What if authors could be "Hot"?

[StillStunned]

For a moment I thought this was @StillStunned

For the record, I barely know @Rob_Royale's wife.

 

[TheLobster]

I know this is a terrible idea, but the nerd in me cannot stop thinking how the author’s (literary) hotness metric could look like. And one thing that came to my mind immediately was the h-index.

If you don’t know, the h-index is a measure of “impact” in academia; it’s horrible, and leads to all sorts of bad incentives, but the general idea is that your index is N if you published N papers that have been cited N times. (A maximum N, for the pedants).

So, if we want to translate that to Lit, I suppose it could be something like this. Your measure of hotness is N if you have at least N stories that exceeded their category average by N steps; where a step is 0.01 because (1) that’s the granularity of ratings we have, and (2) it ensures that even very prolific authors can be meaningfully compared.

For example, to have a hotness of 10, you need 10 stories that exceed their category average by 0.1. Simple enough.

I will write up a paper on this metric, and submit it to Reviews and Essays, as soon as I receive a hefty grant to pursue this important avenue of research.

 

[onehitwanda]

View attachment 2600912

I have nothing else of value to add here.

 

[lovecraft68]

Or authors could just delete any story with a score below 4.50.

Here's a better idea. BRING BACK THE MONTHLY AWARDS

You bring those back and the trolling gets worse. You bring them back and chapter 99 of a series that's a 4.95 on 30 votes gets yet another win. You bring those back and we find out the winners aren't getting notified and because they aren't won't ask to get paid and they won't and yes, that has happened in the past.

The monthlies deserved to die almost as much as the absolute joke of the annuals.

With some of the new crowd here can you imagine the whining, crying, bitching and insane antics we'd see on this forum and the screaming and tantrum taking when they didn't win?

Losing both of those things was no loss.

ETA I've won both and am only saying that to save the sour grapes suggestions from the usual suspects.

 

[lovecraft68]

Here's a suggestion I'd like to see.

I'd like the mod to remove or lock every thread about scoring at this point.

Someone here started a preachy thread about this forum being a place to discuss writing, well, scoring isn't about writing, its an after effect or additional thing and a constant source or arguing and contention. Plenty of threads cover it, we don't need new ones.

I have never seen a whinier, needier iteration of this forum.

There are some great folks here who are also talented writers but goddamn are they the minority these days.

 

[hugh_jarce69]

I think this is a great idea.
I’ve got a few stories which have been rated hot. The idea that people can think this fat, old, ugly, bastard as hot is certainly buttering my parsnips this morning.

Just imagine if two hot authors get together & collaborate? Travis & Taylor eat your heart out.

Come on, give the public what they want

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I am not in favor of it, primarily due to the literary shenanigans that are allowed to exist here on the site, such as splitting stories between categories, calling a chapter story a series, and considering all submissions equal in all ways.

However, if it were to happen, I would like for it to be more comprehensive and include far more than just story ratings. It would have to factor in things like the number of favorites, followers, and possibly ratios such as votes-per-view. Maybe measure the average of these against the total word count for all stories published with weighted value that doesn't give an advantage to a bunch of 750 word tales.

 

[StillStunned]

One of the great things about Lit is that you can come here with no experience, no training, just your imagination, and people will read your stories. As soon as established writers start getting a separate label, it makes it more difficult for newcomers to stand out, or at least compete on a more or less even footing.

 

[BladeSeanchai]

My god, it makes me cringe to think about it.

Let's turn the Author's Hangout into an insufferable 80s teen movie. But probably with worse music.

I for one, do not want to relive the 80's at least not in a teen movie with crap music.

If iwere to relive them, it would only to be a rodie for ohh I don't know maybe for Journey, Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, Foreigner, but not GnR. There would never be leftovers for the rodies.

 

[MelissaBaby]

You bring those back and the trolling gets worse. You bring them back and chapter 99 of a series that's a 4.95 on 30 votes gets yet another win. You bring those back and we find out the winners aren't getting notified and because they aren't won't ask to get paid and they won't and yes, that has happened in the past.

The monthlies deserved to die almost as much as the absolute joke of the annuals.

With some of the new crowd here can you imagine the whining, crying, bitching and insane antics we'd see on this forum and the screaming and tantrum taking when they didn't win?

Losing both of those things was no loss.

ETA I've won both and am only saying that to save the sour grapes suggestions from the usual suspects.

I’ve got plenty of popcorn, my friend, and I will share.

 

[WittyUserName]

One of my absolute FAVORITE stories on here IMPLIED a follow-up that I know will never come, because they wrote the story over a decade ago and haven't written anything since.

That's a shame and yeah, I've been there a few times. I get it, life happens. It just sucks.

 

[SimonDoom]

I for one, do not want to relive the 80's at least not in a teen movie with crap music.

If iwere to relive them, it would only to be a rodie for ohh I don't know maybe for Journey, Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, Foreigner, but not GnR. There would never be leftovers for the rodies.

Can you imagine the AH version of Breakfast Club? AH members stuck together in detention and given the assignment of writing critiques of each other's ideas about the voting system.

Air Supply songs play in the background.

A special kind of hell.

 

[Fatdog25]

View attachment 2600863

As an old fart, I feel discriminated against...

 

[Fatdog25]

Can you imagine the AH version of Breakfast Club? AH members stuck together in detention and given the assignment of writing critiques of each other's ideas about the voting system.

Air Supply songs play in the background.

A special kind of hell.

Interspersed with Barry Manilow and Bread classics...

 

[CalBishForNow]

I am not in favor of it, primarily due to the literary shenanigans that are allowed to exist here on the site, such as splitting stories between categories, calling a chapter story a series, and considering all submissions equal in all ways.

I agree overall - a "Hot" label for authors would be a disaster, and there's too much talk about scores here - but I'm curious about why the first two of those are considered shenanigans.

1. Picture a bunch of stories about a consistent set of characters, let's say a couple exploring kinks together. Each story is intended to be self-contained and have a conflict and resolution of its own, like a sitcom. Every kink might not be in a different category, but some could be; one couple might try out each of exhibitionism, BDSM, and some kind of group sex before finding what really does it for them. The characters are mostly consistent and there might be a little continuity here and there, so the writer puts it in a series. What's wrong with that? (Cards on the table, most of my stories have been in series so far and neither of them was entirely in one category.)
2. Lit has two ways to organize stories, as standalone and as series. The general publishing industry has had many ways over the years. What's wrong with using Lit's "series" tool as a catch-all for mostly but not entirely standalone works like in #1, stories the author intends to be standalone but they keep on thinking of sequels and there happens to be an ongoing plot to it at some point, self-contained stories the author feels would be too large to read and publish all at once, and more? (Cards on the table, both of my series had elements of the first two things.)

I realize that later installments in series generally have lower readership and higher ratings than earlier installments because only die-hard fans stick with it that long. I guess #2 could be considered a shenanigan if someone intentionally publishes a standalone work serially to take advantage of that, but that's unreliable and there are other reasons to do so too. I'm really stumped about #1.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I know this is a terrible idea, but the nerd in me cannot stop thinking how the author’s (literary) hotness metric could look like. And one thing that came to my mind immediately was the h-index.

If you don’t know, the h-index is a measure of “impact” in academia; it’s horrible, and leads to all sorts of bad incentives, but the general idea is that your index is N if you published N papers that have been cited N times. (A maximum N, for the pedants).

So, if we want to translate that to Lit, I suppose it could be something like this. Your measure of hotness is N if you have at least N stories that exceeded their category average by N steps; where a step is 0.01 because (1) that’s the granularity of ratings we have, and (2) it ensures that even very prolific authors can be meaningfully compared.

For example, to have a hotness of 10, you need 10 stories that exceed their category average by 0.1. Simple enough.

I will write up a paper on this metric, and submit it to Reviews and Essays, as soon as I receive a hefty grant to pursue this important avenue of research.

The KG Foundation hereby awards you the Fellowship for the Pursuit of Useless Statistics.
A check for $2 will be in the mail.
Good luck and Godspeed in your endeavors!

 

[crookedletter]

Here's a suggestion I'd like to see.

I'd like the mod to remove or lock every thread about scoring at this point.

Someone here started a preachy thread about this forum being a place to discuss writing, well, scoring isn't about writing, its an after effect or additional thing and a constant source or arguing and contention. Plenty of threads cover it, we don't need new ones.

I have never seen a whinier, needier iteration of this forum.

There are some great folks here who are also talented writers but goddamn are they the minority these days.

I wouldn't mind seeing perhaps a different subforum. You have the Hangout, ostensibly about the "craft" of writing. Maybe there should be an Authors'... I don't know.... Marketing Department? A place to dig into the minutiae of how ratings work and why readers vote the way they do and sweeps and trends etc. etc. etc.

If people want to spend their time mulling over such things I don't see why there shouldn't be a place for it. But as you say it has nothing to do with the "craft" of writing. And it's not something that interests me at all.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I agree overall - a "Hot" label for authors would be a disaster, and there's too much talk about scores here - but I'm curious about why the first two of those are considered shenanigans.

1. Picture a bunch of stories about a consistent set of characters, let's say a couple exploring kinks together. Each story is intended to be self-contained and have a conflict and resolution of its own, like a sitcom. Every kink might not be in a different category, but some could be; one couple might try out each of exhibitionism, BDSM, and some kind of group sex before finding what really does it for them. The characters are mostly consistent and there might be a little continuity here and there, so the writer puts it in a series. What's wrong with that? (Cards on the table, most of my stories have been in series so far and neither of them was entirely in one category.)
2. Lit has two ways to organize stories, as standalone and as series. The general publishing industry has had many ways over the years. What's wrong with using Lit's "series" tool as a catch-all for mostly but not entirely standalone works like in #1, stories the author intends to be standalone but they keep on thinking of sequels and there happens to be an ongoing plot to it at some point, self-contained stories the author feels would be too large to read and publish all at once, and more? (Cards on the table, both of my series had elements of the first two things.)

I realize that later installments in series generally have lower readership and higher ratings than earlier installments because only die-hard fans stick with it that long. I guess #2 could be considered a shenanigan if someone intentionally publishes a standalone work serially to take advantage of that, but that's unreliable and there are other reasons to do so too. I'm really stumped about #1.

The example you give in #1 describes an episodic series of stand alone stories, such as sitcoms. They do not have to be viewed in any particular order to be appreciated. I have used this example many times to illustrate the difference between these type of stories and those that are clearly "chapters", or only a piece of a larger whole - dependent upon each other to tell the complete story. Individual episodes could easily fit into different categories, but not when they are actually chapters. Too many people don't see the distinction and the site treats them all the same, when they're not.

The problem is that one of clarity and standardization more than anything else. You wouldn't find pages of a book located on different shelves in a bookstore or in different section based upon what that particular part was about. Just because this site allows writers to do that doesn't make it the right thing to do.

I have written chapter stories and published them individually before the series tool was launched. I made a point of titling each chapter so that it was clear to readers what they were investing in when they started. I later combined the chapters into a single work so the "series" aspect became a moot point. I have also written two different types of actual series here; one where there is a common theme shared between multiple stand alone episodes and one where the same characters appeared in common plots in separate episodes. In both cases, the episodes were independent of each other and stand entirely on their own.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Can you imagine the AH version of Breakfast Club? AH members stuck together in detention and given the assignment of writing critiques of each other's ideas about the voting system.

Air Supply songs play in the background.

A special kind of hell.

*Sweeps the whole desk and tosses everything to the floor and places one notebook in the middle*

Everybody here is getting schooled in my detention classroom now. Any other plot bunny you want to doom me with?

 

[ADirtyPerv]

*Sweeps the whole desk and tosses everything to the floor and places one notebook in the middle*

Everybody here is getting schooled in my detention classroom now. Any other plot bunny you want to doom me with?

But you only get 5 AH'ers for your cast. Good fuggin luck.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

But you only get 5 AH'ers for your cast. Good fuggin luck.

Five is enough to begin with. Now you're just opening up for a series.

 

[CalBishForNow]

The example you give in #1 describes an episodic series of stand alone stories, such as sitcoms. They do not have to be viewed in any particular order to be appreciated. I have used this example many times to illustrate the difference between these type of stories and those that are clearly "chapters", or only a piece of a larger whole - dependent upon each other to tell the complete story. Individual episodes could easily fit into different categories, but not when they are actually chapters. Too many people don't see the distinction and the site treats them all the same, when they're not.

If Lit were to offer a "chapter tool" or an "episode tool" distinct from the series tool and a writer deliberately and misleadingly chose to use one of those when another would make more sense, sure, that's shenanigans. Until then, I don't see anything wrong with it. I feel like it's hard to avoid with a "pantser" approach to writing and I like that Lit doesn't punish that.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If Lit were to offer a "chapter tool" or an "episode tool" distinct from the series tool and a writer deliberately and misleadingly chose to use one of those when another would make more sense, sure, that's shenanigans. Until then, I don't see anything wrong with it. I feel like it's hard to avoid with a "pantser" approach to writing and I like that Lit doesn't punish that.

I'm not advocating for the practice to be punished. I just believe that it also shouldn't be rewarded, or even recognized when comparing different types of stories, or the authors who write them.

And, as others have mentioned, giving the same value to a 2,000 word chapter 23 with a score of 4.90 compared to a 15,000 complete story with the same score is ludicrous. Now, if that chapter 23 was in fact episode 23 of a true series and stood entirely on its own, that would be different. Under the current series management system here, shenanigans reign.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Five is enough to begin with. Now you're just opening up for a series.

Imagine the threads started by the people who thought they should be one of the five but weren't picked!

This gets better and better.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Imagine the threads started by the people who thought they should be one of the five but weren't picked!

This gets better and better.

@lovecraft68 HAS to be Bender, he's the only one on the toplists who self-identifies as a bad doggie. Bonus points for him hating that song at the end.