The Official Authors' Hangout Winter Holidays 2025 Support Thread

[RoyalAuthor]

Guess I'm a spoiled brat.

Yeah, I got that way quickly. When I started, I would have been happy with a 4, now I get annoyed if I have a story score below 4.7. And the more stories I put out that do well, the higher pressure I put on myself to score higher. And now I'm terrified of ever not receiving the red H, which I know will happen someday. It's nerve-wracking, and it literally does not matter.

Champagne problems. I'm really grateful that I've been as well-received on this site as I have. The readers are, for the most part, really great.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Impressive story. Do you know someone ...
The fine details make me wonder.

Thank you! (Do please upvote and comment... )
Yes, I did. I'll DM you to avoid spoilers.

 

[RoyalAuthor]

There are currently, as of the moment of this post, one story at 4.86, one at 4.85, two 4.84s, and six 4.83s. Do what you will with this meaningless analysis of the standings at this meaningless point in time. Best of luck to everyone with a potential contender.

 

[TheLobster]

Mine's lost about 3 or 4 votes within the last few hours, which pushed it above the H line. It had dipped there before, organically, before it got hammered down back below, so we'll see if this current state lasts.

Not that it's gonna matter in the final tally, sporting the amazing score of 4.53 but that's still better than my previous foray into Romance

 

[Actingup]

Mine's lost about 3 or 4 votes within the last few hours, which pushed it above the H line. It had dipped there before, organically, before it got hammered down back below, so we'll see if this current state lasts.

Not that it's gonna matter in the final tally, sporting the amazing score of 4.53 but that's still better than my previous foray into Romance

That's promising, in the sense that if we're back to doing a series of sweeps over several days, it's likely to be a more thorough job. And a good time for everybody to download their stats if they want to see this play out.

I don't think that I'll threaten the leaderboard post-sweeps, but that's fine as honestly the engagement has been fabulous for the LW story with Penny, and even though I was disappointed that the more recent one got bombed, at least some people have read it.

 

[WittyUserName]

That's promising, in the sense that if we're back to doing a series of sweeps over several days, it's likely to be a more thorough job. And a good time for everybody to download their stats if they want to see this play out.

I don't think that I'll threaten the leaderboard post-sweeps, but that's fine as honestly the engagement has been fabulous for the LW story with Penny, and even though I was disappointed that the more recent one got bombed, at least some people have read it.

View attachment 2582507

I haven't lost any votes that I've noticed. Although, I have way more votes than I usually get. So, like you said, even though I can't place, at least the engagement is awesome.

 

[RoyalAuthor]

I haven't noticed a sweep yet. I've been just outside the top 3 a few times as best as I can tell, and a win would be nice, but I mostly enter for the engagement and in this contest that's been amazing so no complaints here.

 

[WittyUserName]

I haven't noticed a sweep yet. I've been just outside the top 3 a few times as best as I can tell, and a win would be nice, but I mostly enter for the engagement and in this contest that's been amazing so no complaints here.

I haven't had time to check the other entries, but I'm sure 4.67 is nowhere near close enough to be in the running.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

I just did a quick click-through of the 159 stories (that's a lot of stories). With the full caveat that the scores are outdated (I know the score I see on my Works page is different than the "public" score and the future potential sweeps, there are 17 stories with a 4.8 or higher. The highest is 4.86, so there's a lot of room for movement among the top stories. I'm not going to post the stories here - don't want to make it easy for a lurker who wants to 1-bomb things, but I will note that they come from nine different categories, which is kind of neat.

 

[WittyUserName]

I just did a quick click-through of the 159 stories (that's a lot of stories). With the full caveat that the scores are outdated (I know the score I see on my Works page is different than the "public" score and the future potential sweeps, there are 17 stories with a 4.8 or higher. The highest is 4.86, so there's a lot of room for movement among the top stories. I'm not going to post the stories here - don't want to make it easy for a lurker who wants to 1-bomb things, but I will note that they come from nine different categories, which is kind of neat.

So yeah, I'm 100% out of the running. Thought so!

 

[old_prof]

So yeah, I'm 100% out of the running. Thought so!

I came from 4.79 to get a post-sweep 4.91 and finish second in Nude Day. People in the 4.7's can still win a prize. (But I will not, even at a 4.77 this time)

 

[GemmaGemmaGemma]

Mine is at a 4.79 on my profile and a 4.77 on the story page. Pretty happy with that for my first contest. Also my first story in romance, so was nice to tick off a new category. I had my story written and uploaded way in advance and it went up on the first day, which probably helped get some more eyes on it.

Haven't got my valentine's idea yet but just saw it starts in a month. Will try and come up with something

 

[TheLobster]

There's no broom fine enough to sweep my 4.53 into a winning range, but at least it seems to be holding above H level for now.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

I came from 4.79 to get a post-sweep 4.91 and finish second in Nude Day. People in the 4.7's can still win a prize. (But I will not, even at a 4.77 this time)

Yeah - I just set a cutoff of 4.8 arbitrarily. There’s not enough data to do any kind of rigorous analysis.

 

[old_prof]

Yeah - I just set a cutoff of 4.8 arbitrarily. There’s not enough data to do any kind of rigorous analysis.

I don't think I got as many 1's this time as last time (and I have twice as many votes as I did that time) so I don't expect as much of a bump.

But other prize winners have commented on a similar line of having a big comeback during sweeps. I would say anyone above 4.75 should not give up all hope unless you have tracked each vote carefully.

 

[RoyalAuthor]

I'm doing pretty well at this point, but I've never seen more than a 0.02 point swing during sweeps, despite the fact that I'm certain (like mathematically certain) that there are a bunch of one bombs in my number. Not expecting to see much movement, but who knows?

 

[Lord_Libido]

Wow, seeing all these people arguing over who's super high score is the highest makes me feel, small. I'm not even in this contest in any meaningful way.

I'm at 4.05 and happy, because it means that statistically most people at least like my story. It makes me thankful knowing that people like my story even if they don’t think its amazing.

Also considering that the story is highly experimental (i.e. weird as fuck) I'm actually convinced most people are being kind.

Thank You for being kind to me.

 

[WittyUserName]

I came from 4.79 to get a post-sweep 4.91 and finish second in Nude Day. People in the 4.7's can still win a prize. (But I will not, even at a 4.77 this time)

Interesting. Good to know! Still, I'll try not to get my hopes up. 4.68 right now. Mine was pretty bad the first day, around 4.0, so I know I got a handful of 1's the first day. But, we already had a sweep and they weren't removed, I don't think.

 

[Voboy]

Wow, seeing all these people arguing over who's super high score is the highest makes me feel, small. I'm not even in this contest in any meaningful way.

The old conventional wisdom was that it's impolite, unwise, or otherwise undesirable to discuss specific peoples' scores; prior support threads didn't really feature those kinds of posts.

As with so much else here, things have changed. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

 

[Lord_Libido]

The old conventional wisdom was that it's impolite, unwise, or otherwise undesirable to discuss specific peoples' scores; prior support threads didn't really feature those kinds of posts.

As with so much else here, things have changed. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Yeah I can see that. I think it helps that I mostly enter contests to get my writing out there. For me, the score is only useful as a way to understand what people think of my writing.

 

[WittyUserName]

Yeah I can see that. I think it helps that I mostly enter contests to get my writing out there. For me, the score is only useful as a way to understand what people think of my writing.

I didn't notice any arguing? Either way, yeah, the best thing about contests is to get your work in front of more viewers. This contest seems to have done a great job of that for most.

 

[RoyalAuthor]

My apologies if it's against etiquette here. I'm just a numbers nerd, and the whole rating system/sweeps/contest scores thing plays right into that.

Definitely not trying to argue about whose score is highest. I just treat these contests as a way to get eyes on my work, not really hopeful about actually winning.

 

[Lord_Libido]

My apologies if it's against etiquette here. I'm just a numbers nerd, and the whole rating system/sweeps/contest scores thing plays right into that.

Definitely not trying to argue about whose score is highest. I just treat these contests as a way to get eyes on my work, not really hopeful about actually winning.

I'm an autistic redneck. I don't know shit about etiquette. I just feel a bit overwhelmed.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The old conventional wisdom was that it's impolite, unwise, or otherwise undesirable to discuss specific peoples' scores; prior support threads didn't really feature those kinds of posts.

As with so much else here, things have changed. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Before long you'll be able to bet on the contest results on online gambling sites.

 

[WittyUserName]

I'm an autistic redneck. I don't know shit about etiquette. I just feel a bit overwhelmed.

I'm autistic as well, but my gun rack doesn't have a gun rack, unfortunately. Sorry if talking about numbers is considered impolite.. I wasn't aware of that.