I would like to see opinions on scoring and comments.
Do you think they are equitable?
I admit I have read stories written by some of my friends and not scored them because everyone else gave it a 5, and I didn't think it deserved it, but it was a friend, so I chickened out.
You know that your friends are going to go easy on you when scoring. Do you take that into account?
Should comments on stories be anonymous? Even your friends would tend to be more honest with their opinions.
I think I've written stories that received a straight 5 score, and after rereading them, didn't think it deserved it.
Do you want honest criticism on your stories? I do....I think.
I am not an author, well at least one who has submitted any stories but if I ever do submit one I would want all comments and scores to be honest opinions. I only give honest opinions of what I feel when I score a story. But I will admit that I will never give a story a 1 or a 2. If that is what I think it deserves I just dont score it. But they have been few and far between. Maybe that is wrong. Many times I dont score or comment even though I think it was great because I get so worked up after reading it Im "kinda busy" LOL!! And then I forget to go back and comment.
I do not believe that comments should be anonymous. If you feel that you do not want to make negative comments publicly, you have the option to give constructive criticism in a PM. As for scoring, allowing it to be anonymous opens the door for those who bear ill will, jealousy or other negative feelings that have nothing to do with your work to lower your score. Although it would be nice to ignore this and take it from whence it comes - perhaps from a spurned lover or a rival for someone's affection (who knows?) - it is really a petty thing to do. There are a number of us who have been subject to this kind of sneaky ill will.
I have recently chosen to connect the ability to score the stories that I write with Alphamagus to commenting (an option in settings), so that you must leave tracks. If you have something to say, you may and then score. If you want to comment privately, I welcome that, too.
Go ahead and vote on my stories, BUT if you're gonna vote it any less than a 5 then tell me, either in the comment field or send me a PM, why you didn't give me a 5. I do as best as I can and there is very little improvement that can be done without the proper feedback. If I don't know what's wrong, how will I fix it? Sure, by reading other stories I can pick up phrasing or maybe minor techniques that will improve mine, I won't improve. So gimme feedback! Praise is nice, but constructive criticism is just as good.
Sure, all comments and scores should be honest; if one can't be honest, that person should refrain from acting. That said, what thrills and moves one reader may completely turn off some other readers. The same "honesty" rule should apply to profiles and to chats. Anonymous scores should continue being banned; at present, a member can vote only once on a posted story or poem.
I have refrained from leaving negative comments for all interested persons to read and instead, contacted the author privately and expressed my thoughts, feelings and suggestions. In a few instances, the author and I have become fast friends through that dialogue and on later stories I have voted and left positive comments. Honesty is the basis of true friendship.
Gramps
The quiet and always horny old guy in Sunny Florida USA
I like feedback on my stories good or bad without comments you would never know how to improve your story's. Read them like them or hate them everyone has there own opinion on how they see things. O.K so people can mail you there comments which is fine also it makes no odds to me, I write
because I enjoy it.
Watching your scores can be addictive. We all work extremely hard on our stories and we all want to see that the readers enjoy our efforts. What always troubled me was that even a vote of 4 had a very noticable and negative affect on the total score, probably more so than the voter anticipated. With nine 5's, a single 4 would drop your total from 5 to 4.8. That is significant and would drop your name from the top average author list and drop your story way down in the readers list for its genre. This, in turn could have a negative impact on the number of reads one gets.
After finally excepting that I was putting undue importance on this, I've disable scoring altogether and now I can relax without worrying about. The next 4 bomb. I am happy to say more people comment now as they can't just express themselves with a number. Is it affecting my reads? I don't know yet, but if people enjoy my work, they can always look at my forum sig for a link, or visit my profile page.
The only way now that I would re enable scoring is if I join another competition.
My last 4 scores for my story have been 3's... over a period of two weeks..Needless to say there were no comments or pm's send..Given the other comments and other scores I think it is a bit too coincidental... But he what do I know...
I have to say when I get an email someone has commented it feels like X-mas morning! The fact that someone took the time to leave a comment always excites me!
I agree with what Milik is saying... Something to consider...
I am the worst score giver ever, I give 5 to everyone, lame I know, but as Milik said, Lush writers are working hard on their stories. Seriously who am I to judge and give you less than my support, beside I really don't read just anything if new writer to me, doesn't show certain standard in first paragraph, I don't continue reading. But when I leave comment, I try to give personal contribute to the writer, so it can bee seen that I cared about his/hers work.
You could say that I have my own scoring system. Ignoring - not finishing the story; A 5 score for going through the story and A 5 plus comment. How good comment is, depends, how much I am inspired by the story.
Weighing all the pros and cons, the scoring system, with all the options we have, is probably the best that humans can devise. The only thing I could add to this would be to place a daily scoring limit per lushie. I've had several lower scores/comments and looking at the person who scored my story, I discovered they had been a member for only one day and had over made over 300 comments/scores. That seems to me to be very unrealistic. While I couldn't see the scores this person gave, the majority of the comments were negative.
This one example was the worst I've seen, but have run into several others like this (100-200 comments on the first day they joined.) I've followed them, out of curiosity, and all three either haven't been back or they rarely have been back and haven't repeated.
I pay more attention to the comments than the scores. While it's nice to be on the 'leader board', my cynical side believes that there are instances where low scores are given not so much because the 'scorer' believes that's what the effort deserves, but to intentionally drive the average score on a piece down (to allow others to rise to the top?) or because they personally disagree with the lifestyle the category suggests. 3 ways to fix that -
1. No anonymous scoring (if an author clicks on the bar graph, it could link to a page where the voters of each 'score' is listed (these people gave this story/poem a five, these people gave this story/poem a 4, etc.) When people realize they are accountable for the score they give, they will be discouraged from voting based on anything besides the quality of the story itself. (my best choice for fix)
2. allow anyone to comment (under their name, as they do now) but only give scoring privilege to truly unbiased, select members based on spelling, grammar, readability and the appeal of the plot or story line.
3. Increase the 'range' of the scoring system, insist on the rationale for any scores other than a 5 be listed, or have a multi-tier scoring system 'spelling/grammar' 1-5 (or 1-10?), 'plot/story' 1-5 (or 1-10?), readability ...
Without some kind of accountability for voting, it becomes a popularity contest, and the votes become meaningless. Why do you think so many crappy singers end up winning shows like American Idol, the X-Factor, etc.? NO VOTER ACCOUNTABILITY!
I realize the best bet is to simply disable scoring on my stories if this really bothers me (like several of my friends have done), but overall, the scoring doesn't hold all that much significance to anyone other than those seeking validation of their efforts. I'm assuming that anonymous votes don't decide the winners in competitions? That competitions are judged by an 'editorial board'?
When I start reading a story, it automatically starts as a five...
I'll let a few typos and stuff like that go (god knows my stories usually have a few, so I'd say I vote leniently)
I'll gradually decrease the score if the story loses my interest, is repetitive, if there are a lot of spelling, punctuation, tense shifts or grammar mistakes... If the story is very clever or original and keeps me rapt, I'll be yet more lenient...
I rarely score less than a four, but I do like to leave comments, although, i like to comment through choice, I'm not a fan of the forced vote/comment thing. If I had any sort of criticism, I'd be more inclined to pm the writer, rather than 'spoil' the comments section...
As far as votes on my own work go, if I get fours and fives I'm happy. If I get less than that, then like some if the people have said above, I want to know what I could do to improve it, what the problem was...
People always have different ways of scoring and as writers we just have to accept that, it's just the way it works. I feel happy enough with my own work to be able to shrug off the occasional stray low vote... I'm not saying I like it, it's just the way it is...
As has been said in other threads, I don't think the voting system could be improved much really, unless perhaps there was a possibility of a small rating system, like you get on amazon and eBay, where you rate the service, delivery, communication etc out of 5. So you could have grammar, spelling, punctuation, flow of story etc... Tbh, I don't know that people would actually do it, but it would certainly add depth to the scores...
(Someone remind me and I'll post it in depth on the relevant thread...)
I'll be honest, I almost never give less than a 5 and never less that a 4. If its that bad, I just won't finish it. As a verifier, if I find one that really has issues, I send a short (500 character max) pm attached to let them know what the issues are. I believe a private letter of critique is far more effective than a 3 bomb.
That's just me.
