The advantage of entering a contest is still that your story gets far more attention for much longer than it would if posted outside a contest. That can spill over to your other stories. Whether all that attention is welcome? That's another question but if you are posting stories on Literotica, or anywhere, presumably you want an audience.
Whether you can win a contest? I think that has become almost a lottery. Any competent story stands a chance of competing. Most contest stories ARE competent. I don't think that an author, by themselves without considerable help, can really influence the result. Posting early, posting late, posting in a popular category or an unpopular one, don't seem to outweigh the other factors influencing ratings. There might have been advantages several years ago when the number of entries were fewer and the number of votes was significantly lower. Then a sweep could move a rating further - or reduce the total votes to less than 25. Getting less than 25 votes is now rare. It wasn't.
The sure way to lose is not to enter. I don't think there is a set of rules/tricks/methods to ensure a place in the top three.
I still think that an author gains from entering the Literotica contests.
For me? The contests give me motivation to write. Without them my stories would be far fewer.[/
I think some would say the results can be manipulated, this thread demonstrates that. How ever, the contest entrants have emerged very well. Apart from that I agree with all you say and it reflects my philosophy. There is no pride to be had in cheating. I think everyone acknowledges that.
It is strange. It seems that everything that is created to do good things for people is destroyed by other people because it doesn't directly benefit them. I see that with the contests.
It is like Men's Sheds here. They were established mostly because there was no where else for men and the suicide rates in men were alarming. Many times they have been challenged by women. Slowly acceptance has gathered. One simply has to persist with one's philosophy.
Perhaps a philosophy of contests needs to be established, kind of like saying writers are often isolated. The risks of isolation are enormous. The contests encourage them to socialise. The result is that those who write are happier and quality stories are hopefully created for everyone. Some thing like that may be helpful.
