Time, satisfaction and vote sabotage

[Voboy]

I shouldn't care, but it's hard not to think about this stuff.

Like, one of my better received stories was at 4.72 recently. Then it got a couple of 1-votes in a 5 vote span and now it's 4.66.

4.66 makes me very happy. I don't know that it 'deserves' 4.72 more than 4.66. Who knows?

But I do believe it's a pretty good story, and that 'objectively,' it would be very hard to claim that it is in the lowest 20% of stories in the category, by basically any metric you might choose. So even though I'm happy with my score, I still find myself wondering about those 1-votes.

If a reader thought the story was 'meh,' or didn't really do it for them, then I do not at all begrudge them a 3 or 4 vote. They don't owe me a 5. They deserve their opinion as a reader. But even so... what were those 1-voters thinking? It's not a story that is going to challenge any contests or top lists. It's not a new story. It's not a story that trips any of the usual red-flags that make people flame my stories. It really has no negative comments at all. Is it plausible that they really truly hated it and thought it was one of the worst stories they'd read in a while?

My guess for today is they opened it expecting a 4.72 story, and then felt it landed short of that mark by a good deal, and decided it was their duty to 1-vote it as a corrective measure. But it's hard not to scratch your head sometimes...

You have to remind yourself that the VASTLY OVERWHELMING majority of readers, and voters, are not people who've ever even remotely thought about writing for publication on this site. It is likely that they have no concept whatsoever of "one-bombing," and I very highly doubt they are aware that there is such a high level of navel-gazing here in the AH that aims to explain or examine the phenomenon of the 1* vote. I doubt they're even aware, most of them, that there even is a forum on the site, where writers talk to each other about anything.

I base that on the fact that I read here for about 15 years with no idea that there was anything but a few stories posted anywhere on Lit. I noted the stars at the bottom of the page, but it never once occurred to me to click on any of them. The idea of creating an account and sending feedback to a writer was not even a blip on my radar. Never once did I vote. I think about that now, the joy that my humble 5* vote (for I loved a lot of the stories I read) could have brought to any number of writers had I simply cast it. I had no idea. Nor would I have thought all that much about a 1* vote.

To a reader like I used to be? There's no reason to think they attach any special significance to the voting at the end of the piece. They judge the stories they read according to their own criteria and smash a star accordingly, and I seriously doubt any of those kinds of readers think all that much about the effect of their vote on the writer.

In sum, I think there are undoubtedly small cabals of readers who know what a one-bomb is and who wield them proudly. I cannot imagine they're anywhere near the majority of voters, most of whom (I suspect) just vote from their heart, with scant awareness that that vote might be endlessly parsed and discussed by a fretting writer.

Take heart. We have no clue why people vote. Most of us are grateful when they do; if we aren't? We can always disable voting!