The Pitfalls of Rankings (Does the 'color' of that ranking actually match 'you'?)
On novel posting sites, there is almost always a ranking.
Since rankings are usually in a 'prominent place,' it would be the easiest and most efficient way to find novels from there.
However, that is only if the ranking matches 'your' tastes.
In the first place, a ranking is something where what demographic (age, gender, occupation, etc.) it targets causes the results to change drastically.
The top of a novel posting site's ranking reflects the behavior of that site's majority of readers (or heavy user base).
(Note: There is a reason I wrote 'behavior' instead of 'tastes' or 'needs,' but that would be a digression, so I will summarize it in a separate article sometime. ← I don't know when that will be, but if I do, I will add a link in an update.)
If that majority (or heavy user base) consists of people with tastes and sensibilities completely opposite to your own, that ranking might not be 'efficient for finding novels' at all, but could even be a waste of time.
You often hear people say, 'It's a top-ranked work, but it's not interesting,' 'There are no interesting works in the ranking,' or 'Why is such a work ranked so high?'...
That is a problem that arises because the ranking and the reader's tastes do not match (the core demographic and the type of reader are different).
Rankings and novel posting sites each have their own color.
What genres and what kind of novel content are 'popular' differs slightly from site to site.
If you feel that a ranking does not 'suit' you, you should try looking for novels using another method instead of the ranking.
In the first place, if you went to a real-life bookstore, not an online one, to look for interesting novels...
Just because the bookstore's number one ranking is a 'recipe book for make-ahead side dishes,' would you say, 'Okay, then I'll buy this recipe book and go home'?
Normally, you would judge that 'this ranking is not for me' and not use it as a reference, right?
And even if there were no 'novels' in that ranking at all, you wouldn't give up and go home thinking, 'There are no “interesting novels” in this bookstore,' would you?
Normally, you would wander around the section where interesting novels are likely to be (the novel bookshelf) and look for books that catch your interest.
Why is it that a judgment you can make normally in a real-world situation becomes paralyzed the moment you are online...?
Is it because you are bound by the false stereotype that 'a ranking is a list of things that are interesting to everyone'?
Or is it because the 'extreme differences in taste' are not as visible as they are in bookstore rankings, so you don't even think to determine whether that ranking suits you?
Or perhaps it is because of the 'difficulty in finding' novels on novel posting sites, which makes you not feel like 'trying to search for them yourself' or 'searching'?
Rankings have the merit of attracting reader interest through the easy-to-understand 'buzz' of rankings.
However, there is also the risk that readers who do not align with those rankings will misunderstand and think, 'If this is the level of the top-ranked novels, there must be no interesting novels on this site,' and end up leaving the site itself (or in some cases, leaving online novels altogether).
In recent times, there is often a trend of treating 'rankings' as absolute, but...
Are you able to discern whether that ranking truly matches 'you'?
Are you being swayed by the tastes and sensibilities of 'others' who are completely different from you, and wasting your time?
Considering our national character of being prone to worrying about 'differences' from those around us, some people might even worry about the fact that 'my own tastes are misaligned with the rankings,' but...
If you force yourself to conform to 'things you don't actually find interesting' and deny 'things that are truly interesting to you,' won't you eventually lose sight of what is actually interesting itself?