Category Top Lists; What the Fuck is up with that?

[MelissaBaby]

I agree with your point, yet there is more to it. The same thing can be said about shorter/medium size stories vs really long stories, as it also comes down to attrition and only those really invested stick to the end and eventually likely give a 5*. It is oranges and apples for sure. I'd say the ranking should be split among short/medium size stories, long stories, and chaptered stories.

Not sure if I agree with that. I have to think there are a fair number of readers who give up midway through a long story and flip to the end and downvote it for wasting their time.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree with your point, yet there is more to it. The same thing can be said about shorter/medium size stories vs really long stories, as it also comes down to attrition and only those really invested stick to the end and eventually likely give a 5*. It is oranges and apples for sure. I'd say the ranking should be split among short/medium size stories, long stories, and chaptered stories.

I understand and cannot disagree with the logic of what you're saying. The problem is, at some point it's too much. There are experienced authors here who reveal that there are features of the site they didn't even realized existed. If you create too many features and too many lists it's too much to process. It's the same with categories. It's a flawed system, especially if you read or write LGBTQ stories, because of the way the category system shoehorns together readers with wildly different preferences. But if you make the category system, or the scoring system, too fine-grained, it's harder for people to navigate, especially new readers, of which, I think, there is a constant and heavy influx.

 

[Voboy]

I understand and cannot disagree with the logic of what you're saying. The problem is, at some point it's too much. There are experienced authors here who reveal that there are features of the site they didn't even realized existed. If you create too many features and too many lists it's too much to process. It's the same with categories. It's a flawed system, especially if you read or write LGBTQ stories, because of the way the category system shoehorns together readers with wildly different preferences. But if you make the category system, or the scoring system, too fine-grained, it's harder for people to navigate, especially new readers, of which, I think, there is a constant and heavy influx.

This.

It's a free site run by two-ish people. With that taken into account, this site bends over backward to give readers a good sense of what they should be choosing to read. I don't think the site needs more features.

And, again, I read here for almost two decades before I joined and began writing. In all that time, I never once used the toplists, nor understood the red H, nor paid much attention to story tags, nor voted on a single story. I have to believe there are an awful lot of readers who are like I was: I think we sometimes give them more credit than they deserve, lol.

There are dedicated trolls who understand the system and game it. But I think the number is vanishingly small. The site works, pretty much.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Not sure if I agree with that. I have to think there are a fair number of readers who give up midway through a long story and flip to the end and downvote it for wasting their time.

Quite possible. It would be borderline impossible to make a system resilient to all the varieties of human nature. I guess we are just suggesting some improvements that are still far from perfect

 

[BreakTheBar]

Whenever these discussions of toplists come up, I think it's useful to step back and consider that toplists exist for readers, not authors. The ego-stroking is nice, but the real purpose of a toplist is to convey information to readers so they can decide what stories to read.

I've noticed that more recent stories disproportionately populate other category toplists as well, and I don't know why that is. It might just be that over time scores tend to drop, or perhaps sweeps have been more aggressive with more recent stories. From the readers' standpoint, I don't see a problem. It means fresh stories are constantly rising to levels of visibility, and that's a good thing for readers.

I also think authors fret too much about how high their scores are and whether they are on toplists. I've had some stories do very well in terms of views, favorites, and comments without so much as sniffing a toplist. My most-viewed stories are not my highest-rated.

I was mainly asking my questions AS a reader, rather than as an author. I've been on Toplists for a stretch of time and it's neat as an author, and seeing the big numbers on a couple of my stories as they accrued over time is a nice little ego boost. I'm less concerned about that than the reader-side experience. Beyond the splitting of One-Shots and Series, I think setting a stronger threshold of Votes required to hit a Toplist would likely be the best method to moderate the strangeness of the sweeps/attrition bell curve effect that's going on. Whether that would be functional or not, I don't know - the culture of Lit readership doesn't actually favour Voting, let alone Comments, as we see play out in Read vs Vote numbers.

I like my “pretend bookstore” analogy for lots of our frequent discussions.

A vote is when someone bought your book. A comment is a review in the New York Times. A follower is someone who shows up to your book signing. Making a top list is like being on a best seller list. A copycat is like creating a fan fiction universe. Or being plagiarized.

But back to series. A successful series does get somewhat more physical shelf space than a non series in a physical world bookstore. But in the physical world, many of those extra copies are in the storeroom, and kept restocked on the shelves by employees, rather than letting the physical space be absolutely overwhelmed the way lit’s top lists get overwhelmed.

This is a really great analogy. I had a counter-argument about chronic 'best sellers' still getting stocked on shelves, but then I realized I was feeding right back into the analogy! Hahaha.

I agree with your point, yet there is more to it. The same thing can be said about shorter/medium size stories vs really long stories, as it also comes down to attrition and only those really invested stick to the end and eventually likely give a 5*. It is oranges and apples for sure. I'd say the ranking should be split among short/medium size stories, long stories, and chaptered stories.

While I agree with the 'condense series into one entry' concept, I think it's silly to try and argue about story length as a distinguishing factor. Sure, I can see an argument that Shorts have specific traits that a longer story doesn't map on to, but I think it's still entirely realistic to judge a 3,000 word story against a 10,000 word one or a 30,000 word one. Length of story is a facet of the storytelling, and impacts the view of the reader.

More realistically, putting the Vote option at the bottom of every page instead of just at the end would serve the same purpose of getting people unhappy with a longer story to vote before they click away.

 

[lovecraft68]

30 days top lists do not require even 10 votes per story. For example, the two top stories in Sci-fi for last 30 days have 9 and 7 votes respectively. The top story in Sci-fi in the last 12 months has a total of 13 votes. Both facts are completely ridiculous of course. Maybe those are all masterpieces, but I feel the number of votes still very much counts. As mentioned, the alltime top lists require more votes so the situation is better there, yet the system really isn't working as intended. All it takes is getting some troll 2* and bye bye. So yeah, as it is now, those lists are kinda misleading.

Your post is the perfect example of everyone here being sick of the endless series.
The top story on the 30 day list features chapters 25-29, #2 is chapter 16, only voted on by small dedicated readerships. Even better, the entire first page only has one stand alone story. Get near the bottom of the page there is one series that is over 90 chapters, another over 100(although they seem to put more than one ch in a submission, its still ridiculous.) these are not stories, they're endless ramblings.

 

[SimonDoom]

This.

It's a free site run by two-ish people. With that taken into account, this site bends over backward to give readers a good sense of what they should be choosing to read. I don't think the site needs more features.

And, again, I read here for almost two decades before I joined and began writing. In all that time, I never once used the toplists, nor understood the red H, nor paid much attention to story tags, nor voted on a single story. I have to believe there are an awful lot of readers who are like I was: I think we sometimes give them more credit than they deserve, lol.

There are dedicated trolls who understand the system and game it. But I think the number is vanishingly small. The site works, pretty much.

Yep to all of this. We are the tiny tip of the iceberg. I was one of those Lit readers just like you for about 12-15 years (I don't remember). I read a lot of stories (more than I do now), but didn't sign up, didn't vote, rarely commented, never participated in any forums. I eventually learned to use the lists, which were more primitive way back when. I would have been annoyed if the Site had tricked itself up with too many features, making it more difficult for me to navigate.

Obviously, the site is doing something well if it's the most heavily trafficked erotic story website in the world, run by just two people.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Your post is the perfect example of everyone here being sick of the endless series.
The top story on the 30 day list features chapters 25-29, #2 is chapter 16, only voted on by small dedicated readerships. Even better, the entire first page only has one stand alone story. Get near the bottom of the page there is one series that is over 90 chapters, another over 100(although they seem to put more than one ch in a submission, its still ridiculous.) these are not stories, they're endless ramblings.

You really seem to be pissed off by the long, chaptered stories . I love really long stories, because building a world and developing characters is the thing I enjoy the most to read. I am a fan of chaptered stories myself, as it lets me write and post in parts, without needing to write the whole huge story that I plan to write, or even without planning all the way to the very end. I agree about chapters that are 2k words long and number close to a hundred, though. What I intend to do in my very long Sci-Fi story (at least I plan it to be...) is to break down the story into multiple series that would have 10-15 chapters max, and just make sure the readers understand that series X is a direct continuation of series Y. But yeah, in general, it is all oranges, apples and bananas we are comparing. Splitting it would be much more fair, although I do agree it might be confusing to new readers and it might be complicated for the database itself.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

While I agree with the 'condense series into one entry' concept, I think it's silly to try and argue about story length as a distinguishing factor. Sure, I can see an argument that Shorts have specific traits that a longer story doesn't map on to, but I think it's still entirely realistic to judge a 3,000 word story against a 10,000 word one or a 30,000 word one. Length of story is a facet of the storytelling, and impacts the view of the reader.

I am not sure I agree with you there... I'd say the artistic rules for a 3k word story are quite different than the rules for a 30k story or, for example my own chaptered story that is about 110k word long at this moment, with at least twice that much planned still. I used to say that to write a short story is to work with art, and to write a long story you need to work with both science and art.

 

[lovecraft68]

You really seem to be pissed off by the long, chaptered stories . I love really long stories, because building a world and developing characters is the thing I enjoy the most to read. I am a fan of chaptered stories myself, as it lets me write and post in parts, without needing to write the whole huge story that I plan to write, or even without planning all the way to the very end. I agree about chapters that are 2k words long and number close to a hundred, though. What I intend to do in my very long Sci-Fi story (at least I plan it to be...) is to break down the story into multiple series that would have 10-15 chapters max, and just make sure the readers understand that series X is a direct continuation of series Y. But yeah, in general, it is all oranges, apples and bananas we are comparing. Splitting it would be much more fair, although I do agree it might be confusing to new readers and it might be complicated for the database itself.

I don't mind long works if their organic and not a way to manipulate a system which many on here have caught on to. The ones using lit to direct people to their patreon are certainly never going to end a story because they're milking people for money as well as getting unfair status and winning monthly contests because of their insanely high-and fake-scores.

Its been suggested here-well, many things have on this topic, but the best is-a story cannot have chapters on a top list until its finished and then only one chapter-probably 1-will be posted with an aggregate score. People can see it, click it, and if they like it read the rest.

In terms of simply how the site is based on numbers alone for their lists which provide extra viewership, and benefits, people who have more than one idea in their head get tired of it. Its been promised by the site to address it for years now and their recent answer was to give series even more benefits with new filters.

I give far more credit to a stand alone story that only has the one piece to live and die by that score highly on a high number of votes than I do someone with 80 chapters that have less votes combined than a good standalone. I also give much more credit to people with a lot of single stories than any one trick pony with 100 parts to the same story
Chapter 68 and then they go to a village
Chapter 71 another village
Chapter 82 they travel to the past and....another village.


Fuck, Tolkien wrapped up the Lord of the Rings trilogy in less words than these clowns are burning through while spinning their wheels

 

[Voboy]

Its been promised by the site to address it for years now and their recent answer was to give series even more benefits with new filters.

.....


Fuck, Tolkien wrapped up the Lord of the Rings trilogy in less words than these clowns are burning through while spinning their wheels

Except that the "more benefits" the site is giving to series writers are what's ultimately going to benefit the stand-alones, at least on the toplists issue. The new features, which I'd suspect most series writers won't use fully, are going to have the effect of lessening their dominance on the toplists. None too soon, I say.

And Tolkien intended his story to be one volume, not a trilogy. Most subsequent commentators consider LOTR as one work, not three, which is exactly what this site is moving toward. It's a good thing, in the end.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I don't mind long works if their organic and not a way to manipulate a system which many on here have caught on to. The ones using lit to direct people to their patreon are certainly never going to end a story because they're milking people for money as well as getting unfair status and winning monthly contests because of their insanely high-and fake-scores.

Its been suggested here-well, many things have on this topic, but the best is-a story cannot have chapters on a top list until its finished and then only one chapter-probably 1-will be posted with an aggregate score. People can see it, click it, and if they like it read the rest.

I never understood how the whole Patreon concept makes sense to the people paying it. It is also used for games, and you basically support the creator during his whole development process, and you get to play the unfinished game, while he offers you some way to give input and/or vote. In the end, he has no motivation or reason to finish but would rather keep milking his supporters, and you as a customer, end up paying 10 times more to get the game, compared to just buying a game made by some top studio.
The other suggestion also makes perfect sense to me. Aggregate score and wait until the story is actually finished should be a given.

 

[SimonDoom]

Your post is the perfect example of everyone here being sick of the endless series.
The top story on the 30 day list features chapters 25-29, #2 is chapter 16, only voted on by small dedicated readerships. Even better, the entire first page only has one stand alone story. Get near the bottom of the page there is one series that is over 90 chapters, another over 100(although they seem to put more than one ch in a submission, its still ridiculous.) these are not stories, they're endless ramblings.

Sure, but LC, people eat 'em up. Give 'em what they want. I'm not being sarcastic. I assume Tefler really enjoys his endless sci fi series. I read a few chapters, thought, OK, I see what this is like and I get why some enjoy it, but I didn't read any more. I have no doubt, though, that he has thousands of rabid fans. There's nothing wrong with that.

The upcoming solution should take care of the problem about as well as it can be taken care of.

 

[BreakTheBar]

I am not sure I agree with you there... I'd say the artistic rules for a 3k word story are quite different than the rules for a 30k story or, for example my own chaptered story that is about 110k word long at this moment, with at least twice that much planned still. I used to say that to write a short story is to work with art, and to write a long story you need to work with both science and art.

I would argue that while there are different structural rules and necessities for different length works, the 'enjoyability' that people vote on isn't impacted. A really good Short can serve a purpose (particularly if it's stroker), but it also requires a much higher degree of skill (and originality) to compete with a longer work purely based on emotional investment. If you take the argument out of Literotica/Erotica in general, you can watch a Short Film and be impacted by it, and if it's really good it might stick with you for a long time. But can that short compete with a good feature film in terms of re-watchability? Or sharability? The ability for a viewer to become emotionally invested in a Feature Film is greater because of the time spent with the characters; the ability for a Short to make an impactful, edgy statement is greater because it needs to cut like a honed knife.

I guess the Marvel franchise would be the 'evergoing series' in this regard. But what short or feature film has ever gotten the audience reaction that the payoff moments of the Endgame fight sequence? People cheering and shouting and crying in their seats as a decade of storytelling came to a head.

I don't mind long works if their organic and not a way to manipulate a system which many on here have caught on to. The ones using lit to direct people to their patreon are certainly never going to end a story because they're milking people for money as well as getting unfair status and winning monthly contests because of their insanely high-and fake-scores.

How many series do you think are 'trying to manipulate the system' compared to those that are just... being written that way? More on Monetization below...

I never understood how the whole Patreon concept makes sense to the people paying it. It is also used for games, and you basically support the creator during his whole development process, and you get to play the unfinished game, while he offers you some way to give input and/or vote. In the end, he has no motivation or reason to finish but would rather keep milking his supporters, and you as a customer, end up paying 10 times more to get the game, compared to just buying a game made by some top studio.
The other suggestion also makes perfect sense to me. Aggregate score and wait until the story is actually finished should be a given.

Patreon is just another monetization of skill. Rather than trying to peddle ebooks, I went the Patreon route and am very happy with what I can offer my supporters. I release two chapters ahead on my big series, and release weekly collections ahead on my CHYOA series. I also release commission stories and one-shots ahead of time there. And it ALL ends up being free to access as I post them to places like Literotica.

Selling ebooks (or books in general) is about creating and selling a product. My Patreon is about supporting my writing in general. It is what it's called - people wanting to be Patrons of my work so that I can continue to write more. And that's not just more of my series, it's also new stories. It's a subscription service to me and my erotica that helps fund my time spent writing, and is growing to the point that I'll be spending more time writing than I am doing my other job.

And to more directly respond to LC; SOME readers appreciate an ongoing story - look at the long running Mangas and the animes based off of them. Many reader also want to see conclusions - sometimes that's in the form of a story or plot arc closing out. Or a 'Book 1' 'Book 2' scenario. Do you feel the same way about, say Lee Child and the Reacher book series? What about Mystery series where every story is the same investigator engaging with a slightly different murder mystery than the book before it? Do you begrudge those authors the ability to monetize their work over decades?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

A really good Short can serve a purpose (particularly if it's stroker), but it also requires a much higher degree of skill (and originality) to compete with a longer work purely based on emotional investment. If you take the argument out of Literotica/Erotica in general, you can watch a Short Film and be impacted by it, and if it's really good it might stick with you for a long time. But can that short compete with a good feature film in terms of re-watchability? Or sharability? The ability for a viewer to become emotionally invested in a Feature Film is greater because of the time spent with the characters; the ability for a Short to make an impactful, edgy statement is greater because it needs to cut like a honed knife.

I have very different opinion about the skill required and the impact of short vs long stories/movies. I would also say that the type of skills involved aren't the same in those two cases, so I still hold on to my opinion that they shouldn't really be compared, thus going back to my previous statement about top lists.

Also, the concept of Patreon is quite obvious to me, and believe me, it makes perfect sense from the point of view of the creator, be it a writer, programmer, composer or any other. I just don't understand the economical logic of the people who subscribe. And it's not about the money for me, it's about the feeling that I am being taken for a fool. I mean, you could argue that the content wouldn't exist otherwise, yet I feel there are economical concepts that would make much more sense for both creator and the supporter, concepts that wouldn't seem so exploitative. I understand many people feel differently, I am just saying the Patreon concept makes zero sense to me from the point of view of a subscriber. Making a one time donation to help the fledgling creator, or even buying the product for let's say half the final price but much before it is actually finished, are concepts that I feel would be much more sensible for customers.

 

[BreakTheBar]

I have very different opinion about the skill required and the impact of short vs long stories/movies. I would also say that the type of skills involved aren't the same in those two cases, so I still hold on to my opinion that they shouldn't really be compared, thus going back to my previous statement about top lists.

I actually agree wholeheartedly that the skills necessary between short and long-format film, and erotica, are different. My suggestion is that there is going to be higher buy-in to a 10,000-word story of equal quality to a 3,000-word story because the reader is spending more time investing in the characters involved. What that means is that someone who CHOOSES to write a short and is concerned with scores/top lists need to be aware that they are fighting an uphill battle to match the emotional investment of a longer story.

And I think that thought helped me connect what I was feeling. Writing long series is a choice, as is writing shorts, and at the moment we all submit them to the same 'pool' of content. I find the idea that short and long-form content being judged on different merits, or that folks like LC seem particularly irked by long-form content to the point of being insulting, to be a little ridiculous. And I admit that I can likely say that easier because I write stories that have always hit the Red H and pulled in some contest wins, but my argument would be that I am very rarely moved by a short erotica story, but there are multiple long-form erotica that I'll probably remember for decades to come because of the emotional resonance and investment.

Also, the concept of Patreon is quite obvious to me, and believe me, it makes perfect sense from the point of view of the creator, be it a writer, programmer, composer or any other. I just don't understand the economical logic of the people who subscribe. And it's not about the money for me, it's about the feeling that I am being taken for a fool. I mean, you could argue that the content wouldn't exist otherwise, yet I feel there are economical concepts that would make much more sense for both creator and the supporter, concepts that wouldn't seem so exploitative. I understand many people feel differently, I am just saying the Patreon concept makes zero sense to me from the point of view of a subscriber. Making a one time donation to help the fledgling creator, or even buying the product for let's say half the final price but much before it is actually finished, are concepts that I feel would be much more sensible for customers.

I think the economical logic comes from the same place as Pre-Orders, Special Editions and the entire Streamer space. People like to feel invested in things. With products they become fans of franchises and want to collect cool things and special things and rare things and variants and so on and so forth. With content creators, subscription-based programs like Patreon or Twitch and Youtube, they are economically putting their support behind the content they want to continue to receive. I couldn't be writing like I am right now (approx 24,000 words across 3 series on a given week) without that community investment.

 

[alohadave]

I never understood how the whole Patreon concept makes sense to the people paying it. It is also used for games, and you basically support the creator during his whole development process, and you get to play the unfinished game, while he offers you some way to give input and/or vote. In the end, he has no motivation or reason to finish but would rather keep milking his supporters, and you as a customer, end up paying 10 times more to get the game, compared to just buying a game made by some top studio.
The other suggestion also makes perfect sense to me. Aggregate score and wait until the story is actually finished should be a given.

While there may be some that milk something forever, most people who create have a story or plot in mind and don't want to cheat their supporters.

The people who support on Patreon seem to be hardcore fans who want to help the creators.

I personally don't like the idea of supporting a work in progress, and I don't care about sneak previews or having input on a work, or having my name mentioned. I've thought of tossing a one-time donation to authors who I follow on free sites, just so they will keep up the work, but month after month is too much for me.

 

[RejectReality]

I've had a half a dozen people ask me to start a Patreon, but I always beg off because I never know when I'm going to wake up and find a note from my muse that says, "Off to Tahiti. Be back sometime." Then she spends a year drunken partying before dragging her ass home. I couldn't fulfill any obligations to my own satisfaction, never mind anybody else's.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

While there may be some that milk something forever, most people who create have a story or plot in mind and don't want to cheat their supporters.

The people who support on Patreon seem to be hardcore fans who want to help the creators.

I personally don't like the idea of supporting a work in progress, and I don't care about sneak previews or having input on a work, or having my name mentioned. I've thought of tossing a one-time donation to authors who I follow on free sites, just so they will keep up the work, but month after month is too much for me.

One time donations seem perfectly fine, as you are just giving money as a sign of appreciation and you aren't committing or having any particular expectations. There are definitely authors I would consider donating to, as a sign of appreciation. Most of all, I would like to donate to Literotica, and I believe I am one among thousands who feel the same way, yet there is no such option...yet