Ratings vs Favourites

[dontcallme82]

Can't say I care too much about ratings but I do find them interesting.

A number of ratings have been removed from my stories. I trust this is with good reason as the site seems well run.

I am writing a series. My chapter with the highest rating has the least number of people favouriting it.

So when judging your own stories. Are you more interested in getting a higher rating or more people putting it as one of their favourites.

 

[SamScribble]

Are you more interested in getting a higher rating or more people putting it as one of their favourites.

A high(ish) rating tells me that at least some of the ‘right’ people, the people (other than myself) for whom I wrote the story, read it. I suspect that a ‘favourite’ is often just a bookmark: here’s something I’ll look at later.

 

[dontcallme82]

A high(ish) rating tells me that at least some of the ‘right’ people, the people (other than myself) for whom I wrote the story, read it. I suspect that a ‘favourite’ is often just a bookmark: here’s something I’ll look at later.

Interesting. The only story that I have put as a favourite is one that I planned to read for a second time. Gratuitous basically.

 

[stickygirl]

The topic has been discussed a great deal and the conclusion is surely 'there is no fair way' of ranking stories. Readers are all looking for different things. It's a sex site so most readers are here to get their rocks off.

The stars out of 5 seems the most important one, because an average of 4.5 becomes listed as Hot and then naturally attracts more readers. Hot shouldn't be a 'rocks-off' grading system, but it is.

Favourites are nice, but if you follow the bread crumbs, you may well find your reader has 500 favourites, which is a kind of contradiction in terms.

Write for yourself, make sure your editing is good and enjoy the process, not the scores.

 

[NotWise]

Can't say I care too much about ratings but I do find them interesting.

A number of ratings have been removed from my stories. I trust this is with good reason as the site seems well run.

I am writing a series. My chapter with the highest rating has the least number of people favouriting it.

So when judging your own stories. Are you more interested in getting a higher rating or more people putting it as one of their favourites.

I watch them both.

My most favorited stories usually rate well, but they aren't my most highly-rated. I'm not sure why. I do know that the "Favorites" you see on your control panel is the sum of "Add Story to Favorites" and "Bookmark Story" and that stories can also by unfavorited, and unbookmarked.

I'm also finding that, while votes drop off drastically not long after a story is published, readers continue to favorite stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So when judging your own stories. Are you more interested in getting a higher rating or more people putting it as one of their favourites.

I don't pay much attention to favourites - when I first started here they were used by many readers as "stories to read in the future" - bookmarks, in other words; and I guess I've not lost that mindset. Ratings tell me more about a story's reception.

 

[TxRad]

Try dividing the views by the number of votes. From what I've heard, one in a hundred is average.

 

[Rustyoznail]

If someone has favourited a story, there's a good chance it's just a bookmark. If they've favourited me as an author, then I take more notice. They like my writing.

 

[SimonDoom]

Favorites, definitely.

What I want, in terms of reader response, is to maximize the number of people who have read and enjoyed my story. I'd much rather have a score of 4.6 knowing that 10,000 people read and enjoyed the story than a score of 4.8 knowing that 1,000 people read and enjoyed the story. The numbers are just noise. I want to connect with readers, however that happens.

 

[mfan2112]

Favorites, definitely.

What I want, in terms of reader response, is to maximize the number of people who have read and enjoyed my story. I'd much rather have a score of 4.6 knowing that 10,000 people read and enjoyed the story than a score of 4.8 knowing that 1,000 people read and enjoyed the story. The numbers are just noise. I want to connect with readers, however that happens.

Yup - I much prefer people reading the story than just a pure grade.

I like to also look at what I call engagement, votes + comments / views. Then I can normalize between a story on one board that gets a ton of views versus a story on another board that is not as widely as read.

 

[NotWise]

Yup - I much prefer people reading the story than just a pure grade.

Getting a "Favorite" does not mean people read your story. They may just be bookmarking it to read later.

 

[HeyAll]

To me, the favorite count (in relation to that category it's in) is a better measure of people liking it.

If a story is controversial and/or has elements people may not like, readers will vote it down.

 

[KeithD]

Getting a "Favorite" does not mean people read your story. They may just be bookmarking it to read later.

This is the way it's been, yes. I periodically have someone favorite twenty or more of my stories in one go. I don't think they've read them yet, so I don't consider that any more of an affirmation than either wanting to collect them and read them--or wanting to swipe them for some reason or other.

Getting the stories posted on the Internet for free read (a long time after they've been published for pay) is what's primary to me. I don't luxuriate either in favoriting or rating here. I imagine the reason for that is that I'm a niche writer here. What I write most isn't treated as big business at Literotica.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't pay much attention to favourites - when I first started here they were used by many readers as "stories to read in the future" - bookmarks, in other words; and I guess I've not lost that mindset. Ratings tell me more about a story's reception.

I just checked my favourites to votes ratio, and it confirms why I don't pay much attention to favourites. Generally speaking, I get:

One vote per hundred Views
One fave per thousand Views
One comment per thousand Views

Faves, therefore, equate to a reaction from 0.1% of my readers. Those folk who comment spend way more time responding!

 

[Emirus]

If someone has favourited a story, there's a good chance it's just a bookmark. If they've favourited me as an author, then I take more notice. They like my writing.

I agree with Russ on this one. I tend to ignore when someone has favourited the story but when someone favourites me as a writer that’s different. One of the nicest comments was one I received to my last story by someone who favourited me as a a writer and commented, “I’m now off to read the rest of your stories.”

When I favourite a story, and there aren’t many, I’ve done it for a specific reason and not necessarily because I want to read it again. As for a list of favourite writers many of them haven’t submitted a story for a long time, which could be for a variety of reasons, but I keep them on the list because if they do submit again, which can and does happen occasionally, I want to pick up on it. I do cull the list now and again when I find a writer I previously liked has gone down a path with their stories which I’ve lost interest in.

As for a rating, if it’s over 4.00 then most readers liked it which is okay with me.

 

[SimonDoom]

Getting a "Favorite" does not mean people read your story. They may just be bookmarking it to read later.

This is true. But it's also true that some percentage of people who favorite your story actually mean to favorite it. So the more favorites you have, the more "real" favorites you have.

The numbers are all relative. It's hard to tell what any of them mean in an absolute sense. But you can say, with a fair degree of confidence, that the more views you have, or votes, or favorites, the more people have actually read and appreciated your story. That's what I'm after. Scores, on the other hand, do not correlate positively with the number of reads. All things being equal, a higher-rated story probably will get more reads, but it's not a sure thing. I'm sure many of us have had a story that seemed to do well score-wise but received puzzlingly few reads. That's just the way it is sometimes at this Site.

 

[NotWise]

This is true. But it's also true that some percentage of people who favorite your story actually mean to favorite it. So the more favorites you have, the more "real" favorites you have.

The numbers are all relative. It's hard to tell what any of them mean in an absolute sense. But you can say, with a fair degree of confidence, that the more views you have, or votes, or favorites, the more people have actually read and appreciated your story. That's what I'm after. Scores, on the other hand, do not correlate positively with the number of reads. All things being equal, a higher-rated story probably will get more reads, but it's not a sure thing. I'm sure many of us have had a story that seemed to do well score-wise but received puzzlingly few reads. That's just the way it is sometimes at this Site.

Like I said up the thread, I watch both. I think people should pay attention to whatever measure makes them feel better about their story.

I tend to analyze things to death, but the comparison of favorites to score doesn't support much analysis. The number of favorites and the number of votes both vary in proportion to the number of views, but the score has the number of votes normalized out.

It seems like the ratios of favorites per view and votes per view might both measure the strength of reader reaction, but in my stories the correlation between those values is low. It's positive, but it's low. The two ratios don't seem to measure the same thing.

Could we compare the ratio of favorites per view to the score? It seems like they should correlate, but among my stories there is virtually no correlation. There's also no correlation between the score and the number of views.

One of the problems is that the reader's response varies from one category to another, so if you combine statistics across categories you're going to see a lot of confusion. I'm not sure why that is. The simplest explanation is that different categories have different populations of readers, but maybe the population is homogeneous and readers respond differently to the "norms" of different categories -- for instance, the same reader may vote frequently and low in LW, but high in SF/F, and not at all in EC.

 

[KeithD]

This is the way it's been, yes. I periodically have someone favorite twenty or more of my stories in one go. I don't think they've read them yet, so I don't consider that any more of an affirmation than either wanting to collect them and read them--or wanting to swipe them for some reason or other.

Getting the stories posted on the Internet for free read (a long time after they've been published for pay) is what's primary to me. I don't luxuriate either in favoriting or rating here. I imagine the reason for that is that I'm a niche writer here. What I write most isn't treated as big business at Literotica.

Following up, I received 22 "favorites" on stories in the sr71plt from one user overnight. I highly don't that represented actual reads.