I'm the only one demoralized by this?

I am not sure a finish line will solve the problem, it could rather end up having both sides frustrated: Those who see the "poll story" as a useful and interesting tool (because even though from a scientific point the result might be flawed, it gets even less useful if it's one year old) and those authors, who are happy to be rewarded for their good works with a small spotlight to get advertised.

The problem here is that the CHYEO poll uses likes in a different manner than other stories. Which is totally fine, if it wouldn't be about the "Top 10 stories". And of course, obviously, a like for CHYEO is nothing that a like typically expresses for another story (with, again, considering all the flaws the like-system might have, for example rewarding mostly sex scenes more than "cleverly written" scenes).

The best solution would be if "poll stories" like CHYEO could be deleted from the Top10 manually. Or feature somewhere else. We still have not enough room and possibilities to showcase interesting stories here on CHYOA.

I look at both. And both have their own merit. Lots of views can also mean that a story is simply old and has been around for years. While that is certainly an achievement, it will often eclipse newer stories which might be just as fascinating.

In the end, there is no ideal way to find good stories anyhow. There might be brilliant stories with just 20 chapters written, and it's totally fun and enjoyable to follow them as they grow. There might be very successful stories who are simply not my cup of tea, but appeal to a devoted group of readers (and writers), accumulating likes and views. It's like movies: You can discuss endlessly which are the best 10 movies of all time, and you will get a thousand different answers, depending on taste. Some people like the smut, some crave the plot, others look out for character development, and so on.

The best way to tackle this is by offering different platforms with different algorithms and different rankings. The "Top10 stories" feature different stories than the "Top10 chapters", because there could be brilliant single chapters in otherwise not overly popular stories. For a long time, the top10 chapters featured a lot of different stories, at the moment, the ranking is overrun by a few stories, which is a shame (and I write this knowing that one of my stories features 2 chapters there as time of writing). Maybe it would be better if only one chapter of a story can feature in the "top10 chapters".

I am actually not so sure. Getting people to click that like button seems rather difficult for me, and I even witness that in my own behaviour. Sometimes, when I like a story, I am so fascinated by it that I want to read on instead of clicking "like". I often read through good stories and only start to realize that I didn't like any of the chapters when I hit the first dead end. Being an author myself and knowning that little rewards can lift your mood and inspire you to write on, I then go back and like all the chapters I found merited a thumbs up.

You are right that the little paragraph certainly helped gathering likes, but I am not sure what exactly the experiment proves. Because I started to routinely place little reminders, often in a (hopefully) playful way which somehow relates to the story, at the end of chapters where I put a lot of work into - and the results are quite mixed. There are chapters which don't recieve a lot more likes.

The Schoolgirl-chapter shows first and foremost that the spot on the "Top10 chapters" is very important in attracting readers. Because a lot will start on the front page, and most will apparently not use their own search filters, they will go with what CHYOA has to offer. Since being featured on that list, the "Happy Maid" story gets regular visitors, while my second story only gets visitors if it appears on the "Recently added" ranking.

Also, chapters with little reminders don't necessarily get more likes. Which seems to indicate that the reminders only help if the chapter was satisfying to the readers, but they might have left without liking the page, if the little reminder had not been in place. Simply because they are not aware that this means something to the author.

Am I happy about likes? Yes, I am. I am happy about all kinds of interaction, be it likes or views or bookmarks. I am happy especially about comments, but those are even harder to achieve. But every interaction shows me that there have been readers who enjoyed my story, and that's, in the end, one of the reasons to put work into this whole thing. It's not fun to write something and nobody reads it.

Which just underlines the idea that we probably need even more rankings. Of course, there is a danger in that as well. Too many rankings could also mean that the readers get totally lost and nothing is really showcased at all.

I don't think likes are more arbitrary than bookmarks or follows. They are just a different kind of measurement. All measurements will have their flaws, and all can probably be tweaked and manipulated a bit. But all in all, the stories and chapters featuring in the top rankings are not bad ones. They might not be "the best", depending on everyone's personal taste, but they are alright.