Does the votes-per-views ratio of a story decline over time?

[HopelessDreams]

Someone had said this before, and it’s certainly been very true for all of my own stories. If this is a trend for stories in general, I’m wondering if re-reads are a major part of it, another potential reason being that later readers may be less likely to vote if they agree with the current rating, which is more likely the more votes a story accumulates.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

In my experience (less than three years) I have tracked my ratio and it is steadily declining. I get a lot or re-reads on my stories (because they're just so damn good ) so there are less chances for new votes. You can only vote once, no matter how many times you read it.

 

[NotWise]

Yes and maybe not.

For my stories, the votes/view are low during the first few hours after publication, then for the next day or so the ratio is higher than the story ever sustains again. The pattern goes through a transition after the opening, and then holds a more-or-less constant ratio.

This graph shows votes and views for a story from earlier this year.



The slope of the line gives the votes/view at any time. If I get the ratio by dividing the total votes by total views, then the ratio drops pretty continuously but slowly after the first couple days. If I use the slope of the line, then the ratio drops but then settles down to a constant rate.

This is a fairly recent story. It hasn't been around long enough to show the long-term ratio.

 

[SimonDoom]

Long-term, yes, and probably for the reason the OP cited. People re-read stories, but they don't (or can't) re-vote on them. Also, readers may be more motivated to vote early on when stories are eligible for contests. After a year or so that's no longer true. I've noticed my view:vote ratio going up slowly over time after the stories are a year old or more. But it's not a huge effect.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I think there's also a feeling of people only voting if they think the score should be higher or lower than it is. If they think it's about right they leave it.

 

[NotWise]

I think there's also a feeling of people only voting if they think the score should be higher or lower than it is. If they think it's about right they leave it.

If that's how it worked, then wouldn't high-scoring stories only get low votes? The toplists would be a merry-go-round.

There are exceptions, but I suspect few readers know or care about scores and their votes are knee-jerk reactions.

 

[RoperTrace]

In my experience (less than three years) I have tracked my ratio and it is steadily declining. I get a lot or re-reads on my stories (because they're just so damn good ) so there are less chances for new votes. You can only vote once, no matter how many times you read it.

You easily have the highest average scores I've seen for any Lit author. Congratulations, you're doing something extremely well. I'm curious if you're doing any self-publishing since you must have a very loyal following?