A thought on the Top List's update boards

[Dirt Man]

Each day we acquire more, and more new writers contributing to this site, and like myself they are more than often confused by the voting system used here when their story is spiked by people who raid the votes by voting a senseless 1 without even reading the story first. I think part of the problem may lay in that the top lists for voting are updated way too often. And that means those looking to put one story ahead of others have a perfect way to find out whose story, or stories are in the lead. And then it's just a simple matter of them raiding that story.

Why does the Top Lists board here have to post up to the minute voting results? Is this really necessary? I mean: Why not just update the voting results every two weeks, or once every month after the contest? In this way, the raiders wouldn't have any idea of which stories to blitz by attacking with 1's, and 2's, and 3's without first reading them. The readers would still have the E, to show who is favored by Laurel, and the H's for the over 4.5 after 10 votes. The votes only count for the monthly contests anyway, and yet if updated every two weeks, or monthly would still give the readers who visit here a good idea of what's considered better reading throughout the site by their peers. This would go a long way towards leveling off the voting field from raiders, and give the authors who wrote the stories a better idea of how they are really being received by the readers who actually read their stories. And just might make Laurel's job easier by not having to go through and delete as many of those senseless 1's.

The Most Views board on the Top Lists wouln't even have to be changed as it is a very good referance overall for those who come here to read as it only gives how many have viewed each story since the sites inception.

I know many here will think that I'm beating a dead horse with this voting idea, but really, what do we have to lose by keeping the creeps at bay, or singling out who they are attacking to correct the problem? My own stories are averaging in a healthy 4.3 average as it is, and that's fine with me now that I've learned a little bit more about how things work around here. However, the results in the voting are often confusing to new authors, and I believe this might help the situation greatly by keeping the creeps at bay long enough for us to get a real idea of how our stories are being perceived by those who actually read them. In any event it's an idea. What do you think?

 

[SexyChele]

I would agree with you, but really, the voting here is not entirely scientific. I take more of my cues as to how I'm doing from the feedback I receive. Far more important, in my mind.

I think one thing that might prove interesting, and works on other sites, is mandatory feedback when you give an author a low vote. Say, if some one voted a "1" or a "2", the vote won't register until the person writes something to the author. Of course, they could write, "Story sucked" and be done with it. But at least it would allow an author to determine just how many extremely low votes s/he receives!

 

[Pure]

Dirt Man said,


Why does the Top Lists board here have to post up to the minute voting results? Is this really necessary? I mean: Why not just update the voting results every two weeks, or once every month after the contest? In this way, the raiders wouldn't have any idea of which stories to blitz by attacking with 1's, and 2's, and 3's without first reading them.

I don't think this would work well, except maybe if voting happened only once. I.e., secretly for 2 weeks, then stopped and the rankings declared. If voting proceeds with additional two week periods then front runners can obviously be attacked.

The problem of the 1 vandalism has been addressed often, and I don't believe Laurel is very interested in it, unless there's massive fraud, as in one person giving several 1's to a story.

It's quite hard to think of how to prevent someone from giving a vandalous 1, while allowing someone else to give "I hate it" 1's.

One idea might be to limit the 1 votes that could be cast for any given sign-in, or for any given period, be it hour or day, by one person. Possibly that might prevent--or slow down-- those who want to give 1's to all the top ten stories just for spite.

Many schemes have been proposed, to no avail: for example, similar to your idea, every week or two adjusting the scores by throwing out both the top and bottom 5% of votes.

I might add that Laurel has often said that the more serious problem is excess 5's. Author X's pals arrange to cast lots of 5 votes for his/her stories. (This can obviously be done in conjunction with downgrading all others. Notice that your scheme does not solve this. If a fan has a reasonable idea of who might threaten the one the fan wants to boost, under this evil scheme, the fan gives them all 1's.)

 

[Dirt Man]

You may be right that it's a futile attempt...

If a fan has a reasonable idea of who might threaten the one the fan wants to boost, under this evil scheme, the fan gives them all 1's.)

True, but this would also give Laurel an idea of who is behind this if only a few stories always end up with no 1's, or 2's yet are obviously over the hill on 5's.

I know I'll be taking a whole bunch of 1 hits just for posting this idea, but I'm looking for any input I can get on how to make the voting more realistic than it is now.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[Un-registered]

Re: You may be right that it's a futile attempt...

... but I'm looking for any input I can get on how to make the voting more realistic than it is now.

Abolish it!

I used to vote. I always commented on why I had voted what I did, and it was never anonymous.

The abusive replies from some authors given a vote less than 4 soon persuaded me that authors, by and large, do not want feedback or votes unless it is fulsome praise and 5s. Some even put on their stories, "Please vote if you liked it."

 

[Pure]

True, but this would also give Laurel an idea of who is behind this if only a few stories always end up with no 1's, or 2's yet are obviously over the hill on 5's.

Not really, since I said it was a 'fan' of Author X. How would one ever establish if Author X knew or didn't or directed the procedure or didn't?

It would look fishy, of course, if, of a current top 10, one gets a couple 5s and the others get a couple 1s. OTOH, Dirt Man, (I will hypothetically adopt Laurel's approach), there is still the problem of inferring motive. Suppose a reader read the top ten and loved one story and hated the other nine?

Besides throwing out extreme votes, limiting 1s per session, requiring feed back, I haven't come across much. One could try to require spending time on each page. I.e., unless each page is called up for more than 3 min, a vote does not register.

A misguided approach, imo, is the proposal to eliminate 1s, or both 1s and 2s. This leads to a kind of old Soviet approach: You may vote 'great' or 'almost great' or you may not vote at all.

 

[Chicklet]

Why does the Top Lists board here have to post up to the minute voting results?

Easy. It doesn't. Hourly maybe, but not up to the minute. One of my stories might have a 4.76 up on the toplist and a 4.59 in my personal page. Not for very long, mind you, but the toplist doesn't update by minute.

The Most Views board on the Top Lists wouln't even have to be changed as it is a very good referance overall for those who come here to read as it only gives how many have viewed each story since the sites inception.

I dislike the "most views" board because views are # of clicks, not individual. And, since the stories are there from the beginning of time, it is impossible to ever get higher up on the board.

In My Opinion, the toplist doesn't matter in the least. Sometimes I like to look up there and see what scores/# of votes looks like, but I don't care whether one of my stories is up there or not. When I first came to the site, I did. GOD, I did. But now, fuck it. I could care less. I get good votes, I get great feedback, fuck what the "majority" thinks.

I think, Dirt Man, that after a few more months pass, you'll probably think like me and stop caring = )

Chicklet

 

[hiddenself]

What's with the voting obsession?

The biggest problem seems to be not nasty "1s" but gratuitous "5s." Anyway, voting is inherently problematic since you can never entirely eliminate cliques and fraud (or just well-meaning friendly "favors").

Trimming 5% of the lowest and highest votes would help.

As would eponymous voting (ie, if you want to vote, own up to it).

But, at the end, if you place such weight on votes, you have to be able to take the good and the bad. That's the nature of majority rule out there. Otherwise, don't play that game at all. Lots of authors here gloat over positive feedback and high votes, no matter if it's justified or not (and often it isn't, in my opinion). And as soon as they get some harsh criticism, they go ballistic. Have I heard anyone complain about an unearned and unfair "5"? Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

hs

 

[Chicklet]

Re: What's with the voting obsession?

Have I heard anyone complain about an unearned and unfair "5"? Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

quite right. they seem to even themselves out.

Chicklet

 

[pop_54]

Hmmm

Hmmm well I'm too new to all this to understand it all yet, I'm just a simple country boy.
Christ it took me two days to fathom out how to find my own first story.
But I have to agree on this one with those who say voting is just a bit of fun really and a rough guide to how your scribblings are being received by all.
No way to sort out a machine controlled voting system I'm affraid.

Just write and have fun folks, it would be nice if a better system of grading tales could be devised for those of you intending to make a living out of writing who need serious feedback, but I can't see how I'm affraid.

I don't understand it and I doubt it will do me any good, but can someone put this thicko straight on the scoring system.
My first tale a bit of a rough up I wrote a year or so ago and posted here a couple of days ago is at 4.59 with 81 votes and 15682 views, is this good bad or average?????

I hope someone will explain it all, nobody much has spoken to me yet here.

pops...........

 

[Dirt Man]

Perhaps Voting should be eliminated entirely...

If it doesn't make any difference to most of the authurs here, then perhaps the voting should be eliminated entirely. Just a thought. LOL


A Side Note:
As predicted in an earlier post, my latest story A Night of Sea Food is taking a beating with the voting system. It's posted in the controversial Loving Wives section instead of the interracial section. Feedback goes both ways, but the negative is racially biased claptrap by Mr/Mrs/Ms Annonymous. It seems that every time I bring up this subject my latest story gets hit hard. If I just keep my mouth shut, then I get the usual voting rhythm. For me, this makes it impossible to go back and edit what might be hampering a story. Which is why I started this thread in the first place. LOL

Indeed, flattering feedback is a powerful ego booster, but it does nothing to help an author become a better author, and that's pretty much the same effect as slasher annonymous feedback. And that makes the voting system that much more important as a means of instant feedback for the writers here, and especially the newbies. That being the case, perhaps voting should be changed from 1-5 to a more simple feedback motif : I hated, I enjoyed, I loved

1.) I hated= I couldn't even finish reading this crap
2.) I enjoyed= the story was at least good enough that I read it to the end.
3.) I loved= Now this is a story!

Enter Feedback into the equation, such as once they have voted they are taken to the next window where they have to say why they voted that way before the vote counts.

The feedback for each story could then be linked to the author's viewing page, and put next to their votes colume, and reviewed by the authors when they have the time.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[Un-registered]

I.e., unless each page is called up for more than 3 min, a vote does not register.

I pay by the minute for on-line time and so I read off-line. My average stay on a page is about the 10 seconds or so it takes to save it for layer. Then (on the rare occasions that I feedback) I return to the story online to send votes/feedback. So at your 3 minute rule, I don't get to vote unless I pay more money?

 

[Alex756]

I would think having voting update on a monthly basis would be horrible to new authors at least. I am only on my second month on this place, and if I had no idea how I was doing in 'pleasing the audience' I probbaly would not have continued. I mean this is fun and all, but I kinda do like the feedback. I don't expect everyone to like something, heck this past semester I had 2 similar final papers, well I kinda did one paper for both classes and got 2 differant grades with very differant feedback. Had to rewrite both (was planning on it btw) to each suit that particular professor). I am basically pleased with how much feedback I get, but as for giving feedback. I feel I am hesitant to either vote low or tell someone what I didn't like.

overall do you think authors want to know what you didn't like? I know I don't mind hearing the bad. I had a friend read a story here and I practically had to beg them to tell me what they didn't like .. and know what? they were -soo- right.

I also like the voting system. I mean once you have he number of votes some stories have on here a 5 form a friend or a 1 from an enemy would be inconsequential after all

Alex756

 

[Dirt Man]

We aren't talking about the authors view...

We aren't talking about the author's view of his votes, and reviews for his submissions Alex, we're talking about the board for the top lists.

 

[Alex756]

"We aren't talking about the author's view of his votes, and reviews for his submissions Alex, we're talking about the board for the top lists."

And I like the top lists, I also like the fact it updates. If it only updated every month I think that would be discouraging for new writers. That was the essence of my point.

--Alex756

 

[Pookie]

I believe all of us get 5's and 1's we don't deserve. I also think that it happens across the board as well. I know there are outspoken authors here that seem to get high scores no matter what they post. I'm not saying that there is no problem.

Scores will go up and down with the limited number of readers that do vote. I think those that do vote tend to be more passionate readers. If a story really grabs their attention and gives them what they want, they may go out of their way to give the story a 5. The same is true for stories a passionate reader may really dislike, prompting them to give out a 1. There is no way to get inside the head of those that do vote here out of the thousands that actually read a particular story.

I also don't believe that comments made by posters here have any real affect on scores, if at all. Look at the views for the threads here in the Author's Forum and it is easy to see that the biggest majority of the thousands of readers that visit Literotica never read any of the threads in this forum.

Also, I don't see where a 1-3 system is any better than a 1-5. Actually, I would prefer to see a 1-10 system. With a 1-3 system, the scores will all bunch around 2 for the most part. This will make it even more difficult to discern good stories using their scores. I might think a particular story is quite good (better than average), but not worth a 3 in a 1-3 system. So I would give it a 2. The same with a story that I think is less than average, but not worth a 1. You end up with those two stories having the same score which seems unfair to me.

With a 1-10 system, at least I can more precisely score a story. A site I post to uses that scale, and the scores do seem to point out which stories are better than others.

Forcing feedback won't help the cause either. It's too easy to enter a phoney email address and click send. You may actually scare off some who do vote appropriately but just don't want to give out an email address for various legitimate reasons.

 

[pop_54]

Hmm

Still not speaking then

 

[Guest]

.
.
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With a 1-10 system, at least I can more precisely score a story. A site I post to uses that scale, and the scores do seem to point out which stories are better than others.

Forcing feedback won't help the cause either. It's too easy to enter a phoney email address and click send. You may actually scare off some who do vote appropriately but just don't want to give out an email address for various legitimate reasons.

_______

What's the point in "increasing" the precision for a purely subjective rating system, especially on this site?

We all grew up with a 1-5 rating system, A,B,C,D,F: Best, Good, Average, Below Average, Fail. Further gradations seem to introduce complexity where none is needed.

 

[Pookie]

It's definately subjective. However, the problem with the 1-5 system is that I end up giving out scores that group dis-similar stories together. For example, I might read a story that is truely excellent it every regard and give it a "strong" 5. Another story that might be excellent as well but has a few grammatical problems, but not bad enough to give it a 4. In a 1-5 scale, I might well give them both a 5, when clearly one is better than another in some regard. The second best story may not have enough problems that would cause me to want to give it a 4 though.

In a 1-10 scale, I would give the first a 10 and the second a 9. I feel this treats both fairly in my own subjective way. Even with the A, B, C, D, F system in school, I was given a numerical grade as well which told me what end of the "A" range I was on.

It doesn't add complexity for me as I see it. It works wonderfully at another site (storiesonline) that seems to have much fewer problems than Literotica does when it comes to voting and scoring.

 

[Guest]

Your logic baffles me, Pookie.

If you agree the present system is subjective, what is the point in trying to 'refine' it?

Who is to 'say' that a 9.0 on a 10 point scale is any better than a 4.5 on a 5 point scale?

What the fuck?

 

[Pookie]

The problem is ... I can't score a story a 4.5 here. In my subjective scoring ... a 10 is better than a 9. A 5 is better than a 4.5. But I don't have that option here. I must either give a 4 or a 5 which compares to an 8 and a 10.

The whole issue of voting on stories is rather ludicrous as you can never come up with something that will be objective. But if we are going to have a subjective scoring system, give me one I can score with fairly.

Also, Literotica compounds the problem by giving away cash prizes to the stories that score the highest every month and in contests. Since we have to live with a subjective scoring system here, lets at least use something that is a bit more useful.

That is what the fuck.

 

[Pookie]

Another problem that irritates me about the voting system here is the way that an "H" is awarded. You must "score" a 4.5. I can't give a score of 4.5 as a reader. It's either a 4 or a 5. So if I think a story deserves to have an "H", I must give it a perfect score or I end up penalizing that story.

I know that the "H" is meant to be a cumulative award. But it does promote voters to score a 5 at times that they may not otherwise. If a 4.5 means an "H", well damn it, give me the ability to score a 4.5 to a story. On a 1-10 scale, a 4.5 would logically be a 9.

I will let this drop as Literotica is not likely to change the scoring system here anyways. There have already been enough posts in the past about this issue and nothing occurs.

One thought, if the cash prizes were eliminated then I would bet that the voting issues would become much less of a problem.

 

[Dirt Man]

I agree about the cash prize...

One thought, if the cash prizes were eliminated then I would bet that the voting issues would become much less of a problem.

I don't post here for profit, I do it for fun.
Why can't we eliminated the cash prize? It might well be that the voting would become suddenly very much more real, that's why. Get rid of the incentive to cheat, and there would be no more cheating on the votes. LOL I can't wait to see the replies after I post this.


As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[pop_54]

Hi

I wouldn't flame you for that Dirt Man, I'm with you there, this is for fun with me not profit.
Some do take it very seriously though and that is their choice.

Not that anyone will take much notice of what I'm saying, no one has yet.

 

[Chicklet]

Re: Hi

Not that anyone will take much notice of what I'm saying, no one has yet.

awe, what kind of thing is that to say.