Your thoughts on this question, please (since I doubt we'll ever know the answer)

[PapaRomantic]

After the sweeps have removed the 1-bombs (and possibly other votes), do the 1-bombers get a chance to 1-bomb it again? Theoretically, if their vote if removed, they can just simply vote again.

Just curious. I discovered today that I have quite a faithful 1-bomber following...

 

[EmilyMiller]

After the sweeps have removed the 1-bombs (and possibly other votes), do the 1-bombers get a chance to 1-bomb it again? Theoretically, if their vote if removed, they can just simply vote again.

Just curious. I discovered today that I have quite a faithful 1-bomber following...

The sweeps remove suspicious votes, regardless of value. Scores can go down in sweeps if authors have been nefariously awarding themselves multiple 5️s.

But sweeps only remove some malicious votings. They are not universal panaceas and easy to avoid if you have half a brain. The dedicated vandals find a way.

And my experience is that people bomb you again. As if your score going up is a personal affront to them.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Unsure, but probably...

 

[iwatchus]

My suspicion, grounded in something I have noticed but will not disclose, is that they cannot vote on the same account for that story again. (And no this is not from 1bominging a story)

But I think many bombers use non-logged in systems to send the votes, so yes.

And I also realized today that the bombing that the winners get immediately after the announcement does not get cleared in the next sweep, unfortunately.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Nothing prevents repeat behavior.

 

[iwatchus]

But sweeps only remove some malicious votings. They are not universal panaceas and easy to avoid if you have half a brain. The dedicated vandals find a way.

I will say one of my stories got beat up pretty well (not part of the contest). I believe they got all or all but one of the 1's that it suffered. I think it does a pretty good job.

 

[Bamagan]

After the sweeps have removed the 1-bombs (and possibly other votes), do the 1-bombers get a chance to 1-bomb it again? Theoretically, if their vote if removed, they can just simply vote again.

Just curious. I discovered today that I have quite a faithful 1-bomber following...

It depends on how the sweeps work, which they ask people not to speculate about on an open forum. They could theoretically flag questionable accounts and simply exclude their votes from being tabulated, which would prevent that account from being able to re-vote since their vote data would still be associated with their log-in. No idea if that's worth the bother, though, since voting is presumably open to anyone who can access the site.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I will say one of my stories got beat up pretty well (not part of the contest). I believe they got all or all but one of the 1's that it suffered. I think it does a pretty good job.

Sweeps remove dumb bombs, not smart bombs. Smart bombs have cost me two contests, possibly three.

Smart bombs are sent by people who know how things work here. Read into that what you will.

 

[PapaRomantic]

It depends on how the sweeps work, which they ask people not to speculate about on an open forum. They could theoretically flag questionable accounts and simply exclude their votes from being tabulated, which would prevent that account from being able to re-vote since their vote data would still be associated with their log-in. No idea if that's worth the bother, though, since voting is presumably open to anyone who can access the site.

I guess that's the basis for my question. I know you can't vote more than once from any single account, but if sweeps remove your vote, then it's possible that you can vote again. Not going to lose any sleep over it, but I'd like to know.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

From what I have personally seen, uno-bombers do exist and the sweeps tend to catch most of them. But what I've witnessed on my own stories when the scores drop significantly(I've been super anal and actually done the math) is that my views also spike and I just get fours and maybe a few threes. I've also seen those same stories creep back up close to where they were before over a longer period of time. For example, my 'best' story sat at 9.3 for two years. It dropped to a 4.74 over about six months, and then proceeded to creep back up to a 4.88. Then the entire T/CD catalog took a massive hit and all the top stories dropped to about 4.83 where that story sits today.

I'm personally not interested in doing the math it takes to follow that progression for that long.

 

[iwatchus]

I'm personally not interested in doing the math it takes to follow that progression for that long.

And once the number of votes gets over a few hundred, it's no longer possible to distinguish different cases. I really wish they would give us counts by rating.

 

[Bamagan]

I guess that's the basis for my question. I know you can't vote more than once from any single account, but if sweeps remove your vote, then it's possible that you can vote again. Not going to lose any sleep over it, but I'd like to know.

I would think it more efficient to retain a record of every vote and partition them into at least two buckets, valid and invalid, without displaying which bucket a given user is in, to prevent that kind of thing from happening. But that's the view from outside. And that's probably already saying enough to make people who care very much about scores gripe about indefensible speculation, so I suppose I'll mosey along now.
I will take a moment to bang my lonely drum about avoiding the issue entirely by disabling voting on one's stories, though!

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

And once the number of votes gets over a few hundred, it's no longer possible to distinguish different cases. I really wish they would give us counts by rating.

They have the individual votes in their DB. That's the only way they could create an algorithm to identify bogus votes. Understandably, they don't want ut to have that information or it would make it easier for the malicious voters to bypass their sweeps

 

[iwatchus]

They have the individual votes in their DB. That's the only way they could create an algorithm to identify bogus votes. Understandably, they don't want ut to have that information or it would make it easier for the malicious voters to bypass their sweeps

I don't want to say too much, but they clearly log each vote. They may cache the total rating points on each story, which would make the histogram harder until they change their schema.

 

[AwkwardMD]

As with many things on Lit, understanding how the different systems works exposes that knowledge to those who would misuse it. The hows and whens of vote sweeps are probably best left mysterious.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I guess that's the basis for my question. I know you can't vote more than once from any single account, but if sweeps remove your vote, then it's possible that you can vote again. Not going to lose any sleep over it, but I'd like to know.

The 1-bombers probably don't use named accounts. They open a browser and 1-bomb my stories without logging into LitE.

And I suspect the worst haters use VPNs or other browsers to do it multiple times. I think there's a few in Europe (based on time-of-day/night when the 1s hit), who have a named account to follow me, or one of them might just keep a browser open to refresh an watch their targeted story's rating changes and hit it again. . But I doubt they try posting a 1 more than once for my stories from a named account. They just see the rating go up, then use an anonymous browser to hit it again. The quick 1 rating within minutes of someone posting a 5 is the indicator.

I've closely followed a few of my sties enough to see the pattern. But there are those here in the AH who will nay-say that and claim "you have no proof!" So, it might even be one of them who is doing it.

I just got over it and say "Fuck'em all!" I've learned to enjoy tormenting the haters with more provocative stories.

 

[Actingup]

I don't know the answer, but I do think that anybody who gets their kicks voting down other authors has lost all chance for happiness in life.

 

[lovecraft68]

It seems they can because I find it harder to believe that as soon as they're removed, a whole new wave of readers decides to bomb it. The fact that by that time a story is off the new lists and the contest is over makes it harder to believe its new trolls.

I thought you could only vote once on a story-or twice if you do anon, then under a handle, but if the initial vote is removed, then the system wouldn't see it as a "re-vote"

 

[TheDok]

I suspect that anybody who is computer savvy can keep one one voting because anonymous votes are accepted on the site. They will simply post from a different ip address/device etc.

Here's another question, though. Do some categories attract una bombers more than others? I would expect Loving wives to. but what about other categories? Not every one vote is necessarily given with malicious intent. Presumably, it is there for truly awful stories. In my opinion, it might be justified if a story is truly badly written and constructed = a lazy piece of work, although I only score 4s or 5s when I rate a story, or otherwise I don't bother.

A string of 3s can do more damage than a single one score if not too many votes have been cast, and this might then influence the way subsequent readers vote,

eg (15 x 5) +1 /16 = 4.75 (15x5) + (3x3) /18 = 4.67

It's not just about one scores