5-bombing

[Emilymcplugger]

For me, the stories I like get 5* and if I’m less keen due to issues I might 4* but I don’t think I’ve ever 1* on a story I don’t like. If I don’t like it I’ll just stop reading it and if I was enjoying it and thought the ending was turd I just wouldn’t vote on it.

But that’s enough about my voting, now my perfect Sunday…

 

[Carnevil9]

The best system I ever saw was at a (now defunct) story site called Storiesville (not an erotic site, just general stories in many genres). There were no numerical ratings, just comments, which had to be a certain minimum number of characters. Posting comments earned you credits. It took a certain number of credits to post your own story, which consumed your credits. I don't recall the exact requirements, but you had to post something like ten comments to earn enough credits to post one story. This encouraged people to read and comment, not just to post their own stuff that nobody else was going to read.

 

[Cagivagurl]

So a fellow author, (name withheld, unless they decide to step forward and take credit) was talking to me about ratings and how they rate other's stories.
I mentioned that it was incredibly rare for me to 1 star a story (I don't think I've ever done it, but I'm not positive)... and they said that they never did it. Fair enough.

Then they said something that caught me off guard. This is a quote: "I like going around and five bombing…"

I remarked that that was a kind thing to do, and then I got this response:

"...most people deserve to be happy"

Honestly, while I almost never downvote stories, I try to be honest about my 5 star ratings (I am occasionally extra generous with brand new authors who are just getting started. Everyone needs encouragement at the start).

I plan to continue being honest and fair with my 5 star ratings, but I might consider doing this from time to time.

5-bombing. What a nice thing to do. (Obviously, some authors are going to say that this subtly hurts an author's chances at improvement, but hell... for most of us this is a fun hobby, and if we never get any better, it wouldn't really hurt anything in life).

[EDIT: For the record, in this context, uno-bomb and 5-bomb just refer to rating a story different than your genuine feelings. No one is talking about voting multiple times]

I have given 5 stars for a story I wasn't fond of. The reason.
Nasty comments where commenters stated they gave it 1 star because of content rather than quality of writing...
I like to think of it as balancing the books.

Cagivagurl

 

[MetaBob]

I left 4 stars on a story once, early in my time here. I enjoyed the story but it had so many structural flaws that I couldn't in good conscience give it 5. Later, when I was feeling bad about it and went back to raise that rating to 5, I discovered that I couldn't -- apparently after a certain period of time your ratings get locked in. I haven't tried re-rating since then.

With that lone exception, I either leave 5 stars for stories I like, or I don't leave a rating. My rationale: no one voluntarily contributing a story for the mutual enjoyment of many for no other compensation than the reader's appreciation should have to deal with anything less than 5 stars. At least not from me. I'm not here to discourage any budding author, or anyone else who's putting themself out there in such a personal way. Others can do that if they like; all I'm doing is making up for their 1-star mean-spiritedness in one very small, specific way.

 

[Pureotica]

Of my two stories so far, one is rated 4.21, with 135-ish votes the last I looked. The other is rated 4.91 with only 11 votes. Given my relative anonymity and thin catalog, I'm not bothered by the reception of either. My poetry doesn't do well here, and I'll probably remove it at some point. Not because of the scores, which I don't much care about. Lit isn't the best forum for poetry, and I'm much more fiction focused at this point. No point in letting low scoring, non-erotic poems taint reader perceptions of my other work.

If I rated the lower scoring story on my own terms, I'd probably give it a 3.5. It has some avoidable technical flaws, its fairly short, and I never finished it. I'm reasonably proud of it, because it was my first attempt at smut, and from the limited feedback I got, people seemed to like it for what it was. On the other hand, I know it isn't the best I was capable of at the time I wrote it. I rushed it to make the contest, and never took the time to learn the story and characters. I'm going to rewrite the story I intended to write when I finish some of my current projects.

I have no idea how I'd rate the second story. It was experimental and it's a somewhat surrealist sexual fantasy. I have bigger plans for the characters and I was exploring. I reread it recently and parts of it are hysterical, but probably not to the readers. I'm aware of the incongruities within the character, which makes those incongruities hilarious to read. I'll probably give it an edit pass at some point to clean up some nit-picks I missed in my original release. I forgot to edit out a few things I didn't want in the final release. I'm proud of the piece. I think its good work for something I more of less pants-ed. I'm glad its few readers liked it, but I had no expectations because the story was so weird and experimental. But as an experiment it was a success, because I discovers some changes I can make in the larger story.

In the long run, I take the five-star system with a grain of salt. I don't expect to win, or even enter, that many contests. My only concern is that a lower score might keep away readers who otherwise might enjoy my stories. But I'm here to become a better writer, not necessarily the most popular one. I pick stories I want to write, and not necessarily the ones with the widest readership on Lit. I kind of embrace the niche appeal of my more experimental stuff. But if I take the time to challenge myself with a piece, and feel its the best I can do with my current skills, I don't see much downside in sharing it.

My scores on other peoples stories skew high. If a story is badly written because of an author's inexperience, I won't punish their inexperience. I might leave a supportive suggestion and leave without rating. But I'm stingy with 5-stars. I give them to stories that impress me with both their story telling and technical execution. But for the most part I'm five-star or nothing. I'll leave a supportive or helpful comment on something I liked but didn't rate. I generally don't rate stories about kinks I don't understand because I can't judge them on their own merits. But I'll still comment if I stumble across one that's well written.

 

[Dearelliot]

I'd guess that damn few of the readers here who do leave a rating are qualified to judge whether or not a story is well written and why, so the reason for rating a story must be to let the author know if the reader enjoyed his story.

If I like a story and that is very seldom, I'll give it a 5...but since my taste in books and stories is so very narrow, I find damn few stories that I care to read, but if I did, I wouldn't leave a negative rating because I didn't care for the subject matter. I think some readers here do that.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't believe in strategic voting, positive or negative. If I leave a vote it's because I think it's the right one. I'm clear on the idea that the purpose of voting is to convey information to potential readers, not to reward or punish authors. That's the way I would expect others to vote on my stories. Sometimes I will decline to vote if I read a story to the end and I think it's somewhere between a 4 and a 5, but I'm not quite sure which, and I don't want the author to be hurt by my wishy-washy 4 vote. But if I think a story deserves a 4 or a 3 I have no compunction about giving it one. I rarely get through stories that deserve 1s or 2s so I almost never give those votes.

 

[Passiontyper]

I feel like you should never rate stories differently from your true enjoyment of a story unless you have a good reason to. Like if a story is being bombarded with undeserved negativity/trolling (a couple of categories on lit seem to have serious problemswith this!) Aaand I guess it makes sense to be a bit extra generous to new authors

 

[MediocreAuthor]

The best system I ever saw was at a (now defunct) story site called Storiesville (not an erotic site, just general stories in many genres). There were no numerical ratings, just comments, which had to be a certain minimum number of characters. Posting comments earned you credits. It took a certain number of credits to post your own story, which consumed your credits. I don't recall the exact requirements, but you had to post something like ten comments to earn enough credits to post one story. This encouraged people to read and comment, not just to post their own stuff that nobody else was going to read.

I don't know how I missed your comment until now.
That is a very cool idea, although I'm not surprised the site didn't make it. That sounds like it could be tedious, although I honestly kinda like it.

 

[KeithD]

As has been noted by some others, this is a readers' site, not a critque site. I don't really have the problem this thread (and many previous same-topic threads) addresses, as I read very few stories here and, as an author, I'm not posting stories here to improve my writing skills. They already are what they are going to be. When I do read I assess the story on the basis of that story itself. I don't see it as my job to help a writer to improve anything on the basis of what I believe that is.

 

[MargotPayge]

"...most people deserve to be happy"

So many threads about ratings. I don't know which one to post on. I thought I'd do this one because it started with something positive.

It has taken me a while to figure out how I feel about ratings and comments. I honestly get more out of comments from writers I've interacted with and those aren't usually even part of the ratings system. It's by PM.

My Summers are when I have the most time to write. And now that I am busy again, I've gone days without even checking my ratings and I feel better. I have almost stopped caring.

I am most proud of my poetry and shorter forms, I spend more time per word on those works. But they hardly get any views, so the ratings don't mean that much at all. The one red H I have for poetry is far from my best work but may be the most overtly sexual. And if you add up all the views of all my poetry, it doesn't add up to the number of views of my lowest-viewed story.

The most personal poem I posted here has very few views and a 5-star, but only two people voted and I am probably going to take it down at some point. I wrote it as catharsis. It succeeded. I wrote it and cried. I read it and cried. I reread it and cried again and reread it until I could read it and not cry. If there are only 100 other people in the entire world who have read it and only two of those people like it, it does nothing to the catharsis I achieved.

That being said, The practical advantage of having an H by your story is that it can attract more readers. The problem with that is the same as the problem with grade inflation in schools. When everything gets a 5-star rating, it stops meaning anything. It may make us feel better as writers, but it doesn't inform the readers of anything about the story in terms of quality or content. It is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to helping readers choose a story to read.

If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to label stories as slow burn (erotic, but not very graphic) or explicit (graphic depictions of sexual activities) we already have a section for non-erotic writing. That might help readers find what they are looking for. I think many if not most readers come here to find material to masturbate to. Why not help them out?

 

[TadOverdon]

I only give 5-star ratings.

By which I mean, if I can't rate a story very highly, I just don't rate it. There's enough unhappiness and disappointment in life without doling it out to people I don't know who are putting themselves out there online.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

So many threads about ratings. I don't know which one to post on. I thought I'd do this one because it started with something positive.

It has taken me a while to figure out how I feel about ratings and comments. I honestly get more out of comments from writers I've interacted with and those aren't usually even part of the ratings system. It's by PM.

My Summers are when I have the most time to write. And now that I am busy again, I've gone days without even checking my ratings and I feel better. I have almost stopped caring.

I am most proud of my poetry and shorter forms, I spend more time per word on those works. But they hardly get any views, so the ratings don't mean that much at all. The one red H I have for poetry is far from my best work but may be the most overtly sexual. And if you add up all the views of all my poetry, it doesn't add up to the number of views of my lowest-viewed story.

The most personal poem I posted here has very few views and a 5-star, but only two people voted and I am probably going to take it down at some point. I wrote it as catharsis. It succeeded. I wrote it and cried. I read it and cried. I reread it and cried again and reread it until I could read it and not cry. If there are only 100 other people in the entire world who have read it and only two of those people like it, it does nothing to the catharsis I achieved.

That being said, The practical advantage of having an H by your story is that it can attract more readers. The problem with that is the same as the problem with grade inflation in schools. When everything gets a 5-star rating, it stops meaning anything. It may make us feel better as writers, but it doesn't inform the readers of anything about the story in terms of quality or content. It is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to helping readers choose a story to read.

If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to label stories as slow burn (erotic, but not very graphic) or explicit (graphic depictions of sexual activities) we already have a section for non-erotic writing. That might help readers find what they are looking for. I think many if not most readers come here to find material to masturbate to. Why not help them out?

I would be fine with additional tags available for story type. Added info is always a good thing, imo, although perhaps too much could get confusing to new readers.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I only give 5-star ratings.

By which I mean, if I can't rate a story very highly, I just don't rate it. There's enough unhappiness and disappointment in life without doling it out to people I don't know who are putting themselves out there online.

I'm the same way mostly, although I will leave a 4 star rating on a 4 star story that is already rated below 4 stars.

I won't lie about a rating ordinarily, but I also want my 5 star ratings to mean something

 

[MrPixel]

I only give fives, as a way of saying "Nice! Thanks!". Anything I don't care for I don't finish, and move on. This also is behind my feelings about 1-bombs, as they are dishonest and malicious vandalism under any and all circumstances.

I guess some of this attitude comes from being so sick and tired of being nagged for "rate us, please!" e-mail surveys. The only place I do honest star ratings is on Yelp, and that's rarely.

 

[Bamagan]

After all of the angst I've seen here I have stopped giving and receiving stars, with a handful of exceptions.

 

[MargotPayge]

I would be fine with additional tags available for story type. Added info is always a good thing, imo, although perhaps too much could get confusing to new readers.

If it happened, I would prefer it to be a badge like the H or New or Winner. Something that people who were looking for" femdom, naked cookie baking, with bisexual turtle cosplay could use the tags for a list of stories with those tags in every category, then look at the badge to see if it was of a slow-burn variety with vivid descriptions of the cookies as they succulently browned in the heat of the oven or Graphic variety as the turtles were commanded to lick the cookie crumbs off the cock of another turtle while their mistress sticks her throbbing... You get the idea. They could make that selection by scrolling through a list of titles.

That being said, I don't think the rating system here is that bad. I am just working out what it means to me as a writer. I pretty much know how to find what I'm looking for as a reader.

 

[Bamagan]

If it happened, I would prefer it to be a badge like the H or New or Winner. Something that people who were looking for" femdom, naked cookie baking, with bisexual turtle cosplay could use the tags for a list of stories with those tags in every category, then look at the badge to see if it was of a slow-burn variety with vivid descriptions of the cookies as they succulently browned in the heat of the oven or Graphic variety as the turtles were commanded to lick the cookie crumbs off the cock of another turtle while their mistress sticks her throbbing... You get the idea. They could make that selection by scrolling through a list of titles.

That being said, I don't think the rating system here is that bad. I am just working out what it means to me as a writer. I pretty much know how to find what I'm looking for as a reader.

You should definitely develop the cookie-turtle idea further, whatever else happens.

 

[alohadave]

If it happened, I would prefer it to be a badge like the H or New or Winner. Something that people who were looking for" femdom, naked cookie baking, with bisexual turtle cosplay could use the tags for a list of stories with those tags in every category, then look at the badge to see if it was of a slow-burn variety with vivid descriptions of the cookies as they succulently browned in the heat of the oven or Graphic variety as the turtles were commanded to lick the cookie crumbs off the cock of another turtle while their mistress sticks her throbbing... You get the idea. They could make that selection by scrolling through a list of titles.

That being said, I don't think the rating system here is that bad. I am just working out what it means to me as a writer. I pretty much know how to find what I'm looking for as a reader.

If they listed the tags in listings and searches, that would help significantly.

 

[MargotPayge]

You should definitely develop the cookie-turtle idea further, whatever else happens.

Be careful what you ask for.

 

[Bamagan]

Be careful what you ask for.

Technically, I didn't ask, but you delivered anyway, and bravo! Tonight she dines on turtle soup!

 

[Euphony]

Hey, if @NoTalentHack can revel in a bit of self-deprecation, so can I. His name is by far the harsher (and less accurate) name.

The "Middling Gang" teaming up to run these streets.

 

[Djmac1031]

Hey, if @NoTalentHack can revel in a bit of self-deprecation, so can I. His name is by far the harsher (and less accurate) name.

I'm thinking of changing my name to MyStoriesSuck.

People would be tempted to confirm, would they not?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I'm thinking of changing my name to MyStoriesSuck.

People would be tempted to confirm, would they not?

Of course!

Particularly due to that story The White Room! Someone should blatantly try to rip it off and write an inferior version!

 

[goodpen86]

To me "5 bombing" sounds similar to the idea of every kid getting a trophy in sports. I have trophies from when I played sports, and I sucked at it. The ratings on the stories we write are almost the only form of feedback we get on here. And yes it's a hobby, but that doesn't mean I don't want to get good at it. I've posted two stories in a row now that are being rated lower than I would have liked. I'm not taking it personally, but it's showing me that I have room for improvement. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'd rather know that I earned that little red "H" next to one of my stories then think it happened just because people were being nice. Just my personal opinion.