Comments

You're ratio is pretty impressive; I have to hand it to you. I open many stories that I quickly find I have no interest in, do not finish, and leave no comments for, which hurts my overall ratio (which isn't bad). Studying the stats page, I've figured out that the comments are NOT quite so concentrated as I had guessed. The top hundred or so probably have no more than 70-80% of the total comments, which means that there are a bunch of small-time commenters who, in toto, give significant feedback.

As bad as the worst commenters seem now, it was worse yet back just 15 months ago. No one had read as many as 3,000 stories back then, but there was one member who had read nearly 2,500 stories without a single comment, quite a few in the top 60 without even one comment, and a number more with only 1 or two. I have access to that trivia because I saved a pop-up exchange with Februs from back when my "Unappreciative Reader" was loaded, which when it garned like a dozen comments in it's first day was by far the most-commented story at that point. My how things have changed!

One person "read" so many stories that if one were to figure out how many per day, from the time of joining the Library, they would have had to read 12 stories each day, 7 days a week for a few years. REALLY!!!!

You make a good point, Sebastian. There is a gaping difference between "viewed" and read. I myself have clicked on a great many stories only to linger for a few seconds - long enough to realize it was not what I was looking for. I did a lot more rapid "sampling" at first as I figured out whose writing was in line with my tastes. After that, I settled down to read as much as I could of certain authors, while rarely/never clicking on the others.

Now, generally, I read my "usual suspects" - the two or three dozen I know I like - plus a lot of brand new authors - but I'm know I'm missing out on many, many excellent authors I've yet to try out. A couple of examples are Bendover and Teddy Bear. I got assigned to read stories of theirs for the audio project and I found that I really enjoyed both their styles. I would have been a long time discovering either of them without the assignment. I suspect there are scores of writers that I will add to my favorite author list when I find more reading time. This place is a gold mine.

That's why I like the info the library supplies on almost all of the stories through the validation process. Before I click on a story, I know the genders and approximate ages of the spanker and the spankee. Since I'm not really into F/M stories, or F or M/m stories, I don't have to waste time starting to read stories that are not likely to interest me. The short summaries are also helpful, but they sometimes spoil the story, so I don't always read them. I also like how the summary icon changes so I can tell if I've already read that particular story. I'm not quite sure how the validation process works or who the validators are, but I am grateful for the service that they provide.

I've validated quite a few stories but they have not counted as 'read' because they were downloaded and, on the other hand, read a few lines from other stories and decided they were not for me - but they count as read. I'm more oriented towards the F/M tales but having been given a more varied mix through validating and 'subgenre' cataloging have come to appreciate writing, regardless of direction. Just thought I'd put my tu'pence worth in.

This is quite a problem, trying to give a brief, telling synopsis of the story without revealing the outcome and therefore spoiling the story for the reader. Of course - the challenge is always enjoyable!
Thanks to Februs' technical wizardry I do so agree with you about the presentation.

If I am in doubt about reading a story I will read the comment section before even opening the story. If it is violent or sexual then I generally choose not to open it but in most cases the comments give a good glimpse into a story before I open it. Synopsis are fine but I agree that at times they spoil the story.

I like a synopsis that sets the scene and describes the basic premise, without summarizing the WHOLE story and giving away the ending - which I find annoying (both on stories I'm considering reading as well as on stories I've written). That being said, so long as OTHER people are doing the validating and I'm not, I'm gonna zip my lip ( not an easy thing for me to do!). Since I find the 'tone' of the story to be more important than such things as implements and the genre (orientation IS important to me), a well-written synopsis is my best guide I have for picking a story when I venture away from my favorite authors.


They are WONDERFUL folk (for a listing, select "staff" after clicking the "about button") whoose efforts help make this Library the wonderful place it is!


A very wise thing to do!


Absolutely!

There's another way to do the arithmetic. It seems that 200 is a fair number of views for a new story these days. To be honest, I don't want 200 comments on any of my stories — there simply isn't that much to say about them. I would be quite overwhelmed by 20 comments, and to me this seems a reasonable number for most stories in here. So if we all commented on ten percent of the stories we view (and not necessarily read), we would have a rather ideal situation. Of course, there will be lurkers here as on all other sites (as I have been lurking quite a lot myself through the years, I actually find this quite natural), the "active members" may aim for commenting on twenty percent of the stories they view. Much more than that I think is unrealistic, unless we want comments for comments sake.