The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread

[TxRad]

Welcome to the one and only "The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread"

Please come on in and enjoy.

Any other Contest thread you might see is a fake so don't be fooled.

 

[sr71plt]

OK (I hope): My VD entry is marked on my submissions page as approved on 25 January. It hasn't appeared on the "New" page yet, but maybe the delay is over.

 

[Darkniciad]

Looks like the backlog on contest stories posted this morning. One step forward, anyway.

 

[DG Hear]

Looks like the backlog on contest stories posted this morning. One step forward, anyway.

I submitted a new one this morning. I'll see how long it takes to get posted. I have 26 ghost reads as of now.
DG

 

[Darkniciad]

Here's tonight's track ( keeping in mind that the new stories don't have any trackable stats. Tomorrow is when they'll show up )

The bottleneck has ended ( we hope ) and 11 new stories posted today, bringing us up to 26. Two new categories also made an appearance, bringing that total up to 15.

The average score is 4.35 with a median of 4.36

The average vote total is 223 with a median of 168 and a total of 3349

( I'm only tracking views, favorites, and comments every so often, to save me time each night )

 

[TxRad]

Here's tonight's track ( keeping in mind that the new stories don't have any trackable stats. Tomorrow is when they'll show up )

The bottleneck has ended ( we hope ) and 11 new stories posted today, bringing us up to 26. Two new categories also made an appearance, bringing that total up to 15.

The average score is 4.35 with a median of 4.36

The average vote total is 223 with a median of 168 and a total of 3349

( I'm only tracking views, favorites, and comments every so often, to save me time each night )

The end of the month sweep should make things interesting here in a few days.

 

[estragon]

The end of the month sweep should make things interesting here in a few days.

Getting interesting indeed. Lot of bunching in the peloton, but the leaders are starting to break away. Bring on the Hoover!

 

[DG Hear]

My latest 'Joe' didn't post today. Maybe they aren't giving contest preference this time around. I'm up to 36 ghost reads.
DG

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

I love the Hoover - I really love it when it effects the old stories too.

 

[Darkniciad]

Here's tonight's track.

Two new stories brings us up to 28.

Decided that I'm going to update the views, pcs, and favs for stories on the day they debut with stats, and then update those three stats for all stories every so often. The bulk of those numbers arrive in the first 24 hours anyway, so it's a good representation between full updates.

Current average score is 4.33 and the median is the same.

The average vote total is 194 with a median of 125 and a total of 5035.

The average views are 13,109 with a median of 8,485 and a total of 340,822.

The average Favs are 6 with a median of 4 and a total of 158.

The average PCs are 9 with a median of 5 and a total of 242.

 

[estragon]

Once again Dark has done yeoman service, and once again I thank him for his work. Thanks also to SA PennLady for running this thread.

Am I wrong or are scores falling off more quickly in this contest than in recent ones?

 

[DG Hear]

Ok, my story 'Joe' is a Valentine's contest story. It did post in two days, 48 hours that I could tell. So the contest stories are still given a preference. This one is an EC category and will draw it share of trolls. Won't make it to the H department.
Best of luck to all the writers. Surprised there isn't more stories entered earlier in the contest. Hard to believe everyone is waiting.
DG

 

[Darkniciad]

Once again Dark has done yeoman service, and once again I thank him for his work. Thanks also to SA PennLady for running this thread.

Am I wrong or are scores falling off more quickly in this contest than in recent ones?

Not so much falling off more rapidly as not rising as high on average. The last couple of contest have had historically high pre-sweep averages.

This one is more in line with the norm.

However, there aren't many entries yet. As that picks up, the averages could very well change.

 

[estragon]

Thanks Dark, it looks like a case of "it's not the height of the mountain, it's the depth of the valley".

 

[Darkniciad]

Tonight's track adds 4 new stories for a total of 32, and ticks off one more category on the list as well.

The average score is 4.31 with a median of 4.33

The average vote total is 209 with a median of 139 and a total of 5847

The average views are 12,761 with a median of 8,485 and a total of 357,311

The average favorites are 6 with a median of 4 and a total of 165

The average PCs are 9 with an average of 5 and a total of 263

 

[Cia81]

Help a newbie understand

So, hopefully I don't get laughed off the board but I have NO clue how this whole contest thing works other than how to submit to it, considering that was essentially just adding a note. I wrote up a story last month and decided to give it a go.

Sorry, I'm a rambler. Anyway, can I ask what these 'sweeps' are that keep getting mentioned? How exactly are the winners of the contests determined? I'm not looking to cheat or anything I'm just one of those curious souls.

 

[Darkniciad]

"Sweeps" are when Lit runs a script that removes votes it considers illegitimate.

The only absolutely known and confirmed criteria are:

• Multiple votes from the same IP/ID
• Votes oddly inconsistant with the voting pattern on the story - usually removes 1-votes

I believe that "problem voters" ( Those IPs flagged several times during sweeps ) have all their votes wiped out system-wide, which could be good for you if they voted 1 on your story, or bad if they voted 5. I personally believe that all contestant votes are also swept as well.

As to how the winners are determined: The 3 stories with the highest scores and at least 25 votes are the winners.

No laughter here. Getting your questions about the contest answered are one of the many functions the support threads are here to provide

 

[Cia81]

Thanks Darkniciad

That makes a lot of sense. I'm not too worried about winning, but I'm relatively new to the site since I primarily post my stories elsewhere. It's interesting to see who you run the contests here with such a wide range of genres and writers. Thanks for the info!

 

[sagethorns]

My story "The Nutty Chocolatier" is now posted.

As for the lack of stories, I had mine written at the contest open but was delayed when the person I asked to edit got swamped at work. Hey, stuff happens.

Thanks for the updates darkniciad and the explanation of the behind the scenes. The effort put into keeping this as fair as possible is well appreciated.

 

[TxRad]

A welcome to both of our first time entrants. Have fun and good Luck.

Be careful of the fake contest thread. Anything you read in it is propaganda and bullshit to try and inflate the idiot who started it's ego, nothing more.

 

[ScouriesWorld]

God, I see we’ve had another visit from that rabid, racist, rightwing hater over on the A.I.R./ LITEROTICA Themed Contest Support Thread. The guy who’ll never be able to realize that hate and intolerance only resonate with old losers like himself.

He’s even making a joke of this thread with his constant bumping of it. I guess he’s afraid that it wouldn’t be able to stand on its own two feet without him. He just doesn’t understand! All the while incapable of realizing what an idiot he looks like. He’s just like his hero Rick Perry.

Just another dumb, rightwing racist from Texas.

Sad really…
​

 

[Darkniciad]

If you're seeing the message above, now would be a good time to dramatically improve your Literotica experience.

http://forum.literotica.com/profile.php?do=addlist&userlist=ignore&u=499694

http://forum.literotica.com/profile.php?do=addlist&userlist=ignore&u=1343447

Clicking those two links and "saving changes" after each will remove this troll, his ego threads, misinformation, bandwidth-stealing images, and annoying giant-font posts from sight.

 

[HeyAll]

My story "The Nutty Chocolatier" is now posted.

As for the lack of stories, I had mine written at the contest open but was delayed when the person I asked to edit got swamped at work. Hey, stuff happens.

Thanks for the updates darkniciad and the explanation of the behind the scenes. The effort put into keeping this as fair as possible is well appreciated.

Best of luck. I gave you 5 stars. Did you submit your story yesterday, or did it take a day or two?

 

[DG Hear]

Is this contest shorter than usual??? I just noticed there is only one week left to submit. Seems to be going by fast. I have one I think I'll submit Monday since it seems to take at least a couple of days to get submitted.

I usually like contests for the quicker posting preference but doesn't seem to be happening this time. No complaints just an opinion. As Dark and others have said (even me) that the major hit on your score and amount of reads and votes will be in the first 48 hours.
DG

 

[Darkniciad]

Is this contest shorter than usual??? I just noticed there is only one week left to submit. Seems to be going by fast. I have one I think I'll submit Monday since it seems to take at least a couple of days to get submitted.

I usually like contests for the quicker posting preference but doesn't seem to be happening this time. No complaints just an opinion. As Dark and others have said (even me) that the major hit on your score and amount of reads and votes will be in the first 48 hours.
DG

It just seems that way because Halloween and Winter Holiday are the longest running contests. Coming off those, this one feels like it goes by before you know what happened.