Notability View Requirements

[Agnaa]

Our Editing Rules over notability are a bit of a patchwork. We simultaneously say:

It is impractical to set hard defined viewer number limits, however, in general, preference shall be given to officially published works or at least very popular privately published standalone original works that are not fanfiction.

And:

For content published on YouTube, or online content for which one can expect similar viewer numbers to be equally reasonable to reach, we require that at least one entry in the canon has at least 1 million views on its own. This doesn't apply for entries created by bigger companies and for entries for which no viewer numbers can be determined. The former are generally allowed, while for the latter, case-by-case consideration is required.

Which has led to some questions over its implementation; are web novels considered "online content for which one can expect similar viewer numbers to be equally reasonable to reach"? Should content in languages with fewer speakers than English be expected to have lower view counts?

DontTalk argued exactly that in the thread refining this rule, but Ant emphatically disagreed when later interpreting it, showing concerns about obscure verses being added through this.

 

[FinePoint]

I'd argue not.

YouTube has an algorithm and a very large user base which drastically inflates anything which 'trends' for even a small period of time.

Getting a million views on a YouTube video is far easier than getting a million views on pretty much any literature platform.

It might also fall under the "no viewer numbers can be determined" category since they're often scattered across many different websites.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

I got permission from Agnaa on discord.

So I think the standards for paid webnovels should have a lower bar as a webnovel is a massive time investment + added with the payment wall will have a harder barrier of entry to get past.

For example this english written WN on webnovel wouldn't qualify for notability based on stats, and can be considered on the lower end of popular WNs on the site, but is by no means "not notable" imo as the author's discord has over a 1000 people, with the author saying himself that he makes 600-1200 a month depending on the readers and chapters (Webnovel/qidian takes a 50% cut). This isn't not notable at all for the context of the space it's in, and rarely do webnovel authors actually make this type of money. Limiting things to essentially very popular outliers just seems like a unproductive way to do thing for this type of space.

 

[Antvasima]

I'd argue not.

YouTube has an algorithm and a very large user base which drastically inflates anything which 'trends' for even a small period of time.

Getting a million views on a YouTube video is far easier than getting a million views on pretty much any literature platform.

It might also fall under the "no viewer numbers can be determined" category since they're often scattered across many different websites.

Well, we need to figure out reasonable standards to disallow too obscure verses in any case.

 

[FinePoint]

Well, we need to figure out reasonable standards to disallow too obscure verses in any case.

Well outside of just individually evaluating vibes, we could always just decide on numbers for more specific things.

For something where the 'viewer count' is either impossible to determine or obviously unreliable, I don't think something like having a third party community with over 1000 members is unreasonable like the case mentioned above, though there are probably a lot of cases where such a thing was simply never established despite it being popular.

Otherwise, I'm guessing that 100k views would probably capture the top 0.01% of written literature.

If we're still concerned, we could add an additional requirement that it have multiple supporters here too, like two or three.

 

[Antvasima]

100,000 views for a single chapter seems rather reasonable, but not in sum total for all the chapters of a story.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I don't think expecting numbers for Japanese WN that are higher than those of works which typically end up getting commercially published would be reasonable.
Which is to say, audience should matter IMO.

 

[Agnaa]

Even if we set a relatively high bar, I think a "revenue in a year" requirement would be a good way to set hard numbers across a variety of different mediums and languages.

 

[FinePoint]

100,000 views for a single chapter seems rather reasonable, but not in sum total for all the chapters of a story.

That is what I meant.

Even if we set a relatively high bar, I think a "revenue in a year" requirement would be a good way to set hard numbers across a variety of different mediums and languages.

An obvious problem I could foresee is that's not always disclosed.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

I got permssion from agnaa again so I might as well put out some possible requirements that a work would only have to qualify for one. Obviously powerscaling focused works are inherently excluded.

1. Discord of 500 or more members (could be bumped to 1000 ig if it's too low but one of webnovels that's a lot more on higher-end of popularity side of things but not utmost popular only has a discord of almost 4000 members which is still insane)
2. Made at least what would be a yearly estimate of 10k or more (publisher cut is not included) if disclosed or can be verified through other means such as relative popularity of other paid works. 10k is a LOT of money for writing a webnovel so it's by no means a too small amount.
3. 100k views on one chapter if can be verified
4. Non-negligible social media presence or third party site statistics (this ones a bit hard to quantify ngl)
5. An authors work that takes place in same verse as what qualifies for one of above

 

[Agnaa]

An obvious problem I could foresee is that's not always disclosed.

That's fine.

It wouldn't be the sole way that things could qualify, but a way.

Plus, there are many indirect ways of getting lower bounds on that sort of thing (having a displayed number of member numbers, such as on Patreon, or having a displayed number of reviews).

 

[FinePoint]

It wouldn't be the sole way that things could qualify, but a way.

I do really like the idea of having multiple different criteria and allowing any of them like BestMGQScalerEver suggested.

 

[Pluto321]

I got permission to post from @FinePoint

I think official translation of Korean and Chinese webnovels from sites like Taaps and Wuxiaworld should be allowed because getting a licence is not easy in first place from author or website which holds the copyright over the novels and Many people also purchased virtual currency ( like golden karma from Wuxiaworld or Ink from Taaps) of sites to buy the chapters and monthly subscription which is also known as Champions on Wuxiaworld and sometimes it can go up to 300$ per month which is a lot of money. This is one of the Champion on Wuxiaworld and they don't show the numbers of views on there Website or App but Many people are will to spend 100$ or more to read novels and this is just one of many novels on the website.

 

[FinePoint]

I think official translation of Korean and Chinese webnovels from sites like Taaps and Wuxiaworld should be allowed

It seems like that site does allow for reviews, though.

I'm not sure on a number, but we could make a criteria based on that instead.

I definitely don't think only eight reviews is enough, in any case.

 

[Pluto321]

Well I think reply to message should be fine but I can ask permission again, If staff wants that.

It seems like that site does allow for reviews, though.

I'm not sure on a number, but we could make a criteria based on that instead.

I definitely don't think only eight reviews is enough, in any case.

Well I just use that novel as an example only and that novel has come out last month only. Even old novels like Emperor Domination has around 400 reviews only but has more than 6000+ Chapters, So I don't think reviews can be use as basis for qualification for Popularity.

 

[Lycoris4812]

I got permission from @FinePoint.

I think if a web novel has been adapted into a manhua or manhwa, that it is a pretty good sign of popularity. If that’s not enough we can use the amount of chapters that the manhua or manhwa has as a criteria.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I got permission from @FinePoint.

I think if a web novel has been adapted into a manhua or manhwa, that it is a pretty good sign of popularity. If that’s not enough we can use the amount of chapters that the manhua or manhwa has as a criteria.

I believe anything that has been adapted into an officially published work passes per default.
So unless you mean something like doujinshi they should pass.

 

[KLOL506]

Bump

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

bump

 

[Pluto321]

Bump

 

[Antvasima]

I think that we should stick with a rather straightforward and easily evaluated approach of that we greatly prefer officially published works that are not extremely obscure, but also accept self-contained online works (that are not fan works) with a high level of viewership notability.

Revenue would be very hard to gauge and would also favour works from high income countries.

 

[Agnaa]

Revenue would be very hard to gauge

The reason I like having revenue as an aspect is that, if we can't gauge it properly, we can simply ignore it. If we can only gauge a part of it (i.e. they mention how many shirts they sold, but not how many books) we can use what we know as a low-end. Plus it's fairly common for independent creators to run Patreons and crowdfunding events that can directly tell us some of their revenue.

It's not something we have to figure out, but it's another way of telling whether a piece of media has an actual dedicated audience or not.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, it would also be much harder to gauge reliability from given that income standards differ so much from country to country.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I would argue income can be a sufficient condition, but not a necessary one.

 

[KLOL506]

bump

 

[Random-Helper323]

Revenue does tell us something about notability. It's literally used by companies to gauge whether to continue shows and other such series. It should be a method to measure notability, but not the method.

We also have to look at cultural impact, such as cosplays, memes, other things drawing ideas from it, the overall legacy of a work.

There are many ways to gauge notability, these are just two. I'd say we should look at notability based on as many factors as possible, within reason.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, but most of the factors, outside of popularity by number of viewers, are very hard to place any gaugable metrics on.

 

[FriendOfTheTeaParty]

Bump

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I suppose I'll speak here.

Views: I don't think 100,000 is a terrible number, though I may prefer a bit higher. It was mentioned earlier than YouTube makes it easy to reach 1,000,000 views due to the algorithm, and that it might be reasonable to set a lower number elsewhere; truthfully, I have at times wondered if 1,000,000 for YouTube is too low. My impression is that there are tons of videos with no cultural impact on YouTube with tons of views. Because of this, I do feel 100,000 is quite low. Then again, I must also acknowledge that this situation is not a dichotomy of Youtube:All other sites. We are dealing with a spectrum, and many platforms (all with approximately equal cultural impact) will see wildly different view counts for equally as impactful things, because of the minutiae of that platform. The number that occurs to me is a bit higher (250,000). It is also worth saying that for many franchises, the views for an individual entry are never listed; in these cases, I would recommend using the average views, and bumping the number down to 100,000. If the average chapter is reaching far below this value, I have doubts on its cultural importance.

Income: Income is relevant, and I do agree it is a facet by which we can judge these things. It is worth noting that I was brought here by a more recent case, where the verse seems to have not-a-lot of impact, but many of those consuming it are paying on its Patreon. So I want to note for the thread that things like Patreon mean a relatively small body of supporters might keep afloat a franchise. This means it might have essentially no importance or wide relevance to it at all, but might still yield, say, $6,000/mo via donations from its small community.

Reviews: I think this is a reasonably good way to judge it, but it's really abstract how this relates to actual viewerbase, and even fewer of these would need to be faked in order to deceive us.

Cosplay: Actually a novel idea that I agree with! If people are cosplaying for the verse, especially professional cosplayers, then this is a pretty good indicator of cultural relevance.

Basically, I think all methods suggested here have some amount of validity to them, but I feel many are abstract. It is the culmination of these elements by which I have been judging these projects, and while I can offer no hard values for this, I think this is the best way to approach it.

 

[Antvasima]

Should we use a minimum of 5 million views for YouTube, and a minimums of 500,000 individual views for online story archives then? Would that be reasonable?

 

[Mr. Bambu]

500,000 may be too much. And I'm not hard-set on changing our YouTube view requirements, either. I don't think 5,000,000 is a bad figure, but I would not wish to act on my opinion alone, for fear of being uninformed about X or Y thing.

 

[Antvasima]

Should we use a minimum of 5 million views for YouTube, and a minimums of 500,000 individual views for online story archives then? Would that be reasonable?

500,000 may be too much. And I'm not hard-set on changing our YouTube view requirements, either. I don't think 5,000,000 is a bad figure, but I would not wish to act on my opinion alone, for fear of being uninformed about X or Y thing.

@DontTalkDT @Agnaa @FinePoint @Random-Helper323

What do you think about this?

 

[Random-Helper323]

It might be okay to go lower than 5 million views on YouTube and 500,000 for an archive. For an example, many of Death Battle's videos don't exceed 2 million views despite it being a fairly large show with over 6 million YouTube subscribers.

 

[DontTalkDT]

@DontTalkDT @Agnaa @FinePoint @Random-Helper323

What do you think about this?

I do not think "online story Archive" is a sufficient homogeneous category to apply a singular value to.

For YouTube we should factor in length of a series.
And I think a number we set should be understood as sufficient, not necessary, criteria.

If we talk about a sufficient criteria on an singular video basis 5 mil would be ok in my eyes.

 

[FinePoint]

@DontTalkDT @Agnaa @FinePoint @Random-Helper323

What do you think about this?

I think that's probably fine, though a little worried about inflated numbers. We should be able to consider other context too, like if a site seems to be counting views improperly.

Though as DT points out we should probably specify for the first entry, rather than requiring consistent performance. If a story falls off and becomes less popular it should still be indexed on the virtue of its earlier installments being popular.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Oh my God no, why would we raise YouTube to 5 million views? One million views is really not that simple to get, only 0.069% of all YouTube videos get to threshold.
This is such a small percentage of the total sum of YouTube videos that I think it'd be insane to bar a video that has 1 million views compared to 5 million.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, considering the sheer number of YouTube videos, if almost a thousandth of them have 1 million to 10 million views and almost a ten thousandth of them have 10 million to 100 million views, that seems like perfectly reasonable safety filters as I see it.

 

[Tllmbrg]

Well, considering the sheer number of YouTube videos, if almost a thousandth of them have 1 million to 10 million views and almost a ten thousandth of them have 10 million to 100 million views, that seems like perfectly reasonable safety filters as I see it.

What are you protecting us from? I do not think the cut between 1 million and 5 million even makes that massive of an impact on allowed materials outside cutting popular series we already have on the site.
Plus it's literally less than 1% of the total amount of videos on YouTube, if that's not a small sample idk what is in the context of one of the largest online platforms.

 

[DaReaperMan]

I'm gonna just point out that Markiplier, one of the biggest YouTube content creators ever, has view counts generally varying from 1 mil to 3 mil, with the rare game getting over 5 million.

Some of his Five Nights At Freddy's content doesn't even break 5 mil, and the guy has 38.6 Million subscribers. 5 million is a genuinely asinine number to ask for when some of the top dogs on the platform don't even break it a lot of the time.

 

[DontTalkDT]

What are you protecting us from? I do not think the cut between 1 million and 5 million even makes that massive of an impact on allowed materials outside cutting popular series we already have on the site.
Plus it's literally less than 1% of the total amount of videos on YouTube, if that's not a small sample idk what is in the context of one of the largest online platforms.

I'm gonna just point out that Markiplier, one of the biggest YouTube content creators ever, has view counts generally varying from 1 mil to 3 mil, with the rare game getting over 5 million.

Some of his Five Nights At Freddy's content doesn't even break 5 mil, and the guy has 38.6 Million subscribers. 5 million is a genuinely asinine number to ask for when some of the top dogs on the platform don't even break it a lot of the time.

I feel like that depends a bit on the type of content, which is why I brought up different length of a series.
For a video series with a few episodes or a movie-length YouTube video, I would be inclined to accept lower counts than for a 2-minute meme clip.