Liking as a means of motivation

Warden-Yarn15

Warden-Yarn15

Really Really Experienced
Personally, for some reason, I cannot read a story word-by-word and usually skim it. And because of this (and a lack of interest), I've resorted to simply liking chapters even if I'm not at all invested in the story, the scene, or anything. I simply press the like button as a means to encourage the author to keep on writing.

I can't tell if this is a good or bad thing myself, as the back of my mind does say that it could potentially harm an author's writing in the long run, with them repeating the same mistakes and me just encouraging them. However, I have been messaged in the past, thanking me for the likes, and parts of me think that liking as motivation, does work every now and then.

So I ask you, dear reader, if you've read this far. Do you also give likes as a form of encouragement or motivation? Or are you more conservative with your likes? I'd like to know.
 
I think using likes to motivate less skilled authors isn't a bad thing. Writing needs to be practiced to be improved, so if you help convince someone to write more, I think the benefit of additional experience would far outweigh any complacency they might feel from a single user's praise. I would say this is CHYOA specific, however - on a larger, more general writing site, like Wattpad or AO3, it's easier to garner more attention without 'trying', so to speak, and new authors might attribute dozens of likes to the quality of their own writing when it might be, say, that they're writing fanfic of beloved characters in a popular fandom. Similarly, you should be more honest in real life, such as when a family member or friend approaches you with a draft, because your opinion will be taken far more seriously.

As for myself, I award likes when, well, I liked the chapter. Specifically, if I finish a chapter and think that it was well written, or if I enjoyed reading it, then I leave a like. It's possible that I might outright forget that liking is an option, but for that to happen I would need to be fairly dissociated from the writing anyway. I might also be too eager to click onto the next chapter, but in that case I will go back and like all chapters in that thread. In the case of game mode stories, I might award a like even if the chapter itself isn't worthy. For instance, I might like a hub chapter with only two bland lines of text if I think the hub system is well designed technically, or if I enjoy the premise or content of the meatier chapters in the hub collectively.

When it comes to new stories that are currently weak but show promise, I will usually leave a favourite and possibly a comment - though personally, I'm very rarely interested by a story with bad writing in the first place. I might forgive especially awkward or unimaginative prose, but that would mean few or no likes.
 
Warden-Yarn15 said:
Personally, for some reason, I cannot read a story word-by-word and usually skim it. And because of this (and a lack of interest), I've resorted to simply liking chapters even if I'm not at all invested in the story, the scene, or anything. I simply press the like button as a means to encourage the author to keep on writing.
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I can relate. Sometimes it happens to me too and it's almost as if the like is sort of compensation to say "hey, it's kind of my fault I can't really dig into your story, but I like the general idea and you seem nice enough and I appreciate the effort, so here's my like".

Zeebop said:
Lois Lane's Night Out uses a system where likes drive which chapters get written...and which get written first. I suspect that's why such a miche fanfiction story had accrued so many likes (and chapters) as it has.
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You clever dog, give yourself some credit, will you?:D
 
Likes are always good, I agree. Even for people like me who only really do one main branch at a time, it's all good. I do wonder if I tried to do a legit branching path if one got more likes then the other if it would impact my ouput. But every story I do even with branches it tends to just be for multiple endings (and yes the bad ending always gets fewer likes lol)
 
I think it's fine to be less critical with likes with lower quality or less popular writing as a means to motivate the author.

If you draw a likes/quality graph, completely critical usage of the like button would give you a straight line.
So it might be fine if it starts like a logarithm curve and then slowly curves upwards again to meet the original straight line.
 
As a reader, I don't ever give likes. I don't know why. I rarely like anything on other sites either. Even on say Youtube, I only give likes if it's something getting dislikes that I think is good or a video with few views I want to support. Here though, I never bothered to. I think that since I started writing (and thus made an account), I started reading a lot less. It just feels like whenever I'm actually on, I should be working on writing something rather than reading. Might try to work on that more though.

As a writer, likes are basically everything. Like @wicker said, likes influence which branches I want to work on. In fact, I wrote a user script to show me the ratio of likes to views on each chapter in the map. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to figure out what correlates with likes yet. I once wrote 4 similar child chapters and published them all at the same time to see which one got more likes and views. Pretty sure it ended up descending in order so I couldn't tell if it meant a preference for one branch over the others people just read them in order and stopped when they stopped.

Anyone have any thoughts on adding dislikes? I was wondering if that would help writers better figure out their faults more than it would just demoralize them.
 
sir oppenheimer said:
I was wondering if that would help writers better figure out their faults more than it would just demoralize them.
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I have to agree with Zeebop here. Plus a lot of us, say up-and-coming authors, would probably be decimated by a single dislike and little to no upvotes.

And when you invest whatever energy, motivation, and ideas that you have on a concept, only for it to be ignored or tossed in the trash, you're going to hate writing, and at that point, potential is thrown right outside the window.
 
Well, the fact is that the old system of likes and dislikes had a lot of flaws.
For once, the the story rankings on the front page (story of the week, most popular, etc..) were calculated factoring also the dislikes.

This meant that every story, even with a ton of likes, that had a few dislikes got really low chances to be there. That happened especially to stories having controversial kinks, like cuckoldry, incest, rape, and to an extent race-play.

At some point, if I recall correctly, it got changed so that likes worked as a +1 and dislikes like a -1. That was even worse, as if you saw a chapter with a 0 or -1 or just a small number, it could hide a huge battle of likes and dislikes.

I mean, if I see a chapter has 50 likes and 52 dislikes, I'm inclined to think is something controversial, proably worth reading, especially if you're into that kind of situation or character or kink.
Still, in the old system a story weigthed by all those dislikes would have never had the chance to be on the front page as story of the week, despite the clear value testified by the number of likes.

This was just an example of the possible problems.
 
SeriousBrainDamage said:
At some point, if I recall correctly, it got changed so that likes worked as a +1 and dislikes like a -1.
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I don't think so. (But there were suggestions to do it like that.)

Gambio said:
A low like per chapter ratio already conveys that your story isn't particularly well received.
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If well-received means popularity, a low like per chapter ratio might be related to the kink or category.

If there is a smaller reader base for the particular theme, the like per chapter ratio might be low but there could still be a higher percentage of readers who actually liked the chapter in contrary to a popular chapter.
 
I tend to "like" if a chapter engages me enough to reach the end of it.
Not so much if it already has a ton, and more so if it looks like the author needs a bit of encouragement.
I'm more reluctant to comment in case anything I come out with comes across as negative or discouraging in some way though.
 
I think the problem with likes and dislikes is that it’s so blunt and brutal and it has so much connotations behind it. Disliking a post is not constructive. It would be constructive if people then left a comment of civil critique, but let’s be real that almost never happens on YouTube or on any other platform that has a like/dislike system. Yes it’s apart of a lot of these sites, but I feel like dislikes are way more abused than actually used for their function. People use it to mob hate something whether it’s a YouTube Rewind or some random post that was created. It is rarely used for its actual function of feedback. Using a Like/dislike ratio is often a bad way to assess your content because you don’t know how much of it is genuine feedback and how much is pure trolling. In theory, like/dislikes is a good system, but in practice it serves no function. Having an only likes system is beneficial because it can show you how many viewers are actually active and enjoy your content. Having a dislike button as well is counter intuitive and often demoralizing. People use the excuse of some people deserve it to keep people in check…. There has not been a single case on YouTube where someone who “deserved” it has stopped posting because they have too many dislikes. It’s usually only the people who take it to heart and genuinely care about their content that gets destroyed. People also say that disliking content is 1) their freedom of speech or 2) their way of giving constructive criticism, but that’s the problem, dislikes aren’t constructive at all. It’s just a black and white arbitrary system that either destroys people or boosts their giant egos. There is nothing that a dislike system does that an only like system can’t do. And if you want to actually provide genuine constructive criticism, there’s the comment section to elaborate on your thoughts. I used to be on the side that dislikes are a good thing, but they really are not if you think about it.
 
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