A Picture is Worth a Thousand FAWCs

Yes, dear. Now, go take your medication. You seem to have forgot it again.

Its a BIG WTF turd with your fingerprints all over it. So who are you and CircleJerk carrying water for?
 
Its a BIG WTF turd with your fingerprints all over it. So who are you and CircleJerk carrying water for?

Heh, CircleJerk that's a great one.

But no, I have nothing to do with anyone here, I'm just scoring them as I see fit. No conspiracy, no helping hands, no favoritism, no bombs, nunna that. I give you my word, whatever that may mean to you.

And again just because the votes don't coincide with what you think doesn't mean conspiracy. Just difference of opinion. Now if all of the stories were doing the same thing over and over like the Halloween contest, you could attribute that to trolling.

My votes are accompanied by my comments in FAWC 3, and I'm being as fair as possible with all.
 
Heh, CircleJerk that's a great one.

But no, I have nothing to do with anyone here, I'm just scoring them as I see fit. No conspiracy, no helping hands, no favoritism, no bombs, nunna that. I give you my word, whatever that may mean to you.

And again just because the votes don't coincide with what you think doesn't mean conspiracy. Just difference of opinion. Now if all of the stories were doing the same thing over and over like the Halloween contest, you could attribute that to trolling.

My votes are accompanied by my comments in FAWC 3, and I'm being as fair as possible with all.

I see the high and low scores, and the quality is better than the scores indicate. Theres a huge difference tween the top and the bottom. And that screams TEX.

Did you ever watch the American Idol voting for Clay and Reuben? Clay lost and Reuben's been missing in action since his victory. His votes were all BS. So I'm saying TEX has pissed in the punchbowl, using his alts or asshole buddies to help. Its grossly unfair to the writers who have lower scores than their talents warrant.
 
I see the high and low scores, and the quality is better than the scores indicate. Theres a huge difference tween the top and the bottom. And that screams TEX.

Did you ever watch the American Idol voting for Clay and Reuben? Clay lost and Reuben's been missing in action since his victory. His votes were all BS. So I'm saying TEX has pissed in the punchbowl, using his alts or asshole buddies to help. Its grossly unfair to the writers who have lower scores than their talents warrant.

Bullshit. Rant all you want. I very seldom even read others stories. As for fucking with someone else's story, that will never happen. Not even with yours.

I have two alt. One is with another writer for our joint work and the other is a female name I use for certain stories. Neither has been used to vote or comment on anything here or in the main body of work on Lit.

Like I said, rant on.
 
I think, compared to ranks in the general file, that most of the stories are ranking low so far--more or less like any contest, but maybe even lower than that, because I think there are fewer voting than in a normal contest and therefore one zap is very valuable. The scores came up last time when the stories were swept. I imagine they will this time too.

We seem to have the same phenomenon going as with the first two FAWCs, though. If you manage to get your story listed first and you have one with a whole lot of pages, you're going to be well ahead of the pack. It's happened every time. The more it happens the more it's going to be a pattern.

But vote manipulation? Yeah, sure. It happens in every contest, and who really thinks that nearly every story in the exercise would be sitting below a 4 ranking if it was in the general list? Like any other contest, the current score doesn't mean a whole lot.
 
Nay, I am leaving very long and critical comments on the stories, but you'll see my name by every one. Any comment placed by anonymous isn't me.

You guys will be able to see when it's me that places a comment. They are pretty long, but I'm trying to give every story a fair analysis. But again remember, these are just my opinions on the story. I'm no expert, just a reader with personal preferences and views. I've dropped most of my thoughts on a story into these comments, what I liked or didn't, how well I could see the inspiration from the picture or how said pic was utilized, all that.

... But the name SecondCircle will appear beside them. You'll know who to cuss.

Gotcha. With the type of comments we're getting, then, it seems there are at least a few who are taking this challenge as an opportunity for serious critique. The more, the merrier. ;)
 
But vote manipulation? Yeah, sure. It happens in every contest, and who really thinks that nearly every story in the exercise would be sitting below a 4 ranking if it was in the general list? Like any other contest, the current score doesn't mean a whole lot.

Unfortunately, unless we change the way FAWC stories are scored, there won't be any way of getting around unfair voting. In the previous rounds, there were (apparently to me, anyway) hosts of 1s, and then 5s, dropped on all the stories, and I'm guessing something like that is happening with this round.

You're right, though, in that the first stories are getting more attention than the others.
 
You're right, though, in that the first stories are getting more attention than the others.

Actually, I was mistaken. The last three stories have the most views and votes, but also some of the lowest scores.
 
Unfortunately, unless we change the way FAWC stories are scored, there won't be any way of getting around unfair voting. In the previous rounds, there were (apparently to me, anyway) hosts of 1s, and then 5s, dropped on all the stories, and I'm guessing something like that is happening with this round.

You're right, though, in that the first stories are getting more attention than the others.

When the time period ends, ask Laurel to run a full sweep on all the stories.

That should fix a lot of the problematic bullshit. It will also give her an idea of who is doing it.

Maybe, just maybe, some heads will roll.
 
When the time period ends, ask Laurel to run a full sweep on all the stories.

That should fix a lot of the problematic bullshit. It will also give her an idea of who is doing it.

Maybe, just maybe, some heads will roll.

Doubtful, but I always do ask for a sweep before I turn off voting. I just don't tell anyone when I do that. ;)
 
Unfortunately, unless we change the way FAWC stories are scored, there won't be any way of getting around unfair voting. In the previous rounds, there were (apparently to me, anyway) hosts of 1s, and then 5s, dropped on all the stories, and I'm guessing something like that is happening with this round.

You're right, though, in that the first stories are getting more attention than the others.

The only way to get around vote manipulation (because as long as it's possible and there's something at stake, even bragging rights, it will happen) is blind judging. I didn't post to suggest it could change but to agree that it's happening. I also don't see anything to be done about what highlights one over the other. As an exercise I'd play down the "winner" aspect of it and judge and discuss each one on the merits of what the author seemed to be trying to do and how closely the story fulfills the requirements of the exercise.

Gotta say that matching the ratings on this one to meeting the requirements isn't doing it for me. We might as well not spend so much time devising requirements to write to if we're then going to declare winners based on reader ratings--because the readers don't seem to care that much what the exercise requirements were.
 
Actually, I was mistaken. The last three stories have the most views and votes, but also some of the lowest scores.

I don't equate the "being first and long" phenomenon to the most attention. Rather the opposite. The general phenomenon on getting higher ratings on Literotica is to write exhaustively so that when the voting happens, only those sticking with the story vote--and thus skew the rating to favorable.

In the real world, a Lit. five pager wouldn't even make it into a writing competition. The real world of writing competition is an "every word counts" world.
 
First and longest doesn't apply to when I read the stories. I've been throwing darts and choosing at random. (Imagine what my computer screen looks like.)

Longest doesn't really matter to me either. I kinda look for the same things from every story, and with this contest, I'm reading every single one through to the end, as I do with all contests. I do admit when I'm just browsing for stories on the site, it is simpler for me to just click out of a story I don't like rather than reading it all scoring it low, and leaving some comment about me not liking it.

But I really like FAWC challenges, so I'm reading them all, giving each a fair vote, and leaving a comment on different elements of the story. The challenge requirements being one of the main factors here. So, how well the pic was utilized in the story or as inspiration.

Honest opinion and honest voting is my approach. If others tamper with the scores, that's kinda sad and sucks for the challenge and we who enjoy it.
 
I popped her with a note to Laurel yesterday. Hopefully that will be the end of that one.

Nope. The same accounted poster just posted a spam comment to one of the FAWC stories. It's an account name, so if the Web site was on top of the issue, the account would no longer exist.

Correction. It was on a different newly posted Chain Story. The rest is true, though. It's a registered account and it's still here doing what it was doing two weeks ago.
 
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First and longest doesn't apply to when I read the stories. I've been throwing darts and choosing at random. (Imagine what my computer screen looks like.)

Didn't suggest you were doing it. I see it as a general phenomenon here, so personal disclaimers aren't needed. That said, I don't think your comments so far, as detailed as they are, have given a lot of weight to what the exercise is. I don't know if your voting has.
 
Didn't suggest you were doing it. I see it as a general phenomenon here, so personal disclaimers aren't needed. That said, I don't think your comments so far, as detailed as they are, have given a lot of weight to what the exercise is. I don't know if your voting has.

No worries, I didn't take your post as directed at me, I was just offering my thought on the subject.

My comments are purely just my own feedback yo the contest for the author's sake. I don't even think my comments are needed at all, I just wanted to supply a bit of feedback for the contestants. No one has to pay attention to my comments at all really, I'm no official anything.
 
I'm suspecting that someone submitted 3 stories. Hmm...

What in this discussion would make you think that or have it make a difference? Whatever, if folks are going to be parsing out the discussion at this point for clues to authorship, I guess it's time to go mum.
 
What in this discussion would make you think that or have it make a difference? Whatever, if folks are going to be parsing out the discussion at this point for clues to authorship, I guess it's time to go mum.

Nothing in this conversation. I was changing the subject.

I did some careful reading. I didn't necessarily mean it was you. ;)
 
Yeah, I felt Lee was just making friendly FAWCing conversation, which is what this thread is for, there weren't any names named ...

I was having the same thoughts myself, but I think we probably all agree that it's not quite time to start the guessing. But there's no rule against it, is there? :rolleyes:

I'm really enjoying the stories. I agree (at least for myself) that less emphasis should be placed on a winner that readers pick, because I don't think the random, non-FAWC writing readers will all be voting on how well the story fit the challenge (though some will, I'm sure). I like this contest because it is a writing exercise, a challenge, and it's fun to write to a set of rules and see where my mind takes me.

In fact, my current NaNo project stemmed from my idea for FAWC 2 (vehicle, jealousy, affectation, sport) and without the constraints of that challenge, I wouldn't have fleshed out some of the characters as I did, and it has made for some interesting and helpful plot points.

I mean, sure, it's always nice to be picked as the winner, I'm not gonna lie! But I would be more interested in helpful and constructive feedback, and lively discussion.

Here's something I've noticed. Some of the stories have a few hundred views, and some have over 1,000. What accounts for that discrepancy? Tags and title? One of the stories that has the most views has "loving wife" as one of the tags. Or just the luck of the draw, story order, etc.? Just curious. It seems like a pretty big gap. But then some of the stories that have a lower score or fewer reads have more comments. It's interesting.

I think I just have 3 more to read. I've voted, but not made comments. I was going to save that for the discussion here when it commences.
 
The vast range in views and votes for the stories is a mystery. Could be that some people are coming back to some of them, or maybe there's something catchy about the title or description.

Of all the stories, only one has been favorited, and only once (Anything for Iris). FAWCker as an author has not been favorited at all.

I agree that the longer the story, the higher the vote tends to be. That's not always the case, but it is an important factor, I think.
 
I read four today. I'll go back to add comments after I've read all of them. For now, I'm saving my thoughts on a Word doc.
 
I just finished the last one and there is not a loser in the bunch.

Good Job everyone.
 
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