Unusual voting pattern

[velcrofist]

This must be my first post here so hello everyone!

https://literotica.com/s/emily-2-0-ch-01

My latest story above has been doing ok but the voting seems off. The first chapter in my previous two novels didn't do as well as subsequent chapters so I was kind of expecting that again. However, Ch 1 & 2 this time were both rating around 4.8 for the first couple of days and then down votes started coming in, driving them down closer to 4.5. Ch 2 is now below 4.5.

When I published Ch 3, someone immediately gave it a 3 but the next 30 or so gave it straight fives. Then after a couple of days it started getting down votes again. It's still doing well (so far at least) but it seems strange to suddenly get down votes after the majority of people were liking it so much, and the 3-bomb within minutes of publishing seems out of place as well.

Ch 4 got one-bombed within minutes followed by a three (possibly the same 3-bomber as above) and a couple of fives. It published in the off-peak time so it'll probably be at least 24hrs before I see some decent numbers to see if that changes up or down.

I'm also not getting any comments either, which is both unusual and makes the down votes hard to make sense of. Criticism I don't have a problem with but these unexplained down votes have me scratching my head.

So have I just chosen the wrong category and readers of this category expect something else, or is there something off with the story or writing?

 

[KeithD]

There's no "usual" voting pattern at Literotica. The vast number of "passing through" readers here means who is reading what with what interest during the life of a story varies wildly. I didn't see anything in what you wrote that I haven't seen before in my own accounts here over fourteen years. Welcome to discussion board.

 

[velcrofist]

No worries. Thanks KeithD. I probably just have to give it a few months to see the bigger picture. It just seemed so different to my previous efforts with the down votes coming in clumps, and a complete lack of comments so far. I'm not sure how much of a factor it may be but I've gone ahead and moved it to the Exhibitionist category anyway, which should happen in a week or two. I look at similar stories like SeaHawk76's and that's what they've done.

If anyone has any links to similar reluctant ENF type stories please let me know. I've been writing within this theme so far because there seems to be such a lack of them. I guess on that basis I'm mostly doing it for myself so it doesn't really matter how they rate, but it's great that there's still plenty of people liking them and following me anyway, so if I don't get a red "H" every time it's no biggie.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Never judge a story's rating in the first thirty days. Trolls and sweeps will affect the scores up and down, especially if there's a contest on around the same time you post. What you're seeing is usual behaviour, so don't panic. Your story rating will settle over time.

 

[SimonDoom]

I didn't read the story, but I opened it up and it has fewer than 500 views. It's much, much too early to make any judgments. You can't infer anything from votes or comments or whatever. Give it time.

Comments are few and far between. That's normal. Don't be discouraged by the lack of comments. I get, on average, less than one comment for every 5000 views.

 

[velcrofist]

No worries. Yes, it's still early days. It just weirded me out because the behaviour is quite different to my earlier works. I didn't see such strong starts for the first 2 days followed by a sudden backlash with those, and I was getting comments just after the second chapter went up. The pattern was more like mostly fives for the first dozen, then a drop within 24 hours and then at 48 hours it would pretty much hold at whatever it was at as the votes kept coming (give or take a couple of decimal points).
I'm not sure where you're seeing fewer than 500 SimonDoom? From here I see Ch1 is at 8000 views, Ch2 7100, Ch3 4000, and Ch4 is just hitting 750. Incidentally that 3-bomb I mentioned just after Ch4 published has gone again. I don't think people can change or delete a vote so a sweep must have picked it up I guess, but then the 1-bomb remained so it must have looked legit.