If you turn off scores...

[Bamagan]

This is tangentially related, but one of my stories has been at 4.88 for two years (almost exactly) with 129-130 ratings (don't remember which).

However, almost a week and a half ago it dropped to 4.8 in one day with 131 scores. Every day since then it's had an additional rating that's dropped it down just a little bit. Yesterday it was at 4.74 in the morning with 138 ratings. It seemed like a sweep happened as one dropped, bringing it back to 4.76/137, but I look again this morning and it's at 4.75/138 again.

If it's legit then fine, but this just seems weirdly suspicious because the story isn't new. FWIW, the story sat at 4.9's for a several months until it hit 100 ratings, then over the course of a few weeks it was voted down to 4.88.

It also hit 4.89 a few weeks ago, gettin it on the 'hall of fame' list, but was promptly voted back down to 4.88 within a week.

Thoughts?

Its arrival on the top list is likely to be the reason it is getting renewed attention after a long period of quiet stability. Whether or not the new votes are honest appraisals I can't say. There may well be trolls (or bot-trolls) who camp out on one or more top lists with a mission of grief. But there are probably actual readers who take the high score as a recommendation and then find themselves disappointed or offended.
Whether or not the low ratings of the latter qualify as trolling is debatable. They're possibly being sort-of honest about not liking it, but may also be scoring the story less-than-objectively (not on its own merits) by grading on a curve. For example, they don't think it deserves to be ranked so close to a five, perhaps being more like an 'average story' of 3 to 4 in their minds, but they vote 1 star because they think they're compensating for undeserved 5s. I don't think I personally consider them trolls, but I also don't have a great deal of respect for their integrity or reasoning.

 

[Diamondknight87]

Perhaps. It's the third part in a series, so if anyone doesn't know my style of writing by the time they get there (the first two stories are 68000 words when combined), then I don't know what to say.

Also, each subsequent score was either a three or two. I did the maths each time. I think this is an attempt to dodge sweeps, and considering it looked like a sweep happened yesterday it looks like it worked. One rating was removed with the sweep, raising the overall score a pittance, but the rest of them stayed.

Overall I think you're probably right about it's brief time in the Hall of Fame list. It's completely dominated by the same few authors and story series'.

Oh well. At least it's still above 4.7.

Thank you for responding, I really do appreciate it, especially since it was only sort of related to the original topic.

 

[Bamagan]

Perhaps. It's the third part in a series, so if anyone doesn't know my style of writing by the time they get there (the first two stories are 68000 words when combined), then I don't know what to say.

Also, each subsequent score was either a three or two. I did the maths each time. I think this is an attempt to dodge sweeps, and considering it looked like a sweep happened yesterday it looks like it worked. One rating was removed with the sweep, raising the overall score a pittance, but the rest of them stayed.

Overall I think you're probably right about it's brief time in the Hall of Fame list. It's completely dominated by the same few authors and story series'.

Oh well. At least it's still above 4.7.

Thank you for responding, I really do appreciate it, especially since it was only sort of related to the original topic.

People voting 2 or 3 could be the efforts of a troll to camouflage itself, but it's also perfectly reasonable voting behavior for certain types of legitimate readers. The views-to-votes ratio suggests that most readers don't bother voting, and that's likely because they abandon the story if it doesn't hook them quickly, but they'd presumably vote low if they were forced to do so, or 3 (the supposed 'average' score) if they fancy themselves charitable. Some small segment of that crowd probably does vote, to the disappointment of many authors. Their voting pattern would not necessarily trip any flags for trolling.

Any low vote can be malicious in the sense that it isn't an honest appraisal of a given story, but a sweep will necessarily be looking for a series of votes that suggests malice. If their 1-5 pattern breaks down to something like 10%/10%/20%/30%/30% the site would have to sift with a fine mesh to see if the low votes are suspiciously targeted. I'd hazard a guess that they do, at least for contests, but someone concentrating their efforts on the top lists is actually kind of the behavior one would expect to see if the top lists are functioning as intended. That is to say, exposing stuff that is well-regarded by the readers who are most interested in it when it's new to a wider audience and seeing if it still holds up.

 

[Diamondknight87]

What really makes me think it's trolling is the fact that it's one vote, one day at a time, around the same time every day. No more, no less, and the fact that the pattern started suddenly.

This is after probably over year of only getting a vote or two per month on the story. I published the story almost exactly 2 months ago.

Anyway, if this trend continues for much longer I might contact admin (though I know they have much bigger fish to fry). If it only lasts a couple more days I guess I'll just soak the damage and sit at the admittedly nice score of 4.7ish.

Though I do miss sitting at the 4.93 it sat at until getting 100 votes, it's like StillStunned said: I earned the original score, and no amount of trolling can take that away.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is tangentially related, but one of my stories has been at 4.88 for two years (almost exactly) with 129-130 ratings (don't remember which).

However, almost a week and a half ago it dropped to 4.8 in one day with 131 scores. Every day since then it's had an additional rating that's dropped it down just a little bit. Yesterday it was at 4.74 in the morning with 138 ratings. It seemed like a sweep happened as one dropped, bringing it back to 4.76/137, but I look again this morning and it's at 4.75/138 again.

If it's legit then fine, but this just seems weirdly suspicious because the story isn't new. FWIW, the story sat at 4.9's for a several months until it hit 100 ratings, then over the course of a few weeks it was voted down to 4.88.

It also hit 4.89 a few weeks ago, gettin it on the 'hall of fame' list, but was promptly voted back down to 4.88 within a week.

Thoughts?

There is an obvious problem with the legitimacy of voting and scoring on Literotica. The system is flawed to its core and is quite easy to game. That's none of your fault so your frustration is quite understandable. We've all been there, more or less. When someone is "pounding" the stories in which you invested many hours and so much of your enthusiasm, well, that leaves an emotional impact on an author. So most of us here sympathize with you.

That being said, you need to know that the website doesn't care whether the votes are legitimate or not, or whether the scores and top lists are being gamed or not. That much is painfully obvious. In truth, there are no perfect solutions but there are potential, simple improvements that would make things considerably better. Alas, as I said, the website doesn't care about that, so my advice to you is to try to enjoy your writing and the scarce feedback you get from readers, and to stop worrying about scores. Find a way to enjoy everything that the website does offer and try to put aside all it doesn't. That's the only way to truly enjoy your experience here.

 

[Comshaw]

There is an obvious problem with the legitimacy of voting and scoring on Literotica. The system is flawed to its core and is quite easy to game. That's none of your fault so your frustration is quite understandable. We've all been there, more or less. When someone is "pounding" the stories in which you invested many hours and so much of your enthusiasm, well, that leaves an emotional impact on an author. So most of us here sympathize with you.

That being said, you need to know that the website doesn't care whether the votes are legitimate or not, or whether the scores and top lists are being gamed or not. That much is painfully obvious. In truth, there are no perfect solutions but there are potential, simple improvements that would make things considerably better. Alas, as I said, the website doesn't care about that, so my advice to you is to try to enjoy your writing and the scarce feedback you get from readers, and to stop worrying about scores. Find a way to enjoy everything that the website does offer and try to put aside all it doesn't. That's the only way to truly enjoy your experience here.

I would be interested in what you think those are.


Comshaw

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I would be interested in what you think those are.


Comshaw

There is more than one approach here. But I will try to elaborate on the simplest one - disallowing anonymous voting. Simple, as I said. Now, to elaborate:

In the current system, anonymous votes are tied to the IP of the user, an approach that is quite easy to game. To be fair to the website, there isn't much you can do to regulate once you allow anonymous voting. There are some improvements but not many. So by allowing only registered users to vote (anonymous users would still be able to read and comment on stories), you eliminate a big part of the problem as votes would now be tied to the user account rather than an IP.

A potential drawback of this approach is getting fewer reader votes. Curiously, even if this is quite a logical assumption, my own experiences speak to the contrary, as small and inadequate as that dataset is. My fantasy stories posted here on Lit and on SOL received roughly an equal number of votes even if SOL is a website that requires registration for users to be able to vote, and is also considerably smaller than Lit.
It's possible that in a situation where anonymous voting is disallowed, and thus individual votes mean more, registered users feel motivated to vote. I am of course speculating here. Whatever the case, I believe this wouldn't be a serious drawback as the registered user base would likely grow. Votes would be fewer, at least at the start, but they would also be more meaningful.

Someone will likely point out: "But what stops a user from registering several times with different emails and thus game the system?" Frankly, I doubt many would go to these lengths and juggle several emails and accounts just so they could vote more than once.
Anyway, there is a way to solve this. Instead of "sweeping" the scores of stories, the website could do weekly/bi-weekly/monthly user account sweeps. The sweep would be for the IPs from which accounts are being accessed. If more than one user account is being accessed from the same IPs, the site would close the newer accounts and send a generic warning to the user that the next such transgression would lead to a temporary or permanent ban.

Of course, people might use VPNs to hide IPs but the hassle is too big and it would also require some technical knowledge from users. Sooner or later they would forget to turn on the VPN when accessing an account and would get caught by the sweep.

These sweeps would clearly be more meaningful than the sweeps the website does now, as unlike changing your anonymous IP and voting many times, creating a user account on Lit is a process that takes a day or two and could even be extended further.

Another legit question would be: "But what about those authors who need more than one account to separate the reader groups they are targeting and also to avoid the spilling over of toxicity as in the case of Loving Wives?"
This one is also easy to solve. When registering for a new, alternative user account, old users would be able to specify what their main account is so their new accounts would be approved and fully functional - except for the ability to vote on stories. They would only be able to vote when logged on their main accounts. The anonymity of their alt accounts would be preserved as only Laurel and Manu would know who is whose alt, which is pretty much the same as it is now.

To finish, I am not claiming that the above approach is perfect - there would likely be some small drawbacks, but overall, it would be much better than what we have now and it would lead to way more meaningful scores, top lists, and contests. It would also almost eradicate the bombings (both 5* and 1* ones) that come from conceited authors, trolls, and other questionable life forms.

 

[MrPixel]

... If more than one user account is being accessed from the same IPs, ...

It's perfectly legit to have different users on the same IP. For instance, all devices in our household will report the same IP. F'rinstance, if my wife decides she wants an account, it'll be on the same IP as anything I do. Same at our studio. I "allowed" a tenant at the apartments that used to be on our studio campus to access the WiFi. Guess who got the nastygram from our ISP about DMCA violations? He was downloading porn from well-known pirate sites. Idiot.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's perfectly legit to have different users on the same IP. For instance, all devices in our household will report the same IP. F'rinstance, if my wife decides she wants an account, it'll be on the same IP as anything I do. Same at our studio. I "allowed" a tenant at the apartments that used to be on our studio campus to access the WiFi. Guess who got the nastygram from our ISP about DMCA violations? He was downloading porn from well-known pirate sites. Idiot.

Sure, that is common in all households. But by my proposed solution, only one of the users can have a registered Lit account. Other household users can freely enjoy their reading and commenting but not voting experience, by being anonymous users on Lit.

 

[MrPixel]

I'm with you on most of what you propose, but one-account-per-household/IP won't fly.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm with you on most of you propose, but one-account-per-household/IP won't fly.

With whom?

 

[RejectReality]

Fantasy numbers on SOL and here aren't a good metric to judge anonymous vs. registered. They're reasonably similar and always have been. They're useful for teasing out how many views here are bots and spiders for that very reason.

Get into any other category and there's a vast disparity. Get away from long stories and it grows even more. SOL is even more biased toward epics than Lit is, and that's saying something.

Lit has always been a free-for-all. SOL has always been members-only. It's the fundamental base of the way the sites are used. Vote totals would plunge off a cliff if voting was restricted to members only. At which point, every malicious vote carries vastly more weight that it would have otherwise. It takes less effort to achieve the same result, making it harder to detect.

I've got one with approximately 500 votes on SOL and approximately 5000 votes on Lit, with a score of 4.83. ( and 10x is hardly unusual for one-shot approximately 3 Lit page length stories released at about the same time on both sites ) Add a one at the 5k level, it's lost in the decimals. Add a 1 at the 500 level, and it's down .01. It would take 7 1-bombs to achieve the same result with 5k votes.

 

[lovecraft68]

At which point, every malicious vote carries vastly more weight that it would have otherwise.

But if a user id were required here, there would also be less malicious votes because the site could track someone who just goes around bombing people and wipe them out-in theory based on them caring to-so there is always that.

But you're also someone who cries that the Red H shouldn't exist so I don't know why you bother arguing any aspect of the voting. Take away the H they will just aim at score or top lists or contest winners, etc. Nothing will stop anon bombing except no anon.

That's always been my torch to carry, get rid of the anon trash. But its not worth the debate because the site is not doing anything different.

Beyond that, its sad that this has turned into yet another squawk fest about numbers.

Imagine if there was the same fervor for actual writing as there is bitching about scores on writing

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Fantasy numbers on SOL and here aren't a good metric to judge anonymous vs. registered. They're reasonably similar and always have been. They're useful for teasing out how many views here are bots and spiders for that very reason.

Could be. I already said my dataset is inadequate.

Lit has always been a free-for-all. SOL has always been members-only. It's the fundamental base of the way the sites are used. Vote totals would plunge off a cliff if voting was restricted to members only. At which point, every malicious vote carries vastly more weight that it would have otherwise. It takes less effort to achieve the same result, making it harder to detect.

I strongly disagree with this. If my own example of Lit vs SOL was flawed, so is yours. You can't deduce what would happen on Lit if my idea were implemented by looking at a website that is so different (as you also claim) in size and fundamentals as Lit and SOL are. The "plunge off the cliff" is nothing more but a speculation based on a flawed comparison in this case. No one can guess the number of votes that we would be getting as we also have no data as to how many registered vs how many anonymous readers actually vote right now.

I also disagree about malicious votes as even if you vote maliciously, you can vote only once, but more than that, admins can see who voted and could maybe introduce measures for users who repeatedly downvote other users' stories.
But even without that, it's still one malicious vote regardless of the reduced total vote count. In the present system, anonymous users can vote an infinite amount of times and their votes can potentially have a greater impact even if the total vote count is bigger when anonymous voting is allowed.

And please, please don't say that sweeps remove those excess votes. They don't. Maybe for contests but not for much else. Not for stories older than a few months for sure. I know this because I tested it, extensively.

 

[wuselmann]

Well, on the German side we have a troll/downvoter, who is attacking all stories on the top lists and the ones of specific authors like me where stories are bound to end up there:

German top lists

As you can see, there are only eleven stories with a score of 4.8 and more currently. I usually keep the voting on for the first week after publication or so, before the one bombs do significant damage to the score (starts usually a few hours after publishing and continues on a regular basis ).

We came up with the solution to get one of these Captcha thingies as it is in place for comments, as it didn't seem to adversely affect the number of anonymus comments since its inception. However, apparently it is not an issue that seems to bother Laurel and Manu that much (we have been complaining for years, submitted statistics and whatnot to prove our point).

I don't really care about top lists that much, but for new authors it must be quite disheartening to never get the actual reader's opinion reflected in their scores, rather what one idiot with script wants them to be. Quite a few leave quickly.

 

[RejectReality]

I'm going from the example of what happened at Lush when they removed the ability for anonymous users to vote. Vote totals fell off a cliff overnight. ( For anyone who wasn't already using the setting that allowed authors to restrict anonymous voting on their stories ) Likewise, anyone who used the setting that forced a comment to cast a vote had an exponential decrease in their vote totals.

The more hoops you make the average person jump through, the less likely they are to try.

Trolls on the other hand...

 

[MillieDynamite]

When one picks up an anti-admirer, shit happens.

This is tangentially related, but one of my stories has been at 4.88 for two years (almost exactly) with 129-130 ratings (don't remember which).

However, almost a week and a half ago it dropped to 4.8 in one day with 131 scores. Every day since then it's had an additional rating that's dropped it down just a little bit. Yesterday it was at 4.74 in the morning with 138 ratings. It seemed like a sweep happened as one dropped, bringing it back to 4.76/137, but I look again this morning and it's at 4.75/138 again.

If it's legit then fine, but this just seems weirdly suspicious because the story isn't new. FWIW, the story sat at 4.9's for a several months until it hit 100 ratings, then over the course of a few weeks it was voted down to 4.88.

It also hit 4.89 a few weeks ago, gettin it on the 'hall of fame' list, but was promptly voted back down to 4.88 within a week.

Thoughts?

 

[wuselmann]

By the way, when turning them off, you can still see the actual scores for parts of a series:
or each part of a series.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And please, please don't say that sweeps remove those excess votes. They don't. Maybe for contests but not for much else. Not for stories older than a few months for sure. I know this because I tested it, extensively.

I know for certain that sweeps go back at least ten years, because that's the age of my story file. Every now and then there's a little blip of some sort even on my earliest stories, where a vote count drops by one or two and the score moves up with a bit of a jump.

I rarely entered contests and haven't for many years, but every time there's a contest sweep I see something move, particularly on my more recent stories.

You've got a year's worth of stories (my point being, not ten years worth, so you don't have a data set that goes back a long way). They're all Red H, they've all got good solid scores. Seems to me you've got a positive reader base. You'd given the impression that your stories were being pummeled down into the threes, but that's not the case.

 

[lovecraft68]

And please, please don't say that sweeps remove those excess votes. They don't. Maybe for contests but not for much else. Not for stories older than a few months for sure. I know this because I tested it, extensively.

The reason you haven't seen more effects from sweeps is because once again, Lit has abandoned the monthly contests. When those are happening there is a sweep that goes across the entire site to find the top stories in each category, then the winners and you'll see changes in your story file

But...they're not doing them again, never a reason why they decide to stop, perhaps can't afford it? Or, more likely, really don't care.

 

[alohadave]

And please, please don't say that sweeps remove those excess votes. They don't. Maybe for contests but not for much else. Not for stories older than a few months for sure. I know this because I tested it, extensively.

It may not happen often, but it does happen. I track my stats weekly, and I see votes removed from old stories every so often.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The reason you haven't seen more effects from sweeps is because once again, Lit has abandoned the monthly contests. When those are happening there is a sweep that goes across the entire site to find the top stories in each category, then the winners and you'll see changes in your story file

But...they're not doing them again, never a reason why they decide to stop, perhaps can't afford it? Or, more likely, really don't care.

More than a few people mentioned monthly contests as the reason for the sweeps we used to think of as "regular." These occurrences that some people describe - of stories losing votes and scores going up, are something I noticed myself on the first iterations of my stories - those I took down at one point, but only up until some moment in 2022 or 2023, if I recall correctly. Then it stopped suddenly. And yeah, people keep saying that monthly contests stopped happening a few years ago. These things are likely connected so I am inclined to agree with you.

 

[Diamondknight87]

Those sweeps still happen to some extent. The score on the story I spoke of earlier went down one rating and my score went from 4.74 to 4.76. That was yesterday.

 

[Diamondknight87]

Another 2 star rating, just like clockwork. It's starting to feel like someone set up a bot or something to give me alternating 2 & 3 star ratings every day between 10pm and 4am EST.

 

[MillieDynamite]

It seems a bit vindictive of anyone to do such a thing. More than that, obsessive is the right word. They are making sure it doesn't get swept away. Who did you piss off that badly to make them want to hurt your work like that?

Another 2 star rating, just like clockwork. It's starting to feel like someone set up a bot or something to give me alternating 2 & 3 star ratings every day between 10pm and 4am EST.