I have noted many First Chapter Writters that have been hurt with the scoring method used in this contest. I believe the response to this program has been greater than intented, but also, this has caused some of the problems that are happening.
It is suggested that someone in charge of this contest recheck the rules because so many have been hurt. Maybe you can get out a post like this for all Gather members that will explain what happens when they just check out a chapter to see if they want to read it. I know that I briefed some of the stories knowing that I was not going to rate it, but was interested in what it was about. I may be alone in this, but I don't believe my checking could have caused so much damage. It would take many like me to get the results I am hearing.
I did not know that a look would give a writer a zero, or pass. I thought that I would have to rate the story to be noticed so I would be a non-scoring party just looking in to learn what was going on. Maybe, many of MEs were doing the same thing and there by messing up the scoring method. At least I hope I am not the only dumb one on Gather.
I also believe that there should be some way to locate Chapers easier. I had to go through many pages before finding what I was looking for. They seemed to be just in the pages randomly so I had no guide.
Last, but not least, the stories I scanned all seemed well written, but as I told so many; fiction is not what I write of read, and I did not feel right judging this work. I wish to say that I am sorry for any of the damage I may have done.
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Comments: 10
I am naive. I didn't know that either. I would have always left a comment of some sort or a rating. There were some things that people did not understand and that weren't abundantly clear. Lee, I have no problem with you. You shouldn't feel bad. In the end, this was an experiment. I bet that next time the rules will be different based on the outcome.
I agree with you that those writers who did promote their chapters got much better views than those that didn't. I went to check out chapters from several people who e-mailed me through the Gather.com system, but checked out only a random few on a day I was looking for something to do. So I missed the bulk of them, especially given that chapters are apparently cycled through within 14 days of posting. Given that I never checked back, I wasn't able to even give those chapters a chance.
And as to your worry that your reads without votes on certain chapters may have hurt their chapter rankings, I would put that worry to rest. I don't think looking at a page without ranking it decreases its actual ranking. At least it shouldn't.
I hope I added to this conversation. Have a great rest of the week Lee.