I have lists up in every section i was going to do except catfighting and will do that this week (and maybe celebrity stories as well)
a couple things I noticed:
1. If you want to find real hidden gems not on these lists, try starting on older stories. there are quite a few from before the likes system existed with a bunch of views but few likes. If this is about keeping stories from being forgotten that is a better way than reading a story that 40 people already liked.
2. Some lists can be distorted by passionate fanbases. If some writers get 20 people liking everything they do it can bury other stories pretty quickly. If reading well liked stories mean something to you just cruise through the various forums looking for something with double digits or whatever level you want.
3. The lists are not stories I like. I have read under 5 stories on the forum by request. Anything else I read is because I was editing it or there was a complaint about it so it sure wasn't for pleasure.
So don't give me grief if you favorite isn't on the list. I dislike it just as much as any other story here 
And yes basing it on likes is very much a "McDonald's is the best hamburger maker in the world because of all the sales" logic. It is the method requested and the easiest way but if it provokes some actual discussion then great.
1. Is it the Archives Section? If yes, then it's definitely a good way to look for older gems. But, if an author deletes their account, all their posts vanishes as far as I know. Is there any another way to look up their work rather than asking for it to someone who has it saved up somewhere?
2. I'm very much in agreement with you there. Though you also mentioned about checking out the views. How are the views measured? Is it when someone simply clicks on the story irrespective of how much of it they actually read? Also, are views counted from non members as well?
Like someone, just anonymously checking out the stories they came across on the board like I used to do earlier.
3. I appreciate your efforts since taste is really subjective even in this place which is based on a mutual fetish.
1. No the archives was a compromise we made when we made the sections. See at some point posts weren't deleted when members left so we had all these stories attached to non existent members (reading as guests) So we put them there just so we didn't delete someone's fav story. But they are only part of what i mean
What i mean is the stories on say page 160 of the catfighting section. Like this one https://www.freecatfights.com/forums/index.php?topic=577.0 Boat Battle by peccavi. She is a long time member and mod and this story was posted in 2008, viewed nearly 12 K times posted in three parts so let us say 4K views.zero likes.
Now maybe it is an awful story but I would also suggest its age is why no one put any likes on it. My point is instead of starting at page 1 of a section start at the back and see what might catch your eye.
2. The views include any click on it by members and nonmembers. Also it is the views of the THREAD not the opening post. So the five post story with 1000 views might have fewer readers than the one post story with 500. So there is that caveat.
So it is tricky to judge since there is likely some people who read EVERY story posted. But it is also possible the person with half as many views but a bunch of likes could also be polarizing but with a rabid fanbase. The point is that there are likely older stories who didn't get their due because their fans didn't have the option for doing a like (or may not think to do one)
Gotcha. Though I would have loved if the stories remained even when the authors deleted their accounts like it was earlier. I'm guessing you had to do it when people started selling the stories they had earlier posted on this site for free.
So, in theory, anyone can exploit the discussions portion of it by posting on stories older than couple months if they are on really good terms with the author giving the new readers a recency bias given the story would now feature on the front page.
Now, the views by non members could actually be helpful since they aren't as easily influenced by an author's fanbase.
So a combination of total thread views along with a minimum threshold of likes (let's say 25) and perhaps even a threshold of comments on a singular part (if the story is being posted in parts in the same thread) let's say atleast 10 comments could help minimise the distortions faced if we only considered a single metric.
So, take this story as an example.
https://www.freecatfights.com/forums/index.php?topic=100064.01) I took the primary metric as the no. of views which are 12k+ , guests included.
2) Second it has 20 replies, my personal preferred metric. Others might use no. of likes here
3) Lastly, it also has 62 likes.
And despite, all of that, a new reader or even a general site reader wouldn't be able to locate this story.
So, I'd argue a combined metric like this is the most beneficial. Since, it tackles the very issue we have been trying to solve, "To not let good stories disappear under the new content and/or a passionate fanbase."
To conclude, my metric in order of importance for a story to feature in
"The Hall of Fame" would be
1) 500+ views
2) 10+ comments on single posts and not the entire thread
3) 25+ likes.
Of course, this combined metric might still be flawed but applying this to the story I mentioned really did the job since that one was mostly lost under the new content until rin listed it in his list.
