Most Frequently Similar on Lesbian Sex stories

[8letters]

When you get to the end of a story, there's a box with five "Similar Stories". I had no clue as to how that list was generated. So I pulled the Similar Stories for almost all the Lesbian Sex stories. I now know more about Similar Stories, but am also highly confused
* It seems to have something to do with favoriting, with more favorited stories appearing sort of more often as a Similar Story
* If a story has no favorites, it can sometimes have no Similar Stories (or sometimes they can)
* Stories out of the Lesbian Sex category are sometimes given as Similar Stories (e.g. "The Newlin's, Marcie & Mark Pt. 01" and "Owning My Friend's Mom")
* All stories have five Similar Stories, except for the one that had three
* The Similar Stories must change over time because for one story I checked, stories published prior to it had it as a Similar Story. I have no idea how often they change
* There are so many stories on this list that don't seem to belong there or are out of order

[tr][td].[/td][td].[/td][td]

Appeared​

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As​

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# of​

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.​

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Date​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Story[/td][td]Author[/td][td]

Similar​

[/td][td]

Favorites​

[/td][td]

Rating​

[/td][td]

Published​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Lovers Without Realizing It[/td][td]RedEmerald[/td][td]

4852​

[/td][td]

2470​

[/td][td]

4.83​

[/td][td]

3/15/09​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]A Proper Send-off[/td][td]SweetestThing[/td][td]

2450​

[/td][td]

1999​

[/td][td]

4.85​

[/td][td]

11/12/11​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Bedding the Babysitter Ch. 01[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

2368​

[/td][td]

1134​

[/td][td]

4.62​

[/td][td]

9/19/10​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Case of the Sneaky Valentine[/td][td]ScattySue[/td][td]

2058​

[/td][td]

860​

[/td][td]

4.87​

[/td][td]

1/24/15​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Could You Be Mine?[/td][td]careythomas[/td][td]

1500​

[/td][td]

552​

[/td][td]

4.86​

[/td][td]

4/6/18​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Like A Secret Being Told[/td][td]subtleperfume[/td][td]

1480​

[/td][td]

1047​

[/td][td]

4.84​

[/td][td]

6/23/10​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]My Ex-Boyfriend’s Hot Mom[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

1451​

[/td][td]

425​

[/td][td]

4.67​

[/td][td]

10/5/16​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Her Best Friend's Daughter[/td][td]lovecraft68[/td][td]

1323​

[/td][td]

586​

[/td][td]

4.76​

[/td][td]

2/28/14​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Mechanic[/td][td]Salandar[/td][td]

763​

[/td][td]

333​

[/td][td]

4.86​

[/td][td]

2/14/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Double Blind Date[/td][td]YKN4949[/td][td]

761​

[/td][td]

698​

[/td][td]

4.82​

[/td][td]

8/14/14​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]A Lesbian Love Story- of Sorts[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

713​

[/td][td]

595​

[/td][td]

4.75​

[/td][td]

1/20/11​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Teen Turns: Boyfriend’s Mom[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

711​

[/td][td]

336​

[/td][td]

4.60​

[/td][td]

1/5/17​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Nanny Sarah[/td][td]JCMcNeilly[/td][td]

672​

[/td][td]

358​

[/td][td]

4.85​

[/td][td]

4/8/20​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]A Benign Something[/td][td]jtmalone70[/td][td]

671​

[/td][td]

996​

[/td][td]

4.80​

[/td][td]

10/23/05​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]What She Wants Is You[/td][td]exquisitelifetime[/td][td]

588​

[/td][td]

35​

[/td][td]

4.17​

[/td][td]

4/20/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]When You're Near Me[/td][td]StormyNite[/td][td]

566​

[/td][td]

891​

[/td][td]

4.79​

[/td][td]

8/9/06​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Lesbian MILF Seductress: 30th B'day[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

557​

[/td][td]

146​

[/td][td]

4.64​

[/td][td]

6/4/15​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Straight Bride Seduced[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

534​

[/td][td]

326​

[/td][td]

4.61​

[/td][td]

2/7/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Turning Contest: A Beautiful Blonde[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

525​

[/td][td]

301​

[/td][td]

4.63​

[/td][td]

12/11/15​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Unexpected Lust[/td][td]stepjones[/td][td]

521​

[/td][td]

320​

[/td][td]

4.74​

[/td][td]

9/19/05​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Hiding from Herself[/td][td]eclecticdreamer[/td][td]

501​

[/td][td]

616​

[/td][td]

4.78​

[/td][td]

8/19/05​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Not a Home[/td][td]dysphemist[/td][td]

497​

[/td][td]

386​

[/td][td]

4.79​

[/td][td]

11/18/05​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Secret Kisses[/td][td]stepjones[/td][td]

486​

[/td][td]

525​

[/td][td]

4.73​

[/td][td]

5/25/05​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Wife, the Artichoke, and Jade[/td][td]pussytigress[/td][td]

478​

[/td][td]

15​

[/td][td]

4.22​

[/td][td]

4/21/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Spring of 1984[/td][td]Silkyvi[/td][td]

478​

[/td][td]

31​

[/td][td]

4.63​

[/td][td]

4/18/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]My Best Friend's Mom[/td][td]Reverse_Cowboy[/td][td]

470​

[/td][td]

393​

[/td][td]

4.67​

[/td][td]

10/7/05​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]A New Kind of Love[/td][td]ImSoGay[/td][td]

442​

[/td][td]

497​

[/td][td]

4.80​

[/td][td]

10/22/12​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Her Best Friend For Christmas[/td][td]lovecraft68[/td][td]

431​

[/td][td]

424​

[/td][td]

4.81​

[/td][td]

11/28/14​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Hidden Beauty[/td][td]Alex the Cat[/td][td]

411​

[/td][td]

457​

[/td][td]

4.85​

[/td][td]

3/18/13​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Church Girl: 1 Perfect Turn[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

406​

[/td][td]

400​

[/td][td]

4.65​

[/td][td]

7/3/17​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Newlin's, Marcie & Mark Pt. 01[/td][td]Grouchojim[/td][td]

403​

[/td][td]

.​

[/td][td]

.​

[/td][td]

.​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]I Dare You[/td][td]bi_cathy[/td][td]

384​

[/td][td]

538​

[/td][td]

4.87​

[/td][td]

4/20/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Church Lady Comes to my Door[/td][td]CABONE[/td][td]

383​

[/td][td]

310​

[/td][td]

4.70​

[/td][td]

10/7/12​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Return of Dr. Mecuniam[/td][td]Drmaxc[/td][td]

372​

[/td][td]

5​

[/td][td]

3.67​

[/td][td]

4/18/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Lesbian 101[/td][td]lingual_arousal[/td][td]

371​

[/td][td]

152​

[/td][td]

4.77​

[/td][td]

2/23/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Seduced By The Woman Next Door[/td][td]Cagivagurl[/td][td]

343​

[/td][td]

131​

[/td][td]

4.52​

[/td][td]

7/12/20​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]My One True Christmas Wish[/td][td]loverofFUN[/td][td]

331​

[/td][td]

545​

[/td][td]

4.86​

[/td][td]

12/7/15​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Home[/td][td]Han_cg[/td][td]

330​

[/td][td]

342​

[/td][td]

4.87​

[/td][td]

11/2/17​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]MILF TURNS: Daughter’s Best Friend[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

329​

[/td][td]

182​

[/td][td]

4.60​

[/td][td]

3/1/18​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Tricked into Lesbian Submission[/td][td]silkstockingslover[/td][td]

298​

[/td][td]

423​

[/td][td]

4.59​

[/td][td]

3/19/15​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]The Tennis Star Ch. 01[/td][td]JCMcNeilly[/td][td]

295​

[/td][td]

231​

[/td][td]

4.85​

[/td][td]

7/19/19​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Straight Girl Problems[/td][td]SolarRay[/td][td]

292​

[/td][td]

275​

[/td][td]

4.81​

[/td][td]

7/5/18​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Evergreen Kiss[/td][td]Salish[/td][td]

287​

[/td][td]

432​

[/td][td]

4.85​

[/td][td]

1/24/14​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]A Ghost of a Chance[/td][td]careythomas[/td][td]

277​

[/td][td]

412​

[/td][td]

4.90​

[/td][td]

11/16/17​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]As The Professor Speaks[/td][td]HeyAll[/td][td]

272​

[/td][td]

260​

[/td][td]

4.76​

[/td][td]

1/25/17​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Owning My Friend's Mom[/td][td]MrCreator[/td][td]

271​

[/td][td]

.​

[/td][td]

.​

[/td][td]

.​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]I Kissed a Girl Ch. 01[/td][td]secretsxywriter[/td][td]

270​

[/td][td]

249​

[/td][td]

4.71​

[/td][td]

4/23/12​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]House of Lana's Breast Milk[/td][td]HeyAll[/td][td]

266​

[/td][td]

293​

[/td][td]

4.68​

[/td][td]

5/31/17​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Hero Worship Pt. 01[/td][td]JCMcNeilly[/td][td]

261​

[/td][td]

218​

[/td][td]

4.90​

[/td][td]

12/26/20​

[/td][/tr][tr][td]Friend Helping a Friend[/td][td]Kala Hill[/td][td]

261​

[/td][td]

405​

[/td][td]

4.62​

[/td][td]

11/11/00​

[/td][/tr]

 

[rescatooor]

Huh. I would have thought it was mostly based on tags and category. And maybe length, to an extent.

 

[jehoram]

Presumably the mods are using some sort of algorithm for it, although ratings and number of favorite tags have a big influence.

The "Similar Stories" category has never made much sense to me. I can go to my own stories and when I read some of the stories they list as similar, I don't see a lot of resemblance. Maybe if you write a story in the lesbian category that uses the word "cunt" or "snatch" or "tit" a lot, stories that use those terms instead of "pussy" or "vulva" or "breast" will be tagged as more similar. But that's just speculation.

 

[HectorBidon]

The issue of Similar Stories was discussed here. A good guess is that before a story is favorited, its Similar Stories list is based on tags. Afterwards it's drawn from the lists of favorites of the users who favorited the story.

My final take-away was along these lines:

The "similar" lists are valuable from a reader's point of view. At worst they mean that at least one reader liked both stories. At best they mean that several readers did. I've certainly found stories I've enjoyed from "similar" lists.

They're also valuable from an author's point of view as advertisements. The way to get your stories onto other stories' "similar" lists would seem to be to write stories that are popular and to develop your fan base.

[P.S. to 8letters: on my browser, your table is separated from the body of your post by a lot of blank lines. You can get rid of them by getting rid of all the hard line breaks in your v8 code, turning it into a single long paragraph. That's a pain, though, because it makes the vB code so painful to edit. You probably already know that, and that's why you didn't do it.]

 

[8letters]

[P.S. to 8letters: on my browser, your table is separated from the body of your post by a lot of blank lines. You can get rid of them by getting rid of all the hard line breaks in your v8 code, turning it into a single long paragraph. That's a pain, though, because it makes the vB code so painful to edit. You probably already know that, and that's why you didn't do it.]

I didn't know that. I've corrected this table

 

[8letters]

Bottom line: the "similar" lists are valuable from a reader's point of view. At worst they mean that at least one reader (although perhaps a wildly eclectic one) liked both stories. At best they mean that several readers did. I've certainly found stories I've enjoyed from "similar" lists.

That's not true. Let's take SamuelX's Muslim Lesbian Queens of Ottawa (Note: THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION). It has been favorited by two readers, Darksun1237 and CharlotteLAkitty. A Similar Story is SamuelX's Emmanuella Tilahun of Israel, which was favorited by irishsexstorylover and NYcastaway. So no overlap in people who have favorited the story. Note: those two stories have four tags in common (out of 7 and 8) and the same author.

Another combination - Becca XXX: Dangerous Cargo Ch. 05 has The Sorceress and The Maiden as a Similar Story, despite "The Sorceress and The Maiden" having no favorites and no tags in common. And the author of "The Sorceress and The Maiden" has no followers, so no overlap in followers of the author.

They're also valuable from an author's point of view as advertisements. The way to get your stories onto other stories' "similar" lists would seem to be to write stories that are popular and to develop your fan base.

I agree that getting onto other stories' "similar" lists is great advertising for an author. I've been emailing recently with someone who is not an I/T reader. One of my stories came up as a similar story on a non-I/T story that they were reading, they thought the title and description, and they clicked on the link to read my story. But how an author gets their story onto the Similar Story lists of other stories is not at all clear.

 

[SimonDoom]

The issue of Similar Stories was discussed here. A good guess is that before a story is favorited, its Similar Stories list is based on tags. Afterwards it's drawn from the lists of favorites of the users who favorited the story.

My final take-away was along these lines:



[P.S. to 8letters: on my browser, your table is separated from the body of your post by a lot of blank lines. You can get rid of them by getting rid of all the hard line breaks in your v8 code, turning it into a single long paragraph. That's a pain, though, because it makes the vB code so painful to edit. You probably already know that, and that's why you didn't do it.]

In my opinion, from the little data I have, the Similar Stories feature is a somewhat overlooked and underrated feature for getting recognized and read. From what I have observed, it's a big deal if you can get your story on these lists.

 

[HeyAll]

I've always thought the Similar Stories were based on tags.

For my detective stories, it recommends my mother detective stories, because I use the same tags.

 

[HectorBidon]

The tag- and favorites-based rules I suggested by which Similar Stories might be chosen were based on an admittedly small sample of stories. They fit all the stories I checked, but your examples show that there are some stories they don't fit.

As far as Muslim Lesbian Queens, it's fairly recent (less than three months old). Maybe it still has the tag-based Similar Stories list it was given when it was first posted. The site probably only updates the Similar Stories lists every so often. The only way to know for sure, I suppose, would be to follow a few stories over time and see when their Similar Story lists are updated.

The entry for Dangerous Cargo Ch. 05, though, is certainly mystifying. DC5 is four months old, but The Sorceress and The Maiden is only one month old. That means that DC5's list must have been updated within the last month. But as you point out, there are no common favorites or tags. So how was it chosen?

When I was doing my checking, I came across one pair of stories in which the shared tag was "collar." One of the stories was in BDSM and the other was a non-erotic how-to about walking dogs. That led me to believe that the selection process is probably automatic without any real human understanding of the stories involved.

If you think about it, it's a pretty daunting task. Every day, the site has to come up with Similar Stories lists for over 100 new stories, and every so often it has to update the lists of hundreds of thousands of stories. I still think it's probably mostly automatic and probably mostly based on tags and Favorites Lists. But exactly when and how it's done, and what additional factors may be involved, still remains unclear.

 

[HectorBidon]

BTW, kudos for your table! It must have taken a gargantuan effort. There are currently about 18,970 stories in the Lesbian category, As I understand it, you pulled up the Similar Stories lists for (almost) every single one of them and sorted out the resulting 94,850-or-so entries to compile the table. Sheesh!

If I understand correctly, 4852 of the stories have Lovers without realizing it on their Similar Stories lists. That's a full quarter of all the stories in the category! Not even Mail Pouch got that kind of advertising.

Also, I presume that the table only shows the top 50 stories, and that there were stories that appeared less than 260 times but are not shown. Did you happen to check whether every story in the Lesbian category appeared at least once? That could be another factor in the selection process: proactively putting stories on SS lists rather than just randomly picking them.

I agree with you and Simon that having stories on a Similar Stories list is a powerful way to attract readers. Of all my older stories, there are a few that consistently get the most attention in terms of comments and favoriting. The only thing I can figure is that they must be on SS lists, although I have no way of knowing for sure how many SS lists any of them are on.

I would imagine that there is potential for a positive feedback loop too. A story on an SS list will attract more readers, which will lead to it being favorited more, which will lead to it appearing on more SS lists. Of course, the story has to have something going for it in the first place to get the feedback loop started.

So, basically, I think that from a reader's point of view, the Similar Stories lists serve a useful purpose. They sometimes provide stories that are similar and often provide stories that are popular.

From an author's point of view they do provide advertising, although the author doesn't have much control over which stories are highlighted or how much highlighting they receive.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think 8letters should ask for a job here.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's not true. Let's take SamuelX's Muslim Lesbian Queens of Ottawa (Note: THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION). It has been favorited by two readers, Darksun1237 and CharlotteLAkitty. A Similar Story is SamuelX's Emmanuella Tilahun of Israel, which was favorited by irishsexstorylover and NYcastaway. So no overlap in people who have favorited the story. Note: those two stories have four tags in common (out of 7 and 8) and the same author.

Another combination - Becca XXX: Dangerous Cargo Ch. 05 has The Sorceress and The Maiden as a Similar Story, despite "The Sorceress and The Maiden" having no favorites and no tags in common. And the author of "The Sorceress and The Maiden" has no followers, so no overlap in followers of the author.

I thought I'd take a look at a few stories rated 1.00 and see how "similar stories" work for those. Not gonna name names but there's an author on this site who has quite a few 1.00s.

Of their 1.00s, some have no tags (I hadn't realised that was even possible) and no favourites. These have no "similar stories" suggested at all - which suggests that the the algorithm depends on some combination of votes, tags, and/or favourites, and that it has no fall-back beyond those. (I had wondered if it was looking for text similarities within stories, but this suggests that it's not.)

Of the ones that do have Similar Stories suggested:

Story #1:
- rating 1.00
- no favourites
- only one tag, "bisexual" (which isn't actually a major point in the story AFAICT)
- posted in Non-Erotic

"similar stories":
- one each in GS, SF/F, BDSM, IR, Fetish
- no common authors
- four are tagged "bisexual"
- the other one isn't tagged "bisexual", but that word appears both in the blurb and in the first sentence.
- on skimming, no obvious similarities other than that tag

Story #2:
- rating 1.00
- no tags
- favourited by one person, who I will call "Bajillion-Favourites", because their favourites list is effing gigantic
- posted in Nonhuman

"similar stories":
- one each in Romance, E/V, 3x EC
- four different authors, one appearing twice
- no obvious similarities in the blurbs
- at least one favourited by Bajillion-Favourites.

I say "at least one" because the "favourited by X, Y, and n others" format prevents me from seeing everybody who's favourited a given story from the story side. I tried looking at B-F's favourites list, but it's so gigantic that I don't think Literotica is loading the whole of it - even for the story that I know they've favourited, it's not showing on their favourites list.

So it's possible that B-F has favourited all five of those "similar stories", but I can't be sure. Definitely at least one.

Story #3:
- rating 1.00
- posted in Celeb/FF
- several tags including "younger women"
- no favourites
- part 6 in a series

"similar stories":
- four are earlier chapters from the same series, with lots of tags in common
- the other one one in NC/Reluc with a different author, sharing the "younger women" tag

Story #4:
- rating 1.00
- posted in Non-Erotic
- no tags
- favourited by one person, who I will name "Kazillion-Favourites"

"similar stories":
- Toys, Romance, Anal, 2x IR
- all different authors
- can't see if K-F has favourited any of them (as above, their favourites list is so big I'm not sure I'm seeing all of it)

Story #5:
- rating 1.00
- posted in Non-Erotic
- part 9 of a series
- no tags
- favourited by one person, who I'll call, uh, "QuiteALotOfFavourites"

"similar stories":
- Group, Mature, Toys, 2x Anal
- all different authors (in particular, no recs from the same series)
- all favourited by QALOF

I stopped there, but from that sample, I'm pretty certain that both tags and favourites are part of the method for generating "similar stories".

My best guess is something like this:

- When a story has been favourited by people, recommend other stories favourited by the same people.
- Maybe also use 5-star votes in the same way?
- When a story has no favourites (or 5-star votes?), look at the tags, and recommend other stories with similar tags.
- If no favourites (or 5-stars?) and no tags, give up.

As noted above, there's one case where a story tagged "bisexual", with no favourites, led to a recommendation for a story that has "bisexual" in the blurb but not in the tags.

One possibility is that Literotica is matching to blurb text. I'm not convinced, though - there are a LOT of stories with the "bisexual" tag, not obvious why you'd stop at four of those and then look at blurb text for the last recommendation.

Another possibility is that the suggested story used to be tagged "bisexual", and the author has since removed that tag for some reason, but the recommendation hasn't been updated.

It seems pretty clear that category and author aren't particularly relevant to Similar Stories picks.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think 8letters should ask for a job here.

And they should hire him.

 

[HectorBidon]

My best guess is something like this:

- When a story has been favourited by people, recommend other stories favourited by the same people.
- Maybe also use 5-star votes in the same way?
- When a story has no favourites (or 5-star votes?), look at the tags, and recommend other stories with similar tags.
- If no favourites (or 5-stars?) and no tags, give up.

That's what I'd say too. Maybe the Dangerous Cargo Ch. 05 / Sorceress and Maiden connection is because of five-starring rather than favoriting.

[You can see the full list of people who favorited a particular story by switching to the "classic" story viewer and mousing over the "and NN others" at the end of the story. This capability seems to have gone away in the new "Beta" version.]

Something I never noticed before is that there is a "More Stories'' button at the bottom of the "Similar Stories'' list on the new "Beta" story viewer that expands the list to 20 stories. 285,000 more entries to compile, 8letters!

I had thought that the "favorited by the same people" approach should work well for stories that appeal to readers with a more discriminating taste, like Bramblethorn's Riddle of the Copper Coin. And it does, in a way. The readers who liked RCC (in Sci-fi/Fantasy) apparently also like Lesbian stories, and so RCC's first five Similar Stories are stories 1, 2, 4, 5, and 44 from 8letters's table.

I also checked Bramblethorn's Stringed Instrument series. The combined non-expanded SS lists from all 14 chapters (70 stories in all) includes only 12 unique titles, only 3 of which are not in 8letters's table.

So at one end of the spectrum, the "favorited by" approach serves up random stories from the "kajillion-favorateurs," and at the other end it mostly serves up "greatest hits."

Interestingly, though, there is less overlap than I might have expected between 8letter's table and the Lesbian all-time top list. Only about 13 of the stories in the table are in the top list. Partly this is due to chapter stories. The SS lists only contain stand-alone stories or first chapters, whereas the top list is full of later chapters. But the SS lists also tend to keep track of older stories that may not have astronomical scores but have had solid staying power. Sort of "golden oldies" to the top-list's more volatile "top 40."

 

[GinnyPPC]

[You can see the full list of people who favorited a particular story by switching to the "classic" story viewer and mousing over the "and NN others" at the end of the story. This capability seems to have gone away in the new "Beta" version.]

I am learning a lot about how things work behind the scenes around here from all these posts. Thank you all.

But this little tidbit is very interesting. I'm new enough that I've always used the beta version. I'll have to play around and check this out.

 

[HectorBidon]

I'm new enough that I've always used the beta version. I'll have to play around and check this out.

The list appears as a "tooltip" hovering over the page, which is suboptimal since it can't be searched or selected. You can get a plain text version of the list by copying and pasting from the page's html source code. On Safari, you have to enable the Develop menu from Preferences/Advanced and then select "Show Page Source." On Chrome on a PC you can right-click on the "NN other people" and select "Inspect," IIRC. In both cases this will bring up a panel containing the html code, and it's not too hard to look through it and find the list.

 

[HeyAll]

8 Letters

Which story catagories give the most favorites, do you estimate?

 

[lovecraft68]

And they should hire him.

Agreed. I think the site would be far better off if they allowed people like him and Reject Reality to officially be part of it and help them, much like they accept volunteers as mods

But I doubt it would ever happen.

 

[RejectReality]

Agreed. I think the site would be far better off if they allowed people like him and Reject Reality to officially be part of it and help them, much like they accept volunteers as mods

But I doubt it would ever happen.

With help comes risk.

Forum software ( even outdated software such as this ) has permissions controls built in to mitigate the damage someone can do. Unless you've built the site that way, that's not the case with everything else. Lit was born as and has more or less remained a Mom&Pop operation, so it's unlikely there was any consideration of such controls during the rewrite. Complying with our digital overlords at Google is the primary concern, I should imagine.

It is a huge risk bringing in someone from the outside, no matter how trustworthy/competent you feel they are.

 

[SimonDoom]

Agreed. I think the site would be far better off if they allowed people like him and Reject Reality to officially be part of it and help them, much like they accept volunteers as mods

But I doubt it would ever happen.

It's an excellent idea. I'm very appreciative of this Site for giving me an opportunity to publish my stories, and it amazes me how many people read the absurd stuff I write. So, I'm grateful to it. But you are right that this Site could be more consistent and transparent, and be more responsive to the input of the many people who have a big stake in it. I get the sense it could make a lot more money if it wanted to, as well. I think it is an untapped gold mine. I'm just guessing about that, but I think it's probably true. For all its flaws, this is still, as far as I can tell, the world's best and best-known erotic story website. There's no reason it can't stay that way and keep getting better, if the Site's owners want that.

 

[lovecraft68]

It's an excellent idea. I'm very appreciative of this Site for giving me an opportunity to publish my stories, and it amazes me how many people read the absurd stuff I write. So, I'm grateful to it. But you are right that this Site could be more consistent and transparent, and be more responsive to the input of the many people who have a big stake in it. I get the sense it could make a lot more money if it wanted to, as well. I think it is an untapped gold mine. I'm just guessing about that, but I think it's probably true. For all its flaws, this is still, as far as I can tell, the world's best and best-known erotic story website. There's no reason it can't stay that way and keep getting better, if the Site's owners want that.

We agree on this, I'm a mercenary when it comes to money, and I have the tenacity of a pit bull when I'm invested in something, I see a ton of wasted income sitting on the table here.

 

[Bramblethorn]

[You can see the full list of people who favorited a particular story by switching to the "classic" story viewer and mousing over the "and NN others" at the end of the story. This capability seems to have gone away in the new "Beta" version.

Thanks for the reminder - I knew there was a way to do this but couldn't recall what it was.

 

[Bramblethorn]

With help comes risk.

Forum software ( even outdated software such as this ) has permissions controls built in to mitigate the damage someone can do. Unless you've built the site that way, that's not the case with everything else. Lit was born as and has more or less remained a Mom&Pop operation, so it's unlikely there was any consideration of such controls during the rewrite. Complying with our digital overlords at Google is the primary concern, I should imagine.

It is a huge risk bringing in someone from the outside, no matter how trustworthy/competent you feel they are.

Yep. The other main site I publish on uses a decentralised, crowdsourced model, and it allows them to do some neat things that Literotica can't. But they were designed for that model from the start. A lot of thought went into that design, and as they're a newer site, they had the benefit of learning from a decade's worth of fuckups on other story sites. Trying to shift Literotica over to that model would be something like trying to turn your old station wagon into an airplane, while it's running.

 

[GinnyPPC]

We agree on this, I'm a mercenary when it comes to money, and I have the tenacity of a pit bull when I'm invested in something, I see a ton of wasted income sitting on the table here.

I'm surprised there is not more monetization of this site. But then again, that is what gives it some of it's charm. They would lose a chunk of their readership if there were as many ads as other sites have.

Yep. The other main site I publish on uses a decentralised, crowdsourced model, and it allows them to do some neat things that Literotica can't. But they were designed for that model from the start. A lot of thought went into that design, and as they're a newer site, they had the benefit of learning from a decade's worth of fuckups on other story sites. Trying to shift Literotica over to that model would be something like trying to turn your old station wagon into an airplane, while it's running.

Can I use the wood paneling from the side of the wagon to line the interior of the airplane? Gotta keep that nostalgia look going you know.

 

[8letters]

BTW, kudos for your table! It must have taken a gargantuan effort. There are currently about 18,970 stories in the Lesbian category, As I understand it, you pulled up the Similar Stories lists for (almost) every single one of them and sorted out the resulting 94,850-or-so entries to compile the table. Sheesh!

Thanks for the kudos. I have the basic data for 18,196 stories. I have the Similar Stories list for 18,872 stories.

If I understand correctly, 4852 of the stories have Lovers without realizing it on their Similar Stories lists. That's a full quarter of all the stories in the category! Not even Mail Pouch got that kind of advertising.

That is correct.

Edit: 6469 stories (over a third of the LS stories) have at least one silkstockingslover story as a Similar Story.

Also, I presume that the table only shows the top 50 stories, and that there were stories that appeared less than 260 times but are not shown. Did you happen to check whether every story in the Lesbian category appeared at least once? That could be another factor in the selection process: proactively putting stories on SS lists rather than just randomly picking them.

There are 8397 distinct stories in the Similar Stories list. Of those, 5374 are Lesbian Sex stories, or 64%. So 30% of all LS stories appear as a Similar Story for a LS story. Conversely, 70% of all lesbian sex stories don't appear as a Similar Story for any LS story.

From an author's point of view they do provide advertising, although the author doesn't have much control over which stories are highlighted or how much highlighting they receive.

Also, an author has no idea of what stories list their stories as a similar story. I have no idea what stories list one of my stories as a Similar Story.