This unofficial survey was made to learn more about how and why people follow worlds. The survey went live in may 2025, and recieved 58 answers over the following three months. The survey was mostly shared on the World Anvil Discord, but it was also shared in the community stream, linked in some peoples signatures, and shared on social media.
This survey was inspired by
TJ Trewin's
Unofficial World Anvil CSS Theme Survey from 2023, and
Catoblepon's
Following and reading worlds (Stats) which I believe was also made in 2023.
Thank you so much to everyone who responded, and for your patience with me as I compiled all your answers. A special thank you to
Rin Garnett for helping me sift through the data.
Demographics
Creators or Readers
The vast majority of the people taking the survey were sharing their worldbuilding. 7% did not post to world anvil, but instead used it to follow other worlds.
Since the survey was mainly shared on the WA discord and the WA community feed, this makes sense. All the answers appear to be from members of the WA community. It is also worth noting that this question was added later, so it was only answered by 75% of the survey takers.
How many worlds do you follow?
50% of people follow less than 25 worlds, with 25% following less than 10, and 25% following between 10 and 25.
17% follow between 26 and 50 worlds, 10% follow 50 to 100 worlds, and 15% follow over a 100 worlds.
7%
? | 24.1%
<10 | 25.9%
10-25 | 17.2%
26-50 | 10.3%
51-100 | 15.5%
100> |
|---|
Have you monetarily supported worldbuilders?
47.3%
Yes | 32.7%
No, but I might | 20%
No | 5.5%
n/a |
|---|
Discovery
Where do you find new worlds?
Challenges seem to be the main way people find new worlds to follow. However, because the survey was shared in the challenge community on discord, it is likely to have a bias towards people in that community. On the other hand, the challenges provide additional features and motivation for finding new worlds.
| Unofficial Challenges | 67.2% |
|---|
| Discord Showcase channel | 44.8% |
|---|
| Shoutouts from someone they follow | 65.5% |
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| | Google or other search engines (3.4%) |
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| | World Anvil search (3.4%) |
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| | Other discord servers (1.7%) |
|---|
Two people answered google or other search engines, two people replied that they use WA's search functions, and one person said they found worlds via another discord server.
Two people said they didn't know where to find new worlds.
What makes you interested in following a world?
| Interesting premise (94.8%) | |
|---|
| Interactive elements | 29.3% |
|---|
| Low follower count (10.3%) |
|---|
| High follower count (6.9%) |
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| Follower Exclusive content (12.1%) |
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| Faction/group Exclusive content (8.6%) |
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| Awards and accolades (5.2%) |
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Does the author impact whether you follow?
| Sometimes, but the world matters more | 60.3% |
|---|
| | Yes, I prefer authors who are active in the community (19%) |
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| | Yes, I prefer authors I like (12.1%) |
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| | Yes, I only follow friends (1.7%) |
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| | I follow people back (3.4%) |
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How much do you read before you follow?
| I follow immediately (22.4%) |
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| I read a bit, but sometimes I follow immediately (32.8%) |
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| I read a couple articles (25.9%) |
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| I read the introduction and a couple articles (17.2%) |
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Dealbreakers
What makes you not want to follow?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most common dealbreaker for people is a world they cannot read. Often this is due to an unreadable font or unformatted text.
| Typos and poor grammar | 35.1% |
|---|
| Unanswered comments (14%) |
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| Articles too short (12.3%) |
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Have you ever unfollowed a world?
About half of the people taking the survey have unfollowed a world. 28% of the people taking the survey say they feel bad about unfollowing people.
| Too many notifications (22.8%) |
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| Too many deleted notifications (22.8%) |
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| Inactive for too long (12.3%) |
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This section is only visible to followers of World of Worlds, to prevent it being indexed by search engines.
Stats, lovely lovely stats. Numbers do make the brain go brrrrrr so this is very cool, thanks for doing it :)
delicious crunchy stats
Solaris -— a sapphic space opera
Creator of World of Worlds | Camp Chill | Comment Carolers
May I share this in my server? (with credit, of course)
Feel free to share the link wherever your heart desires! This is a resource world after all!
Solaris -— a sapphic space opera
Creator of World of Worlds | Camp Chill | Comment Carolers