Seeing the voting distribution

[mfan2112]

Is there a way to see how the votes are distributed on a story? I keep seeing people comment about 1 bombing but how do they know there is a 1 vote and not just a mix of other votes? Unless you constantly refresh your totals and track how each vote comes in, I don't see how you would know.

Am I missing something?


Personally take the voting with a grain of salt, but I do recognize there is a correlation between my scores and how developed my editing process is. I am mainly just curious about how the system works here. My inner math nerd wants to know.

 

[KeithD]

No, the Web site doesn't provide voting distribution information to its authors. Some try to chart this out the best they can by frequent checking to capture individual votes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Unless you constantly refresh your totals and track how each vote comes in, I don't see how you would know.

That how you do it - by watching your totals:

Score is the sum of all votes divided by count. So if you multiply your previous score by your vote count you get a number. If you then multiply your latest score by your latest count you get another number.

The difference between your two numbers is the sum of all new votes. It must be some combination of whole numbers - for example 1 + 5 or 2 + 4 or 3 + 3 = 6.

 

[jsmiam]

Is there a way to see how the votes are distributed on a story? I keep seeing people comment about 1 bombing but how do they know there is a 1 vote and not just a mix of other votes? Unless you constantly refresh your totals and track how each vote comes in, I don't see how you would know.

Am I missing something?


Personally take the voting with a grain of salt, but I do recognize there is a correlation between my scores and how developed my editing process is. I am mainly just curious about how the system works here. My inner math nerd wants to know.

If you stalk your story when it’s newly published, check often, and mentally or otherwise note the previous score, you can often see votes arriving one at a time. When that happens you can compute almost exactly what each vote was.

You’re on the money in recognizing that once there’s a bigger pool of votes, it’s much harder to tell. There are other math nerds here too, welcome!

People do notice the dramatic impact of a one bomb with a new story. It’s not that they don’t happen later too, it’s just much more plainly evident when a story is new.

 

[Bramblethorn]

That how you do it - by watching your totals:

Score is the sum of all votes divided by count. So if you multiply your previous score by your vote count you get a number. If you then multiply your latest score by your latest count you get another number.

The difference between your two numbers is the sum of all new votes. It must be some combination of whole numbers - for example 1 + 5 or 2 + 4 or 3 + 3 = 6.

For larger vote counts, you sometimes have to take rounding into account - scores are rounded to the nearest 0.01, so the total sum of votes will be somewhere between (displayed score - 0.005)*n_votes and (displayed score + 0.00499999)*n_votes.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I tried to accurately track my competition story votes, but I gave up. My Summer Lovin' story had about 70 votes trickle in over the competition period, so it was fairly simple. My winter story had over 100 dump in one day. You can't determine with any accuracy exactly what the score breakdown is with that number. There are statistical methods that will give you an idea, but I'll leave that topic to others.

 

[AlexBailey]

Math.


Say you have a story with 40 votes with a score of 4.75


Multiply the number of votes by 5. So 40 x 5 = 200 total possible points.

Multiply the score by the number of votes. So 4.75 x 40 = 190

Subtract total possible points from the (score x votes) = - 10 missed points.
If you have not been keeping track as the votes have accumulated, you don't have enough info to know what the actual votes were. It could have been 35 five star votes and 5 four star -- whatever, just as long as totals add up.

You can calculate what the next vote is by the New score. (Rounded to the next hundredth)

If it's a 1-bomb you will have 41 votes with a score of 4.66 (total score 191/41 votes)
If it's a 2 you will have 4.68
3 will give you 4.7
4 will give you 4.73
5 will give you 4.76 (total score 195/41 votes)

 

[Emirus]

If you stalk your story when it’s newly published, check often, and...note the previous score, you can often see votes arriving one at a time. When that happens you can compute almost exactly what each vote was.

You’re on the money in recognizing that once there’s a bigger pool of votes, it’s much harder to tell.

People do notice the dramatic impact of a one bomb with a new story. It’s not that they don’t happen later too, it’s just much more plainly evident when a story is new.

If you have only a few votes and you’re bombed it will decimate your score, reduce the number of potential readers, and there’s nothing you can do about it except hope there’s a sweep before it disappears from the front page. If that doesn’t happen then you’re ******! I submitted a story which was bombed twice in the first five votes and the views, and therefore the votes, stopped. I had it deleted, submitted it again a few weeks later, and now it’s got one of those nice red thingummujigs.

Once votes have accumulated it’s more difficult to work out but not impossible. My last story had received over 350 votes when the competition ended. It was recently bombed but because of the number of votes the score was only reduced by .02. Not much difference but still annoying. Maybe it’ll be removed in a sweep, maybe not, but at that small difference it really doesn’t matter.

 

[Emirus]

Personally take the voting with a grain of salt, but I do recognize there is a correlation between my scores and how developed my editing process is.

I’m not surprised you take the voting with a grain of salt. You’ve submitted fourteen stories in just a few weeks (how people can write at that speed always amazes me but then I’m basically lazy lol) and there’s only one without the magic H and that’s 4.45. That doesn’t mean to say you haven’t been bombed on one or more stories.

How well edited a story is can have a bearing on voting, and a few people will downvote because of it, but many people overlook mistakes if it’s a good story. Some readers will overlook anything if they can have one hand on their mouse and one hand...

 

[ElectricBlue]

My last story had received over 350 votes when the competition ended. It was recently bombed but because of the number of votes the score was only reduced by .02. Not much difference but still annoying.

You worry about a .02 movement over 350 votes? Seriously?

Once one of my stories gets past 30 or 40 votes I stop caring. My rule of thumb is 30/30 - 30 votes or 30 days, whichever comes first, that's the story's score. Over time that score either stays unchanged, or slowly improves as readers go through my back catalogue. The top 25% of my story page slowly moves up and down, but the order of the remainder has been much the same for years.

 

[Fervid]

I just spent a rainy weekend quarantining and obsessively watching a new story wend its way through the New list, when most votes seem to accrue. The patterns were interesting.

As background, all my stories are perfect 5’s. (Like yours.)

• Of the first three votes, 2 were 4’s.
• Then seven 5’s, which got it to 4.79, then a 1-bomb.
• Then, 18 5’s in a row.
• Then, within half an hour, two 5’s and three 3’s.
• Then 38 5’s, six 4’s and a 1-bomb. (Those 4’s must be 4.99’s, rounded down.)
• Finally, a short period with three 5’s and four 4’s.

There were no 2’s. The interesting part was the 3’s. Is this a new form of ‘competitive scoring’?

The period of 9 votes at the end with a 1:1 ratio of 5’s to 4’s, following a long period where the ratio was 7:1, must be a statistical fluke, although it’s pretty unlikely given the precedent. Maybe it's a geographical preference issue.

Final score: 4.67. Without 1’s and 3’s: 4.83.

Spare me the obligatory get-a-life, please! I have a wife for that. This process did give me a feel for the median reader.

 

[SimonDoom]

Here's a helpful article written a while ago to assist in analyzing one's score:

https://literotica.com/beta/s/how-to-analyze-your-scores

 

[NotWise]

I just spent a rainy weekend quarantining and obsessively watching a new story wend its way through the New list, when most votes seem to accrue. The patterns were interesting.

As background, all my stories are perfect 5’s. (Like yours.)

• Of the first three votes, 2 were 4’s.
• Then seven 5’s, which got it to 4.79, then a 1-bomb.
• Then, 18 5’s in a row.
• Then, within half an hour, two 5’s and three 3’s.
• Then 38 5’s, six 4’s and a 1-bomb. (Those 4’s must be 4.99’s, rounded down.)
• Finally, a short period with three 5’s and four 4’s.

There were no 2’s. The interesting part was the 3’s. Is this a new form of ‘competitive scoring’?

The period of 9 votes at the end with a 1:1 ratio of 5’s to 4’s, following a long period where the ratio was 7:1, must be a statistical fluke, although it’s pretty unlikely given the precedent. Maybe it's a geographical preference issue.

Final score: 4.67. Without 1’s and 3’s: 4.83.

Spare me the obligatory get-a-life, please! I have a wife for that. This process did give me a feel for the median reader.

I track the vote distribution all the time.

You numbers don't give me exactly that score, but it looks like a pretty normal vote distribution for a high-scoring story.

Don't count on sweeps removing all the 1* and 3* votes. The sweeps are likely to remove some of your 5* votes, but removing 5* votes doesn't have a huge effect when the score is high.

 

[mfan2112]

I track the vote distribution all the time.

You numbers don't give me exactly that score, but it looks like a pretty normal vote distribution for a high-scoring story.

Don't count on sweeps removing all the 1* and 3* votes. The sweeps are likely to remove some of your 5* votes, but removing 5* votes doesn't have a huge effect when the score is high.

What are the sweeps? Sounds like they remove votes? If so, how are they determining which votes to remove?

 

[SimonDoom]

What are the sweeps? Sounds like they remove votes? If so, how are they determining which votes to remove?

A sweep is a periodic deletion of votes that are perceived as invalidly cast. The way the Site determines whether a vote is invalid is kept secret so there's less risk of gaming it and getting around it. Sweeps regularly occur near the end of contests, but they can take place other times as well.

 

[mfan2112]

thanks

 

[Emirus]

You worry about a .02 movement over 350 votes? Seriously?
.

You should read a comment properly before you respond to it and with the number of comments you’ve made over the last six years I thought you would have known that. You do know there is a difference between something being annoying and worrying about it?

Just to remind you this is what I wrote, as an example, to a someone else’s previous comment and which you seem to have misread/misinterpreted or whatever.

**********
“Once votes have accumulated it’s more difficult to work out but not impossible. My last story had received over 350 votes when the competition ended. It was recently bombed but because of the number of votes the score was only reduced by .02. Not much difference but still annoying. Maybe it’ll be removed in a sweep, maybe not, but at that small difference it really doesn’t matter.”
**********

I’ll repeat the last few words. “But at that small difference IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER.” Next time you think about being sarcastic actually think about it before you do it. It could save you from looking an idiot.

__________________
https://www.literotica.com/stories/m...ge=submissions

If I was half as good as I want to be I would still be better than I am.

 

[mfan2112]

I’m not surprised you take the voting with a grain of salt. You’ve submitted fourteen stories in just a few weeks (how people can write at that speed always amazes me but then I’m basically lazy lol) and there’s only one without the magic H and that’s 4.45. That doesn’t mean to say you haven’t been bombed on one or more stories.

Many of the stories were posted elsewhere previously. And with COVID, I have had more time on my hands to work on stuff.