Voting percentages

[Jay321]

Has anyone really paid attention to the percentage of views that vote on your stories?

I happened to notice that one of my stories was very close to 1 percent. I thought that it was very low until I looked at the others. Most of them were half a percent or less.

I am curious to know what others see.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Has anyone really paid attention to the percentage of views that vote on your stories?

I happened to notice that one of my stories was very close to 1 percent. I thought that it was very low until I looked at the others. Most of them were half a percent or less.

I am curious to know what others see.

1% is on the high side.

By the way, views don't mean "number of people who read your story." It has something to do with page count and something to do with how long people stay on the page. So comparing percentages might represent apples to oranges, for a one page story vs a 5 page third chapter in a longer story.

Basically, views are an unreliable count, scores get a fair amount of noise from insincere voters... the numbers here aren't useful for any rigorous purposes.

 

[NotWise]

Has anyone really paid attention to the percentage of views that vote on your stories?

I happened to notice that one of my stories was very close to 1 percent. I thought that it was very low until I looked at the others. Most of them were half a percent or less.

I am curious to know what others see.

That percentage can be fairly high for a new story, then drop over time. My stories usually got 1 vote for every 40-50 views in the first day or so. The longer the story is up, the lower the ratio goes. Few people vote on old stories.

Reader response also varies from category to category and maybe for other reasons that I haven't figured out.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Has anyone really paid attention to the percentage of views that vote on your stories?

I happened to notice that one of my stories was very close to 1 percent. I thought that it was very low until I looked at the others. Most of them were half a percent or less.

I am curious to know what others see.

Mine range between 45 views/vote and 300 views/vote, i.e. about 0.3%-2.2% of views. 1% is fairly typical.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Actually the ratio between views and votes is meaningless. A view doesn't mean they read the story at all, just that they clicked the link to bring up the first page. The site doesn't keep track of backs or second page clicks or how much time they spend on each page, just the first page click.

For all you know, out of 1,000 clicks 3 actually read the story and 2 voted, one was a 1-bomb the other was a 4. Wrap you head around that.

And no one left a comment.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Highest = 1.8% votes per view (noting Zeb' s comment that a 'view' doesn't tell you how many finished reading the story).
2 stories = 1.1%
5 stories = 0.7 - 0.9%
3 stories = 0.5 - 0.6%
8 stories = 0.3 - 0.4%

The ratio establishes itself pretty early in a story's life, then stays fairly constant as the story ages. So I figure a story is doing well if it gets about 1% vote.

 

[Jay321]

By the way, views don't mean "number of people who read your story."

Basically, views are an unreliable count,

I was pretty sure this was the case. I was curious what others had seen. (OK, I've changed what I typed several times, it always seems to sound snarky, not what I meant.)

That percentage can be fairly high for a new story, then drop over time.

It is a fairly new story. I will keep an eye on it.

For all you know, out of 1,000 clicks 3 actually read the story and 2 voted, one was a 1-bomb the other was a 4. Wrap you head around that.

And no one left a comment.

Thanks for the early morning headache...

 

[lovecraft68]

Simply put its pathetically low. The readers expect a lot of the authors, but many can't be bothered to vote. Lot of work that extra couple of seconds.

Fuck em' and write for yourself.

 

[ender2k2k]

I'll fess up...

As a reader whose Mom always said "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all" I have been in the habit of voting 5 stars for the stories I loved or not voting. My main concern is that if I voted 4 stars on a good story whose rating was above 4.0 I would lower the score. And I never wanted to lower a score of a story I really liked. Now that I have been reading AH I am beginning to understand that that may have been a disservice to the authors. So, I am wondering if authors would rather get 4, 3 or 2 stars from a reader that didn't like a story , or no vote? ( I don't think I can get myself to give 1 star ).

P.S. I would like to thank all the authors from this site for giving many hours of your time to enrich my reading life.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

As a reader whose Mom always said "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all" I have been in the habit of voting 5 stars for the stories I loved or not voting. My main concern is that if I voted 4 stars on a good story whose rating was above 4.0 I would lower the score. And I never wanted to lower a score of a story I really liked. Now that I have been reading AH I am beginning to understand that that may have been a disservice to the authors. So, I am wondering if authors would rather get 4, 3 or 2 stars from a reader that didn't like a story , or no vote? ( I don't think I can get myself to give 1 star ).

P.S. I would like to thank all the authors from this site for giving many hours of your time to enrich my reading life.

As an author I wouldn't tell readers how to vote. In my perfect world everyone loves my stories and gives them 5, but I have plenty of fans who drop 4's on my stories and I'm fine with that, by fiat. Vote how you please. There's so much noise, score compression etc. in the votes it's not very important as a measurement, and I've learned not to fuss when my prized words dip (horrors!) below 4.6.

I rarely vote on other stories. I think I gave a 1 once, but the story was a trainwreck and should never have seen the light of day. I've given 3s and 4s and maybe one 5. I almost always don't vote at all.

P.S. Awww, thanks. This is the real gold here - people taking a moment to tell an author their effort was appreciated.

 

[HeyAll]

It depends on a few things.

1) What the category is. Some have higher ratios than others

2) Length of the story.

3) If the story is any good or not. If not, people will stop reading it. If it's good, people will make it to the end.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

It depends on a few things.

1) What the category is. Some have higher ratios than others

2) Length of the story.

3) If the story is any good or not. If not, people will stop reading it. If it's good, people will make it to the end.

But loving wives is the only category where they read to find out what kind of LW story it is, then jump straight to the last page to leave a nasty comment and a 1-bomb.

 

[NotWise]

But loving wives is the only category where they read to find out what kind of LW story it is, then jump straight to the last page to leave a nasty comment and a 1-bomb.

That sounds like I could write a story where the wife has a warm spot for the kids teacher, then hubby finds out and chains her in the basement where her goes in to hose her off every now and then.

I'd end the story with "And they lived happily ever after," and get accused of writing RAAC.