About the story challenge

The snag with that is that some readers return several times to the same story, or press the wrong button! If the 'batting average' method were to work, it might be better (if it's possible) to divide the number of votes by the number of different readers who read that story ... and have that 'threshold' minimum number of readers to ward against Februs' scenario of unbalanced scores... but, boy, it gets complicated doesn't it?

It'll be interesting to see if having the Random list as default made a difference to the trend we saw in previous contests for the stories near the top (submitted earliest) to get the most reads ...

Almost no matter what you do, if someone wants to 'game' the system, and understands the method of calculation, it can be done. You can make it harder, and lessen the advantage, but you can't eliminate it. Further, there always will be circumstances creating unintentional biases - someone who tends to rate high (or low) only getting through part of the list; readers whose rating standards tend to rise (or fall) as they go through the list, etc.

The bottom line is that when the writers enjoy writing, the readers enjoy reading, and some good stories/authors get recognition, the contest is a success. Right? Oh, and if I should happen to win, that makes it even better.

Absolutely! (except for the last bit. Really! Why is everyone so much more competitive than I am?)

And, as an adherent and acolyte of the cane, for me the bottom line is what it leaves.

I think, amidst all the debate about the finer points of voting, it's worth reiterating that the purpose of the story challenges is simply to encourage creativity in the form of new spanking stories being written and to try and encourage the readers into participating in some way even if it's only in making a personal judgement and casting a vote and primarily just for us all to have a bit of fun. I think the voting system as it stands is fine and certainly much better than the way we'd done it previously and I've yet to be convinced that making it more complicated offers any real improvement or achieves anything worthwhile. There are factors which will have far greater impact on determining the winning story than tweaking the voting system,. For example, authors writing F/m stories are always going to be at a disadvantage to those writing M/F simply because there are more people who prefer to read M/F than F/m and so forth ....

Despite my earlier suggestion, I have to agree with Februs. Making the vote-counting procedure more complicated has the result of... making the vote-counting procedure more complicated. Keep the fun! Keep the creativity! Keep the spanking! And keep the simplicity!