My Least Read Vocal Stories
Why Hearts Outstrip Reads
Introduction
I recently hit fifty thousand reads on Vocal and it got awarded a Top Story and has a lot of comments and hearts but I don't know how many reads it has had because of Vocal's flawed statistics which they refuse to address.
This is the story if you haven't checked it out yet, I think it was due to Dana Crandell's recommendation in the last Vocal Raise Your Voice.
Raise Your Voice is a brilliant Vocal implementation and it really does work, so if you think others should have a top Story, drop a recommendation there and it is likely to be picked up.
This was my piece on the flawed stats situation:
Why Hearts Outstrip Reads
At this moment in time, this is my most unread story with, as you can see zero reads. It is not a bad story but is a concept based on a song that lots of people may have no interest in whatsoever.
In the past I have stated, and we all know that hearts can outstrip reads. The reason is you can drop into a story and leave a heart and leave. Vocal count that as a read but if the visit is not long enough you won't get a credit. If you come back to give the story a full read, it won't count because you have already been there once and Vocal does not count second reads.
However, I wondered how stories that have comments can show no reads and I finally worked it out.
In the story above the guy left a comment and he prompted me to write another story which I did here:
If you go in and check the novel of a comment here, I thought that it was an AI generation. I went and checked his Vocal work and it is all AI generated.
And ironically, he gave me the answer.
You can drop into a story and paste an AI reaction, but not spend enough time for Vocal to register a read.
So in the list above there are twenty-eight hearts and seven reads, but I now know why.
The music is "Nothing" by A
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It Happened
Introduction Three years ago I joined Vocal to win a big prize. That never happened, but this did. What Did? As you know I have a fascination with numbers and tend to track what happens to my account via Vocal's flawed statistics. As I hit certain numbers of stories, I tend to share them with others on Vocal.
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Comments (7)
I haven't had many reads since my very first post about music. Also, I live in the U.K. and the algorithym doesn't seem to catch up fast here. I do hope Vocal sorts this out, but still I love this platform and I cherish the support that I get from everyone who knows me here.
Having read your previous posts and others' on this topic, I am not new to this idea, that a heart without a read doesn't count when you come back and actually read the piece. But I really enjoyed how you pulled this article (and your previous ones) together to convey the points. I hope Vocal is paying attention!
I guess the logic of 'no second read' is to stop creators gaming the system. Otherwise, Mike and I could (for example) agree to go back and skim through a handful of each other's stories every day. We rack up extra reads (and pennies) but don't expand the site's readership at all. The solution might be to offer a credit for a like, regardless of how long someone spends on a story in the first instance? But then no credit for a second read, comment etc.
Wow, I did not know that second read doesn't count... what if I note a story with a like for later, because I have no time right then? It's not fair...
So everyone that writes a story that I save to read later, just doesn't get a read from me. SMDH Vocal needs to fix that and fast
This is important information. Thanks a lot. My conclusion is we need to read all of the story before giving someone a comment or like.
Omgggg, I had no idea that if we click on a story the first time, don't complete reading it, and then come back a second time and complete reading it, does not register as a read!! That's terrible!