Congratulations to the Literotica Earth Day Story Contest Winners!

[Laurel]

Manu and I would like to thank all the authors who submitted during this contest - and all the other contests, for that matter! We've tallied the reader's votes, and are happy to announce the winners of our Earth Day Story Contest.

First Place ($150 Cash Prize Winner):
Frost Heaves by davidwatts

Second Place ($100 Cash Prize Winner):
An Incongreenient Truth by ZuzusPetals

Third Place ($75 Cash Prize Winner):
The Moose by softcaress

Special mention goes to Another Fishing Trip by TxRad, which placed in the contest but did not qualify per our rules, as the author has won a special contest with the last six months.

Thanks again to everyone who voted, submitted, or was involved in Literotica in any way.

*

 

[scouries]

and the scores were????

LAUREL,

I posted the following comment after the VALENTINES Day Contest. My opinion hasn’t changed since then. It would be a first step in restoring credibility to the contest system.
________________________________________
It might be nice if, at the end of one of these contests, you actually listed the scores and the number of votes the score was based on for each of the contest entries.

It's generally accepted practice to publish the results of a vote after you've invited people to participate.

I think all of us would also be curious on how many votes were swept away on each story.

jrs

p.s. my numbers:

Cousin Scouries Tree Hugging Daughter

221 votes
4.53 rating
46,000+ views
600+ votes deleted
35 comments

- This is the lowest total number of votes received on a scouries story in over 2 years.
- The votes as a percentage of total views (less than ½ of one percent) is the lowest on any scouries story in over a year.
- The deleted votes as a percentage of total votes cast is the highest of any scouries story in history (over 75%).

All these are strange results given the site has made it easier to vote and yet has made it harder to double vote. Seeing that many other contest authors are also reporting much larger vote losses than in previous years it might be a good time for you or MANU to give us some explanation for these bizarre results.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

I agree with Scouries

Actually, I've never given it much consideration knowing the scores of the winners verses the ones who didn't win. I'd be interested in knowing that information, so long as it wasn't too difficult to retrieve.

I think that Scouries suggestion is one with merit.

I'd be interested in how the competition scored.

 

[PrincessErin]

.....

 

[starrkers]

Trouble with that is, buy the time I see them, the jealousy has hit and the winners' scores have usually been one voted down.

 

[Rob_mDear]

LAUREL,

221 votes
4.53 rating
46,000+ views
600+ votes deleted
35 comments

As a new author... where does one go to see "votes deleted"? I see the other info, but not votes deleted.

And how and why are votes deleted? I do see the number of votes go down on occasion, and the story's score jumps back up... but what triggers it?

 

[TxRad]

As a new author... where does one go to see "votes deleted"? I see the other info, but not votes deleted.

And how and why are votes deleted? I do see the number of votes go down on occasion, and the story's score jumps back up... but what triggers it?

Lit does sweeps on the stories all the time and on contest entries even more. How and what makes up the sweeps criteria is a closely guarded secret. Some of the things are probably malicious votes, double votes, more than one vote per ISP, ect ect ect. Manu the site operator and computer whiz that keeps this whole mess running is the only one who knows for sure and he ain't talking.

Just as a side note, Scouries has a lot of numbers that no one but him seems to know where they came from. He also seems to always loose tons of votes on every contest. He also thinks reads are sales and that he gets royalties from lit, if that gives you any idea. Dose of salt and aspirin time.

 

[Rob_mDear]

One reader, one vote

Lit does sweeps on the stories all the time and on contest entries even more. How and what makes up the sweeps criteria is a closely guarded secret. Some of the things are probably malicious votes, double votes, more than one vote per ISP, ect ect ect. Manu the site operator and computer whiz that keeps this whole mess running is the only one who knows for sure and he ain't talking.

This interests me, a lot, for two reasons.

The first is that I'm a computer super geek myself, and my job actually involves doing thigs a lot like this... sorting through noisy data to try to infer site visitor's preferences (i.e. which site components do they like/dislike). In fact, there's a one million dollar programming contest sponsored by NetFlix along the same lines for rented movies. [Wish I had time to try to win, but work and writing consume my life.]

The second reason is that, while I don't care much about the contests, I do care about earning readership, and high scores (as in a listing in the Top Lists) gets more readers. I was very disappointed that for the first 100 or so votes on one of my recent stories, it was way at the top of that list (4.95)... then all of a sudden it got a flurry of low votes and dropped completely off the Top Lists, then it bounced between the top (4.88) and the bottom (4.84) of that list, then hung around the top, and then recently hit bottom again.

I just have this feeling that people are going in and giving it low scores for some unknown reason (maybe I use the word "and" too much, and that word really offends them). I don't see how 100 votes had the score pegged at 4.88, then 20 votes later is was down to 4.84, as if every new casual reader after the first 100 gave it a low score.

It bother's me only because I want readers, based on the quality of my writing, but it seems very, very hard to build a following.

Anyway... perhaps this is worth discussing in its own thread, in another forum.

Anyone's thoughts?

 

[TxRad]

This interests me, a lot, for two reasons.

The first is that I'm a computer super geek myself, and my job actually involves doing thigs a lot like this... sorting through noisy data to try to infer site visitor's preferences (i.e. which site components do they like/dislike). In fact, there's a one million dollar programming contest sponsored by NetFlix along the same lines for rented movies. [Wish I had time to try to win, but work and writing consume my life.]

The second reason is that, while I don't care much about the contests, I do care about earning readership, and high scores (as in a listing in the Top Lists) gets more readers. I was very disappointed that for the first 100 or so votes on one of my recent stories, it was way at the top of that list (4.95)... then all of a sudden it got a flurry of low votes and dropped completely off the Top Lists, then it bounced between the top (4.88) and the bottom (4.84) of that list, then hung around the top, and then recently hit bottom again.

I just have this feeling that people are going in and giving it low scores for some unknown reason (maybe I use the word "and" too much, and that word really offends them). I don't see how 100 votes had the score pegged at 4.88, then 20 votes later is was down to 4.84, as if every new casual reader after the first 100 gave it a low score.

It bother's me only because I want readers, based on the quality of my writing, but it seems very, very hard to build a following.

Anyway... perhaps this is worth discussing in its own thread, in another forum.

Anyone's thoughts?

Check out some of the threads in the Feedback Forum about trolls and anonymous, they should give you an idea of what is happening. It's a well discussed and cussed topic there.