Sweeps and [Bleeps]: Stop Me Before I Do Something Petty!

MarshAlien

Marshini, anyone? Hic!
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Posts
1,426
Fact #1: Vanity, thy name is Marshalien. Yes, it is true. I am vain.

“Story A” (honestly, I’m not looking for more votes or reads at this point) had been posted on May 29 of last year and had done very well. I went to my submissions page every week or so to make sure it was still doing well. As of last week, it had 69,000 reads, 563 votes, 72 comments, and a score of 4.93, which put it maybe second or third in its category.

This morning, it still lists over 69,000 reads and 72 comments, but now has only 64 votes and a score of 4.59. Since the average score of the comments was, and still is, 4.97 (71 100’s, which I assume are 5’s, and one 50, which I assume is a 3), it appears that that at least 12 of those comment votes were among the 499 votes swept away over the weekend. And that if all the remaining comments are valid votes, the only people who voted and didn’t comment gave the story a 4 or less.

As you can tell, this is obviously affecting me way too much. Something similar happened in October, while the Halloween contest was going on, when a story that had been posted in February of this year suddenly lost 250 of its 500 votes and dropped from a 4.94 to a 4.82. I PM’ed Laurel, and asked whether it was really possible for a story that had already been on the site through two earlier contests could suddenly have that many votes swept away. She sent me a nice note explaining that the sweeps were designed to weed out fraudulent votes.

So perhaps it is possible. Nonetheless, it has caused me considerable gnashing of teeth this morning, which at my age can be really painful. The grownup thing to do would be to just turn off the voting and say the hell with it. But then we get to:

Fact # 2: I’m way too childish for that.

I like the feedback I get from both the comments and the voting, particularly since the voting score varies a great deal more than the “comments” score. So part of me thinks that the answer is simply to allow feedback and comments, and then simply turn the voting off at the end of the year before I get caught up in all this contest angst. And another part of me thinks that once I turn the voting off then, maybe I should just go ahead and delete the stories too, since I’ve probably had all the “dialogue” with my readers that I’m going to get.

So what do you guys think? What is an acceptable level of pettiness in response to losing 85 percent of the votes on your story?
 
You be as petty as you want Mr. Alien. I'll still love you.
Oh, yeah. What DK said. Well, maybe not love, but at least like a whole lot, or maybe think highly of, okay, scratch the adverb.

But seriously, it's hard to believe: 1. That many "bad" votes would have been missed in earlier sweeps and, 2. That so many "bad" votes would wind up on some of your stories. Makes no sense to me. So go ahead and be petty or just plain old-fashioned pissed.

Rumple Foreskin :cool:
 
Oh, yeah. What DK said. Well, maybe not love, but at least like a whole lot, or maybe think highly of, okay, scratch the adverb.

But seriously, it's hard to believe: 1. That many "bad" votes would have been missed in earlier sweeps and, 2. That so many "bad" votes would wind up on some of your stories. Makes no sense to me. So go ahead and be petty or just plain old-fashioned pissed.

Rumple Foreskin :cool:
Mr. Reverend sir? I just clicked on your link to A Special Gift and it didn't work...You might want to check that out..
 
You be as petty as you want Mr. Alien. I'll still TOLLERATE you.

Oh, yeah. What DK said. Well, maybe not love, but at least like a whole lot, or maybe think highly of, okay, scratch the adverb.

But seriously, it's hard to believe: 1. That many "bad" votes would have been missed in earlier sweeps and, 2. That so many "bad" votes would wind up on some of your stories. Makes no sense to me. So go ahead and be petty or just plain old-fashioned pissed.

Rumple Foreskin :cool:
Rev. Rumple makes a lot of sense. Maybe you could PM Laurel or Manu and get an explanation? I still like your stories so :p
 
Mr. Reverend sir? I just clicked on your link to A Special Gift and it didn't work...You might want to check that out..
Thanks, DK. I just checked. EP moved up to a "for real" server instead of the freebie they'd been limping by on. That's a goodness.

Rumple Foreskin :cool:
 
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I went on a campaign stressing not to vote more than once in feedback and on my website, and I reinforce it every once in a while when I remember. Ever since then, the sweeps rarely take much of a bite out of me. It looks like these latest ones may have taken 3-4 votes across 80+ stories/chapters, and the scores went up on all of those.

Can't hurt. Your fans can be a little overenthusiastic sometimes.

They're probably doing monthly contest sweeps as well, to prepare for the annual awards. I'm sure those sweeps are a bit more detailed than your average day-to-day cleanup. Almost all of the votes that vanished off mine were from stories late last year.
 
join the club....

That’s what I like about you Mr. Alien – you can always make me laugh. And on a Monday morning…

[size=+2]85%?[/size] And they accuse me of having some vote robot machine! That even beats what’s happened to me. I just hope that that story of yours didn’t win a contest!

But as a loser of thousands of votes I can definitely feel your pain (perhaps more than anyone here on Lit) – I hate to lose even one little vote.

My Holiday Story, Candy Cane Cocked Cousin…and Mom went from some 1800 votes to about 600 during the contest sweeps but still, that’s only 66% lost. Mind you it was done over maybe six different sweeps which was true torture.

“Daddy”, I Whispered, LITEROTICA’S top vote getting story of all time has lost some 3200 votes (but only 25% of the total cast).

FYI - I may be able to explain what may have happened. The programs that LITEROTICA runs continually redefine who is a legal voter and who isn’t. Someone who has been legal in the past may be suddenly defined as an illegal alien and every vote he (or she) has ever made suddenly become invalid and are stripped from every story he’s (she’s) voted for.

Given the wild trollism and attacks that have been mounted on certain authors over the last few months (BFW comes immediately to mind) by AHers, it may well be that many of your friends have fallen into the ‘illegal alien’ camp.

Which isn’t that bad a spot for many of them…

Keep the humor coming,

jrs
 
Since a voter's IP number is the criterion that is used to check fraudulent votes by the sweeper bots, then perhaps the rotating and temporary nature of IP numbers could be the culprit. I'm sure you could confirm this.

Lit's new vote indicator that shows you that you've voted and how you've done so should help slow down this sort of sweep. Maybe, the votes and the ratings on the comments were registering twice as well. If you comment don't submit a later vote. If you vote, make sure it registers before you comment.

And yes, it's very freeing to turn off voting and anonymous comments.
 
While my Montana Summer series was up, it would lose hundreds of votes with each sweep. It was difficult to keep track of that series, but I had another story, Suzanne by the Sea that was easy to keep track of.

It had about 100 votes at it's peak. I would look at the numbers every couple of days. There would be no new views, but it would consistently lose 2-3 votes with each sweep. When I finally gave up in frustration a month later, it had gained 6 views, and lost 48 votes.

While I think Laurel and Manu are honorable people, I have no confidence in their ability to provide real and accurate numbers.

As Champagne1982 mentioned above, it is very freeing to turn your voting, and comments off. I've never been happier, and I wouldn't turn them back on for anything.
 
It looks like I have some competition on the alien front...
 
It happens all the time Marsh

and its CRUSHING to a new author whos fan base is very small compared to those I will not name...

I would really like to know how they determine WHAT is FRAUDULENT and what isnt

I know I dont have THAT many friends... and they are all aware of the rules...

Although its been explained and prettified it flat out SUCKS and being pissy about it and petty is indeed the form of the day

I'm still pissy about it... I might have actually placed in the stupid contest I entered if not for the sweeps... and my friends knew how it important it was to me to vote only once...

Anyway - belly aching with a belly ache... ya good morning
 
Your problem, Marsh, is that too many people read your stories. Strive to be more like me and you'll have far less to worry about.
 
When I lost loads of votes on a contest story my thinking went along the lines of sweeping out of range or so called malicious votes.

It goes like this: If the initial voting is 5s and 4s some 3s and a few bombs then the bombs are out of range with the apparent concensus of voting. so the first sweep takes out the ones. Now you're left with 3s 4s and 5s. If the 3s and 4s greatly outnumber the 5s then the next sweep might judge 5s to be out of range.

Just a theory.

I would be more than pleased to see a bar graph of voting on the submissions page. (but not a pie chart)
 
It's just odd that the story could be there that long, through the Nude Day sweeps, through the Halloween sweeps, through the Holiday and Valentines Day sweeps, with essentially the same number of votes, and then lose them all of a sudden. I always thought all the stories got swept at the same time by the, uh, sweeper bot, Rosie.

It's also weird to have a story with more comments than votes. I guess it's possible that each of 60 friends could have voted nine times each :)confused:), but they're lazy SOB's and for them go to all the trouble of leaving more than one comment, and typing in where they're from and that security code, would be very unusual.

Finally,

It looks like I have some competition on the alien front...

You don't have one of those death rays, do you? Cause I loaned mine to dani and she still hasn't returned it. Can't we just agree to share? It is a big universe.
 
You want weird. I have a couple of stories that the score changes almost daily but the number of votes hasn't changed in a year. :rolleyes:

Usually votes disappear and score goes up. as of late votes disappear and the score goes down or remains the same. I noticed on one story, I got three new votes and the score never changed. How do you vote a 4.72 by the way. :confused:
 
Finally,



You don't have one of those death rays, do you? Cause I loaned mine to dani and she still hasn't returned it. Can't we just agree to share? It is a big universe.

No, but I have just performed analingus.
 
MarshAlien said:
So what do you guys think? What is an acceptable level of pettiness in response to losing 85 percent of the votes on your story?

Send it to a publisher & let folks vote with their wallets. No sweeps. :)
 
It's just odd that the story could be there that long, through the Nude Day sweeps, through the Halloween sweeps, through the Holiday and Valentines Day sweeps, with essentially the same number of votes, and then lose them all of a sudden. I always thought all the stories got swept at the same time by the, uh, sweeper bot, Rosie.

It's also weird to have a story with more comments than votes. I guess it's possible that each of 60 friends could have voted nine times each :)confused:), but they're lazy SOB's and for them go to all the trouble of leaving more than one comment, and typing in where they're from and that security code, would be very unusual.

Finally,



You don't have one of those death rays, do you? Cause I loaned mine to dani and she still hasn't returned it. Can't we just agree to share? It is a big universe.
I still haven't gotten the asshole in my sights yet, Marsh. He's a slippery little slime ball.
 
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