Open Post To Laurel

SusanJillParker

I'm 100% woman
Joined
Oct 29, 2011
Posts
2,155
Hi Laurel,

How are you? How's your cat? I like your hair. Is that a new top? It's pretty. You're certainly showing a lot of cleavage. Have you lost weight? You look thin, skinny actually. Your smaller waist makes your breasts look much bigger, huge actually. You look good. With you looking ten years younger, no one would ever guess your real age.

Anyway, voting is the reason for my post. As you are no doubt aware only 1/2 to 1 percent of readers vote. Embarrassing low, those are dismal numbers. Seemingly, the bashers are the only ones who vote all the time. Most bashers don't even read the story. Instead they scroll down to the end and vote the writer a bashing 1 vote.

I understand, of course, that not everyone who opens a story will read and/or vote for a story. Yet, what I'm reading over and again are readers telling me that they didn't know that they could vote for a story or they don't know how to vote for a story. Of course I tell them that they can vote and I tell them how to vote but is there something that Literotica can do to improve the voting?

Perhaps something can be posted on the new story page to make readers aware that not only can they vote but also that explains how to vote.

Perhaps, after reading a story, before the reader leaves the page, a reminder will ask the reader if they voted for the story and/or if they liked the story by showing the voting stars.

What do you think?

Just a thought.
 
I think how and where to vote on a story here is quite clear. It's right at the bottom of the last page of the story and is about as simple as it could be. I think that anyone who can't figure this out isn't going to read a separate set of instructions posted anywhere. Also, I've never had a reader (in nearly 900 stories posted here) ask me how to vote a story, so that claim is dubious, at best, I think.

The most useful change, I think, would be to move the tags forward so readers know the key content up front. I write some mysteries, and an up-front give away wouldn't benefit some of my stories, but I think it would be beneficial to the greater file.

This is a reading site. There just isn't going to be that much voting/commenting proportionally to views (whatever that number represents) by readers. Of course authors want that, but it's not going happen until/unless this is changed to a critique site, which would be a dumb move considering the success the site has as established. Maybe open up an associated critique site that leans on readers to respond by vote/comment and let the authors choose their preferred venue?
 
That 0.5-1% is based on number of votes vs. "views"?

I wouldn't be surprised if "views" overestimates the number of "readers" by a factor of 5-10. That is my estimate of the ratio between stories that I open, and stories that I actually read - some are closed completely unread, others are closed after the first paragraph or two finding out the topic or writing style is not for me. Other stories I may view two or more times, either to re-read or to continue to read one that I couldn't finish. I don't think I'm exceptional in this behaviour.

Based on that single data point, I'd guess the actual number of people that vote after actually finishing reading a story is more like 5%, which is not bad at all.
 
That 0.5-1% is based on number of votes vs. "views"?

I wouldn't be surprised if "views" overestimates the number of "readers" by a factor of 5-10. That is my estimate of the ratio between stories that I open, and stories that I actually read - some are closed completely unread, others are closed after the first paragraph or two finding out the topic or writing style is not for me. Other stories I may view two or more times, either to re-read or to continue to read one that I couldn't finish. I don't think I'm exceptional in this behaviour.

Based on that single data point, I'd guess the actual number of people that vote after actually finishing reading a story is more like 5%, which is not bad at all.

Sure. 5% is about the percentage of customers who complain.

I suspect popular stories are re-read a lot by the same admirers. One of my tales got 84,000 reads quickly. Par for me is much less. Its score is meh but most comments asked for more of the same fare. IT took me a while to get what my readers are after. If its what they want they'll come back.
 
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