Voting and Comments

Too much to care about. I vote according to believability, or how close to reality it is, of course according to me. I don't even pay attention to spelling, unless it's overwhelmingly bad. If a story teller can get the thought across, and have me associate with it, he has succeeded.

In my past my late wife and I tried cuckolding, but it didn't work, as intended, so we dropped it. You have to remember that it was in the 70's, and we both knew the guy. Not everyone has had the experience you had, you have to understand that before you start a story.

I enjoyed this - it is good to see how another thinks.

Like you, I largely only vote 5s. If the story is well written enough to keep my attention to the end then it deserves a good score. If I don't like the story much, I simply stop reading. I'm not a fan of spelling/grammar mistakes, but they don't usually make or break a story for me.

I also never make my comments anonymous. (In any case, giving my user name still leaves the real me ultimately anonymous!). However, I am grateful for comments even if they are anonymous.

I think the worst comment I received was and I quote, "Fuck you! You suck at writing." I reply I deleted and removed the option to be a anon poster. I have gotten a few good ones, some hate mail and many indifferent ones. One the things I do when reading a comment left is that I look at the poster. Have they tried writing and posting a story? If not then what right do you have to tear my work down. While I don't mind someone pointing out my errors, I want you do do so in a nice way. If not I ignore it

When posting a comment, which I don't always do. I point out what worked and then what I had an issue with. I can deal with spelling errors or run on sentences more than I can a plot hole so big you could throw a dog through.

Finally I had one comment of a story tell me to get an editor. Well I have one and he like me is working for free, It is this point that people who love to sh*t all over our work refuse to understand..

Voting is supposed to show people how many enjoyed reading it, but if you only vote with 5 stars you are undermining that system, and artificially propping up some stories that don't deserve it.

People should be warned off bad stories so they don't waste their time, giving one star (if you are honest and not just malicious) is just as useful as giving 5 stars, and for many people spelling and grammar significantly influences whether they can enjoy a story, it is not something to be disregarded just because you have now learned that proofreading isn't easy.

Just because you are an author yourself, doesn't mean you should be doing other readers such a disservice.

All the whining about anon comments.

I get them; I sometimes leave them. I don't give a flying crap that I get anon comments. Its all funny. I don't care. What am I going to do anyway, get in a private fight with them? They want to be anon, let them. Its a choice on this site.

The reason writers get so pissed at anon is because they have doubts about their own work. Lack of self-confidence. They secretly wonder if anon is right, but it's easier to get all pissed at anon than to admit their own insecurity.

I usually vote based on immersion. If i become fully immersed into the story it I give it a 5, on the other hand if I'm reading a story doesn't give me the immersion i'm looking for I usually just click away and look for another.

I've usually found the below from xkcd to work if i have stopped reading as i usually only look at the ratings after I've stopped/finished a story.

http://xkcd.com/1098/

I just gotta say "anonymous! Grow some balls!" its the easiest thing in the world to criticize but why do it anonymously? Even terrorists - the lowest form of life after politicians - have the guts to claim credit for their work. Okay, rant over :))

I'm with you to an extent; I usually score all stories as 5, regardless of how good or bad the story I know from experience how much work and effort has gone into it. If a story is so bad I just don't score it, I let my comments do the scoring.

I just realized as well that apart from my own stories I have never looked at any scores, so is there really a point to it? And I only read comments after I've read the story. I think I'm intelligent enough to make my own decisions.

I think all reasonably intelligent people already know how to comment on something, which brings me back to my original point; why do people have a need to abuse others?

I have a theory that anonymous is basically repressed; he (or she) will read a story and probably enjoy it, but! They will feel guilt and just a little dirty, like a puritan looking at nudity, and the only way to clense themselves is to tell everyone how bad it all is.

Come on people, we all know; anonymous is a coward because he believes everyone is as spineless as he is.

Okay, I know I've drifted a long way from the topic but man, do I feel better :)))

In addition to looking at the score your story receives, look at the number of hits and the number of voters. Some of mine with high scores have a low number of voters, (that is to be expected). One of mine I particularly liked and had a good score had only two comments. Some have a high number of hits and a low score, OK readers did not like it. Of course the number of hits depends on your title, description and tags. I feel there is more to be considered than the score when you look for yourself at how a story has been received.

49greg, I am impressed by your essay and even more impressed by the quality of comments you have received. This effort you began, is becoming a writer's handbook. I discovered Literotica almost two years ago and started submitting my own stories about four months ago.

I seem to garner a wide-range of opinions, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Since some of my stories are experiments in writing and writing style, a number of readers are confused by my products. But that is also true of the Site Admin staff, it always takes three or four submits before they will accept my entry. They have difficulty with comprehending that the mechanics of a story are not the story itself. Anymore then the paint and chrome are the automobile.

In my opinion Academic English is the worst method of communication since Neo-Confuscianism. Noah Webster was a pre-mature fascist and Thomas Dewey a proto-nazi. Try reading a letter or other original manuscript, from George Washington or Isaac Newton or any of their contemporaries. None could spell the same word twice on the same page. So fucking what! Comprehend and then get over it!



As for trivial errors, I would hope we are smart enough to figure out what the author meant, are we not? More then most readers realize, many so-called mistakes are actually the result of the technology we use.


Spellcheck functions are homophone-phobic. 

Auto-correct functions that replace the author's original prose with the wrong word in the correct context can be accidentally hilarious.

 That this cacophony of machinery and web systems are able to deliver any kind of a coherent message to the end user, qualifies as a supra-natural miracle.



I absolutely adore puns and malapropisms. Those damn sadistic bastard authors, forcing the pitiful readers to have think. What a horrible activity to force upon the readers enfeebled intellects. Just enjoy the damn stories, already!



Now as for commentary. I'm an old bar-fighter. To tell the truth, as a sentimental slob, I kinda miss those bad old days. So to make up for it I mix it up with the trolls and find satisfaction in a down and dirty flame-war. It does define me as an obnoxious asshole of an old man.

Keep on truckin', Baby!

Loving wives is basically a cesspool when it comes to comments and votes, and I'd recommend anyone wanting to write stories that are even remotely removed from the now standard 'My wife left me but it's okay because she was a dumb bitch and I'm so much better off now than I was before, also she died and everyone was happier' formula just be ready for a flood of barely literate hate. It's sad but true.

As for how I vote, I tend not to do one star reviews unless a story is just so full of errors that it becomes unreadable. I start at three stars for stories that are flawed but that I still found something to enjoy in, four stars for good stories and five stars for ones that I really love. I don't generally vote if I didn't enjoy a story honestly, and especially if I didn't finish it.