Letter To Vocal. Re: Harvest for a broader Leaderboard or its equivalent.

Dear Hardworking folks behind the Vocal scene. First and foremost, we just want to make it clear. We appreciate you immensely, praises to your hard work and dedication. You all have a huge mountain of a job. So please appreciate this only as an effort to reach out with everyone's best interest at heart.

I know first hand that Justin @Vocal, will take the time, when it behooves him, to make a personal and very rare comment on a creator's work. This will elicit a very pleased puss smile on the face of said writer/creator. Other behind the scene voices are very welcome to do so too - (if they exist), for we never see them. Thank you for all that you do.

That important bit being said and saved for posterity...

We have some legitimate grouses. First documented here: I read of a Japanese custom somewhere that using cuteness to represent whatever - helps to relieve stress, hence the cover pic - hope it helps.

Frankly, I am surprised to get (except for my lovely few generous readers), any more than ten comments. The harvest of reads with comments has been sparse indeed lately. At least for most people.

HERE ARE THE HEARTFELT COMMENTS BY CREATORS SO FAR. The order is completely random.

You may click on the names to be re-directed to individual profiles.

Rick Henry Christopher

I know this might be a bold thought… but why even have a leaderboard?

I remember how things were before it existed, there was a lot less competition between creators. When they introduced the very first version of the leaderboard, my initial reaction was, “This is going to pit us against each other.” Vocal shifted from being a pleasant platform to one where we’re now competing with one another.

Honestly, I think Vocal should just get rid of the leaderboard altogether. Keep the Top Stories, that system seems to work well. Instead of a leaderboard, maybe offer Vocal+ members a higher payout per read. That way, we all earn a few extra pennies for our work.

Bring back the bonuses too, but with a different structure. For example:

• When a story reaches 100 reads, award a $2 bonus.

• At 1,000 reads, maybe a $3 bonus. 5,000 reads, 10,000 and so forth.

• And if a story hits 20,000 reads, perhaps a $10 or $15 bonus.

That would be really nice, because ultimately, I believe it’s the reads that should be rewarded.

Of course, those should be unique reads, meaning the first time someone reads the story. In other words, one person coming back ten times shouldn’t count as ten reads.

Second comment by Rick

I agree with a lot of what you say, Novel. but just randomly picking a story here and a story there I don’t think is a good idea. Because then that leads to potential favoritism by those that are doing the choosing. A leaderboard is something that should always be assembled by metrics and not ever by a person or a group of people who can choose whatever they want - that leads to favoritism.

The current leaderboard is highly flawed. I think it’s much worse than the previous leaderboard. It’s very easy to game this current leaderboard - there are many ways to game it. Such a person can get on the leaderboard by week after week, writing a very short poem, maybe a haiku and because it’s so short and easy to read they’re gonna get a whole slew of people coming and reading their very short poem and commenting. That person’s gonna get on the leaderboard consistently. While others who actually take the time to put together a full story that takes work, dedication, research, proofreading, and so forth will not make it onto the leaderboard because it is a longer story and people don’t want to take the time anymore to read stories that’ll take you five minutes or more. Another way that the leaderboard is being gamed is a lot of people are no longer commenting on stories or they are putting a heart but they’re not commenting because they feel that if they comment on the story then that’s gonna give them less of a chance of getting on the leaderboard. So there’s many ways that the current leaderboard is very flawed and can be gamed. And I don’t think it cuts down on potential AI abuse.

I think one category that we should really have is the most organic reads. What I mean by organic reads is reads that come from outside of vocal. There are some people that have stories that get a steady stream of reads from the search engines and other sources. Those are the people that are bringing readers from the outside to vocal. That is something that should be rewarded. And it shouldn’t just be stories that are written in the last week or two. It should be any story from anytime that gets a good amount of reads from outside. Because there are stories, such as I have several, that are from three years ago two years ago that get consistent reads week after week after week. I think those stories should be rewarded even if they end up on the leaderboard consistently.

Just my two cents.

Sonia Heidi Unruh

Bravo, Novel! I've often wished I could gather up my courage to give feedback on the Leaderboard -- but here you did it with panache and grace, bringing in the theme of "gathering" (in Vocal's own words too!). I also appreciate your posture of gratitude - "We begin our harvest by honoring the blessings which we have been given." You brought us back to what this is really all about, as a writing community.

So in contrast, my comments may come off as whiny. I think the current Leaderboard format is a case study of "them what has, gets more." Almost all of the pieces that get on the Board (especially top tier) were posted as a Top Story, thus ensuring more exposure, thus ensuring a better shot at engagement. And with this exposure and engagement comes the possibility of more subscribers, meaning more appearances in feeds, which in turn fuels comments. So, Vocal sets up stories to succeed in drawing attention via Top Story status, and then the Leaderboard rewards this success. The competition is essentially among Top Stories and high profile writers. Thus I rarely bother opening the Leaderboard anymore. The highlighted pieces and writers are well deserving of their recognition, of course -- but there are few surprises.

I do think that the Top Story algorithm does a good job elevating random communities and a mix of well-established and newer writers. And the Lift Your Voice feature is wonderful for soliciting readers' recommendations. I love LYV because it always brings delightful surprises of writers or pieces I might never otherwise discovered.

What I would love to see for a Leaderboard is recognition for reads (not comments) on pieces that were NOT Top Story or Challenge winners. I would recommend having awards in three categories: poetry, fiction, and prose. This, I think, would meet your goal of inclusion, by "spreading the love" instead of rewarding pieces that have already been featured elsewhere. Every Creator on Vocal could feel they have an equal chance of getting on the Board. What do you think of this proposal?

Dharrsheena Raja Segarran

I do agree with you. Initially I was happy with this Leaderboard because AI frauds cannot cheat anymore the way they did with the previous Leaderboard. But now, it just seems so boring. Lol Vocal would be thinking that no matter what they do for us, it would never be enough 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

As for wanting the person who reads to get rewarded, I guess instead of counting the number of comments they make, they should count how long that person spends reading on Vocal. That way, AI frauds can't win.

I don't think it's a good idea to give a nod to unique cover pics, unless the author snapped the photo or created the artwork. I feel it's not fair to award the author for a pic they didn't snap or that was created using AI.

I don't have any other suggestions for now, but I'll come back here if I think of something hehehe (I think Dhar is enjoying this a lot).

Sandy Gillman

Yes, I agree the leaderboard is becoming a little one-sided. I love all your suggestions!

Tiffany Gordon

Novel,

Thank you for being a compassionate advocate for the Vocal writing community. Nice suggestions No-No! I would love to see a weekly fill-in leaderboard poll where the readers can vote for their choices for the:

*Most exciting

*Most inspiring

*Most imaginative/creative

*Funniest

*Most Relatable &

*Most Memorable stories of the week

I would love to see the results shared on the Vocal home page at the end of each week. A $5 reward for each winner would be nice.

On a side note, I would also love to see more accurate counting on the leaderboard.

D. ALEXANDRA PORTER

✍️ Lady Novel, I think you touched a sensitive nerve or two. Good! On a different note, I hope You are taking great care of yourself. 💙

Antoni De'Leon

ideas. i will give it a think. good luck getting comments.

I wholeheartedly agree with Rick. My story below got 5 reads and 8 likes on Vocal...it now has 159 reads because I posted it on FB. It all depends on subject matter...this one mattered to people. Basquiat's story was sad and wonderful. The drastic change in reads on Vocal is stark and glaring. My readership kind of lags because i read and comment, it is disheartening when I read a long story of a creator and they just give me a wishy-washy heart on a Haiku. Yes, people making choices will always find a way to game the system, so sad. So the challenge is to find the best solution for awards without the involvement of people directly. So sad. Vocal is for genuine creators who can care in an overall manner...sad that it is walking in the woeful footsteps of the world filled with turmoil. We should find joy and peace here. Not more of same old, same old.

https://shopping-feedback.today/art/jean-michel-basquiat-poet-artist-and-abstract-dreamer.

I am still trying to catch up on reads as reads play hide and seek and i have to wait to find them. sorry.

Sid Aaron Hirji

I was always happy that Dhar got awarded because she read everything-ya this is a great idea Novel

Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred

I have to agree with you that it is very one-sided and needs to be re-evaluated, thanks for this

Lana V Lynx

I remember when the Leaderboard was overhauled how many people were really enthusiastic about having just one category. I thought it was incredibly narrow and determining the winners by the level of genuine engagement is not the best way to do it. I think the number of comments as an indicator of "discussion" is not a good measure to determine the leading stories and I like your suggestions, Novel. Certainly Vocal could expand the leaderboard to include other criteria and have the algo set up in such a way that it would select or randomly pick the stories from the pool of submissions if that is about the amount of time and effort that needs to be spent on this.

Ayesha Writes

The thumbnail image is so cute

Hey, a comment is a comment. 'Art' appreciated.

Lamar Wiggins

I think it would be fair if Vocal chose the stories that are most fitting for the leaderboard (ones that didn't make TS). It couldn't be that hard, they already chose the Top Stories. The only problem would be the categories for why they were chosen. (Most Impactful?) (Most creative?) Ect...

The second issue would be the title. We all know what the definition of a leaderboard is. So, I don't think it could be called that anymore.

Somewhere there is a solution. If we want to get real technical, 1 comment from each person is all that should be counted unless they leave a separate comment to congratulate. Some comments turn into their own threads and are counted whether they are talking about the story or not.

Stephen A. Roddewig

Going to agree with Rick here: the true solution is to kill it! No more Leaderboard. I've been on record since the day they introduced saying incentivizing engagement was a bad idea. It only encourages bad actors and bad intentions, and conversely suspicions among honest creators.

Matthew Fromm

I have long been a proponent that instead of leaderboard it should be a creator of the week (conveniently featured in the stupid "creators we're loving section"). incentivize it, let the author get a blurb in, and promote one of their stories for a week. Best of all worlds IMO

Mark Graham

Congratulations on your TS. My suggestion would be to offer bonuses for reading like Rick Henry Christopher suggests, but many only offer $5 or $10 for say reading so many stories like they did a few years ago here on Vocal.

Imola Tóth

Thank you for putting this all together on our behalf! I agree with everyone spoken before me. I hope this gets to the right ears. :)

The Dani Writer

I concur. I celebrate the achievements of all, no matter what the degree. But "the board" does feel like a dinosaur that never evolved. And if it does...

Welp. Will have a think.

Thanks, Novel!

Sara Wilson

Love this!

And this part- 5......Give a nod to unique cover pics once in a while

As I started scrolling down to read, I stopped and scrolled back up to take another look at your picture. My daughter loves Hello Kitty and Pokemon. This made me think of her and made me realize that i don't think I have ever seen a picture with Hello Kitty on here. The picture is cute and made me smile :)

I love all of these ideas! I really feel like rewarding readers is a grand idea. I have seen alot of creators say things like, "I write more than I read but I will get to your stories eventually".

No one owes anyone anything, but that comes off a bit rude in my opinion.

I try and read as much as I can. As a writer, I understand what it takes to put a piece of yourself into writing... I believe that's worthy of my time.

The only things I tend to skip over are the influx of AI generated content and some politics. I know politics are a part of our lives, but sometimes I can't deal with the weight of them.

The other day, I was highly annoyed because an account had FLOODED the 'Latest stories' feed with 3 pages of new stories.

Each "story" had less than a sentence per piece. Every cover photo was the same. I went to the profile and everything was the same. Over 2000 stories of 'stories' less than one sentence.

Seemed like spam to me and was very upsetting. I want to read actual stories, not gibberish posted simply to attempt to generate money using AI. I will not give my time to things like that. (with the exception of my investigating).

We may be only a handful, but we have a lot to say. I am updating suggestions as they happily arrive in comments.

Posting in anticipation of feedback.

Thank you...and thank you everyone for lending your voices.