Stats ...

No, it is possible to do that. I did it myself by accident a day or two ago. I meant to send a popup and hit the wrong button. But I don't think there are many authors who use the "comments" feature to dialog with readers. For one thing, it's not effective. Why would a reader return to a story he's already commented upon? As for marking your own stories as "favorites" I guess you could, but what would be the point? You might do it accidentally if you did not understand what the feature was for.

For those couple of authors you mentioned, I'd just have to scratch my head. I dunno, why do that?

One thing I've looked at recently is just seeing if any of my stories are being read. You can go back nearly a whole day if you are so inclined and see if you are getting any hits. It's not very scientific though, and at least for me, a bit depressing I'm afraid.

Exactly.

We have story contests (which may or may not be contests), but the library itself is not a contest. (this is something I will assert with certainty, as I am not winning)

Sounds like you've encountered what us library admins refer to as the dreaded 'flicker syndrome' which is basically firing up lots of stories in very quick succession while clearly reading none of them. Whereas I can understand this behaviour to a limited extent if you happen to have fired up for viewing something which you really don't like the look of we have observed a number of members that behave like this every time they are on.

It got so bad that eventually we've had to build in mechanisms to restrict such behaviour as it places an undue load upon our shared server. It's not simply a text file that gets loaded when a story is viewed but a whole heap of database transactions gets carried out which allow all the various statistics that we've been discussing to be collected.

On top of that some people 'flick' at such rates that they barely have have time to read even a single paragraph of the story, we've had people go through 70 in 14 mins for example and one guy flicked 400 in under an hour in the early days. And of course the other downside of such use is it makes a nonsense of the various viewing statistics.

This whole thread has become so confusing that I've decided to add to it. While statistics are fun to see, obviously there isn't a way to give everyone the information they seem to want or need. Personally, I come here to read and write. I've made friends (I hope) who share something no one in my real life would understand, nor care to. The little icons make it easy to read those stories which are of interest to me, so I rarely click in and out. I do read one of my own every once in awhile, which skews everyones veiw of a proper count, and there are oft times when I have to come back and finish a particularly long story. I never thought to download something to my computer. Why? They're all right here whenever we want, right? I must admit, I do like the new ap that sends an e-mail my way when someone comments on a story of mine. It would be ridiculous to say I don't like to read what people have to write about my "work." (It seems strange to refer to it as that, though I guess it is.) When I'm looking for something to read beyond the latest, I scroll down the comments made page, and the activity page. They always put something forward I might not have read. The Lucky dip page is good too. I guess what I'm trying to say is that words are failing right this minute. lol The STATS

have no idea what I did to post before I was finished. Anyway, to FINISH, finally, the STATS, as everbody seems to want just dont interest me. Yes its nice to know people like something, and its been read but all the complicated ratios are just confusing. I say, just enjoy.

Re Februs' comments about flicking through.
I regret I'm guilty of this if after opening it I find there is a young person or child involved, I invariably close any story involving those under 15 or 16.
I also rarely have the patience to read through many domestic stories if the wife is being treated and punished like a child- not for any reason other than I cannot imagine a relationship in which this could occur.This does not include equal domestic discipline which both parties obviously enjoy.
I have previously remarked that it is a very personal agenda, and SL caters for a large number of aspects.
Unless all stories were described beforehand or you are familiar with an author's work then I see no alternative.
I agree with flowerchild that this library can give you a great deal of pleasure and allow one to enjoy your favourite style of stories, long may may it prosper, in its wide variance.

Currently, only 63 of the Library's 13,177 items are not described. All the rest have age, gender, orientation, implements, sub-genre and synopsis.

Given this, I don't understand why you would click on a story featuring a child, unless it is one the newly loaded ones which is as yet unvalidated.

Of course, a synopsis may appeal, then something about the way a story is written puts a reader off, but that doesn't account for going through 70 stories in 20 minutes.

Do the icons and synopses not help you avoid this mostly?

It is precisely the newly loaded ones by relatively new authors that tend to catch me out.
I certainly don't load validated ones that I may not like.
However apart from keeping up to date with the latest stories, I tend to spend much of my tiime writing.