JamesSD
Back, at least for now?
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2004
- Posts
- 2,461
I'm a scientist by trade and a stats junkie at heart. I love how literotica compiles stats for stories. There is a goldmine of information available if you know how to glean it.
I set out to figure out how rare the red "H" for Hot stories (stories w/at least 10 votes and an average score of 4.5 or better) is, and how category affects voting. In science we like to give away our answers at the start and then spend the rest of the space trying to defend our arguement, unlike literature which often saves a bit of suspense for the end. So, the answers are: Roughly 1 in 3 stories will garner the H, and Romance has the highest rate by far of all measurably categories.
Methodology:
On April 25th, 2005 I went through the "new" stories for the past week as linked off of the main page and counted the number of stories from each category and how many were "hot" at the time of counting. New stories were used as it seemed the most apt way of getting a random sampling of "typical" stories and also allowed comparisons of the number of stories posted in different categories. One potential drawback is that new stories may not have "matured" fully and could reflect discrepencies in reader voting trends between those who read the new story list and those who vote later if they like an author or find the story some other way. Still, personal experience has told me that well over half of the votes for a given story will occur while it is on the new list, and that scores tend to stay pretty stable after the first 20-odd votes.
Results:
Of 348 stories posted that week, 117 were rated as "hot", giving a percentage of 33.62%. This number rounds nicely to an approximation of 1 in 3.
Hot Categories:
Discerning the effect of category was more difficult than anticipated due to small sample size in the more niche categories. Still, voting trends clearly emerge. 13 categories had at least 10 stories posted during the sample period. Of the smaller categories only two fell outside of what I'd call "average" and I will address those categories separately.
Romance has an amazing rate of "hot" stories, with 12 of 16 posted. This breaks down to 75%. The only categories that came even close were Incest/Taboo with 19 of 34 (55.8%) Hot and Transexuals/Cross Dressers which only had 7 stories, 4 of which were Hot for 57.1%. However, Transsexual's numbers were likely skewed by a rather popular serial story, the chapters of which represented 2 of 3 hot stories in the category.
Of the categories with at least ten stories, Erotic Couplings, Non-consent/Reluctance, Celebrities and BDSM posted the lowest hot %, with Erotic couplings doing the best at 22.5% and BDSM with the lowest at 18.75%. Sci Fi/Fantasy posted only 1 in 7 hot, which is a small sample size. Still, it seems reasonable to me that Sci Fi audiences would be difficult to please, likely requiring enjoyment of both the setting and the sexual encounter(s) to give a high score. Non-consent didn't surprise me because it can be a touchy subject even among those who enjoy taboo. I've noticed Celebrities often attracts more than its fair share of poor authors (though it does have some excellent ones as all categories do), and it may also have difficulty in portraying the subject whom the audience has preconcieved notions about in a way that pleases them. BDSM is an extremely difficult category to write in, and probably encounters personal taste issues such as level of extremeness and who is the dominant partner.
Erotic Couplings is a bit of a surprise as it tends to be a bit of a "catch-all" category and represented the largest number of stories, 40. One would expect that these facts would drive it straight to the middle of the field, so it's interesting it fell so far. My guess is that because it is so broad a category it probably has a large readership with broad interests. This might explain difficulties in completely satisfying a high percentage of the readers.
Number of stories posted
The top ten most prevalent categories in order were
Erotic Couplings
Incest
BDSM
Loving Wives
Group Sex
Non consent
Novels
Romance
Exhibitionism
Gay
Lesbian
Fetish
Celebrities
With the other categories all posting under ten stories. It's difficult to say much about it without introducing a large degree of personal bias, but I will say it struck me how prevalent incest stories are in addition to posting a high "hot" percentage. Incest fantasies may in fact be quite common, although incest may also benefit in terms of hot % from being a category that those who don't enjoy will largely stay away from.
Conclusions
Approximately 1 in 3 stories posted on Literotica will have the Hot "H" while on the New stories list. Of the Literotica categories, Romance and Incest/taboo post significantly higher rates of "hot" stories than other categories.
I hope you found my little pseudo-scientific data collection amusing if not interesting. I may follow-up if time permits, as I have interest in collecting a larger sample to really analyze the smaller categories.
I set out to figure out how rare the red "H" for Hot stories (stories w/at least 10 votes and an average score of 4.5 or better) is, and how category affects voting. In science we like to give away our answers at the start and then spend the rest of the space trying to defend our arguement, unlike literature which often saves a bit of suspense for the end. So, the answers are: Roughly 1 in 3 stories will garner the H, and Romance has the highest rate by far of all measurably categories.
Methodology:
On April 25th, 2005 I went through the "new" stories for the past week as linked off of the main page and counted the number of stories from each category and how many were "hot" at the time of counting. New stories were used as it seemed the most apt way of getting a random sampling of "typical" stories and also allowed comparisons of the number of stories posted in different categories. One potential drawback is that new stories may not have "matured" fully and could reflect discrepencies in reader voting trends between those who read the new story list and those who vote later if they like an author or find the story some other way. Still, personal experience has told me that well over half of the votes for a given story will occur while it is on the new list, and that scores tend to stay pretty stable after the first 20-odd votes.
Results:
Of 348 stories posted that week, 117 were rated as "hot", giving a percentage of 33.62%. This number rounds nicely to an approximation of 1 in 3.
Hot Categories:
Discerning the effect of category was more difficult than anticipated due to small sample size in the more niche categories. Still, voting trends clearly emerge. 13 categories had at least 10 stories posted during the sample period. Of the smaller categories only two fell outside of what I'd call "average" and I will address those categories separately.
Romance has an amazing rate of "hot" stories, with 12 of 16 posted. This breaks down to 75%. The only categories that came even close were Incest/Taboo with 19 of 34 (55.8%) Hot and Transexuals/Cross Dressers which only had 7 stories, 4 of which were Hot for 57.1%. However, Transsexual's numbers were likely skewed by a rather popular serial story, the chapters of which represented 2 of 3 hot stories in the category.
Of the categories with at least ten stories, Erotic Couplings, Non-consent/Reluctance, Celebrities and BDSM posted the lowest hot %, with Erotic couplings doing the best at 22.5% and BDSM with the lowest at 18.75%. Sci Fi/Fantasy posted only 1 in 7 hot, which is a small sample size. Still, it seems reasonable to me that Sci Fi audiences would be difficult to please, likely requiring enjoyment of both the setting and the sexual encounter(s) to give a high score. Non-consent didn't surprise me because it can be a touchy subject even among those who enjoy taboo. I've noticed Celebrities often attracts more than its fair share of poor authors (though it does have some excellent ones as all categories do), and it may also have difficulty in portraying the subject whom the audience has preconcieved notions about in a way that pleases them. BDSM is an extremely difficult category to write in, and probably encounters personal taste issues such as level of extremeness and who is the dominant partner.
Erotic Couplings is a bit of a surprise as it tends to be a bit of a "catch-all" category and represented the largest number of stories, 40. One would expect that these facts would drive it straight to the middle of the field, so it's interesting it fell so far. My guess is that because it is so broad a category it probably has a large readership with broad interests. This might explain difficulties in completely satisfying a high percentage of the readers.
Number of stories posted
The top ten most prevalent categories in order were
Erotic Couplings
Incest
BDSM
Loving Wives
Group Sex
Non consent
Novels
Romance
Exhibitionism
Gay
Lesbian
Fetish
Celebrities
With the other categories all posting under ten stories. It's difficult to say much about it without introducing a large degree of personal bias, but I will say it struck me how prevalent incest stories are in addition to posting a high "hot" percentage. Incest fantasies may in fact be quite common, although incest may also benefit in terms of hot % from being a category that those who don't enjoy will largely stay away from.
Conclusions
Approximately 1 in 3 stories posted on Literotica will have the Hot "H" while on the New stories list. Of the Literotica categories, Romance and Incest/taboo post significantly higher rates of "hot" stories than other categories.
I hope you found my little pseudo-scientific data collection amusing if not interesting. I may follow-up if time permits, as I have interest in collecting a larger sample to really analyze the smaller categories.
