Gauging interest/how many "in my fanfare" followers?

November 17, 2015 9:12 AM

Is there a way to know how many people are keeping an eye on a show? Is "x people have this in my fanfare" an achievable pony?

I ask because it seems like oh yeah! and I might be the only people who are about this season of The Librarians. I was about to post the 3rd and 4th episode but then wondered about whether it was worth a bother, given no other folks have commented in the premiere threads.

Perhaps we have a cadre of devoted fans interested in seeing what the two of us comment on the show and I'm letting them down, though. (I do not actually believe this) Or more generally, it would be nice to have some idea of how many people expressed an interest in a show and I can't think of any other way aside from comments and "in my fanfare" counts to assess.

posted by phearlez (5 comments total)

I'd like this! I mostly lurk in FanFare, just like I mostly lurk everywhere else.
posted by fiercecupcake at 9:53 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I think the number of people contributing to recent discussions is probably the best gauge of interest. That's what we do for the FanFare Watercooler. To a much lesser extent we also use the number of people favoriting comments in threads for a sort of "enjoying and following along" count.

We'll think about sharing the My FanFare numbers somewhere. The only reason I'm hesitant is that anytime you share a number it can set up a "gaming" situation where people want to change the number. And sometimes the drive to change a number changes the dynamic of the feature. I'm not sure it's a big deal in this case, but it's something we need to weigh.

That said, sharing one number once won't kick off a game. It looks like 40 people have added The Librarians to My FanFare. Without the other numbers it's tough to know what that means exactly. A big show like Game of Thrones currently has 329 subscribers. That's the most added show. The Librarians ranks 85th out of 687. Just keep in mind that we don't know how many of those 40 are regularly using My FanFare. It shows some interest, but I think active participation is a much better indication of interest.
posted by pb at 10:00 AM on November 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Some shows lend themselves to commentary better than others. I'm one of those folks with The Librarians in My Fanfare (because I've been watching it) but I haven't commented because it's basically just a goofy, silly, turn-your-brain-off-and-enjoy-the-ride kind of show, so I haven't really had anything to say. I try to be more substantial in my comments than "hey this was neat/fun/entertaining" (except occasionally as pushback against the tide of haters and nitpickers that Walking Dead threads seem to attract) but even if I don't initially have any other particular thoughts or opinions, I generally do still read the threads to see what other people said.

tl;dr - you're totally letting me down, phearlez. :P
posted by mstokes650 at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2015

I comment about a few shows every week when they come up but yeah, I like to have something substantive to say. I have found the My Fanfare sidebar useful for finding my shows and not spoiling myself too badly on those few occasions I actually want to see the show fresh (like I would never read Doctor Who stuff on Fanfare until I watch the episode, regardless of content spoilers, because I want to judge it for myself).
posted by immlass at 4:23 PM on November 17, 2015

Aw, hello my fellow Library folks. I thought about posting more episodes after the premiere, but felt adrift without the prospect of Kung Fu Monkey blog updates - I know I'm going to be missing a ton of references/in-jokes without those Q&A threads.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:48 PM on November 17, 2015