The 2016 Literotica Awards Discussion Thread

Son_of_Battles said:

I've been assuming it was sexual favors...

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It seems from past years that there are in fact prizes. I believe it's gift certificates, as with the contest winners throughout the year, but maybe one of the past winners could confirm that.

https://www.literotica.com/s/2015-literotica-readers-choice-awards-winners

I voted. Just kidding, I didn't vote.

What's fascinating is how few votes there really are here. I suspect it has to do with the fact that trolls have no impact except to vote for someone else's story; they can't one-bomb the story in the contest. I was surprised to see Basic Shadow 9 up for an award in Incest/Taboo (it won't win, of course; my own fan base is too small). It seemed that generating a little attention for the series was a good thing and there have been a few nice comments since. On the other hand, the story score has gone from 4.86 to 4.81 (4.80 for a while) since the contest was announced. Who says all attention is good attention? However, why is practically no one voting? Chloe Tzang and I each have more than 600 followers, and the votes in our story categories in total (not just for us) are far fewer than that. (I only pick on Chloe because she set out what her numbers were once.) Another thought. I only found out I'd made it into the voting by accident (and that may be how I made it into the voting). Could the site not have sent us a note?
GrandTeton

GrandTeton said:

What's fascinating is how few votes there really are here. I suspect it has to do with the fact that trolls have no impact except to vote for someone else's story; they can't one-bomb the story in the contest. I was surprised to see Basic Shadow 9 up for an award in Incest/Taboo (it won't win, of course; my own fan base is too small). It seemed that generating a little attention for the series was a good thing and there have been a few nice comments since. On the other hand, the story score has gone from 4.86 to 4.81 (4.80 for a while) since the contest was announced. Who says all attention is good attention? However, why is practically no one voting? Chloe Tzang and I each have more than 600 followers, and the votes in our story categories in total (not just for us) are far fewer than that. (I only pick on Chloe because she set out what her numbers were once.) Another thought. I only found out I'd made it into the voting by accident (and that may be how I made it into the voting). Could the site not have sent us a note?
GrandTeton

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I agree with you. I found out about about me being in the contest by accident as well. I would think that with our new fancy home pages we could get some kind of Literotica mail. Nothing so drastic like a full messaging service between members, but at least notifications from Literotica itself. If they can inform me that someone Liked/Commented/subscribed, shouldn't I get a heads up that I have been nominated for an award? Apparently I was in the running for the December 2016 contest, as well as for November's, and I only just now found out. (I didn't win, if you were wondering.)

I think there are so few votes because there are so many stories each day, that readers don't want to bother picking a favorite. Which makes sense. It's like if you watched 10 great movies a month for a year, then you were asked to pick the best one.

I'd post why I thought there were so few votes, but Laurel would erase the comment.

sr71plt said:

I'd post why I thought there were so few votes, but Laural would erase the comment.

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this is me 'Liking' this post.

sr71plt said:

I'd post why I thought there were so few votes, but Laurel would erase the comment.

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Yes, well. I'd agree with you too. I didn't even know the end of year awards were on, I had no idea any of my stories were in the competition, Strayed across it by accident. I look at the number of votes vs the numbers of readers of stories and the while thing is a bit of a farce, really. Why bother if you're not going to publicize it. I mean, the big competitions, my story that won the April Fools competition got 1800 votes. Right now my stories in this end of year thing have something like 25 each. I mean, whose kidding who. Even if I win the 2 categories I'm in, what does that mean. Nothing except I maybe had a few fans that follow my stories far better than I do. I like the idea of a "best of" each category for the year roundup, but the way its being handled and promoted is meaningless, really. It's not going to actually mean anything winning it with this few votes. Promote it much better than it is on the Home Page or something. But hey, it's not my site.

GrandTeton said:

.....I was surprised to see Basic Shadow 9 up for an award in Incest/Taboo (it won't win, of course; my own fan base is too small). It seemed that generating a little attention for the series was a good thing and there have been a few nice comments since. On the other hand, the story score has gone from 4.86 to 4.81 (4.80 for a while) since the contest was announced. Who says all attention is good attention? However, why is practically no one voting? Chloe Tzang and I each have more than 600 followers, and the votes in our story categories in total (not just for us) are far fewer than that. (I only pick on Chloe because she set out what her numbers were once.) Another thought. I only found out I'd made it into the voting by accident (and that may be how I made it into the voting). Could the site not have sent us a note?
GrandTeton

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Hey, pick on me. I don't mind. LOL. Really, I don't, and I agree 100%. My ratings have gone down across the board with this. Not sure what sparked that off, my latest story, this competition or a comment stirring up a troll or two but all my stories have gone down and some with low numbers of votes have tanked (one that was in this competition - the Strawberry one - went from 4.88 to 4.78 on a couple of votes). That's so cool. Love it. It doesn't bug me now, been here long enough and I have enough followers reading and commenting on my stories that I'm a bit blase about it, but for a newbie it'd be a total mind-fuck.

Whatever, I'll probably just do a bit of campaigning tp round up a few more votes. All things being equal, I'm a competitive little bitch (right, Pilot ) and I'd rather win than not, altho I put a good face on losing. At least, I hope I do. LOL.

I've been siting on this for a while now. I'm pretty much the new guy in the room and I don't know how this statement will be perceived from seeing the “All flaming, trolling, and negativity directed at the nominees or the contest itself will be removed.”, and as a newcomer to the forums I don't know what the repercussions will be if someone feels that I have broken this rule. That being said, I am wondering how a character from an illustrated series could be in the running for 'sexiest transgendered/other gendered character'. As this contest is a literary one, illustrations defeated the purpose. I could easily see a category being made in the future for 'best illustrated character' for those that are inclined towards the visual arts.

Maybe I am coming off childish, I'm not trying to. If I'm out of line, just tell me to 'suck it up buttercup' and I'll move along. To be quite frank, I never expected to be nominated, let alone win anything. I also don't have anything against Silkstockingslover, she is one of my favorited authors. I've enjoyed her work for years.

I in no way feel like Silkstockingslover's story should be removed from the running in this contest. I only ask that someone look into adding a category for illustrations in the next contest.

It isn't just illustrations. It's a written story with illustrations. It's probably been nominated for combining written treatment and illustrations, which, if done well, doubles up on the quality of the character description.

This site brings an audience to you for stories that I doubt your showing your friends and neighbors and co-workers. They give us contest for fun, some ego boost for the winners, they give us a forum to be interactive, small things, most of all they gave us a site to post stories. They don't even have to be sexual in nature.

And still the site isn't doing enough. What's the point of winning? Whatever else I read on here.

There is a followers list you have as writers: Email people on that list. Try to get them a little involved, be interactive and if you say, "but that won't work" then how is Laurel going to be able to do it for you? Put a note in all your stories: Please check the end of the year contest and vote for me: Favorite my stories, I'll email you when it's time.


There are two lines from The Wire I like for this situation:

Frank Sobotka: "You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." -
Someone made this site and yet you want more.

Herc: "You want a job done right, you gotta do it your own self." - Anyone of you guys want to create your own site and do contests your way as you see they should be run, do it and show people how it's done.

Oh and good luck to everyone who has a story nominated, 1 vote or 1,000, getting a victory is always fun, even a small victory.

Haven't read the stories

I think some don't want to vote because they haven't read all the stories in a category. For instance, in Romance, the only story I've read is Jonas Agonistes. One nominee is like the 30th chapter of a story, and I'd hate to jump in in the middle, and reading them all would take time (some chapters are 20 Lit pages, too).

Is it fair to vote for the only story you've read?

lonigan said:

I think some don't want to vote because they haven't read all the stories in a category. For instance, in Romance, the only story I've read is Jonas Agonistes. One nominee is like the 30th chapter of a story, and I'd hate to jump in in the middle, and reading them all would take time (some chapters are 20 Lit pages, too).

Is it fair to vote for the only story you've read?

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Some readers are fans who can and will vote for their favorite author no matter how good the competition is.

Is that fair? No. Doesn't change that it happens.

What counts as good qualities in a story is entirely in the eye of the reader. For some, a 20 Lit page story is the only thing worth reading, and for others, it's too onerous to even start. There are no right or wrong answers as to what makes makes a story good for individual readers, and more votes is what balances out biased fan voting.

KindofHere makes some good points about the importance of this site to authors, but authors make the site, too, a point I'm sure Laurel and Manu agree with. Nothing's perfect, and I don't think that suggesting something is less than perfect is particularly ungrateful. Besides, the site operators both need and want to know what we think is broken, whether or not they can do anything about it.
One thing I don't want to see is an email from every nominated writer, or even one of them, encouraging me to vote, either generally or for a specific story. I know it's been done, and I resented it at the time. This might be a very personal reaction. If (as of today) I have more than seven hundred followers and fourteen votes for the story, something is broken. Even the lead stories only have sixty some votes and I know they have very solid fan bases.

The idea of a contest that can't be controlled by trolls, one-bombers and other pond scum (the only good reason not to simply take the top-rated story of the year as the winner) is a good one, laudable, even. It isn't working. Presumably somebody can think of a way to make it work. But it better not include emails from authors encouraging me to vote.

You don't have any author's favorited or followed Grandteton, so that would be like hanging a 'No Solicitors' sign in your window and being solicited. The main point was: Authors could do more campaigning on their own behalf if they wanted to see a change. One writer that I know of has a webpage. Another example of going that extra step. From what I see, there are more author's outside the forum than in, so the majority doesn't seem to care.

KindofHere said:

You don't have any author's favorited or followed Grandteton, so that would be like hanging a 'No Solicitors' sign in your window and being solicited. The main point was: Authors could do more campaigning on their own behalf if they wanted to see a change. Teflar has has a a ton of votes, but he also has a webpage. Another example of going that extra step. From what I see, there are more author's outside the forum than in, so the majority doesn't seem to care.

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Oh yes, you only see a very small minority of authors on the forums and it's the same with these contests. Most readers don't even notice them, which is kind of a shame but unless the site or authors publicize them, hardly anyone knows they're going on. Readers come here to read the stories, maybe one in 100 votes to rate a story and 1 in 1,000 comment. Us authors are interested in votes and comments but to most readers, they're here for some enjoyment, we're kind of peripheral to them.

Me, I don't campaign much for votes, only to a select few of my readers who correspond with me. Not really enough to do much in any of the competitions and I'm not even sure about these awards coz I haven;t actually done much. I'm planning more over the next year - a website of my own plus a Facebook page coz Lit does not make it easy to communicate with one's followers, which is what I'm looking for. I figure that now that I'm starting to write for more than one site, I need to find some way to let everyone know about new stories and I don;t want to abuse LIT by doing that on their website. That's not fair to them.

And that went a bit off topic....

A Hoot

What a hoot it is to watch the voting tally! I remember how fun it was to see the positive and negative comments to a story of mine, and then the ratings. All the ratings and comments and votes are just a blast.