Author tantrums

[Britva415]

If you come at the story from the "new" list you have to open it to see the story and get the tags?

Oh, it's even worse than that. Just opening the story doesn't show you the tags. One has to deliberately show the tags.

I wonder how many readers don't even know you can do that. For this reason I include a line with the story's tags at the beginning of the story. It's not a "disclaimer," just the list of the tags.

 

[Otto26]

Which means that you do feel that they owe you something, because good manners is not nothing.

We'll have to disagree on this. I feel that good manners is the baseline. Posting non-constructive insults intended to cause hurt is simple bullying perpetrated by a%%sholes hiding behind the anonymity the internet provides. Better for the authors to hit delete or ignore the comments, but not everyone does.

If your stories do not contain a disclaimer at the top that says "Don't read this story if you're not prepared to be nice to me in the comments." then you can't expect everyone to be nice to you in the comments.

Again, we'll have to disagree on this. I feel that good manners is the baseline.

I can tell you that if I took 100 random stories and wrote up a 300 word review for each of them (just 300 words each) most of my reviews would require more effort than the writer put into the story. I'm not kidding.

I don't disagree with you on this.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

We'll have to disagree on this. I feel that good manners is the baseline. Posting non-constructive insults intended to cause hurt is simple bullying perpetrated by a%%sholes hiding behind the anonymity the internet provides. Better for the authors to hit delete or ignore the comments, but not everyone does.

And so many readers also disagree. Are their opinions any less valid than yours?

Yes there are bullies. Yes once in a while I get a spiteful insulting comment. I've had way more hurled strtaight into my face right here in the AH. I've never been hurt by one though. It just comes with the territory. You wanna write? Well you're gonna get some slings and arrows. Big deal. Don't want any rude comments? Start your own site where rude comments aren't allowed. Oh, and have fun defining rude.

 

[8letters]

Yea, the best is "If you're not into (kink/element) don't read this."

1 ~ If a writer is going to be that defensive about his work, it's hardly enticing.

2 ~ If a writer wants to be so exclusionary, it's snobby as all fuck.

3 ~ It tells the reader "I don't care about what you get out of this. This is about me and what you think of me and if you're not willing to affirm my writing experience, just move along. You're no good to me"

Let's say I love watersports (I don't). Let's say I wrote a story that has watersports in it. I'd want people who love watersports like me to read my story, to vote, and to leave comments. I know that many readers dislike or outright hate watersports in their stories. So, being a conscientious author, I do my best to keep them from having the miserable experience of reading a story that contains something they don't enjoy. Also, I don't need comments about how watersports ruined a perfectly good story - that's your opinion, not mine. So I do everything I can to warn off readers who don't like watersports - I put in warnings, I add disclaimers, and I clearly tag the story.

You know what would happen? Those people I tried to warn off would still read my story and still have a miserable experience doing so. Then they will give my story a low vote and a mean comment. What were they doing reading a story after they were warned it had content they wouldn't like? How dare they vote down my story and leave a nasty comment when they were clearly warned what was coming?

From what I can tell, many readers ignore warnings, disclaimers, and tags. Regardless of what you do, they're going to read your story and then react negatively to it. Which is sad, as it prevents niche communities from coming into existence in the main categories.

 

[SimonDoom]

My opinion, but I think the main reason My Son's Lap has so many views is because the characters are likable, and even in an absurd situation, believable. It's a fun read. I should know. I've read it about six times and I/T isn't even really my thing. Yeah, I gave it five stars, too.

But your approval isn't universal. The score is something like 4.43, which is not that high for an incest story and seemingly low considering it's the most viewed story of all time. So something other than just likeability is propelling the story's success.

That said, obviously many, many people agree with your opinion about the story.

 

[SimonDoom]

No, I think I must have explained it wrong. What I mean is that it may not register a "view" unless you click through every page of a story. That is, a one-page story records a view every time it's opened, but a two-page story only records a view if the user navigates to both pages.

The top story on that list, "Mom Sits on Son's Lap," has one page, 14.3M views and a rating of 4.44. "Accidents Happen," a two-page story from the same year in the same category with a higher rating at 4.58, has 10.95M views. "Words on Skin," with a very solid 4.81 rating and also published in I/T the same year (two months before "Accidents Happen"), is six pages long and has 6.71M views.

In addition, "Words on Skin" has nearly 2K comments, more than "Accidents Happen" and "Mom Sits on Son's Lap" combined. It's clearly getting more "real" engagement than the other stories, and is rated higher, too, but the view count is the lowest of the three.

If this was just the case of someone clicking in and saying "oh, six pages, never mind," then we should see views within spitting distance of each other IF only that first page click counts, but we don't. The most obvious answer, given the experiment run with ratings previously, is that some amount of the story has to be opened in the browser before the site records a view, which means it's quite possible that "view" is closer to "read" than we might believe.

I understand now. I don't agree with you, but I'd probably have to think about it for a while to explain why I feel that way strongly. One reason, as I said before, is the huge disparity between views and votes. If you had to click through most or all of the pages of a story to get a "view," then I don't think you'd see a 90:1 view:vote ratio, and the relationship between story length and that ratio would be the inverse of what it in fact is. In fact, the longer the story the greater the view:vote ratio tends to be (this is the case with my data set of 62 stories), but if your theory were correct you'd expect it to be the opposite, because the view would only count once the reader and gotten most or all of the way through the story.

I don't think you can draw many conclusions just from looking at those three stories. There are too many variables. Mom Sits and Accidents are both short I/T romps, the kinds of stories that get tons of views (like one of mine) but not super high scores. Words on Skin is regarded by many as one of the best brother-sister incest stories at Literotica. The writing quality and story-telling are quite a bit better than what one usually sees with incest stories. Mom Sits and Accidents have fun, titillating titles, the kind that get many views. Words on Skin is rather inscrutable and not inherently sexy. It was a story whose success (and greater engagement) were ultimately propelled by its quality and the reputation of its author (I think--obviously this is not much better than guesswork).

 

[SimonDoom]

Let's say I love watersports (I don't). Let's say I wrote a story that has watersports in it. I'd want people who love watersports like me to read my story, to vote, and to leave comments. I know that many readers dislike or outright hate watersports in their stories. So, being a conscientious author, I do my best to keep them from having the miserable experience of reading a story that contains something they don't enjoy. Also, I don't need comments about how watersports ruined a perfectly good story - that's your opinion, not mine. So I do everything I can to warn off readers who don't like watersports - I put in warnings, I add disclaimers, and I clearly tag the story.

You know what would happen? Those people I tried to warn off would still read my story and still have a miserable experience doing so. Then they will give my story a low vote and a mean comment. What were they doing reading a story after they were warned it had content they wouldn't like? How dare they vote down my story and leave a nasty comment when they were clearly warned what was coming?

From what I can tell, many readers ignore warnings, disclaimers, and tags. Regardless of what you do, they're going to read your story and then react negatively to it. Which is sad, as it prevents niche communities from coming into existence in the main categories.

I've thought about this on this very subject, because I'm writing a watersports story, probably to be published in the Fetish category, and I've considered offering a gentle warning about the content. If I did it I would try to do it in a gentle, permissive way, as opposed to something like "Don't bother reading this if you don't like pee." Besides, the story title, tagline, and tags will make the content perfectly clear.

Fetish is a bit of a tricky category where warnings may be of marginally more help because "fetish" can mean so many things and most readers will not find all fetishes appealing.

 

[Otto26]

And so many readers also disagree. Are their opinions any less valid than yours?

Yes, because they're wrong. But that's just my opinion.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Fetish is a bit of a tricky category where warnings may be of marginally more help because "fetish" can mean so many things and most readers will not find all fetishes appealing.

The fetish category is so wide and sprawling that the fetishes are distinguished through tags. If there is one category where the readership are almost always checking the tags it's fetish. How do you publish a pee story? You post to fetish and tag it pee. How do the pee fans find it? The go to fetish and peruse titles and descriptions that might be pee, open them and check the tags for pee. If that's the case, one would think that a content disclaimer would be redundant.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Yes, because they're wrong. But that's just my opinion.

And therein lies the fatal flaw in your argument. You cannot decide whether your stance is an opinion or a fact. If it's your opinion, then that does not mean that your opinion is right and there's is wrong. They are opinions. Now if I were to say that 2+2=5 and you say, no it's 4, then you can say that I'm wrong.

But this is your opinion, by your own admission. Which means that you don't know for sure, otherwise you would call it a fact and back it up with the hard evidence. But you don't have hard evidence, only your logical (and very valid) conjecture, to which others disagree with with equally logical conjecture of their own. Of course you think that you're right, otherwise you would not hold that particular opinion, just as everyone else does, some agreeing with you and some not.

But you cannot invalidate anyone else's opinion with another opinion, only with hard facts.

Here are the facts. You are posting to a free site. You are not soliciting anything in return. Therefore the readers owe you nothing. There is no baseline. Free is free, not just money, but neither anything else, not good manners, attention, gratitude, anything. Free. Zero obligations. Nada. NO-THING!

 

[MelissaBaby]

I thought this was going to be another Stacnash thread.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I thought this was going to be another Stacnash thread.

Close, but no banana!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I thought this was going to be another Stacnash thread.

There was ever only one, and that thread was about something quite different so I am curious why you would think so.

 

[8letters]

I've thought about this on this very subject, because I'm writing a watersports story, probably to be published in the Fetish category, and I've considered offering a gentle warning about the content. If I did it I would try to do it in a gentle, permissive way, as opposed to something like "Don't bother reading this if you don't like pee." Besides, the story title, tagline, and tags will make the content perfectly clear.

Fetish is a bit of a tricky category where warnings may be of marginally more help because "fetish" can mean so many things and most readers will not find all fetishes appealing.

I picked watersports just as an example. The same thing applies to many other kinks, some of which "stick in Fetish" isn't really a choice. MM incest will get pounded in Gay Male for having incest and will get pounded in I/T for having MM sex. Apparently, cuckold stories get roasted in Loving Wives but don't really fit in any other category.

What am I saying is that, ideally, there should be small niches in all the main categories. The I/T audience is more than big enough to support an MM niche. MM I/T doesn't appeal to me, but I just don't click on those stories. But there are enough readers who get upset about "wrong" content being posted to "their" category that that doesn't happen. Using warnings, disclaimers, tags, etc. doesn't deter that type of reader. If you want to post content to a main category that will upset a lot of readers, you just have to accept that you'll get a low rating and lots of negative comments.

 

[AlexBailey]

"WARNING: …, and also British English.

I practically always put that disclaimer in my stories. Because otherwise Anonymous complains that the girl is smoking/peeing/drunk?

Just how jam-packed epic is your story that you can't just add 'smoke, pee, drunk' to the tags?

@pink_silk_glove didn’t get the content warning - or maybe simply doesn’t understand why @Bazzle is so “pissed”?

 

[SimonDoom]

I picked watersports just as an example. The same thing applies to many other kinks, some of which "stick in Fetish" isn't really a choice. MM incest will get pounded in Gay Male for having incest and will get pounded in I/T for having MM sex. Apparently, cuckold stories get roasted in Loving Wives but don't really fit in any other category.

What am I saying is that, ideally, there should be small niches in all the main categories. The I/T audience is more than big enough to support an MM niche. MM I/T doesn't appeal to me, but I just don't click on those stories. But there are enough readers who get upset about "wrong" content being posted to "their" category that that doesn't happen. Using warnings, disclaimers, tags, etc. doesn't deter that type of reader. If you want to post content to a main category that will upset a lot of readers, you just have to accept that you'll get a low rating and lots of negative comments.

I generally agree with this, and for that reason usually do not support breaking the categories into a lot more smaller and more balkanized categories. There are a couple of exceptions, like Bi.

 

[MelissaBaby]

There was ever only one, and that thread was about something quite different so I am curious why you would think so.

No, there were several, including one that Mediocre Author started that was moved to the GB, and at least one that was completely deleted. But I'm not interested in going into all that again over an obvious joke.

 

[SimonDoom]

No, there were several, including one that Mediocre Author started that was moved to the GB, and at least one that was completely deleted. But I'm not interested in going into all that again over an obvious joke.

Every joke launched into the stormy sea of this forum should be properly cautioned with the advice, "Thar be dragons, and, argh, they don't have a sense of humor."

 

[Actingup]

No, there were several, including one that Mediocre Author started that was moved to the GB, and at least one that was completely deleted. But I'm not interested in going into all that again over an obvious joke.

Well, it prompted me to look up who this Stacnash person is/was! Which then made me think that, considering the context of the LitErotica fantasy world where all kinds of extraordinary and bizarre things happen to undeserving creatures male, female, furry and tentacled, this forum is actually extremely tame. Thank heavens that there's some boundary between reality and fiction left, however tenuous.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well, it prompted me to look up who this Stacnash person is/was! Which then made me think that, considering the context of the LitErotica fantasy world where all kinds of extraordinary and bizarre things happen to undeserving creatures male, female, furry and tentacled, this forum is actually extremely tame. Thank heavens that there's some boundary between reality and fiction left, however tenuous.

I agree, except some here thing they're some kind of edge lords, some will tell you they have been quite hardened and battle tested by life-and some here have, you can tell who they are by the lack of whining over things like trolls, scores, etc...because they have real life perspective.

But on a whole, its a soft group as can be seen by the reactions in many threads. Few hall monitors to who love to run to the mod when they take exception to having some of their games handed back to them.

But in the perspective of shark pits like The GB the politics board, the LW cuck comments section and parts of X or reddit, its low key, but I think saying that offends some people who think they're more than they are.

Writing here is a great thing, and the topics of don't let the trolls or bombs tear you down comes up often. What doesn't come up, is don't let 'success' here think you're more than you are. Some of the egos here are hilarious.

 

[Actingup]

I agree, except some here thing they're some kind of edge lords, some will tell you they have been quite hardened and battle tested by life-and some here have, you can tell who they are by the lack of whining over things like trolls, scores, etc...because they have real life perspective.

But on a whole, its a soft group as can be seen by the reactions in many threads. Few hall monitors to who love to run to the mod when they take exception to having some of their games handed back to them.

But in the perspective of shark pits like The GB the politics board, the LW cuck comments section and parts of X or reddit, its low key, but I think saying that offends some people who think they're more than they are.

Writing here is a great thing, and the topics of don't let the trolls or bombs tear you down comes up often. What doesn't come up, is don't let 'success' here think you're more than you are. Some of the egos here are hilarious.

Thanks for these insights! I'm new to active participation in Lit (long time reader), but the patterns do seem very similar to various mailing lists / groups I've been in over the years. But what a joy it is to encounter such deep expertise, history and even ego in a different context, rather than endlessly obsessing over the chord progressions of (insert artist name here) or getting lost on open platforms like the Twitter cesspit.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Every joke launched into the stormy sea of this forum should be properly cautioned with the advice, "Thar be dragons, and, argh, they don't have a sense of humor."

Yeah, all those jokes...

Writing here is a great thing, and the topics of don't let the trolls or bombs tear you down comes up often. What doesn't come up, is don't let 'success' here think you're more than you are. Some of the egos here are hilarious.

This should definitely be said more often.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Writing here is a great thing, and the topics of don't let the trolls or bombs tear you down comes up often. What doesn't come up, is don't let 'success' here think you're more than you are. Some of the egos here are hilarious.

Indeed, I point this out from time to time and because of that apparently I'm a cunt-and-a-half, regarded as among the worst people here and get my scores bombed. That's what happens when you uncover egos.

 

[SimonDoom]

Indeed, I point this out from time to time and because of that apparently I'm a cunt-and-a-half, regarded as among the worst people here and get my scores bombed. That's what happens when you uncover egos.

You are making assumptions about the relationship between what you say in this forum and the scores your stories receive that I think are unfounded. I don't make any assumption at all about the connection. I am sure there are cases where this happens but the number of people who participate in this forum is such a tiny and insignificant fraction of the total readership that I question the significance of the connection.

 

[NoTalentHack]

You are making assumptions about the relationship between what you say in this forum and the scores your stories receive that I think are unfounded. I don't make any assumption at all about the connection. I am sure there are cases where this happens but the number of people who participate in this forum is such a tiny and insignificant fraction of the total readership that I question the significance of the connection.

Agreed. I'm not saying that there's no one petty enough on the forums to do it, but the chance that it's a significant enough number to affect ratings seems unlikely.