What gives with the tops lists

[sr71plt]

The new twelve-month top list will help me in at least one category--since I've been churning out more than 100 a year in that category, I'm pretty much guaranteed a big chunk of the top 500 list there.

 

[_Lynn_]

Editing isn't fun if you spent four weeks editing a book manuscript to authorities provided by the Press and the author didn't pay any attention to them and has slashed every edit with a "No!" and he's best friends with the Press director.

Ugh. Tomorrow starts all of the uncorrecting.

My only happy thought is that his book will be a mess and it's very likely I'll make more for editing and undoing then he will in royalties.

This is very true. It's too bad the author isn't trusting in what you've done and learn from it for future books, if he has any.

 

[Manu]

Wow, you're all too fast for me!

I was planning an announcement on the changes to the toplists - but this thread was up before I even had a chance to get one written. We actually rolled out the changes and then immediately found a bug. I am still working on that now. Once we've got that issue resolved, I will come back here and reply to comments and try to explain what's going on.

In the meantime, if you find examples of stories that are appearing on one of the shorter term lists (30 days or 12 months) but not on the overall list, please post them here. Also, please post examples of any other bugs/issues you might find.

I have been testing this new list for a while, but it's always when an update goes live that all hell breaks loose. That's what keeps Lit so fun.

Along with the new toplists, we are rolling out some new behind the scenes bad-vote detection systems, so please be patient if you notice any changes to the number of votes on your stories. We are continuing our quest to fight both downvoting and the occasional bad upvote. That shouldn't affect 99.9% of authors, but there are a few who may see a slight swing up or down in your rating average in the next few days/weeks.

Again, I will be back soon with a better post to intro the new toplists. Sorry for my slowness, just trying to focus on getting these bugs dealt with.

 

[Elianna]

They appear to be the first few lines of the top 3 on each page. But maybe it was just when I was looking, regarding those top 3. I was mortified to open one page and see my own stuff highlighted and all that was quoted was my pre-story comments! That will teach me.

I went back and looked at many of the teasers. Funny how many of them suck. I suppose it makes you think about the opening sentence of a chapter more if they're going to post them up as teasers like that, doesn't it.

I agree with Lynn. Edit. Edit. And make your opening lines a little catchy... just to snag a few more votes before they get swept away.

Did I mention that I still think sweeps are WRONG? Who the hell votes more than once on a story anyway (other than the 3-4 people who can't be named)? Watching all my votes getting sucked off like there are leeches attached to my voting numbers is depressing.

 

[sr71plt]

This is very true. It's too bad the author isn't trusting in what you've done and learn from it for future books, if he has any.

It goes beyond not trusting. There is (as I'm sure you are aware) a whole author segment that thinks just because they wrote a manuscript they are the expert in everything else involved in publishing as well. This is just one of those asses. A naval admiral. He's old enough not to be a bother much longer, though.

I don't suffer these people well, though, because I'm not editing for the money but to be doing something constructive with my time beyond my own writing. Undoing proper editing to serve an ass's vanity and knowitallness isn't my idea of constructive use of my time.

 

[Elianna]

It goes beyond not trusting. There is (as I'm sure you are aware) a whole author segment that thinks just because they wrote a manuscript they are the expert in everything else involved in publishing as well. This is just one of those asses. A naval admiral. He's old enough not to be a bother much longer, though.

I don't suffer these people well, though, because I'm not editing for the money but to be doing something constructive with my time beyond my own writing. Undoing proper editing to serve an ass's vanity and knowitallness isn't my idea of constructive use of my time.

Why would you pay an editor if you think you're better than they are? Hmmm...

However... I think that having a certain military rank/status lends itself to a bit of arrogance, wouldn't you say? You don't earn that kind of rank without a strong dose of self-confidence.

 

[sr71plt]

Why would you pay an editor if you think you're better than they are? Hmmm...

However... I think that having a certain military rank/status lends itself to a bit of arrogance, wouldn't you say? You don't earn that kind of rank without a strong dose of self-confidence.

I don't work in the world where author's pay me to edit their work, Elianna; publishers contract works and they pay me to edit the books. I work for the publisher, not the author, so, although we/I do like to keep the authors happy (which often means explaining to them why standard practices are going to be standard), I usually only care that the publisher is happy. In this case, the publishing house director is a political appointee who knows nothing about publishing (it's a government think tank press), and the author is a cronie of his--so the press isn't going to impose either industry standards or even it's own style guide--and, unfortunately (for them) didn't decide to do that until I'd done a $3,000 edit based on standard authorities.

I spent time as the managing editor of the government's news agency under a political appointee, so I'm not particularly shocked or surprised by such lack of integrity in the business.

And I smile at your subtext, which is true, but, even in being true, isn't comforting me, because in government position terms, I actually outrank that admiral. We're both retired--and I retired at a higher comparative rank to his.

 

[slyc_willie]

Wow, you're all too fast for me!

I was planning an announcement on the changes to the toplists - but this thread was up before I even had a chance to get one written. We actually rolled out the changes and then immediately found a bug. I am still working on that now. Once we've got that issue resolved, I will come back here and reply to comments and try to explain what's going on.

In the meantime, if you find examples of stories that are appearing on one of the shorter term lists (30 days or 12 months) but not on the overall list, please post them here. Also, please post examples of any other bugs/issues you might find.

I have been testing this new list for a while, but it's always when an update goes live that all hell breaks loose. That's what keeps Lit so fun.

Along with the new toplists, we are rolling out some new behind the scenes bad-vote detection systems, so please be patient if you notice any changes to the number of votes on your stories. We are continuing our quest to fight both downvoting and the occasional bad upvote. That shouldn't affect 99.9% of authors, but there are a few who may see a slight swing up or down in your rating average in the next few days/weeks.

Again, I will be back soon with a better post to intro the new toplists. Sorry for my slowness, just trying to focus on getting these bugs dealt with.

I had already noticed a few ups and downs in my votes over the past few days. I was wondering what was up. Thought maybe the sweepbots went on a rampage.

Change is good. I can't wait to see what's around the next corner.

 

[sr71plt]

Change is good. I can't wait to see what's around the next corner.

Another corner.

 

[Elianna]

I don't work in the world where author's pay me to edit their work, Elianna; publishers contract works and they pay me to edit the books. I work for the publisher, not the author, so, although we/I do like to keep the authors happy (which often means explaining to them why standard practices are going to be standard), I usually only care that the publisher is happy. In this case, the publishing house director is a political appointee who knows nothing about publishing (it's a government think tank press), and the author is a cronie of his--so the press isn't going to impose either industry standards or even it's own style guide.

I spent time as the managing editor of the government's news agency under a political appointee, so I'm not particularly shocked or surprised by such lack of integrity in the business.

And I smile at your subtext, which is true, but, even in being true, isn't comforting me, because in government position terms, I actually outrank that admiral. We're both retired--and I retired at a higher comparative rank to his.

The more I work through the ranks in my current position, the more I find that morality is on a sliding scale. The higher up you go, the morality scale drops proportionately. I'm sure there's an algorithm that shows the direct relationship between the increase of power with the decrease of integrity. Makes me sad really.

Admit it. The idea makes you feel a teensy bit better.

 

[slyc_willie]

Another corner.

And eventually we'll make a circle.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And eventually we'll make a circle.

Just like NASCAR, all left hand turns.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

In the Sci-Fi 12 month list the top story is To Protect and Serve Ch. 12
The final stand. by Evil Alpaca (08/21/08) 4.93(266) and from what I see in the all time list should be the top one there too.

The only one I truly noticed.

 

[Katyusha]

Here's the issue I have with the new system: the 12-month and 30-day subsets are set up in such a way that if you're in the position I'm in, you have stories with scores that are higher than a lot of what's on those lists and yet your stories aren't there because they've been around too long, yet you don't qualify for the all-time list because you don't have enough votes.

To me this doesn't seem fair at all. Maybe I'm biased because I'm speaking of my own stories being left out, but it's like I'm being overlooked, even punished in a way (less exposure despite having a score that should be up there), because my stories are too old with too few votes.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I'll be in the same boat in a few months or so. I think everyone will eventually.

 

[driphoney]

Did I mention that I still think sweeps are WRONG? Who the hell votes more than once on a story anyway (other than the 3-4 people who can't be named)? Watching all my votes getting sucked off like there are leeches attached to my voting numbers is depressing.

Oh, I think in this anonymous cyber world we live in, many, many do it. I also think fans (that's a short form of 'fanatic', right?) do it too, thinking they're helping an author. So, I like sweeps. Even if my own votes are getting reduced by the minute! Oddly, my scores often go up a tad with a sweep.

 

[sr71plt]

To me this doesn't seem fair at all. Maybe I'm biased because I'm speaking of my own stories being left out, but it's like I'm being overlooked, even punished in a way (less exposure despite having a score that should be up there), because my stories are too old with too few votes.

It will be unfair to the readers too, won't it? Bunches and bunches of the better stories from years past will drop out of the system, and the reader will be misled in going to the "all" list and assuming this represents the best (because it said "top") and the "best" it represents is views, not ratings.

 

[BarondeSade]

Hear, hear...

It still rankles my old bones when I see a 2.09 on a top list...no matter how long its been around...someone out to take it out and shoot it...get it out of its misery...

 

[Katyusha]

It will be unfair to the readers too, won't it? Bunches and bunches of the better stories from years past will drop out of the system, and the reader will be misled in going to the "all" list and assuming this represents the best (because it said "top") and the "best" it represents is views, not ratings.

Yes...good point.

*Is* there a better way to do this? Stories dropping off the top lists after they've been posted a certain amount of time but haven't gotten 100 votes yet is doing both the readers and the authors a disservice, IMO.

 

[Darkniciad]

I think that there should perhaps be a sliding scale on the category toplists. For some cats, the number of stories on the all-time list is always going to be ridiculously low, because there just aren't enough people that vote in the cat. I think someone else mentioned a median calculation to determine the bar for the category lists. Likewise -- in cats such as LW or incest, where the vote averages may be much higher -- the bar could be moved upward.

I could see moving the bar down to 50 for the overall toplist, but I've always thought that 10 was too low, and actually does more to invite malicious 1-bombs than gain any exposure for the writer.

I used to purposely drop a 4 on any story of mine that had 9 votes of 5, just to make sure it didn't debut at the top of the toplist. Any time that happened, the score was always a great deal lower than anything else I wrote because it was bombed into oblivion as soon as the toplist updated. When I hit it with a 4 first, it wasn't sitting up there in the troll crosshairs, and the score came out about the same as stories where someone else had already voted less than 5 before it hit 10 votes.

I like the new 30 day and 12 month lists. Nice addition.

 

[sr71plt]

Rather than make 100 votes be a default, they could let a 4.00 rating be the default--keep the 10 vote minimum for the 12-month and "all" listings, but just don't let anything before a 4.0 rating show on one of those top lists. There already a few categories that can't muster the full 500 stories.

I do like the listing of all stories less than 30 days old with the votes and ratings no matter what they are. (It's not far off my suggestion just to put the rating beside all stories). This gives a better gauge to the new stories than the old listing did where you have to wait until it's garnered 10 votes to know if it's running at a 5 or a 2 level (unless you look up each story individually on the regular lists).

 

[BarondeSade]

Good idea...

I like the way you think sr...at least on this subject...

 

[starscape]

I like the added 30-day and 12-month feature as I think they provide more exposure to more stories, but I don't believe the 100-vote threshold is fair for the all-time list. For example, in one of my series chapter 3 is on the all-time list because it has 130-some votes but chapter 2 isn't even though it has a higher score because it only has 90-some votes. A couple of chapters in a different series have scores which would probably earn them a spot on the all-time list, but they are bumped out by stories with lower scores because they have 100+ votes and mine don't.

Admittedly my opinion is colored by the fact that few of my stories have 100+ votes. But I do think there are plenty of great stories that get overlooked. The mega-voted (100s-1000+) stories have clearly their earned their prominence and many are favorites of mine as well, but I don't think it means lesser-known, quality stories don't deserve recognition as well.

Another thing I've noticed is that both the vote counts and scores are way off from what's on my "View Submissions" page. I wonder if they might be a result of counting all votes over the life of the story, including those which have been swept by the bots? The numbers are far different from the typical "lag time" which occurs on the regular listings. If you're going to use the bots, then make it consistent throughout the site, including the Top Lists.

Despite these caveats, I do salute Lit's efforts to make it easier for readers to find what interests them and authors to expand their audience.

 

[BarondeSade]

I have an idea...

Why don't they just change the name "Top List" to "Stories that have hung around the longest"...at least it would be the truth...

 

[oggbashan]

I have over 150 stories. Only three have more than 100 votes and an H.

Only 9 others have more than 100 votes.

So less than 10% of my stories are eligible to be considered in the Top Lists and only 2% might have been but those have only a few votes over the 100.

The majority of my stories have less than 50 votes. Many have less than 25 and not a few have less than 10 votes.

Og is an also-ran again...