lj stats question

[marguerite_26]

I updated my Merlin rec lists today and I was going into LJ my stats thingy looking to see if more people clicked the 'Modern AU' or the 'Canon Era' rec list - because, you know, curious and I noticed the RSS tab.

Can anyone tell me what those numbers mean? I know what an RSS is, I'm just curious if the numbers that lj is showing is accumulative or new followers? Not that it is exactly high numbers we are talking about. LOL. But I'm curious how exactly to read a number from one day to the next?


Oh, and if you are interested: Today (so far) more people checking out the Modern AU recs than the Canon recs (despite the fact that the canon rec list appeared first in the list when I posted them).

Comments

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

I always go to Canon recs first but I know a lot of people seem to like Modern better.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Me too. Canon is my default for both writing and reading, but interesting to see how popular Modern AUs are. by the looks of it, far more popular than Canon.

I'll have to check tomorrow to get better numbers... though I've just messed with my results. d'oh.

[giselleslash.livejournal.com]

Modern AUs own my heart ♥

And I'll be interested to see what kind of responses you get to the RSS thing because I just noticed that too when I last checked out my stats info and was all curious about it too :D

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I followed all their links about the RSS but none said what the numbers MEAN.

Despite my love of Canon fics, I think my Modern AU rec list is actually the bigger of the two.

[hollys_tree]

I almost only read modern-AU when I read Merlin fics, and when I'm in the mood for them I check out your list.
So I'm definitely part of one of these numbers! :D

No idea about the RSS.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

y u no like canon? :(((

(just teasing. i like modern au's too)

[waltzing-mice.livejournal.com]

*looks down at her feet*

Yea, I like the modern AUs...

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

ahah! your dirty little secret. promise I won't tell anyone. :)

[groolover.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the modern AU thing. I can't see the point. It's like non-magic AUs in HP. To me, if there's no magic, then why bother writing about Harry Potter? And if there are no knights etc (and, for that matter, no magic), why bother writing about Merlin?

Obviously there are many people who disagree with me, just as there are many people who like non-magic HP stories. Maybe I'm just weird - but I've read thousands of HP stories (literally - I have almost 4000 bookmarked, and I haven't bookmarked all the ones I've read) and I've never yet enjoyed any non-magic ones. Not even a little bit. (I've only tried a few, but those were all ones that everyone RAVES about, and I hated them all!) So I have no wish to try modern AU Arthur/Merlin.

(The fact that I imagine there's far less likelihood of Arthur doing that swishy thing with his sword is only ONE reason! Honest!)

[linnet-melody.livejournal.com]

I can see your point, if all the modern AU's were non-magic. Fortunately, that's not the case! Hooray! *throws confetti*

[groolover.livejournal.com]

But do they all have KNIGHTS and SWORDS and CAMELOT?

[linnet-melody.livejournal.com]

...No.

*shifty-eyed* One out of four? :D

[groolover.livejournal.com]

If the 'one' is the sword... I like swords :p

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I'm not fond of non-magical au in HP. I think the only two I read were both femme's Black Coffee and that Snape is a priest one? both AMAZING but ymmv. but as a rule, I didn't read AUs that were not based in the HP 'verse. They do nothing for me and I just 'don't see the point'. I like HP verse and want to stay in it! LOL.

However I feel completely differently about Merlin. For one thing, there is the whole reincarnation thing that is part of legend. So there is a whole chunk of modern au that are reincarnations of M/A where they remember themselves from back then. Great reads. Very epic.

Then even without the reincarnation thing, the legend is really wrapped up in the whole Merlin is immortal and Arthur will return so even a fic that does not actually have 'reincarnation' in it, part of me as I'm reading is thinking yes - this them, their second chance.

It really works for me.

You don't necessarily have knights and swords, but you can have Arthur as the prince of wales, surrounded by his bodyguards and Merlin the commoner. fab. trope.

Or Arthur the 'movie star' and Merlin his PA.

Or Arthur the CEO and Merlin his secretary.

But Modern AUs are tricky. Characterisation is key, otherwise - what's the point, right?

Anyway - I could talk about this for hours because I was very much like you 'why would anyone want these modern aus?' I love canon!!!! LOL.

[groolover.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'd forgotten about the reincarnation. That makes a bit more sense. Although I have to say that I haven't yet seen a summary (of a modern one) that made me go "ooh, actually that DOES sound interesting!" Maybe one will turn up and I'll get converted.

(I haven't read Snape being a priest, but I have read Black Coffee OALN, and although I can see that it's beautifully written (of course!), it just didn't feel like Harry and Draco to me, due to the lack of magic.)

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Well, certainly Modern AU's aren't for everyone. Just like creature fics or epilogue compliant fics or whatever are just not to people's tastes. So if it doesn't tempt you now, it may never. :)

And there's nothing wrong with that.

[groolover.livejournal.com]

Well, I won't rule it out - you never know :-)

[hollys_tree]

*jumping in here too* :)
For me it's like this: in HP I'm fascinated with the world. I love it to pieces and without the magical world Harry Potter wouldn't be Harry Potter, it just doesn't work.

But with Merlin it's different. What hooks me are the Arthur/Merlin interactions, that's the most important thing. Tbh, a lot of the canon in that series isn't very logical and many characterizations aren't all that consistent. I'm still watching for the banter and the slashiness and the feel-good feeling the series gives me. But that works just as well (and for me personally even better) in a modern AU, where Arthur isn't destined to marry Gwen and be betrayed and killed.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

But that works just as well (and for me personally even better) in a modern AU, where Arthur isn't destined to marry Gwen and be betrayed and killed.

LOL - yeah - there is that. :)

[groolover.livejournal.com]

Hmm. With HP, although I'm fascinated with the world, it's the interactions (H/D mainly) that hooks me.

I wonder if one problem with Merlin, for me, is that I've read and watched every Merlin-related thing EVER (The Once and Future King, Excalibur, etc) so the current series is not really what I think of as canon.

But your point about the Gwen problem is a very good one. My attitude to her tends to be "LA LA LA! NOT LISTENING!" :-)

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

I've always loved AUs but Merlin turns out to be the one fandom where I feel really meh about them. I've never seen a fandom with so many AUs where they have boring office jobs. What's the point? Usually an AU puts the characters in situations that are *more* interesting than the canon setting. In Merlin fandom it's the other way around. *sigh*

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

that's interesting. I agree that when canon is already so interesting, picking an AU that is 'mundane' is sorta backwards. :)

[subtlefire.livejournal.com]

Can you tell me how to figure out how many people are clicking on anything? Because I can't figure it out :/ *is ignert*

And from my experience with your Merlin recs (a show I still haven't started to watch - sorry!), I find myself more drawn to Modern AU - probably because I'm not worried about canon at this point.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

It's a bit clunky, and I don't care much about stuff like this so I find the number don't always make sense and that's okay by me. :)

If you want to know journal traffic in general you go to the 'journal tab' it'll tell you how many times your journal has been viewed. IDEK the purpose of 'page views' totally useless info. Actually most of it is useless because it counts people refreshing their flists which has no bearing on who is reading your journal entry, right? 90% of my flist scroll past my babbles and never read. I'm not naive. LOL.

What is useful is looking up entry specific stuff. so if you click the 'entries' tab, then scroll down you can pop in an address of an entry.

The 'page of entry' number is what you are looking for. It counts people who actually clicked to read your post (not scrolled past in in their flist. useful!

I don't use anything else on there.

[subtlefire.livejournal.com]

That helps clarify a lot; reading LJ's descriptions helped clarify little to nothing.

Thank you! :)

[altri-uccelli.livejournal.com]

Since you're explaining so helpfully, can I ask something I've been really wondering about? On each bar of the bar graph, there are logged in LJ users and all visitors (I ignore 'page views' for the reasons you cite). Today there were like 20 non-LJ users who read my entry and I'm like O_o!! Maybe it's just because I'm always logged in, but who isn't on LJ and yet reading entries? Because you can't see your flist if you're not logged in, right? There's probably an obvious answer to this, but it's escaping me.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

LJ is FULL of lurkers. Lurkers who have LJs, and lurkers who don't. I'm not sure about HP, but in Merlin there seems to be a large number of fans who follow newgroups through feeds or just literally click on the comms/personal LJ that they follow every day. I find the idea cumbersome but I guess if they have bookmarks and tabs open and such they can quickly check the people they follow without looking at a flist. Or they track based on tags, I guess? IDEK.

Just looked up some stuff and it looks like about 1/4 of my 'all visitors' is consistently non registered LJ users. Maybe that's answers my RSS questions partially? IDEK.

so yeah... that's like a lot non-lj users lurking.

To me, having an LJ makes stalking someone so much easier! I'm far to lazy to stalk without it. LOL.

IF THERE ARE ANY FOLKS WITHOUT LJs LURKING HERE AND CARE TO ENLIGHTEN US, WE'D LOVE TO HEAR! FEEL FREE TO DROP IN! :)

[altri-uccelli.livejournal.com]

It's super interesting to get these little glimpses of how people use LJ differently from me. For me it's all very personal, so that I even feel weird sometimes if I, say, read an intriguing comment by a stranger then click on their username. I feel like I should leave a little note saying who I am and why I'm there. I also very much assume that the only people reading my entries are on my flist. I think it's different for you, since you're such an active reccer in Merlin fandom (among other lovely things); it makes sense to me that people might follow a tag. But it still seems like more trouble to be an unlogged-in lurker than to be logged in and able to comment and have a flist. Maybe for you it is all down to people with RSS feeds (which I still barely understand). In summary, however, LJ is fun, and it's all good. :)

[linnet-melody.livejournal.com]

Yep, no idea about the RSS thing.

ALSO, ARE THERE PRETTY BOYS? ARE THERE FUNNY OR SNARKY DIALOGUE BITS? WILL THERE BE HEART-FELT DECLARATIONS OR SILENT MOMENTS OF IF-ONLY-I-COULD-TELL-YOUS?

Yes?

Then I don't *care* what time it's set it. :D :D :D

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I read that:

ARE THERE FUNNY OR SNARKY DANGLY BITS?

lololol - my criteria exactly. :)

[hpremshslash.livejournal.com]

I love them both. It kind of depends on what mood I'm in which one I'll read before the other.

I read canon first. Then I found modern AUs and, at first, I absolutely hated them. I warmed up eventually though. And they share my love mostly equally. ^^

If it's good, I'll read it.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

yeah - my moods really sway what I read too. I wouldn't want to pick one and only read it, tbh.

If it's good, I'll read it.

Absolutely!

[elo134.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely a perpetrator of some AU fic loving. *averts eyes*
I clicked on the AU links earlier today but seeing this post makes me want to catch up on some canon recs.

*two minutes later*

Have decided to finish my night with 'A Long Way to Go Before We Are Truly Divine' by Staraflur.

Yay Team!Don'tGiveADamn,IWantMerlin&Arthur \o/

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with loving AU's. :)

And yeah! such a great read. :)

*joins your team*

[asherlev1.livejournal.com]

Huh. Lol you know it really depends as far as Canon vs Modern AU. I mean, I love the Prince/Servant dynamic Canon stories have to offer; but then again, it can be so much fun to see Arthur and Merlin's interactions in settings so far removed from the usual.

I guess it really depends upon my mood?

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

yup, me too. There are so many amazing Modern AU's that I would never give up on that genre, ever. But my heart tugs towards canon.

So yeah - the mood is always the deciding factor. :)

[mabonwitch.livejournal.com]

I definitely prefer canon, but I do read modern AUs when I see an appealing summary or rec.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

some of those modern AU summaries are impossible to resist! *g*

[katelinmr.livejournal.com]

*scrathes head* the wha..?

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

lol

[shaylen12.livejournal.com]

I like the modern AU's best to but i read them all....but i always go to the AU's first.

I like the ones where melin is the younger one,or they are vampires or werewolves....stuff like that...its my weird kink.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

really? I love creature fics but I've never read any in this fandom. seriously - not one. heh.

interesting.

[shaylen12.livejournal.com]

Really!!!Go to story-finders and look under the Tag Transformation....i love Scent Verse.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of story-finder. Do you mean merlin-finders?

[shaylen12.livejournal.com]

Yes...im sorry i wrote that wrong.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

no worries. just wanted to make sure I was going to the right comm. ;)