They aren’t randomly chosen, they are chosen out of the popular stories. Often, people weighing in on the comments hold sway over who gets the glory or not.

So, once your filtered out of the recently posted, you basically will never be read, or acknowledged?

No harry the trick is to accumalate followers. This is done by writing good stories and commenting on others work.
Also by collaberating with writers who already have a following. Let me assure you, beyond a shadow of a doubt every story on here get read. They might not all get comments but someone read them. The way it works is when you go to the end of recent then you are gone until someone comments, then you go to the active list, once you have made it to the top of the active list you become the feature, from there you will usually move to the most popular list.
The point is that this is a writing community, if you want to get readers you have to become part of the community. welcome to ficly.

oh yeah if you want to showcase your work fast enter challenges, elequant mess has taken ficly by storm in less than three weeks, by winning so many challenges, he is almost to the celebrity status that he could say nothing on the story and ten people will comment on it.

For example, check out his (EloquentMess’s) story on Sloth for the Seven Deadly Sins challenge.

Another way is go read every one of Text Mason’s stories and comment on them and he will read your stuff in the future, he has enough of a following that people will wonder what he is commenting on in the activity box and go comment on your stuff.
However that is only effective if your stuff doesnt suck, or if you comment back on those peoples stuff. i hope this was helpful.

a little bitter are we science?

And if you do write good stories, people who have just found you will go back and read other things you’ve written.

It worked the same way on Ficlets.com. I had a story that was almost 3 months old before it received it’s first comment, and that from someone who had read and enjoy my (at the time) most recent story.

Write well, and the features will come. Sometimes it just takes a while. (Unless you’re EloquentMess, of course.) ;-)

And Phoenix should know that sometimes stories do rise from the ahses. lol
I love puns.
And on Mess, sometimes fame is everything lol.

Huh? I liked EM’s story on sloth, very appropriately minimalist. Yeah, I admit that I’m slightly jealous of you and EM in that I haven’t been featured and probably have never had a story on the popular list. Shall we say light mint green? But I don’t honestly expect to be featured or on the popular list, because of the quality of my writing, my style, and my anti-socialness.

i think its because of your pic.
Your stories are awesome, your background and research which is what makes a story solid are above reproach, yeah you can be a wanker but i once told a writer on here that his dad must have touched him innaproipriatly and his mom didnt love him, now thats a wanker.
Its all in the ratio of comments to stories, and usually only challenge entries get to the top, because they have a built in readership, with the challenge host and the other contestants.

Could be because of my pic, could be.

Harry, yeah the challenges are probably pretty key. You should check out the “Shorthand!” challenge.

@harry……..Wow….i couldn’t help but notice that you flamed muffy on another page, but now that i read this self righteous dribble it all makes since at how you could be the type of person who makes himself feel better by calling a self conscious sixteen year old kid’s story rubbish…..You probably didn’t know he was sixteen, cause you didn’t bother to read his bio……..I cant help but wonder why you are confused at how you are not at the top of a community that you are obviously making very little effort at being a part of. My very first story on ficly was featured….and is now on the top four on the most popular….but then again i made an effort and commented 43 times before i wrote even my first story. since you have only commented 7 times 3 of which have been on your own work and once to flame a kid……geez i wonder why you aren’t more popular..re the best writer here.

sorry i wasn’t finished and the comment box cropped it for me……so let’s see we left off on “popular………..” You know in a site where everyone writes there are no readers…are there? So the writers have to read. Because of your lack of participation on anything and your lack of comments you are making someone else feel the exact same way that you do right now…….Given your activity history i can absolutely beyond a shodow of a doubt discern trhat you are the type of person that logs in only to marvel at his own works…..Well then no wonder you think you are the best writer here…. btw….you get no pencils lol negative pencils.

Wait now that i read the flame that you gave muffy i guess that means ALL BETS ARE OFF…so let me speak plainly..First calling another writer, especially an aspiring writer rubbish, (which for us on this side of the pond means trash, and basura for the latina because the LoA is world wide) is just bad bussiness. For a thirty year old writer to call a person with half his life experience, which by the way is what we draw off as writers, trash is ridiculous. You sir are an ass, i dont like you and what kind of pompous pseudo intellectual are you?
Plus before some of my more conservative peers come to your defense in the flame you wrote about muffy, you also said ‘the people on this site, such as ourselves, were also trash. That really isn’t getting off to a good start. Hey maybe you should check out WWW.protagonize.com That site seems to be full of people like you who don’t read other peoples work but expect people to read theirs.

Oh yeah, and another thing, if you wonder why some people are popular maybe you should read Thx or Spiderj (who makes us all look like dilitantes) or jesteram or elsha hawk and definately Elequant Mess who can sell a mill sayin nothing on the track, or if you really want to feel like you are the tall kid on the short bus read elisebeth l davis who makes your writing seem like it was written by helen keller before she met the miracle worker. There are brilliant writers on here, but you wouldn’t know that because you haven’t read any of them you just called us trash.
One man’s trash is another man’s Pleasure.

Oh yeah and elisebeth LDavis is only twelve years old, and she will humble you like bruce lee fighting Dom Deluise.

Had to go check that link, Strong Coffee. That site hurts my eyes.

Elisebeth L Davis is twelve?!

Geez, now I really feel inadequate. :-D

The reason why were are doing this is ……well you thought you were being smart…you know entering a story basically debaseing the system that chooses popular stories…you know there are all kinds on this site 12 year olds, military trying to get over the boredom of CQ the 24 hour shift, 150 year old men who can tell you things you cant even imagine like radical yellow duck and wyatt aarp, or beautiful vixens who will sing you feminist siren songs to sleep, band baby , anna mavrotti, or the blue sparrow…..and then there is people like my husband and i…..dyed in the wool punk rockers who aren’t worried about hurting your sensitive little feelings. so the reason we are doing this is cause you thought you were being smart by saying that the featured is chosen randomly….but we are going to put you on top by COMMENTING on your story….Unfortunately since you wrote a terrible story and put us down we are writing “rubbish” comments and now that you are featured this will be your legacy.

Yeah, finding out that Elisebeth L Davis is 12 makes me feel pretty pathetic too. C’est la vie.

Hey you know why communists killed all thier writers and poets? Let me elighten you, because these bourgeouis made the common people (like me) feel that arts were only for artists. pseudo intelectuals like you are the reason that artists like me get led to the gallows. If your art is out of reach for the common man well you aren’t much of an artist are you?
You might not know this, but two of the greatest poets that have ever lived were shel silverstien and dr seuss and even a child can get enlightened by them.
You can use that quote. I stand on it.

So throw something good out there! Give us what you got! show us good prose!

@Elsha who cares would you read it if the person wrote it had fifteen stories and only read five?
you have the second highest comments on this site with over a thousand, that might be why everyone reads your stuff and you have more followers than anyone on ficly. because you read. I know this to be the case because i am number one having commented on more stories than anyone. You know why because you never know where the next kurt vonnegut will come from, and instead of telling him he is trash and making him give up, maybe i will be the one who encouraged him and made him write the great novel. But i dont need to make other people feel bad to make myself feel ggod.

Good i meant

There you go, Harry. Featured. Simply from how active this has been. Not random at all.

Could this possibly be the first zero-star featured story? Legacy!

It upsets me that this took my featured spot away from me after less than a day =(

Irony win.

_{Though not necessarily in a good way.}

Oh, and Not You?
I give you a standing ovation.
and MJY, this is why you are loved by all of Ficly.
I completely agree with what both of you said.
I would feel bad for Harry, but the fact that he wrote this right after the comment he posted on my story makes me wonder if my story was what inspired this rubbish.
I am glad that his legacy will be as the writer of this garbage.

Hey Muffy all glory is fleeting but i promise that your story was just the first of many features you will enjoy in your life. By the way Harry Hood is a Wancker.

YES!!
BRITISH WORDS!!!

(It’s Wanker)

…I think its wanker….
lol

Oh and i have it on high authority that Harry Hood is the reason that ‘Firefly’ was canceled and there are no more Avatar the last Airbenders.

lmaolmaolmaolmao!!!
But they are making an Avatar movie, which is bound to be fantastic!!
I mean, It’s live action…..
Well…. At least, we know how good the Dragon Ball movie was…..
I mean, c’mon, it’s directed by M. Night Shyamalan!!
Shit

Oh, Avatar… How I miss you… Haha, can we get a different featured story please? Although reading the comments was pretty fun…

“can we get a different featured story please?”

Well, you guys could always start throwing a bajillion comments on one of my stories.

(Yeah, that was subtle. Sure it was.) ;-)

hahaha
I’m all for putting 1001011011001110111
back as the featured story haha.

Maybe, instead of writing this passive aggressive bit of business, you could write something good eh?

Yeah so this place can sometimes be a bit of a circle jerk. So what, there’s still plenty of really good stuff on here.

no more comenting i promise

In fact. To elaborate. Go read Joe’s story “The Rose’s Kiss”, SPiderJ’s “The Places in Between” or JesterAms “The Street Sweepers”. I’ve read plenty of published collections that are surpassed by the likes of these.

I will only leave one comment on this mess.

1. Your story was featured by sheer volume of comments. When a story becomes this popular, it becomes featured.

2. Yes, every story gets read. Maybe not by everyone, but at least by someone.

3. There are TONS of great writers here, plenty of good fiction to read, lots of fun to be had. Why are you wasting your time bashing the site? Either join us, or screw off.

4. As for the comments about my so-called “fame”: The best way to become famous is not to try. Honestly, I hope the spotlight finds someone new quick. I just want to write and have fun, maybe turn a few heads and blow a few minds.

5. Finally, there are lots of great people here. Don’t ruin your reputation with us the moment you arrive! I’ve only been here two or three weeks and I already LOVE these guys. Great friends, the lot of ’em.

I hope you take the time to reconsider your stance here, maybe give Ficly a chance. But it’ll be your loss if you decide to leave, not ours.

Good day!

I look forward to your next one, Harry Hood. Please make it good – you’re going to have LOTS of readers.

If it will help, I’ll write a blog post about how the featured stories are chosen. It’s done automatically using my fancypants reputation system. There’s no favoritism or anything else – it’s all automatic.

I think this showcases one of the huge problems with Ficly: people get on their friends’ stories and start having conversations about unrelated things in the comments section. This generates a huge volume of comments and the story gets featured. Maybe I’m just bitter that I’ve never been featured, or maybe this is still my animosity toward the new “guilds.”

This is going to be my last comment on this whole fiasco.

Having read his stories, I do think Harry has potential to be a very good writer. His stories have shown ideas that just need to be polished. (I would say ‘needs to be pared down’, as well, but that would be hypocritical coming from someone who wrote a 30-part story on Ficlets. LOL.)

Harry’s biggest problem, imho, is his attitude. If he really doesn’t like what’s being written here, there are a lot of other sites to visit.

With one or two little posts, he’s made a lot of enemies on Ficly. I, myself, actively refuse to comment on or rate his stories (this doesn’t count as a stories, so…) because it’s possible that, even if it’s totally brilliant, my opinion of him may colour what I do.

You know, if discovery is a problem, we can fix that. Instead of posting passive aggressive stories, use the feedback tab and let us know there’s a problem. Jason and I don’t have a ton of time to work on the site, but we do read all the feedback we get and are trying to incorporate it into new features (they may not come as fast as any of us would like, but they do happen).

The other thing I’ll say is that it’s not our job to make sure your story gets read. You can go out and find readers too – post links to your stories on your blog, facebook page, twitter, etc. If you don’t like what you call “guilds”, build your own.

Now, now. Let’s all be nice, hmmm? This is a genuine wondering if your stories are read. Everyone gets there sometimes.

I find it funny that the same people who don’t want this to have attention are giving it only more attention.
Sorry if that offends anyone, it wasn’t meant to.
It just kind of made me snicker a bit.

Well, that worked pretty quickly.