Manipulating Top Lists

[gordo12]

One of my stories closed off a while back with a rather high score (for me). The second it dropped off the new list, it was driven down 9 points overnight. It has recovered most of that, but looking at the top lists today, I realized why.

The original score put it firmly in the top 100 for the last year. Even now, the recovered score easily puts it in the top 200. That attack drove it right off the lists. If that score remained today, it would be back in the top 100.

But I got some comfort out of checking that list. Out of 250 stories, only 2 stories exceeded my vote total. Another story, and I had the exact same number.

Overall, it appalls me that other Authors feel the need to manipulate the results instead of letting talent show what they can do. I know the subject has been brought up before, but I find the behaviour disgusting.

This is the third or fourth story that's been attacked like this. My geek entry has been whacked every time it starts to approach the red H. It got one bombed out the gate; then, when it started rising, a one bombing attack knocked it down 20 points in about 45 minutes. There have been three subsequent attacks. I don't know whether to attribute them to a pissed-off reader or other authors. It's a mystery!

 

[lovecraft68]

One of my stories closed off a while back with a rather high score (for me). The second it dropped off the new list, it was driven down 9 points overnight. It has recovered most of that, but looking at the top lists today, I realized why.

The original score put it firmly in the top 100 for the last year. Even now, the recovered score easily puts it in the top 200. That attack drove it right off the lists. If that score remained today, it would be back in the top 100.

But I got some comfort out of checking that list. Out of 250 stories, only 2 stories exceeded my vote total. Another story, and I had the exact same number.

Overall, it appalls me that other Authors feel the need to manipulate the results instead of letting talent show what they can do. I know the subject has been brought up before, but I find the behaviour disgusting.

This is the third or fourth story that's been attacked like this. My geek entry has been whacked every time it starts to approach the red H. It got one bombed out the gate; then, when it started rising, a one bombing attack knocked it down 20 points in about 45 minutes. There have been three subsequent attacks. I don't know whether to attribute them to a pissed-off reader or other authors. It's a mystery!

First off, you don't now that its the authors, often times its their readership who think they're helping their favorite author by bombing a story that supplants it on a list.

Also, and I'm not trying to be an ass, just using some perspective that I hold myself to as well...."letting talent show what it can do" I highly doubt readers vote on actual talent, or lack of for that matter. Everything is knee jerk, get them off make them, happy you get a five, piss them off...a bomb. Talent need not apply.

The Geek Pride event is probably a mix of readers, and also authors and forum ghosters because it gets discussed a lot in the thread here.

The top lists have been sniper pits since they started. I recall the author of what was probably the most successful I/T series of all time pulled the series after he got tired of requesting sweeps from Laurel for all his chapters being bombed constantly by what was most likely fans of a story named Colleen.

Then the list was under siege by the bonehead author and fan base of that rip off shit show Just the six of us...he was siccing people on others on his tumblr blog.

So, they're kind of meaningless.

Throw in the other big issue -the chapter series dominating all the lists-that will never be addressed by the site because they don't care and are too busy changing things no one needs changed and...go back to my point of meaningless.

I go along with what you said about looking at the vote totals, they can't steal those on you. My odl mature romance that used to be #1 is still hanging around the top 10 I think, but the vote total blows away any story around it.

That and how many times a story has been faved are about the only numbers I notice these days.

 

[gordo12]

You make some good points LC. I guess it's just the first time it's been aimed at me and it pisses me off. Along with the bombing of my other stories. I probably just need a stiff drink or a good woman.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Overall, it appalls me that other Authors feel the need to manipulate the results instead of letting talent show what they can do. I know the subject has been brought up before, but I find the behaviour disgusting.

Authors or over zealous fans, how does anyone know? Seems to be a lot of effort to stay on top of fairly meaningless lists, though. Why bother?

Given that the top lists are dominated by older stories, there's no meaningful frame of reference, not with a twenty year skew in the numbers.

I might have used the top lists for a few months to find stories when I first joined Lit, but once I started writing I became more selective in my reading, tending to read stories favourited by authors I liked - which is a much better filter, I reckon, finding like for like.

 

[Voboy]

Be zen.

Seek for meaning in things you can control. That sounds like philosophy, but it's more like common sense. When it comes right down to it, you and I and all the rest of us really only know about 10% of what goes into that stupid score.

So? Don't worry about it. Write what you want and enjoy the positive reactions you DO get.

 

[lovecraft68]

You make some good points LC. I guess it's just the first time it's been aimed at me and it pisses me off. Along with the bombing of my other stories. I probably just need a stiff drink or a good woman.

I suppose if anything take it as a compliment, they're bombing it because its a threat. They hate you cause they ain't you.

Oh, and better yet how about a stiff drink lapped off the body of a good woman?

 

[NotWise]

You make some good points LC. I guess it's just the first time it's been aimed at me and it pisses me off. Along with the bombing of my other stories. I probably just need a stiff drink or a good woman.

What category?

I didn't think the 12-month top list drew much attention. It's the all-time list that's sometimes a battleground.

It's easy to assign motivation to bombs, but you don't really know why they do it unless they leave a comment to explain.

 

[gordo12]

I suppose if anything take it as a compliment, they're bombing it because its a threat. They hate you cause they ain't you.

Oh, and better yet how about a stiff drink lapped off the body of a good woman?

Ohhh, I like that idea! But she just called and said she's going to be late. Just my luck

No lapping available!

 

[gordo12]

What category?

I didn't think the 12-month top list drew much attention. It's the all-time list that's sometimes a battleground.

It's easy to assign motivation to bombs, but you don't really know why they do it unless they leave a comment to explain.

I didn't want to say. I expect more flack as a result of this post and refuse to make it easier for them.

I hadn't even thought of the all-time list, but at one point, it would have been on there based on current scores.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I’ve got a story that drops in and out of the bottom of the all time romance list. I’m guessing someone gives it the occasional one to push it out. It’s petty, but I’m over it. I’ve got better things to worry about.

 

[KeithD]

I never look at the top lists. I know I won't be there and I don't care. To the extent anyone's manipulating my scores, the joke can be on them for the work they are putting into something I'm not watching.

 

[Voboy]

I never look at the top lists. I know I won't be there and I don't care. To the extent anyone's manipulating my scores, the joke can be on them for the work they are putting into something I'm not watching.

This.

Until this thread, I didn't know there were so many "top lists." I've peeked at the category HoFs at times, but I figured that was as far as it went.

 

[NotWise]

I’ve got a story that drops in and out of the bottom of the all time romance list. I’m guessing someone gives it the occasional one to push it out. It’s petty, but I’m over it. I’ve got better things to worry about.

A 4* vote is all it takes to move your story on the list.

 

[RejectReality]

If the story is solid enough ( and you're productive enough to keep your name out there, attracting people to your existing body of work ) it will steadily lose bombs and gain new 5s until it pops back up there.

Inevitably, it will get bombed again, but every time you're on a toplist, you're attracting new eyes, and building a cushion that will eventually make it far more difficult to knock you down.

Once eliminating you as a threat becomes difficult, the bombers start slipping up and leaving more obvious traces. That's why those older entries have the staying power they do. Everything around them is in constant flux, while they're islands weathering the storm.

 

[lovecraft68]

I never look at the top lists. I know I won't be there and I don't care. To the extent anyone's manipulating my scores, the joke can be on them for the work they are putting into something I'm not watching.

If you're not watching how do you know you're not on them?

If you don't care why do you constantly feel the need to say you don't care?

Everyone knows the answer

 

[TadOverdon]

I love it when a chapter settles in, over a few weeks, to a "Hot" rating - anything 4.5+. But, as an undergrad who made it out with something like a 2.3, I'm just pleased that I only have one up that's ranked less than 4.

(I've noted that my two lowest-ranked chapters have been,yep, cuckolding.)

 

[Fervid]

Tell me about it. Just last month I had a story go from #3 in the all-time Top List to completely off it in just 12 days of carpet bombing. Looking at that List, it's easy to see what's going on.

Just take it as a compliment, and keep posting there to make the trolls work harder. It's a public service if it keeps them off the streets. If you want to shake the box, though, Laurel seems pretty obliging about the very occasional sweep.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Top Lists, I have been here for hundreds of months and just last week I checked out the Top 100 List. And to my surprise... I had a story on it! It was one of my chapters of a series but it was there. I haven't been back to check since.

I write because I like too, although it is getting harder as I grow older. Sitting for long periods of time is not so easy anymore. I don't write for accolades, or scores, or comments, although those are nice to see. And I just might get a good laugh out of some of them. But I write for myself. And I like to tell stories.

Scores, don't mean much to me. In fact I sometimes just turn them off. Along with comments.