Community Suggestion: Add "Trending" and "Rising Stars" Sections to Worlds and Manuscripts Community Pages
Add "Trending" and "Rising Stars" Sections to Worlds and Manuscripts Community Pages
New Feature Addition · Manuscripts · Created by madmooncrow
accepted
What functionality is missing? What is unsatisfying with the current situation?
The community hub pages for Worlds and Manuscripts currently only highlight a small, static set of Featured works (usually the same 6–8 titles that rarely rotate) and a simple genre list. There is no way for readers to discover: • What people are actually reading and engaging with right now • New or rising creators who are gaining traction but haven’t been hand-picked as “featured” This makes it extremely difficult for new authors or lesser-known worlds/novels to ever be seen, even if they’re generating strong early engagement. New users browsing the community page get the impression that World Anvil only has a handful of active projects, which hurts overall platform vibrancy and growth.How does this feature request address the current situation?
Add two new dynamic sections to the Worlds and Manuscripts community hubs, modeled directly on Royal Road’s highly successful system: 1. **Trending** – A list of established-but-not-dominant works that are currently seeing the strongest recent growth in views, likes, comments, followers, or overall engagement (e.g., past 7–30 days). 2. **Rising Stars / Newcomers** – A dedicated section for brand-new worlds or manuscripts (created within the last 1–2 months) that are rapidly gaining traction, ranked by early momentum. Both sections would update automatically using existing metrics (views, ratings, comments, follower gains, etc.), just like Royal Road does. They can be displayed prominently on the community hub pages (e.g., right under Featured or in a sidebar) and optionally filtered by genre. This gives every creator a fair shot at visibility based on real community interest instead of manual curation alone, while giving readers an instant view of “what’s hot right now.”What are other uses for this feature request?
• Drives higher retention of new authors who can actually see their work reach readers • Encourages more frequent updates and community interaction (authors will want to hit Trending/Rising) • Makes the platform feel alive and active to visitors and new sign-ups • Helps underrepresented genres and niche settings get discovered • Increases overall page views, comments, and follower activity across the site • Gives World Anvil a strong competitive edge against platforms like Royal Road, Scribble Hub, or Wattpad that already have similar discovery systems • Provides valuable data to the team about which genres and styles are currently popularThe Team's Response
Thanks for the suggestion! There will definitely be better discovery features in a future update. We know that discovery on World Anvil currently isn't easy, and we'd like more ways for readers to discover writers. That said, we don't see such a large update happening until later 2027 at the earliest due to other priorities.
Current score
17/300 Votes · +3400 points
Votes Cast
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+300
by Scalenex
on 2025-12-10 00:30 -
+300
by Kranjax
on 2025-12-01 18:48I think it would be great if it were easier to explor and/or search for works here, by author, genre, or some other criteria. I generally have issues finding things again if i dont add them to my reading list or something... cuz i'm squirrel brained and forget the names of things quite often. I will say that i feel the dashboard update has helped, hence i found this post through a chain of articles and whatnot
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-300
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+300
by VariableX
on 2025-11-25 10:08I would definitely read more here if I had more ways to explore the options. Not to tout a competitor, but Campfire has a great set-up for discovering and reading their authors' manuscripts and any connected content. Maybe something like that?
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+100
by HunterChristmas1247
on 2025-11-25 05:09Yeah, this makes sense. I will believe that many wish to see what is being read by others (articles, manuscripts, or whatever else we've got).
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+100
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+300
by Rahjar
on 2025-11-23 16:23I think anything that gets eyeballs on people using worldanvil for good/creative uses is a positive.
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+300
by TheDoctor292
on 2025-11-23 08:54 -
+100
by JoellaKay
on 2025-11-22 18:31 -
+300
by AsterVela
on 2025-11-22 18:04 -
+300
by Piggie4299
on 2025-11-22 17:53In general, I feel like finding the kinds of things that I would like to read is more difficult then it should be. There are a ton of people writing on this platform so I should have an inbox brimming with things to read all the time. So maybe the option to follow tags / genres?
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+300
by A Adorable Dragon
on 2025-11-22 16:09 -
-300
by Delcar
on 2025-11-22 15:38 -
+300
by Ratha
on 2025-11-22 15:33 -
+300
by Calamity_Crow
on 2025-11-22 09:26I would also like to see a genre representation for stories written to a younger crowd (children's, youth, early reader, or along those lines). Is there no one else writing in a simplistic style aimed at younger readers? Those worlds are hard to find.
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+300
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+100
by Gregorian
on 2025-11-22 08:41 -
+300
by madmooncrow
on 2025-11-22 07:43
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