#24331 - 02/12/06 04:40 PM
Re: rating stories
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Sexcomesfirst
old hand
Registered: 09/16/05
Posts: 747
Loc: China
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Everybody's taste is not the same. Also, there could b an ulterior motive for that low rating. Actually for low ratings the username should be shown to the writer for the writer to solicit a feedback. Anybody listening?
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#24334 - 02/15/06 05:39 AM
Re: rating stories
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Lael
enthusiast
Registered: 08/28/05
Posts: 377
Loc: California, US
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In reply to:
Most votes on ES are grossly inflated anyway. If you are getting 9-10s you probably only deserve 6-7s. The fact that you resent the 5 vote so strongly is a good indication, at least to me, that you probably deserve lower votes than you are getting.
Or... another explanation is that due to the competitive nature of how a voting system works, there is a stake in bringing down someone's vote total. I have noticed that at certain points I also get a 'sudden' low vote out of the blue... usually when I have passed someone on the Top list or on the Author's list. I generally shrug it off. I think the view/reads device is far more accurate an assessment for whether or not the story is doing well. If it is not doing so well, people do not choose to continue reading it. So, the percentage is the truer test than the voting, especially since the vast majority don't bother to vote at all.
The voting thing used to be much worse when an incredibly low vote did not require an explanation to go with it. To have a row of 10s, 9s and the odd 8s suddenly get slapped with a 1 and no explanation as to why, tell me that it just the writing or is it because of ego on the part of another writer that got passed on the Top lists?
As I said, I am personally more interested in the Views/Reads stats, along with hoping I posted a story that has enough umph! to make it to the archive. I have to wonder about the last sentence I quoted above. If a writer knows that their piece is sound, technically and artistically, then they should not be concerned about the 'votes' given? That they automatically deserve lower than they have been getting? That the high votes are utterly invalid? Despite consistancy in those high votes, along with reader feed back? It sounds to me that you would make quite the exacting editor; nothing being worthy of praise save perfection. I also doubt very many stories posted here, in any category, could withstand such carefull deliberation.
I know my own couldn't. The occaisional typo and spelling error still manages to slip by me. Thus I view the votes as being at least partially a commentary on the impact of the story idea, expression of that idea and how well I carried off the eroticism. I treasure those 10s and 9s as meaning that I succeeded in my aim of that particular story. When something stands out, as in a sudden change in voting pattern, naturally I would like to know why or where the story failed in the opinion of that voter. Or did it?
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#24335 - 02/15/06 08:20 AM
Re: rating stories
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art
Bazinga!
old hand
Registered: 01/09/01
Posts: 832
Loc: The Hague, the Netherlands
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In my view there is nothing strange about a low vote. I don't think there is any story, movie, song or car that everybody likes.
If I look at part 1 of Julee's latest story, I see:
1 vote of 6
4 votes of 7
a bunch of 8 and 9 votes
and a truckload of 10's.
This is probably about as perfect as it gets!
Imagine standing at the exit of a cinema, and asking everybody who comes out for their opinion about the movie they just saw. I can't imagine every single person coming out will say the movie really kicked ass. Of course there will be a few who were not that impressed.. I think that is perfectly normal.
A few days ago I was approached by an author, who complained about the voting for his story. He used the words malicious, coward, sick and desperate. One would assume something terrible happened, but it turned out this fuss was about receiving one vote of '6'! If you check the voting box, that is still one step above "reasonable'.
Not only that, he also decided to "counter attack" and started setting up several accounts and making fraudulent votes for his own stories, and against other stories. That is a great way to raise red flags in my system, so I warned him that I didn't accept such behaviour. After which he removed all his stories..
So, one person was not impressed with his story and voted just above "reasonable', and now this author has no stories on the site anymore. Just think about how much power he let this one person with a differing opinion have over him!
I would advise everyone to stay realistic and reasonable. After all this is a porn site, people come here for some fun, and after reading a story you ask them: "hey man, whaddaya think of the story?". If most, or nearly all, of the people reply "it was great, man!", then you did a good job. Simple as that.
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Greetings, === Art ===
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#24337 - 02/17/06 07:35 AM
Re: rating stories
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Anonymous
Anonymous
Unregistered
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In reply to:
It sounds to me that you would make quite the exacting editor; nothing being worthy of praise save perfection. I also doubt very many stories posted here, in any category, could withstand such carefull deliberation.
No actually perfection is not the only requirement to merit praise. It is a goal, but one that can only be rarely obtained.
My comments are apparently offensive to you. I was only trying to say that as a general rule most votes on ES are grossly inflated, and they are. Spelling and grammar errors are not solely what make a story undeserving of high votes, unless the grammar errors are so pervasive that they make the story hard to read. It is primarily the carelessness of the writer that doesn't take the trouble to proofread or spell check that is an indicator that the story may be shoddy. After reading the story the grammar errors combined with perhaps an overworked story line, or poorly defined characters, or boring sex scenes then combine to justify a low vote.
I recently gave very low votes to a couple of stories. As it happened that day I had time to send comments explaining why. The authors replied and thanked me for the advice. This is an exception, not the norm. Usually when I tell a writer that they posted a bad story and suggest how they could fix it they reply with great animosity. The civil reply from these 2 writers was greatly appreciated.
While Julee has posted some good stories, I would not rate any of them a 10. Not a 5 either though. I think she, like many writers probably just has an ego problem.
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#24338 - 02/17/06 02:22 PM
Re: rating stories
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Lael
enthusiast
Registered: 08/28/05
Posts: 377
Loc: California, US
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In reply to:
I recently gave very low votes to a couple of stories. As it happened that day I had time to send comments explaining why. The authors replied and thanked me for the advice. This is an exception, not the norm. Usually when I tell a writer that they posted a bad story and suggest how they could fix it they reply with great animosity. The civil reply from these 2 writers was greatly appreciated.
While Julee has posted some good stories, I would not rate any of them a 10. Not a 5 either though. I think she, like many writers probably just has an ego problem.
No, I wasn't especially offended. Just a difference of perception perhaps. Your return explanation makes sense and helps me to understand your position better. I do believe that writer egos can definitely become involved and often do, from both ends, writing and reading. As I said, I can tolerate low votes when I get the reason for that vote. I hope that I am as gracious in my return replies as the two you gave as examples of exceptions. At the bare minimum, I will consider the advice before deciding on what to say or do with it.
My position, to clarify, is that when giving low end votes, please make sure to say why. After looking at a story that you have invested a significant amount of time and thought in, what the writer sees is not necessarily what the reader sees. I can only devote maybe 2 hours of writing time at a sitting to a story. I have several in the air, generally. If I don't get the idea out of my head when I have it, it is lost. This means I try to write what is most pressing, then come back later to continue work on others. This means that, at the end, I have probably looked at a given story 10 to 12 times in the process of writing it. I average between 5000 and 7500 words per posting. Some are continuing stories, others are stand alone. Thus, I rely on comments to help me if any gross mistakes of some kind actually does get past me.
I do appreciate you clarifying your original statement. It does make a difference. Thank you.
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#24339 - 02/18/06 09:14 AM
Re: rating stories
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Anonymous
Anonymous
Unregistered
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In reply to:
My position, to clarify, is that when giving low-end votes; please make sure to say why.
I understand your point and when I have the time to write comments I do so. Not only for the bad stories, but the good ones as well. Unfortunately time restraints often prevent me from commenting on all stories that I read.
I think your idea of a low-end vote may be somewhat different from mine. I don’t know what you normally score, your writing is in a classification that does not appeal to me, but a low end vote on a scale of 1 to 10 is not a 5. That is a midrange vote. To me all low-end votes are below 5 and the ES system requires a comment for those.
When I am unable to prepare a comment specifically for a particular story that I think deserves a low vote I must choose between not voting at all, voting a 5 when I think a 2 or 3 is deserved, or coming back and voting later when I have more time. If I don’t vote at once, I may forget to return to that story. So there may be times that I vote a 5 even though I don’t like to give a 5 when the story in my opinion rates much lower.
As I said earlier, I am not Julee’s 5 voter. But I have voted 5 on other stories when pressed for time. This may be what happened to Julee.
I do understand the effort and time that goes into writing stories of any type. Writers that cannot accept criticism or disapproval probably should not post stories. I assume that in your 10 or 12 times of looking at a story you hit the spellchecker at least once. Proofreading by someone other that the writer is a big help because the writer knows what he or she meant to say and their mind may “fill in the gaps” when something in a story may be missing. A different person reading a piece will spot these holes and can point out what the writer might miss. Sounds like you use the readers here to “proof” your stories.
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