I'm done with the Rating Bar · 10:57am Feb 19th, 2023
So recently I've been thinking about the dislikes my stories have gotten. And how AT LEAST some of them are likely to be just trolls with nothing better to do than to dislike stories for no reason at all. Why do I think this? Because a few of my stories lately have gotten Dislikes even before ANYONE has had a chance to read the darn thing. Like, I would click on a story of mine the minute it was on the front page of new stories and there would already be a dislike. It's SO annoying. And what's worse is that due to these serial Disliking trolls, people are likely NOT clicking on my stories since the like to dislike ratio is terrible.
Because of that possibility I have decided to do away with the rating bar entirely going forward. For a few reasons.
Reason 1: To deprive the serial dislikers that just LOVE to troll stories for no reason at all a story to troll.
Reason 2: To help ensure said dislikers petty and pathetic actions do not deter people from checking my stories out. Basically, don't judge a book by the cover kind of thing.
Now, I am of course fully aware that some dislikes are probably genuine. And that's OK. I knew going into this that I would get a few dislikes from people that don't like my writing or something like that. But what I find to be quite frankly pathetic and despicable are all the trolls and troll GROUPS out there that will dislike a story for no reason at all. And that is NOT ok in my eyes because these trolls might be putting down a really good writer for no reason at all.
To all of you that have GENUINELY rated my stories, even if you disliked them, I thank you for at least giving them a shot. And to all the trolls out there that dislike for no reason, you all can just F right off. You are NOT going to get me to stop writing if that's your plan. Sparkling Harmony WILL NOT succumb to the hate. It will continue until I run out of ideas. And TRUST me, my brain is an ideas factory on steroids so the odds of me running out of ideas anytime soon are SLIM at best.
Also, to anyone that's not clicked away yet, if you are concerned about Sparkling Storytime, I plan from now on to use both the ratings of old stories, and metrics like bookshelf and tracking count for the new stories. So it's not going anywhere.
I personally like the Sparkling Harmony series, but don't really have the attention span to keep reading long stories and series. And yes, dislike trolls are an issue on the platform. My alicorn story got 29 dislikes so far. Don't stop with your Sparkling Harmony series, but I might suggest putting more variety into your stories if you want more views.
It's much harder for long series to get a lot of views, because people feel the need to start from the beginning rather than jumping straight into the newest sequel. And then those readers may burn out long before they reach the end, resulting in low view counts and ratings on sequels of sequels of sequels.
I'd suggest expanding your story variety with some shorter one shot stories in between your main series. Since these stories require no prior knowledge, they're more attractive as a quick read and may help you gain a bigger audience since not many people are going to read a new story that is such a long way into an extended series.
I dont understand it either
oooooooooh yeah, thats bad.
5714341
Thanks for the advice, If only my brain would come up with NON SH ideas. heheh.
But if I do I'll try to write them.
I also dont like the one's just disliking comments that aren't bad.
Like one kept targeting ME when I was doing nothing wrong
5714343
Exactly.
What the trolls are doing should be outright AGAINST site rules.
But sadly it's non-enforceable since the ratings are anonymous.
5714345
Oh yeah. THAT is even WORSE. And should DEFINITELY be against site rules.
There are some specific things that dislike bombers and such do prefer to target.
Unfortunately, alicorn stories is one of them.
Personally, alicorns are my favourite pony tribe; and by extension, alicorn stories are one of my favourite genres.
It stems from the earlier entries to the genre, and as such, the whole alicorn genre has been given a bad name which turn many people away and encourages others to dislike bomb them.
I do believe it has begun to pick up in popularity somewhat recently though.
There are a ton of older self insert alicorn stories in which the writer has made their OC into an OP mary-sue. Since alicorns are the most powerful tribe, they are commonly seen as OP and are actually the hardest to write without them becoming a Mary sue. Badly written alicorn self-inserts is what gave the genre such a bad name.
5714348
Oh yeah. I know full well about that whole thing.
And personally it NEEDS TO JUST STOP! Because it's just stupid to lump ALL Alicorn stories together just because a few were badly written.
5714351
I think the genre is picking up again. I can count quite a few successful ones which are ongoing currently. I know that is is possible to write a successful alicorn story, but it isn't the easiest thing to do.
5714352
Am I doing a decent job if I may ask?
I burned out of reading Sparkling harmony at about chapter 19 of book 2. Its easier to keep up with a story currently being written than a fully completed one, since having to wait for a new chapter prevents burnout. I'll need to have a look at some of your newer stories to see where your writing is at. I haven't touched this series in a long while, and I'm much less likely to pick up something that I've already started and then taken a break from.
There's way too much content to catch up on.
I'll read the most recent one: Fun in the Snow. It's only one chapter so it shouldn't take me long, then I'll get back to you.
5714356
Ok.
I just finished reading "Fun in the Snow". I'd say your writing is about medium level. There's no spelling or grammatical errors that I can see in it. It's most certainly not bad, but there is a little room for improvement. The main disadvantage is that its part of a long running established series, so it can be difficult for new readers to have any idea what's going on.
Also, I don't know if any team won in it or not. You never said who won, and the story only just reaches the 1k word minimum. I feel like you could have gone into more detail and fleshed out the snowball fight part of the story, since that is probably supposed to be the focus. What I gleaned from this story, is that they were having a three-way snowball fight, that there was an alicorn filly of defined age watching, and that there were a ton of alicorn fillies. Nopony really had much individual focus and there wasn't enough detail on the snowball fight itself.
5714358
Honestly that story was more an experiment I did related to the troll dislikers and I acknowledge that it probably wasn't my best effort.
Although the winning part, I did not include that because I honestly couldn't decide who to make win.
5714357
Just needs everything that a good story needs
always sucks
well that sucks i'm sorry to hear that i hope thing get better