Do you vote on your own stories?

[UsuallyPresent]

Do you vote on your own submissions?


Why/why not?

 

[SynSlave]

Do you vote on your own submissions?


Why/why not?

Ya got me. Did it on my first story and even logged out to see if it would let me vote again... I felt ashamed until my rating dipped well below 4 anyway. Now I just feel pathetic.

 

[vanmyers86]

Absolutely. I want at least one high rating!

 

[Hypoxia]

If I don't like it, why should anyone else?

 

[Jada59]

Hells yes. Cuz I can!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Ya got me. Did it on my first story and even logged out to see if it would let me vote again... I felt ashamed until my rating dipped well below 4 anyway. Now I just feel pathetic.

Depends on your network ID, I reckon. I've occasionally re-read someone's story and thought it was familiar, and then discovered I'd already voted - the system remembers my account name vote.

Experimentally, you can also drop in anon votes from the same computer, so if you were truly lame, you could vote multiple times on your own story. Although I suspect the sweep algorithm is clever enough to pick that up these days - I experimented years ago, when I first joined Lit.

Do I vote on my own stories? Sometimes, if they're slow out the gate and need a little kick on. Nowadays, it usually depends how healthy the score is by the time I see a story posted, what with different countries and time zones.

 

[KeithD]

In a rare discussion board post some years ago, Laurel said an author's own vote counted, so officially it's OK. I've had my doubts they go unswept, because I've thought I'd seen them be swept when I tested it out. Now, I'll vote to counter the habitual zapper vote when my story first posts, but I suspect that's just a temporary stopgap and the vote gets swept eventually.

 

[mynameisben]

No, never. I already know what my opinion of my story is, and I know it's biased. I'm only interested in my readers' opinions.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I'm with Ben. I figure since I wrote the thing, it doesn't matter all that much what I think about it. So, no I don't vote on my own stories.

Not that, y'know, there's anything WRONG with that...

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I do if it needs a little kick to get it over that 4.5.
Right now I have one that is sitting at a 4.49 and it's making me a little crazy!

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I do.

(Sidebar: I remember reading, years ago, of a mayoralty race in which one candidate gallantly voted for his female opponent. She won. By one vote.)

I flatter myself that my opinion counts, too, so I vote. I hardly see that it unfairly skews the results.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I do if it needs a little kick to get it over that 4.5.
Right now I have one that is sitting at a 4.49 and it's making me a little crazy!

Which one? (looks up at the sky, whistling innocently.)

I don’t. I wrote them. I know they’re good.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

First, to answer my own question -
I have once or twice around that magic 4.5 number, otherwise not. Why? Because red H, that's why. If I didn't feel it was at least a 4.5 I wouldn't have posted it.


Second, thanks for all the different points of view thus far. Interesting that so many different takes on the situation exist.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Sure, I vote on my own stories. If only to offset the customary first-day one-bombs. Seriously. I know my stuff isn't to everybody's liking, but shouldn't 1's be reserved for incoherent gibberish? I can string sentences together and try my best to have a clean file. That's a 2 at least, dammit!

 

[oggbashan]

Once, when a story was stuck for months on 9 votes and the rating was invisible.

 

[SimonDoom]

I never do because I want to know what the score is unaffected by my input. But I see nothing wrong with it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I do. A system where honest people don't vote on their stories is more easily exploitable than one where both honest and dishonest people get one vote on their own stories (after sweeps).

 

[Voboy]

No.

I voted when I posted it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

In a rare discussion board post some years ago, Laurel said an author's own vote counted, so officially it's OK. I've had my doubts they go unswept, because I've thought I'd seen them be swept when I tested it out. Now, I'll vote to counter the habitual zapper vote when my story first posts, but I suspect that's just a temporary stopgap and the vote gets swept eventually.

Where I've voted on my own stories, I can still see my own vote - after five years for my earliest stories. On that evidence, a singular vote doesn't get swept.

You have to read every page though, so any "time on page" algorithm is satisfied in the context of sweeps - speculation only, but explains why many "not so helpful fives" disappear in sweeps - as is often reported.

 

[BumbleCat]

I do. I figure if I don't like it enough to vote on it, why should anyone else? Besides, sometimes my vote is the difference between nine votes and 10. It's not like I have a huge following.

 

[JPGmvny]

Do I vote on my own stories? Sometimes, if they're slow out the gate and need a little kick on. Nowadays, it usually depends how healthy the score is by the time I see a story posted, what with different countries and time zones.

This.

 

[8letters]

I can remember voting on only one of my stories, and that was because it was in a contest. I write I/T stories, and they get so many votes that my vote would be just noise.

 

[Inkhorn]

Yup. I vote honestly though. Something I whip up that’s quick and simple, just for my own amusement, I give a 3. A passion project? A 4. I wouldn’t submit anything that I personally thought was a 1 or a 2, and I’m too self-conscious to give myself a 5.

 

[OneAuthor]

So far, I have yet to vote on my own stories. I can definitely see why someone would - especially to try pushing a barely sub-4.5 score into the red H territory.

Perhaps my opinion will change at some point, but for now I think it's better if my own biased opinion wasn't reflected in the scores of my stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yup. I vote honestly though. Something I whip up that’s quick and simple, just for my own amusement, I give a 3. A passion project? A 4. I wouldn’t submit anything that I personally thought was a 1 or a 2, and I’m too self-conscious to give myself a 5.

You are way too self-effacing! You are hurting yourself with that kind of voting, because most people don't vote that way, by those standards. I can't imagine why any author would give himself/herself anything less than a 5. Just don't vote.