Flash insight on voting chicanery

[StillStunned]

I know what you mean by this. And there is enough stuff and range of tastes and styles here that the evaluation is moot. That said, I have a personal eye out that, in my personal book, I would call good literature. Someone has taken the time to write well, with originality and creative language. May not be the best formula for giving one hand Mary a workout. But I could see a sitch in which the editors and guest judges pick out some stories with surpassing creativity.

From the site's point of view, craft and literary quality come second (and third) to the readers' enjoyment. We're essentially here to meet a demand, and the contests (and scoring in general) are a measure of how well we do that.

 

[LargoKitt]

The minimum requirement for eligibility is 25 votes, so even more niche stories have a shot.

This sounds like low bar, but I'm often seeing one vote for three or four hundred views on my stuff. So maybe ten thousand views to get 25 votes, at best. And these days I'm seeing more like two or three thousand views in a week or two and a coon's age to top ten votes. I have a few hundred followers, but they don't seem to vote on my stuff more than regular folks. Now that's an ordinary story, not something submitted for a contest. I'm curious whether reader's flock to contests more than regular. Dunno.

 

[LargoKitt]

A story with 100 views and a 4.90 score will beat one with 1,000 views and a 4.80 score so it isn't just popularity.

But the first doesn't ever happen and even the second would be rare. Like I say elsewhere, it usually takes several thousand views to tip the hot button.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I'm curious whether reader's flock to contests more than regular. Dunno.

The first couple contests I entered, I definitely felt like I saw a lot more readers than I would've gotten otherwise. My followers jumped maybe twice as much as when I would release a non-contest story. But Summer Lovin' seemed like a number of people didn't see the same benefits that they used to, myself included. My stories landed about the same as if I hadn't put them in the contest at all, and I suspect it's because there were over 200 entries, so you just don't stand out as much.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's Laurel who decides contests winners, period.

I always feel amused when I see people arguing otherwise, although some of their arguments are sensible and they do contribute, up to a point.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I suspect that campaigning, in order to be effective, would need to be fairly widespread and obvious. It’s a near-certainty that the rest of us would be likely to pick up on it.

One approach to campaigning would be for an author to update their profile with a request for votes on their contest story. If they have enough followers, this could influence a swing in their favor.

 

[Trionyx]

Consider this:

View attachment 2697201

That's what you get when you have people actually vote, rather than base the winner on scores.

40 voters. 18 votes was an easy win.

Well deserved, though. That story is fucking hilarious.

(RIP Ogg)

This was from a readers favorite vote for best of the year. That was stopped a few years ago for reasons I am unaware of. The monthly contests were also stopped (a post recently suggested those may be coming back) so the number of blue W’s has dropped by (12 + 1) times the number of categories (33) per year, or a potential total of 429 fewer. Currently there are only 18 blue W’s per year awarded.

The ‘WOW factor’ for a blue W now is certainly far greater than when nearly 450 were awarded per year. Add to that the fact that the contests draw many more entries than they used to.