Here's a good idea about the red H

[Voboy]

I'm doing this manually in my author page which is real clunky - it feels like the entire thing needs an overhaul, which at the end of the day should lift site traffic and increase $$$ - since better pages -> more relevant story choices -> higher dwell time. It'd be great to do a redesign.

I maintain a separate document that shows how all my stories are related, then I post a note in my bio telling people to reach out through the feedback button if they want a copy. I get about one request a month, maybe a bit less.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

What would be really neat is if the AUTHOR themselves got a red H based on the average rating of all their stories. That way, you could look at a story list and see the authors who are generally racking up the high ratings and are probably worth a read, regardless of what rating the actual story is. It gives authors who are doing consistently good work a way to stand out, which should help readers select stories more effectively too, given that the red H is the most objective measure of story quality, of course.

(Fire in the hole )

First off, I think most authors would agree that this isn't a great idea... Considering the fact that many of the most popular authors (by any and all metrics) already think that the regular red H is in some regards superfluous and irrelevant.

That's said, I personally (through sheer dumb luck) would end up with an author's H so I think it's a FANTASTIC IDEA WOOOOOOOO!!!!


All jokes aside, it only takes one click to look at an author's work's page, and you'll see an ocean of red H's if they're popular.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yes, and to keep adding endless numbers of repetitive chapters to a long series, because you'll keep giving your small but fanatical story fan base exactly what it wants to keep reading.

I really don't think that the author of Anal Incest Stepmom Chapter 35 will decide to write a sensitive lesbian love story because chapter 34 got a higher score.

 

[SimonDoom]

I really don't think that the author of Anal Incest Stepmom Chapter 35 will decide to write a sensitive lesbian love story because chapter 34 got a higher score.

That doesn't rebut my point.

The point is that the red H incentivizes the author to keep writing more chapters of the Anal Incest Stepmom story (assuming its chapter scores are over 4.5) because there's an excellent chance the chapters will keep getting higher and higher scores, so the author's story average and author average will keep going up. That has nothing to do with quality, inhibits creativity, and conveys no useful information to potential readers.

 

[MelissaBaby]

That doesn't rebut my point.

Not tying to rebut it, just wondering why it matters. If somebody wants to write a two hundred chapter story, who cares?

 

[MelissaBaby]

All jokes aside, it only takes one click to look at an author's work's page, and you'll see an ocean of red H's if they're popular.

I'm not popular, but I've got enough red H's to give them out for Halloween.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I'm not popular, but I've got enough red H's to give them out for Halloween.

If you don't consider yourself popular, then I suppose we just disagree on the definition of "popular"

 

[SimonDoom]

Not tying to rebut it, just wondering why it matters. If somebody wants to write a two hundred chapter story, who cares?

It feels like you are deliberately misunderstanding what I'm saying. It's not complicated.

There's nothing wrong with writing a story with many chapters. I've never said that, and that's very obviously not what I mean. But there IS a problem with a scoring/rating system that artificially incentivizes people to do so because writing stories like that will net higher scores that have nothing to do with quality.

 

[MelissaBaby]

If you don't consider yourself popular, then I suppose we just disagree on the definition of "popular"

Thank you, but after almost six years, I only have 600 followers, and my most popular story has only 40k views. I have to say, though, my comment was just meant as a self deprecating joke.

 

[MelissaBaby]

It feels like you are deliberately misunderstanding what I'm saying. It's not complicated.

There's nothing wrong with writing a story with many chapters. I've never said that, and that's very obviously not what I mean. But there IS a problem with a scoring/rating system that artificially incentivizes people to do so because writing stories like that will net higher scores that have nothing to do with quality.

I don't think I'm misunderstanding, deliberately or otherwise. I'm sorry if it came off like that.

I am just very skeptical that anybody who writes really long series does so for scores. I think they are much more likely to either be obsessed with their subject or so engrossed with their storyline that they just keep going.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

A red H, is not something I consider when searching for stories to read.
I have found time and again, that the red H means very little.
I look for stories that have been highly favoured.
The two, don't always align.
Votes can be targeted, I'm not sure about favourited?
Just my thoughts.

Cagivagurl.

Yep. As I found out today.

ALL of HAF was 1-bombed into oblivion today which is really disappointing. After spending that long on something that’s about 90,000 words it’s crushing that sone bellend can just shit on your work and on your day (parts 6 and 4 were SO close to a red H).

 

[NotWise]

@Bramblethorn - maybe I've been trying to get my head around the HSC computation mechanism. I'm sure we could apply it to Lit rankings somehow. It's essentially a similar problem.

Unless you came up with the HSC? In which case....

Did I miss something? What is HSC?

I looked it up, and there's a predictably large number of possibilities. I liked Hierarchical Spectral Clustering. No idea what that is, but it sounds like some kind of image analysis.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The motivation to write long, chaptered series comes from a variety of reasons, in my opinion.

1. Author gets attached to his/her own characters and the world he has built and doesn't want to end the journey.
This reason takes more than 90% of my own motivation to write such stories. I want to keep expanding that world, to create something complex and immersive. I want to add more characters and events, I want to try to intertwine them in complex ways, as hard as that can be, and as much as I often question my own abilities to achieve that.

2. Author wants to attract readers into the world he created and to achieve a good following of paying customers. I've seen plenty of Patreon authors who do this exact thing. It is probably easier to make readers ask for more stories that contain characters and the world they grew to like over time. It is sound commercial reasoning, in my opinion.

These two reasons stand out to me, based on my own reasons, but also judging by the words and actions of some other authors of chaptered stories. There are probably many more reasons that other authors could name. Yet I really doubt ratings are one such reason. There are far easier ways of indulging the readership in order to achieve good ratings than writing chaptered stories. Are chaptered stories' ratings objective? No way, but the same goes for every other type of story one can find on Lit.

Also, OP, I really hate your idea. It would be one more colorful, but ultimately meaningless way to distinguish between authors. It would also lead to more "rating" oriented stories, which can't possibly be a good thing.

 

[Cagivagurl]

In my humble opinion...
If you are writing, searching for high scores, and red H's.
You have completely missed the point.
Write what you like... Tell the story that is tangling your stomach in knots.
It might not score well, it might not resonate with a huge crowd, but if it felt good to write, then you are already a winner.

Accolades and applause are nice to get, but remember. We do this for free... For fun, and enjoyment...

Cagivagurl.

 

[Voboy]

I wrote my open-ended SF series because I kept enjoying writing it. So as long as new plots kept occurring to me, I wrote 'em down. People seemed to eat it up, which gratifies me; I like the stories, so I'm glad others do also.

Of course I noticed the scores, rising improbably higher with every passing chapter. Of course I understood that, with around 2-3k views per [later] chapter, I wasn't really "reaching out" to a vast horde of new readers. Of course I grasped what those numbers told me... but when I kept writing, I didn't do it for Red Hs.

I will admit that if I'd posted a chapter that would have failed to earn a Red H, or even failed to score over 4.7 or so, it would have been something I'd have noticed. But like Melissa was saying above, I've got plenty of Red Hs. I love getting them, but they don't motivate me per se.

I still get emails, about once every three weeks or so, wondering why I ended the series. Again, that's very gratifying. And I know another chapter would score well. But, again, that's not enough motivation.

As for the OP's idea? I'm not sure it's necessary, and off the top of my head I can think of ways it could be gamed anyway.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't think I'm misunderstanding, deliberately or otherwise. I'm sorry if it came off like that.

I am just very skeptical that anybody who writes really long series does so for scores. I think they are much more likely to either be obsessed with their subject or so engrossed with their storyline that they just keep going.

Fair enough. This is a hard thing to prove, although that's true of just about anything else one might try to predict from a change in the system. All we have to go on in this modest evidence we have and logical inferences about what people are likely to do in response to this or that change.

Incentives matter at the margins. They don't affect everybody, but I've seen enough evidence of things people say in this forum and enough evidence of interminable series that go on indefinitely (yours wasn't like that--it had a story arc and beginning and ending) that I think some people do act this way. They cling to a certain way of doing things, rather than taking more chances, to maximize scores. But it's hard to prove.

 

[oneagainst]

Did I miss something? What is HSC?

Higher School Certificate in Australia. It's a multi dimensional framework for ranking high school students, e.g. ATAR, which seeks to control for disparities such as difficulty of chosen subjects etc. and is ironically only understandable by those who get a score of 99.95 anyway.

This unexpectedly from a country who named a sandstone rock formation that looks like a crashing wave as Wave Rock, or a town next to a red hill as... yup... Red Hill.

 

[oneagainst]

4. The red H disincentivizes authors from taking creative risks, from writing 750-word stories, and from writing in categories that tend to score more poorly. It's bad for story variety and creativity.

I disagree... the reason I proposed it is precisely because of this. I think the opposite is true in the current system, ie why take a chance in LW or some other new category to score a 3.4? My last foray, I split the chapters out across multiple categories because that's where they fit, breaking new ground and as a "fresh" author in each category, I took the chance and my scores suffered for it.

An author red H incentivises you to take a chance, knowing that there is an indicator that while you're new in the category, you're probably worth a look. It shows new readers the standard you maintain overall....

 

[Bramblethorn]

Did I miss something? What is HSC?

I looked it up, and there's a predictably large number of possibilities. I liked Hierarchical Spectral Clustering. No idea what that is, but it sounds like some kind of image analysis.

Higher School Certificate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_School_Certificate_(New_South_Wales)

It's used to calculate university admissions scores from a combination of in-school assessments and an external exam, with a complicated scaling system because not everybody's doing the same subjects and because it needs to moderate marks given by different schools for the in-school assessment component.

 

[ishtat]

I have a submission which in more than a year has only had 258 views and obviously no red, green or blue anything. There are a few red thingies on the list but '258 views' ! It's hard to get excited about any system with a result like that.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

First off, I think most authors would agree that this isn't a great idea... Considering the fact that many of the most popular authors (by any and all metrics) already think that the regular red H is in some regards superfluous and irrelevant.

That's said, I personally (through sheer dumb luck) would end up with an author's H so I think it's a FANTASTIC IDEA WOOOOOOOO!!!!


All jokes aside, it only takes one click to look at an author's work's page, and you'll see an ocean of red H's if they're popular.

Unless someone one-bombs every single chapter of all your stories two days in a row.

Then that elusive red H will never appear and the two you did have will fade like lettering on a cheaply-made T-shirt.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I have a submission which in more than a year has only had 258 views and obviously no red, green or blue anything. There are a few red thingies on the list but '258 views' ! It's hard to get excited about any system with a result like that.

I think for a writer of non-erotic poetry, who posts on an erotica site, you should count each of those 258 as an enormous win.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Unless someone one-bombs every single chapter of all your stories two days in a row.

Then that elusive red H will never appear and the two you did have will fade like lettering on a cheaply-made T-shirt.

Well yeah. Obviously.

I already said that I only got my  H 's through sheer luck. Obviously if someone uno-bombs all my stories then I'll lose all of my red H's.

I don't understand your point.

[Edit: Was your comment a lament concerning your experience with the uno-bombing of Hot and Fuzzy that you mentioned earlier? If so, then I do understand, and yes... I know that's a miserable experience.]

 

[ishtat]

I think for a writer of non-erotic poetry, who posts on an erotica site, you should count each of those 258 as an enormous win.

Yes it does seem odd, but 15 to 20 years ago Lit had a surprising number of active poets some of whom were very good. Lit gave them access to a larger audience not found elsewhere. They have thinned out a bit in recent years but a few stalwarts remain.

If you want erotic poetry, try my "Dasiy's Critique of Sexist Language". This bovine criticism of Shakespeare might appeal to the modern hobby farmer!

 

[Rob_Royale]

Yes it does seem odd, but 15 to 20 years ago Lit had a surprising number of active poets some of whom were very good. Lit gave them access to a larger audience not found elsewhere. They have thinned out a bit in recent years but a few stalwarts remain.

If you want erotic poetry, try my "Dasiy's Critique of Sexist Language". This bovine criticism of Shakespeare might appeal to the modern hobby farmer!

And this is why we just sold our cows! They are so touchy!
That was quite humorous. Very good! And thanks for bothering to look at my profile!