There are around 40,000 SOL stories. I wonder how many authors? And how many readers.
How many readers, or I guess what percentage of readers, are new to each new story? In other words how much descriptive / explanatory background material should I include when I launch a new Winter story? I hate to repeat what repeat readers already know, but don't want to leave newbies puzzled about who and what and where.
Reader scores. (I admit I'm too close to the trees to see the swamp.)
Can a reader vote more than once on the same story? Same chapter?
Can reader scores for a particular story change without more votes coming in on that story? I'm pretty sure that happened with me.
Winter's Gamble used to have a 6 score. Now it doesn't. How? Why? Comparison weighing?
If the 1 and 10 votes are tossed out (are they?) how can a story score higher than 9? Is it because of comparative weighing? I seem to recall being told that the top and bottom 5% are tossed. Outliers. I guess that could explain scores over 9.
He also told me that stories are measured against a raw score of 6.0. Those stories closest to the median move the most toward 1 or 10.
When I look at the SOL home page, I often see several stories with higher scores than mine. Dirty rats! I wonder though, if posting a chapter around the same time that favored chapters by other writers are coming in affects my score. In other words if the daily median, or is it mean, is higher, then my score could be lower. Update: I've been told the raw scores median is calculated twice a day. Crap, this stuff is too complicated for me.
Do some votes count more than others? I imagine they could. A time period with fewer voters might weigh those votes more heavily. Or maybe not.
What is the difference between 7.9 and 8.0? I mean other than a tenth of a point.
Are this site's gatekeepers, the ones who screen each new chapter, able to vote on the stories? Some writers have told me they blame some of their low scores on the screeners. (Because these outlier scores occur right after a chapter is posted.)
Not that I personally pay any attention to my reader scores. No, this inquiry is merely in search of understanding the methodology. It's an homage to the scientific process.
Inquiring minds and all of that.
Paige