The Official Author's Hangout Earth Day 2013 Contest Support Thread

Welcome to the only real contest thread in the AH. Come on in and sit right down. Kick up your feet and relax. You are among friends here.

Well, entry time has passed but now the nail biting time is here. We should know the results of the real contest in about a week. Ignore anything you read about a fake contest. That is what it is, fake.
 
Contest analysis - Earth Day Contest 2013

SSS hasn't done an update on his numbers since the contest ended and the sweeps began.

Here:

Good evening. The Internet informs me that there are 63 stories in the competition to date, with an average score of 4.40 from an average of 303 votes. Stories had an average of 26,829 views, an average of 9 favorites, and an average of 8 comments. The average ratio of votes to views is 1.13%. The average number of pages is 2.7, with the longest story being 10 pages.

So far there have been a total of 19,147 votes, 1,690,248 views, 569 favorites and 558 comments.

The standard deviation of scores (from the average of 4.40) is 0.27 and the standard deviation of votes (from the average of 303) is 420. The median score is 4.48, the median number of votes is 136 and the median number of pages is 2. The top 25% of scores are 4.59 or above and the bottom 25% of scores are 4.18 or below.

Sweeps

Some votes have been reduced (swept) since the start of the competition. A total of 56 stories have had their votes adjusted, with 79 sweeps resulting in a new score that day which is higher than before and 9 sweeps resulting in a new score that day which is lower. There were a total of 1,124 votes swept, being an average of 20 per swept story. The maximum number of votes swept for a single story was 159. (Figures based on toplists, and may not be totally accurate).


Categories entered (alphabetic order)

  • BDSM (2 stories)
  • Celebrities (1 story)
  • Erotic Couplings (11 stories)
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur (3 stories)
  • Fetish (2 stories)
  • First Time (1 story)
  • Gay Male (1 story)
  • Group Sex (3 stories)
  • Humor & Satire (1 story)
  • Illustrated (1 story)
  • Incest/Taboo (10 stories)
  • Interracial Love (1 story)
  • Lesbian Sex (2 stories)
  • Loving Wives (3 stories)
  • Mature (2 stories)
  • NonConsent/Reluctance (3 stories)
  • NonHuman (4 stories)
  • Reviews & Essays (1 story)
  • Romance (6 stories)
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy (4 stories)
  • Text With Audio (1 story)

Views by category

  • Incest/Taboo: 836,649 (49.5%)
  • Erotic Couplings: 123,487 (7.3%)
  • NonConsent/Reluctance: 98,552 (5.8%)
  • Group Sex: 97,953 (5.8%)
  • Romance: 93,914 (5.6%)
  • Loving Wives: 89,391 (5.3%)
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 68,060 (4.0%)
  • Illustrated: 51,301 (3.0%)
  • BDSM: 37,157 (2.2%)
  • Mature: 30,657 (1.8%)
  • NonHuman: 28,219 (1.7%)
  • Lesbian Sex: 22,286 (1.3%)
  • Text With Audio: 21,329 (1.3%)
  • Interracial Love: 21,248 (1.3%)
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 20,500 (1.2%)
  • First Time: 18,379 (1.1%)
  • Fetish: 11,316 (0.7%)
  • Humor & Satire: 7,779 (0.5%)
  • Gay Male: 6,254 (0.4%)
  • Reviews & Essays: 4,057 (0.2%)
  • Celebrities: 1,760 (0.1%)

Comments by category

  • Incest/Taboo: 163 (29.2%)
  • Loving Wives: 90 (16.1%)
  • Romance: 77 (13.8%)
  • NonConsent/Reluctance: 39 (7.0%)
  • Erotic Couplings: 36 (6.5%)
  • NonHuman: 24 (4.3%)
  • Group Sex: 22 (3.9%)
  • Reviews & Essays: 18 (3.2%)
  • Text With Audio: 16 (2.9%)
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 15 (2.7%)
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 14 (2.5%)
  • BDSM: 12 (2.2%)
  • Mature: 10 (1.8%)
  • Humor & Satire: 7 (1.3%)
  • Lesbian Sex: 4 (0.7%)
  • Fetish: 4 (0.7%)
  • Illustrated: 3 (0.5%)
  • Gay Male: 2 (0.4%)
  • Interracial Love: 2 (0.4%)
  • First Time: 0 (0.0%)
  • Celebrities: 0 (0.0%)

Favorites by category

  • Incest/Taboo: 302 (53.1%)
  • Romance: 50 (8.8%)
  • NonConsent/Reluctance: 46 (8.1%)
  • Loving Wives: 29 (5.1%)
  • NonHuman: 27 (4.7%)
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 22 (3.9%)
  • Erotic Couplings: 22 (3.9%)
  • Group Sex: 19 (3.3%)
  • Mature: 13 (2.3%)
  • BDSM: 10 (1.8%)
  • Text With Audio: 8 (1.4%)
  • First Time: 7 (1.2%)
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 5 (0.9%)
  • Gay Male: 3 (0.5%)
  • Illustrated: 2 (0.4%)
  • Interracial Love: 1 (0.2%)
  • Humor & Satire: 1 (0.2%)
  • Lesbian Sex: 1 (0.2%)
  • Fetish: 1 (0.2%)
  • Reviews & Essays: 0 (0.0%)
  • Celebrities: 0 (0.0%)

Votes by category

  • Incest/Taboo: 9,410 (49.1%)
  • Romance: 2,697 (14.1%)
  • Loving Wives: 1,683 (8.8%)
  • Erotic Couplings: 998 (5.2%)
  • NonConsent/Reluctance: 827 (4.3%)
  • Group Sex: 803 (4.2%)
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 591 (3.1%)
  • NonHuman: 563 (2.9%)
  • Mature: 354 (1.8%)
  • BDSM: 242 (1.3%)
  • First Time: 147 (0.8%)
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 142 (0.7%)
  • Lesbian Sex: 130 (0.7%)
  • Text With Audio: 122 (0.6%)
  • Fetish: 102 (0.5%)
  • Illustrated: 101 (0.5%)
  • Reviews & Essays: 72 (0.4%)
  • Humor & Satire: 68 (0.4%)
  • Interracial Love: 66 (0.3%)
  • Gay Male: 29 (0.2%)
  • Celebrities: 0 (0.0%)

Average scores by category

  • Romance: 4.69
  • NonHuman: 4.62
  • Text With Audio: 4.61
  • Group Sex: 4.56
  • Reviews & Essays: 4.51
  • Illustrated: 4.51
  • Incest/Taboo: 4.49
  • Gay Male: 4.48
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 4.48
  • Mature: 4.40
  • Erotic Couplings: 4.37
  • Interracial Love: 4.35
  • BDSM: 4.34
  • First Time: 4.33
  • Fetish: 4.32
  • Humor & Satire: 4.29
  • NonConsent/Reluctance: 4.22
  • Loving Wives: 4.20
  • Lesbian Sex: 4.17
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 4.07
  • Celebrities: 3.67

Hotness by category

  • Romance: 100%
  • Illustrated: 100%
  • Text With Audio: 100%
  • Reviews & Essays: 100%
  • NonHuman: 75%
  • Group Sex: 67%
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 67%
  • BDSM: 50%
  • Incest/Taboo: 50%
  • Mature: 50%
  • Erotic Couplings: 36%

Swept votes by category

  • Incest/Taboo: 372
  • Romance: 249
  • Loving Wives: 115
  • Erotic Couplings: 100
  • Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 37
  • NonHuman: 31
  • Exhibitionist & Voyeur: 29
  • Group Sex: 29
  • NonConsent/Reluctance: 26
  • Mature: 24
  • Lesbian Sex: 24
  • Illustrated: 19
  • Humor & Satire: 17
  • BDSM: 14
  • Interracial Love: 12
  • Reviews & Essays: 12
  • Gay Male: 10
  • Text With Audio: 2
  • Fetish: 2

Number of views, votes, comments per day

  • 31 Mar (Sunday) : 343,113 views, 4,141 votes, 114 comments
  • 1 Apr (Monday) : 33,921 views, 629 votes, 32 comments
  • 2 Apr (Tuesday) : 132,926 views, 1,881 votes, 28 comments
  • 3 Apr (Wednesday) : 70,164 views, 850 votes, 10 comments
  • 4 Apr (Thursday) : 90,311 views, 638 votes, 17 comments
  • 5 Apr (Friday) : 63,202 views, 694 votes, 15 comments
  • 6 Apr (Saturday) : 78,042 views, 753 votes, 28 comments
  • 7 Apr (Sunday) : 75,340 views, 775 votes, 25 comments
  • 8 Apr (Monday) : 41,859 views, 592 votes, 35 comments
  • 9 Apr (Tuesday) : 75,154 views, 1,248 votes, 51 comments
  • 10 Apr (Wednesday) : 63,381 views, 870 votes, 34 comments
  • 11 Apr (Thursday) : 74,067 views, 867 votes, 35 comments
  • 12 Apr (Friday) : 83,266 views, 1,205 votes, 37 comments
  • 13 Apr (Saturday) : 149,854 views, 2,046 votes, 15 comments
  • 14 Apr (Sunday) : 95,879 views, 1,198 votes, 27 comments
  • 15 Apr (Monday) : 117,189 views, 1,215 votes, 28 comments
  • 16 Apr (Tuesday) : 47,517 views, 368 votes, 15 comments
  • 17 Apr (Wednesday) : 31,280 views, -564 votes, 11 comments
  • 18 Apr (Thursday) : 23,783 views, -259 votes, 1 comments

New stories today: None


Authors entered so far are:

AffectionateFather, AlwaysHungry, alwayswantedto, Armphid, Ashson (2), Aunay, Beelzebub72, BrettJ, BrookMeier, Candlelight062, carlieplum, CatRun, CavyConsultant, chocolatecookie3, Cndrlla69, curlyspurs, Dark_Angel_Selkie, DG Hear, eclare (2), Euphonic, HeyAll (2), hoo_hoo_boo (2), HottieKatie, ihartekenny, JagFarlane (2), Jasmynn_Brown, JuanVato, litfan10, Lovefreely1993, memorable_event, MichaelWest, msgrant67, MSTarot, Neonurotic, OpalEssence, randibyrnes, RedHairedandFriendly (2), RjThoughts, Rutabaga72, sexnovella, silkstockingslover (2), slyc_willie (2), sr71plt, StaciRay79, Stacy469, subwryter, SusanJillParker, theravenfox, tk5555, Tx Tall Tales (2), TxRad, vencuyot, xelliebabex, YDB95

Disclaimer

Because of the way this site works these figures will not be totally up-to-date. For a given story the score shown on the category page, the author's page, and the toplists page, can all be different. Also it appears that various pages update at different times of the day, sometimes quite infrequently.

Please do not PM me asking for more detailed information. I do not wish to skew contest results by giving a target for voting manipulation.

Contest page: Earth Day Contest 2013
 
I've had 159 votes knocked off. There's something screwy going on.

myself said:
The maximum number of votes swept for a single story was 159.

Well we know where the 159 votes were from. :)

The thing is, I don't believe any sweep system can be perfect. IP addresses are well and good but how hard is it to change to another PC? Or organize your friends to do it for you? OTOH if a lot of valid votes are from a large organization (eg. a University) which uses NAT then each vote will appear to come from the same IP.

You could conceivably insist people log on to vote, but apart from the fact that it wouldn't be perfectly secure anyway, a lot of people wouldn't want to go to the hassle.

@eclare: Both of your stories come high on the "percent of viewers who vote" so you are doing well in that regard. :)
 
I believe it would be nice if Lit could somehow institute a voting system that would require any votes of 1 or 2 to be accompanied by a comment, otherwise it won't go through.

This was tried on another site I post at, requiring comments on votes of 3 or lower. From what I gather, all it resulted in was a large drop in the number of votes overall ( People didn't like having to say why they thought a story was average, and quit voting at all -- even 5s ) and the scores skewed even more toward the top of the scale ( where they always skew anyway, because most people who don't like a story don't get to the end to vote )
 
Please, for the record I did not stuff my ballot box. I've had too many inferences now to just ignore it any longer.

(Is it even rational to do so and then complain to the writers forum and to the site that I got caught?)

Nor did I encourage anyone else to do so on my behalf, aside from my readers. Aside from my wife and my on-and-off editor no one in the outside work even know that I'm writing erotica.

It's a complete mystery to me why I dropped 159 votes. That's why I posted to the writer's forum. To try to learn why. Not to complain about my ratings or to boast about my work.

(Did I even mention the name?)

In the final analysis, I don't care about the ratings or if I win the contest or not. My work will sink or swim on it's own. And I honestly don't know how I'm doing in comparison to the other entrants. But what irks me to no end is what I perceive as outside manipulation. One bombs as you guys call them.

And an inexplicable drop of 159 votes.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me that someone out there voted 160 times. Or that ten people voted 16 times.

I've cooled off now.

sr71plt - I read your Amish thing this morning. I thought it was very good.
 
Please, for the record I did not stuff my ballot box. I've had too many inferences now to just ignore it any longer.

(Is it even rational to do so and then complain to the writers forum and to the site that I got caught?)

Nor did I encourage anyone else to do so on my behalf, aside from my readers. Aside from my wife and my on-and-off editor no one in the outside work even know that I'm writing erotica.

It's a complete mystery to me why I dropped 159 votes. That's why I posted to the writer's forum. To try to learn why. Not to complain about my ratings or to boast about my work.

(Did I even mention the name?)

In the final analysis, I don't care about the ratings or if I win the contest or not. My work will sink or swim on it's own. And I honestly don't know how I'm doing in comparison to the other entrants. But what irks me to no end is what I perceive as outside manipulation. One bombs as you guys call them.

And an inexplicable drop of 159 votes.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me that someone out there voted 160 times. Or that ten people voted 16 times.

I've cooled off now.

sr71plt - I read your Amish thing this morning. I thought it was very good.

I don't think anyone accused you of cheating. If there was an accusation it was against party or party's unknown.

Most of us have seen this all before, many times over.
 
There's always going to be manipulations of the contests. Most of the time, the effects are short-lived, and the benefits to the full body of your work far outweigh the hits your contest story might take.

There are authors too invested in winning at any cost. There are fans determined to help you by multi-voting, or bombing other people's stories. ( Again, in my experience, not encouraging them isn't always enough. You have to actively discourage this sort of behavior from readers. ) There are trolls who don't like certain authors/categories/length/posting dates and bomb them to try to discourage the person/story choice. There are just plain jackasses who bomb everything in a contest just for shits and giggles.

It's just what the contests are, and what they've always been ( although, with far fewer tin-foil-hat wearing trolls and scumballs posting crap to the support thread in days gone past )

Getting rid of the money might curb some of it, but as long as there's any sort of prize, that stuff is going to be there.
 
Please, for the record I did not stuff my ballot box. I've had too many inferences now to just ignore it any longer.

(Is it even rational to do so and then complain to the writers forum and to the site that I got caught?)

Nor did I encourage anyone else to do so on my behalf, aside from my readers. Aside from my wife and my on-and-off editor no one in the outside work even know that I'm writing erotica.

It's a complete mystery to me why I dropped 159 votes. That's why I posted to the writer's forum. To try to learn why. Not to complain about my ratings or to boast about my work.

(Did I even mention the name?)

In the final analysis, I don't care about the ratings or if I win the contest or not. My work will sink or swim on it's own. And I honestly don't know how I'm doing in comparison to the other entrants. But what irks me to no end is what I perceive as outside manipulation. One bombs as you guys call them.

And an inexplicable drop of 159 votes.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me that someone out there voted 160 times. Or that ten people voted 16 times.

I've cooled off now.

sr71plt - I read your Amish thing this morning. I thought it was very good.

welcome to the club. This happened to me last year and I was branded a cheater. The leading story in both the winter and v-day contests both lost a ton of 5's and dropped out of the winnings.

The toadies here use the excuse of ballot stuffing, either you're cheating or your fans are over zealous.

Crock of shit to both. The purpose of the final sweeps are to line it up so the winner is who the site wants pure and simple.

Welcome to you true contest experience.
 
welcome to the club. This happened to me last year and I was branded a cheater. The leading story in both the winter and v-day contests both lost a ton of 5's and dropped out of the winnings.

The toadies here use the excuse of ballot stuffing, either you're cheating or your fans are over zealous.

Crock of shit to both. The purpose of the final sweeps are to line it up so the winner is who the site wants pure and simple.

Welcome to you true contest experience.

Says the man who was so sure he would lose in the last contest, yet won 3d.
 
Well I have no complaints. If I understand correctly it washes out both high and low scores to push you to the median of your scores. I am okay with that since I am not submitting for a score, to win or to garner praises.

It is easy to feel the competitive urge and feel discouraged by any poor reception of a story, but I try to find gratitude, I am grateful in writing what I enjoy writing and reaching that one reader who shares my enjoyment. I am an amateur and this is art, I do not believe myself the greatest writer or expect my art to appeal to the masses. A smarter man than me once advised that I should run my own race, and so I do. I accept that my submissions are playful, experimental and each one is a learning experience.
 
MichaelWest,

I concur with you whole heartedly.

I'm new to all of this. You all know it.

I've come to realize that erotic writing is an art. And not a low one.

With fiction writing one expects to be able to pique the reader's interests, their intellect. Play with the emotions a little. Maybe a tear. With humor, the author wants a physical response. A belly laugh.

With erotic writing...we're on a whole new level. I get that now.

It is an art. A high art.

And I am in awe of some of the work I've seen on Lit.

My motivation is very simple. I want to expose my artwork to as many people as I can. I want them to be titillated by it. I want them to laugh and cry and laugh again. It's not about my ego. I don't even know if I have one.

I want to make other people happy. Is that so wrong?

I've a confession to make. I don't read fiction. Aside from the Lit stories, I'll bet that 98% of what I read is non-fiction.

I don't believe I've ever read a romance story in my life!

Yet here I am, compelled for some reason, to crank this stuff out. Go figure.

And on top of it all, my wife is seriously pissed with me as she feels I'm wasting my time. She's probably right.

Michael, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dump out on you.
 
Crock of shit to both. The purpose of the final sweeps are to line it up so the winner is who the site wants pure and simple.

I did post that there were those around with tin-foil-hat views on contest manipulation by the site itself. :rolleyes:
 
MichaelWest,

I concur with you whole heartedly.

I'm new to all of this. You all know it.

I've come to realize that erotic writing is an art. And not a low one.

With fiction writing one expects to be able to pique the reader's interests, their intellect. Play with the emotions a little. Maybe a tear. With humor, the author wants a physical response. A belly laugh.

With erotic writing...we're on a whole new level. I get that now.

It is an art. A high art.

And I am in awe of some of the work I've seen on Lit.

My motivation is very simple. I want to expose my artwork to as many people as I can. I want them to be titillated by it. I want them to laugh and cry and laugh again. It's not about my ego. I don't even know if I have one.

I want to make other people happy. Is that so wrong?

I've a confession to make. I don't read fiction. Aside from the Lit stories, I'll bet that 98% of what I read is non-fiction.

I don't believe I've ever read a romance story in my life!

Yet here I am, compelled for some reason, to crank this stuff out. Go figure.

And on top of it all, my wife is seriously pissed with me as she feels I'm wasting my time. She's probably right.

Michael, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dump out on you.

No worries. I once read a quote from a more famous author that being a writer is a very lonely occupation. I think most any artist wants to hear how their art touches, affects, changes people's lives, it is what art does.

Like you I have the desire to write, I receive no pay or tangible reward, that may mean this is just all a waste, but then I am certain there are those who feel David was a waste of stone, the Sistine ceiling a waste of plaster and pigment, the Eiffel Tower a waste of iron. If you must create, create, if only for your sanity or pleasure. And don't let anyone pee on your rug. All the writing submitted here ties this place together, even the worst submitted is better than the best lost to fear, laziness or indifference.
 
I feel your pain

Please, for the record I did not stuff my ballot box. I've had too many inferences now to just ignore it any longer.

(Is it even rational to do so and then complain to the writers forum and to the site that I got caught?)

Nor did I encourage anyone else to do so on my behalf, aside from my readers. Aside from my wife and my on-and-off editor no one in the outside work even know that I'm writing erotica.

It's a complete mystery to me why I dropped 159 votes. That's why I posted to the writer's forum. To try to learn why. Not to complain about my ratings or to boast about my work.

(Did I even mention the name?)

In the final analysis, I don't care about the ratings or if I win the contest or not. My work will sink or swim on it's own. And I honestly don't know how I'm doing in comparison to the other entrants. But what irks me to no end is what I perceive as outside manipulation. One bombs as you guys call them.

And an inexplicable drop of 159 votes.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me that someone out there voted 160 times. Or that ten people voted 16 times.

I've cooled off now.

sr71plt - I read your Amish thing this morning. I thought it was very good.

You should have seen the bloodbath last summer


http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=818319&highlight=Summer+Contest&page=52

I lost almost 700 votes in consecutive sweeps the day before the contest ended. Didn't hurt my score much, still won 2nd place. Went from almost 1200 votes to 500. Funny thing, my other story had 2200 votes and 160,000 views, and was only swept for about 40 votes. Score didn't change, but it went from 4th place to 7th.

The contest 2nd place story did go on to hit #1 in the Romance toplisr for a few months. Score went back up as well.

Don't normally talk too much about my scores, but that contest was just too bizarre. Best guest is that among my fans I must have some well meaning but misguided multi-voters, at least on my leading story.
 
Now, that's a suggestion that I would love to see implemented. Once upon a time, any comment had to have a vote next to it, or else the comment wouldn't be posted. But you're proposing the opposite. This suggestion would be worth a PM to Laurel.

You know what? I just might do that. But I'm thinking here . . . it might carry more weight if others would send a PM, too. *wink wink*
I guess I just assume that every time I post in the AH, it's being read by the Mods {as most other forums are}, but I know I've seen posts by fellow authors where they tell me that the Mods rarely come here. Do you believe I should PM Laurel or to Manu, or both, to improve my chances they would look at it?

No, I haven't seen you bitch that much. ;)
I try to keep my bitchin' at a two post max. :kiss:
 
This was tried on another site I post at, requiring comments on votes of 3 or lower. From what I gather, all it resulted in was a large drop in the number of votes overall ( People didn't like having to say why they thought a story was average, and quit voting at all -- even 5s ) and the scores skewed even more toward the top of the scale ( where they always skew anyway, because most people who don't like a story don't get to the end to vote )

Lush Stories had an option where authors could require that people comment in order to vote. It might have deterred others, but if I thought a story sucked, it just meant I voted a low score and then put some random crap in the comment, or they ended up with a long screed detailing why their story sucked. I don't like the idea of forcing comments. You're just going to get crappier comments and fewer votes. What I would like is some way of encouraging the readers to just comment more in general. It's a shame we can't set up some kind of random drop mechanic, where if you vote, comment, or both, you have a certain (small) percentage of getting a prize.

I wonder whether I could do that on my stories... "Comment and win a chance to have me write a story for you!" Think it'd work?
 
I can see it's deja vu all over again for you guys.

Three years plus ago, when I entered the Christmas contest, my story was annihilated in the scores. I had plenty of downloads and favoriting of the story and me as an author, and I received plenty of wonderful e-mails and equally wonderful and enthusiastic comments, but the score kept falling to lows I'd never experienced with any of my other stories on this site before having entered the contest.

I guess that was before Lit began doing sweeps. I guess that's why I'm happy for the sweeps.

Anyhoo . . . it had so discouraged me that I hadn't entered another contest until this one. The downloads are great, the scoring has gone up exponentially, and it's being favorited while readers are discovering my other stories and voting on them, too; raising the scores of stories in that genre as well.

But I've noticed, that when there's money involved, things can go south really fast. The trick is to ride the roller coaster and wait for the contest to be over. That's when I see my scores JUMP although downloads slow down considerably.
 
You know what? I just might do that. But I'm thinking here . . . it might carry more weight if others would send a PM, too. *wink wink*
I guess I just assume that every time I post in the AH, it's being read by the Mods {as most other forums are}, but I know I've seen posts by fellow authors where they tell me that the Mods rarely come here. Do you believe I should PM Laurel or to Manu, or both, to improve my chances they would look at it?

I try to keep my bitchin' at a two post max. :kiss:

The AH is unmoderated, so I figure none of the powers that be spend much time here lurking. However, Laurel is usually quick to post on her birthday threads, but maybe that's just her being conscientious. ;)

If you want anything done, PM Laurel (and only Laurel). Emails won't work; she gets tons of them. Be concise.
 
Please, for the record I did not stuff my ballot box. I've had too many inferences now to just ignore it any longer.

I didn't mean to suggest you had voted for yourself. Personally I don't see the point. If I won because of my own votes I wouldn't really have "won" would I? It's like typing a cheat into a game and then winning. It is a hollow victory.
 
Up-to-date sweep info:

Sweeps

Some votes have been reduced (swept) since the start of the competition. A total of 58 stories have had their votes adjusted, with 101 sweeps resulting in a new score that day which is higher than before and 14 sweeps resulting in a new score that day which is lower. There were a total of 1,298 votes swept, being an average of 22 per swept story. The maximum number of votes swept for a single story was 159. (Figures based on toplists, and may not be totally accurate).
 
Personally I don't see the point. If I won because of my own votes I wouldn't really have "won" would I? It's like typing a cheat into a game and then winning. It is a hollow victory.

You don't see the point? It's for money--but it would be enough for a lot of folks just to be able to pretend in front of everyone else. I think you're being sweetly naïve (if you really believe it). I think there are plenty who will do it just for the bragging rights and the feeling of false superiority. (Internet contests are great for feeding false senses of achievement and people who dwell on the Internet, on the whole, are prone to being happy with self-delusion--as evidenced by this whole issue.)

This doesn't have to be a finger-pointing issue, I didn't bring it up. But I see no reason to play dumb bunny when it comes up.

The sweep system might just be screwy. If it isn't, though, it's naïve not to be logical about stories losing rating when votes are swept. If the sweep system is legitimate and after it's done lots of votes are sliced off and deleting the votes made the rating go down, somebody's been stuffing the ballot box in the story's favor. (Duh) (If the rating goes up, somebody's trying to suppress that story--which can happen for a couple of reasons: they want to put their own stories ahead of it and/or they want to humiliate and frustrate the author for personal reasons probably lead the pack as reasons for this).

Simple logic. If you've managed to use your brain to full capacity on that, then you move to who benefits from stuffing the ballot box in the favor of a story and who would care all that much to do it. It's also common practice to cry "not me" and point to some hazy someone else when you've gotten caught with your hand in the cookie jar (evidence LC's bringing his time with this up when and how he has). Sure you can go with the "I've got a lot of friends anxious to get me some money and prestige because they love me so much" if you like. I'm not sure that argument impresses me much though. Maybe for a couple of votes. In LC's case, some folks decided that Scouries did it for some sort of double-back bang effect. They must think Scouries is more clever than I do.

I don't bring this up myself. I just point to logic when it comes up.

You can play silly "let's pretend the world isn't round" games with it as you like, when it comes up, I'll go with logic.

Then again, there just might be a serious mistake or two in the sweeping program (which then should show up across the board if you don't ascribe to the tin-foil-hatted notion that Laurel is manipulating the votes, which I don't ascribe to--but some here have said they do.)
 
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The AH is unmoderated, so I figure none of the powers that be spend much time here lurking. However, Laurel is usually quick to post on her birthday threads, but maybe that's just her being conscientious. ;)

Hah!

If you want anything done, PM Laurel (and only Laurel). Emails won't work; she gets tons of them. Be concise.

Thanks for the tip. I can send a PM and just wait and see if they see any merit in it. It surely can't hoit.
 
You don't see the point? ... I think there are plenty who will do it just for the bragging rights and the feeling of false superiority.

Bragging right to whom? My family? My friends? I think not.

Internet contests are great for feeding false senses of achievement ...

That was the point I was trying to make. A false sense of achievement. If you think you "win" by cheating, then you are deluded. You haven't won. I'm aiming that at you, Scouries. Don't bother replying, I have had you on ignore for a long time now.
 
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