Rating drops, vote count stays the same

[PaperbackWriter007]

I was just wondering if anyone could explain how/why a story's vote count could stay constant - 99 - while at the same time having a .02 drop in its rating - from 4.87 to 4.85. It's not a huge deal, it just seems a little unusual to the poor, repressed statistician in my brain who occasionally rears his ugly head.

Thanks!

 

[AlexBailey]

Is it possible for someone to change their vote?

 

[NotWise]

I was just wondering if anyone could explain how/why a story's vote count could stay constant - 99 - while at the same time having a .02 drop in its rating - from 4.87 to 4.85. It's not a huge deal, it just seems a little unusual to the poor, repressed statistician in my brain who occasionally rears his ugly head.

Thanks!

It's possible that between the two times you checked the score, the site swept a high vote, and someone gifted you with a lower vote. That a net of zero votes, and your score drops.

I had something similar happen overnight. One of my scores dropped by 0.01 with no change in the votes. The story has been up for months now, and it gets very few votes. I have a hard time believing that it coincidentally got a vote cast and a vote swept over night.

I've seen a number of hard-to-explain changes recently. The score on one of my stories dropped by 0.02 twice with the loss of one vote each time. I still have few enough votes on that story that I can back-calculate the value of any single vote or sweep. In both cases it looks like the site swept a score of 6.

Again, it could be a net change. Maybe the site swept two 5* votes, and someone votes a 4. That's a net change of one vote swept, and a drop of 6 stars. I could believe that once, if the story was fairly new, but twice on a months-old story is hard to believe.

I'm just attributing it to "database adjustments." Maybe if we wait it'll all adjust back again.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

It's possible that between the two times you checked the score, the site swept a high vote, and someone gifted you with a lower vote. That a net of zero votes, and your score drops.

I had something similar happen overnight. One of my scores dropped by 0.01 with no change in the votes. The story has been up for months now, and it gets very few votes. I have a hard time believing that it coincidentally got a vote cast and a vote swept over night.

Again, it could be a net change. Maybe the site swept two 5* votes, and someone votes a 4. That's a net change of one vote swept, and a drop of 6 stars. I could believe that once, if the story was fairly new, but twice on a months-old story is hard to believe.

I'm just attributing it to "database adjustments." Maybe if we wait it'll all adjust back again.

Logical possibilities. I see this quite often.

 

[Fervid]

I see the same thing all the time, even on old stories that rarely get votes. Just another weirdness of the opaque, impenetrable war between the site and trolls, I suppose.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Is it possible for someone to change their vote?

Yes, you can go back to a story and change your vote. I've done it several times because I will re-read stories from time to time and I'll change the vote if I feel I may have been too hard on the author the first time around.

 

[Emirus]

Yes, you can go back to a story and change your vote. I've done it several times because I will re-read stories from time to time and I'll change the vote if I feel I may have been too hard on the author the first time around.

How have you managed to change your vote?

 

[Candy_Kane54]

How have you managed to change your vote?

I just go to the end of the story and click on a different star than the one I had clicked on originally. When you do, you see the little spin on the cursor as a "Saving" message pops up. Sometimes, you'll get an "Error Saving" message and you have to try it again.

I'm doing this in the Beta view of the story.

[UPDATE]

I just went back to double-check and apparently it doesn't actually save the change. I just checked a couple of stories I (thought I) had changed and they still show the original vote.

My apologies for getting anybody's hopes up about this.

 

[NotWise]

I just go to the end of the story and click on a different star than the one I had clicked on originally. When you do, you see the little spin on the cursor as a "Saving" message pops up. Sometimes, you'll get an "Error Saving" message and you have to try it again.

I'm doing this in the Beta view of the story.

[UPDATE]

I just went back to double-check and apparently it doesn't actually save the change. I just checked a couple of stories I (thought I) had changed and they still show the original vote.

My apologies for getting anybody's hopes up about this.

Double-voting like that may just get your votes swept.