Likes in the writing contest

[Doctor_Chill]

I'm gonna slink back into the 21st Century okay?

[Lady Ty]

You are all solid gold and I do hope to get back soon, this thread was so funny, I miss your company, but health keeping me a bit immobile, so on phone again @xiagan must protest this lefty radical activist thinking here, methinks, the forum should be handwritten and conducted through the post. Likes are fun and do not aff3ct my votes at all, but it makes up for hard culling for voting. I would have given at least 10 likes in Fairytales. So have voted yes.

[Hedin]

Is there a way to like a story but keep the like hidden from view until after the voting is done?  That way people can get recognition for their stories whether or not they receive a vote (especially since the last few votes are usually pretty tough) but then we would avoid any possible influence on the actual vote?  My guess that this couldn't be done but figured it wouldn't hurt to throw the idea out there.

[Nora]

Is there a way to like a story but keep the like hidden from view until after the voting is done?  That way people can get recognition for their stories whether or not they receive a vote (especially since the last few votes are usually pretty tough) but then we would avoid any possible influence on the actual vote?  My guess that this couldn't be done but figured it wouldn't hurt to throw the idea out there.

Just not sure I see the point? I would still visit a forum with no likes and not a shread of activity in sight... One good thing with likes is that we could precisely see who enjoyed what, but in the end, besides the enjoyment of a story, people also vote on how it fits the theme, or how much better others were, ect (as, in my opinion, people are not truly influenced by likes).
If we want "after the votes are revealed compensation" we can get it in the critique thread, by getting our story reviewed, no?

[ArcaneArtsVelho]

I abstain from voting.

I haven't given any Likes to the contest submissions, mostly because I read them when I'm about to vote and thus am more concerned about voting than liking, or something like that. I kind of dislike the Likes in the contest, just because some stories/people get so many of them and others barely any. (Okay, okay. I like Likes but hate that I don't get as many of them as some others. There, I said it.  )

But seriously, I don't really mind if the Likes are in the submission threads or not, so I'm not going to vote.

[D_Bates]

I'm torn. I see both sides equally. I can completely understand why likes could in some way influence voting, but that's no different than being allowed to vote multiple times.

I'm pretty certain the multiple votes is intended to allow all stories to get some recognition, and it's worked really well so far, but at the same time, in my eyes this is no less of an issue tainting the voting system than likes do:
eg:
- People withholding votes which may prevent a story that resonated with an overall majority from winning because they want to push the one they personally think was better than the rest.
- Or on the reverse, a story that was good enough to earn the majorities second to fourth vote steamrolling to a massive victory despite nobody considering it to be their favourite.

The point is, how seriously do we really take the votes that likes should be removed for fear that they may sway it? Especially since everyone is voting by the rules they themselves believe to be the fairest way to do so rather than a set of criteria laid out in the competition.

Besides, when it comes to likes I tend to not drop them onto those that have lots and instead push them onto less liked articles that I personally thought were really well done. There are people who enter every week and have yet to pull in more than 2-3 votes who I've thoroughly enjoyed every single thing they've written and am glad they took the time to write it.

[ScarletBea]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

[xiagan]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

Nope, voters are supposed to vote too.

[ArcaneArtsVelho]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

Nope, voters are supposed to vote too.

And Bea, maybe some day you could try your hand at writing in the contest too. One can only hope. 

[Arry]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

People love when readers come and read/vote the stories! Definitely don't feel unwelcome to participate even if you don't submit stories. I think more people don't do it just because it can be a bit of a time investment to read all the stories, so those that submit are more vested in doing that.

[eclipse]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

Everyone whose invested time into reading the stories deserve a vote and I think writers love it when readers read their stories. Hugs Bea just because I feel you need one x

[Raptori]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

I think you've got just as much right to vote as anyone who writes - reading all the stories each month takes a lot of time and effort, so even if you don't write you're still a hugely valuable part of the contest and your opinion is just as important as everyone else's. 

[D_Bates]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

At the end of the day this vote right here is for those who vote on the stories. And there are writers who don't want the likes no less than readers, and I completely understand why.

Going back to what Bea mentioned earlier, it seems to me that the problem is more that knowing how many likes a story has is negatively influencing first time reads rather than votes. Aka, if I read a story that has 8 likes, even if I don't personally like it I'm inclined to look for the positive because so many others do so it must be good, right? Or else, when I read a story I know has only one to two likes I'm left looking for the reason why it wasn't so popular. Which in and of itself is nonsense, because a lot of likes can be thrown about from people just showing support for their friends and those they know well.

This could be easily fixed by leaving the story out the spoiler tags, but that does mean we'll end up with some super page of text, so is it not possible to limit the number of posts per page on this part of the forum to 3-5 rather than 15?

[Raptori]

I'm sorry.
I suppose only writers should vote.
If it's close, I can always remove or change my vote

At the end of the day this vote right here is for those who vote on the stories. And there are writers who don't want the likes no less than readers, and I completely understand why.

Going back to what Bea mentioned earlier, it seems to me that the problem is more that knowing how many likes a story has is influencing first time reads rather than votes. Aka, if I read a story that has 8 likes, even if I don't personally like it I'm inclined to look for the positive because so many others do so it must be good, right? Or else, when I read a story I know has only one to two likes I'm left looking for the reason why it wasn't so popular. Which in and of itself is nonsense, because a lot of likes can be thrown about from people just showing support for their friends and those they know well.

This could be easily fixed by leaving the story out the spoiler tags, but that does mean we'll end up with some super page of text, so is it not possible to limit the number of posts per page on this part of the forum to 3-5 rather than 15?

The problem with limiting the posts per page is that (assuming this forum works like the ones I've managed) that setting would be carried over onto the other threads within the subforum, which would make discussions and critiques a lot more difficult.

One way around it would be to have a separate "submissions" subforum which only has one thread each month (the submissions thread) which then gets moved to the monthly subforum after voting has been completed... sounds like a lot more work for xiagan though. 

[D_Bates]

Could you not just have a standalone submissions forum where all the submission threads are consolidated, and then create a post with a link to the submissions post for that month in the monthly contest subforum? That way somebody looking for a quick read (or a masochist!) could access all the submission threads at the click of a mouse without needing to go into each subforum to do so.