Solving the dreaded one-bomb problem

[djrip]

So, removing the red H from LW, for example, would mean that readers have to dig through all that nasty filth that is posted to that category by now. And chances are, they will simply give up after a while and look for another site, where the revenge stories ARE marked as popular.

The way you phrased this, it sounds like you're saying the revenge stories are *not* the "nasty filth."

 

[lovecraft68]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

Of course the red H is giving the site a sufficiently important benefit. It's the same as the Books that are promoted as New York Times Bestsellers. Believe it or not, there are readers that sort stories by score, and then only click on those that have a red H. Just like there are people who only buy a book because some pompous columnist told them how many other people have done it. If you don't promote products that are doing particularly well, the supply you're offering your customers will simply look like a massive and boring library of the same stuff with no discernable features.

In addition to that: No, a red H in loving wifes is not worth more than a red H in the incest category.
Think about it this way... People very rarely rate you on your ability as a writer. They rate the story you wrote based on whether they liked it or not. In LW, that would be the difference between writing about cheating and incurring all the negative emotions of people who have been cheated on, or writing about taking revenge on a cheater and playing into the fantasies all those cheated people had.
So, removing the red H from LW, for example, would mean that readers have to dig through all that nasty filth that is posted to that category by now. And chances are, they will simply give up after a while and look for another site, where the revenge stories ARE marked as popular.

And of course authors on lit want to see that red H next to their stories. Why wouldn't they!? No, they are not all petulant children who think they somehow "deserve" it. You SHOULD take pride in that thing you created. You SHOULD want people to like your creation so much, they share it with others to enjoy as well. Otherwise, this site would be filled with nothing but mediocre budget-authors who write all their stuff on their smartphones, where capitalization and punctuation are too much of a hassle to deal with.

Now, regarding the initial topic of this thread, you know that you could just... you know... hide the scores. I'm not saying to get rid of them. You could still keep the red H for stories above 4.5 ratings, and you could still allow users to sort by score. But you simply don't display the number.
The thing is, I don't think one bombing happens because some readers have a sudden vendetta with an author. They do it to SEE those numbers drop. If you take away the satisfaction of seeing their action actually having an effect, their incentive to do it would be appropriately reduced. Sure, you'd be left with the people who award you a one-star-rating because they didn't like the topic of your story, but that is something you will never get around.

One thing I'll disagree with-and I say this as someone who has written a lot of incest stories, a red H in LW these days is an accomplishment because both the examples you gave? Write this or that? Well the opposite faction swoops in to bomb them. I see a red H in LW and it makes me wonder how they managed it, its a skill in itself unique to that category.

After that, I agree with everything you said. The squealing comes from the participation award crowd. The ones that think they deserve something someone else has without putting in the work. If they can't have an H why should there be an H. Give that person who wants to get rid of the H a bunch of them and see how they change their minds.

You're spot on with the analogy of how best seller lists or any type of retail push products based on reviews and response. Lit created the H as a reward to an author for writing a hot story, and hot does not always equate good, but their intention was the right one, let's have an incentive and a reward over the socialistic ideal of every story here should be the same.

Again, take away the H, the Green E's, the W's, hell take away score and then watch everyone here crying about less views, votes, comments etc because there is nothing to differentiate a story from another, its a see of tens of thousands of titles.

Personally I pick a story based on category I'm in the mood for then title/tag if those catch my eye, I'll read. I don't look at the score. Whether I'm an exception or the norm we don't really know for sure.

What I do know is these threads go on and on and any thread related to actual writing gets half the posts, if that, and fizzles out quick.

Shows what the priorities are here. Especially when we all know the site is not going to make a change, but if I were them and saw all of this constant bitching I'd take everything away and now no one has anything to take pride in because everything is the same. Rewarding bad stories and low effort. May as well seeing that's what society seems to want in general these days.

But then the crying starts about that.

Imagine if the focus on a story site was your actual story.

Crazy, right?

 

[NotWise]

How does it do this more than the score itself? I don't understand how it provides any additional information. A 4.5 is a 4.5. A red H provides the reader no additional information. It tells the reader what the reader already knows: the score is over 4.5. That's it.

To most people, the red "H" is more visible than the score. And it's more meaningful for people who don't care to interpret the numbers. There are probably a lot of readers who don't even know that the red "H" means the same thing as a score of 4.5.

In fact, in a sense it is deceptive, because scores vary so widely from one category to the next. There are some categories where having a red H only means your story is rated in the top third. In Loving Wives it means you are well within the top 10%. It is not a badge of reader satisfaction that is in any way commensurate among categories.

So the red "H" means different things depending on context. I don't see the problem with that.

 

[SimonDoom]

Of course the red H is giving the site a sufficiently important benefit. It's the same as the Books that are promoted as New York Times Bestsellers. Believe it or not, there are readers that sort stories by score, and then only click on those that have a red H. Just like there are people who only buy a book because some pompous columnist told them how many other people have done it. If you don't promote products that are doing particularly well, the supply you're offering your customers will simply look like a massive and boring library of the same stuff with no discernable features.

In addition to that: No, a red H in loving wifes is not worth more than a red H in the incest category.
Think about it this way... People very rarely rate you on your ability as a writer. They rate the story you wrote based on whether they liked it or not. In LW, that would be the difference between writing about cheating and incurring all the negative emotions of people who have been cheated on, or writing about taking revenge on a cheater and playing into the fantasies all those cheated people had.
So, removing the red H from LW, for example, would mean that readers have to dig through all that nasty filth that is posted to that category by now. And chances are, they will simply give up after a while and look for another site, where the revenge stories ARE marked as popular.

And of course authors on lit want to see that red H next to their stories. Why wouldn't they!? No, they are not all petulant children who think they somehow "deserve" it. You SHOULD take pride in that thing you created. You SHOULD want people to like your creation so much, they share it with others to enjoy as well. Otherwise, this site would be filled with nothing but mediocre budget-authors who write all their stuff on their smartphones, where capitalization and punctuation are too much of a hassle to deal with.

Now, regarding the initial topic of this thread, you know that you could just... you know... hide the scores. I'm not saying to get rid of them. You could still keep the red H for stories above 4.5 ratings, and you could still allow users to sort by score. But you simply don't display the number.
The thing is, I don't think one bombing happens because some readers have a sudden vendetta with an author. They do it to SEE those numbers drop. If you take away the satisfaction of seeing their action actually having an effect, their incentive to do it would be appropriately reduced. Sure, you'd be left with the people who award you a one-star-rating because they didn't like the topic of your story, but that is something you will never get around.

The one valid argument to which I concede, and which may involve my admitting that I contradict myself, is that, rational or rational, red Hs may provide a service readers want. And if that's the case, then the site shouldn't get rid of them. They may provide one little additional promotional gimmick that incentivizes people to click on stories. Only the site owners really know if that's true, maybe.

 

[KeithD]

Sure they could. Just like you could wash your clothes in a rain barrel instead of buying a washing machine to save on your utility bill. But a washing machine is convenient. The site has the incentive to make the experience it offers their visitors as easy and enjoyable as possible. The red H is an important tool to do just that.

My post was pointing out that your assertion wasn't correct, grossly ("nasty filth") misrepresenting how difficult it would be for a reader to zero in on what they would like to read with just the actual rating to see rather than a Red H. The specific rating number is there for the reader to see. It remains that the actual rating number is more exact in a reader search than a screaming Red H is.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Instead of showing scores and red H, depending on the rating it gets, just make the title of the story in color, ranging from red, through yellow ,to green and let the readers pick based on their color preference rather that numbers. The in-your-face to the colorblind is just an added bonus!

 

[djrip]

Instead of showing scores and red H, depending on the rating it gets, just make the title of the story in color, ranging from red, through yellow ,to green and let the readers pick based on their color preference rather that numbers. The in-your-face to the colorblind is just an added bonus!

Actually I like that. Well a modified version. A color spectrum perhaps from blue to red to represent hotness/score, and weight the text from lighter than normal to increasingly bold for number of votes.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

My post was pointing out that your assertion wasn't correct, grossly ("nasty filth") misrepresenting how difficult it would be for a reader to zero in on what they would like to read with just the actual rating to see rather than a Red H. The specific rating number is there for the reader to see. It remains that the actual rating number is more exact in a reader search than a screaming Red H is.

Yeah, I realize that I should have phrased that differently. My intention was to somehow emphasize the negative emotions many readers in LW have when presented with all those Cuckolding stories. There simply is such strong animosity towards that particular topic that they see it as irredeemable garbage. It was the perfect example for readers not rating the writer but the story, not because of how it was written, but based on how they feel about the theme.

 

[JGittes]

It's early evening in the UK, and I've been drinking. As always, there are many separate issues addressed when we discuss scores. I'll try to maintain rationality but won't guarantee it.

In an ideal universe with a five-star voting system, the average would center on three with a normal distribution around the average. We seem to forget that we're logged onto the internet, where voting by anonymous people won't produce a normal distribution.

Using my catalog for data (2927 votes and 13658 stars,) the worst case is that 92% of votes are 4* or 5* (nothing but 5* or 1* votes). The best case is that 100% are 4* or 5* stars (nothing but 5* or 4* votes.) My experience with hundreds of sites that request five-star voting is that the data in the previous two sentences are typical of internet voting. I don't vote on my own stories (I also lie all the time), nor do I vote anything other than 5* on anyone else's stories. I do not manipulate my scores in any way (and it wouldn't matter if I did.)

Three things follow from this analysis:

1) The universe isn't fair. I'm relatively smart, but I can't figure out why someone who reads my story would vote a 5* rather than a 4*. The fucking bastards. I'm absolutely certain I produce the highest quality literary smut on the internet, and some jackass votes a 4*. Blow me, dude; please.

2) Those authors who often say that the scores don't really matter have a portfolio of nothing but fucking high scores. It's really easy to say that scores don't matter when you've got nothing but high scores. No shit, Sherlock. Ask Stephen King how to write a best-selling book, and he'll direct you to a bookseller hawking his 'How to Write a Bestselling Book' book. The several thousand fools who bought the damned book haven't yet written 'How Stephen King Fucked Us Over by Lying About Writing a Best-selling Book' book. The scores don't matter, yet the scores matter.

Think about it in terms of a mainstream author. If the book sells, she'll get regular checks from the publisher. After a few months or years, a pattern of reimbursement is established, and she understands the system. She doesn't have to follow every review or hang out at the local bookstore to see how many people are buying her book. But then the check was suddenly halved, and she asked her publisher, 'What the fuck?' The publisher responded that several other authors were upset that her book was doing better and complained. 'I've got to keep everyone happy, so I'll let them play around with the numbers so they'll feel better.'

Scores on Lit are the only currency we amateur authors have. Yeah, sure, favorites, views, and whatever exist but don't mean shit. Scores mean something. Readers click on stories with the red H. I want readers to engage with my stories; I want that goddamned red H. Sue me if you think it doesn't matter. (I'd rather you didn't because I'm in the UK, and good god almighty, I don't think anyone can figure out their libel laws. Anyway.) I spend more time writing stories for Lit than almost anything else in my life (that says something about my life that I'd rather not repeat anywhere else), and I'd like them read by people who enjoy them. On too:

3) I forgot what three is. Shit. Oh yeah. What is it with the fucking artists on this site? It's a free website. I provide written material with no invoice attached. I ask for artists who may be interested in collaborating on a free website, and I'm a fucking communist. How dare I ask for something for nothing? I'm exploiting the working classes to fatten my bank account. Holy fuck. I've offered to pay, and I'm ghosted. WTF. Sorry. It's time for bed or at least medication. Oh god, I just remembered;

4) What the hell is happening with the price of Burgundy wine? Goddamn it. In 2015, I bought four bottles of DRC RSV (if you don't know, google is your friend) at a Christie's auction in New York, and by the time I got the bottles here to the UK, I spent a total of $5500. I have one bottle left, and they are really pretty good. I want to get some more, but they're fucking $5500 a BOTTLE. Double holy fuck. Talk about score inflation.

 

[lovecraft68]

In an ideal universe with a five-star voting system, the average would center on three with a normal distribution around the average. We seem to forget that we're logged onto the internet, where voting by anonymous people won't produce a normal distribution.

In the ideal universe the system would be okay because

1- you wouldn't have people sniping because your story overtook their fav on a list, you won a contest, or said something here someone didn't like.
2-People could accept a score lower than a five, which apparently many can't.
3-People in LW stopped reading stories they know are going to piss them off, or just ran up and down the list bombing everything.

The sweep itself adds to the issues, it causes as many problems as its supposed to fix and you have to be damn naïve to have not seen it misused in contests where some stories are swept and swept and swept until their score is insanely high, but other stories barely see a minimal sweep even though there is obvious evidence of bombing.

Also in a perfect world, people would stop beating a dead fucking horse. These threads seem more common than ever, but they go back as far as I can remember. In that time nothing has changed on the sites end and nothing will.

This is Ground Hog's day for threads.

 

[KeithD]

Ah, yet another conspiracy theory pops up--that the Web site constantly scrubs some stories (their pet authors?) and doesn't sweep others--like it's something the Web site is doing unequally (and maliciously) rather than just a function of who is voting what that is subject to being swept.

 

[ElectricBlue]

How does it do this more than the score itself? I don't understand how it provides any additional information. A 4.5 is a 4.5. A red H provides the reader no additional information. It tells the reader what the reader already knows: the score is over 4.5. That's it.

It's a quick visual indicator for people less numerate than yourself. A different neurological filter to avoid doing the maths. It's why we draw pictures with traffic light colours for executive managers - it's instant information. The Red Hs tell someone immediately, when they go to an author's story list, that wow, this writer's got a shit ton of stories that other people ranked highly, versus the other guy, where they didn't. Instant information for visual thinkers.

We don't all think the same way, we don't all think like you do. If there's one thing being in the AH tells you, surely it's that?

 

[Lifestyle66]

...
2) Those authors who often say that the scores don't really matter have a portfolio of nothing but fucking high scores. ...

I challenge that statement.

Scores don't matter ... when other authors can manipulate them by either 1-bombing their competition or using gangs of friends and anonymous logins to plus up their own ratings.

In my own case, of 26 published stories here, I have 7 which are between 3-4, and another 4 which are below 3! MOST other stories currently above 4 have slowly crept UP to above a 4 after starting out very low. I even have one story ("A Gathering of Trolls") with which I DARED the trolls to 1-bomb me (it's now currently at 2.88 with 197 votes, so do THAT math!)

The only stories I have with a Red-H are two Scifi stories (go figure those geeks), and one which was immediately 1-bombed when published by one of my dedicated turd followers ("Lifestyle Ch.11 - Demons Past" at 4.69), but which since has been read by more people and seen as a somewhat tragic romance and leaving the reader wondering if they should hate it.

So, NO, rating don't really matter unless they can be objectively quantified.

 

[lovecraft68]

Ah, yet another conspiracy theory pops up--that the Web site constantly scrubs some stories (their pet authors?) and doesn't sweep others--like it's something the Web site is doing unequally (and maliciously) rather than just a function of who is voting what that is subject to being swept.

Someone is defensive, as always.

If the site playing favs was always the case, I doubt you or I would have ever placed in a contest.


The term misused can also mean manipulated by someone bombing their own stories to keep getting the sweep to come back around as it was designed to do. This was a scheme created by someone no longer here-so stop crying martyr and victim- who after never placing in a contest placed three times within as short of a span as to qualify to place.


XelliebabeX was the one that called attention to what I referenced back a few contests ago, and a little checking backed the claim. I forgot who's story she was referring to. Or maybe I didn't. What I know is when someone has a history of using their alts to game things, its hard not to wonder where that ends.

Main point is the sweep is easily played and is just another factor in why the scores are never going to be a good indicator of a story. Other than the rare insiteful comment or private feedback, we have no idea why someone voted the way they did.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is a link to the comments on one of my more recent stories. Its in LW so get ready for a laugh you look. The score is under 3. I knew it was going to land somewhere around there because of how I wrote it, which is the way I wanted to. It was more important to me to make the effort to make it mine, than to sweat the score and inevitable spew.

So J's point about people who have mostly high scores say they don't matter just because of that? Here's your proof otherwise, at least for me. This was a lot of work to get trounced, but when reading through note several people pointed out it was well written, just the characters sucked. That's what I was going for, hence this was worth more than a high score would have been because people could acknowledge the effort.

https://literotica.com/s/sealing-the-deal-8?page=7&comments_after=12867858

This comment also made it worth it, hit the nail on the head.

Very well written as you always do. I might suggest that this is more in the Fetish category? Other than that, twisted and dark and painful. All Hallmarks of your touch sir! . Thank you for writing.

Painful is the key word, I wanted a gritty story where like in real life there are no good people in these situations, just shitty ones.







Sincerely,

 

[lovecraft68]

I was thinking of invoking Kumquatqueens Law that every thread devolves into talking Star Wars, but I'm afraid if I do people will start discussing the ratings of each film.

This is beyond tiring, should change the forum to "Author's support group."

Hi, I'm LC68.

Hi LC!

I'm here today because I got one bombed and I want to discuss the unfairness of it and what the site can do about it.

We're here for you man! Damn this site for not changing things in forever and leaving us to keep talking about it!

 

[KeithD]

It's a quick visual indicator for people less numerate than yourself. A different neurological filter to avoid doing the maths. It's why we draw pictures with traffic light colours for executive managers - it's instant information. The Red Hs tell someone immediately, when they go to an author's story list, that wow, this writer's got a shit ton of stories that other people ranked highly, versus the other guy, where they didn't. Instant information for visual thinkers.

We don't all think the same way, we don't all think like you do. If there's one thing being in the AH tells you, surely it's that?

Instant DISinformation. There's no basis for "knowing" that a Red H'ed story here is better than one rated at 4.0.

 

[KeithD]

Someone is pushing wild, Trumpian conspiracy theories, as usual.

 

[alohadave]

I was thinking of invoking Kumquatqueens Law that every thread devolves into talking Star Wars, but I'm afraid if I do people will start discussing the ratings of each film.

This is beyond tiring, should change the forum to "Author's support group."

Hi, I'm LC68.

Hi LC!

I'm here today because I got one bombed and I want to discuss the unfairness of it and what the site can do about it.

We're here for you man! Damn this site for not changing things in forever and leaving us to keep talking about it!

If it bothers you so much, maybe skip these threads. You don't have to reply to every single thread.

You aren't changing anyone's opinion, and no one is going to change yours.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's a quick visual indicator for people less numerate than yourself. A different neurological filter to avoid doing the maths. It's why we draw pictures with traffic light colours for executive managers - it's instant information. The Red Hs tell someone immediately, when they go to an author's story list, that wow, this writer's got a shit ton of stories that other people ranked highly, versus the other guy, where they didn't. Instant information for visual thinkers.

We don't all think the same way, we don't all think like you do. If there's one thing being in the AH tells you, surely it's that?

This is an empirical question: do people behave this way in response to red Hs or don't they? Does the red H provide useful information valued by potential readers that the score alone does not?

I don't know the answer to that question. Neither do you. Laurel and Manu might. If they have reason to believe the red H is a site feature that readers like, then there's no way they are going to get rid of it, and I'm perfectly OK with that.

I think its downsides are worth considering in deciding whether to keep it. There's no question in mind that the red H encourages gamesmanship and bad behavior, increases anxiety, and conveys a certain amount of false information about quality, because the score of 4.5 means something completely different (as a percentile) in some categories as compared to others.

What I'd like to see is the site improve the tools readers have to search for stories they want, using criteria like scores, or dates, or whatever. That, I think, would substantially reduce the need for a crude tool like the red H.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is an empirical question: do people behave this way in response to red Hs or don't they? Does the red H provide useful information valued by potential readers that the score alone does not?

In my evidence base of one, yes it does.

I'm a visual person, and will draw an immediate conclusion from someone's story list and its coloured coding, because I also think, for better or worse, the five-way skewed ranking system also carries information (being the result of hundreds or thousands of people all voting using whatever criteria they vote by); and I can see that instantly. And yes, I know that different categories have different criteria, but my visual brain is clever, it can feed that in as well.

You're dismissing that immediate visual short-cut as worthless, but for some people, it's not. I don't need to look at the numbers at all. "Pictures tell a thousand words".

 

[lovecraft68]

I've written a couple of stories I knew that weren't going to score well. I do believe the stories were fine, but their topics don't tickle the underbelly the way readers like to be tickled in that area. I've also written a couple of stories which I assumed to be generally appreciated and to get scores to go with that. For the first, the score really doesn't matter; for the second, it's nice to be proven right, while I won't deny that it is somewhat disappointing when you're expecting >4.5 and that doesn't work out.

Like I also said to someone else today, my last story deliberately went to LW, it was supposed to be 'nice' and 'middle of the road' (no cheating, no BTB, no cuckolding) and it's an estimated guess that, in just a few days, over 120 people felt gracious enough to give me a 5*. Never had that happening to any of my work here before. For me, LW is the only category where I get 1 vote / 40 views. Other people may never get to see those raw numbers, but to me personally, I do find it somewhat rewarding. And disturbing; if people frequenting the LW to like my work; what does that make of me...

I tried a straight up kind of LW story couple years back, and it scored over a 4 which is good for the category, but still suffered a bit because it started with the wife belittling the husband then having sex with the kid who brought room service...so far we're at "typical cuck shit" comment status, but as it progresses the husband is obviously not that put off by it and when the kid is done, the husband hands him a tip, tells him to get lost and the second he's out the door he has the wife bent over and screwing her brains out which shows he's totally into the game.

So it somewhat appealed to the crowd, but I wonder if I softened the start if it would have performed a little better, but I think we all have a little 20/20 hindsight.

I still miss with predictions. My "this is going to kill it" does okay, but not what I thought and to date my biggest stories are ones I thought would go over Meh.

But all ideas are worth writing and posting and from there the chips fall where they fall. I'm at the point that if a few comments say they 'got it" I'm happy. Its like if you lose a game of pool, but made that one amazing shot.

 

[alohadave]

This is an empirical question: do people behave this way in response to red Hs or don't they? Does the red H provide useful information valued by potential readers that the score alone does not?

From my perspective as a reader, if I see a series with a large number of H's, it's an indicator that the writing is likely consistently good.

It's just a quick visual indicator that it's higher rated.

 

[RejectReality]

The H is an artificial bar that's causing readers to miss good stories because it sucks in their eyes like a pair of naked tits, authors to have anxiety attacks because losing it decimates reader interaction, and trolls to have a field day with an easy target.

It's bling that absolutely everybody on the website would be better off without.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Everybody except those who treat their colorful Christmas tree list as a reflection of their fragile personality and convince themselves that they are special and that it attracts more readers even if their series only has a few thousand views after seven years.

The thing is, none of us have any idea how readers see or use the Red H, because we're nearly all writers. Readers, on the other hand, are mostly silent. They vote at very low rates; they comment even more rarely; they might occasionally favourite a story. But other than those tiny touches, they might not exist at all.