Revelation about Ratings

[mirafrida]

I can say confidently that I find story ratings somewhat helpful in choosing stories to read. I would be sorry to see them go.

I'm of two minds of this. Do I, as a reader, use ratings? Yes. Do I find them helpful in finding stories I like. Um... marginally, I guess, largely because in the absence of anything better it's what I have.

What I really want is the intersection of "very good" (well written, original, thoughtful, interesting, serious about character development, etc.) and "hits my fantasy likes very solidly." Personally, ratings don't take me very far in achieving that - largely, I believe, because the two concepts are melded together in that one number in some very random way. Ultimately the "system" as a whole (ratings+category) is so hit and miss that I've mostly given up trying. That frustration is probably what drove me toward writing in the first place.

Admittedly, I don't know that I could design a better system. But I when I sometimes dip back in the pool, I find myself clicking so many "4.5" stories that are, honestly, incredibly crappy. And conversely, of the stories I like, a lot are 4.4+, but a number are 3.8-4.2 range. So I think ultimately the ratings steer me, and readers, astray nearly as often as the help. I suspect there might be a substantial pool of 4.1 stories out there I would really enjoy but tend to discount up front - because even though I don't trust ratings, I, like most people, still tend to see 4.1 and sublimally assume "it's been judged low quality, not worth bothering with."

Maybe part of the equation here is that my "likes" are somewhat off the mainstream. I don't know, I go back and forth about how balkanized erotica preferences are. Perhaps for the most vanilla reader out there, ratings will be more helpful.

 

[XerXesXu]

Say my stories mentioned above each had 100 votes, so the random noise in each score is about 1.00/sqrt(100) = +/- 0.10. I can't reliably say that the 4.50 is doing better than the 4.40 or worse than the 4.60; those differences are small enough to be pure chance. I can probably say that the 4.60 is better than the 4.40 though.

That's the quantitative, now do the qualitative.

If you seek attention, whether good (SD) or bad (LC), there are those with clear strategies to successfully fish for it. The only way to form an opinion whether A writes more to your liking than B is to read samples of each, sit down, write out your criteria and compare and contrast.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I wish Literotica kept stats for multi-page stories like "What percentage read all the pages including the last one?" That would actually tell us how many people finished those stories.

-Billie

I'm not sure if it's technically possible to determine how many people click on a story and then actually read it. I'm not very techie, but it would probably depend on on long they keep the file open. Does anybody have any ideas of how that could work?

 

[gunhilltrain]

Because the sample size is small I don't believe that means the vote total is wildly inaccurate. The national polls on politics and other things are usually pretty damned accurate even if they are infinitesimally small compared to the overall population. I would argue it is the same with votes on a story.

And I think you missed one other piece that works into this: the readers that do vote and why they vote.

From experience on other websites that do post what each vote is, I can say you rarely if ever will get a vote other than the top and bottom. Here it's a 1 or a 5. On another site I have posted stories to, it is a 1 or a 10. I have 34 stories posted there and I can count on the fingers of one hand votes other than a 1 or a 10.

The reason I went through that explanation was to say this: You only get 2 kinds of readers that vote (discounting the odd troll or two) on a story, those who utterly love it and those who utterly hate it. The higher a score is on a story the more "love it" readers voted. Even though the sample is small, you can reasonably extrapolate from that (just like a national poll) that most of those who read it liked it too.

Now a couple of questions for anyone willing to answer: If you as an author do not believe the votes mean anything, why keep them active? If you do not believe votes mean anything as to the quality of a story, what metric do you feel should be used to measure that?

Personally, I think the readers are the best and only metric to use. And I can't think of another way to do it other than voting. Can you?



Comshaw

As Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) says in Godfather II, "This is the business we have chosen." Lit is a mass medium. Those metrics are all we have to go by. If fifty people vote and the score is above a 4.00 or so, then I accept that as the only sign of success that I'm ever going to get.

 

[alohadave]

I'm not sure if it's technically possible to determine how many people click on a story and then actually read it. I'm not very techie, but it would probably depend on on long they keep the file open. Does anybody have any ideas of how that could work?

The only real way to do it would be to have something that you interact with on the page when you get to the end. Getting into page view times gets really into the weeds and it doesn't help the site serve stories to readers.

What we are discussing here ultimately doesn't matter that much to the site or readers. They've decided that what is in place is good enough and making a change isn't worth their time and energy to appease authors.

Would I like to have more reader data? Sure. I'm a small time number geek, so having more data would be fun to play with. But at what point am I chasing numbers rather than writing stories? For me, the only thing I really want is a breakdown of votes, because Lit absolutely has that information based on the fact that they can do sweeps.

 

[trained23]

Those read numbers also might include rereads and you can’t vote more than once

 

[gunhilltrain]

The only real way to do it would be to have something that you interact with on the page when you get to the end. Getting into page view times gets really into the weeds and it doesn't help the site serve stories to readers.

What we are discussing here ultimately doesn't matter that much to the site or readers. They've decided that what is in place is good enough and making a change isn't worth their time and energy to appease authors.

Would I like to have more reader data? Sure. I'm a small time number geek, so having more data would be fun to play with. But at what point am I chasing numbers rather than writing stories? For me, the only thing I really want is a breakdown of votes, because Lit absolutely has that information based on the fact that they can do sweeps.

The site itself is either contented or overwhelmed with the results. Probably more of the latter. In effect, the "site" is a single person. What is it, dozens of new stories per week to deal with?

 

[TheWritingGroup]

The site itself is either contented or overwhelmed with the results. Probably more of the latter. In effect, the "site" is a single person. What is it, dozens of new stories per week to deal with?

Hundreds. Look at the New Stories feed some time, if you're curious. I have been hoping that "Laurel" is actually a small team. That's one huge slushpile to go through, otherwise.

-Annie

 

[gunhilltrain]

Hundreds. Look at the New Stories feed some time, if you're curious. I have been hoping that "Laurel" is actually a small team. That's one huge slushpile to go through, otherwise.

-Annie

No one is really sure what goes on behind the scenes here. I've joked that Laurel actually quit or died years ago and was replaced by someone else using that name. It would be something like Miss Lonelyhearts. For example, "Ann Landers" never existed. He column was written by other people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Lonelyhearts

 

[Kelliezgirl]

No one is really sure what goes on behind the scenes here. I've joked that Laurel actually quit or died years ago and was replaced by someone else using that name. It would be something like Miss Lonelyhearts. For example, "Ann Landers" never existed. He column was written by other people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Lonelyhearts

More like the Dread Pirate Roberts...

 

[TheLobster]

See, you are all mistaken. It's not "Laurel"; it's actually L.A.U.R.E.L.:

Limber Automaton Upgraded to Review Erotic Literature

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Too often, "views" are comparable to someone picking up your book in a bookstore, reading the back cover blurb and putting it back on the shelf. There is little investment. From what I can see, the closest metrics to traditional publishing available for writers on Literotica are the ratios of votes to views (compare to book purchase) and comments to views (compare to a review).

An example I can share is with one of my stories on Literotica, titled “1990” in Novels and Novellas. The title is extremely vague, and the short description isn’t much better. Both done purposely. The story has been published for 630 days and only receives 1.26 views per day. It has a score of 4.84, has been viewed 870 times, but has 587 votes and 19 comments.

Those numbers are off the chart for any story on Literotica. All of my stories in the Novels/Novellas category have the highest scores, and the best votes per view and comments per view ratios compared to stories in other categories. I need to add that none of these stories contain any graphic sexual content, mostly only implied sex.

 

[Codoc24]

Yeah, the voting may not really be accurate, but I'll continue to live in my little fantasy world and pretend that it is. What does it hurt? It stokes my ego that 400+ people read it and liked it enough to vote and give me a 4.71 rating. They're the only ones who matter to me. It's nice to see a high rating but it's not that important to me. Though I would be pretty bummed if 1,000 voted and the rating was 1.0.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Yeah, the voting may not really be accurate, but I'll continue to live in my little fantasy world and pretend that it is. What does it hurt? It stokes my ego that 400+ people read it and liked it enough to vote and give me a 4.71 rating. They're the only ones who matter to me. It's nice to see a high rating but it's not that important to me. Though I would be pretty bummed if 1,000 voted and the rating was 1.0.

You and everybody else but me.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

My stories seem to get about one rating per 200-300 readers, according to the Works page.

I just published a WIWAW for my story, Pranked.

WIWAWs and essays in general don't get readers like stories. At first stats time, day of publication 69 readers. Four voted! for a ratio of more than 1 per 18. Is that normal? I mean, it's What I Wrote and Why for an unpopular story in not-the-most-popular category.

-Annie

 

[StillStunned]

My stories seem to get about one rating per 200-300 readers, according to the Works page.

I just published a WIWAW for my story, Pranked.

WIWAWs and essays in general don't get readers like stories. At first stats time, day of publication 69 readers. Four voted! for a ratio of more than 1 per 18. Is that normal? I mean, it's What I Wrote and Why for an unpopular story in not-the-most-popular category.

-Annie

The five WIWAWs I published during the event drew a total of 5000 views, and 98 votes. So one in fifty. The highest vote-to-view ratio is Nameless and Faceless (26 votes from 711 views), the lowest is Too Cold Not to Fuck (36 votes from 2547 views). "Nameless and Faceless" went up on the first day of the challenge, when I think enthusiasm was greatest, so that might be a factor here.

The one WIWAW I published outside the event has 8 votes from 1082 views.

I think that readers who are inclined to click on a WIWAW are also the readers who are more inclined to vote. People don't visit Reviews & Essays for the steamy sex scenes, after all.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Thinking about it, I would expect that the first 100 or so readers would contain a lot of people who follow me, and are presumably more likely to actually read the whole (1 page) essay and rate.

-Annie

 

[Lifestyle66]

Yeah, the voting may not really be accurate, but I'll continue to live in my little fantasy world and pretend that it is. What does it hurt? It stokes my ego that 400+ people read it and liked it enough to vote and give me a 4.71 rating. They're the only ones who matter to me. It's nice to see a high rating but it's not that important to me. Though I would be pretty bummed if 1,000 voted and the rating was 1.0.

"Pavlov's Dog -- 750 Words"
"Her needs and routines might get a girl killed."

In Loving Wives rated 2.26 with 717 votes and 42 comments!

And I'm not bummed at all. (I was expecting it.)