So, there are 5 people who have responded to his most resent story. Most of those people have replied back and He has responded to a number of those responses which makes 14 replies to his story. But, If you took out his own responses there are 8 replies to his story so this fill his "I need 8 replies" quota.

As for me & my stuff I normally go for 5 replies & that's good for me because that generally how many people read my stuff. But I've been taking a month or longer to get stuff out so I don't use the number of replies to gage when I should get things out. I get them out when I get them out.