Guidance on site stats

[Chaste_Down]

Hey all.

So, I posted my first story here yesterday and the site claims there have been 10,000 views. Which is amazing. But on the other hand there are only 26 likes on the story ... which feels like a terrible ratio. But the score is quite high 4.66 ... which seems like the people who rated liked it.

Do we +really+ think 10,000 people have read it? Or does the site like to boast?

 

[NotWise]

Hey all.

So, I posted my first story here yesterday and the site claims there have been 10,000 views. Which is amazing. But on the other hand there are only 26 likes on the story ... which feels like a terrible ratio. But the score is quite high 4.66 ... which seems like the people who rated liked it.

Do we +really+ think 10,000 people have read it? Or does the site like to boast?

Views is the number of times that someone has opened the first page of the story. It doesn't mean they've read it.

It's hard to say why some stories get favorited more than others, and harder still to say what that means. I don't think 26 favorites on 10K views is a bad ratio.

 

[8letters]

Check out this thread for average statistics for your category after a week. Your story is doing well.

 

[Chaste_Down]

Check out this thread for average statistics for your category after a week. Your story is doing well.

Thanks, that's interesting.

Mind-blowing though that around 1 like per 1000 "views" seems to be typical. Especially when lots of the readers will be writers too and know how much effort and time is involved.

 

[SimonDoom]

You are doing well. Congrats on that, but congrats mostly on just publishing your first story.

10,000 views in a single day, especially for a non-incest story (incest stories get far more views than any other) is very good.

A "view" just means somebody clicked on the story. It doesn't mean they actually read the whole thing. Each time someone clicks on your story, it's a view.

The ratio of views to votes is typically between 50:1 and 150:1. You can surmise that the number of people who actually read the whole story lies somewhere between the view number and the vote number.

26 likes (favorites) for a story with 10,000 views is a good number. My last story, published almost 3 months ago, is tied as one of three of my highest rated stories, with a 4.8. It has 19,000 views, almost double yours. But it has 30 favorites, only 4 more than yours. So your ratio is quite a bit better.

Something to keep in mind: numbers vary widely from one category to another, and you can't really compare stories in different categories. If you want to see how your story is doing in a meaningful comparative way, check out the new story hub page for that category, and you can see how it stacks up with the other recent Transgender/crossdresser stories.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Congratulations on #1.

The only advice I will give is to ignore the numbers and enjoy the ride. It's entirely too easy to get fixated on other people's opinions.

Have fun!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks, that's interesting.

Mind-blowing though that around 1 like per 1000 "views" seems to be typical. Especially when lots of the readers will be writers too and know how much effort and time is involved.

Voting: can be done without logging in, effectively anonymous except maybe to people with insider access. Even if one of my friends knows my Literotica pseudonym, they can't see how I voted.

Favouriting ("liking"): can only be done while logged in to one's account, creates publicly viewable information about what kind of stories that account likes to read. If one of my friends knows my Literotica pseudonym, they can see exactly what I've favourited.

Many readers at Literotica want privacy, and have no interest in creating an account before reading.

 

[SimonDoom]

The only advice I will give is to ignore the numbers and enjoy the ride. It's entirely too easy to get fixated on other people's opinions.

Have fun!

I somewhat agree with this, but I have a somewhat different spin on it.

Some of us just find numbers interesting, for their own sake. I do.

And, in addition, some of us -- this is the way I think -- see numbers as a tool. They are not ends in themselves as measures of writing success. The two ends, IMO, are to write stories one enjoys writing and to connect those stories with people who will enjoy reading them. Everything else is secondary and instrumental to these two goals.

Numbers, if you look at them in the right way, and don't get caught up at looking at them as ends in themselves, can be a tool for helping you achieve the two truly important ends.

So, my advice would be, if numbers bother you or they are a distraction or a headache to you, ignore them. But if they interest you, learn to use them for the ways they can help you but don't get caught up in numbers as ends in themselves.

 

[SimonDoom]

Thanks, that's interesting.

Mind-blowing though that around 1 like per 1000 "views" seems to be typical. Especially when lots of the readers will be writers too and know how much effort and time is involved.

Well, two things.

One is to keep in mind that the view:read ratio probably is not what we'd like to think it is. If 1000 people "view" your story, my guess is that fewer than 250 people actually read it to the end.

That's total speculation. I'm guessing. But I feel confident it's much less than most people want to think it is.

Second, you are using the term "like," but that's not accurate. The term is "favorite." To indicate that you "like" a story, you can give it a good grade, or you can leave a nice comment on it. To make the story a "favorite" means that it is not just a story you like; it's one of your all-time favorites. So it's not that surprising that the number of "favorites" is low relative to the number of views. I've read hundreds and hundreds of Literotica stories. I seldom favorite them, although I keep meaning to do so more often. Usually I content myself with giving the story a 5 and leaving a nice comment.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Second, you are using the term "like," but that's not accurate. The term is "favorite." To indicate that you "like" a story, you can give it a good grade, or you can leave a nice comment on it. To make the story a "favorite" means that it is not just a story you like; it's one of your all-time favorites. So it's not that surprising that the number of "favorites" is low relative to the number of views. I've read hundreds and hundreds of Literotica stories. I seldom favorite them, although I keep meaning to do so more often. Usually I content myself with giving the story a 5 and leaving a nice comment.

Noting also that the "favourite" system was for many years the main way for readers to bookmark stories for rereading. Faves and bookmarks have recently been separated but I expect old habits die hard.

 

[NotWise]

What Bramblethorn said.

To make the story a "favorite" means that it is not just a story you like; it's one of your all-time favorites.

Now you're just making stuff up, and I'm not sure the readers agree with you. I often look at readers' bios after they favorite me or one of my stories. A lot of readers -- even recently registered readers -- can have so many stories on their "favorites" list that it's hard to imagine they would be "all-time favorites."

One reader recently favorited the first two chapters from my longer series. I visited his profile and found that his pattern was to favorite all chapters in a series.

I've also seen stories show up on my home page with the bookmark icon which I think is supposed to mean they added the story to a reading list, but it got counted as a favorite.

 

[SimonDoom]

Now you're just making stuff up, and I'm not sure the readers agree with you. .

That's going too far. There are some readers who have extremely long favorites lists. And there are some, like me, who have short ones. And there are some, like you, who have no favorites. So, no, I'm not just making stuff up. I'm generalizing, but that's a perfectly fair thing to do when we are trying to make sense of the data the OP is commenting on and expressing concern about. If you average things across all Literotica readers, a "favorite," as a statistical matter, means something more, and less common than "I like this." How do I know this? Because, in addition to what I've said, if you look at the numbers you can see that stories get far, far more votes than they do favorites, and it's clear also that stories get more 5s than they do favorites.


As Bramblethorn indicated it can also mean "I want to read this later," but now that there's a bookmark system we can see the data that shows this system seems to have cut down on the use of favorites for this purpose. But the bottom line is that it's not surprising that "favorites" are a relatively small fraction of total views because, across all readers, they mean something different from simply "I like this." So, the OP should not be too dismayed or surprised at the numbers.

 

[KeithD]

I see no evidence that most readers see the use of the "favorites" button as anything more than "I liked it" or "I want to know where to find it when/if I get around to reading it."

 

[NotWise]

That's going too far. There are some readers who have extremely long favorites lists. And there are some, like me, who have short ones. And there are some, like you, who have no favorites. So, no, I'm not just making stuff up. I'm generalizing, but that's a perfectly fair thing to do when we are trying to make sense of the data the OP is commenting on and expressing concern about. If you average things across all Literotica readers, a "favorite," as a statistical matter, means something more, and less common than "I like this." How do I know this? Because, in addition to what I've said, if you look at the numbers you can see that stories get far, far more votes than they do favorites, and it's clear also that stories get more 5s than they do favorites.


As Bramblethorn indicated it can also mean "I want to read this later," but now that there's a bookmark system we can see the data that shows this system seems to have cut down on the use of favorites for this purpose. But the bottom line is that it's not surprising that "favorites" are a relatively small fraction of total views because, across all readers, they mean something different from simply "I like this." So, the OP should not be too dismayed or surprised at the numbers.

It was Bramblethorn who also pointed out that anyone can view or vote, be they a registered member or not, logged in or not, but only logged-in members can "favorite" a story. Once she said that, my reaction was "well duh." No wonder favorites are less common.

I'm pretty sure that some people are still using favorites as a way to bookmark stories. I see my favorites count go down as well as up on stories, and I've seen reader's bio pages where I was sure they'd favorited my stories before, but only the newest story was on their current list.

I couldn't possibly generalize what readers intend when they favorite a story, any more than I can generalize why they vote the way they do. I can say that when I look at the stats in aggregate, that more favorites is a good thing, just like a higher score is a good thing. Beyond that, individual motivations -- what the reader thinks -- is a dark mystery.

 

[KeithD]

I had a member favorite me right after gang banging me here--sort of obviously so that they knew when I posted stories (you're notified if you favorite an author), since my stories have all been dropped down to the 3 range since then.

 

[PennameWombat]

Thanks, that's interesting.

Mind-blowing though that around 1 like per 1000 "views" seems to be typical. Especially when lots of the readers will be writers too and know how much effort and time is involved.

Others have touched on the numbers. My point is your last contention.

There are near to 2.7 million named accounts on this site. That’s actual accounts and doesn’t count the anonymous visitors.

Best that I can find is ~91,000 authors (must be named accounts) have submitted stories - bit over 506,000 of those, thus average of 5.5 stories/author.

So of the NAMED accounts, about 3% are also authors here, and some number of them are no longer active and might not even visit the site anymore. I have 39 published stories, I know some of the regular posters here have way more than that. So some large number of the ~91,000 authors seem to have been one and done. So, even if ‘lots’ of readers might be authors (91,000 less those gone away is a fair few folks) there’s nothing that tells you how many such viewed your story.

But even as a contributing author here, I wouldn’t favorite a story simply because I recognize that the submitter put in the effort to do the work. It would still have to be a ‘favorite’.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I somewhat agree with this, but I have a somewhat different spin on it.

Some of us just find numbers interesting, for their own sake. I do.

And, in addition, some of us -- this is the way I think -- see numbers as a tool. They are not ends in themselves as measures of writing success. The two ends, IMO, are to write stories one enjoys writing and to connect those stories with people who will enjoy reading them. Everything else is secondary and instrumental to these two goals.

Numbers, if you look at them in the right way, and don't get caught up at looking at them as ends in themselves, can be a tool for helping you achieve the two truly important ends.

So, my advice would be, if numbers bother you or they are a distraction or a headache to you, ignore them. But if they interest you, learn to use them for the ways they can help you but don't get caught up in numbers as ends in themselves.

Simon, as always, you state it far more eloquently than I ever could. This is what I meant to say.

 

[Chaste_Down]

It's a bit disappointing that the "hall of fame" is based on average score (which can easily be games with 1* ratings from a disgruntled minority) rather than something that's only "one way" like "likes" or number of ratings.

 

[HarryHill]

Congratulations on #1.

The only advice I will give is to ignore the numbers and enjoy the ride. It's entirely too easy to get fixated on other people's opinions.

Have fun!

..
^This.
...

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's a bit disappointing that the "hall of fame" is based on average score (which can easily be games with 1* ratings from a disgruntled minority) rather than something that's only "one way" like "likes" or number of ratings.

This would give a huge advantage to older stories.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's a bit disappointing that the "hall of fame" is based on average score (which can easily be games with 1* ratings from a disgruntled minority) rather than something that's only "one way" like "likes" or number of ratings.

There is a list like that. There's a list of the top 250 all time most favorited stories, as well as the top 250 most followed authors. Link: https://literotica.com/stories/favoritesportalv2.php. The list is accessible on your home page, in the "Explore" menu.

 

[JuanaSalsa]

There is a list like that. There's a list of the top 250 all time most favorited stories, as well as the top 250 most followed authors. Link: https://literotica.com/stories/favoritesportalv2.php. The list is accessible on your home page, in the "Explore" menu.

Would be cool if the list could be normalized by views, because as Bramblethorn said, it's mostly just older stories, and once you've read them, what's next? Also, mostly incest stories which get the most views anyway.

I'd also love to see a list of "most commented on" stories, normalized by views, with author replies omitted. But, well, if wishes were horses, right?

 

[lovecraft68]

This would give a huge advantage to older stories.

And certain categories, and then the gaming would start with the sock puppet likes etc...

There's no perfect way to do these things that would be universally fair.

 

[lovecraft68]

Would be cool if the list could be normalized by views, because as Bramblethorn said, it's mostly just older stories, and once you've read them, what's next? Also, mostly incest stories which get the most views anyway.

I'd also love to see a list of "most commented on" stories, normalized by views, with author replies omitted. But, well, if wishes were horses, right?

I really thought there was a most comments list. Back in the day a member here used to post a list of top 20 all time commented stories. That member was a troll who also claimed he got paid for views, but the list was legit if you checked into it, and he had to have gotten it from somewhere.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Would be cool if the list could be normalized by views, because as Bramblethorn said, it's mostly just older stories, and once you've read them, what's next? Also, mostly incest stories which get the most views anyway.

I'd also love to see a list of "most commented on" stories, normalized by views, with author replies omitted. But, well, if wishes were horses, right?

Yeah, normalising by views would probably help. It's not perfect, though - it penalises stories for attracting rereads, since that pushes up views but the reader can only favourite once.

But FWIW, I think a flaw that penalises older stories is better than one that penalises newer stories. Better to have a rotating toplist than locking in the same old stories forever.