Expanded Voting Form: Wording and Value distibution

2006/12/14 at 6:21 pm Lazeez 102 comments

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#1 | Written by sourdough on 2006/12/14.

I wish readers would care enough to send written feedback. I don’t know enough to comment further but I think readers will be voting less with this new system.
#2 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

I’m a little confused as to what the reader will see at the end of the page.

Will there only be the three score boxes or is there still an overall score box for voting?

Will the authors be able to see the individual scores of each catagorie on there stats page?
#3 | Written by Autumn Writer on 2006/12/14.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment. As the politicians would say, “I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks at a later date.” Seriously, after reading others’ input I might have other thoughts.

With respect to the captions for the criteria boxes, I would recommend:

Quality:
spelling, grammer,structure, language

Plot:
Creative and interesting development of storyline and characters

Appeal:
how the sexual content appeals to your personal taste

In my opinion, the weights are fine as stated.

A possible addition might be to include the value “N/A” (not applicable) to the “Plot” and “Appeal” boxes if the voter feels that way. For example, a short essay about a sexual interlude might be worthwhile reading and the author never intended to develop a plot.

I added ‘structure’ to the “Quality” box because a work may be perfect in technical aspects, but suffer from wordiness, too long paragraphs, etc. I also believe that interesting use of language is an aspect of quality.

I added the aspect of character development in the “Plot” box because I think that it’s important. Also, the ‘thoroughness’ of the plot is only one characteristic that determines how good a plot is. That term favors multi chapter novels and novellas over the short story genre.

The “Appeal” box speaks for itself. It is the equivalent of the “Stroke Ratio” that the Reviewers use.

I also suggest a stronger encouragement to readers to send comments to authors, including an assurance that lets readers know that responding will not put them on spam lists, or their security jeopardized, and to clarify that they can respond anaymously or with an e-mail response. I think that some readers worry that pressintg the button will enable someone to tag or trace them.

[By the way, I believe that many readers do not vote/comment because they are reading while at work and are afraid of being tracked down by their employers.]

thanks for this opportunity.

AW
#4 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

Shakes Peer2B here.

I, personally, would give a bit more weight to the quality score, if for no other reason than to encourage writers to enlist the aid of an editor. Nothing sends me packing when reading a story quite so quickly as poor grammar, spelling, etc.

I disagree with autumn writer on the meaning of Appeal. Many of the best scoring stories currently on SOL are not very high in sexual content, so there must be something else that appeals to their readers, so I’d say stick with a more generic description.
#5 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

I suggest you change the title of the first category, “Quality,” to “Language.” The title “Quality” might be understood as an evaluation of the story’s general quality. You might want to include syntax and word choice in the definition.

I suggest the definition of “Plot” also include character, so it will be titled “Plot/Character.” The definition could be “Consistency of the storyline and characterization.” The statement about “thoroughness” is unclear.

The “Appeal” category and its definition seems reasonable. It doesn’t make sense to restrict that to sex, as some stories do not include sex scenes.

As far as weight, I suggest the following:

Language 30%
Plot/Character 40%
Appeal 30%

Those are my suggestions. Good luck with the changes and thanks for all your hard work.
#6 | Written by Gina on 2006/12/14.

This is really getting frustrating for me as an author. It seems like once a week there is a new scheme for scoring stories. Even the old download counts have now become meaningless. After Sunday of this week, the only way a story lands on the top twenty download list is if the story has 2000+ downloads during a week.

The idea of applying a statistical “factor” to a vote renders the entire concept of someone “voting” invalid. I vote 8, but since most people vote 10, my vote is now something othere than 8. That’s like telling someone “Hi, you voted for X, but we calculated the weighted widgit score and you’ve really voted for Y.”

As someone whose stories of late don’t contain much, if any sex, any text in the description of “appeal” that includes “stroke factor” or “sexual” in it will hit stories without sex like a hammer, limiting their possible scores relative to the other stories. I would expect you’d see a lot less such stories if you did that, as the authors would seek a venue where their stories weren’t discriminated against.

Rating is inherently arbitrary. There is nothing you can do about it except police the cheats and keep the system as stable as possible.

I realize this is your site, Lazeez, and I realize that you are trying to make it better. But I don’t think this sort of thing is going to do anything to expand your reader base and may cause authors to throw up their hands in disgust, because they won’t know from one day to the next how things work.

Gina Marie
#7 | Written by joesephus on 2006/12/14.

I’m very new at all this. I’ve only been writing for a little more than a year. Still, it seems to me that the best way to get better feedback from the readers is to increase the scale.

Let’s face it, most readers are giving a score of betwee 7 and 10 with too many 10s. If you make the scale 50 to 100 and relate it to school grades (50-60 = F, 61-70 = D, 71-80 = C, 81-90 = B, 91-100 = A) you’ll get more spread. Most people will give inflated grades, but no one will feel bad about giving a 95 instead of a 100 if the story wasn’t that good.

As a writer, I want to measure my stories against my own writing and against others so scores are important to me. What really bugs me are the folks who give a story a vote out of range. If the mean vote on a story is 8.6 anything 33% above or below that score should be dropped (pick your own percentage.)

If you can’t do that, the next best thing would be to keep individual votes for the writers. Another site does that and it helps. It make a real difference to me if my score is being brought down by a series of 7s or by a single 1.
#8 | Written by Autumn Writer on 2006/12/14.

I just want to clarify why I suggested that the “Appeal” box be devoted to sexual content.

It might appear that I was trying to heighten the aspect of sexual content in judging the works of authors. Actually, my intent was the opposite.

I was hoping to reserve the first two boxes (Language and Plot/Character) for writing merit, irrespective of sexual content. Between the two, I think that they cover it.

The third box is for readers who are most concerned with the “Stroke Ratio” of the story. It is an erotic story site, after all.

I believe that many authors, including me, get ‘trolled’ by readers who are disappointed by their perceptions of too little sex in the story and too much plot. This would give them an opportunity to speak their mind without spoiling the other aspects.

It’s my understanding that authors would see the array of category scores. An author could choose to consider which of the various aspects are important to him/her.

AW
#9 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

I would suggest that you limit those who can Ext-vote to authors and other members that you trust to give honest ratings. Not just straight 10′s.

After all not every story is a Bo Derek.

Limit it to authors, editors and members that you trust. Maybe the members who continually give some feedback to the authors and/or you.

I like the idea of keeping both scores displayed.

JR|away
#10 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

I like Autumn Writer’s formulations of the first two. For “Appeal,” can I suggest something like “fidelity to story codes”? I don’t think an author who has coded their story as “slow” or “no-sex” should be penalized for writing a story with limited stroke value. At the same time, as a reader, whether or not a story appeals to someone else’s personal tastes doesn’t much matter to me. The real question seems to be how well a story represents its story codes, how appealing it is given them.
#11 | Written by Chrissy Giles on 2006/12/14.

Agree with the comments about making “plot” into plot/character(isation) to broaden it’s scope

Also that the “appeal” should not specify sex. Most of my stories have sexual content but that might not be thair main appeal and to restrict the final score to “stroke factor” automatically lowers the score for all stories not aimed at getting someone’s rocks off every five minutes (or at all)!

Because appeal is likely to end up merely being a stroke factor vote, I would suggest lowering it’s value to 20%, leave 30% for language and 50% for plot

comment: I’m curious – every time I leave a comment I have to submit it twice
#12 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

Suggestions:

Quality: Technical proficiency in writing – ie. grammar, word choice, structure, and spelling.

Plot/Characters: The creativity and consistency shown in the storytelling.

Appeal: The personal enjoyment derived from reading the story.

Note, also, that the wording of the votes should be such that authors should be happy to receive a score of 9 on any aspect. That way any average score >9 will (hopefully) indicate that a story is one of the best. And whinier authors won’t bitch about people not describing their story as Excellent (if 9 – or 8 – is Excellent)

Also, are you still intending that the voting form shown will be set by individual reader preference? Because if so, sourdough’s expectation seems obviously flawed, but if not, I’d have to agree.

As to Gina’s comment about the download list… a story should have >2000 downloads per week to be on a ‘top downloads’ list. It seems foolish to let such things be determined by how well an author – and that author’s following – time the posting/reading of a new chapter, rather than the raw numbers.
#13 | Written by The SlutMan on 2006/12/14.

I believe that you may be over-thinking the expanded voting form. I don’t see why the form used by the Reviewers wouldn’t work for you here. Just add N/A to the numbers and there you have it.

I have to say, as a writer on your site, I can’t wait for this to be turned on. Why? In your ‘Final Decisions’ entry, you wrote; Authors will be able to view how many of each vote their stories received.

I can’t think of a better way to help a writer improve, short of sending them a note!

You stick to your guns, Lazeez. You’ve already shown that you aren’t so rigid that you can’t admit to a mistake. I’m confident that if for some unknown reason, this doesn’t pan out, you’ll bust your ass to fix it, or remove it entirely.

I really hope you can make this work, just the benefit to the author makes it worth the effort.
#14 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

Pleasure Boy 1 said

What might help, if you’ve got the resources for it, is to post an opinion poll on the main page, asking readers which criteria are most important to them. Run it for a couple weeks, until all the regulars have at least seen it, if not voted, and voila, you’ve got your percentage weights right there, down to exact amounts.

As for the category definitions, yes, you need to be as specific as you can. But that won’t guarantee the extra categories are not abused by trolls and cheerleaders. It’ll help though. Any improvement helps.

Quality: [0-10] Spelling, grammar, and overall readability.

Story: [0-10] Plot, character development, and overall intrigue.

Appeal: [0-10] Emotional, intellectual, and sexual impact.

I’m thinking though, that readers tend to score things high anyway, so setting the ranges from 0 to 10 is kind of redundant, if most readers pick 7 or higher. It’s probably easier to mentally digest if you went with a scale from zero to four stars (or some such iconic symbol), and just convert that value into a numeric score of 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 when computing the averages. In theory, you could convert all the scoring to a system like that, and you’d probably wouldn’t get such top-heavy scores. But that’s digressing a bit.

Once again, good job with the changes. It’s actually nice to see some people complaining. It means things are stirring up a bit and everyone’s gotta sink or swim if they wanna keep up. The cream will rise to the top in the end, no matter how you stir things up.

-pb1
#15 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

Hi, I’m the anon who couldn’t spell Lazeez last time …

Thanks for the work, this is a much better (and I know it is intended to be optional, that’s OK) voting system.

That is, it is as long as the results are available to other readers, if you combine it all into one number, much of the effectiveness will be lost (even if it helps the authors to be able to see that the reason their story got a lousy score is because they can’t spell…)

Can I make a suggestion – add a fourth box, “originality”, and then display (for readers) two scores, one “technical” obtained by combining the quality and plot scores, and one “appeal” from combining the appeal and originality scores, that is if all the scores can’t be displayed.

Alternatively, perhaps display a combined score, and add indicators whenever one of the individual scores is very high or low, so a story with an average overall score may get a flag indicating high appeal, and another indicating horrible language use.

On the labels, I’d agree that changing “Quality” to something that indicates it is technical quality, and “language” seems reasonable, and I’d certainly add something related to structure to the wording. I also agree with adding characters to the plot.
I would not limit appeal to stroke ratio, just personal appeal (for any reason) to the reader is what is best there.

I can’t really suggest a weighting scheme for combining votes into a single number, as I believe doing that defeats the purpose, if anything, I’d tend to make them all equal (33 33 33, or 25 25 25 25 if originality gets added), otherwise you’re just imposing your (or someone else’s) own biases as to which aspect is most important (eg: some authors, and even more at other sites, seem to regard spelling and grammar as totally irrelevant, implying a weighting of 0 for that
one, others, especially read-only types, may prefer more like a weighting of 60 for spelling!)

Thanks for doing this anyway, and please don’t be afraid to change things once some experience has been obtained.
#16 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/14.

Anon again, forgot to say, that for authors, if you can, let them know how many of each score in each category they received (8 4′s 3 5′s and 2 7′s for language, …)

I’d also do just about anything to discourage 1 and 10 votes, even to making the voter resubmit two or three times to confirm it really is what they mean. If I were an author, which I may be one day if I can ever find the time (I know how much work it is, and so really appreciate all those who manage to do it) I’d hate to get either of those scores. Hating to get a 1 is pretty obvious, but I think I’d hate to get a 10 even more. 10 should imply “cannot possibly be better”, as in, there is no higher score that can be given – once an author gets 10 for something, they know they can never do better, so might as well simply quit. That’s discouraging – at least with a 1 vote, one can hope to improve, with a 10, all hope is gone.
#17 | Written by Gina on 2006/12/15.

Let me blunt about download counts, up until this week the one measure that mattered to me at SOL.

I’m anal about things, I make no bones about it. I have kept track of my story’s downloads since I first posted Tom’s Diary on SOL (although I no longer check every hour )

It is clear that so long as one of my stories is one the top twenty downloads list, readership is nine or ten times what it is when it falls off. If a story never makes it to the top download list, I have this feeling that the readership is going to decline substantially. That is, to me, unacceptable. I want my stories to be read — if a change to the site reduces that number to any significant degree, I have to ask myself, why bother?

Authors don’t get a free ride. Every site I’ve posted on requires stories in a different format… the more sites I post on, the more time I have to spend converting a story from one format to another. Boring! The only reason I do it is to expand my readership. If a site slices and dices my readership, why bother?

Gina Marie
#18 | Written by johneb47 on 2006/12/15.

Hi Lazeez,
I think maybe too much is made of the scoring system. True it is prone to error as it can be manipulated but it is what you have and people are used to it.
I personally do not know of any viable way to make a scoring system work because so much of what makes a good story is purely subjective rather than objective and as such this leaves the scoring open to misinterpretation.
I have found the present system usually reflects the quality of the stories currently published on the site.
#19 | Written by krazycarnie on 2006/12/15.

I like the idea of being able to score a story on more than just a “score”. However I feel that the Appeal is just another word for score. I would prefer to see the categories be:
Language – spelling grammer, structer, use of launguage
Plot – Is there one? :>, does it stay the same from begining to end, is it within the “suspension of belief” area, are the technical facts correct, etc
and instead of Appeal
Characterization – are the characters real, do they act like people (or beings)
Otherwise I think you will see a one to one correlation between Appeal and Score.
Just my thoughts. As always Lazeez keep up the excellant work.

The Carnie
#20 | Written by krazycarnie on 2006/12/15.

Another thought on the Appeal rating… I am not sure how usefull it would be unless we knew who it appealed to. For instance I read mostly romance, sci-fi, some mystery. I read other stories if the story codes appeal to my mood at the time.
However while i may take an appeal vote into concideration if I knew that it was say, Al Steiner and the story was sci-fi, but unless one lnows the source of the Appeal vote it is pretty meaningless. Just as the score is pretty meaningless to most people.

Perhaps itwould be better to not show a score untill after the person has already voted on a story. That way there would not be any influence on the reader to be either a cheerleader or a troll.

Gonna shut up for now, I have stired up enough trouble for one day.

The Carnie
#21 | Written by w_newd on 2006/12/15.

Lazeez, building from yours & Autumn Writer’s:

Optional expanded voting; rate how well-written this story is:

Quality: 012345678910
grammar, language-usage, structure, syntax, spelling
[coherent legible readable comprehensible lucid smooth eloquent]

Appeal: N/A012345678910
how personally stimulating, intellectually &/or sexually
[pleasurable captivating engrossing enthralling fascinating]

Plot: N/A012345678910
creative & entertaining storyline & characters
[intriguing compelling provocative engaging worthwhile interesting]

{ alternates: Quality: clear, easily read, intelligible, understandable, lucent, flowing, fluent
Appeal: alluring, gratifying, amusing, pleasant, arresting, attractive, delightful, gripping, refreshing, riveting, stirring, appealing, satisfying
Plot: clever, captivating, absorbing, affecting, rewarding, enjoyable, impressive, brilliant, exceptional, spellbinding }

Okay, so though went a wee-bit nuts with thesaurus, but how else?, eh?:
1) Descriptive words [such as in brackets] may be better than “a short…sentence” in that they’re succinct & even more “concise”, while giving the rater a broader idea what they’re looking for (or looking for an absence of) in limited, precious space.
2) “grammar, language-usage, structure, syntax, spelling” is a better order, most-to-least important left-to-right.
3) “language-usage” vs just “language” because it’s ‘usage’ & NOT ‘slang’ &/or so-called ‘profanity’ that we’re concerned with (ie: HOW it’s used, not THAT it is or isn’t used).
4) “how personally stimulating, intellectually &/or sexually” covers everything from ‘no-sex’ to ‘pure-stroke’ equally & without prejudice. (Or, if needs must, “how personally stimulating, mentally &/or sexually”.)
5) Keep, as-is, in opposite order of weight (20%-quality-1st / 30%-appeal-2nd / 50%-plot-3rd) least-to-most, allowing even a little bit more time/room for thought & consideration. (& yes, I like the proportions)
6) Ampersands ‘&’ save precious space, along with ‘&/or’.
7) Agree with Autumn, ‘Plot’ at least, & probably ‘Appeal’ too, need an N/A option.
Further agree with Autumn about clarity & confirmation of anonymity, safety of email-addr, non-traceability.

I still don’t think scoring as-is, original/basic or expanded, works because of how people are, & because of where the scoring is (bottom of page). Can’t change how people are (hard enough to get ‘em to bother to score/comment-on writers they’re ‘ga-ga’ over, not to mention anyone else). IF, however, there was some way to have, um, let’s call it a ‘Response-Entity’ on the SIDE of the story/page… this ‘Response-Entity’ would consist of 3 ‘items’: original/basic score & link to expanded score & link to comment. One per standard page-length, spaced along the side of the story (coded such that with either of the scorings, click-on-it-one & chance to click that ‘item’ goes away), or I know there’s some sort of page-coding which allows something to ‘float’ to the side of a site-page, no matter where on the page one is; IF the reader had the opportunity to score/vote/comment no matter where in-the-story / on-the-page one is, then the scoring & commenting should be both more & more realistic. Also, to have any chance of reality, any & all scoring should have tenths (ie: 00.0 – 01.6 – 04.3 – 07.8 – 10.0), though I also very much like what joesephus had to say with his 100-50 A-F grade-scale, which also better reflects the psychology of how ‘real people’/'real readers’ vote.

…my 222 cents worth,
w_newd
nonof_urbiz@sbcglobal.net
#22 | Written by drksideofthemoon on 2006/12/15.

Personally, I don’t write to achieve a score. I don’t really care too much about the whole scoring system. I would rather not have a scoring system at all.

drksideofthemoon
#23 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

In response to w_newd’s comments:

Quality should be worth more than ‘Appeal’, if for no other reason than quality is not as individually subjective. Hell, ‘Appeal’ should be used only as feedback to authors, as it’s useless to a reader of necro-scat how appealing a story is to a Romance fiend (and quite likely even more so the opposite).

Secondly, it’s better to ‘float’ the voting form/frame along the top/bottom of a browser window. Placing it along the edge of the screen only works for people who don’t mind losing screen width.

Finally, since this is a completely new scoring mechanism, using wording restrictive/generous enough (such as describing 7 or 8 as Excellent, and making the higher scores progressively less likely to be honestly given) would seem to be possible.

To The Carnie’s comment: the trolls and cheerleaders need no encouragement or excuses. They will always simply be. Hopefully, their lack of intelligence/motivation will cause them to stick to the old-fashioned ‘basic’ voting form. So maybe this new style can actually be meaningful.
#24 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

It’s obvious from the feedback that even these terms are too open to varying interpretations.

I say K.I.S.S.:

o Grammar
o Story
o Sex

I don’t see how these divisions will be misinterpreted. (People will figure out to count spelling errors against grammar.)

(And… thanks for not kowtowing to whiny authors, from one of the non-whiny authors. )
#25 | Written by Rowan on 2006/12/15.

well just to add my two cents worth , i will have to applaude what autum writer and w_newd had to say and go with what they managed to put together , i would like to see something that resembles thier suggestions put into place .

Mind you i am just a low ly reader who only reads +/- 6 new stories a day and is reading over 40 serials on going at the moment , so who really cares what i think hey !! lol

Thanks Laz , i do appreciate what you do for us , really i do .

Rowan
#26 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

I’m not clear on why authors care if you use some sort of weighted score. It won’t change a story’s position within the top 20…unless that story moves up or down from the alltime list (not the yearly one) due to grade inflation/deflation. It also won’t hurt them in readers’ eyes: Readers will merely adjust their internal belief of what rating constitutes a good story.

Personally, I really don’t care that much one way or another. As a reader/writer, it just doesn’t matter to me. I’ve found that with pretty much any web site change, I’ve found it annoying for a week or so and then gotten used to it and stopped caring. I think most people will ignore the 3 categories (if you make appeal more prominent, it should prevent people from ignoring voting altogether), but I don’t see any negative impact on readers/authors coming from it, so I see no reason for me personally to care.

In conclusion, I am the very vocal person that just doesn’t care. On the other hand, these discussions are mildly amusing, so the I see no reason to stop posting about such changes
#27 | Written by Steveh11 on 2006/12/15.

Frankly, I think this is too much, too soon. Sorry Lazeez, I know you’re trying to make things better!

It’s your right and indeed duty to improve things where you see fit. But why on earth you see the need to combine the individual element scores, producing such a confusing ‘final value’, is a little beyond me.

KISS is a principle that seems to have been lost, here. For whatever the scores are worth – not much beyond ego stroke – I preferred the straight numeric value.

I also agree with sourdough – I think there’ll be less voting than before. But we’ll see.
#28 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

Personally I’d drop Appeal, it’s meaningless unless you know the person casting the vote and their tastes. A story’s appeal can also be effected by all of the other categories; the quality and plot detracted from the story appealing to me. IMO appeal is related to the voter not the story.
#29 | Written by Jed on 2006/12/15.

I love the idea of the three-part-score, but I absolutely don’t like the idea of combining it together into a ‘final’ score unless the combined score’s weighting can be dynamically altered by the end-user and the three seperate parts can be shown together.

I’d love to be able to rank stories by how good their plot is or by how steamy the sex scenes are, depending on my mood at the time. I’d also love to be able to, say, cut off any story with a 50% or worse in Grammar, considering I can’t stand reading stories that are so badly written.

As for the three proposed categories, I think Quality should be renamed to either Grammer or Technicalities or something else along those lines, Plot should be Plot/Characterization or Story, and Appeal should be Sexual Appeal specifically. If you don’t use the expanded scores for the main ‘Top Stories by Rank’ listing, then stories getting N/As or low scores for sexual appeal shouldn’t matter, and just plain ‘Appeal’ is too much like a normal ‘Score’ rank for me to support it.

In summary: Please, allow the readers to see all three scores and list them by each. A custom weighted expanded score would be cool, but would probably put too much work on the server. Continue to use the old score for the primary Top Score listings. The three categories should be Grammar, Story, and Sex.
#30 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

I sort of understand what you’re trying to do but not completely. How will readers get to it and how it will effect the over all score. Or will it?

The other thing I’m wondering and it has been mentioned is why not just use the review catagories? In fact why not make it part of the whole feedback process instead of a separate vote system? (That may be what you’re planning but I’m not sure)

A reader can fill in the feedback box, or not, select a number for the four catagories and hit send.
It’d be a quick easy way to send feedback and they don’t have to type anything.

You could even have to so readers could click a button to turn their private feedback into a public review. It’d be fast easy and totaly optional.

Another thing I’m wondering about is since some authors don’t care about votes will they be able to turn them off or make them private if they wish? It would give you less computer stuff to worry about if they could.
#31 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

I don’t understand why you’re going for an expanded scoring system, when it is still open to abuse as the old system? If you don’t take steps to eliminate the core problems, you can implement any number of scoring systems with basically the same kind of result: garbage in equals garbage out!
What’s more you’ve been complaining about too many resources being needed to to implement some of the scoring systems, and yet you’re willing to commit resources to an expanded voting system that’s going to offer relatively few gains or improvements.

I’ve been going over the posts from the past week or so in the related threads, and I’ve seen some good suggestions… I even offered a very detailed explanation of how premium members or authors could vote by using their personal lists of authors and stories they follow whcih may require less resources to implement. More important, however, it’s the authors who complain about the inadequacies and various other problems of the voting/scoring system, and such a system would give them the power and the tools to deal with it!

If you want to, then implement the old or new scoring systems together for readers in whaever way you want, but at least provide something that is less biased and more fair to authors such as letting them vote for stories and authors they have in their “personal library” listings. It should be less work and less resource hungry to poll the results of such lists, and come up with a score for stories. You only need to populate a databse once, and add to it when an author made modifications to his voting. You don’t need to collect or track each story, but get the votes from the authors themselves based on their personal lists. And if the authors don’t join in such an effort, then they have no reason to complain, because they were at least given an useful tool which they declined to use. Yeah,s ure it does require some work from the authors bt they can do it over time.
And when the results of author-votes are displayed side by side with the reader-votes, I think such a system will prove its usefulness and effectiveness. Call it an elitist system, but it’s much less prone to abuse. What’s more, instead of a reader checking out recommendations from several authors by going through a lengthy click-by-click visit of their recommendations in search of something he may enjoy reading, collecting votes from authors in such a manner has the added effect of delivering the readers a compiled list of recommended stories, and the authors’ votes on the stories!

anon_123
#32 | Written by jakejake on 2006/12/15.

Thanks for trying this

Here is how I work.

If I like a story, I read another from the author.
If I like the second story I add the author to my “Author List” and I read everything the author has written and every new story they write.
If I do not like an author’s stories twice I remove the author from my “Author List”.

I always vote.

I sometimes email the author.

If I would like anything changed, I would like to be able to vote per chapter and have it be averaged for the entire story.

Cookies would work for me.

Thanks for all of your effort.

JakeJake
#33 | Written by Morgan on 2006/12/15.

I think that quality should have more weight than you’re giving it. While you’re correct that a good editor can fix things like that (and it’s an editor, not a proofreader; a proofreader merely ensures that the typed copy matches the original), I find that a poorly-written story is irritating.
Just my thought.
#34 | Written by just-this-guy on 2006/12/15.

I agree with previous comments that “Appeal” is too vague a term.
I can like a well-written story that generally doesn’t appeal to me. Sometimes I’ll read a story because of a high score or an excellent review that I normally would skip. I’d just as well drop this category because I think it is too close to the non-expanded vote.

For “Plot”, I’d drop any reference to thoroughness. I’m not a flash-story writer, but I think those who write those stories or very short stories may get punished. Only those who write novellas have a “thorough” plot (though not always). Short stories by nature are not thorough Also some readers don’t want to take the time to read the longer stories
#35 | Written by .B on 2006/12/15.

I’ve never seen so much nonsense in my life.

You had a system that was working and which was understandable, but which had scores that were very high.
Now you have a mishmash that makes little or no sense to anyone I’ve asked. At the present time any author’s ‘Q’ score is dependent on what score OTHERS got that week.

Time and again you’ve told us that your readers often don’t speak English and want things simple. Then why complicate things? If you don’t want people to vote 10s, simply remove the score of 10 from the ballot. If a person votes a 10 register it as a 9. That would do the same thing that you’re doing now, and it would make just as much sense.

On top of that, any writer with a lower download factor will have to write smaller chapters, but post them more often to appear on any of your listings during the week. And like Gina Marie, I keep track of downloads – it’s a fact, every listing a writer appears on increases his/her downloads.

Just call me Confused
.B
#36 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

It seems that, given people’s affinity for Top 20 lists, this expanded voting form could be used to generate a “Best Written Stories” list, using the Plot and Technical scores only. As has been mentioned repeatedly, ‘Appeal’ is so subjective and individual – and prone to the same cheerleader/troll problems – that it is practically useless.

To the anonymous who suggested making Appeal more important… for those people who like meaningless scores, there will still be the ‘basic’ voting form. The idea here seems designed to produce meaningful scores, and since it’s supposedly optional, only people who care about such things are likely to use the expanded voting.

Personally, I still believe the best way to fix the score creep is a) redefine scores such that Excellent is not enough for a 10, and b) limit the number of 10s that any reader can grant.
#37 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

Jack Spratt1

This new purposed setup assumes a lot of our readers. Let’s face it the majority of the readers are not “rocket scientists” but are people who enjoy our submissions for a variety of reasons.

The true rating is downloads, for established writers it is a given. With each new posting their download numbers hit 2000; this reader loyalty takes time and work to build such a relationship. As a rule you will find their score numbers are high, that comes with a dedicated following.

Each author appeals to a certain segment of interests. It is something to build on.

To improve your image to the reader take advantage of the tools offered, the first is a competent proof reader and if need be an editor, a good spell checker and a good dictionary.

There are a number of good articles available with ideas how to develop your stories. Glean from them suggestions to improve. My feeble efforts have been proofed as many as four times and still some errors get through and are thoughtfully pointed out by a number of emails from readers.
#38 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

[ Anonymous said...

It seems that, given people's affinity for Top 20 lists, this expanded voting form could be used to generate a "Best Written Stories" list, using the Plot and Technical scores only. As has been mentioned repeatedly, 'Appeal' is so subjective and individual - and prone to the same cheerleader/troll problems - that it is practically useless.......]

Well, reading the above and the comments from .B and Gina and several others, it seems that there’s a lot of question marks about voting system. I think consideration should be given to making a new voting system (with a two or three subcategories such as technique, plot, appeal or something like what the reviewers use in the review page) available “only” to the authors… We’re hearing from authors complaining about the quality of the voting, how it is open to abuse, and so on, and I can’t see anything that address most of these issues in any of the proposed change to a new voting system. Sure a new wording of the voting screen may help alleviate a bit the scores, but in the long run it does have the same problems, because it is the cheerleaders and trolls who mess up the old system. The wording change may help guide the more reasonable folk to vote in a better manner, but how much real improvement are we talking about? I suspect Lazeez might be better off just keeping the old system in place and keep applying a mathematical model to pull the average all the time!
What is needed is a radical change in voting system, and that means addressing the core issues. And the core issue is trying to avoid trolls and cheerleaders. Some of you may call a proposal to give authors the voting power for a more enhanced voting system as an elitist approach, but I think over time, we’ll see whether authors are being biased, or less biased compared to the cheerleaders and trolls and some others who impact the system in a biased manner (without aiming to be).

What I don’t understand why not one of the authors (especially among the complainers) have made a comment about the suggestion of should only the authors vote with an enhanced system and similar stuff proposed in the last few messages… Maybe they aren’t interested in solutions, and want to complain… if so, then why change the system at all?
#39 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

Reader here-

When all is said and done, will I, as a reader, see better quality writing and more timely submissions or will it be just more of the same from those writers I already score lower for technical quality, loose plot or weak characters? My heroes are the authors who just keep plugging along with story after story, or chapter after chapter of quality work that drags me into the story and makes me glad I’m there.
Regardless of how this scoring venture ends, they will continue to score high.
justaguy!
#40 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

Why score at all–I read the stories to enjoy them. I might comment on a story, but scoring turns me off
#41 | Written by Argon-3 on 2006/12/15.

My 2 cents:
I think this is getting too confusing for everyone. While I believe that scoring has gotten out of hand, splitting the score won’t help one bit. The fanboys/-girls will still give their favourite author maximum scores, regardless of how you word it.
The scewed scores also have to do with the simple fact that good stories are more likely to get scored. With a badly written piece, I’m mostly too lazy or too annoyed to read to the end and vote, and skipping to the end to give a bad score seems unfair.
I also think that ten grades are too much, five would be fine.
5-would pay for reading it
4-enjoyable reading, please more
3-readable, a solid effort
2-disappointing
1-hated it

A vote of five requires a feedback email. Votes of 5 or 1 are only allowed for premium members (paying or contributing), that should keep the votes from fake accounts at a minimum.

I would also suggest a minimum length for individual chapters of a serial, say 2,000 words, to discourage the practice of fishing for download numbers by posting one-page chapters. If it’s less than 2,000 words, lump it in with the next chapter!

And please, enlarge the All Time Classics lists to 100! 20 out of the thousands posted exposes only the most popular, not necessarily the best.
#42 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

In response to the previous anonymous (reader):

Perhaps, with the expanded voting, those authors whose stories are interesting – but poorly written – will finally realize that editors aren’t optional, and start working on improving their technique. The problem’s with the scores (to me) is that unreadable stories – because of technical flaws – are capable of scoring so well just because the author was creative enough in storyline and/or turned out something which semi-literate fans thought was really stroke-worthy.

Some authors may use the more detailed feedback to improve their craft, some will continue whining that not everyone gives them straight 10s, and some will ignore the scores as they currently seem to do. But, if it causes even one author to take a look at the flaws of his stories and fix them, then this change has accomplished something. Hopefully, it’ll work on more than one, though…
#43 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

Old Fart here -

Argon – maybe Lazeez can come up with a way to change the actual download numbers to what they should be. Then I can continue to write short chapters when only 1600 words are required to say what I want to say.

OF
#44 | Written by just-this-guy on 2006/12/15.

Perhaps go ahead and keep Plot and Appeal after all. Two other categories will be Techinical Quality and Stroke Ratio which will line this up with the four categories in Reviews. So in some sense, every vote is a “mini-review” of these four elements.

Readers around the site long enough are quick enough to know that every high-rated story is not necessarily something they would like and low-rated stories are not necessarily something that stinks.

Everyone has different interests.

(Anonymous 12:13PM is correct. Authors, such as myself, should work for the solution and not just complain. Apologies for any explicit or implicit complaints)
#45 | Written by Argon-3 on 2006/12/15.

Old Fart,
why not post longer chapters with slightly longer intervals? You’re not on some schedule, are you?
2,000 words is just 4-5 pages letter, at 12 point font, single space. Anything less, at least in my view, is not a chapter but a text fragment. But, of course, that’s my view and others may feel differently. Or perhaps we can haggle it down to 1,500 ?
#46 | Written by WillyB on 2006/12/15.

I think that the Spelling and Grammar score should be raised at least by 10. Just because it is so easily fixed. If an author can’t be bothered to check them, or at least get an editor to do it for him, then it should count more against the score. Some thin plot stories are still enjoyable if the reading is smooth and flows. Nothing jars more than a misspelled or misplaced word. Dropped words and extra words are a bane also.

I would take the 10 points from the plot score, make it:

Quality 40%
Plot 40%
Appeal 30%

The descriptions under the choices are fine with me. Clear and concise
#47 | Written by WillyB on 2006/12/15.

That should be:
Quality 30%
Plot 40%
Appeal 30%

Damn keyboard
#48 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

I support the rating system as you described it.

It is very helpful to be able to rely on a rating system. Just randomly reading stories wastes a lot of time.

Of course, once you find a author that you like and whose work you enjoy you can always try their work regardless of rating.

Thanks for continuing the effort to find a workable rating system.

Bigguy323
#49 | Written by Anonymous on 2006/12/15.

A far more reasonable breakdown would be:

Technical (Quality) – 40%

Plot/Characterisation – 45%

Appeal – 15%

Let’s face it, Appeal is vague and practically meaningless, but leaving it in should help raise scores a little, so the whiners will at least get something…
#50 | Written by Little Blue on 2006/12/15.

As I said before, you should add a 4th vote for Overall Rating with a description of ‘Overall, how do you rate this story’ and use that as the vote that is displayed. It would be the equivalent of the single vote that we use today, and the ones that the readers that opt not to do the multiple votes use (You originally said that the multiple vote would be controlled by an option on the user’s profile). It will also allow the reader to express their opinion if there is something else about the story that they did or did not like that was not related to the three categories, or they considered that the weighting system that you are proposing is not what they would like.

I agree with Autumn Writer that Plot should be ‘Creative and interesting development of storyline and characters’ but disagree that Appeal be changed to
‘how the sexual content appeals to your personal taste’ since the personal appeal of the story does not necessarily have to do with sexual content. After all, there are some stories on SOM that do not have sexual content and, at least to me, are very appealing (Volentrin’s P I and Magic comes to mind).

I also agree with the Anonymous that said that Quality should be ‘Technical proficiency in writing – ie. grammar, word choice, structure, and spelling’ and Appeal should be ‘The personal enjoyment derived from reading the story’.

I assume that since only the overall score (either the one I proposed or your weighted score) is the only one displayed, that the individual scores would be available on the info page for the story.

By the way, I am sending you a new feature request that the info link be added to the places that currently do not have it, like the lists displayed for New Stories, Updates, or Authors.

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