Story ranking manipulation

[rhev]

I've seen a really disturbing trend happening on the site lately that I need to speak out about. There are some people who are downvoting and manipulating the ranking system to lower the scores of people's stories just so that their score seems better in comparison.

Take for example one of the highest ranked scifi/fantasy stories on the site:
http://www.literotica.com/s/macallan-promises

Macallan promises by Pacofear

Years ago, that story was the highest ranked with somewhere around 4.96 or 4.95. It consistently stayed around 4.95 for two or more years, and then in the last month I noticed that it was dropping by 0.01 point or so every few weeks, and it's now down to 4.90.

Now I would never be so offensive as to point to specific other authors, but I highly suspect one or two (who shall not be named). I've even seen this type of vote manipulation happen on my own stories.

For example after posting one of my stories, I had a ranking of 4.70 with 10 votes. So, a reasonable spread of votes across those 10 votes would be seven votes that were given 5s and three votes that were given 4 stars.

I ended up refreshing my submissions page about ten minutes later after a friend of mine told me on IM that he read the story, that he loved it and gave it a 5 star vote.

Amazed, I found that my ranking had dropped from 4.7 DOWN to 3.73 with a total of 15 votes.

So if my friend's vote of 5 stars is taken into account, that means that in a ten minute window FOUR votes of 1 star came in? REALLY?

Now, the vote ranking eventually came up as more people started voting on it, but still.... at least four 1 star votes took a serious chunk out of my rating, and this is on a story that at least ten others thought was 4 star or above.


It goes beyond that too.... I've noticed that the rankings on all my stories has been edging downwards over the last two or three months. Stories that used to be in the 4.9 range are now down around 4.8. Stories that used to have a +4.5 rating are now below and don't have the pretty little H tag next to them.


It's VERY frustrating and while I wouldn't mind a 1 star rating if there was some sort of feedback, it feels like there's blatant manipulation of votes going on out there. Honestly, it really kills my urge to write / submit to this site. I'm not saying that as any sort of threat, just as an honest emotion about how it changes my state of mind about the site as a whole.


Has anyone else noticed this? Is there anything that can be done to stop this sort of vote slamming?

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Its common.

 

[eyer]

* THREAD MOVED *

...to the Who Gives a Fvck Board.

 

[lovetoread]

So you don't want to believe that several someone's didn't like the story so you are gonna take your toys and leave?

Maybe the internet is too mean of a place for you to be.

 

[kbate]

Isn't it possible that since 10 people thought your story was great that 4 could think it sucked?

The first ten (your friend, yourself and your editor included) - indicate the story's worth?

yes, there are vote trolls on Lit.

Deal with it.

 

[Laurel]

We have a script that tags fraudulent votes (fraud votes being anytime someone tries to vote for a story more than once by trying to get around our system). If you see a story - yours or anothers - that has suspicious-looking voting patterns, please do use the REPORT THIS STORY feature to bring it to our attention and we will run a manual check as well. In the OTHER field, tell us to check the voting. When you report suspicious voting this way, the system will send us a direct link to the story and make it much easier for us to check.

If you believe multiple submissions were affected, you only need to report one of the stories. Please do not report the same story more than once in a 48-hour period.

Do know in advance that we will not remove votes unless they appear to be fraud.

 

[kbate]

We have a script that tags fraudulent votes (fraud votes being anytime someone tries to vote for a story more than once by trying to get around our system). If you see a story - yours or anothers - that has suspicious-looking voting patterns, please do use the REPORT THIS STORY feature to bring it to our attention and we will run a manual check as well. In the OTHER field, tell us to check the voting. When you report suspicious voting this way, the system will send us a direct link to the story and make it much easier for us to check.

If you believe multiple submissions were affected, you only need to report one of the stories. Please do not report the same story more than once in a 48-hour period.

Do know in advance that we will not remove votes unless they appear to be fraud.

So you're telling us that you've implemented Voter ID on Lit?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

So you're telling us that you've implemented Voter ID on Lit?

She's come over to the Dark Side.

 

[eyer]

I've seen a really disturbing trend happening on the site lately that I need to speak out about. There are some people who are downvoting and manipulating the ranking system to lower the scores of people's stories just so that their score seems better in comparison.

Take for example one of the highest ranked scifi/fantasy stories on the site:
http://www.literotica.com/s/macallan-promises

Macallan promises by Pacofear

Years ago, that story was the highest ranked with somewhere around 4.96 or 4.95. It consistently stayed around 4.95 for two or more years, and then in the last month I noticed that it was dropping by 0.01 point or so every few weeks, and it's now down to 4.90.

Now I would never be so offensive as to point to specific other authors, but I highly suspect one or two (who shall not be named). I've even seen this type of vote manipulation happen on my own stories.

For example after posting one of my stories, I had a ranking of 4.70 with 10 votes. So, a reasonable spread of votes across those 10 votes would be seven votes that were given 5s and three votes that were given 4 stars.

I ended up refreshing my submissions page about ten minutes later after a friend of mine told me on IM that he read the story, that he loved it and gave it a 5 star vote.

Amazed, I found that my ranking had dropped from 4.7 DOWN to 3.73 with a total of 15 votes.

So if my friend's vote of 5 stars is taken into account, that means that in a ten minute window FOUR votes of 1 star came in? REALLY?

Now, the vote ranking eventually came up as more people started voting on it, but still.... at least four 1 star votes took a serious chunk out of my rating, and this is on a story that at least ten others thought was 4 star or above.


It goes beyond that too.... I've noticed that the rankings on all my stories has been edging downwards over the last two or three months. Stories that used to be in the 4.9 range are now down around 4.8. Stories that used to have a +4.5 rating are now below and don't have the pretty little H tag next to them.


It's VERY frustrating and while I wouldn't mind a 1 star rating if there was some sort of feedback, it feels like there's blatant manipulation of votes going on out there. Honestly, it really kills my urge to write / submit to this site. I'm not saying that as any sort of threat, just as an honest emotion about how it changes my state of mind about the site as a whole.


Has anyone else noticed this? Is there anything that can be done to stop this sort of vote slamming?

We have a script that tags fraudulent votes (fraud votes being anytime someone tries to vote for a story more than once by trying to get around our system). If you see a story - yours or anothers - that has suspicious-looking voting patterns, please do use the REPORT THIS STORY feature to bring it to our attention and we will run a manual check as well. In the OTHER field, tell us to check the voting. When you report suspicious voting this way, the system will send us a direct link to the story and make it much easier for us to check.

If you believe multiple submissions were affected, you only need to report one of the stories. Please do not report the same story more than once in a 48-hour period.

Do know in advance that we will not remove votes unless they appear to be fraud.

Get a room!

 

[lovetoread]

I love it when Laurel applies the boot.

 

[unregistered]

 

[CandiCame]

I don't think I've ever looked at my rankings...

I just get pissed that nobody comments.

Edit: None of them are ranked very high but some have the little "H" next to them. So I'm good with that. I'm assuming the "H" is good. Means "hot" or something rather than "horrible".

Edit: Also I apparently messed mine up somehow. I must've submitted some of them twice because they pop up twice.

 

[CandiCame]

I gave this guy 1 KK Tomato for his story.

I mean, what do people want? Trophies???

Achievements.

 

[lovetoread]

Achievements.

Tis the reason why I have an Xbox and a windows phone.

 

[Laurel]

Get a room!

I have one!

In the Who Gives a Fvck Board!!

 

[CandiCame]

Tis the reason why I have an Xbox and a windows phone.

Lit could have things like that tho. Like "Won a contest" or something. "Achieved x amount of readers". But really the goddamn forum is addictive enough.

 

[Laurel]

I should actually make a the Who Gives a Fvck Board. Just for a little while.

Maybe I'll make a thread instead.

 

[lovetoread]

Oh please create a board, move all the political threads there for the day.

 

[Dazzle1]

I've seen a really disturbing trend happening on the site lately that I need to speak out about. There are some people who are downvoting and manipulating the ranking system to lower the scores of people's stories just so that their score seems better in comparison.

Take for example one of the highest ranked scifi/fantasy stories on the site:
http://www.literotica.com/s/macallan-promises

Macallan promises by Pacofear

Years ago, that story was the highest ranked with somewhere around 4.96 or 4.95. It consistently stayed around 4.95 for two or more years, and then in the last month I noticed that it was dropping by 0.01 point or so every few weeks, and it's now down to 4.90.

Now I would never be so offensive as to point to specific other authors, but I highly suspect one or two (who shall not be named). I've even seen this type of vote manipulation happen on my own stories.

For example after posting one of my stories, I had a ranking of 4.70 with 10 votes. So, a reasonable spread of votes across those 10 votes would be seven votes that were given 5s and three votes that were given 4 stars.

I ended up refreshing my submissions page about ten minutes later after a friend of mine told me on IM that he read the story, that he loved it and gave it a 5 star vote.

Amazed, I found that my ranking had dropped from 4.7 DOWN to 3.73 with a total of 15 votes.

So if my friend's vote of 5 stars is taken into account, that means that in a ten minute window FOUR votes of 1 star came in? REALLY?

Now, the vote ranking eventually came up as more people started voting on it, but still.... at least four 1 star votes took a serious chunk out of my rating, and this is on a story that at least ten others thought was 4 star or above.


It goes beyond that too.... I've noticed that the rankings on all my stories has been edging downwards over the last two or three months. Stories that used to be in the 4.9 range are now down around 4.8. Stories that used to have a +4.5 rating are now below and don't have the pretty little H tag next to them.


It's VERY frustrating and while I wouldn't mind a 1 star rating if there was some sort of feedback, it feels like there's blatant manipulation of votes going on out there. Honestly, it really kills my urge to write / submit to this site. I'm not saying that as any sort of threat, just as an honest emotion about how it changes my state of mind about the site as a whole.


Has anyone else noticed this? Is there anything that can be done to stop this sort of vote slamming?

Yes I have seen the trend.

It seems that they are posters who go through your entire story list and vote them all down.

they need a life

 

[CandiCame]

I should actually make a the Who Gives a Fvck Board. Just for a little while.

Maybe I'll make a thread instead.

With the "v" and everything?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Oh please create a board, move all the political threads there for the day.

Go away.

 

[rhev]

Isn't it possible that since 10 people thought your story was great that 4 could think it sucked?

The first ten (your friend, yourself and your editor included) - indicate the story's worth?

Self edited, so just my own vote out of those 3 you listed since the friend was after the first ten.

But yes, I absolutely considered that. Until I did a little digging on one of the people who left comments. Apparently they favorited ONE author, and several stories by that author. An author whose story was listed directly above my own at that time on the recent story list, and before the mass downvote, had a higher ranking than that author.

Again, I can deal with bad rankings, but like I said the fact that it was that several votes came in in a VERY Short window all ranking it 1 star. I can tell you that I've been reading literotica for years and I think maybe ONCE I've actually given someone a 1 star ranking. Then it was because the spelling and grammar was so horrible as to make the story unreadable. In about 24 hours I got 10 very good votes, in 10 minutes, four 1 stars? It's very fishy.

We have a script that tags fraudulent votes (fraud votes being anytime someone tries to vote for a story more than once by trying to get around our system). If you see a story - yours or anothers - that has suspicious-looking voting patterns, please do use the REPORT THIS STORY feature to bring it to our attention and we will run a manual check as well. In the OTHER field, tell us to check the voting. When you report suspicious voting this way, the system will send us a direct link to the story and make it much easier for us to check.

I was not aware of this.

I was raised to believe that you never blow out someone else's candle in the hopes that you make your own shine brighter. Because of this I would have a moral problem with reporting people for faking upvotes on their own stories. I mean, if someone wants to epeen themselves, go for it. What do I care? But when there are fake spam downvotes on my own, that's when I get very annoyed.

I'll keep this feature in mind in the future, thank you.

So you don't want to believe that several someone's didn't like the story so you are gonna take your toys and leave?

Maybe the internet is too mean of a place for you to be.

Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[koalabear]

I've seen a really disturbing trend happening on the site lately that I need to speak out about. There are some people who are downvoting and manipulating the ranking system to lower the scores of people's stories just so that their score seems better in comparison.

Take for example one of the highest ranked scifi/fantasy stories on the site:
http://www.literotica.com/s/macallan-promises

Macallan promises by Pacofear

Years ago, that story was the highest ranked with somewhere around 4.96 or 4.95. It consistently stayed around 4.95 for two or more years, and then in the last month I noticed that it was dropping by 0.01 point or so every few weeks, and it's now down to 4.90.

Now I would never be so offensive as to point to specific other authors, but I highly suspect one or two (who shall not be named). I've even seen this type of vote manipulation happen on my own stories.

For example after posting one of my stories, I had a ranking of 4.70 with 10 votes. So, a reasonable spread of votes across those 10 votes would be seven votes that were given 5s and three votes that were given 4 stars.

I ended up refreshing my submissions page about ten minutes later after a friend of mine told me on IM that he read the story, that he loved it and gave it a 5 star vote.

Amazed, I found that my ranking had dropped from 4.7 DOWN to 3.73 with a total of 15 votes.

So if my friend's vote of 5 stars is taken into account, that means that in a ten minute window FOUR votes of 1 star came in? REALLY?

Now, the vote ranking eventually came up as more people started voting on it, but still.... at least four 1 star votes took a serious chunk out of my rating, and this is on a story that at least ten others thought was 4 star or above.


It goes beyond that too.... I've noticed that the rankings on all my stories has been edging downwards over the last two or three months. Stories that used to be in the 4.9 range are now down around 4.8. Stories that used to have a +4.5 rating are now below and don't have the pretty little H tag next to them.


It's VERY frustrating and while I wouldn't mind a 1 star rating if there was some sort of feedback, it feels like there's blatant manipulation of votes going on out there. Honestly, it really kills my urge to write / submit to this site. I'm not saying that as any sort of threat, just as an honest emotion about how it changes my state of mind about the site as a whole.


Has anyone else noticed this? Is there anything that can be done to stop this sort of vote slamming?

Change your profile pic.

 

[lovetoread]

Yep, I'm a troll.

Damn, it only took 12 years for someone to figure it out!