TANSTAAFL58
Lost and Profound
- Joined
- May 18, 2018
- Posts
- 19,742
The score on my Geek Pride Story "The Lieutenant" just lost half it's votes, and the score dropped from a steady 4.39 (where it's been for four weeks) to 4.06. What happened?
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The score on my Geek Pride Story "The Lieutenant" just lost half it's votes, and the score dropped from a steady 4.39 (where it's been for four weeks) to 4.06. What happened?
It looks more like they removed any 5s and kept all the 1s.
This sucks. So the story I thought was pretty good was actually a piece of crap?
It looks more like they removed any 5s and kept all the 1s.
This sucks. So the story I thought was pretty good was actually a piece of crap?
Excellent advice to contemplate!Voting doesn't tell you if a story is good. Voting is an incomprehensible mixture of who happens to read the story, the mood they are in that day, whether you tickled their specific fetish, what category you put it in, how influenced voters are by previous votes, and then there's sweeps, which do whatever the site wants them to. Also consider that "some people just about never give 5s!" and some people will give a 5 simply if they managed an orgasm. About the best anyone can say is that if your score stays consistently below 4, the story probably has real problems; above that, you can at least claim that most people sorta liked it. But why do you care about "most people"?
Avoid contests if you care about scores. Contests amplify all the random factors listed above and add a hefty dose of fanboy and jealousy/hostility votes.
Better yet, don't care about scores. You're not paid by the point, and even if you were, the readership has a segment, probably sizable, of mouth-breathing basement-dwellers with a clear lack of critical evaluation skill. This isn't a group you want to seek affirmation from. Post what you think is good, and move on.
Voting doesn't tell you if a story is good. Voting is an incomprehensible mixture of who happens to read the story, the mood they are in that day, whether you tickled their specific fetish, what category you put it in, how influenced voters are by previous votes, and then there's sweeps, which do whatever the site wants them to. Also consider that "some people just about never give 5s!" and some people will give a 5 simply if they managed an orgasm. About the best anyone can say is that if your score stays consistently below 4, the story probably has real problems; above that, you can at least claim that most people sorta liked it. But why do you care about "most people"?
Avoid contests if you care about scores. Contests amplify all the random factors listed above and add a hefty dose of fanboy and jealousy/hostility votes.
Better yet, don't care about scores. You're not paid by the point, and even if you were, the readership has a segment, probably sizable, of mouth-breathing basement-dwellers with a clear lack of critical evaluation skill. This isn't a group you want to seek affirmation from. Post what you think is good, and move on.
Voting doesn't tell you if a story is good. Voting is an incomprehensible mixture of who happens to read the story, the mood they are in that day, whether you tickled their specific fetish, what category you put it in, how influenced voters are by previous votes, and then there's sweeps, which do whatever the site wants them to. Also consider that "some people just about never give 5s!" and some people will give a 5 simply if they managed an orgasm. About the best anyone can say is that if your score stays consistently below 4, the story probably has real problems; above that, you can at least claim that most people sorta liked it. But why do you care about "most people"?
Avoid contests if you care about scores. Contests amplify all the random factors listed above and add a hefty dose of fanboy and jealousy/hostility votes.
Better yet, don't care about scores. You're not paid by the point, and even if you were, the readership has a segment, probably sizable, of mouth-breathing basement-dwellers with a clear lack of critical evaluation skill. This isn't a group you want to seek affirmation from. Post what you think is good, and move on.
This is excellent advice, and it applies to your story, which I just read. I didn't see any major problems with it and certainly don't think you can infer from the score that it's crap. You had a few misspellings, like writing "viscous" when you meant "vicious", but nothing major. Your story's score reflects two qualities of it that can draw negative votes: it's short, and it's humorous. Stories shorter than one page tend not to get the highest scores here, because many readers like more character development. Also, humor is a hit or miss thing with people. If you write a humorous story there always will be people who don't care for your sense of humor. Neither of these things indicates anything is truly wrong with your story.
The other thing to keep in mind is that with such a limited number of views and votes the randomness of the voting is heightened.
On the upside, you got a good number of positive comments, especially for a story with fewer than 2,000 views. Focus more on trying to reach the audience that likes your stories rather than average score. Obviously, you have succeeded to some degree in doing that, so focus on the positive.
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This sucks. So the story I thought was pretty good was actually a piece of crap?
Or, in the absence of comments (which can be rare beasts) wait thirty days before thinking the scores mean anything.The best advice I can give is - ignore the scores - judge the quality of your work by the comments it receives