Finished voting on the Letter Challenge

I couldn't agree more. I very rarely read a story which 'turns me on', but I find many which make me laugh, or cry, or think about things in a new way, or admire the skill of the writer.

Don't be disheartened, cs... there are still many readers of the challenge stories who do read and score (and even comment) on ALL of the entries, no matter what the orientation. Personally, I feel it wouldn't be fair to vote on only some of the entries, so if I know I won't have time to read ALL of them, then I won't vote on any of them. Happy to report I finished and voted on the final few today!

For me it's more the other way. Normally I avoid stories with explicit sexual content, unless I am familiar with the writing style of some specific authors and know, that it is okay for me to read them (f.e. some stories of Janine). In the challenges I have no idea what content is expecting me and if a story makes me feel uncomfortable, I just don't know how to vote on it. Btw. humour only works in a story, if it's in your tolerance zone and if it's not you don't find it humorous, despite everybody else is loughing heartily.

Just a few days ago I compared the many different versions of "My Bonnie" in this library. If the version from Phil_K, Nancy Wing and js_anon would be in a challenge, I would have no difficulties to give a positive vote for the versions of Phil_K and nibra. The version of js_anon is probably even better made (I don't know) and many readers will prefer it , but it's just not my taste and more a "turning-down-factor". What I would do in this case is leaving out a vote on the third version. I know, that this is not a fair solution, but would it be fairer to give only 1 or 2 points to a probably excellent verse or to give no vote at all, setting all 3 on zero, even if I like the other two very much? But anyway, if most authors prefer that votings should be done for all or none as I interprete the tendency in this thread, I just leave the votings. Safes some work after all.

As I am not participating this time, my opinion carries absolutely no weight in this matter! Still, I want to modify my previous statement slightly. What seems strange to me is to judge a story according to strictly personal preferences — although I personally prefer M/F and F/F, I see no reason why M/M and F/M stories shouldn't be equally good, and I would be happy to give top score to an M/M story if I thought it the best on literary grounds. On the other hand, I do deduct points for other reasons that may seem equally "nonliterary"; I do, e.g,. dislike stories that are overly brutal for no reasonable reason. My defense is that to be overly brutal in a story that isn't humorous in it's exaggeration or wants to tell us something about brutality, is a literary fault — it's against reason and against the logic of the genre. But I admit that this is a rather weak argument.

It's a free library! Everyone will do as they please!

But CS, there are many of us - probably mainly authors who feel a bit sensitive about the competitive element of the Challenge, and want fairness - who do as Janine and others have said, namely, read and vote on all the stories and do so without orientation (or turn-on factor) being a criterion in our judgement. So, please do not be downcast - you KNOW, by the comments you receive weekly, how appreciated you are.

The contest inevitably involves some luck in terms of how many voting readers get to one's story, and we know that Daddy's Naughty Knicker-Girl's Buns Bounce Red will be more appealing than EU Agriculture Tariff Increase Tale . It's possible, too, that F/M readers aren't generally as ready to vote as M/F or F/F readers are (they're too sore, maybe! Having too much fun!) - who knows?

Alef expressed my own approach perfectly - after 21 months immersed in spanking stories, I'm almost immune now to their titillation-potential, and, in a contest, I look for what's well-crafted and original, whoever's bottom might be turning a redder shade of pale.

I've read them all now, and I cast 326 votes (an average of 5.8 a story). Of the 19,000 votes now cast, my guess is that about 45 of us voted on everything at a roughly similar rate, and the remaining 25% approx. of votes came from 'occasionals' of varying degrees, some voting on more than half, others on just a handful. Half the fun is in poring over the stats!

The last time I checked was about a couple of days ago when the number of people had voted as follows:

number of items voted on : number of voters

56: 24 (now 29)
55: 3
54: 1
53: 1
51: 2
49: 1
47: 2
44: 1
43: 1
42: 1
41: 1
39: 1
36: 3
34: 2
32: 2
30: 1
27: 1
24: 1
22: 4
21: 1
19: 1
18: 1
17: 1
16: 1
14: 3
12: 1
11: 1
10: 5
9: 4
8: 8
7: 6
6: 4
5: 6
4: 17
3: 17
2: 18
1: 29

So 114 voters voted on 10 stories or less. If they read them all, that at least reflects a judgment that the other stories should get zero. But somehow I don't think that's what happened. Those numbers are large enough to make a difference, so if you were chosen by the 114 to get a vote, I guess you have to consider yourself lucky.

I notice from the sudden drop in the total votes cast on the current challenge that one or more persons must have chosen to remove all the votes they had cast, presumably following all the endless debating about how people should vote and personally i think that''s a real shame. I also think the continued 'naval gazing' in regards to the minutiae of the voting process is removing a lot of the enjoyment from the challenges and one has to wonder if they are becoming simply more bother than they are worth.

Well, thank you kind Mati. That was very kind of you, mati.

I think it's fair the way it is. If they're going by the 1 - 10 vote after a read, I don't see what has to be fixed at all. Dividing this and dividing that is only screwing up the process. It's a simple addition method. There's no need for any other calculation. If that's how it's working that is. I agree with Pinky. If it's not broken let's not fix it.

I read and voted on every single one of them. My votes didn't matter about orientation. My votes were cast on the authors writing a story at all, the quality of the writing, how it made me feel. As an author I've been discouraged many a times by publishers, lit agents, and editors. I still write. I still love it.

B