Comments vs scoring vs Author's feelings

[Cagivagurl]

Many authors here in this forum say the scores they get are meaningless and they do not care about comments (unless they are constructive). I take that to mean that comments should be on how the story was presented rather than content. They think their story should be accepted and if rejected it is because of the closed-mindedness of the reader.
I recently ran across a story on Loving Wives that was not erotic, had no BTB etc. (like some here claim you have to provide). It was called Problematic Priorities by Choppedliver. The story rates about a 4.3 score and has 111 comments when I last checked.
Now why is this story getting such a reaction? And WHAT is the reaction it is getting? Chopped told a simple story about a man being unable to accept his fiance's part in their relationship. It does not particularly generate a lot of angst, but a general irritation and acceptance/rejection of the plot.
Most of the comments do EXACTLY what many of the authors here say they hate. They pick apart the characters' personalities, their strengths, failings and decide what they should do.
Why is that? To me, it says the author CONNECTED with his audience. He got the readers to identify. Some liked the MC, some thought him overbearing. They extrapolated those characters into a possible future action and commented.
They did not 'just accept what the author wrote as his story and like or dislike'. They got involved.

As authors, we need to understand we are NOT writing JUST for ourselves. (Well maybe you are, like masturbation.)

Scores are not meaningless, but... They in no way reflect quality of the writing or story telling. The score is so heavily weighted by content, it removes the honesty of the vote...
If you post a story, even if badly ritten, but it ticks all the quirky boxes of the category. It'll get a high score...
On the flips side, a beautifully written and crafted story that doesn't tick the content box, get's a much lower score...
For that reason, I feel the score is irrelevant, and not a good indicator of a stories quality.
Comments mean you connected either positively, or negatively with the audience... Again, not an indicator of quality... Not directly anyway.
A long list of negative comments tells me one thing... You made them think... Made them feel, so in an abstract manner, the storytelling must have been good...

I ignore scores, my own, or if I'm searching for something to read... They actually can be misleading... IE: Content box ticked, but quality poor...

Comments are a good indicator... Better still is favourites... A string of hearts means it must have been loved by many... Again though... Is it content, or quality...
Get a mixture of all the above, and it's probably a good reflectoion...
In my opinion only...
Cagivagurl

 

[FrancesScott]

See my thread on this. The focus was LW, but it would be possible to do this for every category as well as for the whole site. At the time I did this, using the method I used, the median for all stories over time was 4.41. That will shift around according to overall voting trends, sweeps, and tweaks to the method.

View attachment 2556713

I suppose my intuition / extrapolation was valid.

 

[lc69hunter]

I am proud that I have over 200. 1800 sounds amazing to me.

I have 254 with only 6 stories, but most of mine are based upon comments I have made on other writer's stories

 

[crookedletter]

All this mathery seems predicated on the notion that the value of a score is in how it measures against every other story. With so many factors and trends and matters of taste at play I don’t really see the upside. Unless I’m in a contest I don’t really feel my story is in competition with others.

I assume different readers vote in different ways. Some folks likely throw out 5s to any story that got them hard, or just killed a few minutes when they might’ve otherwise been at work. Others reserve them for the ones that truly blew them away.

I don’t read much on here, and when I do I only rate if I think a story deserves a 5. Otherwise I just don’t. But if I threw a star rating on every story I read, 4 would be solid. 4 would mean I liked it, but didn’t love it. I’m good with that. I’d prefer people love my work. But if a rating suggests a whole lot of people like it I don’t see any reason to complain about that.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

All this mathery seems predicated on the notion that the value of a score is in how it measures against every other story.

What other measure is there? Measuring is comparing. Nothing more.

 

[alohadave]

All this mathery seems predicated on the notion that the value of a score is in how it measures against every other story.

I don't think that's true at all. As a reader, I've never compared a story I've voted on to another story, and I don't rank stories. If a story gets a vote it's on its own merits, not because it was better or worse than any other story.

 

[gunhilltrain]

But you do not masturbate in front of other people. Or rather, if you do, it is o longer just about you. And it will change how you do it.

Personally, favorites are my preferred measure. Every one of those means you connected with someone, hopefully made their day. I do not get huge audiences and I am exstatic with ten favorites. But hopefully that means I made ten people's days (or hours or maybe just them to smile for a minute). Certainly ten of those has to have real value in the gran scheme of things.

And then there is @StillStunned who withholds that reward universally (unless you write something that helps his writing, I guess.)

A little off-topic perhaps, but lovers will often masturbate in front of each other as part of their relationship. I'm sure it happens in very casual encounters too. So it's hardly unusual.

 

[Actingup]

All this mathery seems predicated on the notion that the value of a score is in how it measures against every other story. With so many factors and trends and matters of taste at play I don’t really see the upside. Unless I’m in a contest I don’t really feel my story is in competition with others.

I assume different readers vote in different ways. Some folks likely throw out 5s to any story that got them hard, or just killed a few minutes when they might’ve otherwise been at work. Others reserve them for the ones that truly blew them away.

I don’t read much on here, and when I do I only rate if I think a story deserves a 5. Otherwise I just don’t. But if I threw a star rating on every story I read, 4 would be solid. 4 would mean I liked it, but didn’t love it. I’m good with that. I’d prefer people love my work. But if a rating suggests a whole lot of people like it I don’t see any reason to complain about that.

As @pink_silk_glove said, measuring is comparing. But some of the point of the maths is to show what shouldn't be compared, despite our instincts to do so. For example, a score in Loving Wives shouldn't be compared to a score in another category. Then, within a category, scores can strongly reflect the content, as @Cagivagurl said. And of course, within the constraints of a contest there are lots of discussions urging each other to not obsess about scores, because they can be easily manipulated (and because we're not competing for sheep stations). Neverthless, people use scores, votes, favourites and comments when they look at story metrics, and that's perfectly valid in the context of wanting to be better writers (or feeding the ego, or at least wanting to feel like you're not a piece of shit when somebody's had a go at you in the comments).

I agree with your interpretation of a 4. It's rare that I finish reading a story but think that it's worth a 3 or less - I would usually have given up by then and leave it unrated.

 

[TheLobster]

and that's why we never write in Second-Person

Or perhaps even in first person, lest they believe that you, the author, are the alien tentacle demon you’re writing about!…

Wait, that was supposed to be a cautionary warning, but now, ugh, I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing…

 

[Voboy]

I can't say definitively how to "connect" with an audience. I know that some stories do and some don't, and VERY occasionally I can guess in advance which ones will. Certainly people who read my stuff seem to enjoy heavier, more romantic pieces: those all score the best, have the most favorites, and a few of them are (I feel) among my best stories. But not all.

But there are other stories that have gained little or no traction, which I genuinely thought would connect in the same way.

For my contest-winners? I have submitted one story, ever, that I genuinely believed would win, and it did. I knew that story had "it." The rest have surprised and, sometimes, shocked me. I did post another one that had "it," and honestly I thought it would win, but it didn't. Came very close, however.

In all cases, I've only ever posted stories I felt were good, or at least worthy of showing up in my catalog. That's probably not a super-high bar, but it's a bar that keeps me satisfied in posting, whatever the outcome.

 

[iwatchus]

A little off-topic perhaps, but lovers will often masturbate in front of each other as part of their relationship. I'm sure it happens in very casual encounters too. So it's hardly unusual.

Yes, I am well aware of that. But you are no longer doing it for yourself. You are very aware of being watched, of performing. It becomes a very different act.

 

[crookedletter]

What other measure is there? Measuring is comparing. Nothing more.

If you say so. But a rating has meaning without that comparison. It means individual readers gave it individual ratings based on their individual experience. A 4+ rating does mean most readers liked the story. Whether or not it ultimately scores below some calculated average.

I don't think that's true at all. As a reader, I've never compared a story I've voted on to another story, and I don't rank stories. If a story gets a vote it's on its own merits, not because it was better or worse than any other story.

Right, that's basically what I'm saying.

As @pink_silk_glove said, measuring is comparing. But some of the point of the maths is to show what shouldn't be compared, despite our instincts to do so. For example, a score in Loving Wives shouldn't be compared to a score in another category. Then, within a category, scores can strongly reflect the content, as @Cagivagurl said. And of course, within the constraints of a contest there are lots of discussions urging each other to not obsess about scores, because they can be easily manipulated (and because we're not competing for sheep stations). Neverthless, people use scores, votes, favourites and comments when they look at story metrics, and that's perfectly valid in the context of wanting to be better writers (or feeding the ego, or at least wanting to feel like you're not a piece of shit when somebody's had a go at you in the comments).

I agree with your interpretation of a 4. It's rare that I finish reading a story but think that it's worth a 3 or less - I would usually have given up by then and leave it unrated.

I'd argue there are more factors that complicate those comparisons, factors that we can't really know. A 4.6 rating compared to a 4.9 rating is only instructive -- as far as the merits of the story -- if we assume the same readers are rating the two stories based on the same criteria. I think that's far from self-evident, regardless of category.

I'm not saying you shouldn't look at rating as a metric. I'm not even saying you shouldn't compare your score to the average and use those results to try to improve. I'm basically just arguing against the notion that a 4 is a bad score based on all this number crunching, as if all votes are created equal. 4 means like. Like is good. I'll still strive for a 5/love though, every time.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

A score is an indication if the audience enjoyed it.
Does the audience here assess a story based on it's literary merits? Generally, no.
This is the audience we've all chosen. If you want your stories rated on their merits as literature there is probably somewhere you can get that, but this isn't it. Complaining about it is a bit like going to a steakhouse and being upset there are no vegan options.

You can get a high score without "pandering" or trying to fit everyone's squicks in. There is plenty of proof of that.
There are also plenty of stories that check all the boxes for a given category and have low scores because they are poorly written.

 

[Lifestyle66]

With regards to ratings, I don't care about them because my stories often get 1-bombed. (I write to Loving Wives, a self-inflected wound.)

I had one rewarding comment by a reader of "Aftermath, or "I Can't Go for That"":
*******************************************
by alfa_aardvark22 on 06/28/2024

Sometimes, the best written stories just don't fit into the rating system. This is one that I just can't assign stars to. It is very well written, the characters believable, the story painfully told and on and on. Do I think it average, do I like it, do I love it? No to all. But I do respect this story and your courage to write it. Maybe that is better than 5 stars. Please accept this as a sincere compliment to your talent.
*******************************************


I think that has to be one of the best comments we could receive for our efforts, that we beat the rating system!

EDIT: BTW, that story is at 3.08/803 votes, 33k views and 71 comments.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

If you say so. But a rating has meaning without that comparison. It means individual readers gave it individual ratings based on their individual experience. A 4+ rating does mean most readers liked the story. Whether or not it ultimately scores below some calculated average.

No, that is incorrect. Any time that we measure anything we are comparing. That is how the material existence works. When we were in kindergarten, we were short and our 5'2" munchkin teacher was tall. Why? because compared to us, she was really tall. Once we grow up, we realize that in adult circles, she's often the shortest one in the room, because compared to the rest of the adults, she is among the shortest, so she is short. That is how we measure.

So how do we define a good score? By comparing to the other scores. It is the only possible way. Some will argue that 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, that 3 right in the middle indicates an average score. If that is true, then less than 5% of all stories on lit are average. The other 95% are above average and most of them staggeringly above average. This would indicate that the quality of writing (or at least the popularity of stories) on lit is on par with all-time best sellers and classics of literature.

But of course we know that this is not true. If we poke around and read the daily submissions, we quickly realize that the writing quality on lit varies wildly and for the most part is very amateur in skill overall and there are many many stories that are extremely popular and others that are equally unpopular. So we can't set an arbitrary number like 3 or 4 or say *cough* 4.5 *cough* as average or good. This is meaningless.

What we have to do is compare the scores of stories to each other. When we do this, we find that a score of 4.4 is about average, a score of about 4.8 or higher is quite high or 'good' and a score of about 4.0 or lower is quite low or 'poor' (whatever good, average and poor might mean to you). That is the only way that we can achieve any sort of measuring stick, because that is the natural method of measuring things, by comparing. There is just no other way.

Now if a story scores 4.8, does that mean that is was well written? Not necessarily. All that it means is that the reactions to it were positive - very positive. But by your arbitrary bar method, the story with a score of 4.0 would be almost as positive. This would be a very inaccurate conclusion drawn. A score of 4.0 on lit is actually among the least positive reactions (the 20th percentile - ouch!), so your proposed method would be highly inaccurate. By your method, there would be almost no poor or unpopular stories on lit. Well we know that this is simply not true, so you would be fooling yourself.

Your method is the equivalent of mandating 10 degrees celcius as a hot day. Anything 10 C and up is a hot day. But we know that there are many days of the year far far hotter than that. In fact compared to all of the other days in the year, 10 is about the middle, so 10 is actually an average day, not hot at all. So that arbitrary number of 10 is completely meaningless.

When you measure the width of a door, what you are really doing is comparing the position of one edge relative to the position of the other edge. When you measure the temperature of the weather outside today, you are comparing it to the temperature yesterday or of all other recorded days. That is how you know how hot or cold it is. Orange is orange because compared to yellow it's darker and compared to red it's lighter, so we measure orange to be the color in between yellow and red. Every measurement in the material existence is a comparison. That is your science lesson for the day. ; )

 

[Lifestyle66]

When you measure the width of a door, what you are really doing is comparing the position of one edge relative to the position of the other edge.

I have to disagree with than analogy.

When I rate a story, I am telling the author how I felt about the story. Did I like it? Did I love it? Did I just feel nothing about it?

When I measure the door, it's a distance between two points, not a relative feeling about the sides of the door.

EDIT: When we rate your stories, we're telling you how we felt about YOUR story.

YOU are the one comparing those numbers to stories written by others.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Scores are not meaningless, but... They in no way reflect quality of the writing or story telling. The score is so heavily weighted by content, it removes the honesty of the vote...

This should always be emphasized.

Scores, top lists, favorites, followers, votes, comments, they are all indicators of how much readers enjoyed our stories - their content most of all, and to a significantly lesser degree, the quality of writing and storytelling. Content is above everything else; that much is clear to anyone who has spent years reading stories here.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

And I've had a few that got angry because I did not use an anal tag because of a single scene. I don't tag everything in a story. I use them for a general idea of the storyline.

Same. I don't tag minor shit. I had somebody years ago get mad about my twincest story, because the sister fucked a black dude in one scene. They demanded I tag interracial, because they didn't like reading that. He thought is grievance mattered that much.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I have to disagree with than analogy.

When I rate a story, I am telling the author how I felt about the story. Did I like it? Did I love it? Did I just feel nothing about it?

When I measure the door, it's a distance between two points, not a relative feeling about the sides of the door.

EDIT: When we rate your stories, we're telling you how we felt about YOUR story.

YOU are the one comparing those numbers to stories written by others.

Yes, and that last bit is what we were talking about. When we compare the scores between stories we are measuring the difference in the reactions to the stories. We were not talking about what individual votes to hand out.

But even then, when we vote, we are measuring how well we enjoyed the story by comparing that enjoyment to our enjoyment of other stories.

"How did you like Dr Strangelove?"

"It was great. It was even better than Casablanca!"

When we score a story a 5, this means that we feel that it ranks in the utmost enjoyment (or utmost whatever your personal criteria are) compared to other stories that we have read.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Yes, and that last bit is what we were talking about. When we compare the scores between stories we are measuring the difference in the reactions to the stories. We were not talking about what individual votes to hand out.

But even then, when we vote, we are measuring how well we enjoyed the story by comparing that enjoyment to our enjoyment of other stories.

"How did you like Dr Strangelove?"

"It was great. It was even better than Casablanca!"

When we score a story a 5, this means that we feel that it ranks in the utmost enjoyment (or utmost whatever your personal criteria are) compared to other stories that we have read.

But I can't possibly compare my stories to yours. That's comparing "apples to oranges."

I write to Loving Wives, and you don't have any LW stories. Even if you did write an LW story, which of mine should I use to compare it to? A BTB story? Or my "Aftermath" stories? Maybe to my swinger couple stories? Or one of the various 750-word stories of different types of relationships?

Then we'd have to dissect the other triggers within each story to determine if we inadvertently caused an angry response, such as infidelity, interracial, incest, gay, lesbian, etc. Some of these things matter to the reader, either pro or con. And a different mix in any particular story can skew those ratings. And that has nothing to do with the quality of the writing.

So, what are we comparing with that one rating average number? Story arc? Character development? Triggers? Writing quality? Does the fact I have followers who 1-bomb my stories within minutes of publication indicate my stories are worse than yours, or that yours are better?

We don't know! It's just a composite number.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

To me, anything 4+ is a good score. I've always been satisfied when anything I wrote got a 4 anything. Of course I never thought I'd ever get a red H, and was surprised when I did, when it seemed for years it would never happen. So I don't clutch pearls when I don't get one.

Writing is media, media is driven by the audience, they decide what's good by numbers.

And I do write for myself in the way that I tell the stories I want to tell, not the ones others want me to. I want my audience to find me, not vice versa.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Scores are not meaningless, but... They in no way reflect quality of the writing or story telling. The score is so heavily weighted by content, it removes the honesty of the vote...

Actually, content is to me a major part of the vote. Content is not just striking off the key points of the story. It is how the story is told. Does it make sense? In other words, given a certain amount of suspension of belief, is the story logical? Does it resonate with the readers or not?
I was surprised to read that many comments here revealed that if they bother to read a story to the end, it is an automatic 4. Yeah that would skew the scoring. Statistics on here comparing ratings across the board make judging on score alone almost meaningless. But they might in certain genres.
I read many stories to the end as long as I can follow it. Some are simply unreadable. Or the content is either so repulsive or illogical, I cannot continue. My own rating ranges mainly between 2 and 4. Anything so bad to deserve a 1, i quit.
I've read many where the basic plot was decent, but undeveloped and I'll comment accordingly. I might even cut a first submission some slack and give it a 4 as encouragement.
A well told story, in my opinion is one that resonates with the reader. Now I have almost quit looking at scores in several categories because they are totally meaningless. Every story rates above a 4. I will say in LW, I rarely bother to open a story that is below a 3.2 or so. There is a high enough number of discriminating readers there to tell me I needn't waste my time.
I read comments though in most categories. Some categories have few if any responses.
But when I run across a story that is rated well, has a number of responses that comment about the characters (beyond saying one sucks) I can tell the author hit a note with his readership. I'll read that one to see what I think.

 

[crookedletter]

So how do we define a good score? By comparing to the other scores. It is the only possible way.

But... it isn't. That's how you define a good score relative to others. Which, fine, if you want to take the time to do that.

I have a story here with a 4.77 rating. There are two ways to look at this: given your benchmarks, relative to other stories, it's a respectable score but not in the upper echelons. I'm comfortable with that, but maybe in the future I want to get that extra push over 4.8.

Or I can look at it on its own, in a vacuum, with the knowledge that that score is based on a number of votes given a scale of 1-5. I'm not a numbers guru, but to me that looks pretty damn close to 5. Which means a lot of people gave it the maximum vote, and some others gave it something pretty close to that maximum vote. I can conclude that's a good score based on those numbers even if I never look at another rating. I'd still rather have one over 4.8, because... it's higher.

Height and temperature are imperfect comparisons. Those are objective measurements. 5'4" is objectively taller than 5'2". 12C is objectively warmer than 10C. More appropriate perhaps would be assessing temperature by asking some people how hot they'd say it is on a scale of 1-10. I don't have to chart a graph to conclude that an answer of 8-10 probably means it's a hot day -- or at least is generally perceived as such.

 

[Gamblnluck]

And I do write for myself in the way that I tell the stories I want to tell, not the ones others want me to. I want my audience to find me, not vice versa.

I doubt many authors here write stories they do not like. (I know some like to throw it in the face of others, and I consider that like deliberately farting in an elevator, and laughing about it.) We aren't getting paid to produce content we don't like.
I personally write stories like I want to read. And I am enough of a perv to enjoy a variety of kinks (in my reading/imagination).
Some stories that begin to throw in too much content that I find repellent, get dropped fast. I personally hate foot play, licking armpits, farts, etc. I do use kissing an asshole, but that is more as a tool to humiliate/subjugate one of the characters. And I limit the action, to clean and not penetrative.
I am currently following a few stories where the plot line actually disturbs me. But that is to see how the author pulls it out or if he does. An example of this is Dyetied's human dog story, a well written story where you can identify with the MC.

 

[Gamblnluck]

More appropriate perhaps would be assessing temperature by asking some people how hot they'd say it is on a scale of 1-10.

Put another way, a score being subjective, is asking some people how COMFORTABLE they are at that time, at that given temp. Which might depend on a series of factors- their activity, the clothing they are wearing, the humidity.