Do you vote on your own stories?

[SmilingLez]

Well, there's also the fact that I've won a competition and never want to run the risk of winning another.

Then turn voting off. Since you're not interested in competing anyway. Does it really matter if you don't get the little red hot tag?

 

[TheLobster]

Okay guys, look: what @Erozetta does is simply common sense. If you want to have something done properly, would you really entrust that thing to the kind of people who 1-bomb other people's stories?

Yeah, me neither. And that's why rather than relying on trolls to do it, she goes ahead and 1-bombs her stories herself! Simple.

 

[HordHolm]

I have. I did it only to counteract the serial one-star bomber that usually comes in about an hour or less after the daily story drop.

I never used to vote on my stories, but then that same one-star bomber would visit me immediately after a story being published (and so, faster than any reasonable human could actually read and hate my story), and so I started to vote as a counter-balance to whoever that particular individual is. If they want to give my story a 1 after reading it, that's fine. But I object to straight troll voting.

 

[Erozetta]

Okay guys, look: what @Erozetta does is simply common sense. If you want to have something done properly, would you really entrust that thing to the kind of people who 1-bomb other people's stories?

Yeah, me neither. And that's why rather than relying on trolls to do it, she goes ahead and 1-bombs her stories herself! Simple.

Not all of them, just a couple. And it's not about trolling. It's more about keeping my own sanity when I enter a contest. Things get prickly there and I don't want to be seen as competition, particularly after winning and seeing every story I had posted at the time drop by at least .2 points. People are horribly bitter. I have zero interest in a repeat performance.

Then turn voting off. Since you're not interested in competing anyway. Does it really matter if you don't get the little red hot tag?

Does it honestly bother you that I don't prohibit readers from sharing their like/dislike on my stories just because I don't actually care about the numbers and feel they are horribly overinflated?

Posting stories here isn't competing against other authors, as you said in your first reply to me. It's just seeing what readers think of this and that and scores/number of votes are the quickest way to see what hits with readers or not. Winning a contest means nothing as it's not indicative of writing quality or even entertainment value. It's largely dependent on hitting the right stroke for readers at the right time and getting lucky in sweep results.

I don't need my scores to be above a certain line to feel good about them because everything I've posted here is an experiment on figuring out what works for readers on average.

Basically, I leave voting on for readers to judge my stories however they see fit. Not to compete and not to stroke my ego. I down vote my own stories only to try and keep the score in specific instances from going over a certain threshold where people get snippy if they see it there and will manipulate the score against actual reader reaction.

In the case of contests, I vote against my own work because winning ensures your entire catalogue of stories gets hit with multiple 1s in the first few minutes of winning and that destroys any sense of accuracy in gauging reader reaction via voting.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Still not as bad as people creating an alt and commenting on their own story as if they're a different person. There was an epic example of that a few years ago.

I remember that one. I still have those comments saved somewhere.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I figure, if we all agreed that nobody should vote on their stories, dishonest people would still vote on their own stories and then they'd have an advantage. So it's better if everybody gets to cast one shame-free vote on their own stories.

 

[onehitwanda]

I remember that one. I still have those comments saved somewhere.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I figure, if we all agreed that nobody should vote on their stories, dishonest people would still vote on their own stories and then they'd have an advantage. So it's better if everybody gets to cast one shame-free vote on their own stories.

I wonder if those who think it's wrong to vote for their own stories, if they had a story published in, lets say, the New Yorker, would feel it was unethical for them to buy a copy.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I wonder if those who think it's wrong to vote for their own stories, if they had a story published in, lets say, the New Yorker, would feel it was unethical for them to buy a copy.

Or if they ran for a position on their local city council, if they’d vote for themselves…

 

[LegendInMyOwnMind]

Others may do as they wish without judgment from me, but I never have and never will vote on my own stories.

 

[LightningSeed]

I do just to mitigate the only 1-bomb I can offset.

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

I vote on my own stories but only under a certain circumstance, which is if I come back to them as a reader down the road and really read them and engage with them not as a product I've put out but as art I've got feelings about. That might seem like a cope to some of you but rereading my stories is actually a form of very gentle self-harm

 

[TheLobster]

 

[SmilingLez]

Not all of them, just a couple. And it's not about trolling. It's more about keeping my own sanity when I enter a contest. Things get prickly there and I don't want to be seen as competition, particularly after winning and seeing every story I had posted at the time drop by at least .2 points. People are horribly bitter. I have zero interest in a repeat performance.

Does it honestly bother you that I don't prohibit readers from sharing their like/dislike on my stories just because I don't actually care about the numbers and feel they are horribly overinflated?

Posting stories here isn't competing against other authors, as you said in your first reply to me. It's just seeing what readers think of this and that and scores/number of votes are the quickest way to see what hits with readers or not. Winning a contest means nothing as it's not indicative of writing quality or even entertainment value. It's largely dependent on hitting the right stroke for readers at the right time and getting lucky in sweep results.

I don't need my scores to be above a certain line to feel good about them because everything I've posted here is an experiment on figuring out what works for readers on average.

Basically, I leave voting on for readers to judge my stories however they see fit. Not to compete and not to stroke my ego. I down vote my own stories only to try and keep the score in specific instances from going over a certain threshold where people get snippy if they see it there and will manipulate the score against actual reader reaction.

In the case of contests, I vote against my own work because winning ensures your entire catalogue of stories gets hit with multiple 1s in the first few minutes of winning and that destroys any sense of accuracy in gauging reader reaction via voting.

It still makes no sense to me. It's sort of like having a yearly performance review at work and your boss asking you to rate your work on a scale of one to five, and because you have friends who are also co-workers as well as having other not-so-friendly co-workers who would stab you in the back, you rate your own work at a one because you don't want to take money away from your friends and you want to beat the haters to the punch by giving yourself a one first

But if that's what you want to do, so be it.

 

[Erozetta]

It still makes no sense to me. It's sort of like having a yearly performance review at work and your boss asking you to rate your work on a scale of one to five, and because you have friends who are also co-workers as well as having other not-so-friendly co-workers who would stab you in the back, you rate your own work at a one because you don't want to take money away from your friends and you want to beat the haters to the punch by giving yourself a one first

But if that's what you want to do, so be it.

My boss no longer lets me do my own performance reviews because I'm honest on them and point out places where I can improve while she just wants to give me blanket 4's (our highest mark) across the board. Like... That doesn't help me at all and looks biased as fuck. I, like everyone, have room for improvement and pointing that out causes me no harm.

And it's more along the lines of giving a friend a high mark and putting yourself a bit below that, particularly if you're both up for a promotion and you don't want the promotion but know they not only want it, but deserve it. (There were plenty of 5's on my work to offset my 1. It wasn't *just* my single vote being the deciding factor. If it were, I would've given myself a 4.)

 

[AStrangeDesire]

I have. I did it only to counteract the serial one-star bomber that usually comes in about an hour or less after the daily story drop.

I did that when my second story got published, and within 3 votes there was a 1 (the math was pretty straight forward).

Not that it would have mattered in the long run I guess, and I didn't feel like it was quite the right thing to do <shrug>

Maybe once I publish a few more I won't care? One can only hope.

 

[dct10538]

Then turn voting off. Since you're not interested in competing anyway. Does it really matter if you don't get the little red hot tag?

Mmm. True but I think there's another angle. I think most people would rather have their material read more rather than read less, even if, like me, they don't care that much about it. And the little red H is is often used as a filter on what to read or not to read.