Forum: Author Hangout

Score vs feedback

Lumpy 🚫

So I've been seeing a weird pattern that I don't understand. I currently have 3 stories posting at the moment, but the amount of feedback I'm getting is inverse to the score it gets. I would have expected the more positive feedback I got, the more people liked it and the higher the score. It appears the opposite is happening, and the story with the most positive feedback is getting a higher score than the story with the least positive feedback.

Danger Close, the best scoring of these stories, has an 8.42 score and I get very few emails about it and it's got half the number of comments of the 2nd highest scored story).

Playing by Ear is at 8.14 and I've received about twice as many emails and it has about twice as many comments on it, both overwhelmingly positive.

Sword of Jupiter is at 8.07, has gotten about the most emails of anything I've written and has almost the same number of comments as danger close, even though it came out a lot more recently.

To be clear, I'm not complaining about the score or how it's calculated. I'm fine with all that. I'm just comparing them to each other and to the volume of feedback.

I don't understand how the lowest rated has the most positive feedback and the highest rated has by far the least.

Replies: Quasirandom Lumpy Pixy Lumpy richardshagrin LupusDei

Quasirandom 🚫

@Lumpy

One thought: what's the correlation with number of votes, rather than the average?

Lumpy 🚫

@Lumpy

Yea, I thought about it, but it's a third pattern.

Middle score (PBE), most votes.
Lowest score (SOJ), second most votes (although on track to have the same number of votes as PBE when it's been posting for the same amount of time)
Highest Score (DC), least amount of votes.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@Lumpy

That Danger Close causes the least number of emails might be because it's the 7th book in a series. Most readers who follow the series already recognize it and value it accordingly with the well deserved high score. It probable generates less readers that feel the need to send an email.
The other two are in new series. It seems logical that they cause more reasons for readers to respond. You will have to wait until you have written more books for either of the new series to see if the same holds true as for the John Taylor series. I suspect that following books in the series will build up a fan base, maybe a different one from John Taylor, and the scores will likely rise a little.
If you check it out you will probably see a difference in the type of responses between Danger Close and the other two.

Replies: Lumpy

Lumpy 🚫

@Keet

I hadn't considered that. Makes sense though.

Pixy 🚫

@Lumpy

Without knowing the amount of people who read/accessed the story, it's hard to infer a trend one way or another. Yes, your higher scoring might have less comments than a lower scoring piece, but if the higher scoring story has half the readers, then it's not really much of a surprise.

Wouldn't you be better dividing the readership of the story by the amount of comments received? Then comparing that result with the result of the other stories divided by their comments?

Replies: Pixy

Pixy 🚫
Updated:

@Pixy

Just out of curiosity I had a quick look. One in 99 readers voted for DC; One every 160 for PBE and one in 44 for SOJ. There does appear to be a correlation in that the longer the story, the less likely people are to vote.

However, that is only using a very small data set (3) so you would need to do it for a lot more of your stories to see if there is indeed a trend.

Lumpy 🚫

@Lumpy

You can only see downloads, not readers. Is that what your using to determine voters per reader?

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Lumpy

Dividing total downloads by number of chapters seems to produce a correlation with number of emails.

As to the scores, I think they are a reflection on how much the readers like each story, but on a like-for-like basis. And the stories are very different.

AJ

richardshagrin 🚫
Updated:

@Lumpy

Any score over an 8 is an exceptionally good outcome. Over 7 is well above average, average is adjusted by Lazeez to a 6. I understand you like to hear from readers, but if they like the story but have no questions, why would they write you? They give the story a 9 or 10, and the final score gets adjusted to get it closer to 6. You should be pleased that all three stories are well over 8.

Take a look at the 100 favorite stories by authors. Many of them have scores lower than yours. Seven of them have scores below 8.0.

Replies: Lumpy StarFleetCarl

Lumpy 🚫

@richardshagrin

To be clear, I'm not complaining about the scores (either what they are or how they're calculated) or the amount of feedback (That's why I added it in the first post, saying I'm not complaining about the scores). I'm happy with my scores.

I'm just trying to understand why the feedback and the score are inverse of each other on my own currently posting works (although I think maybe Keet's right and it's the difference between an ongoing series and the beginning of new series). I'm trying to determine what makes people more likely to comment more on a work but it still votes lower than people commenting less on a work but the average vote is higher when the author on both is me.

Nothing in my question was about the scores themselves.

Replies: StarFleet Carl

StarFleet Carl 🚫

@Lumpy

what makes people more likely to comment more on a work

I know what it is - you're on the wrong side of the Red River! :) (Even if our offense forgot to show up today against Baylor.)

StarFleetCarl 🚫

@richardshagrin

Any score over an 8 is an exceptionally good outcome.

Take a look at the 100 favorite stories by authors.

I did. My stories are between 8.12 and 9.12, and I know the lowest score one needs a serious rewrite. I've had TWO authors that have decided one each of my stories is their favorite, and that's it. And I've average 26 emails per week for the last year.

In other words, I don't think there's much correlation to any of the statistics we get to what kind of feedback we'll receive.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@StarFleetCarl

In other words, I don't think there's much correlation to any of the statistics we get to what kind of feedback we'll receive.

Logically there's probably more of a relation between feedback on one side and both the type of story and the 'newness' on the other. Long running serials and the Xth book in a series will probably always generate less feedback. Those who wanted to give feedback already did and won't do it again. New stories are more likely to bring up questions and opinions. The longer they run or the later in a series, and feedback will dwindle down. That is probably NOT an indication that the book/story is less appreciated by readers, if anything, it signifies that readers are satisfied with the book and have no complaints.

Replies: JoeBobMack

JoeBobMack 🚫

@Keet

Your suggestion may be less valid for stories with high fantasy elements. Also, some may be site specific. On another site, I follow a long-running fantasy serial that is a variation of the dungeon core theme. The readers there out in lots of comments about the magical system, possible future developments or new users, etc. Almost like technology discussions. They also race to see who can post the first comment. Not sure why. Site may skew younger.

Replies: Keet

Keet 🚫

@JoeBobMack

Your suggestion may be less valid for stories with high fantasy elements.

Of course, that's why I mentioned that the type of story will make a difference. What you mentioned is called 'momentum'. At some point the fan base of a (long running) story in a specific setting encourages dissection of the setting and it's elements. You see that particularly often in SF and Fantasy settings. Star Trek, Star wars, and Lord of the Rings are examples where the same happened.

Replies: JoeBobMack

JoeBobMack 🚫

@Keet

Thanks. Didn't understand that from your first comment, but this explanation makes sense.

LupusDei 🚫

@Lumpy

Without any context my first guess would be that, for example, a smooth, nice, happy story could be very well liked and thus highly scored, but produce less involved reactions and thus don't get much comment on it.

While a more complex story with more controversial themes or ideas, twists or surprises could produce lower scores for any multitudes of reasons (including people getting angry it didn't go exactly how they wouldexpect), but encourage way more feedback, not only because people tend to react on negatives more actively, but also positive feedback, including, just because people could themselves imagine negative feedback and preemptively declare their support.

Or in other words, people may need both a reason and an excuse to bother and provide feedback, and simply liking a story, even by all means perfect one, may not cut it.

So actually, I wouldn't be surprised by such a pattern at all.

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Score vs feedback

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