Getting a little frustrated...

[BlackShanglan]

I don't know, Shang, you have to work up a sustained desire for critics to do that sort of thing. I found SDC very traumatic.

Oh, I agree that it's not for everyone. However, I was responding to comment on the use of votes as feedback. If one does not desire feedback, I think that that is certainly a reasonable position. However, if one does desire feedback, I can't see any way in which votes consisting of a simple 1-5 for the story in its entirety would ever supply that.

Shanglan

 

[yui]

I would like to say; I genuinely don’t think all less-than-five votes are malicious. Often, even a technically well-written story is tedious and so freaking boring you can’t back-click fast enough; or the thing is just painfully unreadable. Also, many readers might not realize the impact that their casual “2” or even “3” votes can have on the score of a story without enough cumulative votes to take the hit.

Just to reiterate, I think we’ve all been sucker punched more than once; but JT, if your stories are holding at 4.8+ then you are either being swept regularly, inordinately blessed with 5 bombs, or your trolls aren’t very dedicated, eh?

Cant, I adore you but I respectfully disagree with the idea that a panel of judges choosing the contest winners would fix anything. Didn’t the first post of this thread move from a trolling rant to questioning the credentials and judgment of Lit’s panel of little-green-E-editors? Why would a “contest panel” be any less likely to be reproached in a similar fashion?

Further, what sort of panel would it need to be comprised of to represent a true sampling of Lit’s population? Are we judging technical skill? Because, in my estimation, grammatically correct writing is product of education and opportunity, not talent. Are we judging raw talent? And exactly how do you do that? Is there a formula? The author must have three acts, no dangling participles, and at least one partridge in a pear tree.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be unkind, and I hope no one will take it that way, it’s just that the readers here have been generous enough to not only read what I’ve written but they have been kind enough to take the time to write to me with intelligent, insightful, and often anonymous feedback. Take Reader’s Choice from the readers because you think other authors are trolling? Doesn’t that sound a wee bit wrong? If it comes down to it, Lit should limit the author’s power to influence contests, not the reader’s.

Luck to all,

Yui

Edited to add:

*waving* Hello, my Pasha! It's good to see you!

 

[cantdog]

It's exactly that effect I'm talking about, yui. Authors or their closely-bonded fans are the ones, if anyone, who are skewing contest results with their votes. Such people, authors and tight fans, are the only ones who would have enough stake in it.

Malone's idea of 'no anonymous votes' and 'only members of the site'-- that means that ordinary, casual voters would be excluded, generally. I am saying that would magnify the effect of the cheating and manipulative votes. Cheating and manipulating has to be insiders. See what I mean? Her reform would actaully make it worse than before.

Malone says she has experience with outside sites, other sites than ours. In those sites, she claims, the votes don't seem to be so manipulative. Her idea is, the fact of the prizes, the injection of real money into the Literotica contests, which happen at least monthly, has made Lit voters, on the whole, as compared to other sites, more calculating and goal-oriented. Malone wants to say that we have a unique problem because the voting/rating votes (no money involved) are polluted by the contest votes (where all the cheating occurs, because the stakes are suddenly higher).

That's why she proposes that contests, i.e., money, be decided in a way that keeps partisan voting from skewing the totals.

But really, I could care. I hate the contests, and do not write for them any more.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I'd like to know what those sites are! I'd gladly join them, and cross-post everything...

 

[sophia jane]

It's been said before on other similar threads, but I want to say it again. Yeah, the voting system can be a little off or unfair or unpredictable. But you know what? I'm thankful that there's a place I can submit my writing and people read it. I never, ever thought anyone would want to read the stuff I write. Lit has been a blessing to me, and I'm thankful for it, flaws and all.

As for contests, in some ways they can be unfair, but I have to say that there have been many contests where the best pieces won. For example, the Halloween contest- how many people said that Rob absolutely deserved to win? And he did. Are all contests fair? No. But are most of them? They're close enough that I keep entering. Besides, whether I win or lose or whatever, contests are fun.

 

[cantdog]

You have such a forgiving spirit. I may have been soured by working for twenty years in city government. Possibly. When I saw the scores being skewed before my eyes, the last time I was in a contest, it just made me decide not to place myself in a position to have to see that again. Venal people disgust me when they cheat in a competition.

 

[rick_oh]

[snip]
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be unkind, and I hope no one will take it that way, it’s just that the readers here have been generous enough to not only read what I’ve written but they have been kind enough to take the time to write to me with intelligent, insightful, and often anonymous feedback.
[snip]
*waving* Hello, my Pasha! It's good to see you!

You have been fortunate. The system in place would be perfect if no one abused it. Many readers indeed have been kind to write me with intelligent and constructive feedback, even most of the anonymous ones. There is one individual, and I believe I now know who it is, who (ab)used the literotica feedback system to send destructive, hateful, and vile messages, of practically all my stories, until I turned off anonymous feedback. I have enough self-confidence to know that my stories are very much liked by a lot of readers; but I could not keep facilitating the troll's abuse by leaving anon feedback on.

 

[BlackShanglan]

That's the rub of any rationally constructed system for dealing with humans. You're irrational little blighters at heart.