Voting accuracy

[dr_mabeuse]

Once a story gets about 20-30 votes, you can pretty well tell where it’s going to end up. For all the bitching we all do about voting, I’ve found that, with a few exceptions, the ratings for my stories pretty much reflect my own opinion of them. I might argue about the last digit, but other than that I can pretty much understand their ratings and rankings.

I’m wondering whether other people agree with this. Do your ratings offer a pretty fair reflection of your own opinions of your stories?

---dr.M.

 

[Couture]

Most of the time I tend to agree with the ratings. However, there are times when whether due to the controversial nature of a story or a lack of comprehension by the reader that some very good stories are killed before they can even gather 20-30 votes.

 

[oggbashan]

20-30 votes? I'd be happy if some of my stories reach 10 votes.

Some youngsters have no stamina. They can't read more than one Lit page to get to the voting.

Og

 

[English Lady]

Mostly they do how i expect them to. Only once do i remember the voting being lower than i expected for a story and then i looked back on it and realised it WAS that bad!*L*

My last two subnmitted stories have far surpassed what I expected of them...one I thought was pretty hot and my husband loved it(my christmas story)but then it was based on his personal fantasy!!!! The other, "till the end" Was quite different for me, romantic and slow building and with quite a sad ending(I didn't want it to end that way but the character did so i gave in) and it took me a long time to write. I was convinced it wouldn't be very popular at all and right now its got the highest score of all my stories!!!!


Anyway, like the good Doctor I usually guess about right with the votings...I think thats the answer we were looking for here right?*L*

 

[TheEarl]

Nope. I reckon readers don't have a clue. My best story by far (Comfort Food) hasn't got the best score, nor an H. However that story has got very complimentary comments from another AHer whose opinion I respect, so that backs up my opinion I guess.

The Earl

 

[gauchecritic]

The vote ratings are screwed in my opinion Mab. They are a mean average and have no weighting whatsoever.

People read the stories and very rarely vote for the same reason as any other three voters. 20-30 votes averaged out can be crippled by a bomb. 100 votes? that would be closer to a real reading.

As you may have guessed, I don't think most of my vote scores represent how well I think I've written my stories.

On the other hand I think they probably not only reflect how 'hot' my stories are but also how disparate readers reasons for voting are.

Gauche

 

[Boxlicker101]

I have one story that I thought was really good and it has never gotten as high as 4.00. Another that I feel almost ashamed of, it is so sketchy, stands at 4.67. It goes to show, you never can tell.

I have one story about a foursome that has had almost 9,000 views but only four votes and a score of 3.75. It has been posted for over a month. Sometimes I wonder why so few people will express an opinion.

 

[Dirt Man]

The fickle voter syndrome.

Since my voting average per story is above 4.25 I have to assume that most of the readers have enjoyed my work posted here at lit. And that includes having a poem rating at 3.91. Now you'd think that with such a high average that I'd have at least won one of the contests here at lit, but I haven't. For whatever reason, without getting into all of the suspisions I have on the latter, I am satisfied that what I produce here is as good if not better than what you'll find online anywhere for the same subject matter. Not bragging, just being truthful here for the purposes of this thread. All of my erotic stories have well over a hundred votes at the very least. Which means that each of them have been hit by the fickle finger of fate, vengful, jealous, or obnoxious 1 voter that no story's vote average can recover from enough to win a contest with, or end up on the top lists with.

So do I believe the voting average reflects my opinion of my own work? Not really, but like everyone else here I have been forced to accept a certain lower level of standards within the restraints of the system.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I only have one story posted, and it's a bit of a special case, because of the Winter Contest, so I can't really have a definite opinion on this. However, what I gather from my poems and what I see on the lists is that the ratings depend on too many factors and are too random to be taken as a measure of a submission's literary quality.

A very good story or poem may end up with a good rating, or may get two 1s before getting the first 10 votes and never take off at all. It may be in a popular category with a high stroke-seekers ratio and do poorly even if it gets huge numbers of votes.

 

[mtnman2003]

Consistency.........

Hey Dr. M:

I have submitted and had released 12-stories over the past 3-months. All have been widely accepted, couple with over 200 votes as I recall from memory. Reads/views are upwards of 60K for one, with most between 30K-40K range.

The story that I remember the least fun, least satisfying for me has hovered around 4.44 -- the only story not to receive an "H".

So, they have met expectations.

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

Nope. My votes here and on Stories on Line don't match up
with my opinion of my stories. They don't even match up
with each other.
Moreover, I have some stories which have got raves from
writers I respect; they aren't among my top - voted
stories. Leave aside the question of how good a writer
I am; some of my top-of-the line stories are averaging
below 4, while "Crush," which gets better than 4.5 isn't
in their league.