Board Thread:General Wiki Discussion/@comment-10950063-20140404145452/@comment-5946174-20140404183105

Noothgrush wrote: I see what you're getting at, and it could honestly be a good idea to have an honorable mentions section. But one of the big problems still is that PotM is still largely a popularity contest. For example, when my story was nominated it got like 2 reads, Skelly considered taking down that month because a super duper low quality story nearly won. Like it was nearly trollpasta quality. Basically, it was only that story and one other that anybody really read. My story didn't get any increase in attention because of the nomination. It wasn't until Cym's blog that I actually saw an increase in traffic. Which due to the huge amount of positive feedback I've gotten, had anybody even read my story I probably could have stood a chance.

But it wasn't just mine, there were at least 6 stories that I was genuinely nervous about that I was sure would beat mine. They didn't even get votes. It was this low quality ritual pasta and then The Devil Game that not only got all the votes but got all the attention. Nobody really bothered to read any of the rest. None of those other stories got extra comments or anything. And I feel like it's a popularity game and once those two stories got a massive amount of votes, nobody really bothered to read the others because those two already had so much support.

So, I get what you're saying, but it might even be better not even as like a feature or prize that we just have a system where we can bring increased attention to more obscure works. There are some genuinely amazing stories on this site that have maybe 2 comments, that don't even get nominated. If my story gets nominated for PoTM and is beaten by a better pasta, then I applaud the author. However, it's quite infuriating to be beaten by trash because the layman can't tell the difference between quality writing and pretentious bullshit.