What is a good rating?

[sr71plt]

Most of your reads come in the first few days after publishing, when no one can see your score. Score doesn't matter there. Where score does matter:

Scores will show on the author's list within 24 hours, and they'll show on the New list of the category listings almost immediately (although in both cases, the scores shown will lag several hours behind the current score shown on the author's listing). Those who want to know what your score is can find out a close approximation almost immediately after it posts.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

After I checked this thread I resumed reading MARTIN EDEN by Jack London, and came upon a section that sums up LIT story scoring to a tee:

"Yes, thank you," she said. "Swinburne fails when all is said, because he is, well, indelicate. There are many of his poems that should never be read. Every line of the really great poets is filled with beautiful truth, and calls to all that is high and noble in the human. Not a line of the great poets can be spared without impoverishing the world by that much."

"I thought it was great," he said hesitatingly, "the little I read. I had no idea he was such a scoundrel."

 

[DeYaKen]

scores don't mean a lot

All my stories but one have rated over 4.25. Is this good? The prize winners tend to be over 4.50. Being a perfectionist, I want my stories to be rated 5, but no one gets a 5. But also being realistic, I know my stories are not prize winners. I am just wondering where "tolerable" leaves off and "decent" begins.

And what does "H" mean?

4.25 by lit standards is good but not outstanding but you shouldn't get too wound up on scores. A good score on Lit usually means that the people who read it liked the outcome. In other words you gave them what they wanted or expected. How well written it was or how well you told the story rarely comes into it. This is especially the case in the Loving wives category.

You will get better feedback from comments, good and bad. I feel very disappointed if I don't get any comments. It indicates that I haven't moved the reader sufficiently.

Having that red H next top your story is comforting but it's not the be all and end all.

 

[lovecraft68]

Depends on the category.

In fact personally I judge my "success" by the category more than what's my highest score.

To me, my most impressive score is a 4.30 because its in Loving wives which is probably the hardest category there is to get better than a 4 never mind the H.

Now Romance on the other hand a 4.30 is a little weak as its the least trolled category in my opinion and the voters seem fairly soft(romantics at heart I guess)

EH is a bit tough and harder to please whereas its "Cousin" NH is pretty soft. Non con is also low voted. Ironically the reluctance stories have pretty good marks, but the actual rape stories get flamed.

You get a feel as you go along.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

At LIT every Homer Simpson dolt gets a vote, and LIT is larded with Homer Simpsons, so the quality of any writers stories atrophy over time.

 

[CarolinaPeach]

Thank you to all who have chimed in, I have a much better understanding of how rating actually works here on Literotica. I think my initial question was If everyone is voted so high (4 or above) how can you tell if something actually is good? And the conclusion I have drawn is that the rating system is not the definitive measuring stick I wanted it to be. So I am going to put more emphasis on comments and the number of favorites in judging how well my story is liked.

 

[sr71plt]

Unfortunately, with the wide-open voting patterns here, the ratings don't help much in determining who to read. Beyond experimenting with your reading until you find authors you like to read, you might try going to the individual category lists and looking at the lists of "most popular" authors in that genre. There are today-, seven day-, and thirty-day lists. (The thirty-day will give you the most steady look). The formula going into this list, although not revealed, is obviously more extensive than ratings. It probably factors in views and favoriting as well. That makes it a more reliable listing than just the individual story ratings.

 

[lovecraft68]

There is no informed guess as to what goes into the 30 day list as there is none to be had.

I've followed the 30 day list close in a couple of categories and it does not make a whole lot of sense. I see authors on there that have not released a story in quite some time.

I once released 4 incest stories in a month and wasn't on there despite a shitload of comments votes and favs.

Then once when I was checking randomly I was on there and I had not put out a story in two months.

I have also looked at some of the names on the lists and looked at their last few stories compared to other authors in their categories and found the views/comments/votes to be below the average for that category

The only pattern is, there is no pattern.

The site can't even keep their top lists straight. Here is the link for the incest hall of fame.

http://www.literotica.com/top/Incest-Taboo-9

Now when there is a tie in score the tie breaker is vote total now below is from my home page check the score and vote total

I should be around 111/112 instead I am not on there at all.

The Summer I Became Mom's Lover Jason's dying father has a special last request for his son.
4.80 2968 258970 Incest/Taboo (English) 08/31/12 approved
Public Comments: 96 Moderate Public Comments

But at one point it was, then it went missing, then it was back, now its gone again.

Nothing here is really all that reliable.

and of course spite and favoritism play in plenty as well, trust me.

 

[TxRad]

From what I can tell, the most popular authors lists, gets it's ratings on the number of people who click on that author from the individual cat lists. Older more established authors will dominate for the most part. Newer authors might hit the mark with a flurry of new stories for a while. It is always in flux.

To find the better stories use 4.3 to 4.7 as a baseline. Either side is usual trolled one way or the other.

If you find a story you like, check out the authors other works and go from there.

 

[lovecraft68]

This message is hidden because TxRad is on your ignore list.

If I had a buck for anytime someone rides this site for its lack of giving a shit and one of three people post within minutes I'd be able to give up the day job.

As a perfect example of how seriously the site considers its authors readers the stories page is showing blank again its been going on for weeks, but hey, who cares?

 

[sr71plt]

Of course you look the fool when the one you have on ignore didn't post anything about what you posted concerning one of your tin hatted views.

 

[VanArsedale]

The word "if" in your first sentence is key. No doubt there is a lot of crap that goes on, but it really gets old when every single low story is blamed on games. It is possible for a story to for lack of a better term, to stink. But not according to some.

I equate this to baseball players who after missing a pitch stare at their bat as if it were somehow the bats fault.

Thank you for mentioning that people can give a legitimate one vote. Again if you follow a lot of threads here everyone seems to think every one bomb is a personal attack as again how could their story not be that good?

But anytime there is voting and humans doing it there will always be trouble and there will never be a perfect system.

Most stories are not going to get a legitimate number of low scores because the readers who don't like a story don't invest enough time in it to care enough to rate it.

Perhaps, I am unusual, but most Literotica stories that I look at only get a brief glance. There usually isn't any way for me to tell whether or not I might like a story until I open it up and give it a quick skim to see if I like the author's style, plot and characterization. If I see something I don't like during that skim, then I click the back button. I see no reason to rate the story, even if I have backed out because the story was written with appalling grammar. I doubt I am alone in doing this.

For people to give a legitimately low score, they need to have invested some time in reading the story. The piece has to have passed the reader's initial test and gone wrong at some point. It does happen, but probably not with mass frequency.

 

[SecondCircle]

Most stories are not going to get a legitimate number of low scores because the readers who don't like a story don't invest enough time in it to care enough to rate it.

Perhaps, I am unusual, but most Literotica stories that I look at only get a brief glance. There usually isn't any way for me to tell whether or not I might like a story until I open it up and give it a quick skim to see if I like the author's style, plot and characterization. If I see something I don't like during that skim, then I click the back button. I see no reason to rate the story, even if I have backed out because the story was written with appalling grammar. I doubt I am alone in doing this.

For people to give a legitimately low score, they need to have invested some time in reading the story. The piece has to have passed the reader's initial test and gone wrong at some point. It does happen, but probably not with mass frequency.

That's pretty accurate for me. If I see an appalling story, (grammar or otherwise) it doesn't take long to know it, and it receives a back click. I suppose that doesn't honor the process of voting or scoring, but honestly, who wants to read something that they consider awful just looking at it? Much less rate the damn thing.

On the topic of the legitimate ones, it does happen, and it is in that way. It means you've hooked the reader in that initial screening process, and then took a turn for the worst. There have been stories that seemed very intriguing to me that just took a horrible turn at some point, and while I may have still enjoyed the person's writing style and finished the story, it got a lower rating for whatever went wrong.

It has happened to me too. I obviously gained someone's interest, but they left me a comment saying that I trashed the story and they gave me a one. And I'll take that "1" because its fair and honest, and on some level they were correct about what I did with the story.

Things just have a way of working themselves out

 

[urban_legend555]

I saw you question regarding scores ...

Good results are 4 and over. Unfortunately the scoring system is flawed in that it allows yhe morons to vote 1 for reasons other than the quality of the story. You can see the vendetta some anonymous responders have against cuckholds in Loving Wives. They drag down the author's work because they don't like the behaviour not because the story is poorly written. The other issue is that so few readers bother to comment on or even score the work so the responses are statistically
unreliable. All of that aside, I believe most writers do look at the scores as some feedback, however flawed, is better than none at all. My own stories have all been 4 or above so perhaps I shouldn't be critical. I do find it interesting on another level when a story touches a nerve and the score is diminished as a result. Two cases in point are "The Breeding Shed" which is an historically accurate description of a young black slave being bred for the first time; and "Cooperating with the Enemy" which deals with Jewish women during WW2 consorting with German Officers to stave off being sent to the camps. In the first story some blacks were upset by the topic and in the latter some Jewish folks found the topic disrespectful. I understand that although, even with the advantage of hindsight, I would not change a word of the story in either case. "The Breeding Shed" has been read by more than 109,000 people in a relatively short period of time. To me that is a significant response and probably more important than the 413 it scored in the voting or the emails I received castigating me as an insensitive anti-semite. Sexual capitulation has been a bargaining chip against greater evils for as long as there have been women and men and it has never been constrained by race, religion, or marital vows.
So in summary, write for yourself, take note of your scores but bear in mind that some readers have an agenda in rating your work. Sometimes their is satisfaction for a writer to have touched a nerve in the readership and stirred their complacency a little. Good luck and keep writing.

 

[Aussiescribe38]

I'm not necessarily replying to your particular post urban legend, but after reading a lot of the comments here, all I can to say about the subject is, from my point of view, I don't give a shit about scores. Sure I look at them, but then think 4, huh, 3.5 huh. Then I just go back to typing my current story, and think " who fucking cares". Not me, I'm here to write and fuck the scores!! The pleasure is IN THE WRITING.

 

[CarolinaPeach]

I'm not necessarily replying to your particular post urban legend, but after reading a lot of the comments here, all I can to say about the subject is, from my point of view, I don't give a shit about scores. Sure I look at them, but then think 4, huh, 3.5 huh. Then I just go back to typing my current story, and think " who fucking cares". Not me, I'm here to write and fuck the scores!! The pleasure is IN THE WRITING.

Amen, brother. I have an interest in ratings, hence starting this thread. The whole point for me, however, is pleasure in the writing as well. Trying to be the best writer I can be is the real excitement for me.

 

[horrorotica]

I just take it that if I get 4+ on a story then that's a good result. I did a cuckold story series once and got hammered for that pretty badly and I figured that some nasty voting goes on out there. Sometimes I read a story that seems pretty poorly written and it scores pretty highly too which also makes me suspicious. Sometimes I've read really good stories and they have scored mid to high threes only.

In the end I decided that seeing what people score you is interesting but not necessarily so important to me as a writer. Especially since the process seems to be open to abuse.

 

[sr71plt]

Some of my technically best stories are under 4. It's just a crap shoot.

 

[CeasarBoobage]

Even though the scoring system is a touch 'flawed', it's what we have. For my stories, I also use the number of times it has been favorited to see if it has been accepted well. It isn't a great system either, but oh well.

Regardless, I also frequently use the baseline score of 4.0 to help me decide if it's a good read, whether it's my own, or to decide whether or not to try reading it.

Like others have said, my scores don't bother me a whole lot, it was more fun to write it than to worry about getting a 3.5.

 

[Sonatatre]

I have just started to write on this site but been a reader here for many years.

I personally look on all feedback and try to use that as a measurement. I know my first story had some errors mostly because it was my first story written in English. I figured it would take some time to find my style of writing. It had some negative comments but also very many positive comments so i wrote a second story. Most comments and favourites seemed to show up on the first week on those two stories.

For my third story it was a second chapter. It has a higher score but seem to be lacking in favourites. I found that worrying and wonder if i did something wrong with the story. Or are there usually less favourites on later chapters of a story? I also noted that most comments came in later on chapter 2.

I think the feedback i have gotten so far have helped me evolve as a writer. Both by getting rid on some errors and working on finding my own style. The positive comments have also helped me get inspiration to write more.

Now as i am getting close to getting chapter 3 out should i expect to not get many favourites and comments?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Writing is like everything else in life, you like what you like, and what you like changes with time. When I was 6 years old THE POKEY LITTLE PUPPY was my idea of a great read.

I look at comments this way: If you paint your house lime green with fluorescent orange trim, is the quality of the paint and work good? Is it shoddy and inferior to comparable house painting?

Then there's the bizness of how fashionable the topic is.

Readers aren't competent critics, cuz they hate lime green paint, or they hate EMO girlz, or preachers wives don't fuck, or whatever! Readers matter when they buy books and stories.

 

[Cinner]

I have a story here (Topping from the Bottom) that has a very low rating because it isn't very sexy, but I needed to submit something to a creative writing class that I had a few weeks ago and chose to use that. It was a hit... and many of the other people in the class are award winning writers on the serious international scale. In fact, I expect the lecturer for the course to get a Nobel Prize before he dies, because he's already winning some serious prizes on his way there.

I learned a lot from that experience: it does not matter what your rating here is. What matters is that you use the opportunities available on this site to learn how to craft interesting sentences about fascinating characters and situations. If you can do that, then you'll get good ratings where they really count.

 

[Swilly]

I think the topic and category will have a huge effect on the scoring. Perhaps if there were a wider range of categories, you'd be able to compare one type of story to another in terms of score. As noted elsewhere, many people vote on a story based upon how it affected them. If the content did not turn them on, or worse, was a turnoff, then it is rated to be poor.

I think if you write enough stories in different categories, you begin to see the pattern and understand. I can recognize that a couple of my stories that are in the threes are there for the reasons noted above. I don't sweat it.

If you write in many categories and never get a score in the mid fours or higher, then perhaps you should take a closer look at your writing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I think the topic and category will have a huge effect on the scoring. Perhaps if there were a wider range of categories, you'd be able to compare one type of story to another in terms of score. As noted elsewhere, many people vote on a story based upon how it affected them. If the content did not turn them on, or worse, was a turnoff, then it is rated to be poor.

I think if you write enough stories in different categories, you begin to see the pattern and understand. I can recognize that a couple of my stories that are in the threes are there for the reasons noted above. I don't sweat it.

If you write in many categories and never get a score in the mid fours or higher, then perhaps you should take a closer look at your writing.

Youre fulla shit.

 

[sweet_lusciousdesire]

scores

whatever