Conngratulations Aunt Carla

I think a better metric would be to compare comments to the number of story views for an author. A while back we had huge backlogs to try and get through and several prolific authors had a large number of stories loaded over a short space of time. In addition, the library facility was behind 'closed doors' on Bottom Lines for several years so stories loaded prior to the library having its own website will have to a large extent had much less attention than those loaded latterly.

In addition, you'd also need to take into account that some authors make comments on their own works, something that is done a lot less these days since we introduced the ability for authors to easily send popups to those who commented.

Taking all the above into account, as well as some of the points raised by others, does make it somewhat difficult to derive any meaningful conclusions and before anyone asks .. No, I am not going to code it!

You would probably need to factor in 'favorites.' Then the question becomes, whether a story gets more reads (and re-reads) in part because it is liked, which then leads to a lower ratio (my guess is that this is a small effect, but none-the-less existent). I also observe that, whether or not they generate comments or 'favorites' some authors' stories seem to receive a lot of reads whenever they are posted, which has to speak for something. The 'bottom line' is that there really is no one metric that shows how 'popular' a given author is. Total 'reads' total 'favorites,' total comments, favorites per story, comments per story, comments per read, 'favorites' per read - each of these, in one way or another, shows how well-received an author's work is.


But we're COUNTING on you!

Personally, I'm far more intrigued as to why there's such an enormous variation in the number of views the various challenge stories are getting. The only factors which appear to be involved are title, number of words and the order loaded, although the default for the latter is randomised. At the time of writing, for the current challenge the story with the least number of views has 99 and the story with the most, 296. That's one hell of a range.

The same thing was true of the previous contest (and perhaps the earlier ones). The factors you state (order loaded, title, and length) could certainly have an effect. Also, I wonder how many people come back to view stories again, either to finish them, because they liked them, or because they want to refresh their memory on a story when comparing how they voted on other stories. If that['s the case, a story read earlier (perhaps loaded earlier) would get more views, without it necessarily being read by more different people. There's always the possibility that, as with the previous contest, members have shared info on the authorship of stories, which means there is another factor in determining which are read. I suspect that, as with other stories, the title DOES make a big difference.

Like other authors who've replied RE this issue, I disagree with that approach--at least from the writer's perspective.

If a person exposed to a story of mine for the first time today comments positively on it, that's just as meaningful to me as someone who commented on it back in 2008, or 2004 or whenever it first appeared on the internet. (Some stories found here were written many years before they were loaded into the Library's archives.)

There's another discussion thread here RE "Embarrassment?", and AFAIC that's a key strength of Aunt Carla's stories--fantasywise, I can identify with her protagonists because they generally end up blushing (albeit with differing causes) on both sets of their cheeks.

As to commenting on serials, I try to post at least after parts that I enjoyed quite a bit--it can be discouraging to the author if potential commenters decide to wait until a serial is completed, he/she may lose focus.

Personally, I sometimes have trouble 'finishing up' serials, but positive reinforcement can sometimes help me get refocused... --C.K.

It's a bit disheartening to hear that there is a wide range of reads for each of the stories in the contest. I was hoping it would be more even this time.

Or encouraging for the authors whose stories get the most reads?

I acted exactly as njrick wrote above: I clicked on every story in the contest, but sometimes I didn't read the stories, because it was absolutely out of my interests. In this cases I also didn't vote on them. And some story I opened more than twenty times. Assuming that only about 50 readers at all read stories in the competition I would say, that 50 reads per story indicates that all stories got equal attention. The story with the 296 clicks is probably the one, which I opened 50 times because I was always disturbed while reading it.

Ahhhh well, I cast votes (between four and ten) for every story, some of them I may have 'clicked onto' 2-3 times because I was interupted during my reading or simply wanted more exposure to evaluate them, and I did read every one to its conclusion. A few of them weren't particularly gratifying for me to read based on setting, characterization, plot line, etc., but I felt that all the writers had put in significant time and effort and therefore should get some votes from me.

I gave quite a few contest entries votes in the 8-10 range because they were well written and particularly had clever and/or surprising storylines--I generally enjoy twist endings, as long as the unexpected development doesn't contradict earlier characterizations and/or plot elements. If a lengthy narrative is too formulaic (I can figure out a 5,000-word story's basic plot line only 1,000 words or so into it), I find it difficult to become all that interested in reading it.

Anyway, I like the current method of voting--when I only had ten total votes to distribute, I felt that I wasn't able to cast votes for every deserving entry and still make a distinction among the top half-dozen (IMHO) stories... --C.K.

Dear Guy,

Thank you so much! Your congratulations are a great incentive to continue writing.

Yours,

Aunt Carla

Thanks, Seegee. You know how I value your opinion of my work.

Yours,

Aunt Carla