Which Voting Protocol is Best?

[BobbyBrandt]

For a story that gets submitted in multiple parts, and I'm speaking of a single story not a story series, what have you found to be the best way to set up voting for the completed work?

For example, if you allow voting on each submitted chapter or part, the votes are not necessarily representative of the readers' opinion on the complete story. It's kind of like asking someone to rate their dining experience for each course of a meal separately. Should voting be set up so that it measures the complete experience by turning off voting on all submissions except the final one? Has anyone done this?

 

[SimonDoom]

Why would you turn off voting? I don't understand.

My philosophy, and my recommendation, is to permit the maximum possible amount of interaction with readers. Don't shut anything down. I can't understand why one would do that. You might get some negative reaction. So?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Why would you turn off voting? I don't understand.

My philosophy, and my recommendation, is to permit the maximum possible amount of interaction with readers. Don't shut anything down. I can't understand why one would do that. You might get some negative reaction. So?

I'm not saying that I would do it.

I am asking if anyone else has done it, if doing so might provide a more accurate measure of the completed work versus segments of it, and would there be other benefits or costs associated with it. As far as interaction with the readers is concerned, they would still have comments available to them if they so desired.

It has been my experience that when when I submit stories in multiple chapters or parts, the individual posts rate pretty close to each other, but with the number of views varying quite a bit. The final chapter has consistently rated the highest, but can that be a true indication of what readers thought of the entire story? I don't know. My thought was that if voting was restricted to only the last chapter, the votes would more closely reflect the experience of readers who read all of the parts, and their opinions more accurately.

I also compare this to the comments I receive between stories submitted in a single posting versus those at the end of individual chapters. These indicate that readers who complete the entire story before commenting or voting have had a better experience. They understand the subtle nuances and plot twists that occurred and how these affected the final product more than someone who gets hung up of a cliffhanger at the end of chapter three.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not saying that I would do it.

I am asking if anyone else has done it, if doing so might provide a more accurate measure of the completed work versus segments of it, and would there be other benefits or costs associated with it. As far as interaction with the readers is concerned, they would still have comments available to them if they so desired.

It has been my experience that when when I submit stories in multiple chapters or parts, the individual posts rate pretty close to each other, but with the number of views varying quite a bit. The final chapter has consistently rated the highest, but can that be a true indication of what readers thought of the entire story? I don't know. My thought was that if voting was restricted to only the last chapter, the votes would more closely reflect the experience of readers who read all of the parts, and their opinions more accurately.

I also compare this to the comments I receive between stories submitted in a single posting versus those at the end of individual chapters. These indicate that readers who complete the entire story before commenting or voting have had a better experience. They understand the subtle nuances and plot twists that occurred and how these affected the final product more than someone who gets hung up of a cliffhanger at the end of chapter three.

When you write a story that consists of many separately published chapters, your story will experience a significant amount of attrition. Readers who don't like it as much will drop off. By the last chapter, you will have fewer readers, but the ones who remain are, obviously, those who like your story well enough to stick around. So as the story progresses, the views drop significantly, but the score tends to rise. But I would say the score for the last chapter is probably less "accurate" than the score for the early chapters, because it's the product of attrition and self-selection.

It's a common phenomenon that many authors experience. The final chapter may have no more than one quarter the readers that the first chapter does.

The high score for your final chapter probably reflects two things: one, the readers who remain are those that like your story and are inclined to give it a high score, and two, the final chapter, as the culmination of the story, may be the most satisfying chapter. In an erotic story the last chapter is very often the sexiest and most erotic.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

When you write a story that consists of many separately published chapters, your story will experience a significant amount of attrition. Readers who don't like it as much will drop off. By the last chapter, you will have fewer readers, but the ones who remain are, obviously, those who like your story well enough to stick around. So as the story progresses, the views drop significantly, but the score tends to rise. But I would say the score for the last chapter is probably less "accurate" than the score for the early chapters, because it's the product of attrition and self-selection.

It's a common phenomenon that many authors experience. The final chapter may have no more than one quarter the readers that the first chapter does.

The high score for your final chapter probably reflects two things: one, the readers who remain are those that like your story and are inclined to give it a high score, and two, the final chapter, as the culmination of the story, may be the most satisfying chapter. In an erotic story the last chapter is very often the sexiest and most erotic.

I can only speak to my own experiences.

When I analyze two of my multi-part story submissions, looking at the percentage of votes to views, I see consistency of between 5% to 7% in one story and between 3% and 5% in another. The views per chapter was also pretty consistent, all within 90% of the average for the story overall.

With the first story mentioned, the difference between the lowest rated chapter and the highest rated chapter was .12. With the second story, the difference between low and high was .11, with most chapters in both being within a point or two of the last chapter. There was one chapter in the middle of each story that some readers took exception to (offended by a strip club?) and these are the examples that I am referencing when I question if they reflect the readers' OVERALL experience with the stories.

 

[lovecraft68]

All of this is way too much thought and effort, I'd rather spend my mental energy on the actual story.
Scores on a site that allows anon voting and the ability to create an unlimited number of alts shouldn't be taken too seriously

 

[AlexBailey]

My guess is that if you only enabled voting for the last part, trolls not withstanding, you would probably get a good score at the end because only the people who were into your story would stick around to vote.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My experience is that readers are weird, final chapters may score lower than preceding ones but also have more views than previous ones. Also how well your chapter matches their desires, and how sexy your tags and tagline are, probably makes more difference to scores.

If your chapters swap categories within a story, all bets are off. But even if you don't - I have chapters 3,4 and 5 of my Educating Laura story in Group Sex. They have 6k, 2k and 4k views respectively, albeit similar scores. Ch.2 scored higher with 7k views, but was in E&V so I'm guessing readers who like voyeurs don't like open watching, or something.

Whatever. Onto the next. I thought I'd finished a solid draft but just realised I left out half the sex scene...

 

[KeithD]

I can't understand why one would do that. You might get some negative reaction. So?

If you can't understand why anyone would do that, you haven't been paying much attention. When you have one or two users mass slam-voting your stories down into the 2 zone as they come out of the gate, your access to readers using the scoring as an index to quality is impaired and you would be better just to turn the voting off. That happens at Literotica. If you don't know that, you haven't been paying much attention.

 

[Winter_Fare]

If you can't understand why anyone would do that, you haven't been paying much attention. When you have one or two users mass slam-voting your stories down into the 2 zone as they come out of the gate, your access to readers using the scoring as an index to quality is impaired and you would be better just to turn the voting off. That happens at Literotica. If you don't know that, you haven't been paying much attention.

I have no ambitions to win prizes or contests, and that's the only downside of turning votes off for a bit. I have paused voting on a chapter for a few days while an obvious flurry of down-votes was happening.

I know I post fairly niche stories without mass appeal but this was blatant, every one of the new stories was getting twos and threes that day.

It pissed me off at first tbh. It was clearly one particular author or their fan club doing it then I realised... I have the power! Screw those guys.

 

[Winter_Fare]

My experience is that readers are weird, final chapters may score lower than preceding ones but also have more views than previous ones. Also how well your chapter matches their desires, and how sexy your tags and tagline are, probably makes more difference to scores.

If your chapters swap categories within a story, all bets are off. But even if you don't - I have chapters 3,4 and 5 of my Educating Laura story in Group Sex. They have 6k, 2k and 4k views respectively, albeit similar scores. Ch.2 scored higher with 7k views, but was in E&V so I'm guessing readers who like voyeurs don't like open watching, or something.

Whatever. Onto the next. I thought I'd finished a solid draft but just realised I left out half the sex scene...

You can't win! Crossing categories loses readers, sticking with one category even when themes shift tends to lower the votes. I hate pigeon holing my stories, I do my best but can't seem to get the hang of it.

 

[Voboy]

I'd post longer stories, and fewer of them. I'd never disable voting, but then I've never viewed 1-bombers as anything other than a minor nuisance.

You do lose readers over the course of a chaptered series, but I find that those fewer voters have a MUCH higher voting percentage. And they're more likely to give 5* votes, in the nature of things. So the overall score (in my limited experience with chaptered entries) typically rises even though the readership falls.

Long chapters, each with a strong payoff and a self-contained plot: that's my recommendation. The votes will come.

 

[SamScribble]

If you want a high score, recruit a couple of thousand 'friends' and pay them each a couple of quid (five bucks?) to give you a five star vote. If you want to know if your story (or an individual chapter) is any good, ask someone whose opinion you value. Just a suggestion.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Should voting be set up so that it measures the complete experience by turning off voting on all submissions except the final one? Has anyone done this?

The vote/score does not represent any kind of "complete experience" since it's only around 1% of readers who bother voting, even on last chapters. It's more like anecdotal evidence, a bit of a clue, but it's hardly "complete".

I'd always leave scoring turned on for every chapter. That way, you can see which chapters did better with readers. That can be interesting, to see the ups and downs between chapters.

Also, the score of your first chapter is what brings readers through the door. If the first chapter has no score, there's no chance of a Red H, no way for readers to judge how good the first chapter is. They'll move along the corridor to some other writer's door.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

The vote/score does not represent any kind of "complete experience" since it's only around 1% of readers who bother voting, even on last chapters. It's more like anecdotal evidence, a bit of a clue, but it's hardly "complete".

I'd always leave scoring turned on for every chapter. That way, you can see which chapters did better with readers. That can be interesting, to see the ups and downs between chapters.

Also, the score of your first chapter is what brings readers through the door. If the first chapter has no score, there's no chance of a Red H, no way for readers to judge how good the first chapter is. They'll move along the corridor to some other writer's door.

You make the most valid points for not turning off voting by chapter; the ability for other readers to view the score and gauge their desire to read from that.

1%? That seems low, at least from what my experience has shown. My lowest vote count to views percentage is 3%, and that is for an older story that many readers have gone back to read numerous times.

 

[jsmiam]

If you search (hint: google sometimes is better than lit, via something like “series score site:forum.Literotica.com”) you’ll see countless debates about series scoring, some of it from me (personally I hate the cluttering up story lists), but also how series scores are skewed because of the “only fans” element of readership of later chapters. So series scoring is a different animal right from the get go.

To your question, I would think some followers would be acquired from them seeing earlier chapters with scores, but that’s just my opinion. Good luck with whatever path you take

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If you search (hint: google sometimes is better than lit, via something like “series score site:forum.Literotica.com”) you’ll see countless debates about series scoring, some of it from me (personally I hate the cluttering up story lists), but also how series scores are skewed because of the “only fans” element of readership of later chapters. So series scoring is a different animal right from the get go.

To your question, I would think some followers would be acquired from them seeing earlier chapters with scores, but that’s just my opinion. Good luck with whatever path you take

Thanks.
I think I'm leaning towards simply posting longer, single submissions in the future rather than breaking them up into chapter or multi-part submissions. I'll take a hit from those readers who hate stories with more than three pages, but they won't usually hang around long enough to matter.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You make the most valid points for not turning off voting by chapter; the ability for other readers to view the score and gauge their desire to read from that.

1%? That seems low, at least from what my experience has shown. My lowest vote count to views percentage is 3%, and that is for an older story that many readers have gone back to read numerous times.

1% is my stat, averaged from a hundred plus stories/chapters - other writers find something similar. But I'm scattered across multiple categories, whereas you're mostly novels and novellas, so there's a category specific response going on (I've never submitted into that category).

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Naturally my story with the most comments is in the 'Loving Wives' category

 

[SimonDoom]

I checked out your three series. Your experience is, I think, somewhat unusual. You experience a relatively low level of attrition, and an unusual degree of stability regarding scores (which are extremely high, by the way, so you must be doing something right). I suspect two of the reasons are 1) publishing in the Novels category, whose readers expect multiple chapters, and 2) publishing one chapter soon after the other and not keeping readers waiting.

I'm the opposite. I have two series that STILL are unfinished after several years, so when I resume them I am sure I will see an extremely high attrition rate.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Thanks.
I think I'm leaning towards simply posting longer, single submissions in the future rather than breaking them up into chapter or multi-part submissions. I'll take a hit from those readers who hate stories with more than three pages, but they won't usually hang around long enough to matter.

There are probably as many ways to handle this as there are authors on this site (well, I'm exaggerating). My preference is to not post or write more than about three Lit pages at a time. That's kind of arbitrary; for myself, I have trouble reading longer passages on the screen as opposed to in print.

If you do have a multi-chapter series, you probably should leave the voting on for all of them. Yes, you could tell readers that you turned off voting until the very last chapter. But as we said, you have no clue as to which readers will still be around at that point. I suspect that there are some who will only read selected chapters, even if that seems counter-intuitive. I would prefer to get feedback through voting on each chapter to gauge how the series is being received.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

There are probably as many ways to handle this as there are authors on this site (well, I'm exaggerating). My preference is to not post or write more than about three Lit pages at a time. That's kind of arbitrary; for myself, I have trouble reading longer passages on the screen as opposed to in print.

If you do have a multi-chapter series, you probably should leave the voting on for all of them. Yes, you could tell readers that you turned off voting until the very last chapter. But as we said, you have no clue as to which readers will still be around at that point. I suspect that there are some who will only read selected chapters, even if that seems counter-intuitive. I would prefer to get feedback through voting on each chapter to gauge how the series is being received.

I see your point, but since the story is complete in its entirety when I start submitting chapters or parts, how the story is being received by readers through their votes by chapter means less than if I was submitting as I write them. I'm not going to change anything in chapter 12 because someone likes or dislikes something in chapter 10.

As I mentioned previously, my experience has been that my multi-part submissions get pretty consistent ratings, with only one chapter typically falling a little short because someone doesn't like a turn that the story has taken at that point. The scores go back up and generally end higher once those who have stuck it out see the whole picture and not just the brush strokes that created it.

 

[Voboy]

I see your point, but since the story is complete in its entirety when I start submitting chapters or parts, how the story is being received by readers through their votes by chapter means less than if I was submitting as I write them. I'm not going to change anything in chapter 12 because someone likes or dislikes something in chapter 10.

As I mentioned previously, my experience has been that my multi-part submissions get pretty consistent ratings, with only one chapter typically falling a little short because someone doesn't like a turn that the story has taken at that point. The scores go back up and generally end higher once those who have stuck it out see the whole picture and not just the brush strokes that created it.

I'm curious, since I'm not generally a "chapter guy:" If you have the whole story up and you think you shan't allow voting until it's all done, then why post in chapters at all?

I'm not getting something here...

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm curious, since I'm not generally a "chapter guy:" If you have the whole story up and you think you shan't allow voting until it's all done, then why post in chapters at all?

I'm not getting something here...

I've posted in chapters and parts due to some readers commenting that this is their preference. It certainly isn't mine since it multiplies the work required to get a lengthy story completely submitted and frustrates those readers who want to read the complete story from start to finish without having to wait a day or two for the next part to get published.

My last two stories were posted as single submissions and I haven't received any negative comments, but I do warn readers in the beginning which might be allowing those opposed to long stories to move on early. They're both scoring well so I'll give it a while to see how the views to votes ratio evolves.

 

[Voboy]

I've posted in chapters and parts due to some readers commenting that this is their preference. It certainly isn't mine since it multiplies the work required to get a lengthy story completely submitted and frustrates those readers who want to read the complete story from start to finish without having to wait a day or two for the next part to get published.

My last two stories were posted as single submissions and I haven't received any negative comments, but I do warn readers in the beginning which might be allowing those opposed to long stories to move on early. They're both scoring well so I'll give it a while to see how the views to votes ratio evolves.

Ahhhh. I see. Thanks.

My usual rule is that my preference trumps everybody else's. Lol. The readers are free to write whatever they want, however they want, and submit them just like I do.

I love longer stories, and mine always score well. My current one will come in at 15k words, which I think of as extremely short.