VOTER APATHY: 345 readers 2 votes???

[Em Keli 2003]

Talk about voter apathy. Mercy me!!

So one of my poems has over 340 readers listed but only two votes. That is less than one percent voter response. What is up with that?? Why don't people take the extra ten or fifteen seconds to validate your efforts? I find it amazing that they would take the time to read something but then not take a much much smaller fraction amount of time to give the author some valid feedback on their work. I don't think it is to much to ask of the reader for some insight on whether or not they liked / disliked the work!

Does anyone have some ideas about why this phenomenon occurs and are there any insights on how to cure the problem?

Is this an ongoing problem with Literotica??!

I think it would be nice if Literotica would not allow the reader to exit the page without a pop up asking for them to vote. At least forcing the issue and repeating the request for a vote to be cast.

Or am I simply hung up on the idea of getting some feedback and should just fluff up my duck feathers and move on?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I think poetry is someting of a red headed step child here on lit. It gets fewer looks and even fewer votes it seems. A personal opinion is that the people who look at poetry are more "High Brow" than the people who gobble up the stories. A poetry aficianado might be moved to vote if he found your work particularly well done, sensitive or new and refreshing, but might not if it didn't appeal to his/her artistic tastes. A story reader might be moved to vote if they were cleaning up with a towel at the end of the story.

You are playing to a different audience and it would seem to me they are more choosey in what they feel deserves a response.

Just my 2 cents worth

-Colly

 

[Alex De Kok]

Better ratio than my one and only poem - 1840 views, 9 votes 0.48% return.

Voter apathy doesn't just extend to poetry. In prose my 'most viewed' has 158682 views but only 430 votes, a 0.27% return.

Live with it, this is the voters of Literotica in (in)action.

Alex

 

[Em Keli 2003]

COLEEN

Well thanks for the input Colly. Not sure it makes me feel any better but I guess I will just fluff up my duck feathers. ( I just hate apathetics any way...) Or try to put out some poetry that requires the use of a towel. lmaoooooo.

Seems like a pop up with the five buttons showing when they exit would be a help at least, wonder whether the hosts of Literotica have ever given it any consideration?

ALEX
158,000 views and 430 votes...ouch! Barely one quarter of one percent is nothing less than a travesty in my opinion. Shame on em all!!

Guess I need more than duck feathers...going to go shopping for a coat of armor... ...and take some extra iron pills.

I remain surprised, particularly with the number of authors involved here, that there would not be a bit more support for each other. I guess that is the biggest disappointment.

I vote for everything I read out of basic courtesy. I will make a point of reading and voting on both yours and Colly's work for whatever small dent it might make in the scheme of things. Thanks for your insight.

 

[Quasimodem]

I think poetry is someting of a red headed step child here on lit... You are playing to a different audience and it would seem to me they are more choosey in what they feel deserves a response...

If you wish for your works to prosper, you must tailor your poetry to natural "stroke" rhythms to garner praise on Lit.

That means, no irregular rhythm, or creative rhyme schemes, and no blank verse. Rather, you must concentrate upon placing words and phrases that are increasingly shorter, and simple to sub-vocalize quickly, near the end of your poem.

Length will always be a problem. Not too long, for the premature ejaculator, but not too short for the habitual masturbator.

Of course, length has always been a problem, no matter what the format.

 

[Alex De Kok]

Em,

I too vote on anything I finish. I guess I feel that I ought to, if I want votes myself. If it's 'back-click' fodder, no. I'm lax in giving feedback, an admission that embarrasses me somewhat. I read little poetry and the only piece I ever wrote was for last year's 'Survivor', where I never got near finishing. Take note of Quasimodem - he talks sense.

Alex

 

[Parklife]

I've only written four stories so far so I'm hardly qualified to speak about a concensus. But, the last two have considerably more views and votes then the first two. Could be a few reasons:

1) I'm improving my writing (perhaps... i'm certainly more cognizant of getting it edited multiple times... but that's more my editor, not my writing)

2) My last two are specific fetish stories (creampies). Do people find more specific target audiences vote and respond than general "erotic couplings" stories? Maybe i've just found an audience looking for a specific type of story and they respond more frequently.

3) On my last two stories, I'm actually asking for people to respond and give me feedback. I personally think this is what has driven the vote counts higher but in reality i don't know. Seems to help though. I've also tried to respond to all feedback (at least on my last 3 stories) in the hopes that it encourages people to vote and respond.

Al that being said, i still only top out at something like .77% voter response to views. (though number of views isn't number of readers as is explained in lots of other threads)

Park~

 

[Couture]

This is pretty much a given. I write and post to several sites and 1% is pretty close to the amount of people who vote. Actual feedback is even less, but far more desired (at least by me)

Besides, wouldn't you rather your work voted on by those interested enough to do so? Even if it's only a few.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Lessee. 622 goes into 1701 twice. That's. Um. 12 something. Shit. Wrong freaking way.


Okay.

622 votes to 170119 views. 877 votes to 174774 views. It's about nada percentage-wise. It's the way the cookie cutter slices the wooden nickel.

I'm mixing metaphors to bake for dessert.

Dude, where's my calculator? Here we go. 0.36% and 0.50% respectively. Par for the course, m'dear.

 

[Seattle Zack]

My lame-ass attempt at poetry (written while drunk no less) garnered 190 views and 11 votes. A whopping 5.7%. What does that prove? That I've got ten friends, that's what.

 

[raphy]

Aaah, EK .. There is author support here on the AH, but also, there's a lot of experienced 'old hands', as it were that know what's worth crying about and what's not ... Unfortunately, voter apathy is one of those things that isn't likely to change.

 

[damppanties]

...try to put out some poetry that requires the use of a towel. lmaoooooo.

Please do let me know when you do that.

Em, as somebody has already said, having a note at the bottom of your story/poem which reminds others to vote, helps.

That said, one of my poems has 1 vote with 434 views. Please do the math yourself.
And the one vote was entered after six months of the poem being posted.

 

[Dirty Slut]

Talk about voter apathy. Mercy me!!

So one of my poems has over 340 readers listed but only two votes. That is less than one percent voter response. What is up with that?? Why don't people take the extra ten or fifteen seconds to validate your efforts? I find it amazing that they would take the time to read something but then not take a much much smaller fraction amount of time to give the author some valid feedback on their work. I don't think it is to much to ask of the reader for some insight on whether or not they liked / disliked the work!

Does anyone have some ideas about why this phenomenon occurs and are there any insights on how to cure the problem?

Is this an ongoing problem with Literotica??!

I think it would be nice if Literotica would not allow the reader to exit the page without a pop up asking for them to vote. At least forcing the issue and repeating the request for a vote to be cast.

Or am I simply hung up on the idea of getting some feedback and should just fluff up my duck feathers and move on?

I had to laugh when I read this. Welcome to the real world. Imagine that, forcing the reader who was kind enough to read my work in the first place so that they are made to respond to what they read at gun point. LOL Okay, so I'm overstating the fact, but basically you need to turn your thinking around here. 340 people have read your poem. 340! Have you ever seen a crowd of 340 people at a live poetry reading? NO. But here 340 people have read your words, and 2 of them thought so much of it that they even voted for it. That's amazing! And to think otherwise is shameful.

DS

 

[Weird Harold]

Talk about voter apathy. Mercy me!!

So one of my poems has over 340 readers listed but only two votes.

What I'd like to know is how you got such a good voter turnout.

A typical story at Lit averages about one vote for every thousand views; your result is way above average.

First of all, a view dos NOT equal a "read" and there are mayrasons for a true read not to register a vote -- For me, a story or poem has to generate a LOT of emotion for me to goback and find it again to vote on it because I download the stories I'm interested in and save them to read offline. In order to vote on a story, I have to go back and generate a second "view" and page through the entire story to get to the voting applet. That requires that you, as the author, write something that is either "Wow! That's the most moving thing I've ever seen," or "oh my god! I've got to warn others to avoid this garbage before it destroys their brain cells," before I'll make an effort to return to the story and vote on it.

 

[Em Keli 2003]

RAPHY

Thanks for your input here. At least I am understanding what to expect and being new to this den of bibliophiles I am learning what to expect an what not to expect. I submitted a short story and have gotten much higher rate of return so apparently its also a poetry related issue. Personally I liked poetry submitted better than the story.

DIRTY
Glad your laughing any way... I like to put a smile on a pretty face.
Just trying to feel my way around. Don't really expect anything but do want to understand and gain some perspective. I have not posted poetry/stories anywhere and have had some published authors prodding me off my fanny so I thought I would test the waters here at Literotica for some items.

Chairman Mao had a little red book In his little red book was a passage "The Masses are not Asses". That is when Mao and I parted company.

Ultimately all authors write for themselves, me included. Sure we would like to be read but, readers are fickle folk. If I tried to second guess 'em I would go batty for sure. I have enough problems trying not to drive myself batty. Dont need any help there.


Thanks again to all who took the time here to put in your two cents. I am begining to see that the responses I got were above average on the poetry as well as the one story.

More important to me than the readers or the votes is the insight that other more experienced folks here have offered to help clue me in and I appreciate that and the personal messages of encouragement sent along in emails by some of you.

 

[Gary Chambers]

Prostitute yourself

Today I sent out emails to a small mailing list of friends and acquaintances, inviting them to read my story. I send acknowledgements to people who give me feedback. I put everyone in a database to alert them next time I post something. I do the biz; the p.r. Don't know if it will pay off. But that's what I'm thinking is the way to go. I may even pin up some posters in local bistros etc. Drag them in specifially for your poem or story, then they might feel more natural voting.

I think a lot don't vote because there are so many they can't read them all (I know I can't), so they don't feel comfortable ranking them. Only other writers who know how to recognise true quality at a glance will be different. I haven't been around long enough to read them all, but I'd wager a small bet that Subatomic Terzanelle (Cordelia) does well in the poetry field, just because it is so full of genius it cannot be ignored. Producing excellent work and promoting it a little, prostituting yourself by degree, has got to have some effect.

That's my thinking.

 

[Xelebes]

Why do I not vote?

Same reason why I don't participate in elections, I hate deciding. Yup, that's why folks...