Forum: Author Hangout

Yes certainly it's best not to pay too much attention to the scores, but at the same time there they are, they influence the number of reads, and there's this slight irony to them that's worth a smile. I think the weighting is to 6, to soothe us 😁. It's some time ago now but istr Lazeez kindly but recklessly asked the writers what we wanted, and that's how it ended up with the convolution and then tears over the low votes, so he hid them.

And now a further unintended consequence, I would guess, is that a brilliant but polarising story shows the same rating as an average one.

So our reader thinks they've made a comment, when they haven't.

Ummm, what?

Have you checked to see if comments are allowed on your stories and if they are hidden or not?

Exactly. With a 1, for example, being tagged "You call this a story!", the reader gets the impression they've made that comment.

Thank-you for the correct clarification! 😀

Yes fair point AJ. Though the emotional impact is there all the same 😱. And then, what about averaging text? Letters! Mathematically!! That is a path paved with good intentions if ever there was one.

Nice post thank you 👍. I am semi serious tbh. Being serious for a second, one of my favourite metrics is what proportion of readers that make it all the way, to the last chapter. Tho it varies massively by length of course, and I have to mess about to get it. Meanwhile I have one with twice as many library entries as votes, what does that signify? 😯

Option to add any new story by selected author to library. You have some loyal readers.

Ah, that explains it! It is my most disappointing story apparently (tho I quite like it)

Your story might inspire a reader to change their entire life. Or after reading it they are so aroused their erectile disfunction is cured and they impregnate their spouse with twins.

lol, yes so true, still I like to give the votes some credit, when I know what they are. Tho quite often I don't. I mean a 7.5 drops to 7.48, is that actually someone 'Like' ing it with a "Good"? Or not liking it with a "Not Good"?

And as I came in with, the score comes down as often as it goes up. So yes to some extent we each have to make up our own minds about the value of what we've posted don't we. But naturally it's a good feeling when it goes up a bit - someone's enjoyed it - then not so good when with mathematical inevitably it comes back down again.

In fact the christian bible advises using mathematics to prolong copulation...
"Go forth and multiply"

Or you could do this: SMBC Comic

"Go forth and multiply"

There, indisputable proof that you can't get pregnant the first three times you have sex ;-)

AJ

That only applies to u.

I have almost certainly never spelt the ordinal number as 'forth' ;-)

AJ

one of my favourite metrics is what proportion of readers that make it all the way, to the last chapter.

What about those who jump to the last chapter to give it a bad rating without reading the entire story?

Yes those are frustrating, if you think they've jumped just before the brilliant plot twist!! But for me it seems to be a relatively small proportion, luckily.

If I find a story is so bad that it would gain a 1 to 4 score from me then it will not gain any score.

I don't see how that helps prospective readers.

AJ

would it be fair to the author if I score a story without reading all of it?

That's a question with no right or wrong answer. I never used to score a story I didn't finish, thinking it was unfair. What if it turned out great?

But then I realized I only finished stories I liked. That skewed my voting. If I didn't like it or, more importantly, it was poorly written, I didn't score it even though it deserved a low score.

It's a conundrum isn't it: can the story possibly improve? There's no right answer as you say, but there is a solution for the site: don't offer a negative vote, so not voting is valid. The downvotes are why we don't get notified, why we don't get the individual scores, and basically why the whole can of worms.

If we just had Likes and Follows they can be counted: bad stories and their writers get less, and good ones get more. This is the way of every successful social media site (YT has downvotes but the poster doesn't see them they're for the reader's algorithm).

But Lazeez generously threw it open to us writers, and of course posting stories to the world is an egocentric thing to do, so it instantly became a smartness competition and LO! the most complicated system imaginable was born; then had to be tinkered with one step at a time, until... :)

(YT has downvotes but the poster doesn't see them they're for the reader's algorithm).

My understanding is that the poster DOES see the downvotes and so do viewers. The caveat is, that only paid subscribers get to see the number of downvotes, free users just see the downvote button and that's it. Allegedly, there is a browser add-on that reinstates the downvote tally for the freeloaders, but it seemed a little dubious to me, a bit like links on Facebook that purport to show you 'Who looked at your profile if you click this link....'

Oh interesting, yes I see a bit about the browser extension. I have a paid YT account and on my videos the analysis page just shows 'Likes (vs dislikes)', not dislikes. I don't see dislikes on other people's videos. So I think YT does basically belong with TikTok, Insta, FB etc etc, who've decided downvotes are a bad thing overall, even tho on YT I see they had the advantage of quickly flagging bad content to viewers. But the admins still see them.

I'm not a paid member of YT but I watch a lot of YT content. When I watch some channels (especially the ones currently hammering current Hollywood film content) they often bring up screenshots of what they see when looking at YT. The likes of movie reviewers YellowFlash, TheQuartering, Ryan Kinel etc etc, show screenshots of Disney YT pages, and the like and dislike counters are clearly shown along with the current tally for each.

Maybe you have to reach a certain threshold of followers or something for the function to be unlocked? Or maybe there are different tiers of 'paid' membership with corresponding levels of access? I don't know. 🤷

when I think about it I score for the author and not for other readers.

In that case, shouldn't story scores be hidden from readers until they've at least tried the story?

AJ

shouldn't story scores be hidden from readers until they've at least tried the story?

No, the scores are for the readers. To help them decide what to read.

The system works as intended.

Well we can't really say it was intended to score a good but polarising story the same as an average one can we? The intended version caused too many tears and it's been tinkered with ever since, till now it's arithmetically averaging a to j. It's an absolute classic of good intentions.

No, the scores are for the readers.

@solreader50 scores for the author and not for other readers.

The system works as intended.

Only weakly, IMO.

How can someone post a single chapter of a long serial and immediately get a score of over 9? There are too many reader biases, plus ways for authors to game the system too.

AJ

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That's why there's a 'Stairway to Heaven' but a 'Highway to Hell!'

It's an 'a' vote now. Lazeez trying to soften the negative for us, part of how this site has such a sweet feel to it. But negative is negative, you have to accept it, that the reader didn't enjoy the story. Personally I'd just try and make them say why, so I could possibly fix it, or at least understand it's perhaps about a decision I made rather than bad storytelling.

But my original point is more that, one step at a time and with good intentions, the system has ended up with unintended consequences.

Oh is that a thing? Lol, the language that divides us :) I've had a comment telling me he was giving a 1 vote for my mean treatment of the bad guy, one when I wrote Mauritius instead of Madagascar... But if they only had comments as a way to express disappointment, we might find out more often, perhaps.

Lol fair enough 🤣. But if you only had a Like and a Comment available, would you explain this to him?