Veering off topic a little aren't we?
Retaliatory revenge low-scoring is pretty pathetic in my opinion. People should just be honest in giving a story what they feel it deserves. That's what the scoring system is there for.
I don't give everything I read a five, but I do always leave a comment. Constructive criticism is the only way you're going to identify how you can improve.
Personally, I feel the scoring on here is a bit false.
I only ever see 3, 4 and 5 generally. It's as if people don't want to suggest that a piece is not good, which is daft otherwise how can the best works stand out?
Frankly, getting a 1 means someone (probably) read the whole thing and reacted to it, good or bad. That in itself is better than someone simply moving on without scoring.
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I was so sensitive to writing and I was well what was wrong with my story? But you get other opinions. Good luck.
Side note.
Low scores can also result from clumsy sausage fingers on smart phones and tablets.
Unless someone claims responsibility for 1 bombing you, don't automatically assume you were 1 bombed.
Unless I'm missing something most of us are amateur writers. We write for fun and personal satisfaction. Some of the writers here are skilled and experienced. Others are fledgling writers nervously daring to submit a story for the first time.
Why do we even have a scoring system? Who does it help? Is writing a competitive endeavor? It shouldn't be. I write stories to create interesting characters and put form to my personal fantasies and desires.
I can't imagine a situation in which I would give a writer a score that was less than five. Why would I? Should I discourage a fledgling writer? Should I criticize an experienced writer because I don't find his or her personal fantasy appealing?
I suppose you could make a case for giving a story a low score for sloppiness, but if you're a writer you know how easy it is to gloss over an error while you're proof reading. Misuse of we're and were or Their, there and they're can slip by so easily. Professional writers have the benefit of editors. We don't.
As far as I'm concerned the scoring system is bereft of merit. If I can't give a story a five I won't score it at all. If you encounter a story that doesn't appeal to you or is poorly written you have a ready response. Stop reading it and find a story you prefer. This site is filled with a myriad of fun stories.
As to giving a story a low score as retribution for a perceived slight, that doesn't even merit a response.
Maybe its just me, but I'd rather see low scores than no scores. Obviously in your case the score was not based on your content but on the hurt pride of the person scoring. I'd like to see more common/more accurate scoring. I think we all keep writing so that we can get better, if no one ever tells us what they don't like about a story, how do we know what we need to work on? I've got stories with thousands of reads but ten or so scores. I don't know what to do with that. Do people not score them because they don't like them or do they just get lazy by the end of the story? I've seen some stories that have criticisms/advice in the comments, all given constructively of course. That's awesome. Maybe not in the comments but if there's something in my story that's distracting or just plain bad, I'd love for some one to let me know about it. I know we're just writing smut around here, but I'd like to think we could be writing great smut. I'd say keep scoring people honestly, maybe it gets some backlash, but for everybody whose feelings you hurt I'm sure there's more out there who are appreciative of the advice.
When someone wants their poetry critiqued, I get serious with the numbers.
It has nothing to do with liking or not liking or if the content is a personal turn on/off to me.
5: Can't really be written any better and it reads effortlessly as is
4: Not quite there - just needs a little TLC - perhaps has a few minor distractions that can easily be remedied
3: You managed to effectively communicate a story to the audience
2: Needs medical attention above and beyond fixing mere typos
1: You just wasted 5 minutes of my life that could have been spent reading and critiquing a serious attempt at poetry
Add +1
- if it was poetic ( merely rhyming does not qualify )
- if it was lyrical to the point that the reader sings it ( again, merely rhyming does not qualify )
- for originality ( and when it comes to erotic poetry, originality is a definite plus )
- for doing the seemingly impossible ( like making the high school lunch lady sexy )
- for giving the reader something unexpected ( think Hitchcock )
- for a valiant effort at giving the reader his money's worth of entertainment
As in so many of life's pursuits, what you don't say resounds more loudly than what you do choose to verbalize. Where personalities are allowed to trump honest criticism a system of selecting quality is useless. This, as I only learned through trial and error, is the way Lush works. Get over it, you aren't on a site dedicated to improving authors, you're on a social networking site that utilizes erotic vignettes as a draw.
When I first joined Lush in 2010 I didn't see the type of behavior I'm seeing today. That is, when people gave a 3 or less they would typically explain why, whereas now I'm seeing a worrying trend of some author's deliberately knocking down other author's scores so that their own stories remain the highest scoring and the most popular. I keep a tight track on how my stories are fairing, so most of the time I know who gave what score. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what is going on. But, it's no longer just revenge scoring or the deliberate knocking down of other author's scores these days. It seems that some author's are going as far as to create fake accounts in order to manipulate the scores, knocking down others and giving themselves 5's.
I am hoping Lush has already or can implement some sort of tracking system to prevent this in future, because frankly when a few rogue tricksters resort to this sort of behavior, it demotivates me from bothering to write any more.
Having said that, I still believe that Lush is a very high-quality site and that the majority of people are honest.
GW.