HOT: Should it be 4.1?

[StillStunned]

And it does serve as a distinction, because if a story can't even get to that low bar of 4.5, then wow, it must REALLY suck, because readers are so generous. That's what a reader seeing a story without an H thinks. They aren't being hoodwinked, they know exactly how this system operates, because there's a perverse incentive structure to give 5s, nothing, or know that you're going to be essentially dunking on that story with any other score and the question becomes how much are you gonna wreck that story's score?

Two of my lowest scores have 86k views between them. And as noted above I have 27 stories with a red H that have fewer than 5k views.

Which is to say, I think there are plenty of other factors at play than just the H.

 

[SimonDoom]

And here I was in the middle of writing more or less the same thing: why are we bothering arguing about it, it changes nothing?

Great minds

It's always refreshing to know that I'm not alone.

 

[Britva415]

the EC tags are gone

The what?

 

[SmilingLez]

The what?

Editor's Choice - a while back I saw the tag on random stories and poetry

 

[Duil2]

Editor's Choice - a while back I saw the tag on random stories and poetry

I've only ever seen it on How To articles that related to Literotica where I presume they were endorsing whatever advice the author was providing.

 

[FrancesScott]

I've only ever seen it on How To articles that related to Literotica where I presume they were endorsing whatever advice the author was providing.

Not sure how I got the one blue W as well as the two green Es. Must just have been an oversight of some sort.

 

[Duil2]

Not sure how I got the one blue W as well as the two green Es. Must just have been an oversight of some sort.

Ah the mystery that is the workings of Literotica behind the scenes.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That's not true. Becasue the H has been a staple of this site for a long time, they're now a signal that the readers of the site expect, so it's not just for the authors, it's something readers are actively using to determine which stories to read. They're so embedded with how the site functions that it would require a massive mental shift for readers who've been here for a while to understand, and you'd probably have them skipping a lot of stories before they realize that none of them have H's anymore, or not understand that the H system changed, because really, how many are going to read up on system changes? You shift that system to something where fewer stories get Hs, and all the people who use the Hs as indicators are going to congregate in that smaller subset of stories and the numbers drop for all those stories that would otherwise have Hs.

Gradual phase out then. Shrink the H icon by 1% each week until it vanishes into nothingness. Or turn down the alpha channel until only betas remain.

As a bonus, it encourages readers to get their eyes tested.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've only ever seen it on How To articles that related to Literotica where I presume they were endorsing whatever advice the author was providing.

Pretty much how it is these days. The last few years those Es have been almost entirely How-To, or other meta content (a humor piece that's basically "Lit editors are great", a few Reviews/Essays about Literotica including one by @TheRedChamber on female names appearing in Lit stories.

The most recent thing I can find that's just a regular story is one by @Trionyx in March 2020, and it looks like the meta content has dominated since around 2017.

They used to be far more common. Search shows 919 Es total, but only eleven in the last five years. There were only two given out in 2025 and @FrancesScott got both of them.

https://search.literotica.com/?query=a OR e&editorsChoice=true&sort=date&page=1

 

[FrancesScott]

There were only two given out in 2025 and @FrancesScott got both of them.

Did not realize that.

 

[Trionyx]

The most recent thing I can find that's just a regular story is one by @Trionyx in March 2020, and it looks like the meta content has dominated since around 2017.

I was surprised by that. I figured it was because my story was probably the first one that featured Covid as an issue, published even before they had a Covid challenge later in the year.

 

[RejectReality]

Two of my lowest scores have 86k views between them. And as noted above I have 27 stories with a red H that have fewer than 5k views.

Which is to say, I think there are plenty of other factors at play than just the H.

You're comparing Incest to Sci-Fi & Fantasy. Yes, the number of people who populate the readership of the category matters more when it comes to views than the score when they're that widely disparate. It's like saying people pay more attention to the dirty air-raid siren than my shiny silver whistle.

I've got one story as RR in Anal that has 525k views, where my entire catalog of 117 submissions as Dark in Humor, Chain, and SF&F only has 3.6M, despite Dark being around for years longer.