Time for a new rating system

[tv46]

Trolls, along with their 1-bombs have an outsized influence on story ratings, especially in cracking the HOT barrier. For example, I can write two equally hot stories. But put even the slightest hint of two men touching in a group sex scene, and the trolls will come out in force.

Rotten Tomatoes has it right. Like, dislike, and then display percentage of likes. This will greatly reduce the influence of trolls.

 

[SimonDoom]

Before we go down this road (again -- it's been traveled over and over and over again), we have to ask, what is the problem with the current system from the READER'S point of view? Forget your own complaints about the alleged unfairness or injustice of the system as an author. The primary purpose of the rating system is to convey information that readers rely upon in selecting stories.

The OP says that two "equally hot" stories may get widely varying scores. Perhaps that's so from the OP's point of view, but maybe it's not from the readers' point of view. If readers don't like men touching in group sex scenes, then readers don't think stories with such scenes are as hot. It's legitimate from the readers' point of view for the rating to reflect that.

Personally, I don't care for the Rotten Tomatoes rating system, and I don't think it would work here. What you'll get is jerks voting stories down that they don't like, and nice people who don't like a story won't vote at all. That's the way things are to some degree now, but it will be more that way with the simple up/down voting system.

There's no perfect system, because voters aren't perfect. Some readers vote for dumb reasons, but dumb votes are as legitimate as smart votes.

I tentatively prefer a system where the current 5 point ranking is converted to a 10 point ranking, and anything 9 or above gets you a red "H". I don't think it would be too difficult to convert existing scores to the new system (multiply by 2). This system would allow a reader to differentiate between stories that are good enough to have a red H and stories that are truly superlative. The current system doesn't do that, and discourages readers who don't think a story is truly top notch but don't want to hurt the author's chances of getting recognition from voting at all.

The current sweep system takes care of bogus votes about as well as any system probably could.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

In the "Incest, Defined" thread (spoiler: sibling incest=best) Blozo offered his view on how he self-assesses his published stories based on likes instead of stars.

He said 1.5 "Likes" per 1000 was excellent work (I would say equal to a 5.0).
1.0 to 1.49 /1000 very good (I'm going with 4.0).
0.75 to 0.99 / 1000 good (3.0).
0.34 to 0.75 / 1000 fair (2.0).
0.00 to 0.33 / 1000 poor (1.0).

Personally I don't believe any piece any author spent time creating, is coherent, and is readable is worth but a 1.0 or 2.0. There are many stories here I don't care for, but that doesn't mean I "bomb" them. Everyone has their favorites and their "could do without's." I could do without Okra, but I don't go on LitOkra and one bomb recipes.

My lowest ranked story has 18,500 views, 68 votes, 3.03 stars, it also has 23 likes, (1.35/1000 views) go figure, I guess some love it some hate it, like Okra.

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[8letters]

Trolls, along with their 1-bombs have an outsized influence on story ratings, especially in cracking the HOT barrier. For example, I can write two equally hot stories. But put even the slightest hint of two men touching in a group sex scene, and the trolls will come out in force.

I'm guessing you're talking about "Mom's Wild Ride", which is in I/T. My experience is that a lot of the I/T commenters are old, white men who don't like anything feminist or any hint of gay male sex. They are going to shape what you think is the reaction to your story because they comment much more frequently than other readers.

Setting that aside, I/T is notorious for being unfriendly to gay male sex. That's not trolls, that your readership. You don't know if it's trolls because LitE doesn't give you any idea of what percentage of your votes are 1's. It could be that you're getting a lot of 3's and 4's.

Rotten Tomatoes has it right. Like, dislike, and then display percentage of likes. This will greatly reduce the influence of trolls.

Without any knowledge of what the distribution of the votes on your story, you don't know.

 

[tv46]

Consider the math. If a story is at 4.50, it takes 7 5-stars votes to offset a one 1-star vote from a pissed off reader.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

...My experience is that a lot of the I/T commenters are old, white men who don't like anything feminist or any hint of gay male sex...

I'm a girl (an OLD girl) but based on comments I have received I KNOW my stuff would get a better reception from the Hypocrite faction if I said it was inspired fiction and I strongly suspect it would be better received from the Misogynist faction if I used George Elliot, Acton Bell or Robert Galbraith as a username. But I put up with and usually one bettered them OTJ for 40 years.

I write to honor my lovers, not deny their existence. And while I have nothing per-se against gay male sex. It's really, really fun being that girl in the middle getting all of the energy of two boys as they spit-roast you.

...You don't know if it's trolls because LitE doesn't give you any idea of what percentage of your votes are 1's. It could be that you're getting a lot of 3's and 4's...

I have had stories post while I am bored and at work and so I have been able to follow votes (obsessively) by the ones twos and threes. SO I KNOW at least a couple stories of mine that have vote histories like this. 5, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 1, 1, 4, 5, 1, 1, because it shows you the total if it was 4/19 then 5/24 your fifth vote was a 5. When it goes 6/28 to 8/30 you just got two ones. My early votes are invariably the highest and lowest, I am guessing because those who like my "quirky style" and those who hate it are "Liking" me and getting alerts a new story has been published.

Occasionally (on a Friday) a story goes from 30/105=3.5 to 27/102=3.78, hmmm.

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[SimonDoom]

Consider the math. If a story is at 4.50, it takes 7 5-stars votes to offset a one 1-star vote from a pissed off reader.

So?

the current sweep system gets rid of "bogus" 1 votes, meaning votes that do not appear to be based upon actually reading the story (I think that's what it means).

The rotten tomatoes system won't necessarily improve the "problem" that occurs when angry readers vote down an otherwise good story because there's something about it that squicks them. Those same voters will hit "unlike" in a rotten tomatoes system, whereas a story that is inoffensive but not necessarily any better may get a far higher grade. So the "troll votes" will still affect the score. There's no way around it. In the meantime, with a system that's purely up or down it will be harder to get information about good v. very good stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Any voting system has its faults, and any voting system has its rorts. Most of the alternatives folk offer are binary, like or dislike, which I personally think are worse. I don't mind the gradation Lit provides, however many faults it might have. A seven score might allow some more subtlety, but only for new stories (how would you rescore the twenty-year old archive?).

But it's all a bit academic. I think the site has more important things to worry about, like its upgrades, and very possibly, given the swing to the moral right, it's future. We should be championing what the site does right, not what we think it does wrong. Besides, we all know the ins and outs of the scoring system, so in that sense it's a constant which works.

 

[SimonDoom]

(how would you rescore the twenty-year old archive?).

.

Easy. A 10-point system. Multiply old scores by 2. Stories with 9 or 10 get the red H. This allows reader/voters to give a 9 knowing the story will get a red H (so they don't have to feel bad about hurting the author) while reserving the very best score (10) for only the best stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Easy. A 10-point system. Multiply old scores by 2. Stories with 9 or 10 get the red H. This allows reader/voters to give a 9 knowing the story will get a red H (so they don't have to feel bad about hurting the author) while reserving the very best score (10) for only the best stories.

Agree, but that's still the five-point system with a different threshold for Red H, isn't it? The thing about a five point (or a seven point) gradient system, is that it has a centre point, which can be the same as a neutral opinion. People like that, I think, to be able to sit on the fence, two bob each way.

I personally don't think the system is truly busted, it's just the dick-wads around the edges that make it messy. But until someone comes up with a solution to eliminate trolling and gaming, it is what it is, so why "fix" it?

 

[8letters]

I tentatively prefer a system where the current 5 point ranking is converted to a 10 point ranking, and anything 9 or above gets you a red "H". I don't think it would be too difficult to convert existing scores to the new system (multiply by 2). This system would allow a reader to differentiate between stories that are good enough to have a red H and stories that are truly superlative. The current system doesn't do that, and discourages readers who don't think a story is truly top notch but don't want to hurt the author's chances of getting recognition from voting at all.

That's just more of the same. I'd prefer Manu and Laurel put there scarce resources into something that provides a different way of evaluating stories. What I would suggest is a "Favorite of the Month".

If I read a story named "Alice and Bill" today, at the bottom next to the star rating is a box that says "Your favorite story of June?" I can check a box. Let's say I check the box. And then tomorrow, I read "Charlie and Diane". At the end of that story, there's a box that says "Your favorite story of June instead of "Alice and Bill"?" I can only have one favorite story in June, and I'll be able to pick a new favorite story in July.

The advantage of this approach is that it'll provide a top list that will favorite whole stories over chapter stories. The rating top lists tend to be clogged with later chapter stories that don't have a lot of votes, but the few votes are almost all 5*. Such a chapter won't get many FOTM votes.

 

[KeithD]

For over a decade, I've thought--and it's often been discussed--that the simplest fix was doing away with the red H altogether. The actual ranking number shows now. Just go with that. 4.0 is supposed to be good. Just stop leaving the impression that you have to have a 4.5 to be considered good enough to read, which seems to be how the readers are taking the red H.

The fact that this has been discussed forever, though, means it doesn't mean anything in terms of being changed.

 

[GroverLang]

Consider the math. If a story is at 4.50, it takes 7 5-stars votes to offset a one 1-star vote from a pissed off reader.

Or from someone deliberately voting the story down because that’s what they do or because they stalk the author because they don’t like them for some reason.

 

[GroverLang]

So?

the current sweep system gets rid of "bogus" 1 votes, meaning votes that do not appear to be based upon actually reading the story (I think that's what it means)..

The current system doesn’t necessarily get rid of deliberate I and 2 star votes. It might in some cases but not all.

 

[GroverLang]

Easy. A 10-point system. Multiply old scores by 2. Stories with 9 or 10 get the red H. This allows reader/voters to give a 9 knowing the story will get a red H (so they don't have to feel bad about hurting the author) while reserving the very best score (10) for only the best stories.

Leave the system as it is and stop people voting 1 and 2. I’m sure it can be done quite easily.

It would also take a lot to convince me other than many readers will only read stories with a red H on the basis they must be better than, for example, a story with 4.00 which isn’t necessarily true.

 

[blozo]

The current system doesn’t necessarily get rid of deliberate I and 2 star votes. It might in some cases but not all.

I have never seen a sweep alter a score for me, even on the story that had ten one star votes faster than it is possible to have read it.

No changes are needed. Someone mentioned above that I have a system to self assess my stories, and I do. But the key word is self. While it works for me, it's not suitable for every story.
someone else pointed out above that it favors later parts of multi part stories, and it does. I can't figure out a way to fix that.
On top of that, it requires thousands of views before the data even begins to be relevant, and many stories don't get thousands of views.

Requiring anonymous voters to justify in ten words or more a one or two star vote was another idea I thought might work, but on further reflection, I don't think that would do much either.

Since we aren't getting paid, it makes little difference, and as someone else already said, Manu and Laurel have limited time and resources.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

I have never seen a sweep alter a score for me, even on the story that had ten one star votes faster than it is possible to have read it.

No changes are needed. Someone mentioned above that I have a system to self assess my stories, and I do. But the key word is self. While it works for me, it's not suitable for every story. Someone else pointed out above that it favors later parts of multi part stories, and it does. I can't figure out a way to fix that.

On top of that, it requires thousands of views before the data even begins to be relevant, and many stories don't get thousands of views.

Requiring anonymous voters to justify in ten words or more a one or two star vote was another idea I thought might work, but on further reflection, I don't think that would do much either.

Since we aren't getting paid, it makes little difference, and as someone else already said, Manu and Laurel have limited time and resources.

While many people have posted slightly differing descriptions of the exact way the "sweep" works. In my case I lose votes and gain average numbers of stars, I have never seen a story lose votes and go down, although if a way exists to detect multiple 5s that would explain it.

I love your system. It quantifies a concept I have long held, that my goal in writing any story is that I want it to be read. A troll can follow an author to vote that author's work down the moment it is published. What a troll cannot do is erase other reader's favorites.

Applying your idea as I quantified it in that earlier post my best rated stories are almost unaffected (rounding error differences). The ones that have been pounded by trolls gain massively.

It marginalizes mean. A troll can post a nasty comment (as Mr. Anonymous of course) saying how I am a sorry excuse for a human being for writing such a dirty story (at the site they come to read dirty stories at. ;-)). I can delete it, the site can delete it or I can leave it up as an example of stupidity exemplified. JMO if anything that works counter to their mean-spirited agenda.

I also think it is natural to have subsequent chapters of your story receive more likes per views. By way of analogy your story is a new car, the reader stops by the show room for a test drive (view) if he doesn't like something he doesn't continue the drive, he selects a different car to try out. Rational people aren't looking through the fabric samples and options lists if they didn't care for the way it drove.

(Lets see ten words... Eye rilly rilly hayded yer sterrie eat sukd reel baad. ;-))

I get paid in reads, but I don't know how to measure them, so I count favorites.

Sometimes I wonder if its like the old joke about the gynecologist,

She goes home from work, and her lover greets her lying naked across the coffee table legs spread enticingly.

"Awww hon," she says, "I've been looking at those all day."

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[gordo12]

What I would suggest is a "Favorite of the Month".

If I read a story named "Alice and Bill" today, at the bottom next to the star rating is a box that says "Your favorite story of June?" I can check a box.

Unfortunately that system would be so easy to game. Just like the mass 1 bombs.

The only solution that will work against trolls is to only allow registered accounts to vote and comment. Period. Put new accounts on moderation for a fixed number of comments and voila, you'll clean out most of the bad actors.

I have security software on all my sites. If an IP starts to misbehave it's automatically banned for up to 30 days. Or I can set it to permanent. I used to spend all day Monday banning bad actors. Now I spend maybe 20 minutes a month.

How extensive it the troll/bad actor problem? Bad actors account for somewhere between 80-85% of all our bandwidth. Most coming from shitholes around the world. I can't even imagine how much shit Laurel and Manu see.

Still solution = registered accounts. Period!

 

[TxRad]

For years and years, I've said do away with anonymous and I'm always yelled down. Why? Because authors here think it would drop comments even more and voting and would kill the number of people visiting Lit. My reply. Bullshit.

Let the yelling begin.

 

[SimonDoom]

For years and years, I've said do away with anonymous and I'm always yelled down. Why? Because authors here think it would drop comments even more and voting and would kill the number of people visiting Lit. My reply. Bullshit.

Let the yelling begin.

I'm not going to yell at you, because that wouldn't be nice, but I'm going to tell you that's a terrible, awful, no-good idea.

Getting rid of anonymous votes and comments would result in a dramatic drop in the number of total votes and comments. It might also reduce site traffic because it will be a disincentive to those who want to read and comment on stories but who want to be anonymous.

Most of the comments on my stories are anonymous. The overwhelming majority are positive, or at least reasonably polite and constructive. Getting rid of anonymous comments means I won't get as many comments, period, including mostly positive comments. How is that good?

I, and other authors and readers here, sometimes comment anonymously. I have various reasons why I think it makes sense to do that. If the option were taken away from me, in most cases I would not comment at all.

For those anonymous comments that aren't positive, or are nasty, there's a simple solution -- I can delete them. So can you.

What is everyone's problem with 1 and 2 votes? Toughen up a bit. If they're gamed votes -- 1-bombs by those who don't read the story, then that's something to complain about. But sweeps take care of those, presumably. But if they want to give you a 1 because they don't like your story, who is anyone to complain? That's the readership. Let them vote. Stop complaining and get a tougher skin. Writing is a business of exposing yourself to criticism, sometimes nasty criticism. Get used to it.

Laurel is not going to get rid of anonymous voting and commenting, because to do so would take away a tool readers want to use. Keep saying this over and over: readers matter more than authors. This site is for readers. They drive traffic numbers, not us.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

For years and years, I've said do away with anonymous and I'm always yelled down. Why? Because authors here think it would drop comments even more and voting and would kill the number of people visiting Lit. My reply. Bullshit.

Let the yelling begin.

"We can't offend the shoplifters they are our best customers!"

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[gordo12]

Keep saying this over and over: readers matter more than authors. This site is for readers. They drive traffic numbers, not us.

Both matter, but it's the authors that drive the traffic. Readers wouldn't be here otherwise.

 

[SimonDoom]

Both matter, but it's the authors that drive the traffic. Readers wouldn't be here otherwise.

And the authors will come here, regardless. They do now, with the current system. What percentage of site users are authors? 1 percent? Less? I don't know, but it's tiny. It makes no sense whatsoever for the site to change voting and commenting rules that will salve the wounded feelings of authors and at the same time create some unidentified, but probably significant, risk that there will be fewer readers.

 

[TxRad]

If someone wants to make a comment in another alt from their normal handle, that still makes them anonymous. Even authors who want to comment that way.

As far as site traffic, i don't think it will make much of a difference. Having an ID gives you a place to log in and a place to keep your favorites and story marks. All that would be on your computer or phone would be a log in link. That can be disguised in many, many ways.

So far the arguments don't hold water if you really look at them.

As for the "shoplifters." How many good authors have they ran off in the past and how many will they run off in the future? And don't say it doesn't happen. I've seen it time and again.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

If someone wants to make a comment in another alt from their normal handle, that still makes them anonymous. Even authors who want to comment that way.

What? You mean I can't pull out a Conroe phone book and find Mr. Rad, Tex, 1653 Hugh Roy Cullen Avenue, 77301?

I am appalled, simply appaled!

As for the "shoplifters." How many good authors have they ran off in the past and how many will they run off in the future? And don't say it doesn't happen. I've seen it time and again.

That is my point. Shoplifters kill businesses. Those are "customers" you don't need ( or want).

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann