Comments vs scoring vs Author's feelings

[Kelliezgirl]

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

And when I measure a door it has no bearing on the size of any other door.

 

[Lifestyle66]

And when I measure a door it has no bearing on the size of any other door.

But how do you really FEEL about those door sides being so far apart? LOL.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

But how do you really FEEL about those door sides being so far apart? LOL.

I like really narrow doors, so I can get stuck in them. Kind of like getting stuck in the dryer...

 

[Kelliezgirl]

But how do you really FEEL about those door sides being so far apart? LOL.

But on a more serious note, you can rate something without having to compare it to something.
I watched KPop Demon Hunters last night. It's brilliant. Netflix asked for my rating at the end and I gave it a "5". Loved it.
I don't need to compare it to Casablanca, or Gone with the Wind, and I see little value in doing so.

 

[APilgrimSquare]

Every author wants praise. We all want 5 star reviews, glowing comments, whatever we say. Maybe it's not critical to our process, our motivation, etc. But we all want it.

That said.

Most lit readers don't rate stories. Stories get thousands and thousands of views, and dozens of ratings. The ones who do leave ratings are typically rating stories based on whether they liked the story. They're not rating on literary merit, risks taken, quality of prose (generally). The ratings are optional, and people may have all sorts of motivations for leaving the ratings they do. And so ratings need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.

 

[AlexBailey]

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.

Tags are used to find stories.



If you don’t tag your story according to content you are not taking advantage of the site’s built in search function.


There is no way to exclude any tags in the search function

 

[AlexBailey]

But on a more serious note, you can rate something without having to compare it to something.
I watched KPop Demon Hunters last night. It's brilliant. Netflix asked for my rating at the end and I gave it a "5". Loved it.
I don't need to compare it to Casablanca, or Gone with the Wind, and I see little value in doing so.

It would be helpful and probably encourage more voting if the ratings a reader gives to stories on Lit worked like ratings you give to Netflix content.

Netflix uses your feedback to make customized recommendations for you.

 

[Gamblnluck]

But on a more serious note, you can rate something without having to compare it to something.
I watched KPop Demon Hunters last night. It's brilliant. Netflix asked for my rating at the end and I gave it a "5". Loved it.
I don't need to compare it to Casablanca, or Gone with the Wind, and I see little value in doing so.

Exactly. You enjoyed it so you rated it high. If you'd seen comments about a movie that said it was not worth the time wasted, or you'd rather get a root canal you might give it a pass. And those comments would probably be fairly accurate.

 

[Gamblnluck]

It would be helpful and probably encourage more voting if the ratings a reader gives to stories on Lit worked like ratings you give to Netflix content.

Netflix uses your feedback to make customized recommendations for you.

Yeah, and sometimes it works well. Lit does the same thing (suggested stories) but they are not based on your history or ratings. They also have a similar story list at the end of each story that is sometimes useful.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It would be helpful and probably encourage more voting if the ratings a reader gives to stories on Lit worked like ratings you give to Netflix content.

Netflix uses your feedback to make customized recommendations for you.

100% agree, Netflix has more incentive to market to us than Lit does.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

It would be helpful and probably encourage more voting if the ratings a reader gives to stories on Lit worked like ratings you give to Netflix content.

Netflix uses your feedback to make customized recommendations for you.

Last thing we need is an algorithm like Netflix or Wattpad.

 

[iwatchus]

100% agree, Netflix has more incentive to market to us than Lit does.

Netflix famously abandoned their algorithm that actually recommended things you wanted to see about a decade ago. Instead. they now push what they want you to watch, for their own business reasons. In the US, the courts decided many decades ago that movie studios could not own movie theaters; it was anti-competitive to control both the production and the distribution. But now the major distribution channels are allowed to make their own products, which they can treat preferentially, like the theaters were when they were an exploitive monopoly.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Netflix famously abandoned their algorithm that actually recommended things you wanted to see about a decade ago. Instead. they now push what they want you to watch, for their own business reasons. In the US, the courts decided many decades ago that movie studios could not own movie theaters; it was anti-competitive to control both the production and the distribution. But now the major distribution channels are allowed to make their own products, which they can treat preferentially, like the theaters were when they were an exploitive monopoly.

The prohibition made sense back in that era. Small towns often only had one theatre. So if they didn't show movies from MGM you'd never see them. Especially since that was before the days of home media of any sort.
If you don't like Netflix it's simple to subscribe to another streaming service. It's a very different situation.

 

[AlexBailey]

Yeah, and sometimes it works well. Lit does the same thing (suggested stories) but they are not based on your history or ratings. They also have a similar story list at the end of each story that is sometimes useful.

Does anyone know what Lit uses for suggested stories?

Is it based on categories and tags?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Does anyone know what Lit uses for suggested stories?

Is it based on categories and tags?

I've often wondered that, I've gotten some suggestions that didn't seem to have anything in common with the story I'd just finished.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Does anyone know what Lit uses for suggested stories?

Is it based on categories and tags?

I think it's a combination of categories, tags, story name, and other authors works.

 

[Actingup]

Most lit readers don't rate stories. Stories get thousands and thousands of views, and dozens of ratings. The ones who do leave ratings are typically rating stories based on whether they liked the story. They're not rating on literary merit, risks taken, quality of prose (generally). The ratings are optional, and people may have all sorts of motivations for leaving the ratings they do. And so ratings need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.

It’s not necessary for everybody to rate a story, just as it’s not necessary to know every individual view on an election candidate to make a reasonable assessment of how that candidate will fare. Obviously the better the sample size and the more representative the sample, the better the assessment can be made (and please no digressions into failed polls here - we all know polls are imperfect). If 100 people have voted on a story with 10000 views, that still gives us a lot of information.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Not to be a contrarian, but how could anyone get a mean vote for over 500,000 stories with hundreds or thousands of new stories going up every week? And if anyone is so insecure that they need votes above the mean to feel good about their writings, those egos are very fragile indeed. All I want is for the reader to have an emotional response to what I write. Sure, I'd rather they love it than hate it, but hate is as valid as love.

If you mean that one reader scored your piece as a 4, then yes, that is a positive feedback. but if you mean an average score of 4, actually no, that is a bad score. A fair amount hated it and most didn't like it all that much. Someone crunched the numbers a few months ago and the mean score on lit is around 4.4. This means that a score of 4.0 is well below average. The same data showed that a score of approx 3.75 was the 10th percentile, so a score of 4.0 is probably around the 20th percentile. That's pretty bad.

 

[Lifestyle66]

How many authors here read the stories of others, rate them and leave comments?

If it's so important to you, do you spend the time and effort returning the favor to others?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Not nearly often enough, read and vote, but usually don't comment.

How many authors here read the stories of others, rate them and leave comments?

If it's so important to you, do you spend the time and effort returning the favor to others?

 

[Gamblnluck]

All I want is for the reader to have an emotional response to what I write. Sure, I'd rather they love it than hate it, but hate is as valid as love.

And that is my original point. You want to resonate with your readers.

 

[iwatchus]

How many authors here read the stories of others, rate them and leave comments?

If it's so important to you, do you spend the time and effort returning the favor to others?

I have been trying to do this much more recently. I know how much I enjoy it, so I thought I should reciprocate. I know @THBGato is really good at it. But I still have a long backlog of things to read.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

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

First, even if you are right, people still do, and when they do, they are measuring. The point is that when we are measuring, we are comparing.

Second, my example was not comparing the stories to each other, it was comparing the reactions to the stories to each other. ; )

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?

I totally agree, but at the same time, people still do.

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.

Absolutely. I've argued all of these factors here for over two years.

The point is, that so many people still just look at the score to indicate whether they wrote well or not, are super happy if they score high enough and bummed out if they don't. You and I understand all of this and how inaccurate it all is. My measuring/comparing argument has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with pointing out the fatally flawed idea of defining what makes a 'good' or 'weak' or 'average' score by some pre-determined arbitrary bench mark like 4.5. If one insists on using the score (again, you and I don't but most do) as a measure of what is good or poor, then at least measure properly on a curve.

I've argued this for a long time and I know that at least Simon agrees with me. Red H's should be determined on a curve by percentile (say the 80th or the 75th, or wherever we feel appropriate) and category specific. As in, if I write an LW story, it would receive a Red H if it cracks the 80th percentile of all other LW (and only LW) stories. Now this would not be perfect (not nearly), but it would be far more meaningful that this stupid 4.5 threshold picked out of thin air which gives a preposterous 45% of all stories on lit some designation as 'cream of the crop'. Not only that but it gives a category like Romance an unfair advantage to score the Red H (probably 60% of Romances score over 4.5) while tough categories (the obvious one being LW) get the shaft up the poop chute.

You make excellent points. Every issue that you bring up is 100% reality on lit. It is extremely difficult to compare stories on quality, since quality is not quantified in the scores to any meaningful degree. I agree with you absolutely 100%. My point was not about that. My point was to those who insist on measuring their stories by the score, at least learn how to measure properly. My point here has zero to do with actual writing. It was simply a math lesson.

 

[Nynah]

How many authors here read the stories of others, rate them and leave comments?

If it's so important to you, do you spend the time and effort returning the favor to others?

I'm in the same boat as @iwatchus. There are so many fantastic authors on Lit who only get the feedback and ratings from readers as their compensation for sharing their work on a free website. I know I enjoy when I receive comments and ratings so leaving a few thoughts about how much I enjoyed reading the piece and a five-star rating is the least I can do for the authors I like to read. I try to read, rate and comment on at least a couple of stories a day. I don't know that I'll ever catch THBGato but shooting for their number seems like a pretty worthwhile goal since that means I'll hopefully put a smile on a few faces along the way.

 

[Gamblnluck]

How many authors here read the stories of others, rate them and leave comments?

If it's so important to you, do you spend the time and effort returning the favor to others?

Yeah, I read them. I start by reading stories with a higher score. Then I look for authors I know. I read comments. If a low scoring story I skim to see if I want to read word for word. (I don't speed read. I have to go one word at a time. Just how I read anything.) if it seems interesting enough to catch my real attention, I read it in depth. But like I tell my friends who ask me for a beta read, if I comment, I tell it like it is. I may not offer a submitted story much insight, but I will talk about a character, or how the plot failed or succeeded. Often I stop after I offer a few words because I know I am talking into the wind.