Readers' Rating Mystery #453

[CockSparrow]

The highest rating my stories get always seems to be after 30-35 votes. Anyone know why that might be?

 

[Bamagan]

The highest rating my stories get always seems to be after 30-35 votes. Anyone know why that might be?

There's a tendency for stories to start off with a high score because the first readers are often the ones most enthusiastic for it, whether because they follow the author or because something in the title or description blurb appeals to them or their preferred kinks. This can be offset or occluded if the story also draws the ire of groups that like to downvote certain topics. Either way, after the voters at either end of the bell curve have had their say and it falls off the 'new' lists, future readers are probably mostly discovering it by tag searches, similar stories links, or because they bookmarked it as a 'maybe' and eventually get around to it when there's nothing left they want to read more. Those groups probably have less uniform voting habits, when they vote at all, but since anything less than a 5 drags high scores down, they likely contribute to a mild decline for stories that get through the first week or so with exceptionally high ratings.
The number of votes it takes to reach these stages is likely variable based on readership and probably author followers, so the reason it happens to you at that point is probably just a factor of your audience size. And of course, we can't rule out simple coincidence!

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think Bamagan is right. Your followers are often the first ones at your story.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I've found generally that stories start very high, then fall for a day or so until they settle, then rise again in the following months. The score starts to settle after 50 or so votes, and it becomes very difficult for it to change - but in my experience it tends to trend upwards with time. Ageing like fine wine, so to speak. Probably because it's being found by people through tags, searches, or through following you.