Story not found in “Top 30 days” and “Top 12 months”

[Lovecraft_lore2]

I wonder what the trolls would do if someone posted a story titled 'one bomb this story'.

 

[lovecraft68]

I wonder what the trolls would do if someone posted a story titled 'one bomb this story'.

The clever ones would give it a two or a three because those trolls know ones are always swept away, but a three is a legit vote, but one that will still lower a score.

 

[SimonDoom]

So maybe it's a difficult balance between reducing the engagement of authors and increasing it for readers. .

I don't think it is. There are more stories being published at Literotica than ever. There's no reason to believe that the Site's many issues, or the delay in dealing with them, are having a meaningful negative impact on authors contributing stories.

But reader engagement is very different. There is very good reason for the Site to be concerned that ANY additional inconvenience to readers would hurt traffic, which is the end-all and be-all. It's likely that reader demand is far more elastic than author demand is. That's why there is no way the Site is going to do anything that in its owners' judgment is likely to inconvenience readers, even a little. The balance will always favor the readers, as it should, and authors should not expect otherwise.

 

[MelissaBaby]

But this never happens. Never. There are no examples of this ever happening. Cookie-cutter stories about moms on laps get high views, but they don't win contests and get high scores, so they will never, ever crowd the toplists.

So yes, it's fair.

Remember, the whole point of a toplist is not to make you happy and tickle your ego. It's to help readers find stories. Once they find one chapter of your 77 chapter story with a 4.92, that's all they need to ID your story and decide whether they want to read it. The job is done. There's no purpose served, from the reader's point of view, in having 67 of your chapters crowd a toplist. It disserves the reader because it crowds off other potential stories for them to read.

Reasonable points. Thanks, Simon.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Its more fair because they are individual stories. However, in that case if the same author repeatedly using the same story I would imagine the readers would take them to task in the votes, and also not continue to read them.

There was someone in the paid market who would write a story-mom son-then swap the names and pronouns to bro sis dad daughter etc, he ended up getting banned on the platforms because he was getting a lot of chargebacks by readers realizing what he was doing.

That stuff gets sorted out.

"It's more fair because they are individual stories". Okay, but at the same time, it's unfair if the chapter is actually better than the individual story. And around and around we go...

I see both sides of this issue. From my personal point of view, I like that I have ten listings in the Romance top list, all story chapters, but on the other hand, if only the top scoring chapters were counted, the one that remained would probably pop up at least a few spots. And I have two stand alones and a series in Novels and Novellas that would all be on the toplist in that category, if all the extraneous series chapters were removed, and two in Erotic Horror that would probably make the cut as well. So overall, I would gain from the change.

But, I also have an emotional reaction based on comments I've read in the past that implied pretty strongly that those of us who have multiple chapters listed are somehow cheating, or that none of those chapters were worthy of any sort of honor, that they only scored well because they pandered to a small set of loyal readers. (As if acquiring loyal readers was something dishonorable.)

Bottom line for me is still that the only fair thing is separate top lists.

 

[lovecraft68]

"It's more fair because they are individual stories". Okay, but at the same time, it's unfair if the chapter is actually better than the individual story. And around and around we go...

I see both sides of this issue. From my personal point of view, I like that I have ten listings in the Romance top list, all story chapters, but on the other hand, if only the top scoring chapters were counted, the one that remained would probably pop up at least a few spots. And I have two stand alones and a series in Novels and Novellas that would all be on the toplist in that category, if all the extraneous series chapters were removed, and two in Erotic Horror that would probably make the cut as well. So overall, I would gain from the change.

But, I also have an emotional reaction based on comments I've read in the past that implied pretty strongly that those of us who have multiple chapters listed are somehow cheating, or that none of those chapters were worthy of any sort of honor, that they only scored well because they pandered to a small set of loyal readers. (As if acquiring loyal readers was something dishonorable.)

Bottom line for me is still that the only fair thing is separate top lists.

I don't recall seeing people saying anyone is cheating, the issue brought up is its an unfair advantage the way the site is currently set up, and the site claims at least annually it will change it and does jack shit, which is where people get frustrated

But here's one for you, and keep in mind years ago I wrote a 39 chapter series on here, so it applied to me too-scores on stories that go more than a fe installments are meaningless.

Why? Because the reason the scores get higher and stay that way is you are down to a core readership who is going to five you to death because they're fans. Stand alone stories, and the first couple of chapters in a series get a lot of mixed voting because some didn't like it, those people drop off as you move on, so getting 4.9 on chapter 11 is not a testament to that chapter being better than stories around it, just means you're getting attaboys from the fans of it.

The initial chapter would be the best ones because that's what hooked them. As you get higher you're just getting thumbs up from people who like eating the same lunch every day.

And, sorry, but I give more credit to someone who can write 20 stand alone stories, then someone with 20 chapters of the same story.

And again, I've done both so I'm saying that with my own work as well.

I think you're getting a little too defensive on this because you're obsessed with your series.

 

[KeithD]

And, sorry, but I give more credit to someone who can write 20 stand alone stories, then someone with 20 chapters of the same story.

I agree with this and think this is the essence of the issue. A chaptered story, by definition, isn't a story until the last chapter ends. A completed story ends. Part of the talent of writing is being able to put an ending on a story. You can have 52 entries here in two uncompleted stories series, and you haven't written a story to Literotica yet.

I think it's fine to have chapters in a top whatever list, but it's true that the fans of the series will predominate as the series progress and ratings will go up. Others will drop out in the reading/voting. Series, especially unending ones, are a different animal than complete, standalone stories and I don't think they should be lumped together in either contests or top lists. Having two different lists running would be fine, one for completed stories and one for chapters of story series.

And I post both here; my series have run up to twenty-one chapters across my accounts. All of my series are real stories though. They all have been finished and all have a regular story arc to them because they were all finished before they began to post here.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I don't recall seeing people saying anyone is cheating, the issue brought up is its an unfair advantage the way the site is currently set up, and the site claims at least annually it will change it and does jack shit, which is where people get frustrated

But here's one for you, and keep in mind years ago I wrote a 39 chapter series on here, so it applied to me too-scores on stories that go more than a fe installments are meaningless.

Why? Because the reason the scores get higher and stay that way is you are down to a core readership who is going to five you to death because they're fans. Stand alone stories, and the first couple of chapters in a series get a lot of mixed voting because some didn't like it, those people drop off as you move on, so getting 4.9 on chapter 11 is not a testament to that chapter being better than stories around it, just means you're getting attaboys from the fans of it.

The initial chapter would be the best ones because that's what hooked them. As you get higher you're just getting thumbs up from people who like eating the same lunch every day.

And, sorry, but I give more credit to someone who can write 20 stand alone stories, then someone with 20 chapters of the same story.

And again, I've done both so I'm saying that with my own work as well.

I think you're getting a little too defensive on this because you're obsessed with your series.

I've acknowledged that ranking only the highest scoring chapter is fairer than the current method, we agree there.

If I am defensive, it is about the attitude that "The initial chapter would be the best ones". I work very hard at my writing and I think it's fair to say that I have improved as I have written more. Most writers do. The assumption that later chapters in series only get high scores because they appeal to "people who like eating the same lunch every day" is dismissive of the effort that goes into writing them.

I am, by the way, obsessed with everything I write. I wouldn't do it if I wasn't.

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't think it is. There are more stories being published at Literotica than ever. There's no reason to believe that the Site's many issues, or the delay in dealing with them, are having a meaningful negative impact on authors contributing stories.

But reader engagement is very different. There is very good reason for the Site to be concerned that ANY additional inconvenience to readers would hurt traffic, which is the end-all and be-all. It's likely that reader demand is far more elastic than author demand is. That's why there is no way the Site is going to do anything that in its owners' judgment is likely to inconvenience readers, even a little. The balance will always favor the readers, as it should, and authors should not expect otherwise.

There wouldn't be any readers without the authors. As an analogy, would people fill a football stadium to watch the owner of the team stand around, or do they come to watch the players play?

Lit's popularity, their sponsors, their income come from the authors, so wouldn't make sense to at least once in a blue moon listen to them, and make them happy?

They make money on your stories, your payment is in readership, top lists dominated by three endless stories keep people from seeing your work and getting you more readership.

As a business, lit is the definition of bad behavior and half ass effort rewarded.

 

[SimonDoom]

There wouldn't be any readers without the authors. As an analogy, would people fill a football stadium to watch the owner of the team stand around, or do they come to watch the players play?

Lit's popularity, their sponsors, their income come from the authors, so wouldn't make sense to at least once in a blue moon listen to them, and make them happy?

They make money on your stories, your payment is in readership, top lists dominated by three endless stories keep people from seeing your work and getting you more readership.

As a business, lit is the definition of bad behavior and half ass effort rewarded.

Like many authors here, I would like to see the Site make some improvements that authors have been requesting for a long time. I think there are changes that would make the Site better for readers and authors alike.

I'm more inclined to cut the Site owners slack than you are, because my impression is they're stretched thin and have limited capacity to make changes quickly. I'm somewhat guessing on that subject.

But my main point is that, whatever one thinks of the value of authors (and I don't disagree with what you wrote) as a practical matter, in pure, practical terms, whatever thir value the authors would be here anyway, and there's a good chance the readers wouldn't be, in the same numbers, if things were made less convenient. I mean, you complain, but you're still here, right? Same with a lot of other folks. The Site knows this.

 

[PennameWombat]

The clever ones would give it a two or a three because those trolls know ones are always swept away, but a three is a legit vote, but one that will still lower a score.

Nope.

I’ve had ‘fives’ disappear during sweeps. On different stories. Not often, but it’s happened when it seemed sweeps were happening. The timing is why it seemed to be tied to the sweep and not because a voter went back and thought better of it and deleted their vote.

I may have had other valued votes, not just ones, swept away. But in a couple of cases, where multiple votes disappeared, it wasn’t possible to assign specific values. But they weren’t always just ones.

Not saying they wouldn’t follow your trick, just that it’s no guarantee if their only change is to vote three instead of one.

 

[lovecraft68]

Current 30 day lists top 10 entries for a few random categories.

Gay male-first 11 entries are chapters
Group 7 of the top 120 chapters
Mature 7 of 10
Lesbian 6 of 10
BDSM-best example 8 of 10 but one story has 23 of the first 28 are...one series
Incest one of the better showings for stand alone only 5 of 10 are chapters
Interracial...9 of 10
Fetish 8 of 10

I think that's enough.

The August monthly winners-all three are chapters
July 2 of 3
June 2 of 3
May- 3 stand alone
April 3 of 3 chapters

This is a small sample size of why people tend to be frustrated with the current system.

 

[lovecraft68]

Nope.

I’ve had ‘fives’ disappear during sweeps. On different stories. Not often, but it’s happened when it seemed sweeps were happening. The timing is why it seemed to be tied to the sweep and not because a voter went back and thought better of it and deleted their vote.

I may have had other valued votes, not just ones, swept away. But in a couple of cases, where multiple votes disappeared, it wasn’t possible to assign specific values. But they weren’t always just ones.

Not saying they wouldn’t follow your trick, just that it’s no guarantee if their only change is to vote three instead of one.

Yes, they'll take 5's too if they look suspicious, but I doubt a troll would dole out a 5 because there is no guarantee it would be swept.

Technically, seeing a 4.5 is the Red H and contest winners are well above 4.85 on average, a 4 would do the trick.

 

[lovecraft68]

And I post both here; my series have run up to twenty-one chapters across my accounts. All of my series are real stories though. They all have been finished and all have a regular story arc to them because they were all finished before they began to post here.

If you're running a story across multiple genres, then I see how people can easily follow because its all on your page.

But you said multiple accounts. How do they know when/where the next installment is if its under another pen name? Do you put a note? Is it all in one genre so they're seeing it in new story lists?

Seems like it would be tricky to follow.

 

[KeithD]

I meant that I have multiple accounts, each of which includes some long series. The twenty-one-chapter series I referenced is not in my KeithD account. It's in my sr71plt account.

I was posting exactly what you had--that I wasn't complaining about doing chapter series, because I also do chaptered series.

This might be an opportunity to note that I also recognized that some series run here are linked entries, each of which can stand alone and does have an ending. I've done a few of those too. Not all series are rolling chapters with no ultimate wrapup ending--or not one for a long time. I don't know how those fit into the problem of chapters being lumped with standalone stories on the top lists.

 

[lovecraft68]

I meant that I have multiple accounts, each of which includes some long series. The twenty-one-chapter series I referenced is not in my KeithD account. It's in my sr71plt account.

I was posting exactly what you had--that I wasn't complaining about doing chapter series, because I also do chaptered series.

This might be an opportunity to note that I also recognized that some series run here are linked entries, each of which can stand alone and does have an ending. I've done a few of those too. Not all series are rolling chapters with no ultimate wrapup ending--or not one for a long time. I don't know how those fit into the problem of chapters being lumped with standalone stories on the top lists.

Okay, I read it wrong, I thought you had one that was strung out across different pen names.

I've seen people do recurring characters, but each chapter a separate story

Joe and Jane go to the pool
Joe and Jane hit the road

Etc...

So they have a steady readership, but technically not a chapter series, just a series like the Hardy Boys or a comic book.

I don't generally see those in the top lists though, so I guess they don't get that same hardcore following or maybe its the readership stays consistent and doesn't drop like the on going titles

There's a series here pushing 200 chapters and to me its still not a story, there is no "the end" in sight.

 

[jsmiam]

I’ll clarify my own “noted series hater” comment to say this: I don’t really hate series, I just will never click on one. (I don’t wanna marry the story, I just wanna get laid by it. ). ;-)

I fully accept mine is just an opinion. In fact I’ll go so far as to say I’m scared of commitment and series fans are more serious readers than I. I don’t want series banned, I don’t feel the scoring patterns are cheating, just a side effect. And I certainly don’t think it’s easier, since the cumulative word count and time spent is higher.

So I’ll rename myself. I retract my “hater” status and replace it with annoyed.

But let’s be fair, they do clutter up the place. if you don’t want to have to see them, there’s no way not to. They push other stories out of sight for everybody. Especially lists where more than one series are visible.

Series: the tribbles of Literotica lists.

 

[desecration]

I don't know if I'd worry about votes.

The real question is whether you reach readers.

My guess is that a lot of them surf through the category tags and find favorite authors.