Event Invitationals - WTF?

[ElectricBlue]

But what really makes me gag is the holding themselves out as the cream of the cream on this site. Promotion is Ok. Over the top, take it elsewhere else.

Agree this. There is zero basis for the often repeated statements that the writing is so much better in the invitationals, that somehow those writers are the cream of the crop.

"Unvarnished truth" is an opinion, not a truth.

 

[nerfvibrator]

I could care less who is invited. I'll read the authors I like and skip the ones I don't. The good news is that it is over in one day. If they need to pat each other on the back, so be it. It does seem junior high school-ish

 

[lovecraft68]

I kind of agree that there's no good that comes from having exclusive, invitation-only events. I don't see the point. I don't see what value is added by making these things exclusive as opposed to open to everyone.

But, on the other hand, if some people want to do it this way, I don't have a good reason to want the site to stop them. Maybe they wouldn't have the events at all if they didn't have control over them. I don't know. The bottom line is it doesn't affect me in any way, and if it makes some people happy to have invitation-only events, it's fine with me.

I wasn't around here during the "dark times" that I sometimes see referred to, so there may be an aspect to this I don't appreciate.

My opinion would be the advantage to exclusive is you're picking people you either know, or have a good track record in whatever genre or overall with the hope they will all deliver what they agreed to and there's less chance of the contest turning into a bust with a bunch of people you have no idea will stick to the commitment.

 

[Bebop3]

You strike me as someone who has problems.
with your emotions
with your maturity
maybe you were picked on one too many times and you're just not going to take it anymore on the internet.

Don't worry about a comment that's meant to get a rise out of you.

Relax, you've done this once, the rerun is tiresome.

Is this some odd freestyle poetry?

If not, thanks for the free psychoanalysis. It's much appreciated.

 

[Bebop3]

Agree this. There is zero basis for the often repeated statements that the writing is so much better in the invitationals, that somehow those writers are the cream of the crop.

"Unvarnished truth" is an opinion, not a truth.

No, it's straight up truth. I've seen the stats and I can try to dig them out if you'd like. Take a look at the scores from the last two open events and then the last two invite events and compare them.

Or, take a look at scores in a category where most of the invite stories appear for a few days before the event, then compare them to the scores for the stories in that category from the event.

That the scores are higher is indisputable. Is that necessarily indicative of an increase in quality? No. Is it likely that it's indicative? Yes.

 

[KeithD]

That the scores are higher is indisputable. Is that necessarily indicative of an increase in quality? No. Is it likely that it's indicative? Yes.

It seems more indicative that you're voting each other up, when in normal, uncoordinated story posting, the clique members wouldn't be reading and voting the stories of others up at all.

Sorry, I know it puffs you people up, but I don't think being exclusively invited here to participate in a closed writing exercise defines the invitees as being the cream of the writers here at all.

We've been there and done that before. There's even an anthology (offered for free) on Amazon of such a clique that billed itself on Amazon as the cream of the Literotica writers. The anthology, even though free, isn't doing a bit better in "sales" than other for-pay anthologies by other Lit. authors are doing. There are several glowing reviews (by members of the writing clique) posted to it on Amazon, though. I think this gets to be par for the course with where such writing cliques here go.

Perhaps if you just stopped plugging away at this here . . .

 

[Bebop3]

It seems more indicative that you're voting each other up, when in normal, uncoordinated story posting, the clique members wouldn't be reading and voting the stories of others up at all.

Sorry, I know it puffs you people up, but I don't think being exclusively invited here to participate in a closed writing exercise defines the invitees as being the cream of the writers here at all.

Can you point to an example where I've claimed that the participants in an invitational were the best writers on Lit?

How many people do you believe are in this clique? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Do you think that those votes would have a significant impact on the scoring?

Have you compared those scores to stories by the same authors outside of events? Is there a marked difference? If not, does that indicate that those scores are likely just their baseline and are more or less earned?

 

[KeithD]

In the post immediately before mine, you speculate on the why of high ratings. Don't kid me about what you were saying.

Beyond that, I'm not interested in your exclusive invitational groupings and, as I originally said, I'm not impressed by your posts here about them. I didn't go anywhere to comment on this; you brought it to the AH. Toddle on and do what you want to do. As I posted, I don't think it's either a constructive or mature activity on an open-use story site and I've pointed to where this has led before.

 

[Bebop3]

In the post immediately before mine, you speculate on the why of high ratings. Don't kid me about what you were saying.

You're inferring what I didn't imply.

There's a huge difference between good writers who are certainly better than the average and the best writers.

I'd absolutely contend that some of the best writers on Lit participate in invite events. Is everyone who participates among the best writers on Lit? Certainly not. I've participated in some in the past and I'm not one of the best.

 

[SeabornFare]

Is this some odd freestyle poetry?

If not, thanks for the free psychoanalysis. It's much appreciated.

You're welcome.

 

[NotWise]

Oh, please be real.

blackandi1958 invites writers with a good history, and often a long history. There's no question in my mind that her select group will average higher views and higher scores than those volunteering stories for an event. I don't know why anyone would disagree with that.

With writers like Androgynousother, Burntredstone and Bebop3 (for instance) they should be better than the average volunteer. Other organizers could put together an enormous array of other author groups who could match their results. Her groups get good results, but they aren't unique results.

I have problems with the author-organized events that I've expressed before. blackrandi1958's events usually avoid some of those problems. On the other hand, there's an air of elitism in her events, and I think a lot of us see it.

What I don't understand is why Laurel promotes blackrandi1958's events. It's very cliquish (we're talking high school here), it's polarizing for other authors, and it's open to abuse. It's also happening on a site that otherwise seems to treat people equally -- but not in this case.

Before anyone tells me again that I could fix everything by organizing my own event, let me tell you exactly how insulting that is. When I say that I have ethical problems with the events, and someone responds with "You can do it too!" (which even Laurel has said) that insults my integrity. Maybe I'm just not the hypocrite that you want me to be.

Now lets all get together and share a big hug. We'll all feel better, right?

 

[KeithD]

You're inferring what I didn't imply.

There's a huge difference between good writers who are certainly better than the average and the best writers.

I'd absolutely contend that some of the best writers on Lit participate in invite events. Is everyone who participates among the best writers on Lit? Certainly not. I've participated in some in the past and I'm not one of the best.

I don't know what your problem is on needing some sort of validation for what you seem able to do--run exclusionary invitational writing events on Literotica--whether or not everyone else agrees with it being a good thing to do. I don't agree with it being a good thing to do here and I'm not persuaded by your posts, which I didn't ask for. I didn't come looking for the activity you advocate to object to it. You posted your position here and I posted I don't think it's constructive or mature activity for this Web site, which is one I see as trying to be open, providing equal access, and egalitarian, which exclusionary invitational events aren't. I don't think you really care what I think, so I don't know why you have the need to keep plugging along on it. I don't intend to.

 

[Vix_Giovanni]

I didn't bother reading any of the last event. I was quite pissed off about it when it landed in the last week of an event with a prize. The spectre of the site busy promoting a different group of people when a contest was winding up...did not sit well with me

What I don't understand is why Laurel promotes blackrandi1958's events. It's very cliquish (we're talking high school here), it's polarizing for other authors, and it's open to abuse. ...

Before anyone tells me again that I could fix everything by organizing my own event, let me tell you exactly how insulting that is. When I say that I have ethical problems with the events, and someone responds with "You can do it too!" (which even Laurel has said) that insults my integrity. Maybe I'm just not the hypocrite that you want me to be.

Now lets all get together and share a big hug. We'll all feel better, right?

My two cents, which I’ve added before in similar threads: it’s problematic for Laurel/Literotica to promote invitation-only events in the same way that contests are promoted, and for her to do so in short order to contest dates. If she were my client, I’d have counseled her to stop doing this for her own sake. But she’s not: this is her site and her business-legal decisions, and as a writer using this site merely to self publish my pittance of amateur writing, her decisions aren’t my problem.

That being said, my knee jerk reaction to each of these invitation-only events is concern. There’s a distinct pattern to the ones that I’m aware of; it seems that they are always organized by the same person/group, with the same invitees and always scheduled for a live date that is concurrent to a contest. Patterns like this give me ptsd of my days as a securities litigator because they smack of scienter. And I always wonder why Laurel doesn’t simply move the event date to after the contest ends.

The argument that there’s no harm in this practice is fallacious analysis: there’s never any assignable “harm” with an unfair/restrictive practice until the harm arises. People will use this site to the extent that Laurel allows; if she’s set up practices that allow arbitrary restrictive parameters, she should anticipate and prepare for the likelihood that, eventually, those practices could be abused. As NotWise has pointed out many times, the rebuttal of “Well, you can organize your own event, too” is neither responsive to nor dispositive of the significant underlying issues. But, if Laurel chooses to handle things that way for now, *shrug*, that’s her prerogative.

As far the upcoming event, I had no awareness of or interest in it, and my sole curiosity arose from the responses in this thread—but I just looked, and its dates are, again, directly parallel to a contest, with, again, the same organizer and invitees. I have, again, a knee jerk reaction of concern. But as I’ve said before, this is none of my business so, like Kermit the Frog, I’m just going to sip my tea.

Please ping me when the group hug-kumbaya moment starts. I love hugs.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Please ping me when the group hug-kumbaya moment starts. I love hugs.

As Nick Cave sang it, "Into my arms, oh Lord, into my arms."

Quite powerful when the entire audience sings the chorus, and the singer remains silent.

https://www.metrolyrics.com/into-my-arms-lyrics-nick-cave.html

 

[jaF0]

So, the cool kids build a wall around the CliqueFest, a big beautiful wall. Then they only invite their cool kids friends to come and smoke in the boys room. But they put up a yuuuuge billboard outside the school and on all the freeway overpasses saying cool kids gather here, but only cool kids.

What's to stop the outcasts from scaling or cutting though the wall to submit their own masterpieces?

 

[jaF0]

'Course, I don't do contests, even the open, well publicized ones. I don't even buy lottery tickets.

But to be honest, I've never seen one of the yuuuge billboards erected by a clique and wouldn't even know where to look for one.

 

[Laurel]

That being said, my knee jerk reaction to each of these invitation-only events is concern. There’s a distinct pattern to the ones that I’m aware of; it seems that they are always organized by the same person/group, with the same invitees and always scheduled for a live date that is concurrent to a contest. Patterns like this give me ptsd of my days as a securities litigator because they smack of scienter. And I always wonder why Laurel doesn’t simply move the event date to after the contest ends.

But we did do that. We moved the 750 Word Project to after the Valentine's Day contest closed. Or is there another event to which you are referring?

Also, I'm not sure I agree that Special Contest entries should have priority over every other story on the site. Special Contest entries already get special placement on the top of the list - above all other stories, including Challenge stories - to make sure they receive enough votes to be eligible in the short time special contests take place. This is done as a courtesy, but does not mean they are more important than the other stories posted every day (which are also competing, only for the Monthly Contest). Challenges do not compete with Special Contest entries. Special Contest stories are measured against each other, not against stories that are not part of the Contest.

Anyone can organize an Author Challenge. The reason the same people keep organizing them (HeyAll, Chloe, & Randi, for example) is that they are the people who are organizing them. There is nothing stopping others from organizing a challenge. We give Author Challenges - Open and Invitational - more visibility, though not as much as Special Contests. And we give Open challenges extra visibility (more than Invitationals) so that interested writers may see the announcement and participate. This extra visibility can be had by anyone who takes the time to organize a challenge.

The Author Challenges are fun for many authors and writers. If you are not one who enjoys the Challenges, then we encourage you to spend your time doing stuff you enjoy on the site and allow those who are having fun with these challenges to do so.