The Mabeuse Scale

[Ann Vremont]

snerts and another Q

And what is the opinion on voting for one's own story (just once, mind you)?

 

[shereads]

Psst. (looking around furtively to see if any of the authors are listening)

I'm not an author - only the patron saint (blushing with appropriate humility) - but I can tell you what I've overheard: They all vote for their own stories, of course. It's like asking whether a political candidate ought to vote for himself or appear humble by abstaining.

Go. Vote. And sin no more, unless you write a story about it.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I never used to vote on my own stories. Then one day I'd been reading a bunch of other stories and they weren't very good. I wondered whether mine were just as bad, so I went back and read one of my old ones that I'd kind of forgotten.

I thought it was pretty good, so I gave it a five.

I'm still not in the habit of regularly voting on my own stories, but sometimes I'll see one that I have a fondness for, and it'll be teetering on some important cut-off point in the ratings, and I'll vote for it. They're my babies, and I want them to do well and prosper.

---dr.M.

 

[Ann Vremont]

Thanks Dr & Shereads

I'm still not in the habit of regularly voting on my own stories, but sometimes I'll see one that I have a fondness for, and it'll be teetering on some important cut-off point in the ratings, and I'll vote for it.

---dr.M.

Yes, and when you can tell someone's been downvoting it. I went to bed last night w/17 votes on my V-Day Entry at 4.56 and I woke up with 16 votes on my V-Day entry at 4.75. It was, for one lovely moment #1 on erotic horror. Rude rude rude rude people!


Speaking of voting...the V-Day submission is
here.

Ann

 

[Dirt Man]

Re: Thanks Dr & Shereads

Yes, and when you can tell someone's been downvoting it. I went to bed last night w/17 votes on my V-Day Entry at 4.56 and I woke up with 16 votes on my V-Day entry at 4.75. It was, for one lovely moment #1 on erotic horror. Rude rude rude rude people!


Speaking of voting...the V-Day submission is
here.

Ann

Okay Ann, let me clue you in on a little piece of reality here. People are people, and they vote the way they want. Now with that out of the way you might as well know that any of the stories authors that are competing against you could give you a one vote if they so chose to do it. However by simply giving you a 4 vote that too can keep you out of the competition as well. You see, if you have an equal number of 4's and 5's your average is 4.5, this gives you the coveted red H next to the story, but keeps it out of the competition for winning as no story here has ever won at just a 4.5 score. So don't believe everybody who is also in the same contest with you when they say they gave you a 5, as they too want to win. And while a 4 vote is easier to live with than an outright 1 if the story is good, enough 4 votes will put you out of the game.

As Always
I am the
Dirt Man

 

[shereads]

You've hit on the reason why the voting system is so intimidating to us readers. I used to vote 4s unless I was so in love with the story that I couldn't stand to give it less than a 5. Sometimes I even gave a 3 if I thought the story was average and at least merited a nod to the effort. I was new here. Forgive me.

Then I found out that the scoring among the better authors here is like in the Olympics. To get anything less than a perfect 10 means you're the sad little gymnast who couldn't afford Bela Karoli's school anymore, plus you developed breasts this year, and now you must go back to Lower Latvia and work at the burlap recycling plant until you grow a moustache and die.

In other words...I was a bit taken aback when I learned that the lowest score that isn't considered an outright insult is a 4, and that one too many of those can pull someone down into the doldrums of a 4.25 average. Like an Olympic athlete whose time on the slalom was .0025 seconds slower than the winning speed, this person now feels like a loser, and it's all because I stopped by to say, "Hey, good work," and gave the story the next-to-the-highest-possible score.

If only the Russian judges or your enemy would ever vote anyone a 3, what are the first three numbers for? Punishment?

So I stopped voting at all, except for those whose stories where I felt thrilled giving a 5.

(Or ones at the other extreme, where somebody really needed to be punished.)



I'm not sure what my point is, except that I'm sad that there's such sensitivity to these scores and that anything less than near-perfection is considered a failure. I always get that feeling when I watch Olympic events, particularly the speed events, where the differences between winners and also-rans are measured in increments so tiny that the backward thrust caused by a burp might have made the difference. Just as someone's beautiful, sexy story might be receive a discouraging score because of a typo.

Sigh. Again, I keep wondering what the scores are for. I understand, I guess. But I don't.

Does anyone remember in the movie, "The Dead Poets Society," the pages of the poetry textbook that the young teacher asked his students to tear out? It was an essay about how to score the quality of a poem.

 

[Ann Vremont]

one answer on why votes count

Originally posted by shereads

Sigh. Again, I keep wondering what the scores are for. I understand, I guess. But I don't.

I know I'm going to catch hell for something I say...but the day wouldn't end in a y if it were ever otherwise...so

I can only tell you why I would care about the voting...after the first few days, your story disappears from the list of newly posted. (feel free to enlighten me if my assumptions are incorrect, btw) Then it goes only alphabetically in its category list unless it's high enough to be in the top list. The 4.5 doesn't seem to matter for the top list...some don't go lower than 4.67. So, after the first few days, the lower my score, the less chance that my story will get any more reads. So, for me, it's not the vote per se but the opportunity to have more readers. I want to build a reader base for my other (non-free) work. Whether that's a realistic expectation with this kind of forum is another issue. (To misquote boxlicker, why pay for one good story when there are so many bad ones for free?)

Of course, since I'm 99% sure I'm turning down the contract I received today, I'm not sure why I'm contributing anything.

Ann

 

[Gary Chambers]

Psst. (looking around furtively to see if any of the authors are listening)

I'm not an author - only the patron saint (blushing with appropriate humility) - but I can tell you what I've overheard: They all vote for their own stories, of course. It's like asking whether a political candidate ought to vote for himself or appear humble by abstaining.

Go. Vote. And sin no more, unless you write a story about it.

Sin no more is okay provided I can also sin no less. Speaking of which, if you think the southern Baptist hell is bad, try the old Viking version. It was more sensible and terrifying, because it wasn't hot, it was cold like the Canadian gulag. If you live in a cold climate hot hells aren't even mildly foreboding, but cold one's could turn you into a terrified follower, quaking in his/her boots in case you end up spending eternity trying to thaw out your frostbite. They could do that to you, but in my case they haven't...yet.

If I ever sin I'll write a story about it because confession is good for the soul. But I never sin, because I don't know how. If you're ever up thos way, or I'm down in Florida, maybe you could give me a crash course in sinning.

Tutors deserve roses. Kisses too.

I don't vote for my own stories, Sher, but it has nothing to do with humility. I figure I only get one vote on each story, so I'll wait until it drops just below an "H" rating and then give it a five to knock it back up again. I save up the vote as a sort of secret weapon. I did intend to vote '1' for The Lucky Ones and I think I remembered to do so (I didn't realise how bad it was until after it was published), but apart from that I have yet to cast a vote on one of my own stories, so there.

 

[Icingsugar]

Wow. Until I read this thread, I assumed that I couldn't in fact vote for my own stories, that it just wouldn't register. This opens up a whole new world for me. Thank you AH.

No, honestly. I thought those were filtered out, just like double votes.

 

[Dirt Man]

You can only vote once for any story here at lit, including your own. Every computer leaves it's own unique signature, so even if you acquire another user name, and try to vote with that one, or however many user names you aquire they will all be canceled out of existance on this site by Laurel and her team if you vote more than once on a story.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[sweetnpetite]

You can only vote once for any story here at lit, including your own. Every computer leaves it's own unique signature, so even if you acquire another user name, and try to vote with that one, or however many user names you aquire they will all be canceled out of existance on this site by Laurel and her team if you vote more than once on a story.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

What if two or more people share a computer like Dawn and Bearlee or me and seaknight? Or what if you have access to a public computer that allows unfiltered use (and there are some)???

 

[Gary Chambers]

What if two or more people share a computer like Dawn and Bearlee or me and seaknight? Or what if you have access to a public computer that allows unfiltered use (and there are some)???

Yes, I wondered about that. I have a friend who uses my computer for his email two or three times a week. He doesn't read my Lit stories as a rule, but I know he read one and voted. Does that mean he used up my vote? Do I have to create profiles for everyone who uses my machine, and then sign into my computer everytime I boot it?

 

[shereads]

Maybe there needs to be an electoral college.

 

[Guest]

Maybe there needs to be an electoral college.

ella, you're brilliant (but you know that). I say Lit. voting should be run like the U.S. electoral college process. We would vote individually on stories and then our representatives would ignore us and vote as they like.

Perdita

 

[shereads]

ella, you're brilliant (but you know that).

I suspected as much, but now I know that you and I are both brilliant.