The Official Authors' Hangout Winter Holidays 2025 Support Thread

[BryanRichardson]

I would be watching another story closely, because it does have a chance and I feel very vested in that story. It's be a close friend and I helped. But you can't watch vote by vote on someone else's story. My fingers are still crossed for her.

Yeah, I have hopes for that one, too. This is the only time I’ve ever been bothered to check up on someone else’s score.

 

[GemmaGemmaGemma]

I haven't paid any attention to my score since posting. It's my first contest and it looks to have gone pretty well. I guess I haven't got a long history of being targeted by the one bombers but maybe that's something which will sting me in the future. It's always nice to prepare yourself for future pain.

 

[BryanRichardson]

I’ve been watching my I/T story wiggle between 4.68 and 4.69. Given that there are 1.2k votes I’m surprised that the average score can move at all.
I’m also fairly certain that removing 1-bombs won’t affect the score much either because there just can’t be that many of them compared to the total.

 

[Lord_Libido]

Fill out your Signature in the account drop down menu up in the right corner.

View attachment 2580735

Thank you

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

I just outlined my story. Hoping for a short one. I don't expect to place at all, but I want to have something entered. I just hope I finish in time!

You got this!

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Word. And it's not enough to ping something as OBVIOUSLY fake, just enough to bring our scores down. Like, maybe my story really isn't that great, but knowing that there are people who review bomb stories is disheartening. Like, I don't even have that good of a score, nor was I expecting one, but it seems like they target anyone who isn't their favorite author.

That's the thing - I would never have thought of review bombing if I wasn't on the forums, I'd just have wondered why all of a sudden it was dropping. Then again, without the forums, my 6th story wouldn't have ever been a contest entry. I would have assumed I was not good enough to even participate and would just make a fool of myself. I'd have stuck to my "lane" instead of playing more outside of my comfort zone. And I'd never have written my poem that I *thought* was a contest entry that reminded me of my love of poetry. So either way - it's a personal win.

I'd not noticed that, so I'll have to make sure that I tag it as such in the future. I know that some people like for stories that are part of contests to be tagged with that contest, but if that makes it easier for review bombers to target it, I'm not gonna tag it that way.

I noticed as I checked it just for the science of it for lack of a better word. I was curious if it was happening across the board or if there was some sort of pattern. It's the only one I found, though I admit I wasn't doing any systematic analysis, more just wondering. That pattern does seem to have changed recently, though, so it might have been coincidence. Curiosity can easily get the better of me and without more systematic data, I wonder if I was seeing a pattern that wasn't really there.

Just out of curiosity, are you guys tracking the ratings, watching your story move up and down the list as the days progress... or just waiting patiently for December 12th? No reason for asking *cough*

p.s. I have absolutely no delusions of winning anything here, just a bit of a nerd.

I have an existing problem with checking ratings on things, not just stories here on lit. I'm working on it, but I still suck at it. But mostly, I started watching when I realized that it was well received and started getting positive comments on it and seeing people favoriting it in my "My Home" feed where I was going to see if my followed authors were posting things. I have no expectation of winning - there are far better authors in the running. I just think it's really cool to a) find such a kind group of fetish/kink folks that seemed to like my work and b) have a general sense of how much they like it so I can decide where to go next. Now...I just need to figure out a sequel because I've had multiple requests for one but can't decide where to take it. Can you write letters to plot bunnies the way you can letters to Santa?

 

[WittyUserName]

You got this!

I hope you're right!

 

[TheRedLantern]

Just out of curiosity, are you guys tracking the ratings, watching your story move up and down the list as the days progress... or just waiting patiently for December 12th? No reason for asking *cough*

p.s. I have absolutely no delusions of winning anything here, just a bit of a nerd.

Personally, I'm not looking at the ratings or the contest list at all. I check my control panel every few days to see if someone left a comment on one of my stories, and I see the rating then.

In my head, this contest ended when my story went live because at that point I had taken my best shot and it was up to the rest of the stories to determine where mine ranked. That's a mindset I learned from competing in Taekwondo kata tournaments.

 

[taytay4eva]

Personally, I'm not looking at the ratings or the contest list at all. I check my control panel every few days to see if someone left a comment on one of my stories, and I see the rating then.

In my head, this contest ended when my story went live because at that point I had taken my best shot and it was up to the rest of the stories to determine where mine ranked. That's a mindset I learned from competing in Taekwondo kata tournaments.

I'll check my daily rating on my control panel, but that's as much as I'm going to check on it for the contest. The only person I'm trying to impress and improve on is myself.

Well, and the people who rate my stories. I do like when number go up.

 

[taytay4eva]

My second contest submission was rejected for being a follow-up to last year's piece, so I'm resubmitting it to be its own thing. Probably for the best. Who knows, maybe I'll rake in a good score with it, since it won't be a competition piece!

Probably not, since I didn't write the smutty bits while I was edging myself, but maybe!

 

[Voboy]

Just out of curiosity, are you guys tracking the ratings, watching your story move up and down the list as the days progress... or just waiting patiently for December 12th? No reason for asking *cough*

p.s. I have absolutely no delusions of winning anything here, just a bit of a nerd.

I check it whenever I log in here, about twice a day. That's frequently enough that I can tell what's going on.

I've entered enough contests that I don't really worry about it much because I know how meaningless the scores are until the last minute.

 

[TurinTurambar]

I'll check my score maybe twice a day, while I'm checking for any new comments. I realize that I have absolutely no chance at winning anything, but its mildly interesting to see how my score shifts up and down until it settles. I know it will always take a big hit once I reach 100 votes, so I have to prepare myself for that.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

The muses have been really frustrating this year, giving me ideas and not telling me how to finish them, but I finally managed a whole new story! Just submitted it for publication. I’m a little anxious about this one, but I’m sure people will tell me if I fucked up.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

This year, I’m not going to track the scores. I did last year, and up until the day the winners were announced, mine had the highest score. And then it didn’t. And it really annoyed me - one 1 and bam. But I can’t control that. I’m just glad I wrote a story.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

I don't know if it is the tag itself or everyone in the contest, but the contests definitely bring it out.

I swore during the Nude Day event that I would never enter another contest because of the one-bombers.

They also get brought to by making the all-time leader board (the one that requires 100 votes). I'm realizing, that for me at least who does not have thousands of votes, my stories will do better rating if the are at 4.82 at 99 votes than 4.92. It'r frustrating. The 4.80-4.84 stories slide under the radar and never get hit that hard. But the ones that have the audacity to have a 4.88 or something get bombed back into the 4.7's. I assume they will eventually recover, but the votes come so slowly and it literally a hundred votes (all 5's) to balance out three 1's at that rating.

I’ve had that problem. I had one at 4.9 at 100 votes and then 4.8 a couple votes later. I’d been really excited hoping that a high score on the all-time leaderboard would get me some new readers, but it didn’t stay there. And, as you say, it can take forever to climb back, especially because it’s a lot harder for people to find your stories.

But good on you for flying that close to the sun.

 

[Rustyoznail]

@Lord_Libido, just be aware if you are using a phone to browse the forum, the default is you don't see signatures.

 

[Lord_Libido]

@Lord_Libido, just be aware if you are using a phone to browse the forum, the default is you don't see signatures.

Thank you for letting me know

 

[YmaOHyd]

I’ve had that problem. I had one at 4.9 at 100 votes and then 4.8 a couple votes later. I’d been really excited hoping that a high score on the all-time leaderboard would get me some new readers, but it didn’t stay there. And, as you say, it can take forever to climb back, especially because it’s a lot harder for people to find your stories.

But good on you for flying that close to the sun.

I'm almost happier having my story that's in that range at fewer than 100 votes. The difference between 4.86 and 4.84 in that category is the difference between being just outside the top 20 and being outside the top 250; every story between 22 and 250 is 4.85.

 

[LitEroCat]

"A Friend for Christmas Dinner" LOL

Has anyone ever watched "Eating Raoul"

YES! :O

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Thank you for letting me know

They show up if you turn the phone to landscape.

I got 25 votes finally on Last Christmas, immediately followed by downvotes so it's lost over 0.2 with the next two votes. Happens every time I hit 10 or 25 votes. C'est la vie...

 

[Lord_Libido]

Mine is at 4 with 20 votes. It seems like I will atleast qualify.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Mine is at 4 with 20 votes. It seems like I will atleast qualify.

There is plenty of time left, you're going to end up with way more than 25 votes.

 

[MegaTank]

My story Does She Know it's Christmas has been published today. Check it out, it's definitely not just a story of my personal hang-ups stapled to a collection of sex scenes I find really hot...

 

[Trionyx]

While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?

 

[Lord_Libido]

While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?

Its possible that the sites ongoing issues are contributing to lower view counts.