Every story I post gets 1 star’d

[Erozetta]

I have no clue how old you are, but I know things were a lot different in my time than for my kids. I also went to a much smaller school than they did, so I'm sure that made a difference as well.

42, and there were about 30-ish kids in my graduating class.

I was just really good at tests and doing the bare minimum to secure an A. (Outside of middle school when I intentionally tanked my grades for two years because I was mad at my mom for keeping me out of school for long stretches of time to take care of my nieces so she could work. *That* took effort.)

 

[lovecraft68]

Yep, too many writers expect voting to be the Academy Awards, only to be very disappointed when they discover it's the People's Choice Awards instead.

Great analogy, I recall @KeithD referring to the system as American idol style voting, especially in the contests.

But whereas every author on the site deal with all the same ups and downs, some here don't take it that seriously and just roll with it because the good here far outweighs the bad, and instead of bitching about the minority of bad votes and comments appreciate the readers appreciating our efforts.

But where your comment is appropriate centers around a group of writers here who think they're writing literary masterpieces and get upset when the people who have been reading here for years don't acknowledge their greatness, but gave a five to a story and author they have disdain for because they're a non-forum nobody writing to appeal to mouth breathers with smut not the type of art they create.

Its not the system, or the readers, its their arrogance and need to feel superior to all those non forum hacks racking up good scores and a lot of followers because they're having fun and care more about their writing than a bunch of meaningless stats.

Oops, sorry, the stats are only meaningless when a non-elitist author has them.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But where your comment is appropriate centers around a group of writers here who think they're writing literary masterpieces and get upset when the people who have been reading here for years don't acknowledge their greatness, but gave a five to a story and author they have disdain for because they're a non-forum nobody writing to appeal to mouth breathers with smut not the type of art they create.

Its not the system, or the readers, its their arrogance and need to feel superior to all those non forum hacks racking up good scores and a lot of followers because they're having fun and care more about their writing than a bunch of meaningless stats.

Pretty much, yep.

The problem is the writers. They seem to expect that the scores should have a standard curve and that they should be on that leading edge of the curve to affirm that they are a good writer. We're asking people with little to no expertise on literature that have the mouse in one hand and their privates in the other to tell us that we're good writers, dammit! The voting system is far from perfect and a perfect system likely does not exist, but the writers' expectations are a far bigger problem (for the writers) than any voting system that one can come up with.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

What are your preferred themes?

Do you have an hour?

The same as everything else about me, the themes I like are somewhat... complicated. I love stuff that tickles the imagination and the intellect. I also like when the story has time to develop its characters and plot, so I typically read only very long stories, usually chaptered.

Give me a good fantasy or scifi story with interesting characters that grow over time, along with an intriguing world and plot, and I'll eat it up regardless of the kinks present in the story. Such stories will work well for me even if they don't touch on any sexual themes I like, although something extreme would likely put me off.

When it comes to stories that have prominent sexual content, I also prefer long ones, where the relationship between characters takes time to develop and evolve, the tension building up over time.
I prefer sensual, seductive femdom in that sense, but characters have to be interesting for me. I immediately groan at the mention of dominatrixes and slaves and dungeons and such.

I also dislike when the story puts me in the middle of an already formed relationship between characters. It's the characters what's interesting to me, not the sexual action. Strip them of their personalities and dynamics, and it all comes down to putting X into Y, an occurrence so frequent in Lit's stories, and the reason why I find so few of them that I like.

 

[alohadave]

For the mooses. (Moose’s? Meece? Why don’t I know this off the top of my head?)

Moose. In English, the singular and plural noun is the same.

 

[alohadave]

Dreamcloud

They are/were an excellent writer. It's been years since they quit because of people pirating their work.

 

[StrentWriter]

Moose. In English, the singular and plural noun is the same.

Thank you, I did check later on. Probably says more about my tiredness factor. But thank you anyway.

 

[onehitwanda]

Moose. In English, the singular and plural noun is the same.

in my world, one Moose becomes many Moösen.

 

[StillStunned]

in my world, one Moose becomes many Moösen.

A møøse once bit my sister.

 

[TheLobster]

A møøse once bit my sister.

That's why you should only stick to this moose:

 

[Statius]

A møøse once bit my sister.

No really

 

[ElectricBlue]

You display the votes. Like Amazon's system where you see how many of each rating everything gets.

A single number tells you only the aggregate score, not how the votes are distributed.

It helps readers and authors.

That's not what I meant. I'm talking about the range of scores that can only come from 3s 4s and 5s, not 1s and 5s. I keep an eye on scores as a story comes out of the gate, and it's clear to me when a 4 comes along, a 5 or a 3.

I'm not at all convinced by the "only vote 1 or 5" speculation. Sure, that's what a lot of people here say they do, but they're writers, not readers. I for one have given 3s 4s and 5s - but if a story is that bad, I'm gone. I've never left a 1 or a 2.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

That's not what I meant. I'm talking about the range of scores that can only come from 3s 4s and 5s, not 1s and 5s. I keep an eye on scores as a story comes out of the gate, and it's clear to me when a 4 comes along, a 5 or a 3.

I'm not at all convinced by the "only vote 1 or 5" speculation. Sure, that's what a lot of people here say they do, but they're writers, not readers. I for one have given 3s 4s and 5s - but if a story is that bad, I'm gone. I've never left a 1 or a 2.

It's pretty obvious that probably most readers vote 5 or not at all. It's why the mean score is so ridiculously high.

 

[lovecraft68]

It's pretty obvious that probably most readers vote 5 or not at all. It's why the mean score is so ridiculously high.

Yes, that would have to be the case to have an aggregate score that high.

But some here can't accept that because owning that means that their precious scores aren't as special as they want them to be because most of the site votes positively. It cuts into their belief they're better than other authors here.

You can see that when someone comes here with the "I read a bunch of top list stories and they're so bad, its obvious the readers are just handing them fives.

Yup, just like they hand them the same fives.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's pretty obvious that probably most readers vote 5 or not at all. It's why the mean score is so ridiculously high.

It's not obvious to me, at all. I've never had a story go past ten votes with a pure 5. My highest at the moment is 4.94/16, the lowest 3.24/51, and I've got a wide range of scores in between.

I can also see when a 1 or 2 arrives, also when a sweep takes them away. I get the feeling there's a bunch of people who can't do the maths, to be honest. But only ones and fives? I don't think so.

As a trivial example, someone left a comment recently, based on their own morality:

I liked the story, Frankie is a girl i would love to meet, but i am a bit old fashioned to be fully comfortable with the ending, Frankie being married and fucking others, that dropped one star off, so 4 stars.

They're happy enough to read a transgender story, which if they're "a bit old fashioned" is a bit transgressive, but to ping me the 4 is amusing.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's not obvious to me, at all. I've never had a story go past ten votes with a pure 5. My highest at the moment is 4.94/16, the lowest 3.24/51, and I've got a wide range of scores in between.

I can also see when a 1 or 2 arrives, also when a sweep takes them away. I get the feeling there's a bunch of people who can't do the maths, to be honest. But only ones and fives? I don't think so.

As a trivial example, someone left a comment recently, based on their own morality:

They're happy enough to read a transgender story, which if they're "a bit old fashioned" is a bit transgressive, but to ping me the 4 is amusing.

I'm trying to figure out why you get so few votes. The categories you write in aren't the most popular, but they aren't unpopular either. Must be some Australian thing.

 

[RejectReality]

It's not obvious to me, at all. I've never had a story go past ten votes with a pure 5. My highest at the moment is 4.94/16, the lowest 3.24/51, and I've got a wide range of scores in between.

I can also see when a 1 or 2 arrives, also when a sweep takes them away. I get the feeling there's a bunch of people who can't do the maths, to be honest. But only ones and fives? I don't think so.

As a trivial example, someone left a comment recently, based on their own morality:

They're happy enough to read a transgender story, which if they're "a bit old fashioned" is a bit transgressive, but to ping me the 4 is amusing.

Other sites used to have breakdowns, and it's overwhelmingly the top score, a little peak of the next score down, ( 4 or 8/9 respectively ) virtually nothing in the middle, and a final peak of the haters. There's nothing in the patterns of scoring here that hint anything different is happening from what was laid out in statistics elsewhere.

They either vote 5, 4, or 1. Anything else is an extreme outlier — with 4 barely qualifying as anything other than an outlier. Most of those outliers are trolls trying to keep their bomb alive, people scoring lower than what they feel the story deserves to "correct" an inflated score, ( there have been dozens of people openly admit they do this over the years ) and a smattering of people "using the full scale". ( Often the same people as the previous item )

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm trying to figure out why you get so few votes. The categories you write in aren't the most popular, but they aren't unpopular either. Must be some Australian thing.

It's pretty simple, I don't write Incest, nor Loving Wives.

I do have a couple of stories with incest sub-themes, but I asked for them to go in my category of choice, where they are. I do have a lame incest story from a long time ago, but I couldn't be bothered deleting it.

 

[OddLove]

I will full admit, I only vote 5 star. It's not because I think a stories a masterpiece. It's because if I enjoy it, I click five stars like it's a 'thumbs up' button. If I don't like it, I don't vote at all.

So if everyone else is voting the same way, then I agree with those saying the rating scores are pretty meaningless in terms of representing the quality of the stories.

Maybe we should all be voting more accurately like a real critic, but I don't wanna put that much thought and effort into it. I rather just read stories and hand out 5 stars to all the ones I enjoyed.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's pretty simple, I don't write Incest, nor Loving Wives.

I do have a couple of stories with incest sub-themes, but I asked for them to go in my category of choice, where they are. I do have a lame incest story from a long time ago, but I couldn't be bothered deleting it.

I don't write those either, yet I get significantly more votes. And my stories are much younger than yours. I'm trying to figure out readers, I suppose.

 

[ElectricBlue]

They either vote 5, 4, or 1. Anything else is an extreme outlier — with 4 barely qualifying as anything other than an outlier. Most of those outliers are trolls trying to keep their bomb alive, people scoring lower than what they feel the story deserves to "correct" an inflated score, ( there have been dozens of people openly admit they do this over the years ) and a smattering of people "using the full scale". ( Often the same people as the previous item )

My maths is clearly different to your maths. I usually get one or two one-bombs straight out the gate, which always disappear later, and clearly I get the occasional 3s, or I wouldn't have anything below 4.00.

I'm not convinced anyone here knows how Joe Average reader votes. They don't come here and tell us, so all we have left is the internal anecdote of the way many AH writers say they vote, which folk then correlate to gospel truth across the board. I'm more inclined to give credit to readers voting using their own criteria, not voting the way we want them to.

 

[Britva415]

Saab has not existed for some time

"Where there's smoke, there's a Saab" they used to say. I guess it finally turned entirely to ash?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't write those either, yet I get significantly more votes. And my stories are much younger than yours. I'm trying to figure out readers, I suppose.

You mostly write in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and you've obviously got some popular stories. Last time I counted, I've got stories in over half the Lit categories, so I'm not a single category writer.

Those top score and bottom score stories aren't representative of the overall vote counts. I've just counted up at least forty stories (so a third of my total) with at least a hundred votes. Highest voted stories are Fetish and Mature, up in the 300s - 500s.

 

[Britva415]

I was just really good at tests and doing the bare minimum to secure an A

So... you were average? Or you weren't?

 

[Erozetta]

So... you were average? Or you weren't?

*Shrug* Does it matter?

My ability to test well had no bearing on my ability to excel in life. Grades don't really matter and don't truly allow for figuring out what "average" is in the grand scheme of things. Grades can give you a baseline of average for memory recall and/or capacity to retain taught information, but that has fuckall to do with average ability to survive or excel in life. I'd argue the average person who survives whatever life throws at them isn't necessarily average in intelligence or learning capability. Same as those who excel in life. To average such things you would have to account for so many variables that skew the information you could gather that it all essentially equals out to guestimating.

Average is an arbitrary comparison often used to insult or praise people who operate outside of expected conventions.

I'm adaptable and resilient. Nothing else matters.