Vote Breakdown on Stories

[Bamagan]

At one site, in the past, you could see the vote distribution. That ended when it was discovered there was a mathematical formula that pulled all the votes toward the center. The only votes not pulled are ones and tens when they are the sole votes. A single 9 can reduce three ten votes to an 8.7, which I would think would be mathematically impossible, but apparently not. After continuous complaints, the site admin removed the distribution scale from the votes page. A single 9 vote isn't a 9, either. So WTF?

I know IMDB does something like that, where they weight votes toward the ends of the scales differently. Their defense is that a lot of people voting at the extremes are doing so with the intention of moving the average closer to where they think it should be rather than letting it actually represent the communal opinion. Many people confess to that behavior, for what's it worth. But if the movie has a seven when you think it should be lower and you vote a five, for example, less adjustment is needed than if you voted one. So they tend to treat scores at the extremes as if some fraction of them are bullshit but still legitimately positive or negative. It's not a great system, I suppose, but it's probably no worse than letting ballot stuffers run amok.

 

[MillieDynamite]

As I understand the formula used at the site that must not be named, they automatically throughout one of the highest and lowest votes (though they know they exist) and adjust those as highs and lows are added. But what it amounts to is one ten and one one are thrown out. The votes of 9, 8, and 7 are pulled toward 5, and 1, 2, and 3 votes are pulled toward 5 as well. To me, this makes no sense at all. 1s and 10s being equal automatically pulls the vote to a 5. The system is a convoluted bell curve. However, some scores also make no sense, as people have 9.9s on some stories. Which, given the givens of the formula, would seem quite impossible. Plus, all votes on all stories are adjusted daily, even when no new votes are made, and scores travel up or down at least one time in a day. It's infuriating to see your score change with no votes having been cast on it. Up or down, with no new votes, the score should remain the same.

I know IMDB does something like that, where they weight votes toward the ends of the scales differently. Their defense is that a lot of people voting at the extremes are doing so with the intention of moving the average closer to where they think it should be rather than letting it actually represent the communal opinion. Many people confess to that behavior, for what's it worth. But if the movie has a seven when you think it should be lower and you vote a five, for example, less adjustment is needed than if you voted one. So they tend to treat scores at the extremes as if some fraction of them are bullshit but still legitimately positive or negative. It's not a great system, I suppose, but it's probably no worse than letting ballot stuffers run amok.

 

[Bamagan]

As I understand the formula used at the site that must not be named, they automatically throughout one of the highest and lowest votes (though they know they exist) and adjust those as highs and lows are added. But what it amounts to is one ten and one one are thrown out. The votes of 9, 8, and 7 are pulled toward 5, and 1, 2, and 3 votes are pulled toward 5 as well. To me, this makes no sense at all. 1s and 10s being equal automatically pulls the vote to a 5. The system is a convoluted bell curve. However, some scores also make no sense, as people have 9.9s on some stories. Which, given the givens of the formula, would seem quite impossible. Plus, all votes on all stories are adjusted daily, even when no new votes are made, and scores travel up or down at least one time in a day. It's infuriating to see your score change with no votes having been cast on it. Up or down, with no new votes, the score should remain the same.

Presumably something else is going on in the background of their calculations, like they're applying a community weighting factor of some kind that affects certain scores or certain categories, although why they'd feel the need to make such an adjustment is beyond me. Or possibly people can change their votes so the 'point value' shifts despite no new votes coming in (we can do that here, for example).

 

[MillieDynamite]

Bamagan ... Yes, we can, but he says in the FAQ on voting.

"The score weighting formula figures where the story's raw score sits between this median and the extremes of 1 and 10. Then it calculates the same relative location for a median of 6.00. The raw scores median is calculated twice per day. The weighted score gets used as the story's score for display on the site."

 

[Bamagan]

Bamagan ... Yes, we can, but he says in the FAQ on voting.

Well, I assume he/they figure there's a good reason for such weighting, and I guess the raw recalculation being reapplied to the weighted one accounts for the shifts you're seeing, or at least most of them.

 

[MillieDynamite]

He says people don't vote their real opinion on a story if it has a rating of 8 or above. So, his goal is to not let you get one 8 or above.

Well, I assume he/they figure there's a good reason for such weighting, and I guess the raw recalculation being reapplied to the weighted one accounts for the shifts you're seeing, or at least most of them.

 

[Bamagan]

He says people don't vote their real opinion on a story if it has a rating of 8 or above. So, his goal is to not let you get one 8 or above.

I disagree with his position, although I admit a lot of people don't have a clear grasp of why they vote a certain number and can tend to herd their votes toward a desired outcome rather than an honest evaluation. So I don't think he's necessarily wrong, although he may well be overcompensating.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Well, he pays me money when my books sell at his paysite, so I can't downvote him for wanting to keep everything middle of the road at his free site. However, it isn't a free site. It's a membership site. But writers who have a certain amount of stories have all access without paying. You can read a limited number of stories for free, but not much. And when we shove our stories behind the pall wall, well, anywho, we get a tense, winey amount of money from that as well.

I disagree with his position, although I admit a lot of people don't have a clear grasp of why they vote a certain number and can tend to herd their votes toward a desired outcome rather than an honest evaluation. So I don't think he's necessarily wrong, although he may well be overcompensating.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I would also like to add, I'm not referring exclusively to an author's own works when I say I'd like to see the breakdown of votes. I do pay some attention to the score when I'm looking for something to read, although I principally select based on category and tags (when available). I might hesitate on a story that's got a 3.xx rating, since that might mean it's a grammatical mess or something. But if I could see that the rating has a spike of 1s dragging it down, I would probably be more charitable and assume part of the negativity is just knee-jerk aversion to some kind of fetish, which honestly is probably why I was looking for it in the first place!

As somebody with 3.XX rated stories; I'm offended. We're never going to know how voting really works, there have been theories over the years. I think it's something like the more people vote, the less each vote is worth. You can have -and I think somebody said they did- a 5.00, which would be a Red H, but the number of voters wasn't high enough. A few people can give a story a high vote, but many people voting gives it a high vote. I think 4.62-5.00 is red H area. I have a story with a 4.34 by 143 people and a 4.33 by 15. Are you trying to find a breakdown like how you can see how many stars each user gave on Amazon, or something?

 

[JaxRhapsody]

My comment above can be applied not just to our own stories, but those we seek out to read.

Do I automatically ignore a story rated under 4? Not at all. I get how it works here.

But if a story is just wallowing in the low threes or under, well, it definitely tells me there's some kind of problem beyond troll attacks.

I'd say anything mid three to low to maybe midish four is just an average story. There might not be anything actually wrong with it functionally, the story itself is probably just mid as they say these days. Or as my stepdad used to say; "good enough for government work." The voting is 0-5, so it's really not much, the .xx really isn't even needed and that's what people hang up on. Without those numbers a "3" and "4" would be closer than they look with them... or be vastly different. Two "3"s could be worlds apart.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Something’s odd about this. Only 715 views yet 433 votes. That’s more than one vote for every two views. You must have an amazingly devoted following who will plow through 70,000+ words and vote at the end. Congrats, BTW.

Not odd, it just means 282 people didn't vote for some reason. Another stat we don't look into is traffic, comparing traffic to everything else reveals the obvious of most or many readers don't do their "due dilligence" and interract. Given that and views, most of it doesn't mean as much as we think it does.

FFN has in a way more specific stats than here and it just went to show me that if anything matters remotely; it would be favorites. It taught me that reads are just "reads", really views, because it has chapter breakdowns that show how many "reads" each on has, that's how I found out that say 900 reads ain't really shit, and clicking to load a story is what counts. I only know one site that actually tracks reading- well two, kinda.

If that's odd, mine might even be odder.

 

[RejectReality]

He says people don't vote their real opinion on a story if it has a rating of 8 or above. So, his goal is to not let you get one 8 or above.

As much as anything, I think that was influenced by the core of paid subscribers & old timers who wanted the scores spread out more. I've been there through the entire crazy ride. We used to also have the raw score listed, but that was taken away long before the breakdown.

SOL is the perfect example of what happens when you throw more than simple math at people. Even people competent in math can't make heads or tails of how their scores are derived there, so everybody is somewhere between mildly puzzled and pissed. ( There's no way to even try now that no data beyond the public score is available, which is why that's all that's available. ) It's what the average joe feels like when you start introducing anything beyond simple averages.

That's why I always say it's a bad idea to start introducing any other formulas here. It's not going to solve anything. It's only going to create an additional class of pissed off people who believe nothing short of malicious witchcraft aimed specifically at them could generate the numbers they're seeing.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Here is a straight up add the votes up, 3+5+4+2, and then divide by the number of votes.

As somebody with 3.XX rated stories; I'm offended. We're never going to know how voting really works, there have been theories over the years. I think it's something like the more people vote, the less each vote is worth. You can have -and I think somebody said they did- a 5.00, which would be a Red H, but the number of voters wasn't high enough. A few people can give a story a high vote, but many people voting gives it a high vote. I think 4.62-5.00 is red H area. I have a story with a 4.34 by 143 people and a 4.33 by 15. Are you trying to find a breakdown like how you can see how many stars each user gave on Amazon, or something?

 

[MillieDynamite]

Oh, there you went and named the site that shall not be named.

As much as anything, I think that was influenced by the core of paid subscribers & old timers who wanted the scores spread out more. I've been there through the entire crazy ride. We used to also have the raw score listed, but that was taken away long before the breakdown.

SOL is the perfect example of what happens when you throw more than simple math at people. Even people competent in math can't make heads or tails of how their scores are derived there, so everybody is somewhere between mildly puzzled and pissed. ( There's no way to even try now that no data beyond the public score is available, which is why that's all that's available. ) It's what the average joe feels like when you start introducing anything beyond simple averages.

That's why I always say it's a bad idea to start introducing any other formulas here. It's not going to solve anything. It's only going to create an additional class of pissed off people who believe nothing short of malicious witchcraft aimed specifically at them could generate the numbers they're seeing.

 

[djrip]

As somebody with 3.XX rated stories; I'm offended. We're never going to know how voting really works, there have been theories over the years. I think it's something like the more people vote, the less each vote is worth. You can have -and I think somebody said they did- a 5.00, which would be a Red H, but the number of voters wasn't high enough. A few people can give a story a high vote, but many people voting gives it a high vote. I think 4.62-5.00 is red H area. I have a story with a 4.34 by 143 people and a 4.33 by 15. Are you trying to find a breakdown like how you can see how many stars each user gave on Amazon, or something?

Red H is 4.5 and up with at least 10 votes.

 

[NotWise]

Red H is 4.5 and up with at least 10 votes.

And "the more people vote the less each vote is worth" is inherent in the way an average is calculated.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

As much as anything, I think that was influenced by the core of paid subscribers & old timers who wanted the scores spread out more. I've been there through the entire crazy ride. We used to also have the raw score listed, but that was taken away long before the breakdown.

SOL is the perfect example of what happens when you throw more than simple math at people. Even people competent in math can't make heads or tails of how their scores are derived there, so everybody is somewhere between mildly puzzled and pissed. ( There's no way to even try now that no data beyond the public score is available, which is why that's all that's available. ) It's what the average joe feels like when you start introducing anything beyond simple averages.

That's why I always say it's a bad idea to start introducing any other formulas here. It's not going to solve anything. It's only going to create an additional class of pissed off people who believe nothing short of malicious witchcraft aimed specifically at them could generate the numbers they're seeing.

I'm on SOL and it's so annoying to do anything with. I'm certain Laurel & Manu have no interest. I imagine it's some sort of game every time we bring up vote anything.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Red H is 4.5 and up with at least 10 votes.

That makes me sad, since now I know I was closer to it, than I thought, with some of my stuff.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Don't get mad, write a 4.5 story. Now, if you can only keep the pesky trolls that downvote to keep out of that range, you'll have it made in the shade.

That makes me sad, since now I know I was closer to it, than I thought, with some of my stuff.