The Official Authors' Hangout Winter Holidays 2025 Support Thread

[Kumquatqueen]

Congratulations to the winners!

I'm still pleased with my 4.81 rating for a story that didn't fit Lit boxes - that's five stars short of the theoretical maximum. 25 5-star votes, one four and one one (another one was swept). For any potential readers put off by the BDSM category, rest assured there's some bondage described in the scene that starts the story, but that's all.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Congratulations to all the winners. Happy Holidays!

 

[RoyalAuthor]

Re: sweeps, there are obviously ways to game the system but I saw my story rise by 0.05 after the removal of 14 votes, so it's not totally ineffective at picking out some trolls. Anything helps, even if they could do a better job.

Happy holidays, everyone! Congrats again to the winners, and congratulations to everyone else who put pen to paper and created something for the contest to spread holiday joy!

 

[Aoife_from_Ulster]

Congratulations CleverGenericName, McQueen127, and Jorunn!!!!

 

[Voboy]

Congrats to all the winners!

These contests have changed a bit recently, but they're still a lot of fun. Good work, everyone.

 

[BryanRichardson]

Congrats to the winners!

I am happy that all four of the stories I posted are presently in the H range. Although one of them only has 17 votes, so it could change. I’m not worried about the T/I score changing since that story has 1.3k votes…

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Congratulations to our winners and to all who entered!

 

[WittyUserName]

Congratulations to the winners! See you all for Valentine's Day!

 

[redgarters]

Congrats to the winners!
I was nowhere near the top but very happy with my effort. See you all for Valentine's

 

[old_prof]

Congrats to all the winners!

These contests have changed a bit recently, but they're still a lot of fun. Good work, everyone.

What way do you see them as having changed?

 

[WriterPerson314159]

Congratulations to the winners!

 

[Actingup]

Winning scores, as far as I can tell: 4.9, 4.89 and 4.86. Unless they've already been visited by the bombers.

ETA: Apparently "Holiday Coverage" had already been hit, because it's placed first but the score is the lowest of the three visible now.

Sometimes you can see a cached score - 4.96 is extraordinary. Regardless of the exact scores, the effects of sweeps and all the various factors, it’s clear as usual that three quality stories won and that there were lots of great entries. We have lots of reading to do!

 

[WendyTrilby]

This time around, I avoided this thread because posting here probably makes you a target.

I posted my story The Wonderful Mary Bailey a few weeks ago, not too early, not too late. While I did mention it in new-story advertisements, I didn’t post it here. It did great on its own and, as of a few days ago, climbed to a 4.85 with 24 hours to go—a solid score.

A few hours later, it dropped to 4.81 on just a handful of additional votes, so they found me and got me. However, the final sweep before the announcement cleaned up the mess and I finished at a 4.86. That tells me the final sweeps worked.

I’m sure a few malicious 1s or fake 5s still slipped through on some people's scores, but overall I think they got this about as right as they could. That said, I’m still going to avoid posting to the official threads for any competitions until they’re over.

 

[old_prof]

I will say the sweeps did more for my story than I was expecting this go round. My story had a character that many responded poorly too and still ended up at 4.85. (I'm ignoring my T/I story, of which I will never speak again, although 85K views and probably 50 new followers for four hours of work is still something.)

 

[MegaTank]

Well, after however many sweeps and times I stress-checked my story, there was a whole ONE vote that got removed. I thought my story would be a shoe-on for hot status, but now it looks like it'll be forever out of reach.

At least I can stop checking so frantically now...

 

[Voboy]

What way do you see them as having changed?

I'd say there are about three dozen comments from me over the last six months or so that might answer that question.

The voting patterns have changed. The sweeps have changed. The glitches are more noticeable. The tone of the support threads has changed. Much of that is part and parcel with how the site has changed overall, but not all.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I also wanna say that it's not just contests. I didn't realize how much the average rating of the top stories on the site has dropped in the last year. Everything that breaks into the all-time toplist overall or in certain categories is getting pushed down to 4.85 or lower. It's not uncommon for stories in these contests to get enough ratings to make them eligible for those toplists, so some of what we see might be the result of what's happening w/r/t toplists, not contest-specific behavior.

 

[Voboy]

I also wanna say that it's not just contests. I didn't realize how much the average rating of the top stories on the site has dropped in the last year. Everything that breaks into the all-time toplist overall or in certain categories is getting pushed down to 4.85 or lower. It's not uncommon for stories in these contests to get enough ratings to make them eligible for those toplists, so some of what we see might be the result of what's happening w/r/t toplists, not contest-specific behavior.

This is very likely, but I wouldn't know. I don't watch any of the toplists.

 

[YmaOHyd]

This is very likely, but I wouldn't know. I don't watch any of the toplists.

Here's the Novels + Novellas toplist as it stood on July 16, 2024:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240716140905/https://www.literotica.com/top/Novels-and-Novellas-33

The top three stories had ratings of 4.92; the next five had 4.91. One of those 4.91s has 4766 votes, and there's a 4.90 with 8718 votes. The top 50 stories are all on 4.89 or higher.

Novels and Novellas today has no stories above 4.88.

Romance all-time toplist: 136 stories at 4.86 or better on April 6, 2015. 201 on February 23, 2017. The links for 2020-2024 are basically broken, but on May 11 2024 there's 75 stories at or above 4.90; going to page 3 breaks everything. But it's fair to say that there's a lot of stories above 4.85 at that time. ALSO EDIT: the link for August 31 2022 works but only shows you the first two pages. There's 22 stories at 4.90 or higher, and the bottom of page 2 (story #100) is 4.89 with 105 ratings.

Today, the all-time Romance toplist has 23 stories at 4.86 or higher, and four of them are from this most recent contest. We'll see how long they last.

...
Third edit: Sci-fi/fantasy: the #50 story in 2017 is rated 4.90. The #50 story is rated 4.92 in 2024 (these are the only links I can get to work). The #50 story today is rated 4.85, and so in fact is every story all the way on up to #11. Five of the stories in the top 11 just broke 100 ratings, so we'll see if they're still up there in the next week or so.

Of those five stories I mentioned there, none of them are in the top 11 anymore, and the all-time sci-fi/fantasy toplist has no stories above 4.88. I don't think 4.88 would have gotten anyone into the top 100 in 2024.

One last one, I think: the #250 all-time on Feb 23, 2017 had 161 ratings at 4.89. May 17, 2021, #250 is at 4.89 and 934 ratings. Today, that would get you #5 all-time.

That's for all categories.

On April 5, 2024, the top story in Non-Human was at 4.96, and there were 123 stories 4.89+. Unfortunately there are no crawls in 2025, but today December 11 2025, there's only one story above 4.88, and it's the most recent release of the author who absolutely owns that category and has nearly 13k followers. It's only at 4.91, which on April 5 2024 might not have been good enough for the top 50.

There's two stories above 4.88 now as one of the 4.88s ticked back up to 4.89, potentially as a result of this wave of sweeps.

 

[old_prof]

I'd say there are about three dozen comments from me over the last six months or so that might answer that question.

The voting patterns have changed. The sweeps have changed. The glitches are more noticeable. The tone of the support threads has changed. Much of that is part and parcel with how the site has changed overall, but not all.

My apologies for not digging back through it.

Six months ago was my first contest and I had no basis to understand much of what was being said. I was also still figuring out AH at all at that point.
Then I largely ignored the Summer contest.

The helped. I'm still curious what it was like. I only have the "new" versions to draw on.

I did see the debacle of the pseudo-sweep for the Halloween contest, but it seemed more like what I was expecting this time.

 

[Voboy]

My apologies for not digging back through it.

Six months ago was my first contest and I had no basis to understand much of what was being said. I was also still figuring out AH at all at that point.
Then I largely ignored the Summer contest.

The helped. I'm still curious what it was like. I only have the "new" versions to draw on.

I did see the debacle of the pseudo-sweep for the Halloween contest, but it seemed more like what I was expecting this time.

The AH (and the site at large) is constantly changing.

When I first got here, there was a palimpsest of missing posters who had just recently departed, amid what I gather was quite a lot of bad blood. That blood had left its mark here on the AH. Then, when I started entering contests, I got used to the kinds of people who entered with me.

The dynamic has changed. New people come, old people go. Existing people change their views or their manner. I don't know whether these changes make this place better or worse; I don't think it matters, since one person's "worse" is always another person's "better."

I just know it feels different.

 

[dreams_in_words]

I think I'm going to start worrying less about ratings. I put out a rhyming story, put my brain power to the extreme, did the best I could.

From what I've learned about the Romance category is that it's pretty ruthless and those readers have certain metrics they want

 

[Actingup]

I think I'm going to start worrying less about ratings. I put out a rhyming story, put my brain power to the extreme, did the best I could.

From what I've learned about the Romance category is that it's pretty ruthless and those readers have certain metrics they want

I think that's true of all categories. You have to know your audience and then make a choice about how you're going to write for them (or not). You can choose to write your story on your terms, of course, and it will have an audience, but I think that it does help if you lead the readers in a category gently into your world. I can certainly point to some stories of mine where I haven't done that as well as I should have and have paid the price.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

The thing that frustrates me the most are the people who clearly are watching the top lists and looking to hammer any story that dares get too high. I’ve had a couple finally break into the top of the Romance list, but with just over 100 votes, and a single 1 knocks them down a few hundredth of a point. When numbers 21-250 (and beyond) are all tied at 4.85, that’s a big hill to climb. It’s not that I get anything out of being at the top except exposure, but (a) it’s nice thinking that more people will see your work and (b) it’s jus immature on the part of whoever’s doing it.

On the other hand, it does give me great admiration for the stories that manage to stay up there, because they’re clearly finding a large, appreciative audience, and that’s awesome.

 

[taytay4eva]

My submission to the competition is sitting above a 4.5 score! After the low votes got purged, it soared up from 4.33. I'm pretty happy, not gonna lie. I thought that I'd written an A-grade story, and it's nice to have that belief confirmed.

I hope everyone else got great bumps as well!