Scoring system rant

[lovecraft68]

Corollary:

"I could get high scores, but I am only writing for myself."

Uh, sure, sweetie.

If you just write for yourself, why do you publish?

Right. My take on write for myself is I write the story I want to and then hope for the best, sometimes its a hit, sometimes a miss, but I am putting it here to see what people think.

My sister loves to paint, and her thing is Bosch style nightmare fuel. She could make a killing on deviant art or other sites, but other than give a few away to friends she has never posted them anywhere. Not only not for money or to just show off, but not so much as one even on her facebook. When she says she does it for catharsis, enjoyment and for herself I believe it when its in those terms.

But if you're story is here I default to your post cause yeah....no.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Corollary:

"I could get high scores, but I am only writing for myself."

Uh, sure, sweetie.

If you just write for yourself, why do you publish?

I agree, but I do think there's room for nuance here. When I post stories here I'm aiming for an audience but I'm not always aiming for the whole of the potential audience.

For instance, the readership for Lesbian seems to be a mix of (1) women who are attracted to women, (2) guys who think girl-on-girl is hot, and (3) people who are interested in stories about relationships, not necessarily lesbian, but who find that LS is a good place for that.

When I post a story there, my target audience is #1 and secondarily #3. If #2 happens to like it as well, that's great, but it's not something I'm actively courting and it's I'm not going to lose sleep if I write something that group doesn't enjoy.

 

[AchtungNight]

I agree, but I do think there's room for nuance here. When I post stories here I'm aiming for an audience but I'm not always aiming for the whole of the potential audience.

For instance, the readership for Lesbian seems to be a mix of (1) women who are attracted to women, (2) guys who think girl-on-girl is hot, and (3) people who are interested in stories about relationships, not necessarily lesbian, but who find that LS is a good place for that.

When I post a story there, my target audience is #1 and secondarily #3. If #2 happens to like it as well, that's great, but it's not something I'm actively courting and it's I'm not going to lose sleep if I write something that group doesn't enjoy.

I’m similar when I write a Lesbian story, whether it be my original character take I Want You, my incestuous lesbian story The Sisters Next Door or my numerous femslash Fanfics. But I’m writing for all three audiences you mention, plus those who admire my writing in general and those who think my characters in particular are interesting. So it makes more sense to me to lock out voting than to get depressed by low ratings in score or total votes. So… I hope I’m understood.

I still appreciate my supportive audience.

If anyone wishes to give me constructive feedback privately that is welcome. I will not initiate the discussion, however. I’m not that desperate.

 

[samhasstories]

I write for myself and publish on the off-chance that there are like-minded people out there who will want to read what I've written. And it seems there are. Maybe not a ton, but enough.

That's not to say I think nothing of readers when I write. And especially when I read through what I've written and revise. I think about whether what I've written makes sense, if the tone I'm going for is communicated. If what I've written is any good. And I enjoy having people read and respond to what I've written. But, yeah, at the end of the day, I'm writing for me.

 

[madelinemasoch]

I share what I do because I want to make myself impossible to ignore.

 

[AchtungNight]

I share what I do because I want to make myself impossible to ignore.

My most prominent fan has been known to imitate Stewie Griffin at times.

“How is that novel coming, Achtungnight? Do you have a compelling plot and protagonist? Can I read it soon? I can’t wait!”

Sometimes I just want to punch this reader. Then I remember I’m not into BDSM.

 

[AG31]

And if you want to rant with me about the depression generated by Lit's scoring system, ease my angst with sympathy... feel free to do that too. Thanks.

Given the incredibly low ration of ratings to readings, I don't think it's rational to care about scores. Most people just don't bother to tell you what they think.

 

[samhasstories]

Most people just don't bother to tell you what they think.

Oh, if only that were true of people in general.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

(SOL) the site we do not mention, was the site I was talking about with the bell curve. Lush, I gave up and pulled everything from.

That whole site is trash, stories on line.

 

[AchtungNight]

That whole site is trash, stories on line.

I disagree. It’s reliable and has a lot of good stories unavailable on Lit. But I will allow you your opinion.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Thx everyone. I think after further consideration, I am locking out voting on all my stories here and leaving it off. I do not wish to pander for high scores and low ones are just too depressing when no matter what, the majority of readers do not score at all. Positive comments will still be appreciated, negative ones still deleted. I don’t care if I ever get an H again.

I appreciate all my fans in all my years of writing. I will continue as my inspiration and schedule allow.

It's not you're alone with this. For the longest I had average or worse scores here. I am fucking surprised I have any Red Hs, and the amount that I do. I was looking at my stats the other day and peeked again and found another one. I wasn't lying in that milestone thread when I was paranoid they were gonna go away. I'm not obsessed with them or write for them, but saying it was the best thing to happen to me in the past year or so, was honest- not an exageration. I was bouncing on my bed like I won the lottery or got a girlfriend.

Other places I write have pretty much low everything, too. You know the trials&tribulations of writing fanfics, there's extra variables compared to here. I have 18 works on ao3 and the only one over a thousand views is an unfinished Jimmy Neutron fic. FFN ain't no better, especially because unlike ao3, you can see views per chapter. I have shit on wattpad that's probably four years old now with 0-2 views. So many times I've wanted to say "fuck it" and "it's bullshit". Oh and medium is just as bad; I was surprised I managed to make any money, but that money was $1.07 one quarter and ¢45 another one. How could I ever make decent money writing when the free shit suck? Ah dunno, but if I stop, I won't see if it gets anywhere, or is just a waste of time. Every once in a while I'll get a kudos on ao3. I have an email folder where I save every kudos, like, and favorite from there and ffn.

Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, or some kinda self-destructive, but I keep writing, I even turned on anon comments back on here, knowing the risk, convinced by Keith, EB, and probably another. Turning off voting feels like a cowardly disservice to ones self-- even if it does cause some mental suffering. I'd have never gotten those Red H's if I did. I've been writing here since 2011. Just like I don't expect anon comments to come swarming my old ass stories, since turning them back on, I wouldn't expect instant voting gratification, either. Those stories are essentially burried unless they have enough views to reach a list. Just like certain fandoms[that I guess I'm cursed for writing for] are shit for feedback, so are some catagories here. You've been here longer than me, you could've probably already had some red h's or at least some mid 4's when those stories were new. I mean... there are writers that are still relatively new, who have way more of them, like NTH, than me. I just started getting them and somehow got eight.

I know you said that marriage of yours and other things are at play with your outlook, but I'm not that different. Never been married, but I was engaged twice. One of them got hooked on meth and that went bad. There was also a woman I was falling in love with, and she died tragically before I could tell her and while she was getting her life together. I haven't seen my sons since 2013, the day of my youngest first bday. I ain't playing oppression olympics, I'm just saying I get it. I don't even know who my dad is, and that's whole ass trip right there. Just learned all that over the summer.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I haven't read everyone else's replies yet but here's what I see right off the top.

A while back I turned voting back on for all my stories here after leaving it off for years because I decided I didn't care about popularity and avoiding one-bombers was more important. IMO, all my stories deserve a 4, maybe a 5. I hoped for that scoring level on my return to being an erotica writer after pausing the career to focus on my marriage which ended several years ago. Then I came back due to emotional needs.

You decided to turn the scores back on because you didn't care about avoiding poor scores. You turned them back on hoping for 4s and 5s. These statements are contradictory. Hoping for 4s and 5s means that you care. Lit's scoring system is hardly perfect nor accurate, true, but that is not your issue. Your issue is your own internal contradictions. You have to decide if you care about the scores or not and if so, just how much.

The rest of your rant is just begging for attention and affirmation. It's a vicious cycle. You have based your opinion of your writing skills in the scores. The scores are disappointing. You start believing that you're not that good, that you're not as important as you thought you were. To compensate, you cry for attention to feel important again.

If you believe that your work deserves 4s and 5s, then why do you need someone else to tell you so? Regardless of how (in)accurate teh scoring system here is.

You need others to give you a reason to believe in yourself. It's a super common phenomenon. You are measuring your worth from without rather than within. My advice is that it is much much easier to just believe in yourself.

 

[luv2custrip]

Ratings rise and fall: look at number of favorites. How many readers will “unfavorite” a story?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The website I'm loath to mention has the worst bell curve systems EVER! The ones with just like or hate aren't any better because the voters don't have to hate the story to give you a thumbs down.

Thumbs-up thumbs-down would work far far better here than what we have. It would be far more accurate. Think about just how many people here vote not based on quality at all and just give a 5 if they liked it and don't vote if they didn't. A 5 is simply a thumbs-up, but then we can't tell how many non-votes are legit thumbs-down. The 1 to 5 scale here is quite useless.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I believe that is because most readers don't truly understand the dynamics of the website. Most of them come to read a quick story or two and they don't care that much about how and why all these new stories appear every day. Some would maybe feel ashamed to comment, even anonymously. I also believe that many of them don't realize how much their feedback means to us and they probably feel silly about writing something thoughtful while being just one reader among tens of thousands of readers on the website.
Ironically, the author/reader relationship suffers from the same problem as the admin/author relationship - a chronic lack of communication. That's Lit's key problem. Many people have suggested some interesting ways to improve communication, and some of those ways require minuscule changes to the website, but once again it all comes down to Lit's owners not believing in that whole paradigm.

Some probably aren't thinking of us, for whatever reason. I know I often forget to vote/like, favorite on most sites. Sometimes I have an "awe shit" moment and go back and do it. Though this only matters for those who write; favoriting and commenting can lead to exposure on your own work.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Right. After all, you can set up whatever "system" you want to, but at the end of the day it's people who do the voting, and you can't do anything about that. Some people suck. And some people, who may or may not suck, will think your stories suck. There are good, intelligent people on this site who think my stories suck. I cannot help that they have bad taste. I soldier on the best I can.

Exactly. You'll never have an accurate measure of quality when 95% of your judges are simply wanking and know know very little let alone care about the finer points of writing. And there's nothing wrong with that, just don't kid yourself.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Considering all of the sick minds we see in the real world, and knowing that they all have Internet access to these stories ... If I posted a story which achieved a perfect average of 5 with a significant number of votes, I'd have to wonder: WTF did I do wrong for my story to actually appeal to so many sick minds at all extremes of the spectrum?

I'd take a much closer look at what I wrote! ("Now where's that hint of cannibalism which THAT sicko loved?")

You must write some sick shit. Look at it as comraderie.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I share what I do because I want to make myself impossible to ignore.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Corollary:

"I could get high scores, but I am only writing for myself."

Uh, sure, sweetie.

If you just write for yourself, why do you publish?

I write the story that I believe should be told. I also write to be read, sure. I don't see the point in literally writing for myself. However I do not write to please the masses. I write the story the way I feel it should go - every word. Every story has it;s own audience. Some have broad appeal, others are niche or develop cult status. If you believe in your story and you remain true to it, and you put it out there to be seen, its audience will eventually find it.

The difference is, are you writing for the approval or the connection? I write for that connection - every time, every word.

Most writers don't understand this. They will say "I don't write for scores but I want to get a Red H," as if a Red H is separate from the score. Well this means that they do care about the score, at least in some way. They are kidding themselves.

 

[AchtungNight]

I appreciate all the attention from this thread. Now please accept my firm decision to keep scores off and accept the statement that I am accepting of the positive and constructive feedback I have earned. That goes for everyone. Thank you.

 

[Lifestyle66]

You must write some sick shit. Look at it as comraderie.

If your story rates a perfect five, then yours also appeals to that same sick mind.

Be careful what you wish for!

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I disagree. It’s reliable and has a lot of good stories unavailable on Lit. But I will allow you your opinion.

It and WritingDotCom are so hard to use and navigate to me. I've been on both as long as Lit. I was on AskJolene, too. Everytime I try to update any story on sol, it's me trudging around the website, trying to find where to do it. Then after ten minutes I find the section right there next to the hen's teeth. I've tried to read on both sites and... no. Not a fun time and one of them had a incursion of choose your own stories back then, and I hate those.

All that said. I was thinking about throwing on my Indiana Jones outfit and whip, to go and update some things there, just the other day. I ran across sol, looking for more erotica sites to publish on. If you hear me screaming, than you'll know I'm making the attempt.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

If your story rates a perfect five, then yours also appeals to that same sick mind.

Be careful what you wish for!

I haven't got any perfect fives yet. I can't lie, the only reason I probably have red h's, even on the unrelated stories, is probably that incest one. In some minds that's sick. The other two; my recent halloween contest story and first summer lovin one are healthy. They had their apples and flintstone vitamins.

 

[lovecraft68]

I share what I do because I want to make myself impossible to ignore.

Great motivation, has the tone of "I dare you to"

I can get behind that.

 

[AchtungNight]

It and WritingDotCom are so hard to use and navigate to me. I've been on both as long as Lit. I was on AskJolene, too. Everytime I try to update any story on sol, it's me trudging around the website, trying to find where to do it. Then after ten minutes I find the section right there next to the hen's teeth. I've tried to read on both sites and... no. Not a fun time and one of them had a incursion of choose your own stories back then, and I hate those.

All that said. I was thinking about throwing on my Indiana Jones outfit and whip, to go and update some things there, just the other day. I ran across sol, looking for more erotica sites to publish on. If you hear me screaming, than you'll know I'm making the attempt.

The difficulty updating stories is the other reason I’ve stopped posting on SOL. I’ve never posted on writing dot com or ask Jolene.