rating

[SimonDoom]

You two should just get a room and fuck, I keep seeing you jousting in threads all over the forums

*edited to @EmilyMiller

I deleted my post. I don't want to get personal. But Emily got personal by suggesting that I "don't care."

We should not do that in this forum, attacking people's motives, feelings, etc. If you disagree with someone, disagree on the merits of what they say. I think that's a good rule that we should try to follow consistently. And Emily did not do that by snarkily suggesting that it was surprising that I actually cared about something. I think we should not respond that way to one another in this forum, ever.

We can do better than that.

 

[Britva415]

only insufferable people use "woke" as an insult

For a decade now, people have only used "woke" as an insult.

 

[Britva415]

I wonder (feel free to chime in and give this some color folks) whether how authors on Lit feel about Ratings is influenced by the Categories they are interested in and publish to?

I wouldn't know, I've only ever posted to 1 category. So my perception of other categories, "pErFoRmAnCe" wise, is only informed by what AHers say.

Not that it matters. If the muses ever blessed me with a story made for another category, I wouldn't contrive to shoehorn it into some "fReNdLiEr" one.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think a lot of it stems from readers using the rating system as intended.


Looking at it this way, we as writers should see a 3 or above as a positive rating. A 3 means that the story was acceptable, there was nothing awful or special about it. People got naked, fucked, went home. And depending how tropey or unoriginal the story was, the rating might be spot on.

But when the site owners gave us a mark to shoot for, a red H, they shifted the bar for the writer. In my opinion, most writers now see a 4.5 rating as average. Anything below that means the story was not well received, from our slightly skewed perspective. This certainly is true for me, but as time has gone by it bothers me less and less.

Erotica by its nature makes people feel something and as we've all experienced, sometimes during sex, it only takes 'Ow, you're on my hair!' to ruin the mood. So, in our stories, things like unexpected anal, non-monogamy, cheating, 750 words, or whatever, are automatic deductions on a rating, like a stumble in figure skating.

In closing, I leave you the immortal words of Ricky Nelson from his song Garden Parties.

But it's, all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see you can't please everyone
So, ya got to please yourself.

 

[Comshaw]

Don't misunderstand me, I was just saying that everyone can vote as they wish, but in an "ideal world," it would be nice if such negative ratings were explained. As my philosophy is, "one person's freedom begins where another's ends." Thanks anyway for your feedback, and feel free to leave comments on my series; it would make my day! "

I'd love to have an in-depth critical comment for each vote, even the high ones, but I don't think there is a way to force that to happen. I've seen it tried before on another site. The system was set up with a 1 to 10 vote. They declared that anyone voting less than a 5 had to leave a comment. What they got was a lot of one-liners, "This sucked" "a piece of shit" "learn to write" on and on in the same vein. They could have required a minimum word count for the comments, but I think the trolls would have found a way around that too. Never underestimate the assholitis infecting the trolls.


Comshaw

 

[IWroteThis]

Don't misunderstand me, I was just saying that everyone can vote as they wish, but in an "ideal world," it would be nice if such negative ratings were explained. As my philosophy is, "one person's freedom begins where another's ends." Thanks anyway for your feedback, and feel free to leave comments on my series; it would make my day! "

The issue I see is that you're expecting those readers who found the story the least worth their time to put in even more time to tell you why it wasn't worth their time to begin with.

I'm not all that interested in a reader explaining why they gave me a negative rating. I'd prefer they not give me a negative rating at all.

I'm the opposite. Having somebody blow smoke up my ass doesn't help me or my readers.

Here's a bit of advice I like:

Positive feedback makes you want to write more.
Negative feedback makes you want to write better.
The key is to get both.

I don't know about you, but I want to be better than I currently am.

There's a related topic here which is whether you write for your readers primarily or for yourself primarily.

Another bit of advice I like is:

Write for yourself. Publish for your readers.

I think it stemmed from a conversation about posting first drafts vs edited work, but it applies to so much more.

 

[NotWise]

[snip]
But when the site owners gave us a mark to shoot for, a red H, they shifted the bar for the writer. In my opinion, most writers now see a 4.5 rating as average. Anything below that means the story was not well received, from our slightly skewed perspective. This certainly is true for me, but as time has gone by it bothers me less and less.
[snip]

Maybe this shouldn't change your point, but according to 8letters' compilations the median score on Lit is just under 4.5. Medians in specific categories vary higher or lower than the site-wide median.

To me, that means that readers generally give authors such friendly support that it shifts the entire scale by a wide margin. We should think twice before criticizing our readers.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm not sure if that is directed to me.

It wasn’t.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

All ratings are personal and based on how the reader feels about the story/work they just read

But ratings are not the only, and IMO seldom the most reliable measure of how readers feel. They are often simply the easiest to convey, not the most "personal".

I accept the ratings are one measure, but are they more important than the number of readers who favorite a story and keep it on their list as a measure of how they feel about it? Or is the number of people who follow an author a good indicator of how readers feel about one or more of their stories? Comments and e-mail feedback are the rarest, but often the most valuable, which I believe is what the OP was alluding to.

 

[StillStunned]

Here's a bit of advice I like:

Positive feedback makes you want to write more.
Negative feedback makes you want to write better.
The key is to get both.

I don't know about you, but I want to be better than I currently am.

This doesn't apply to everyone. For instance, I myself respond best to positive reinforcement: tell me I did a good job, and I'll do my best to only ever do at least as well.

 

[caleb35]

Maybe this shouldn't change your point, but according to 8letters' compilations the median score on Lit is just under 4.5. Medians in specific categories vary higher or lower than the site-wide median.

To me, that means that readers generally give authors such friendly support that it shifts the entire scale by a wide margin. We should think twice before criticizing our readers.

 

[anthrodisiac]

As someone who lives in a category where the level of engagement is usually fairly low compared to other more "normal" categories (I'm Non-Human. I mean, my stories are Non-Human Well... I'm also not fully human...), you get what you get. I suppose if I were a newer writer, it would bother me more, because when you're starting out it's incredibly helpful to get feedback when you're getting your legs.

If you really want to get feedback, @NotWise had a very wise comment (or a not not-wise comment?), go to the Editor's Forum or Story Feedback. Or find someone to beta read for you. And as you continue to write, continue to be critical of your own style, but also make sure you stay out of your own way. It's easy to get locked up in editing real-time, which can massively hamper your flow and creativity, because you're not just thinking with a writer's mind, but an editor's (I'm firmly of the belief they are separate, but intertwined, utilizing different processes that compliment each other). The more you write, the better your instincts will get, and you'll start to write better first drafts and require less editing down the line, not because you're editing real time, but because you've internalized lessons and found your voice, the one you enjoy and best suits you.

 

[Djmac1031]

In an ideal world... Unfortunately, constructive feedback is hard to come by. And why someone votes low? It could be anything, from not liking the subject matter, to spotting a typo on page 7, to not liking you personally, to just having a bad day.

And some people are just assholes.

And by "some" I mean "many."

And by "many" I meant "most."

 

[AStrangeDesire]

And some people are just assholes.

And by "some" I mean "many."

And by "many" I meant "most."

You reminded me of this (sorry about the size):

 

[InvisibleHarvey]

So, in our stories, things like unexpected anal, non-monogamy, cheating, 750 words, or whatever, are automatic deductions on a rating, like a stumble in figure skating.

100% agree.

I think the word-count penalty applies to stories that fit on a single page, even if they clear 750 words.

You also get a penalty for non-white characters and for sad stories.

Some categories have a readership that expects formulaic stories, and you will be penalized if you depart from the formula.

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

most writers now see a 4.5 rating as average

Yes. I sampled “Romance” stories a while back and separated series installments from standalone stories.

Story scoring here is like Amazon or eBay’s skewed ratings – anything under 5 stars is a down vote. A better guide would be:

5 Stars: Thumbs Up
4 Stars: Thumbs Down
3 Stars: Accidental Click
2 Stars: I hate you and/or your story
1 Star: I hate you and/or your story/spelling/punctuation/you started a sentence with “And”

The skew of the mean to ~4.5 is what makes 1-bombs so powerful. For every bomber there might also be a reader who absolutely loved your characters/world/story/prose/fetishes – your story spoke to them like no other, so they want to give you 8 Stars. But with the maximum rating only 0.5 above the mean of all stories, that’s all they can give, no matter how much they adored a story. Bombers, on the other hand, can give you a rating 4.5 stars below the mean. Statistically, Hate is seven times more powerful than Love. And for someone wanting to manipulate the Top Lists, where the stories need to be scoring around 4.8, hate is even more potent.

There are times when I want to vote 4.5 Stars, because the story is good-but-not-great, flawed-but-not-bad. So I just don’t vote. There's no real "Average" vote.

I remember some IT training I did a few decades ago. The instructor was handing out evaluation sheets at the end of the week and said “Australians vote differently than Americans. If Australians are fully satisfied with the content and presentation, they’ll give the instructor 7 out of 10. While Americans will give them 10 out of 10. It’s a cultural thing.” He said their company adjusts Australian ratings upwards to correct for this but he also advised us to “vote like Americans” on his evaluation.

This site cannot significantly change their rating system because that would sever their 30-year history of voting records. You wouldn’t be able to compare new stories to the old Top Lists. Remember, this site doesn’t own our stories – but it owns the record of votes and comments against them. They don’t want to invalidate that archive. There have been a few reasonable suggestions in AH about how to improve the current system (basically, curtailing the power or ease of the bombers) but they are always objected to by the “trolls are people too” crowd.

 

[Zootonius]

An anecdotal story. A few months ago I posted a story Christine and Greg. I opened with a note that the characters first appeared in my story His Professor Aunt Pt. 11 and that I wanted to explore the characters further. Shortly after it went out, His Professor Aunt Pt. 11, which was one of my best rated stories, dropped about 10 points.

Baffling.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Yes. I sampled “Romance” stories a while back and separated series installments from standalone stories.

Story scoring here is like Amazon or eBay’s skewed ratings – anything under 5 stars is a down vote. A better guide would be:

5 Stars: Thumbs Up
4 Stars: Thumbs Down
3 Stars: Accidental Click
2 Stars: I hate you and/or your story
1 Star: I hate you and/or your story/spelling/punctuation/you started a sentence with “And”

The skew of the mean to ~4.5 is what makes 1-bombs so powerful. For every bomber there might also be a reader who absolutely loved your characters/world/story/prose/fetishes – your story spoke to them like no other, so they want to give you 8 Stars. But with the maximum rating only 0.5 above the mean of all stories, that’s all they can give, no matter how much they adored a story. Bombers, on the other hand, can give you a rating 4.5 stars below the mean. Statistically, Hate is seven times more powerful than Love. And for someone wanting to manipulate the Top Lists, where the stories need to be scoring around 4.8, hate is even more potent.

There are times when I want to vote 4.5 Stars, because the story is good-but-not-great, flawed-but-not-bad. So I just don’t vote. There's no real "Average" vote.

I remember some IT training I did a few decades ago. The instructor was handing out evaluation sheets at the end of the week and said “Australians vote differently than Americans. If Australians are fully satisfied with the content and presentation, they’ll give the instructor 7 out of 10. While Americans will give them 10 out of 10. It’s a cultural thing.” He said their company adjusts Australian ratings upwards to correct for this but he also advised us to “vote like Americans” on his evaluation.

This site cannot significantly change their rating system because that would sever their 30-year history of voting records. You wouldn’t be able to compare new stories to the old Top Lists. Remember, this site doesn’t own our stories – but it owns the record of votes and comments against them. They don’t want to invalidate that archive. There have been a few reasonable suggestions in AH about how to improve the current system (basically, curtailing the power or ease of the bombers) but they are always objected to by the “trolls are people too” crowd.

Many perceive the rating of a story to reflect how a reader feels about the tale, and to a degree, that is true.

However, consider that it is also the easiest and least personal type of reader feedback available here. One click. Done.

We all know that "views" mean almost nothing as a statistic on Literotica because they tell us so little about the actual reader engagement with the story. Views are best considered as a ratio to other statistics, such as "votes per view" or "comments per view".

Comments are great, but they are rarer than kyawthuite, and frequently merely fluff. Similar to e-mail feedback.

Followers - now there is a subjective measurement indicating that a reader liked one or more of your stories (or something else about you) enough to register on the site for updates on you and your stories. There is empirical evidence that the number of followers an author has, the greater overall feedback they will receive. This makes sense when you consider the "investment" that a reader has made by following an author in the first place.

More objective measurements exist with "favorites", but these come in different quantified varieties that carry different weight. There is the "reading list" variety of favorites that many consider simply a tag of the story so that it can be easily found for reading at a later time. This differs from the "favorites" list that identifies a story that a reader has placed onto their virtual bookshelf as something that they want to come back to time after time. Then, there is the "favorite author" variety where a reader has tagged you and your stories as someone that they prefer.

Stars are what potential readers see when they come across your story. If you want to achieve higher ratings, don't lose focus of the other, more objective forms of reader feedback. Strive to attract more followers. Write stories that readers want to read more than once. Be a writer that readers want to know. Get readers invested in you.

 

[Ianus4]

To be more specific:
I don't know which chapter you're referring to, but if it's chapter 10, then I think the labeling might have been "too much" for some people. Or maybe Carole might not be seen as balanced enough for being a domme. The BDSM-community here is very sensitive about this. Or they miss the respect shown to Alexandre. Going to Franck right after the labeling?

 

[loic333]

I'm bursting with laughter, I just got a 1* on my story published this morning, without explanation. I love this type of relationship, but then again, it's the choice of some people to waste time clicking a mouse to be in a vengeful mindset!

 

[loic333]

To be more specific:
I don't know which chapter you're referring to, but if it's chapter 10, then I think the labeling might have been "too much" for some people. Or maybe Carole might not be seen as balanced enough for being a domme. The BDSM-community here is very sensitive about this. Or they miss the respect shown to Alexandre. Going to Franck right after the labeling?

Originally, this story was a book I wrote six years ago, and I admit my structure isn't great. Nevertheless, this partly autobiographical account can't go against Carole's nature; she finds herself caught between two worlds and searching for the key to her future relationship. The final chapters will provide that key. Thank you for your feedback, and feel free to comment on the subsequent chapters if you'd like.

 

[Ianus4]

I'm bursting with laughter, I just got a 1* on my story published this morning, without explanation. I love this type of relationship, but then again, it's the choice of some people to waste time clicking a mouse to be in a vengeful mindset!

Don't forget that ratings are instant, while the processing time for a comment (even from a registered user, unless they are on some whitelist) is more than 48 hours. With a story that adds a new chapter every day, commenting in this form is pointless, as a current comment may already be outdated by the time it appears. Of course, this does not mean that a 1-star commenter will write at the end, only that you will definitely only receive immediate comments from a small group.
Unfortunately, this whitelist usually does not include users who write thorough comments, but those who comment en masse with a word or two everywhere.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

TBH, if you knew very much about the people giving your stories a "1," you might feel proud of some of the 1s. A good "1" is a well-earned "1."

 

[TheArsonist]

The thing to keep in mind is that scores are not for the authors, but for the readers (including the reader giving the score). And that goes for low scores in particular. A lot of writers take it personally, and of course vendettas happen, but I'm convinced most ratings are not given out of any anger or animosity towards the writer.

If I give a story a 2 or 1, it means that I think it doesn't meet a baseline standard of readability. It's not a punishment for the author, just guidance for other readers: skip this one. What more needs to be said? (Of course, grade inflation means that this might only have the effect of changing a 3.92 average to 3.87 or whatever, but we do what we can.)

Maybe if it seems like it's the writer's first ever attempt to string words together I might throw them a quick comment about basic issues (like the common "switches between first-person and third-person mid-sentence") to help them out, but usually I don't think it worth the effort to help a "very bad" writer get to the level of "pretty bad."

I might be more inclined to comment on a story I rate a 3 or 4, where the writing is not terrible but there are some flaws – if I have anything constructive to say (and the author hasn't shown themself completely unreceptive).

 

[loic333]

The thing to keep in mind is that scores are not for the authors, but for the readers (including the reader giving the score). And that goes for low scores in particular. A lot of writers take it personally, and of course vendettas happen, but I'm convinced most ratings are not given out of any anger or animosity towards the writer.

If I give a story a 2 or 1, it means that I think it doesn't meet a baseline standard of readability. It's not a punishment for the author, just guidance for other readers: skip this one. What more needs to be said? (Of course, grade inflation means that this might only have the effect of changing a 3.92 average to 3.87 or whatever, but we do what we can.)

Maybe if it seems like it's the writer's first ever attempt to string words together I might throw them a quick comment about basic issues (like the common "switches between first-person and third-person mid-sentence") to help them out, but usually I don't think it worth the effort to help a "very bad" writer get to the level of "pretty bad."

I might be more inclined to comment on a story I rate a 3 or 4, where the writing is not terrible but there are some flaws – if I have anything constructive to say (and the author hasn't shown themself completely unreceptive).

Hello,
thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread. Personally, if I find a text unacceptable according to my criteria, I move on. But I don't think it's respectful to give such a negative rating without at least providing an explanation. I understand that there's sometimes a longer delay than the rating itself. Finally, when it's a series, one should at least make the effort to read all the preceding chapters to understand and appreciate, or not, the penalized text. As I wrote earlier, everyone has their own free will and the right not to enjoy a story, but at least one should make an effort rather than simply clicking, even just to alert other readers.