Solving the dreaded one-bomb problem

[alohadave]

It DOES make one significant change. Under my system, you don't have to choose between giving the story a perfect score (5) or not hurting the story's chances of getting a red H/4.5. You can give it a 4.5 and feel good that you haven't hurt the story's chances while at the same time not having given it a perfect score. That option does not exist now. The current system, with its irrational emphasis on the red H, discourages many readers from giving scores less than a perfect score. That seems very silly to me. I think my system would result in somewhat less gamesmanship and strategic voting. How much? I have no idea. But I think it would be at least a slight improvement over what we have now.

Why vote if it's not going to have an impact?

 

[lovecraft68]

It DOES make one significant change. Under my system, you don't have to choose between giving the story a perfect score (5) or not hurting the story's chances of getting a red H/4.5. You can give it a 4.5 and feel good that you haven't hurt the story's chances while at the same time not having given it a perfect score. That option does not exist now. The current system, with its irrational emphasis on the red H, discourages many readers from giving scores less than a perfect score. That seems very silly to me. I think my system would result in somewhat less gamesmanship and strategic voting. How much? I have no idea. But I think it would be at least a slight improvement over what we have now.

The system is fine in the sense of not ruining the H(if readers think that way) but if a 4.5 is a possible vote how long before people start complaining they don't have those high 4.8 scores anymore? That now their scores are more like 4.6 because of all the 4.5 votes.

This is a losing situation because no matter what anyone figures out someone is going to be unhappy, which defaults back to two things. The devil you know and stop obsessing over it.

 

[alohadave]

So Dannydickwagger gives your story a five cause he wagged his dick over it. He gives the next one a five. Then he runs into a story you wrote that for whatever reason pisses him off. He goes back and changes his fives to ones.

Next

Big part of this isn't the system, its the people using it. Or do some here think Lit can change people? Like someone said, whatever you do here, the trolls will play it

We've already established the human nature of the situation. I'm just spitballing and speculating.

I don't know how it would change, that's why I asked what people think. On an individual scale, it wouldn't affect much, but voting is an aggregate thing, and all those insignificant actions add up.

 

[SimonDoom]

Why vote if it's not going to have an impact?

It DOES have an impact. If you give a 4.5, you are signaling that you think it's a very good story but not a perfect one. The vote matters. I can't speak for you, but I find myself in this position often. Were there no such thing as a red H, I would vote more. As it is, I see many stories that I think are good but don't deserve a 5, but I'm reluctant to hurt an author's chance for a red H.

 

[lovecraft68]

okay, a little off topic but....its been quite some time since this forum went to the new format and I still can't go more than a few posts without "oops something went wrong"

And we're talking a change to the scoring system? If they ever agreed to it, all I can imagine is months of votes not registering, counting multiple times, vanishing, the stars not showing....

Let's be careful what we wish for.

 

[Voboy]

Just don't dread the one-bomb problem and we'll all be fine.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/566/702/3f2.jpeg

 

[alohadave]

It DOES have an impact. If you give a 4.5, you are signaling that you think it's a very good story but not a perfect one. The vote matters. I can't speak for you, but I find myself in this position often. Were there no such thing as a red H, I would vote more. As it is, I see many stories that I think are good but don't deserve a 5, but I'm reluctant to hurt an author's chance for a red H.

If you just want to tell an author that you like their story, an up/down vote would do that.

IMO, not voting because it might affect whether they get a badge or not does the author a disservice.

 

[alohadave]

okay, a little off topic but....its been quite some time since this forum went to the new format and I still can't go more than a few posts without "oops something went wrong"

And we're talking a change to the scoring system? If they ever agreed to it, all I can imagine is months of votes not registering, counting multiple times, vanishing, the stars not showing....

Let's be careful what we wish for.

I approach this as pure hypothetical discussion. I don't expect anything to change, and I'm not advocating for any changes.

I've been through enough forum migrations to not want anything to change on a whim. Something always breaks and different methods are different, not necessarily better.

 

[Bazzle]

It DOES have an impact. If you give a 4.5, you are signaling that you think it's a very good story but not a perfect one. The vote matters. I can't speak for you, but I find myself in this position often. Were there no such thing as a red H, I would vote more. As it is, I see many stories that I think are good but don't deserve a 5, but I'm reluctant to hurt an author's chance for a red H.

That's where moving to 10 stars and maybe putting red h as 7.5. you could give 8, 9, or 10?

 

[MajorRewrite]

If you just want to tell an author that you like their story, an up/down vote would do that.

The “favorites“ system already functions as an up/down vote, in a way. And the favorites system has the advantage of no negative option for trolls to exploit.

Hypothetically, the current scoring system could be dumped and replaced by favorites and a “% of favorited views” score.

 

[KeithD]

The “favorites“ system already functions as an up/down vote, in a way.

Not in a significant way here on individual stories, though, I don't think. It doesn't show in any way to readers, so it has no role in reading selection.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The “favorites“ system already functions as an up/down vote, in a way. And the favorites system has the advantage of no negative option for trolls to exploit.

Hypothetically, the current scoring system could be dumped and replaced by favorites and a “% of favorited views” score.

Favourites are a tiny number though, in my experience. An order of magnitude below the vote count, which makes it a fairly worthless indicator of anything at all.

I think a lot of people still use it as bookmark, to remind them to read it in future. It was used that way for a long time, and I'm not convinced that the bookmark system has fully replaced that old habit.

 

[djrip]

Favourites are a tiny number though, in my experience. An order of magnitude below the vote count, which makes it a fairly worthless indicator of anything at all.

I think a lot of people still use it as bookmark, to remind them to read it in future. It was used that way for a long time, and I'm not convinced that the bookmark system has fully replaced that old habit.

But if I understand correctly, favorites determine the 'similar stories' listed at the end of other stories, and by my own behavior, I'm guessing those lists are one of the main things bringing in readers in the long term (after the story drops off the new stories page). I'm always clicking on those. So, I guess, poor indicator of anything, but having a bigger effect on the story readership than other metrics, maybe?

 

[KeithD]

I stopped looking at the "similar stories" listing after a long time of looking at them and finding they either weren't similar to the base story at all or were just by the same author and not particularly similar either.

It's sort of like whatever the formula is now for listing the most popular authors in each hub--checking on them indicates that many listed don't have many stories from that hub category at all.

 

[djrip]

I stopped looking at the "similar stories" listing after a long time of looking at them and finding they either weren't similar to the base story at all or were just by the same author and not particularly similar either.

I agree, they're not usually that similar, but they tend to be stories a lot of people have favorited, and I like to see what all the fuss is about.

Stuff around here kind of snowballs; lots of stories leads to lots of followers leads to lots of favorites leads to similar stories list placement leads to more views and follows and favorites. If a writer's goal is to reach more readers, so the ones who will enjoy the story end up finding it, I feel like favorites and similar stories lists are important for that.

And then there are the authors I see from time to time with one story and 7000 followers and 2000 favorites on it...

 

[ElectricBlue]

But if I understand correctly, favorites determine the 'similar stories' listed at the end of other stories, and by my own behavior, I'm guessing those lists are one of the main things bringing in readers in the long term (after the story drops off the new stories page). I'm always clicking on those. So, I guess, poor indicator of anything, but having a bigger effect on the story readership than other metrics, maybe?

Could be. But as a data indicator, it's barely above the noise floor of nothingness, so I don't pay it much attention.

Half the time, when I go see who it is, it clicks into one of those huge endless lists of stories and I think, great, you think this is just like those other thousand stories you've favourites. That's not special at all .

 

[djrip]

Heh. I have around 700 favorites. But they're all special! To me.

 

[KeithD]

And then there are the authors I see from time to time with one story and 7000 followers and 2000 favorites on it...

Well, you can't both be writing new stories and clicking your thumb on approval stats for your one old story at the same time.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The “favorites“ system already functions as an up/down vote, in a way. And the favorites system has the advantage of no negative option for trolls to exploit.

Hypothetically, the current scoring system could be dumped and replaced by favorites and a “% of favorited views” score.

Under this system, if somebody's already read and favourited one of my stories, every time they re-read it after that my score would drop.

 

[mirafrida]

Evergreen topic It made me thing of a recent (paywalled) Atlantic article about how bad online shopping experiences are becoming
https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...ping-informed-consumer-quality-control/673017

You hear the same things about Tiktok and Instagram too, etc. I guess it's not fair to expect the mods here to succeed where Google and Amazon fail, but to me it points to the big problem with ratings and "H" tags, as well as the organization of the category portals - in my view, all these things steer readers towards methods of finding and choosing stories that are sub-optimal. It's not that ratings have *no* analytical value, but that value is low, and depends on well-informed interpretation of what they mean. Same for "recent submissions" lists, top-lists, related-stories lists, and contest winners. They may be good for the most vanilla users to find what they like, but erotica is a highly fragmented market, in which even vanilla is a pretty narrow slice of the population.

Honestly, I started writing in part because I got so frustrated trying to find stuff I like, it almost seemed easier to roll it myself. I bet there are 1000 stories here I'd *love* that I've just never had the patience to try to discover.

As an author, I understand that my kinks and preferred slant will not appeal to most readers. Even the *most* mainstream writer of erotica will still only appeal to a narrow set of people, and I'm not that writer. I wish I had a better idea how to help people who *will* like my stuff find it. I don't think ratings, "H" tags, top-lists, similar-stories, etc. help much with that.

I suppose most readers settle for what the site serves up, with a dose of "uh, why would I read the stories that *aren't* hot?," and that's good enough. Same way most people just click on something from page-1 of the search results, or watch whatever Netflix says is their next recommendation. But it's a shame we've never figured out how to do better. Years ago it's something I hoped computers would actually help with.

 

[oneagainst]

Uh, ever experimented with getting rated/voted/noticed on Wattpad? I have to say that Lit is an absolute paradise. The grass, I found, is not greener over the other side. It's brown, with scorched patches. Churchill was spot on: "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried."

 

[Raazor]

Personally, the best solution to ‘one bombers’ is not give a monkeys about the ratings. It’s fun for the first few stories, but after that I stopped caring.

Although, most fun I had was publishing a cuckold tale in LW just for the reaction. It ended up with a 2.94 rating which, given the largely deleted abuse I received, was pretty decent.

 

[Bazzle]

Personally, the best solution to ‘one bombers’ is not give a monkeys about the ratings. It’s fun for the first few stories, but after that I stopped caring.

Although, most fun I had was publishing a cuckold tale in LW just for the reaction. It ended up with a 2.94 rating which, given the largely deleted abuse I received, was pretty decent.

I write such niche fetish stories, I have got used to it being pilloried. The comments when they do appear, tend to be okay!