Irrationally angry at losing the 'H'

[ShelbyDawn57]

I assume H is for hot?

Can be inferred to mean that. All it really means is an average rating of 4.5 with, I believe, at least ten votes.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Goddamn, people! Why are those meaningless ratings and hearts matter so much to you?

 

[mirafrida]

I usually have several stories floating between 4.47 and 4.5. Sometimes they approach hot asymptotically without ever quite reaching it, others are hot for brief stretches and then get whacked down. Seems like maybe that's the nature of stories that are generally liked but also stir a portion of haters

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Goddamn, people! Why are those meaningless ratings and hearts matter so much to you?

Everyone likes to be validated. All of the metrics on our stories can do that. The ratings are the ones used by the system to rank the stories, so it makes sense that they would have elevated value.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Can be inferred to mean that. All it really means is an average rating of 4.5 with, I believe, at least ten votes.

Correct.

 

[alohadave]

Goddamn, people! Why are those meaningless ratings and hearts matter so much to you?

Why does it matter to you what other people do?

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Why does it matter to you what other people do?

Exactly. Why does it matter to you if somebody -- a stranger you don't know -- presses 1 or 5?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Exactly. Why does it matter to you if somebody -- a stranger you don't know -- presses 1 or 5?

I think I just answered that above. I’m guessing you lie to be told ‘good job.’

 

[Bramblethorn]

Exactly. Why does it matter to you if somebody -- a stranger you don't know -- presses 1 or 5?

Why do people post stories to be read by strangers they don't know?

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Why do people post stories to be read by strangers they don't know?

I wanted to develop some writing skills. That was my motivation. Posting them helps.
I don't know about others.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Heck. The title of the thread is

Irrationally angry at losing the 'H'​

Is that lost on you?

 

[lovecraft68]

As time goes on and you realize how many reasons there are for a story to not perform as well as you want it to(and conversely ones that do far better than you thought) you stop caring as much. Only thing consistent when it comes to readers/scores/etc is inconsistency.

If you let it upset you, you're losing the fun of writing stories, and you don't want to do that.

 

[vagrantx]

I wanted to develop some writing skills. That was my motivation. Posting them helps.
I don't know about others.

I'm a true-to-the-bones Giver. I get my kicks out of causing sensations, pleasure, pain, arousal, love, and don't care much for my own being. I like knowing people get off to my stories. Low scores mean they didn't like what I created and that hurts a bit. Not enough to deter me from writing more, of course, but it still kinda sucks that I didn't manage to capture their mind.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

There are an awful lot of reasons for people giving you a bad rating, not necessarily that they don't like the story:

• your story got the H or even made it into the top list - someone being jealous
• you published in a category they don't like - and they just drop a one-bomb on any story in that category
• your characters act against their moral compass, there's a whole category 'dedicated' to this
• they don't like your profile
• you commented (too positively/negatively) on another one's work
• ...

I think one of the writer's skills one has to develop is becoming indifferent to the trolls, it's much better to focus on those people who love your story.

 

[SimonDoom]

I confess I have a somewhat jaded perspective and am disinclined to have much sympathy in these cases. I had a story that stayed right at 4.49 for over two years, before finally crossing over to 4.5. I'd stare at the score on a screen like watching a pot of water and waiting for it to boil, but it never did for such a long time. Now, almost 7 years at publication, it's at 4.51, and it shows no sign of budging. It was a bit maddening for a long time, because all of the other stories in that series had scores over 4.5, but not that one. Now I just find it amusing. I publish 750 word stories knowing to a near certainty that they won't have scores near 4.5. I shrug and move on to the next story.

 

[RejectReality]

Exactly why the Red H should be taken out back and put down like a rabid dog.

Nobody would notice a story moving from 4.5 to 4.49 without that H creating artificial angst and a convenient target for trolls.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Exactly why the Red H should be taken out back and put down like a rabid dog.

Nobody would notice a story moving from 4.5 to 4.49 without that H creating artificial angst and a convenient target for trolls.

I disagree. It's a boundary change. Same reason everything it priced at $9.99 instead of $10.00. I sounds cheaper. Never understood why, almost as a species, we are so obsessed with certain boundary numbers. Is living to be 100 really much more impressive than making it to 99 and nine months? WE seem to think so.

 

[SimonDoom]

Exactly why the Red H should be taken out back and put down like a rabid dog.

Nobody would notice a story moving from 4.5 to 4.49 without that H creating artificial angst and a convenient target for trolls.

Totally agree. It means nothing. It takes away more from this site than it adds to it.

A 4.5 in Loving Wives means it's above the 90th percentile in all scores in the category, but even that doesn't mean anything because it very likely reflects what KIND of Loving Wives story it is more than it reflects on quality.

In other categories, having a 4.5 means nothing more than that the story is in the top 35 percent.

Or it means that you finally cracked 4.5 by writing and publishing 96 chapters of a story and weeding out every last straggler who doesn't like your story.

The red H adds nothing meaningful to the number itself. It's superfluous, but it seems to tickle people's vanity enough that people get invested in it.

And it's not going anywhere.

 

[RejectReality]

I disagree. It's a boundary change. Same reason everything it priced at $9.99 instead of $10.00. I sounds cheaper. Never understood why, almost as a species, we are so obsessed with certain boundary numbers. Is living to be 100 really much more impressive than making it to 99 and nine months? WE seem to think so.

It's only a boundary number because the H has artificially created it.

Even if someone was sad about it, it wouldn't change the readership prospects of the story with the H eliminated. That's demonstrated by how little it matters whether your story is 4.50 or 4.80 as far as engagement goes. If it's got a red H and not on the first page of the toplist, it's pretty much all the same.

 

[SimonDoom]

I might support a meaningful red H-- say, you get a red H if your story is in the top 20%, scorewise, of all stories in a particular category. That actually means something, because it conveys information that the raw score does not. It has a meaning that crosses categories and conveys information to readers that they might actually find useful.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I might support a meaningful red H-- say, you get a red H if your story is in the top 20%, scorewise, of all stories in a particular category. That actually means something, because it conveys information that the raw score does not. It has a meaning that crosses categories and conveys information to readers that they might actually find useful.

Perhaps we should let the readers decide. let them choose to call a story hot is it is, well, hot. Add a check box just like the stars.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Nope. I maintain it's as societal as it is arbitrary. While the drop from 4.5 to 4.49 is significant because of the 'H' in the context of this conversation, I still propose 4.5 was chosen because it was a boundary and we see boundaries as significant.

Be honest, if a story drops from 4.0 to 3.99, you notice it a lot more than if it drops from 4.29 to 4.28. Boundaries, we notice them.

 

[dadadadiox]

If you write long form with chapters appearing every week you’ll begin to see a pattern. There are readers following the story who leave ratings first thing every morning a new submission drops. I can set my clock by a them. Late in the day when the red H appears the one-bombers swoop in an knock the score down. I have a handful of haters who bomb every chapter. Sometimes the red H survives, other times it doesn’t.

I often get a pair of one-star votes back-to-back within minutes of each other. It can be annoying but it doesn’t discourage me or make me feel bad about the work.

It took me a long time to accept the fact there are trolls who simply feel power in anonymously crapping on your work. I remind myself that a 4.0 is a good score, especially when I consider there are at least three 1 votes on every chapter.

Keep writing and don’t let the bastards get you down.

 

[jhealy55]

At the same time if you download your stats to excel regularly you can see that there are voters out there hunting stories that are right over the H Line, knowing they can pull them down with a one. At the margins it does seem somewhat unfair in that rarified air above 4.75 or 4.80 that you give the one bombers much more say than a horde of voters trying to say the story is a 5.

Without letting them know, I'd think there would be a way to disconnect users applying a 1 or 2 to a story that averages above say 4.0 with dozens of other votes tallied. Particularly if they've gone through every chapter in a multi part story dropping ones on every installment.

As a practical matter, if I couldn't give at least a four to a chapter, my odds of reading any more installments, or work by the same author, drop off to almost nothing. Granted they could always create another MULT if they knew they were blocked, but if they thought they were impacting the score and didn't know they'd been cut off, I think they'd happily go on score trolling being none the wiser while leaving the real input to the honest readers.

As others have pointed out, it has little to do with the actual quality of the writing and a lot more with whether you satisfied their particular fantasy, disparaged their favorite cartoon or made them more filled with impotent rage than life already had.

Point being, most of us would like to connect with more readers who find our work satisfying and enjoyable. The current system gives too much input on a high rated story to those who are neither.

 

[ChloeTzang]

A couple months ago, I submitted a story. I thought it was good, although not necessarily my best, so I was pleasantly surprised when its rating shot up to 4.51, and I was finally awarded with my first red 'H'. Well, I logged in today, and its rating had dropped to 4.49, depriving me of the H. Damn! No real punchline here, just needed to vent.

It happens to all of us. I've had a contest winner that went from about 4.9x when it won the contest to 4.49. C'est la vie. I don't worry about it anymore, altho I did the first couple of years I was here. Now? I laugh about it and don't take it to seriously at all. It is what it is.

The writing a story that you're satisfied with yourself is the crux of the matter. Reader approbation is a delightful bonus, sort of like a cigarette after sex, or a glass of champagne after a blowjob where you've swallowed. LOL. I'm not quite sure of the simile I'd use for comments, but....you write your story, it's there, and the rest is up to fate and the readers.... go on and write the next one.