Are ratings indicative of talent?

[MillieDynamite]

LOL!

 

[FelHarper]

Hi all!

Do you think that ratings and engagement are a good way to accurately judge your skill?

Sure, in the same way that a speedometer is a good way to accurately judge how safe of a driver you are. Doing 70 mph on the freeway? No problem. Doing 70 mph past the elementary school as the buses are arriving? Not so good.

Here are some likely reasons I can think of for why a story might be rated poorly:

1. Poor editing or pacing. Lots of grammatical and spelling errors gets to be frustrating. Avoid long exposition or pointless dialogue. Don’t bore your reader.
2. Using the wrong category. Some readers hate this with a passion.
3. Likewise, if it features a sex act, kink or a fetish that some might find upsetting, be prepared for complaints, even if you warn your reader, or it fits the category. Some readers are dumb.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help from other authors if you get poor ratings and don’t know why. It might not be anything you did wrong at all, or you might get some helpful advice to improve.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I didn't say that the LW crowd are saints, but after knowing you guys here at AH—You are way nastier.

Nasty, you should know well. You are the master. Your attempts at being irradiate, clever, and wickedly brilliant cannot impress us. Your comments don’t shine a light on others’ failings but your own. You show yourself to be meanspirited and petty. Using a dead composer as your icon is appropriate. Your tactics are all old-hat, stale, decomposing efforts to insult others. You do understand composers decompose after death, right?

 

[Voboy]

We'd probably all do well to avoid feeding the troll.

As he points out, we've already got a couple here. Speaking for myself, I've got no real wish to add another.

 

[KeithD]

Sure, in the same way that a speedometer is a good way to accurately judge how safe of a driver you are. Doing 70 mph on the freeway? No problem. Doing 70 mph past the elementary school as the buses are arriving? Not so good.

Here are some likely reasons I can think of for why a story might be rated poorly:

1. Poor editing or pacing. Lots of grammatical and spelling errors gets to be frustrating. Avoid long exposition or pointless dialogue. Don’t bore your reader.
2. Using the wrong category. Some readers hate this with a passion.
3. Likewise, if it features a sex act, kink or a fetish that some might find upsetting, be prepared for complaints, even if you warn your reader, or it fits the category. Some readers are dumb.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help from other authors if you get poor ratings and don’t know why. It might not be anything you did wrong at all, or you might get some helpful advice to improve.

You forgot because someone doesn't like you personally or because they see themselves as in competition with you or just because you can slam someone without them knowing who you are.

This is a gaming site. There are multiple reasons you don't mention of why your stories are rating poorly that have nothing to do with how well the story is written or how good the storytelling is. You mention one--not liking the kink of the story--but there are others.

This is a gaming site.

If I was going to get hung up on ratings or if I had any worry about how well I wrote, I certainly wouldn't post stories to Literotica.

One of the reasons why LW is a cesspool is because there are authors poking the lions in there for fun and getting them revved up to dump on the other stories as well. There isn't that sort of author gaming going on in other categories that I can see.

 

[MillieDynamite]

We'd probably all do well to avoid feeding the troll.

As he points out, we've already got a couple here. Speaking for myself, I've got no real wish to add another.

Yup!

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

In my case the ratings may be a judge of my development as writer so far. After all, I have three up, rankings aren't that good nor are they dreadful.

 

[lovecraft68]

In my case the ratings may be a judge of my development as writer so far. After all, I have three up, rankings aren't that good nor are they dreadful.

Takes a bit to build a base, and the two categories you have written in aren't know for large readerships and the EH crowd doesn't bash that much, but they are a tough to please, probably because horror means so many different things to so many people.

EV doesn't seem to be the highest voting crowd either. So in that regard, if using a scale, you're doing pretty good.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

Takes a bit to build a base, and the two categories you have written in aren't know for large readerships and the EH crowd doesn't bash that much, but they are a tough to please, probably because horror means so many different things to so many people.

EV doesn't seem to be the highest voting crowd either. So in that regard, if using a scale, you're doing pretty good.

Thank you, you're very kind to say this to me. I can only hope I'm doing well. It's been rough going writing the past few months. Haven't had the time, to many outside the home commitments. I have several stories in development. Of course, they are Interracial. I'm afraid I'm always going to write about black and white.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

‘Black and white’?

Like Scottish terrier puppies playing?

Like black notes on a white score, just waiting to blossom into music?

Like black poetry on white paper, only needing to be read to bring emotion and joy to the world?

Black and white can be very nice.

Peace

 

[TadOverdon]

Linking salary to talent is problematic, to say the least.

Remarkably enough, the post you quoted contained no commentary on talent.

Do keep up.

 

[Comshaw]

Hell no!

Unless you write a story that kills the wife, lover and everyone in between, you get 1 bombed to death in the Loving Wives category.

Not necessarily. I have several in Loving Wives. One has a misspelled title and deals with a husband that tricks his wife into voluntarily fucking one of his friends. It has been there since 8/6/2020 and even with a screwed up title and a premise that most times brings the trolls snarling out of their lair, it has 383 votes with a score of 4.15, 30 favorites, 19 comments (some really venomous ones yes indeedy) and 33,500 reads. Maybe the trolls have gotten worse over the last two years or so. I have one in the works I'm planning on posting there. We'll see how it goes.


Comshaw

 

[KeithD]

I have six in LW under the sr71plt account. Four of them are in the 4 rating range. One that isn't (at 3.98) has a Green E, so that more than makes up for the rating.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

So to your question, no, composers do not decompose after death, they are resurrected every time someone listens to them. Every time their music is played something of them resonates in the universe.

If in millions of years a new civilization rises on the ruins of the world we destroyed, they will not be interested in lewd stories, they will be interested in the glorious timeless music of Anton Bruckner.

Too bad, although anyone can listen to it, not many can actually hear it.

I am curious, is it something about Anton Bruckner's personality, or is it just his music that you find fascinating? I am asking because he is not hmm, how to say it, the A list composer I suppose. When I say A list, I mean a composer who is widely known, I am not talking about the quality of his music. From that period, for example, Wagner is considered far more influential, thus my curiosity?

 

[Older_Pervert]

OK, I'm the type who spends a lot of time pulling on doors clearly marked PUSH, so I'm going to say 'Yes'.

Yes, to a certain degree.

With caveats.

Those caveats include the reality that this is indeed a popularity rating, not a judgement by serious, high-domed, tenured Professors of Erotic Literature (and, these days, there might actually be some of those).

Second, the voting is skewed, sometimes by overenthusiastic fans, sometimes by cheating authors (subset, sometimes apparently on an industrial level) and most often by spiteful trolls. The site attempts to correct, but there are ways around that. So a score of 4.6 is not necessarily 'better' than 4.5'.

Third, it's a small subject board and people vote for what turns them on. I'll get to that.

That said, a story scoring (and I'm just picking numbers at random) 4.75 is almost certainly a better read than one scoring 2.75. That one fact is reasonably good evidence that high-scoring writers generally have better plots, better characters and have a basic understanding of grammar and spelling. Exceptions test the rule, not prove it.

And, while saying that people vote for things that turn them on may be so, people are generally going to be more easily turned on by something well-written.

That it is essentially a popularity contest is also true, but so what? So's the New York Times best-sellers list. And judgements by serious experts and radio panels have so often recommended books I myself have found turgid, dense and not all that enjoyable. I guess my point here is that people come here to be entertained. They want to enjoy themselves. The stories here are all read for pleasure, so what's wrong with it being a popularity rating?

Awaits incoming brimstone.

Now you tell me! If I’d known one could become a Professor of Erotic Literature, I’d have stayed on at university

 

[MillieDynamite]

Since becoming aware of this site, I have adopted the vital habit of skimming to save myself precious time. Stories and comments alike. So I missed your last sentence which raises an interesting question of whether a person is just the sum of the cells that make him up or something more. If it is only the material that makes us up then we are not much different from stones.

So to your question, no, composers do not decompose after death, they are resurrected every time someone listens to them. Every time their music is played something of them resonates in the universe.

If in millions of years a new civilization rises on the ruins of the world we destroyed, they will not be interested in lewd stories, they will be interested in the glorious timeless music of Anton Bruckner.

Too bad, although anyone can listen to it, not many can actually hear it.

How ironic you choose one of the most humble and unassuming composers as your representation. Being that, you are neither humble nor unassuming.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I seriously doubt it! I'm a very discerning and discriminating person. I need to get back to writing now.