What Do You Value More?

[VCDC]

What do you value more on a story?
1 ) Rating
2) Views
3) Favorites

What average rating makes you happy?
1) 4.00 - 4.25
2) 4.26 - 4.50
3) > 4.50

 

[AwkwardlySet]

What do you value more on a story?
1 ) Rating
2) Views
3) Favorites

Comments.

What average rating makes you happy?
1) 4.00 - 4.25
2) 4.26 - 4.50
3) > 4.50

5.01
I want to be untouchable.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Favorites, as views only show how many people clicked on my story but says nothing about how many actually read it (to the end). Ratings... well...

Regarding your second question:
I like how you automatically assume that a score below Four can not make anyone happy

 

[Winter_Fare]

What do you value more on a story?
1 ) Rating
2) Views
3) Favorites

Number 3

What average rating makes you happy?
1) 4.00 - 4.25
2) 4.26 - 4.50
3) > 4.50

My happiness doesn't really get affected by the score. I know full well my writing won't appeal to everyone, I tag my stories carefully so people who want to read can find them.

 

[madelinemasoch]

What do you value more on a story?
1 ) Rating
2) Views
3) Favorites

What average rating makes you happy?
1) 4.00 - 4.25
2) 4.26 - 4.50
3) > 4.50

Views. More people read it. Ratings... I barely care about the ratings, aside from 1-bombs being annoying. Favorites are always nice, but I don't really mind. The most significant thing in this regard is when I know a lot of people read it.

 

[Bamagan]

What do you value more on a story?
1 ) Rating
2) Views
3) Favorites

What average rating makes you happy?
1) 4.00 - 4.25
2) 4.26 - 4.50
3) > 4.50

I don't value any of those very much. But if they added a toggle for readers to admit 'reluctantly orgasmed' I would derive amusement from that.
Since the H dingle means the ratings are essentially one thumbs-up option and four progressively more tumorous thumbs-down, the only rating that makes me happy is X.XX, really.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd pick views/favorites, which I regard as approximately the same thing, because favorites are roughly a function of views (at least in my case). So I guess that means views. Here's why.

At this point in my writing, I write what I want, by my standards, and while I like getting high scores, all things being equal, they don't mean that much to me. What means something to me is knowing that I have connected my stories with as many appreciative readers as possible. I think that's the coolest thing of all. It's not the total number of hits that matters; it's knowing that I've connected with real people out there who have read the story. To know that my story has given readers pleasure is extremely satisfying, and the more pleased readers, the better.

So, for example, I'd much prefer that my story X have 100,000 views and a rating of 4.5 than 10,000 views and a rating of 4.7. The extra .2 rating means nothing to me. Having 10 times as many readers means a lot to me, because it tells me that I probably have about ten times as many happy readers.

Comments are great, too, but there are so few of them that I don't hang my hat on them. I know that readers who comment are a tiny fraction of overall readers, and I get satisfaction from knowing that readers have enjoyed my story even if they haven't commented on it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Comments, followed by score.

Favourites are so far below the noise threshold, they're meaningless.

 

[SimonDoom]

Also, let's be honest. Human psychology being what it is, our answer to this question will tend to be whatever measure we do best at.

 

[AG31]

What do you value more on a story?
1 ) Rating
2) Views
3) Favorites

What average rating makes you happy?
1) 4.00 - 4.25
2) 4.26 - 4.50
3) > 4.50

finding like minded people

 

[Djmac1031]

I'd pick views/favorites, which I regard as approximately the same thing, because favorites are roughly a function of views (at least in my case). So I guess that means views. Here's why.

At this point in my writing, I write what I want, by my standards, and while I like getting high scores, all things being equal, they don't mean that much to me. What means something to me is knowing that I have connected my stories with as many appreciative readers as possible. I think that's the coolest thing of all. It's not the total number of hits that matters; it's knowing that I've connected with real people out there who have read the story. To know that my story has given readers pleasure is extremely satisfying, and the more pleased readers, the better.

So, for example, I'd much prefer that my story X have 100,000 views and a rating of 4.5 than 10,000 views and a rating of 4.7. The extra .2 rating means nothing to me. Having 10 times as many readers means a lot to me, because it tells me that I probably have about ten times as many happy readers.

Comments are great, too, but there are so few of them that I don't hang my hat on them. I know that readers who comment are a tiny fraction of overall readers, and I get satisfaction from knowing that readers have enjoyed my story even if they haven't commented on it.

Oddly, I'm gonna go with Simon here.

Most of my stories have great ratings. I get lots of nice comments. And a decent amount of Favorites.

What I'd REALLY like is more readers.

Now I fully realize 100K views does not automatically translate to 100k reads.

That said, 100K views means the probability a lot more people actually read the thing than 2K views.

 

[EroticCupcake]

I find myself writing just to build an audience to read the things I've written that I still love. So far it is a virtuous circle. Even so, I suppose score matters more to me at the moment.

As mentioned above, probably comments most of all. Sometimes it feels like I perfectly captured love or tenderness or anguish. But writing is subjective. It needs to resonate with an audience.

 

[Devinter]

I care the most about comments as well - and especially, oddly enough, the ones that are rather negative but offer some sort of constructive advice or critique. Because at the end of the day I'm on the website to get better at writing in English, really - so anyone that gives me some pointers that could help me grow is warmly welcomed.

If that's not on the table, then I suppose views come second - mostly because it increases the chances that I'll get people offering to edit my future stories, which is something I really dislike doing... PS: Want to edit something? PM me!

 

[gunhilltrain]

Comments.




5.01
I want to be untouchable.

That reminds me of Spinal Tap's eleven on a scale of one to ten.

 

[gunhilltrain]

4. Comments.

4. Anything above a 3.

Comments, even negative ones, are hard to get, except in LW of course.

I certainly don't want to go below a three, but it's happened more than once.

 

[bumpercars]

This is like being asked whether I like boobs or asses most. The answer is yes.

I like knowing that people read my work; I like knowing that they enjoyed it; I like hearing what they thought. I see no need to tease out which one is best in life when I can just enjoy them all.

I wouldn't recommend writing with any of these statistics in mind - write the story that moves you and do it as well as you can, and then learn from the response.

 

[Devinter]

Comments, even negative ones, are hard to get, except in LW of course.

I certainly don't want to go below a three, but it's happened more than once.

In order to go below a 3, I imagine you have to make some people really angry? Because if your normal score is around 4 and above, and then suddenly you go all the way down to a 2-point-something, then something must have gone awry, and you must have made enemies somehow? Maybe people from the forums just went onto your stories and downvoted them out of spite or something? It doesn't make sense to me.

For the summer contest, I wrote an incest first-time story between twins. And there was no vaginal penetration. They went straight to anal. Tons of the comments were from people that HATED that. And I still managed to get a 4.7 or something on the story. Snippet from the comments below.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

finding like minded people

Sad but understandable (after all, tis why we are here).

1. Comments.
2. Score
3. Favourite
4. Views

 

[Rob_Royale]

What means the most is when someone favorites a story and then a while later favorites three or four more stories at one time. That means they liked the one story enough that they are bookmarking more. Makes my day.

 

[ronde]

I look at comments first, then the number of votes, and finally, the score. My logic is this:

No matter the comment, if I reached a reader enough for them to leave a comment, I've done pretty well at stirring their mind enough to tell me about it.

The number of votes tells me basically the same thing. The more votes, the more readers I reached either positively or negatively.

The score is a good measure of how the readers who voted accepted my story. I don't write for every reader on Literotica, so anything higher than 4.0 makes me very happy.

I don't pay much attention to favorites because a lot of readers seem to have hundreds of stories as favorites. I'm sure some favorite a story so they can find it easily when they have time to read it.

I do watch the number of readers who are following me. That represents the segment of Literotica readers who happen to enjoy my work.

 

[gunhilltrain]

In order to go below a 3, I imagine you have to make some people really angry? Because if your normal score is around 4 and above, and then suddenly you go all the way down to a 2-point-something, then something must have gone awry, and you must have made enemies somehow? Maybe people from the forums just went onto your stories and downvoted them out of spite or something? It doesn't make sense to me.

For the summer contest, I wrote an incest first-time story between twins. And there was no vaginal penetration. They went straight to anal. Tons of the comments were from people that HATED that. And I still managed to get a 4.7 or something on the story. Snippet from the comments below.

I know I've mentioned this before. I got people - not angry, but something hard to define - when I wrote a four chapter series about a real-life person, Valerie Solanas. So who was that? She was the woman who attempted to kill Andy Warhol in 1968 - ancient history to some people. She also defined herself as a radical feminist lesbian, but I'm not going to get into that except to say that didn't help my scores. There was a movie about her in 1996 (she had already passed by then) and more recently a biography. However, she is not, well, popular among some readers here. "Who cares about this minor human failure?," somebody commented. Somehow I thought she was interesting anyway and I still like what I wrote.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116594/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_0_q_I%20Shot%20Any%20Warhol

https://www.amazon.com/Valerie-Sola...&sprefix=Valerie+Solanas,stripbooks,78&sr=1-2

 

[Blind_Justice]

I'm with the majority here. I value comments as the "best" reward for my writing, they show that the reader in question was moved enough to let me know - even if it's an attempt to tear down my story.

In regards to ratings, I'm a spoiled brat. 4.5 is my average, so anything below sours my milk. I mean, even after almost twelve years of putting my weird nerd shit up here, I still have no idea what people actually like about it.

 

[mirafrida]

I don't really look at views. But beyond that, on my better days at least, I try to see each of these as another vector for feeling good about my story.

• If I get a good rating, that's great. I'd say anywhere above 4.3, I'm feeling ok, though of course I like Hs
• On the other hand, if the rating is low, but it has a high ratio of favorites, that's a salve. In fact, one can argue it's better, because it means there was a decent set of people for whom the story was really impactful
• And a positive comment always improves one's day, especially if it has a little bit of thought behind it

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Also, let's be honest. Human psychology being what it is, our answer to this question will tend to be whatever measure we do best at.

Doesn't seem to apply in my case. My stories were doing much better with favs and ratings than with comments.

 

[Devinter]

Also, let's be honest. Human psychology being what it is, our answer to this question will tend to be whatever measure we do best at.

Doesn't seem to apply in my case. My stories were doing much better with favs and ratings than with comments.

Doesn't apply to me either, if I understand Simon's point correctly. Quite the opposite in fact. Whatever area I usually care the most about - in writing and otherwise - is the area I'm failing at. That's what I want to improve. So the measure I do worst at is what gets my attention, if anything. I'm big on always improving, always changing for the better, in all aspects of life.