The Official Author's Hangout 2015 April Fool's Day Contest Support Thread

[Serafina1210]

So the site administrators swept a one vote this morning, and as a result my score shot all the way up to 4.51!

But it's okay, because someone was right there with another one vote just minutes later, putting my score right back where it was before the sweep.

It's strangely comforting, this feeling (maybe an illusion) that someone else is watching my score as closely as I am and taking such care over it--almost as if something were at stake and I was worth bothering with.

 

[lovecraft68]

So the site administrators swept a one vote this morning, and as a result my score shot all the way up to 4.51!

But it's okay, because someone was right there with another one vote just minutes later, putting my score right back where it was before the sweep.

It's strangely comforting, this feeling (maybe an illusion) that someone else is watching my score as closely as I am and taking such care over it--almost as if something were at stake and I was worth bothering with.

I saw I lost three votes on my Lesbian entry and gained a point. I wonder if its just the weekly sweep though as I saw some stories that were recently bombed bounce back across the board.

 

[lovecraft68]

And now after posting that I just took two bombs....Gotta love it.

 

[HeyAll]

It looks like a weekly sweep.

My (non-contest) exhibition/voyeur story from 2 weeks ago jumped considerably in score after the sweep.

I've got another bdsm contest story aimed for Wednesday. It's a private detective story, which is more fun to write than a police detective story because a PI can do whatever. I have no idea how people will like it though.

 

[SandraMustard]

I haven't seen a single vote swept from any story yet. But then, I'm not watching from one hour to the next, or even by single days.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

can anyone make sense of this? - apart from the 1*, of course:

by Anonymous
03/09/15
don't believe the real geronimo

was a blacky afro
1 star

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

can anyone make sense of this? - apart from the 1*, of course:

by Anonymous
03/09/15
don't believe the real geronimo

was a blacky afro
1 star

He says youre a black cunt

 

[sr71plt]

can anyone make sense of this? - apart from the 1*, of course:

by Anonymous
03/09/15
don't believe the real geronimo

was a blacky afro
1 star

It certainly looks like something JBJ would post to the forum--and to you--I'll have to say.

Later: And I posted this without seeing the JBJ post before it.

 

[sr71plt]

Mine's been bombed frequently but not swept as far as I can see.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

It certainly looks like something JBJ would post to the forum--and to you--I'll have to say.

Later: And I posted this without seeing the JBJ post before it.

the boy is certainly predictable.

 

[lovecraft68]

Of my three, the one that seems to be getting trolled heavier than usual is the Lesbian entry. Curious to see how it makes out in the sweep, the other two are around where I thought they would be...none of them are 'contenders' that's for certain.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Of my three, the one that seems to be getting trolled heavier than usual is the Lesbian entry. Curious to see how it makes out in the sweep, the other two are around where I thought they would be...none of them are 'contenders' that's for certain.

lesbians, eh?

porn lezzas or army ladies rugby team?

 

[lovecraft68]

lesbians, eh?

porn lezzas or army ladies rugby team?

Lipstick all the way. One is secretly bi to the public she is into men only the other is straight and the trick is she has to repay her friend a favor and the friend wants her...

So neither is the "typical" full out lesbian, but it was the only real option for it because that's what the sex is.

There is some slight BDSM overtones, but not enough and there is some reluctance at one point, but she lets up on her and lets it be her choice so that would get beat up in non con because it goes "soft"

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Lipstick all the way. One is secretly bi to the public she is into men only the other is straight and the trick is she has to repay her friend a favor and the friend wants her...

So neither is the "typical" full out lesbian, but it was the only real option for it because that's what the sex is.

There is some slight BDSM overtones, but not enough and there is some reluctance at one point, but she lets up on her and lets it be her choice so that would get beat up in non con because it goes "soft"

what's the word-count on this one?

 

[lovecraft68]

what's the word-count on this one?

Eight pages...sigh.

The one I put up today in mature I wanted to keep shorter, but it went into the fourth page by a couple of hundred words. I could have edited some lines out of it, but then figured....fuck it.

But that one I think you'd like, older guy with a little wildcat of a bartender

 

[HandsInTheDark]

It's comforting to know that most bombers are idiots and can be easily filtered out. Nobody gives a 1 to a story except a bomber, unless the story is so obviously bad that it gets little else.

But what about smart bombers? Joe and Sandy both have stories in a contest, heading for 4.75s. Sandy, being smart but unschooled in backstabbling, sockpuppets Joe a few 1's. Her trick is discovered in a few days and is swept away. Joe, being clever, gets some friends on different IPs and gets them to drop some 3's.

Big effect? No. Enough to lose someone a contest? Not unlikely. Joe walks away with it, flips his friends 5 bucks each for their effort, and spends the rest on cheap whores. Ten years later Joe has the pulitzer for his expose' of whores faking orgasms, and Sandy is a wino and an cheap orgasm-faking whore in an alley, writing creative but utterly unregarded dirty limericks on the wall.

I don't see a solution. Anonymous voting is always a problem, and a scheme that ties votes to verifiable individuals will utterly chill voting. It is what it is; don't take voting too seriously. It takes months to average out bogus votes and arrive at a good consensus... Hm. Maybe contests should be year long events.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

Eight pages...sigh.

The one I put up today in mature I wanted to keep shorter, but it went into the fourth page by a couple of hundred words. I could have edited some lines out of it, but then figured....fuck it.

But that one I think you'd like, older guy with a little wildcat of a bartender

i shall go in search...

 

[AgentArcher]

It's comforting to know that most bombers are idiots and can be easily filtered out. Nobody gives a 1 to a story except a bomber, unless the story is so obviously bad that it gets little else.

But what about smart bombers? Joe and Sandy both have stories in a contest, heading for 4.75s. Sandy, being smart but unschooled in backstabbling, sockpuppets Joe a few 1's. Her trick is discovered in a few days and is swept away. Joe, being clever, gets some friends on different IPs and gets them to drop some 3's.

Big effect? No. Enough to lose someone a contest? Not unlikely. Joe walks away with it, flips his friends 5 bucks each for their effort, and spends the rest on cheap whores. Ten years later Joe has the pulitzer for his expose' of whores faking orgasms, and Sandy is a wino and an cheap orgasm-faking whore in an alley, writing creative but utterly unregarded dirty limericks on the wall.

I think this is my favorite post I've read so far on the forum. It's got it all. Scheming, intrigue, who-done-it, and ultimately injustice and tragedy.

I tried writing something for this contest, but I re-read and it came off as tired. Maybe I should just submit it for the abuse and try to vote myself to the top using proxy servers in North Korea.

 

[HeyAll]

It's comforting to know that most bombers are idiots and can be easily filtered out. Nobody gives a 1 to a story except a bomber, unless the story is so obviously bad that it gets little else.
.

In my experience, both for my stories & looking at other comments, plenty of people give 1's who are not trolling.

There are certainly land mines which can set people off. You could write several pages of masterpiece writing, but if you take a wrong turn, a reader will give you 1 just for that single plot point alone.

Same thing with movies.

Go to IMDB and you'll see plenty of this. For instance, the movie Exodus had tons of 1 votes (out of 10) and people justified the low score by saying the movie strayed from the bible. Now, in no way can a movie like Exodus deserve a 1 out of 10. But when people vote a 1, they genuinely & sincerely mean it.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

In my experience, both for my stories & looking at other comments, plenty of people give 1's who are not trolling.

There are certainly land mines which can set people off. You could write several pages of masterpiece writing, but if you take a wrong turn, a reader will give you 1 just for that single plot point alone.

Same thing with movies.

Go to IMDB and you'll see plenty of this. For instance, the movie Exodus had tons of 1 votes (out of 10) and people justified the low score by saying the movie strayed from the bible. Now, in no way can a movie like Exodus deserve a 1 out of 10. But when people vote a 1, they genuinely & sincerely mean it.

Huh. I haven't seen so much of that. Or maybe I have; one chapter in Angelwatch got blasted into into the 4.4s, and it's the one that was a Mind Control in an otherwise Fantasy (and mostly non-erotic) story. Maybe it got punished for mixing genres. And I could see it happening if someone surprised a reader in a bad way; if you're in LW or incest and suddenly hit a noncon scene you might freak someone out. For the most part I try not to startle the reader (Aprils Fools story notwithstanding).

Two observations here:

It's pollyanna and reflects my Miss Manners upbringing; but wouldn't it be nice if people weren't assholes. If you hit a section of a story that ruins it for you because it's not stroking your fetish, that story is not for you, and you move on without leaving a rating. Wouldn't that be nice? We as authors would be able to use ratings to tell how we were doing, not how many people just feel plovers have no business in any sex scene no matter how artfully they cover the goddess's boobs and how they symbolically represent... um, whatever a plover could be used to represent. Sorry, this example seems to have gotten away from me.

But since that's never going to happen... wouldn't it be nice if we as authors could get a CSV file of all the votes cast. Then we could do our own analysis. I'd argue that a series like 3 4 4 4 2 3 3 4 1 4 2 3 4 2 5 3 3 2 tells a very different story than 4 5 5 5 4 5 5 4 5 1 2 1 2 1 1 4 5 4 5 5 4 5 5 5. The average scores might not be that different, but the former says "needs work" and the latter says "Sandy and her sockpuppet soulmates punish people who use plovers in their stories, but everyone else Gets It."

People might argue that ratings are meant to reflect mass appeal, not how well an author is doing. And I'd agree except that we know there's a certain amount of "How dare you write better than me/my favorite author; for this you must be punished" going on. My story for April started around 4.7, got hammered down to 4.48, climbed back to 4.55 and got hammered down to 4.40. All the comments and emails are positive. ...Yeahhh. I'd LOVE to see the individual scores on that.

(Out of mad curiosity- it's late - I googled "Plovers are a symbol of" and have learned that there's an asian artist that will paint the symbol of Plover on a trucker's hat, but there's no explanation as to why. But also a Japanese artist who sells a "Blessed Plover" piece of jewelry. So maybe the aforementioned goddess is on to something. Take that, Sandy.)

 

[lovecraft68]

You can tell if a one is 'legit' or simply a bomb by how fast they come in. Providing of course you have the time to hover over it on a day off.

Because mine are on the long side its easy to see that. If an eight page story catches a one right after its been released its doubtful the person read it.

I have always said that there are legit ones. Not every person likes every story and I feel people should vote accordingly and have no issue with taking a hit as long as they read it.

The sweeps get rid of a lot of bombs, but they have to leave some or we would all have 5.00 or 4.9 scores.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

You can tell if a one is 'legit' or simply a bomb by how fast they come in. Providing of course you have the time to hover over it on a day off.

Because mine are on the long side its easy to see that. If an eight page story catches a one right after its been released its doubtful the person read it.

I have always said that there are legit ones. Not every person likes every story and I feel people should vote accordingly and have no issue with taking a hit as long as they read it.

The sweeps get rid of a lot of bombs, but they have to leave some or we would all have 5.00 or 4.9 scores.

I don't think this is entirely accurate, either. Many people who aren't trolls are reactionary and quick to decide that a story is poorly written or boring. People who flip rapidly through TV channels dismissing the majority of programs as "trash" or "stupid" aren't trolls, really. They're just picky and supremely confident in their own opinions.

 

[Kethandra]

Finally got an entry submitted. My first attempt at Text and Audio. A silly story in doggerel verse. Now back to prose...

 

[Kethandra]

True. But here we also have voters for whom a one* means "you wrote something in there that made my boner go away."

I think of votes a little like grading a test or paper, rounding off the score:
90% or better is a 5

Readable, enjoyable, but definite flaws...4

Passing but just barely...3

Failing on several major levels...2

In theory, basically nothing worthwhile in content or language...1 (but that means I would have stopped reading in disgust and not voted anyhow, since I didn't finish it)

I don't vote on contest entries as I assume contest sweeps would remove votes from other contestants and there is no sense in making the sweep swings any bigger than they are.

Many people who aren't trolls are reactionary and quick to decide that a story is poorly written or boring. People who flip rapidly through TV channels dismissing the majority of programs as "trash" or "stupid" aren't trolls, really. They're just picky and supremely confidant in their own opinions.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't vote on contest entries as I assume contest sweeps would remove votes from other contestants and there is no sense in making the sweep swings any bigger than they are.

I don't vote on other contest entries either, and it is possible that votes by contestants might be swept, although that might require a more sophisticated stripping formula than Lit. has.