Votes aren't that important. BUT...

[Acktion]

As someone who has published 14 stories on Literotica.com, (and we won't discuss works that were rejected or unsubmitted after I looked over them again) I still consider myself a neophyte (or n00b if you prefer).

The overwhelming majority of the time, I am just thrilled to have a submission accepted and read.

However, as I was hitting submit on submission 15 (fingers crossed), my eye fell on the vote when it kicked me back to the submissions screen and my curiosity flared up. I have since tried to find if it is a subject that has been discussed before but can't locate it if it has.

My eye fell on the top submission in the list, as it always does on that screen, which is in "Anal". And is the only submission to date to drop below 4.0.

And as usual, that low rating bugged me.

But, then I got to thinking. When I myself select a star to click on at the bottom of something I have just read, I pay particular attention to the label each is given;

5= Loved it, one of the best!
4= Really liked it, good read.
3= Liked it, keep on writing.
2= I didn't like it much.
1= I hated it!

And mark it accordingly.

Which got me to thinking...

I know! "Oh shit", right?

That one pretty well sucks. It was obvious, at least to me, that I was writing outside of my comfort zone even more than usual. And it was peppered with editing errors since I wrote it, proofed it, and submitted it in less that 8 hours in my aborted attempt to compete in the Survivor contest that year. Further, the entire story was just poorly written, in my point of view. Yet, it has a cumulative of 3.98 which is at the top of "Liked it" and just .02 off from "Good read".

That got me to wondering if it really deserved to be even that high. If maybe it shouldn't have been a 2.98.

Which in turn made me wonder if the ones that have a 4.0 and higher up to three that are H should be or if maybe those were actually "Keep Writing" instead of "Good Read!"

I dunno.

I mean, I'm hesitant to turn voting off because isn't that a way to track if we are getting better at writing? Mostly I write for myself because I have to write. But, if I'm not trying to get better and engage the reader even more aren't I really just engaging in literary masturbation in a dark room? Is it all in my imagination and I am being my own worst critic as I have been so often accused or are our audience more forgiving than perhaps they should be?

Meh. Open notepad, minimize explorer and begin anew. End of angst. Until the next submission is processed. Never mind.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

As someone who has published 14 stories on Literotica.com, (and we won't discuss works that were rejected or unsubmitted after I looked over them again) I still consider myself a neophyte (or n00b if you prefer).

The overwhelming majority of the time, I am just thrilled to have a submission accepted and read.

However, as I was hitting submit on submission 15 (fingers crossed), my eye fell on the vote when it kicked me back to the submissions screen and my curiosity flared up. I have since tried to find if it is a subject that has been discussed before but can't locate it if it has.

My eye fell on the top submission in the list, as it always does on that screen, which is in "Anal". And is the only submission to date to drop below 4.0.

And as usual, that low rating bugged me.

But, then I got to thinking. When I myself select a star to click on at the bottom of something I have just read, I pay particular attention to the label each is given;

5= Loved it, one of the best!
4= Really liked it, good read.
3= Liked it, keep on writing.
2= I didn't like it much.
1= I hated it!

And mark it accordingly.

Which got me to thinking...

I know! "Oh shit", right?

That one pretty well sucks. It was obvious, at least to me, that I was writing outside of my comfort zone even more than usual. And it was peppered with editing errors since I wrote it, proofed it, and submitted it in less that 8 hours in my aborted attempt to compete in the Survivor contest that year. Further, the entire story was just poorly written, in my point of view. Yet, it has a cumulative of 3.98 which is at the top of "Liked it" and just .02 off from "Good read".

That got me to wondering if it really deserved to be even that high. If maybe it shouldn't have been a 2.98.

Which in turn made me wonder if the ones that have a 4.0 and higher up to three that are H should be or if maybe those were actually "Keep Writing" instead of "Good Read!"

I dunno.

I mean, I'm hesitant to turn voting off because isn't that a way to track if we are getting better at writing? Mostly I write for myself because I have to write. But, if I'm not trying to get better and engage the reader even more aren't I really just engaging in literary masturbation in a dark room? Is it all in my imagination and I am being my own worst critic as I have been so often accused or are our audience more forgiving than perhaps they should be?

Meh. Open notepad, minimize explorer and begin anew. End of angst. Until the next submission is processed. Never mind.

You learn fast, grasshopper.

 

[TxRad]

Quit. Over. Thinking. The. Details.

Enjoy.

 

[lovecraft68]

Wow.

Think of the writing you could have done in the time you have dwelt on this.

I like seeing tbe votes but don't fret them.

One thing to consider is some categories vote lower than others on average.

So sometimes it is category and readership over the quality of the story.

But you should judge a story on how you feel about it more than score.

 

[SecondCircle]

I don't usually think too much on the score. I mean, not as far as taking it incredibly literal. If it's up there in the 4s I think "oh, so people like it pretty well." I don't really see the necessity of worrying over every .03 or .30 of a score change. I just chalk it up to people have different tastes. Some will like it more some less. All that score can really give me is a general idea of general idea of Lit reception.

A while back I was talking with a fellow AHer. Kinda dreamed up a voting system that I thought would be pretty cool. It's sorta the way I think when I vote stories here. It would be like a short five part voting deal. You would rate each element 1-5, for Concept or Plot, Grammar and Punctuation, Characters and Development, Category Theme Use, and general "Hawtness". You would just rate each one and it would average to final vote. Or something like that.

Now, that's just dreamy thinking on my behalf. That ain't saying that system would be best, just a little idea I thought of one day for kicks. Voting is optional for readers here anyway. I think the way it is now is fair enough, of course bombing and things like that are unavoidable.

But personally, score is just general reference for me.

 

[JKendallDane]

Even though statistics was my second least favorite course in more than five years of college (cost accounting won the bottom slot by a mile!), I am completely anal about crunching numbers and over-analyzing their meanings. However, I'm convinced that doing that with your Lit scores can lead to spending a fortune on Tylenol, alcoholism, and possible insanity...to say nothing of eating into valuable creativity time and needless self-questioning.

I seem to be able to post a new chapter to any series and see red H's squirt out like a fertile gerbil popping out babies, but my single shot strokers tend to languish in that "so close" territory of 4.40 to 4.49. I've finally given up attempting to figure it out beyond it being a simple difference between series fans and stroker seakers. At this point I figure so long as most of my submission scores stay ahead of the more prolific and longer experienced writers, then I must be doing something at least half right.

Red H's, Green E's, contest wins, and hitting period or all-time Top Lists are just nice pats on the back, but certainly not the be all - end all of your efforts. Pay attention to the authors you respect the most when they say: "Write for yourself first," because that *IS* the best advice.

 

[sr71plt]

Voting on Literotica is a trolls-delight sieve. (And to the OP, I doubt many look at what the levels are meant to mean--the scale descriptions were changed just a few years ago even--and they just have their own idea of scale in mind). The views numbers (which aren't well-defined themselves) and the comments will give you a better idea how the story did. And even those have to be assessed within categories rather than across categories--there's a broad range in how many read in the categories and how often or what scale they tend to use in voting and commenting.

 

[StrangeLife]

No they really aren't important (with the exception of the contests, if you're going for one of the prizes).

Most readers vote with their feelings, and if a story leaves them feeling bad in some way or doesn't have the conclusion they'd prefer, they'll vote it down. For instance, if you write a story where it goes bad for the protagonist and bad guy wins, you might end up getting a bunch of one-star votes regardless of how well crafted the story is.

Back in high school I was on a field trip to a museum of contemporary art, and one of the artists was displaying a rotten animal carcass in a sealed glass coffin. It was absolutely disgusting but everybody was talking about it and everybody had an opinion about the piece. Which was exactly what the artist wanted. The worst that can happen is that nobody cares and people just walk casually by without really noticing anything. But everybody noticed that glass coffin - trust me.


So lets say you set out to write a story with an unfair ending - like a cheating wife who ends up living happily ever after with her lover while hubby drinks himself to death - you will get pelted with one-star votes and angry comments. But if you wrote the story in order to illustrate how much it sucks to get cheated on and how badly you destroy your spouse, those one-star votes are actually proof that you succeeded.

 

[sr71plt]

True. It's a readers' site, not a critique site. Few are voting on how well a dilemma is written up and resolved. They aren't voting so much on delivery of the elements of writing as on the enjoyment/arousal factor of the storyline itself. The story file thereby exists in a disconnect with much of the forum discussion on story quality. The forum discussion tends to discuss what makes a story a well-written story. The actual readers, though, tend more to be looking for a turn on or a personal connection to the storyline.

 

[LadyCypris]

When I myself select a star to click on at the bottom of something I have just read, I pay particular attention to the label each is given;

5= Loved it, one of the best!
4= Really liked it, good read.
3= Liked it, keep on writing.
2= I didn't like it much.
1= I hated it!

And mark it accordingly.

That's not how I do it, and I'm guessing that's not how most readers/voters do it either. For me I tend to vote one higher than the official label - if I really liked it it gets a 5, a 'keep on writing' gets a 4, and so on. I'm not completely sure, but I don't think I've ever voted 1 star.

Mostly it's because I instinctively give stories rated under 4.00 a pass, and it doesn't feel fair to penalize a story I actually enjoyed by giving it 'only' 3 stars.

I'm curious to know how other members vote.

 

[Beatnic_jazzman]

if I really liked it it gets a 5, a 'keep on writing' gets a 4,

If I like it it gets a five, if I finish it it gets a four.

I instinctively give stories rated under 4.00 a pass

Never judge a story by it's score. there are excellent threes out there. I generally read from the 'new' list, taking pot luck on title, genre and blurb.

 

[sr71plt]

I agree with Beatnic. There are entirely too many games going on with the scores here and too much opportunity to feed that. If you go on scores alone and discount anything under a 4, you're going to be missing a lot of good stories (and probably the most innovative ones). I sometimes look at the ones rating below 2 just for the hell of it--to see what would rate that low. And sometimes I'm surprised.

 

[lovecraft68]

I never look at a score. When I look for something to read I click the category I'm in the mood for and its the title and tag line that interests me I read it I generally don;t check the score until I'm done.

I've found many good ones scored well below 4. I also have been disappointed by some things on the top lists which are supposed to be the best.

I have to say though that the ones I have happened to read that were in the 2 and below range have been pretty damn bad.

 

[StrangeLife]

That's not how I do it, and I'm guessing that's not how most readers/voters do it either. For me I tend to vote one higher than the official label - if I really liked it it gets a 5, a 'keep on writing' gets a 4, and so on. I'm not completely sure, but I don't think I've ever voted 1 star.

Mostly it's because I instinctively give stories rated under 4.00 a pass, and it doesn't feel fair to penalize a story I actually enjoyed by giving it 'only' 3 stars.

I'm curious to know how other members vote.

It's my clear impression that many people seem to vote digitally...

5 - Like it.

1 - Don't like it.



Personally I vote based on quality of the writing and immersivenes of the story. Even if I don't like it or it takes a turn I'm not happy about - if it's immersive and well written I still score it high.

I rarely give a one star rating - most stories have something going for them...

 

[patientlee]

This thread is bringing out my teacherness. This is too much like debating writing rubrics.

 

[lovecraft68]

This thread is bringing out my teacherness. This is too much like debating writing rubrics.

Shakes head, sits back and throws a paper airplane at Strangelife.

 

[LustyWolf]

I understand the “writing for writing's sake” attitude, but if you really don't care about how your story is received, then why publish here? The scoring system, as flawed as it is, is currently one of the only measures for a free story on Lit.

I prefer good feedback along with scores. What I mean by good feedback is honest feedback, and not necessarily only favorable. Good constructive feedback can help an Author understand how well she reached the reader.

But, feedback is even harder to get than scores around here. The readers have it too easy on this site. We author's toil hard to create good stories. We post them for free for readers enjoyment. Readers are free to simply read and walk away. It would be nice if more readers of this site contributed to the community and posted honest comments. After all, it only takes a minute, or perhaps few seconds, to comment on a story that could have taken months to write.

 

[patientlee]

Shakes head, sits back and throws a paper airplane Strangelife.

I had a student last year that made such good paper airplanes, I took them home for my kids.

(I'm his favorite teacher.)

 

[lovecraft68]

I understand the “writing for writing's sake” attitude, but if you really don't care about how your story is received, then why publish here? The scoring system, as flawed as it is, is currently one of the only measures for a free story on Lit.

I prefer good feedback along with scores. What I mean by good feedback is honest feedback, and not necessarily only favorable. Good constructive feedback can help an Author understand how well she reached the reader.

But, feedback is even harder to get than scores around here. The readers have it too easy on this site. We author's toil hard to create good stories. We post them for free for readers enjoyment. Readers are free to simple read and walk away. It would be nice if more readers of this site contributed to the community and posted honest comments. After all, it only takes a minute, or perhaps few seconds, to comment on a story that could have taken months to write.

I do care about feedback(rare as it is) but the scores I take less seriously because it is easily manipulated and not always a sign of how good/bad the story was.

It would be nice if the readers spent a fraction of the time we take to write a story to leave a comment, but they don't. They are not obligated too.

I understand that, but it is also what makes me roll my eyes when we hear about how tragic it is that an author does not finish a story of them or takes too long in between chapters.

 

[JKendallDane]

Most readers vote with their feelings, and if a story leaves them feeling bad in some way or doesn't have the conclusion they'd prefer, they'll vote it down.

Or like I had happen with the new one that went live today...you get bitched at in the comments for having the audacity to post a story that involved incest without posting warnings at the beginning. (I did use incest as a tag hoping that would prevent this)

Hard to explain to someone with that mindset, that those of us who write in GM don't get the option to post in the incest category instead. Then factor in that the story build up was structured around two cousins that hadn't seen each other since they were first hitting puberty; and end up on the same dorm floor in college but don't recognize each other immediately; announcing at the very beginning that incest would be involved would have pretty much blown the storyline.

<shrug> Can't make em all happy and certainly can't let the occasional "hated it" comment get to you, I guess.

 

[TxRad]

There is another site I used to use for a more accurate check on scores for a story. It was interesting to compare the scores on the two sites. The other site has a score from 1-10 and you have to be registered to vote. Also all votes are listed with the story on the authors page.

Then a few people started to use alts to down vote any competition and up vote their own stories. Some of the names were familiar from here or alts of those from here.

And No, Incest was not allowed there.

 

[JKendallDane]

I understand the “writing for writing's sake” attitude, but if you really don't care about how your story is received, then why publish here? The scoring system, as flawed as it is, is currently one of the only measures for a free story on Lit.

I'm not saying that I don't care how my stories and series are received; but rather that as a writer, you can't obsess about the scores or the occasional "you suck" comments.

I have had enough continual success at snagging red H's that I started to mislead myself into thinking that if each and every story didn't get one, then I had somehow failed. I was actually beating myself up over getting 4.30's and 4.40's, instead of realizing that the category has numerous authors with 5, 10, and 20 or more times the stories I do, and most of them in that same 4.3 and 4.4 range.

The way I look at things now is that the comments are the meat, the score is the potatos & veggies, but the dessert is the story and author fav's...and I really like dessert the best!

 

[sr71plt]

I started posting stories on Literotica to have someplace other than anyplace at my home where my erotica stories were archived.

Now I do it to move up the "most productive" ladder.

Beyond that, it's really only the author's call on why they post stories here, isn't it?

I don't really have any insecurities on how good my stories are. I like them--or I'd just delete them.

 

[SecondCircle]

I started posting stories on Literotica to have someplace other than anyplace at my home where my erotica stories were archived.

Now I do it to move up the "most productive" ladder.

Beyond that, it's really only the author's call on why they post stories here, isn't it?

I don't really have any insecurities on how good my stories are. I like them--or I'd just delete them.

You enjoy sharing them with an audience here though right? Even if it's just a plus to the archive? You enjoy FAWCing too I would think. You have a following here that you must enjoy writing for. There must be some fulfillment in that.

 

[StrangeLife]

Or like I had happen with the new one that went live today...you get bitched at in the comments for having the audacity to post a story that involved incest without posting warnings at the beginning. (I did use incest as a tag hoping that would prevent this)...

Surprising the reader is always bad for your scores. It's a much worse offence than poor writing.

I read a story once that started out as a typical cheating wife tale with an enraged husband getting ready to exact brutal revenge on her lover and burn the bitch. But as he confronted said lover, the two men felt a spark and the whole thing turned into a heated gay romance between two guys. I'm generally not too fond of erotica featuring multiple male genitalia in close proximity, but I loved the way the twist took the reader completely by surprise. The whole thing was very well written too. So I could only vote it high - I think I gave it a five.

But the commenters went apeshit! The vitriol and death wishes were practically pouring out at the poor author, and a great story ended up with a score in the low 3's, as far as I remember. Only very few seemed to appreciate a skilfully crafted tale by a talented writer.

It was all about: "U KILLED MY ERECTION U SOB! DIE! DIE DIE!"





Many authors attempt to preempt the worst backlash from disappointed readers by adding a disclaimer in the beginning of the story, and it actually seems to work. It does ruin the story to some degree though, for instance when you read stuff like:

"If you don't like a story where a cheating wife is forgiven, you shouldn't read on... blah blah blah..."

I mean, c'mon! The author just gave away a key plot point of the story in order to spare himself a few harsh comments and gain a rating. Kinda pathetic, if I may be blunt. People should own up to their work and take the criticism. Not make excuses in advance.

As far as I'm concerned I can guarantee that you will never find a disclaimer of any kind in my stories. You read them at your own risk and any erection I might kill is considered collateral damage...