Votes Disappearing

[DAMackey]

Hello Fellow writers and readers!

So I checked my stories today, the Speech and Debate series in the gay male category and all of a sudden there were 586 votes just vanished. Most stories lost somewhere between 18-25 votes, but the most recent ones, those posted in March lost 255 and 154 votes!

I emailed info and feedback and was told there is a "script" for catching fraudulent votes. But how can over 2/3 of votes on a story be captured are "fraud?" Does that seem normal? I went from 384 votes on one to 132?

And then the most recent story, the one I posted just last week now has more votes (over 150 more) than the two stories that came before it!!

Something hinky is going on. Any ideas?

 

[slyc_willie]

Without knowing exactly what the criteria Manu uses for detecting a fraudulent vote (and he ain't gonna tell), I can hazard a guess that additional votes from the same IP address will get swept, as well as a sudden appearance of 1s or 5s when there is no (or little) trend in either direction to begin with. For example, if your story is consistently sitting around 4.75 or so, and suddenly ten 1-votes are logged, those could be considered suspicious. Same for ten 5-votes if your story is solidly in the 3.xx range.

Still, such a loss of votes as you claim seems a mite excessive. It could be that you have some overzealous fans out there who repeatedly vote up your stories; ultimately, however, you'll probably never find out.

 

[DAMackey]

Mostly 5's

Yeah, that is what I was thinking as well. Same IP addresses etc. But losing 253 votes seems crazy odd. Especially when all of my other stories are cosistently in the 4.87 or higher range. So fives are the norm. In addition, there are 70 comments on that particular story, and now only 153 votes. Which would mean, that one in every 2 readers voted and commented. Which is impossible. Right? Normally there is a much larger gap between votes etc. And in addition, the purge didn't effect the most recent post, the one posted in april. That story now was 220 something votes, while the two preceeding it have 150 and 140 ish.

I am just frustrated because my story was the top rated and on track to win the monthly contest for March before this purge. And now it is very much not. Story dropped from 4.93 to 4.85. And now I am out of the running when I SHOULD have been on track to win it.

It just seems really odd that this would happen so close to the contest winning. I feel like I am being targeted or something. It only effected my two most highly rated stories in the series and the two that were in the running for the contest. Every other story lost 20 or so which I can understand. But 2/3 of the total votes gone? That just doesn't make sense.

I've emailed Manu and reported my own stories for further inspection. I hope he gets back to me and rectifies or at least explains what the hell happened. Because it doesn't feel right or fair.

 

[sr71plt]

This is one of those mysteries of life on Literotica that isn't going to be explained beyond that the Web site has a formula for sweeping votes it deems fraudulent and runs sweeps periodically.

 

[JKendallDane]

One other factor that is most likely a big part of the reason you're attracting the type of votes and voting patterns that the regular sweeps seem to make go poof, is that you are a brand new author that has written an amazing story and are holding down the number one position in the GM All Time Hall of Fame. You are the biggest banana in the bunch, and all the monkeys want you.

Having two more chapters being ranked in the top fifteen of that list, just makes them all stand out that much more...and as has been mentioned, brings out other author's fans who mean well, but do get overzealous in their support by down-voting anyone who is ranked above their favorite.

Achieving a position in the All Time HOF is a definite honor, but that honor also comes with a target painted on it. Anything in the top fifty on the first page gets the added "bonus" of having the target painted in bright neon colors and flashing lights all around it to make sure the most rabid fans see it.

It's just part of "Life at Lit" and don't worry, your scores and the voting and cleansing will settle down at some point. Staying anywhere on that top 250 list is great for exposure.

Congrats!

 

[LesLumens]

One possibility is that somebody ( probably someone/a big fan of someone you displaced on the toplist ) reported something suspicious going on with the toplist, and requested a sweep.

Toplist sweeps are always ugly. They're only a notch below contest sweeps for bone-cutting, heartbreaking vote losses.

One piece of advice I always give is to alert your readers that you don't want any "help" in the form of multiple votes or down-voting other people's stories. Ever since I started doing that on a near constant basis, the number of votes -- and more importantly, the number of 5 votes -- swept from my stories has dropped markedly.

 

[coochiebarber]

Let me add one thing, this story in incest section, the first vote someone gave it 1 star. I saw it and went to read that story, it appeared a good read. Now that story stands at more than 4.6. Go figure.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Gay Male is one nasty hub troll-wise. Even worse than Incest. You can practically time the reign of bombs. There are some there who must watch that HOF religiously.

My guess is because there are fewer writers, smaller pond.

 

[sr71plt]

Gay Male is one nasty hub troll-wise. Even worse than Incest. You can practically time the reign of bombs. There are some there who must watch that HOF religiously.

My guess is because there are fewer writers, smaller pond.

That and that there naturally are gay bashers on a wide-ranging site like this--more so in the ratings than the comments, I think.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

True. But the scores on there are higher than, say, Incest. It's not uncommon to see 4.88, 4.90--er, until they get shot down.

It's so revolting.

 

[lovecraft68]

That and that there naturally are gay bashers on a wide-ranging site like this--more so in the ratings than the comments, I think.

Yes, which is why if the site ever made a Bi category it would be flamed to hell and back if a guy likes women and men he is still one of "dem queers" and here comes the bomb

 

[lovecraft68]

True. But the scores on there are higher than, say, Incest. It's not uncommon to see 4.88, 4.90--er, until they get shot down.

It's so revolting.

Part of why you see such very high GM scores and then see them crash quickly more so than in incest is vote total.

Incest has a lot of trolls, but they are masked by a very large fan base. When a story gets 1500+ votes it can withstand a lot of bombs and still see a good score.

But many GM stories don't go over more than a couple hundred votes-if that- so those bombers show up big time.

 

[lovecraft68]

Gay Male is one nasty hub troll-wise. Even worse than Incest. You can practically time the reign of bombs. There are some there who must watch that HOF religiously.

My guess is because there are fewer writers, smaller pond.

Well incest was pretty nasty...up until the top list broke and seeing its been over two years its obvious it will never be fixed.

If you look at the incest hub the top 25 all time stories there is accurate, but when you click the Hall of fame link? Its three years old.

Before than there was a huge "war" that knocked out the long time number one series Conflicted, people thought it was fans of the series Colleen, but when colleen took ove rit was knocked off as well by the audience of a scheming asshole who uses his blog to sick his readers on other authors

Then his story was supplanted by "Threads" and seeing that story has 15k+ votes its is pretty damn hard to troll, but we won't know because that is when the list froze.

I think its because people there kept crying foul and asking for sweeps.

many times Laurel's solution is to....break something and leave it that way rather than deal with a problem. Three category top lists are broken and will always be so.

 

[AZMotherLover]

I had a story that was up to 600 votes two months ago, now it has 583 votes.

Huh?

 

[Darkniciad]

Now that the monthly contests are running again, and more on schedule than they've been since I've been here, you can expect some biting sweeps once a month on about the 15th.

It won't just be stories published that month either. These are contest sweeps, and tend to ripple out across the entire database. The stories under direct scrutiny lose the most votes on average, but some unconnected stories can be hit hard as well.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Yes, very good point.

Not having posted there before, I've noticed when a certain writer has a series going, it tends to stay very high while anything threatening gets bombed. Hmm. Could be a coincidence.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

I know. It's hilarious in a way seeing as how it's the most popular genre.

If you look at the incest hub the top 25 all time stories there is accurate, but when you click the Hall of fame link? Its three years old.

.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, very good point.

Not having posted there before, I've noticed when a certain writer has a series going, it tends to stay very high while anything threatening gets bombed. Hmm. Could be a coincidence.

"There" as in GM or Incest?

I don't look at the GM lists because I don't read or write there, and the incest I only glance at the thirty day list

 

[Carnal_Flower]

GM. It's pretty clear.

Good point about the huge vote count absorbing the bombs in Incest.

"There" as in GM or Incest?

I don't look at the GM lists because I don't read or write there, and the incest I only glance at the thirty day list

 

[Carnal_Flower]

It's (kind of) funny to watch.

Speech and Debate got aggressively bombed (or well combined with sweeps) off the HOF, to be replaced with 3-4 by one author. Glad to see it got one chapter back on though that thing fluctuates daily.

GM. It's pretty clear.

Good point about the huge vote count absorbing the bombs in Incest.

 

[lovecraft68]

GM. It's pretty clear.

Good point about the huge vote count absorbing the bombs in Incest.

That's the benefit in everyday stories.

But its a detriment in contests as its become apparent the way the sweeps are constituted that stories with over a 1000 votes do not receive much of a boost from them like the lower voted categories do

As the recent winner proved with its 70-75 votes or so.

 

[JKendallDane]

It's (kind of) funny to watch.

Speech and Debate got aggressively bombed (or well combined with sweeps) off the HOF, to be replaced with 3-4 by one author. Glad to see it got one chapter back on though that thing fluctuates daily.

I assume you are referring to robcub32 who practically owned the top 25 in the GM HOF two years ago. His fans did tend to be uber rabid to the point he had to tell everyone to "stop 'helping' him." This current change in rankings has simply benefited him from what looks like was a pretty intense sweep of the category.

Whatever went on with the "Speech and Debate" story is most likely more an finally settling-in situation than anything nefarious. It is a great story, but to think it was going to maintain 4.90 and 4.92 ratings was a bit overly-optimistic considering the rest of the top ten were all at 4.88 and had been for quite some time.

4.90 and 100 votes does get you the #1 slot usually, but as I learned last year, you enjoy it for the couple days to couple of weeks it stays at that score and get a screenshot of the page, because it WILL be changing.

I'll agree that the top 50 in GM fluctuates like a game of hopscotch on meth, but if you really examine the entire list of 250 in the All Time HOF, many of them have thousands of votes, hundreds of thousands of views, and respectable age on them which says they have withstood the test of time. I think it is actually one of the most calm...voting and ranking wise...categories on Lit.

 

[lovecraft68]

The 4.88-4.9 shows GM isn't as trolled as some think, some categories get few stories in that range...non human however, is nuts a lot of high 4.8 to 4.9 there because they vote soft and everything has a lot of chapters.

All time incest is 4.87 and I think it only has that because seeing its common knowledge the list is busted the trolls may have given up.

If that all time 250 list was working I would probably have about 15 stories on it mostly chapters from SWB.

I think I have one in the list that works somewhere in the top 25

 

[Darkniciad]

http://darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/earth_day_2011_final.htm

http://darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/halloween_2011_y.htm

A couple of examples. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that low-vote stories are being swept more than high-vote stories.

The one thing you do see consistently is that some of the highest percentage of swept votes are in the middle/bottom of the scale on stories that are "well out of the running", and actually resulted in some of the largest increases in average score, but still never reached "in the running" scores.

Only looking at the top of the scale is a surefire way to get a horribly distorted image of what's happening.

That's the benefit in everyday stories.

But its a detriment in contests as its become apparent the way the sweeps are constituted that stories with over a 1000 votes do not receive much of a boost from them like the lower voted categories do

As the recent winner proved with its 70-75 votes or so.

 

[lovecraft68]

http://darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/earth_day_2011_final.htm

http://darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/halloween_2011_y.htm

A couple of examples. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that low-vote stories are being swept more than high-vote stories.

The one thing you do see consistently is that some of the highest percentage of swept votes are in the middle/bottom of the scale on stories that are "well out of the running", and actually resulted in some of the largest increases in average score, but still never reached "in the running" scores.

Only looking at the top of the scale is a surefire way to get a horribly distorted image of what's happening.

But the top of the scale-if you mean the winners or close to winners is the ones that matter.

My incest story finished the sweep at about 1641 votes, I lost 20...20 votes out of 1650+ and I think I saw an increase of .02

Winning story lost about 20(that I can see as I can only go by lists that are not up to the minute) and that 20 out of about 90 handed it a .20+ boost.

There is a difference.

But the difference is in what is a fraud vote? I'm supposed to think 20/90 were bad on the winner, but only 20/1650 out of mine?

Please.

I don't want to argue and won't, but what I will say is people are getting weary of the sweeps and the games.

In Winter I lost .18 off a 4.87 story that at the time had 200 votes which is a fairly good number to be able to judge that 4.87 was a score that the story earned.

in the sweep I lost 4 votes out of 800 and got back .01 from what was a laughably obvious troll attack. to drop .18 in a 30 vote span after having that high of a score at 200 votes...again....please.

So my answer is from now on I enter with stories that are "whatever" stories for me, no "This story kicks ass it might win"

No, if I think a story is really good it will be an every day posting, it won't get screwed out of its score that way.

I don't feel like worrying which way the eight ball will shake anymore.