The now fully official Author’s Hangout Halloween 2025 competition support thread

[EmilyMiller]

May be you should take getting 1-bombed as a sign of success?

Some authors are so scared of how well you write that they will go out of their way to destroy the ratings of your stories. They are acting out of fear because they know their own stuff cannot compare to what you write.
So enjoy the fact that you now permanently live in their head and they obsess about 1-bombing you.
It is a very powerful feeling. You are controlling their thoughts.

Assuming that was addressed to me. The religiosity of how at least one person acts is clearly to do with unrequited love, and a desperate cry to be noticed and seen as relevant. It’s a deeply romantic gesture from a person who struggles to interact normally. One bombs are clearly their little Valentine’s gifts.

But… while I may be the subject of their psychosis, I’m not responsible for it. Their little fantasy world is all on them. While I appreciate their tributes of love, I do worry about their happiness and mental health. I hope they can find a way to gain some peace in their lives.

 

[DEFCOM5]

Assuming that was addressed to me. The religiosity of how at least one person acts is clearly to do with unrequited love, and a desperate cry to be noticed and seen as relevant. It’s a deeply romantic gesture from a person who struggles to interact normally. One bombs are clearly their little Valentine’s gifts.

But… while I may be the subject of their psychosis, I’m not responsible for it. Their little fantasy world is all on them. While I appreciate their tributes of love, I do worry about their happiness and mental health. I hope they can find a way to gain some peace in their lives.

Yes, @EmilyMiller , my comment was addressed to you. Sorry for not making it clearer.

This person or people are clearly obsessed with you. They probably go crazy when you do not publish things for a while. Where else can they send their V-Day gifts as you put it?

It speaks volume of how good of a person you are that you worry about their mental health and happiness. Anyone spending energy to one bomb a specific author is most likely a miserable person!

Try not to let them not anger or sadden you. They are a lot of people here who love and adore what you write!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Anyone spending energy to one bomb a specific author is most likely a miserable person!

Let’s agree troubled and unhappy. And I really do hope they find a way to be happier in their lives and to engage in more healthy pursuits.

 

[DEFCOM5]

Let’s agree troubled and unhappy. And I really do hope they find a way to be happier in their lives and to engage in more healthy pursuits.

One might only hope!

 

[Voboy]

Not to expand this thread into a whole different topic, but that's a general issue, right?

It is, which is why I so seldom complain about the rating system. I think it works, though crudely, and the kicker is that I don't see how any replacement system could work any better. They've all got their flaws. My own "fix" of moving the red H to a 4 is a minor one, designed so that I could recognize an inferior but still decent work and differentiate it from the best of the best, as a reader.

Which might not matter; see below.

I don't think you can "educate" an audience towards a "correct" reading and voting behaviour that could remedy this.

Perhaps not, but the site could try.

When I was "only" a reader for over a decade, I had no idea what a red H really meant, even though I used them as filters.
Meaning, I understood on some level that it meant a 4.5 average, but I failed to grasp just what a dive a story could take with 1-3* votes. I was not an informed reader, and though I voted seldom, I cringe now when I realize the damage some of those votes did. I don't think the readers think much about it, but I know for sure that there is a benefit to having a red H and I seriously doubt a 4* vote is generally intended as a "punishment." I suspect most casual readers don't see that connection.

To be clear, I never would vote a story at one or two stars; I'm much more inclined to just nope out of it and find a story more to my liking. So my own personal scale ranges from 3-5, with the red H being in the middle of that range. Which is a cool and useful way to conceptualize it... except that I can't rate a story at 4.5.

 

[MillieDynamite]

All votes count equally, but some numbers are more equal than others. For lasting damage to a great story, a few 3s or 4s take a greater toll than a solitary one vote.

 

[EmilyMiller]

All votes count equally, but some numbers are more equal than others. For lasting damage to a great story, a few 3s or 4s take a greater toll than a solitary one vote.

2 x 3️ = 1 x 1️

4 x 4️ = 1 x 1️

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm not sure if that supports my contention or undermines it. What I was trying to say is, 3s and 4s don't get swept. I'm stupidest when I try to be clever.

2 x 3️ = 1 x 1️

4 x 4️ = 1 x 1️

 

[EmilyMiller]

What I was trying to say is, 3s and 4s don't get swept.

But they do. Fives get swept. Votes thrown up by their sweep query get trashed regardless of value. I’ve tracked it on my own stories in low traffic categories and I’ve seen changes that can only be explained by threes or fours (or twos) being swept.

 

[MillieDynamite]

HUM!

But they do. Fives get swept. Votes thrown up by their sweep query get trashed regardless of value. I’ve tracked it on my own stories in low traffic categories and I’ve seen changes that can only be explained by threes or fours (or twos) being swept.

 

[Trionyx]

Conversely readers might not touch a story below H.

I would suggest the wording should be 'readers usually don't touch a story below H.'

When I look at my statistics, my stories below 4.5 see, on average, far less traffic and far fewer votes than those above 4.5.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My experience is different than yours. I think every writer has their own standard for whether a rating of 4.5 means as much to the long-term readership, bringing in new people or not. I have five stories that bounce in out of the 4.5 range. Currently, all five are out of the 4.5 H range: 4.49, 4.48, 4.47, 4.47, and 4.47 as of today. Friday, 4.9 and 4.8 were both 4.5. I should also point out that often, they have new votes pushing them up, and then those votes disappear.

I would suggest the wording should be 'readers usually don't touch a story below H.'

When I look at my statistics, my stories below 4.5 see, on average, far less traffic and far fewer votes than those above 4.5.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

May be you should take getting 1-bombed as a sign of success?

Some authors are so scared of how well you write that they will go out of their way to destroy the ratings of your stories. They are acting out of fear because they know their own stuff cannot compare to what you write.

Again I love how far this is getting away from the Halloween subject, but I am reminded of some folks in university who would destroy sources in the library so they could be the only ones using them in their paper and thus look "smarter" by comparison.

I never, ever understood that psychology. My studies were notorious for people like that, and I get that it's a competitive field, but just, WOW. The shamelessness, the absolute removal of the concept of merit. Charitably I wanna believe those are people with such MONSTER anxiety for recognition, for that life as a top of the top earner they will only get if they surpass everyone else by any means necessary, that the panic short-circuits every other human impulse...

I suppose one way to end up in that trap is to convince yourself "everyone is doing it", though still, that argument only appeals to some people.

I like to fantasize that just once, someone would film them while they do that, be it bombing other people's stories or tearing up library books, zoom in on their faces, and play it back to them.

 

[talemestories]

I like to fantasize that just once, someone would film them while they do that, be it bombing other people's stories or tearing up library books, zoom in on their faces, and play it back to them.

Perhaps there should be a webcam that focuses on each voter's face as they click? That would be awesome! Hahaha (humour)

This is one of the more interesting discussions yet.


Takeaways for me:

The 1-5 system really doesn't work well due to how the system using the details and the vast difference between a four and five to the overall rating based on the small number of votes.

Authors with large following blocks that vote positively may do better unless the numbers are tweaked.

Random sweeps of fives (and perhaps ones) has a massive impact on smaller vote numbers.

I wonder if I have a 'nemesis' yet?

I will now try to cultivate my legions of followers to do my will ... or not.


Great discussion everyone.

 

[YmaOHyd]

All three winning entries carry the lesbian tag and each stretches over 20K words. Coincidence?

No. The lesbian category is pretty easy on the ratings and people bail out of long stories they dislike before they get to the point where they're prompted to rate them. That creates two positive filtering effects.

 

[DEFCOM5]

No. The lesbian category is pretty easy on the ratings and people bail out of long stories they dislike before they get to the point where they're prompted to rate them. That creates two positive filtering effects.

I guess I will never win as I do not do Lesbian stories
Nothing to do with my writing!

 

[MillieDynamite]

I don't write many lesbian stories, but I'm a lesbian. Hum! More proof that I'm fucked up!

I guess I will never win as I do not do Lesbian stories
Nothing to do with my writing!

 

[iwatchus]

I guess I will never win as I do not do Lesbian stories
Nothing to do with my writing!

Somone recently posted the chart of winners over the last few years. Romance is actually the most likely category to win.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Somone recently posted the chart of winners over the last few years. Romance is actually the most likely category to win.

Most likely in absolute terms, or relative to the number of submissions in the category. I would think those could be very different figures.

 

[iwatchus]

Most likely in absolute terms, or relative to the number of submissions in the category. I would think those could be very different figures.

I'm not sure how much the contest entries vary from overall submissions -- I have seen plenty of T/I and LW in the submissions. But if it is close to typical, Romance far exceeded its percentage of submissions. It makes sense to me as a winning category, because it has one of the highest average ratings and I think Romance (and some others like EC) plays better with the broad population. T/I has fanatical readers, but I dpn't know that it does very well with readers outside that community.

I don't have the time or interest to go through the last thirty-some contests and determine rates of submissions for each category. It could be your favorite category of Erotic Horror does pretty well relative to entries, just because of the almost non-existent entries outside of Halloween.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Somone recently posted the chart of winners over the last few years. Romance is actually the most likely category to win.

Based on nothing but intuition I'd also bet that Romance has a higher average pagecount per submission than (at least some) other categories, and length is a defense against honestly-held downvotes. Romance is also -- I think, based on my experience writing in that category -- one with friendlier grading. And I think it's one that's going to have a higher-than-normal average submission quality, as the category almost by definition requires a little more plotting than others. You have to sell the sex in a way that's not necessary elsewhere.

I don't know how it plays in contests exactly, but T/I's readership, last I looked, dwarfed every other category's. There might be a contest effect where general readers are exposed to T/I stories and downvote them because they're weird and gross. In terms of eyeballs, though, T/I has more than any other category by a massive margin.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Based on nothing but intuition I'd also bet that Romance has a higher average pagecount per submission than (at least some) other categories, and length is a defense against honestly-held downvotes. Romance is also -- I think, based on my experience writing in that category -- one with friendlier grading. And I think it's one that's going to have a higher-than-normal average submission quality, as the category almost by definition requires a little more plotting than others. You have to sell the sex in a way that's not necessary elsewhere.

I don't know how it plays in contests exactly, but T/I's readership, last I looked, dwarfed every other category's. There might be a contest effect where general readers are exposed to T/I stories and downvote them because they're weird and gross. In terms of eyeballs, though, T/I has more than any other category by a massive margin.

I think there is a bit of overthinking on this issue.

The holidays the Valentines Day, Halloween and Winter Holidays contests honor have a tremendous amount of emotional resonance to people. Romance is a rather obvious category to appeal to that. I suspect that is a greater factor than any other in the popularity of Romance in those contests.