several that do have MICROFICTION stories with fans [Fault Line for instance].
This is the query I am making:
Why is publication “Kim Kardasian has a Kold” higher on the ranking list with ZERO Stories, than other publications that do have MICROFICTION Fans?
What is Happening?
My guess:
At any time a publication can change tags and it seems the old tag listing is deleted from it’s list and the new tag is placed into it’s list. I have done this with Adlers Writing.
So, any additions will force a recalculation of the number of fans for all tags registered, and by default delete any listings for tags not used. BUT, what if ALL stories were removed from the publication? There might be no recalculation.
SO I believe publication “Kim Kardasian has a Kold” did have some MICROFICTION Fans but all stories were removed, and it is stuck.
Why is this important to you?
From time to time readers do searches and it will be good to have faith that the returned list is a proper representation of the ranking order of the chosen search. This problem is repeated for publications using tag SHORT STORY (see below) and I am sure this is repeated for every tag I care to look at.
This problem is keeping more deserving publication lower in the ranking list.
For tag SHORT STORY at about position 24 there is a publication:
Position 24 Chapter One Series . . . has 4 stories -1 Fan . but zero Fans for tag SHORT STORY.
Adlers Writing has many fans for tag SHORT STORY but is lower in the ranking list.
Why is Chapter One Series with NO SHORT STORY Fans placed higher than Adlers Writing that has plenty of SHORT STORY Fans.
cc: I’m guessing you will want to see this story? Emma Zhou, Kyle Mahan, Julia Kantic, edh lamport, DiAmaya Dawn, A Maguire, Pat Link.
