This is my first 05 post, so please forgive my ignorance if I am posting this in error.
On the surface, this seems like a great idea, but it might do undesirable things to accessibility and voting. What will the effects of this be in practice?
Users who make use of the random tale function will be directed mostly towards the beginnings of series and stand-alone articles. This ensures readers' experience is not undermined by a lack of context, so they will be able to understand its content fully. This will certainly make the random function more enjoyable to use, which hopefully will increase the attention tales get as a whole. Tales don't get enough viewing as is, so this will be great.
However, we now reach an issue. This means the people who dislike the first entry in a series (this group overlaps a lot with the people who would downvote the later entries) will never be exposed to those later entries unless they actively seek them out despite the bad first impression. I'm sure people do that, but I reckon that's a minority. Most of later-series articles will be viewed by people who love the series and are upvoting most of it. It's possible that a lot of such people who are hooked on the introduction would like and read it all anyway, so I'm unsure how much this will actually increase exposure. At the same time, the loss of negative attention means less harsh critique, which is kinda what I value most about the random functions. They expose you to things outside of your comfort zone and give a more balanced reception to articles. I can try to find some statistics on voting later, if necessary.
At the end of the day, this will make it easier for people to find things they enjoy using the random tale function, but the big decrease in negative attention makes me unsure if this is worth it.
