Check your ignorance before commenting

[SimonDoom]

I'm not saying that you - or anyone else - needs to write to match my tastes. Just that for some of us, once you get beyond a short stroke story, characterization is important.

Personally, I think characterization of some sort is important in a story of any length. It doesn't take a great deal of exposition -- a few skillfully crafted sentences can do the job. But a story isn't going to do it for me on mechanics alone. What's going on in the characters' heads is the sexiest part of an erotic story, for me. And to convey that, some effort at characterization is required.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Personally, I think characterization of some sort is important in a story of any length. It doesn't take a great deal of exposition -- a few skillfully crafted sentences can do the job. But a story isn't going to do it for me on mechanics alone. What's going on in the characters' heads is the sexiest part of an erotic story, for me. And to convey that, some effort at characterization is required.

Well said. That elevates it from a mere stroker to something at least approaching literature,

 

[KeithD]

Fine, for those who want more than the stroker in a story. But sort of so what? That doesn't negate that this is a porn story site, no matter what other fancy word is used to mitigate that and no matter what tamer type of story is allowed into the file, and, from my very, very extensive experience in posting a wide variety of stories here for a decade and a half, my observation is that most of the readers, including those who vote and comment, are here for the sexual arousal regardless of any other story element.

Writing such things as "the readers want to like the characters" on the discussion board is not only just 'nose in the air" personal druthers, but it also just doesn't represent the Literotica file of stories and writers and readers of those stories. Establishing personal reading preferences on the discussion board is one thing, a rather limiting thing, but to assert it's what "the readers" here want (like there is one, let alone a thousand, discriminate elements Literotica readers want) is crossing the line of reality.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I don't allow anon to comment on any of my stories. I don't miss him in the least. As for voting, haters are going to hate.

 

[Hypoxia]

Commentators requesting my suicide rarely specify what I did to irk them. I'm left at a loss. One nasty pasty obviously read a passage too fast, missing what I thought was a pretty obvious nuance. (I said they drove from California to Mexico; then I listed stops along the way. Duh.) One reader kindly corrected my repeated misspelling of Ipswich. But mostly, comments are kindly, or insane and thus entertaining, like water-boarding.

 

[SimonDoom]

entertaining, like water-boarding.

Giving? Or Receiving?

Or just spectating?

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I just look at comments as additional entertainment value. A recent story got a comment from a user to the effect that he was giving me one star because one of the characters went ass to mouth and that was disgusting. The only thing funnier than that comment was that an hour later it changed from being written by a user to anonymous. Apparently he had second thoughts about commenting as himself.

James

I had a commenter nearly flip out on one of my stories because there was interacial sex untagged. Because it wasn't anything worth tagging, it wasn't the point of the story, nor anything really other than a mention and it was brief. I think he said it turned him off, too. Oh well. As far as anon; one of the very first things I did was turn off anon comments, when I joined here.

 

[Erlikkhan]

Personally, I think characterization of some sort is important in a story of any length. It doesn't take a great deal of exposition -- a few skillfully crafted sentences can do the job. But a story isn't going to do it for me on mechanics alone. What's going on in the characters' heads is the sexiest part of an erotic story, for me. And to convey that, some effort at characterization is required.

"He climbed on top of the faceless, nameless woman and put his dick into her vagina moving it in and out until he ejaculated."

versus

"He mounted the fiery redhead with wild eyes who pulled her legs back and guided his eight inch monster between the folds of her dripping pussy, begging him to fuck her like a dirty cock-loving slut, and screaming so loud it shook the walls when he pumped her full of hot cum."

I agree. Character matters, even in smut.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Fine, for those who want more than the stroker in a story. But sort of so what? That doesn't negate that this is a porn story site, no matter what other fancy word is used to mitigate that and no matter what tamer type of story is allowed into the file, and, from my very, very extensive experience in posting a wide variety of stories here for a decade and a half, my observation is that most of the readers, including those who vote and comment, are here for the sexual arousal regardless of any other story element.

Writing such things as "the readers want to like the characters" on the discussion board is not only just 'nose in the air" personal druthers, but it also just doesn't represent the Literotica file of stories and writers and readers of those stories. Establishing personal reading preferences on the discussion board is one thing, a rather limiting thing, but to assert it's what "the readers" here want (like there is one, let alone a thousand, discriminate elements Literotica readers want) is crossing the line of reality.

Yes, readers are here for the sex. The nice thing is that a lot of them also appreciate a good story and characterization so if you combine all 3 you get a good response. But there’s so many variations and absolutely no one size fits all reader.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Personally, I think characterization of some sort is important in a story of any length. It doesn't take a great deal of exposition -- a few skillfully crafted sentences can do the job. But a story isn't going to do it for me on mechanics alone. What's going on in the characters' heads is the sexiest part of an erotic story, for me. And to convey that, some effort at characterization is required.

Even in a short story. I use Heinlein as a model, he was a master of characterization and scene setting with very few words.

 

[RetroFan]

Commentators requesting my suicide rarely specify what I did to irk them. I'm left at a loss. One nasty pasty obviously read a passage too fast, missing what I thought was a pretty obvious nuance. (I said they drove from California to Mexico; then I listed stops along the way. Duh.) One reader kindly corrected my repeated misspelling of Ipswich. But mostly, comments are kindly, or insane and thus entertaining, like water-boarding.

I got my first comment suggesting I commit suicide this year, and not in Loving Wives as you might expect but Incest Taboo. In a way it was kind of an honour.

With regards to comments about historical inaccuracy, I wrote a story this year set in 1969 about a young Vietnam Veteran who is struggling after his tour of duty ends, and got a few negative comments about some perceived small historical inaccuracies although overall the story scored well and another person left a comment to say that what I had written about was pretty accurate for the times.

 

[oggbashan]

What I find more irritating than most are comments that a particular part of the story isn't accurate when I experienced it at the time and the person commenting wasn't even born then.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I got my first comment suggesting I commit suicide this year, and not in Loving Wives as you might expect but Incest Taboo. In a way it was kind of an honour.

With regards to comments about historical inaccuracy, I wrote a story this year set in 1969 about a young Vietnam Veteran who is struggling after his tour of duty ends, and got a few negative comments about some perceived small historical inaccuracies although overall the story scored well and another person left a comment to say that what I had written about was pretty accurate for the times.

Have you ever seen MASH? The show was longer than the war itself. Nobody that wasn't there knows every little detail. Never know whatever you wrote could have truth in it somewhere.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Even in a short story. I use Heinlein as a model, he was a master of characterization and scene setting with very few words.

Wait, what?

You do short stories?

 

[ChloeTzang]

Wait, what?

You do short stories?

Yes. Isn’t 60k words short?

Rotflmao. I’m going to have to try short, I really am. I did a couple once.

 

[KeithD]

60K is short in terms of a novel, yes, not in terms of a story.

 

[Javahead]

60K is short in terms of a novel, yes, not in terms of a story.

When ChloeTzang writes something short, it’s novel?

 

[ElectricBlue]

When ChloeTzang writes something short, it’s novel?

She hadn't done it yet, so yes, it will be .

 

[KeithD]

When ChloeTzang writes something short, it’s novel?

No, when she writes something that's 60K, it's a short novel, not a short story. (Was this a trick question?)

 

[SimonDoom]

60K is longer than The Great Gatsby and Animal Farm. Chloe is regularly churning out novel-length stories.

 

[RetroFan]

Have you ever seen MASH? The show was longer than the war itself. Nobody that wasn't there knows every little detail. Never know whatever you wrote could have truth in it somewhere.

Yes, I think MASH ran 11 years and the Korean War lasted 4 years.

It's not the only TV show to have done this. In the UK the classic sitcom Dad's Army ran from 1967-1977 and was about the misadventures of a home guard platoon during World War 2, which of course only ran from 1939-1945. What's interesting about Dad's Army was that it initially started off on a timeline running on course with the early war years, but then it got stuck somewhere around 1942 and there it remained. Part of this was due to the fact that the German Blitz died down around this stage, and this atmosphere was still required for the show. When the show ended it didn't conclude with the end of the war in 1945, the war was still going.

Another UK example is the TV show Heartbeat, which began in 1992 and finished in 2010. The timeline on the show started in circa 1963, but by the end of the show 18 years later it had not moved out of its 1960s setting. It was quite odd given some long-running characters were young when the show began, but middle aged when it finished, yet it was still in the same decade.

 

[JamesMiehoff]

I say this every time, but: requiring registration to vote on stories would make scoring worse.

My understanding (not confirmed) is that sweeps already look for voters with a pattern of suspicious voting, and that this includes anon voters. Laurel has requested that people not discuss technical details, so I won't, but there are at least three well-known ways to identify anon votes coming from the same person and I'm pretty sure the site is already using at least two of them. So registration isn't necessary for that purpose. Those methods aren't bulletproof, but any troll who knows enough to get round them isn't likely to be stopped by registration.

Sorry to back the conversation up, but I reread this from Bramblethorn and a bell went off.

Are you saying it is possible to vote on a story more than once, without having multiple accounts??!??

That seems ludicrous. It leaves open the door to 5 bombing yourself. Mwwwwaaahhhahhhaaa. Sorry ignore the last, it just kind of slipped out.

Seriously though, there should be a way to comment anonymously (I usually love those comments They make me smile), but there should be a way to track a logged in user's vote so they only get one vote. Users that are not logged in should not be allowed to vote or their vote should go into a different value.

James

 

[TxRad]

Sorry to back the conversation up, but I reread this from Bramblethorn and a bell went off.

Are you saying it is possible to vote on a story more than once, without having multiple accounts??!??

That seems ludicrous. It leaves open the door to 5 bombing yourself. Mwwwwaaahhhahhhaaa. Sorry ignore the last, it just kind of slipped out.

Seriously though, there should be a way to comment anonymously (I usually love those comments They make me smile), but there should be a way to track a logged in user's vote so they only get one vote. Users that are not logged in should not be allowed to vote or their vote should go into a different value.

James

No that is not what she is say, just the opposite in fact.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

OK, I just got one which qualifies. I will give credit to Anonymous however; he or she did it via an email comment, presumably so as not to publicly embarrass me. So, points and kudos to him/her for that much at least.

Anyway, a character in my entry in the Pastiches de Oggbashan event, The Magdalene, was a soldier who had earned both the Military Medal and Military Cross. To avoid confusion, I included in the introduction a short explanation of what the postnomials "MC' and 'MM' meant and, given the large US readership, said that they were the rough equivalent of the Silver Star.

Anon's very polite email said this:

Annotations on your latest story intro:

The MC/MM award is equivalent to the US Bronze Star.

The Conspicuous Gallantry Cross is equivalent to the US Silver Star.

The George Cross is a civil award and non-combat award for similar acts of courage. The US Legion of Merit may be roughly equivalent, though Military-only.

The "VC" or Victoria Cross, is the UK version of a Medal of Honor, often depicted after a name as "VC, OBE" which denoted Knighting as an additional honor.​

There are only a couple of problems with that.

First off, the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross was not instituted until 1993, on the order of 80 years after the WW 1 period the story was set in.

Secondly, without trying to get pedantic, during the Great War, the top gallantry awards in Britain would have been the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order/Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Cross/Military Medal. The current (current because I am trying to describe WW1 UK awards to those familiar with US awards) would be the Medal of Honor, then the Distinguished Service Cross (and other branch equivalents), then (with a small jump) the Silver Star. So, my Military Cross/Silver Star comparison was essentially correct.


FWIW, the George Cross (which comes in precedence before, not after, the CGC) wasn't instituted until WW2, so I'm not sure why they brought it up. And there is a 100% cast-in-concrete heroism requirement for the GC which is not normally present in the Legion of Merit (with acknowledgements for former USMC practice). And while the VC is awarded to servicemen for valour in the presence of the enemy; the GC is awarded to both civilians and serving members for the same level of bravery when not actually in battle.

And only two of the five grades of the Order of the British Empire bring a knighthood with them.

But aside from all that, their comments were accurate...

Bottom line is that I am still grateful in a way that Mr or Ms Anon tried to quietly bring this to my attention. If you are reading this, sir or madam, come on back. I'd be happy to talk openly.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(whoops, missed this earlier)

Sorry to back the conversation up, but I reread this from Bramblethorn and a bell went off.

Are you saying it is possible to vote on a story more than once, without having multiple accounts??!??

Well yes. There are ways to vote on a story more than once without having any accounts at all. But when somebody's doing it a lot, it's easy to spot and remove. I presume that's what sweeps do.

Requiring login to vote blocks some of those methods, but it doesn't tackle the problem of alt accounts - in fact, it makes alts more powerful. If blocking anon voting means that a story that would previously have received 100 legit votes now only gets 10, then each alt has 10x as much impact on the score as they used to. That makes it much harder to spot when multi-voting is affecting the story's score significantly.

Bottom line, if you want to minimise the effect of multi-voting on story scores, it's better to accept anon votes (and then sweep for multi-voting) than to block them (and make scores vulnerable to alt accounts).