The Official (Most likely) 2025 Literotica April Fool's Day Contest Support Thread!!!

[Actingup]

I mean, maybe? I also watched my scores and saw them change through the two rounds of sweeps; I went up a little bit. It seems a little implausible for something to be at score x, then go to x + 0.10 just in time for judging and be back down to exactly where it was within just a few hours. If I look at story view, the ratings now look like basically what they were when the sweeps last night were finished.

There are various threads about this. For your own stories, you can track the vote numbers and see how much 'sweeping' work is being done behind the scenes to try and get a fair result, and when your story is being bombed (based on a small increase in votes but a large decrease in score). It's harder to track stories by other people, but from what I understand it seems lots of winning authors have had experiences where their stories have been swept (vote rises) and then bombed (vote falls) immediately after the winners are announced. So yes, I think it's plausible.

From my limited experience here I would also say that I've never seen a competition winner where the story was undeserving. It's not a perfect process, but it's not bad.

 

[Voboy]

I guess. I'm kind of stunned that the #2 and #3 stories were never above 4.8 in the last week, weren't above 4.8 this morning and aren't above 4.8 now, while at least two stories that didn't finish in the top 3 were, were and are. I don't mean to take anything away from the winners, but I'll be honest: doesn't make me feel great about entering another contest.

I mean, I'm not defending the system nor advising you to start to like it; the problems with contest scoring get no end of threads about them, and my PMs can attest that they're VERY frequently discussed behind the scenes.

That said? I'm just stating a fact. I've entered dozens of these and won my share, and "come close" to winning more of them. This is simply how the contests work. So, while you don't have to like it, you do have to accept it.

If you can't? Then the contests will only lead you to an ulcer.

I'd advise you do what I do: think of the contests as fun events with themes that challenge your creativity while giving you the chance to interact meaningfully in threads like these. Revel in the exposure and feel joy in your colleagues' achievements.

But above all? NEVER care about winning. That way, when it does happen, it's a nice surprise.

 

[glynndah]

Mine ended up with 4.55 which I think is pretty good considering it was very short, in Romance category with absolutely no naughty bits at all. I'm quite pleased.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Congratulations to all the winners, and those who contributed, too. There were a lot of great stories this year.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

Congratulations to the winners, some great entries this year

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Thanks everyone, and congratulations to the other winners and to all who entered. I haven't had time to read very many of the stories so far but have really enjoyed all those I've read.

Also, thanks to TNG, Voboy, and Actingup for the comments on voting. Those responses mirror my experiences over numerous previous contests and a number of near misses.

 

[RocketGrunt]

Congratulations to the winners.

I will not participate in any more contests. My hope was that entering the contest would raise visibility of my work. Very much the opposite happened. The vote sweeps were effective in giving the work an appropriate end score (4.68), but that doesn't actually matter because the vote bombing was effective at keeping it with an underwater score for the entire time it was on the front page. Thus, being part of the contest at all severely handicapped it in reaching an audience at all.

I don't really care if one of my works gets rated 4.5 or 4.8, but if it appears on the front page with a rating of 2.5, people won't read it. If people don't read it, what's the point of putting it online?

To put things in perspective:
I have two series running on the SciFi/Fantasy board. Pocket Monster University is a severely niche monster girl work with a lot of comedy elements and a major character who is a clown who pulls scissors out of her mouth. Fighting Them There is a much less niche dungeon system harem story. Understandably, PMU episodes get much less engagement than FTT episodes.

The latest PMU chapter was rated 185 times (average 4.71). The latest FTT chapter was rated 300 times (average 4.86).
My contest entry was, after the vote sweeps for the vote spiking, rated just SIXTY-FIVE TIMES. It was posted on the highest traffic board (I&T) and was even blessed with pride of place as being at the top of the new releases page on the day it came out. And yet, because it was part of the contest, it got less engagement in a month than what chapter twenty of a niche story about monster fucking on a niche board got in less than twelve hours.

I can certainly see why people would participate in contests for the love of the game or participation in a group activity. But I literally just wanted exposure, and this contest did not deliver a positive experience in that regard. Best of luck to anyone participating in future contests, I will not be one of them.

 

[InvisibleHarvey]

Congratulations to the winners.

I will not participate in any more contests. My hope was that entering the contest would raise visibility of my work. Very much the opposite happened. The vote sweeps were effective in giving the work an appropriate end score (4.68), but that doesn't actually matter because the vote bombing was effective at keeping it with an underwater score for the entire time it was on the front page. Thus, being part of the contest at all severely handicapped it in reaching an audience at all.

I don't really care if one of my works gets rated 4.5 or 4.8, but if it appears on the front page with a rating of 2.5, people won't read it. If people don't read it, what's the point of putting it online?

To put things in perspective:
I have two series running on the SciFi/Fantasy board. Pocket Monster University is a severely niche monster girl work with a lot of comedy elements and a major character who is a clown who pulls scissors out of her mouth. Fighting Them There is a much less niche dungeon system harem story. Understandably, PMU episodes get much less engagement than FTT episodes.

The latest PMU chapter was rated 185 times (average 4.71). The latest FTT chapter was rated 300 times (average 4.86).
My contest entry was, after the vote sweeps for the vote spiking, rated just SIXTY-FIVE TIMES. It was posted on the highest traffic board (I&T) and was even blessed with pride of place as being at the top of the new releases page on the day it came out. And yet, because it was part of the contest, it got less engagement in a month than what chapter twenty of a niche story about monster fucking on a niche board got in less than twelve hours.

I can certainly see why people would participate in contests for the love of the game or participation in a group activity. But I literally just wanted exposure, and this contest did not deliver a positive experience in that regard. Best of luck to anyone participating in future contests, I will not be one of them.

I feel everything you're saying.

It seems like the people trying to downplay your experience have been on the site for years and already have large followings. I don't know if they realize how much of an impact these troll votes have on newer, less established authors. By the time those troll votes are removed, your story has already been buried.

What I hear them say is that the only solution is to just have more people read and rate your work, which is a bit of a catch-22.

 

[Voboy]

It seems like the people trying to downplay your experience have been on the site for years and already have large followings. I don't know if they realize how much of an impact these troll votes have on newer, less established authors.

Not a bad analysis; there's probably a lot of truth in it. Honest question, though: do you think it was any better when we got started?

I'm not "downplaying" anything. I'm just very, very experienced when it comes to entering contests here, and I'm trying to give newer writers the benefit of my experience. As I stated above, I'm merely stating facts. You learn to work with those facts or, with the blessings of all Litsters of good will, you don't post in the contests with any degree of joy.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Not a bad analysis; there's probably a lot of truth in it. Honest question, though: do you think it was any better when we got started?

Depends when you got started. If it was before social media and the ability to easily send out mass calls to action (come vote for my story!) off-site then yeah, probably a little.

 

[Voboy]

Depends when you got started. If it was before social media and the ability to easily send out mass calls to action (come vote for my story!) off-site then yeah, probably a little.

I'll make it easy for you: one-bombs are far from new. We've all coped with them. We still cope with them.

You don't pay your dues here by avoiding submissions in high-traffic events after one bad outing. You pay your dues here by knocking out high-quality prose, as prolifically as you can.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I'll make it easy for you: one-bombs are far from new. We've all coped with them. We still cope with them.

You asked a question. Don't be snotty when you get an answer. Yes, it was probably easier to compete against larger creators when tools to reach off-site audiences didn't exist or were smaller. That's kind of self-evident.

I'm not especially complaining about one-bombs in the contest. Other people are, and I understand why. The way the site handles them sucks.

 

[Actingup]

Congratulations to the winners.

I will not participate in any more contests. My hope was that entering the contest would raise visibility of my work. Very much the opposite happened. The vote sweeps were effective in giving the work an appropriate end score (4.68), but that doesn't actually matter because the vote bombing was effective at keeping it with an underwater score for the entire time it was on the front page. Thus, being part of the contest at all severely handicapped it in reaching an audience at all.

I don't really care if one of my works gets rated 4.5 or 4.8, but if it appears on the front page with a rating of 2.5, people won't read it. If people don't read it, what's the point of putting it online?

To put things in perspective:
I have two series running on the SciFi/Fantasy board. Pocket Monster University is a severely niche monster girl work with a lot of comedy elements and a major character who is a clown who pulls scissors out of her mouth. Fighting Them There is a much less niche dungeon system harem story. Understandably, PMU episodes get much less engagement than FTT episodes.

The latest PMU chapter was rated 185 times (average 4.71). The latest FTT chapter was rated 300 times (average 4.86).
My contest entry was, after the vote sweeps for the vote spiking, rated just SIXTY-FIVE TIMES. It was posted on the highest traffic board (I&T) and was even blessed with pride of place as being at the top of the new releases page on the day it came out. And yet, because it was part of the contest, it got less engagement in a month than what chapter twenty of a niche story about monster fucking on a niche board got in less than twelve hours.

I can certainly see why people would participate in contests for the love of the game or participation in a group activity. But I literally just wanted exposure, and this contest did not deliver a positive experience in that regard. Best of luck to anyone participating in future contests, I will not be one of them.

I think that your analysis is based on pretty limited data. Yes, if a story is badly bombed, you won't get as many readers. I've had that with a few stories. Both of my stories for this contest for this contest were bombed, and for one of them ('Mirror Twin', which similarly to yours ended up on 4.66), I'm sure it made a difference to the exposure.

However:
1) my worst bombed stories haven't been in contests - they were bombed because they triggered people.
2) my highest scores (in the 4.8x range) have come from contest entries, and I didn't have a huge base of followers to draw on.
3) my highest rating count for a story came from this competition - 'The April Fools' News Story' got ~24000 views and nearly 1700 ratings despite a score of 'only' 4.46 (which is actually pretty good for Loving Wives). I can't tell you how much of that was due to being in the competition.

You do you - I'm simply suggesting that it would be simplistic to say that the contests aren't a net positive. The chances of actually getting a win in a contest are pretty small given that they can get 100s of entries, but you also get the experience of learning from other authors, generating new ideas, potentially making new friends, and in general working to be a better author. The contests also help generate readers for the site, and encourage people to look across different categories. Were none of those 65 voters new to your work? Plus, there's the joy of having people enjoy your work in general. I've only been writing on this site for eight months, but despite the ups and downs, I know that my stories have overall had 240K more 'views' than they would have had otherwise. If only I could translate that kind of readership to my academic papers!

Best of luck for the future.

 

[ThatNewGuy]

My contest entry was, after the vote sweeps for the vote spiking, rated just SIXTY-FIVE TIMES. It was posted on the highest traffic board (I&T) and was even blessed with pride of place as being at the top of the new releases page on the day it came out.

That's a pretty compelling example. I don't read in I&T, but from what I've heard in the AH about the traffic the category receives, I would expect any story posted there to get far more than 65 ratings.

And are you saying that your story was listed at the top of the overall New Erotic Stories page when it was released (i.e., not just at the top of the I&T category page)? If so, that should have really boosted traffic for your story. I once had a story at the top of the new stories page, and I definitely noticed an uptick in engagement.

It's a shame if an early one bomb (or series of bombs) had such an enormous effect on your story and prevented readers from giving it a chance. I'm sorry that happened to you.

 

[YmaOHyd]

That's a pretty compelling example. I don't read in I&T, but from what I've heard in the AH about the traffic the category receives, I would expect any story posted there to get far more than 65 ratings.

Just as a proxy, 41 of the top 50 stories on the 30-day toplist in that category have more than 65 ratings. The nine that don't are a chapter 10, a chapter 33-36, a chapter 12, a chapter 11, a chapter 2 that's been out for a week, a chapter 37-40, a chapter 3, a chapter 13 and a chapter 14.

Just looking at the standalones on that list, they've got 329, 374, 113, 364, 446, 754, 733, 617, 729, 287, 155, 75 and 730 votes; the obvious low outlier was posted three days ago and I think is at the top of the 7-day toplist right now.

 

[Agent0069]

My story from this contest started dropping in rating too at one point. With only a few added votes it fell from 4.57 to 4.52, bounced back a little, but then fell to 4.5 and then 4.49 thus loosing the red “H” of pride.

That got me pissed and I went on and gave myself 5 stars a second time, which was just barely enough to regain the “H”. It helped - more readers kept coming, story votes climbed and slowly but surely rating recovered. I suppose that without the “H” this process would be much slower.

Surely my 5 got swept, but I don’t really care since it merely mitigated the damage dealt by troll 1s. And yeah, had there been just one more 1 - most likely story wouldn’t recover.

What can I say, never thought that there can be as much bloodbath over ratings for porn stories on a free site, but here we are. At least it’s fun!