voting patterns

[karaline]

Whenever I get a vote that pulls my score down, a second follows shortly after. I get something like a hundred votes that are 4's or 5's and then I get two in succession that must be a 1 or a 2 because they pull my score down significantly.

I hope I'm making sense, because I'm wondering if anyone has noticed this pattern on their stories?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Whenever I get a vote that pulls my score down, a second follows shortly after. I get something like a hundred votes that are 4's or 5's and then I get two in succession that must be a 1 or a 2 because they pull my score down significantly.

I hope I'm making sense, because I'm wondering if anyone has noticed this pattern on their stories?

I suspect everybody. Down-voting trolls are a sad fact of life. Most of the damage gets deal with by the sweeps. If it's particularly obvious or disturbing, you can always report the story using the report icon at the bottom of each story page. Say that you are being one-bombed and ask for a sweep.

Good luck.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yep. And it depends on the category you publish in. There are readers(trolls) out there that have their favorites and don't want any other story to surpass their favs. If you have mostly 4 and 5's a sweep, which is done on some irregular schedule but mostly during contests, will get rid of the 1's and maybe a 2 or 2. But the trolls... er... readers will be right back voting their little black hearts out.

 

[lovecraft68]

Usually on a new story I seem to start off well, then around noon I'll see a flurry of bombs. Leads me to believe a lot of trolls spend their lunch time on Lit

Once your story drops off the new list the score will generally come up as the trolls aren't ones for searching, they just hit what they see first, especially the ones that hit specific categories.

 

[karaline]

I suspect everybody. Down-voting trolls are a sad fact of life. Most of the damage gets deal with by the sweeps. If it's particularly obvious or disturbing, you can always report the story using the report icon at the bottom of each story page. Say that you are being one-bombed and ask for a sweep.

Good luck.

My view on this has always been, if everyone else is experiencing it then it kind of evens out. I'm certain there are authors who do benefit, an editor once hinted to me that he used a VPN to repeatedly vote on his authors story during a contest. I can't remember for sure, it was a few years ago, but I think the sweep pulled the stories score down before the winner was decided, so I guess it works.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Usually on a new story I seem to start off well, then around noon I'll see a flurry of bombs. Leads me to believe a lot of trolls spend their lunch time on Lit

Once your story drops off the new list the score will generally come up as the trolls aren't ones for searching, they just hit what they see first, especially the ones that hit specific categories.

That's the usual pattern with mine as well. I figure that the bulk of the early votes come from people who follow you, so they read a new submission as soon as it shows up.

 

[RejectReality]

My view on this has always been, if everyone else is experiencing it then it kind of evens out. I'm certain there are authors who do benefit, an editor once hinted to me that he used a VPN to repeatedly vote on his authors story during a contest. I can't remember for sure, it was a few years ago, but I think the sweep pulled the stories score down before the winner was decided, so I guess it works.

You can download databases of major VPN IP ranges. Not likely to be an effective means of fooling the sweeps because of that.