What is the opinion about voting for your own stories?
When I click on my own story, the words seem to invite it, but I never have. It may be forbidden.
If it's not, do you think:
Horrors, how selfish?
Some do, some don't?
Of course?
What is the opinion about voting for your own stories?
When I click on my own story, the words seem to invite it, but I never have. It may be forbidden.
If it's not, do you think:
Horrors, how selfish?
Some do, some don't?
Of course?
If you don't like it enough to vote for it, why should others? Political candidates vote for themselves, why shouldn't authors? Your opinion is at least as important as any other reader.
If you don't like it enough to vote for it, why should others? Political candidates vote for themselves, why shouldn't authors? Your opinion is at least as important as any other reader.
Political candidates vote for themselves because they're actually in a race to win the office, and at times, literally one vote can make a difference. The only race you're in on here is whether you can improve as an author or not. There's no goal that we're competing against each other here to win - only with ourselves.
As far as I understand the voting system, you have only one vote per story. If you vote for Chapter 1 and then for Chapter 2 when it's released, your new vote will replace your previous vote.
So your vote doesn't count much.
To cast more than one vote per story you need to use at least different log-ins.
HM.
I imagine most with think 'how presumptuous and egotistical' (rather than selfish), but as others have noted, there are safeguards built in. In most cases, your solitary vote will effectively be erased by the vary first vote by anyone else, regardless of the score (once you reach the magic 5% balancing number).
When I post entries for my books on goodreads, I typically post a 'review' to provide some background information on the story, but I've never rated my own story. But that's a particular case, since everyone would see that I'd voted for my own story, rather than it being 'just another' vote among many.
It would not change much in the grand scheme, to cast a vote for my own effort, but it feels ... desperate? Not my thing.
Ummm... I can see voting for yourself if you've written a masturbation story, but otherwise not so much.
Just seems a bit disingenuous to me.
Let's put it this way, despite having a couple of different IDs (from before and after I started writing my own stories), I have yet to vote on a single one (16 posted to date).
I think that reflects how most of us think about authors voting for themselves and trying to move the needle on their overall scores. You've got to have a LOT of 1 - 3 scores for a single 10 vote for yourself to make any difference.
Your 10 vote for yourself will successfully cancel out one troll vote.
Also for less well established writers at the beginning of a story being available it helps some with notice, but after that...
Your 10 vote for yourself will successfully cancel out one troll vote.
I'm not convinced every 1 vote is a troll vote. Sometimes the stories concerned really do leave a reader with a feeling of distaste, some of mine included.
AJ
I'm not convinced every 1 vote is a troll vote. Sometimes the stories concerned really do leave a reader with a feeling of distaste, some of mine included.
Except that's not a 1 vote. Leaving a reader with a feeling of distaste might be "I hated it" which is a 2.
A 1 is "You call this a story!?" That's talking about the technical quality, not the appeal. For me, that means it's unreadable (spelling, grammar, etc.) or it makes no sense.
Yup, and honestly unless there's massive coherence problems, or technical problems I have a hard time justifying anything below a 4. I mean you read the description, you read the tags, you should know what you're getting into!
Yup, and honestly unless there's massive coherence problems, or technical problems I have a hard time justifying anything below a 4. I mean you read the description, you read the tags, you should know what you're getting into!
I reserve 1s for things that are not only awful, they're awful in ways that the tags and description didn't indicate. If they do indicate awfulness, I just skip it. But I really don't appreciate getting (actual example) someone's non-consensual scat porn inflicted on me by surprise. (I think someone reported that one, because it did get tagged appropriately later. I'm not going back to rescind my 1-vote, though.)
More on topic, is there anyone else out there who, if they were to vote on their own stories, wouldn't give them all 10s?
More on topic, is there anyone else out there who, if they were to vote on their own stories, wouldn't give them all 10s?
If I were to vote on my own stories, I'd likely give them 10s, since I consider them pretty damn good. But, there are several of my stories, especially the earlier ones, that I'd give lower scores on, mostly because of technical issues. But mostly, I'd self-rate my own stories 10s because of what I was trying to accomplish, and half of voting is to encourage up-and-coming authors to try for new and better things. 'D
you should know what you're getting into
That is true, but it also assumes that the author accurately coded and described the story. Poor descriptions and missing codes are very common. There are also authors who tell their readers that codes will be added as the story progresses because they want something to be a surprise.
Agreed. In my serials on my second pen name I don't apply a code until it's shown up unless it's like something super obvious. Also I write my serials in true serial fashion (write chapter, post chapter, wait), so sometimes I don't even know what will end up coming
Agreed. In my serials on my second pen name I don't apply a code until it's shown up unless it's like something super obvious. Also I write my serials in true serial fashion (write chapter, post chapter, wait), so sometimes I don't even know what will end up coming
That's typically what happens, it won't be until chapter 100-and-something that they'll decided they need to address how someone deals with an earlier rape and writes a m-m encounter which outrages their readers. They don't typically plan from the get-go to write a 'gay' story.
There are also authors who tell their readers that codes will be added as the story progresses because they want something to be a surprise.
And there are some authors who tell their readers that codes may be added as the story progresses because they are posting the story as they write it.
And there are some authors who tell their readers that codes may be added as the story progresses because they are posting the story as they write it.
If you've already written the full story, then those authors can at least tag the squicks, even if they don't tag the entire contents. But then again, most 'surprise tags' include twists involving a beautiful girl being a guy, or the hot waitress being your mother, etc. So surprise tags are often squicks, almost by definition. The 'surprise' wouldn't be nearly so surprising if it wasn't so 'icky'.
After all, who's really surprised that Frankenstein turns out to be a monster (though the true monsters are the townspeople), or that Dracula isn't interested in the women for their 'inner beauty'.
I think in those cases we need to encourage authors to use the caution tag more. Or maybe a solution of "squirmy" or "future tags incoming"...
I think in those cases we need to encourage authors to use the caution tag more. Or maybe a solution of "squirmy" or "future tags incoming"...
Maybe we need a 'hidden squick factor' tag. We can label it 'Oh GOD!'.
A 1 is "You call this a story!?" That's talking about the technical quality, not the appeal. For me, that means it's unreadable (spelling, grammar, etc.) or it makes no sense.
To me, that's not about technical quality. To me "You call this a story!?" implies that the author posted something that no matter how well or poorly written, it isn't a story. And yes, that happens from time to time.
I'm not convinced every 1 vote is a troll vote. Sometimes the stories concerned really do leave a reader with a feeling of distaste, some of mine included.
There is that, but then, that also includes authors like Rache, who knew what she was doing and relished it, though that might have been before your time.
Rache
I'm a big fan of Rache. Many of her stories had a high 'ick' factor, but she could really write. If I could resurrect just one single author to continue their work, she'd be my choice.
AJ
She was several great authors here on SOL through the use of different pen names. Still if I could resurrect just one author I think I would like to read more stories by Robert Heinlein. No, he never posted here, but that isn't exactly what you said.