A Truce on Voting?

[bearlee]

I keep reading about people talking about voting and how the scores aren't important. etc. Well, I admit I look at them. Feedback is nicer, but maybe it's a competitive thing with me from when I played sports in high school or whatever.

Anyway, my thanks to Laurel for catching so many fraudulent votes. Over the past week or so I've had several stories have votes removed, sometimes quite a few, sometimes not so many. The scores have jumped. One today, by having a change in total votes of not all that many went up .25 from 4.44 to 4.69 and two others recently went up considerably to over 4.70(older stories).

Heck, I'm not even all that good so I can imagine what happens to other folks. If it all gets caught in the long run, why do it. Maybe my female counterpart is right, look at feedback and forget about the scores. Nah, probably won't, but why the fuck do it to begin with. I not above begging people to vote, but one person-one vote! Now I'm sounding like a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

 

[gauchecritic]

similar matters

Has any author asked Laurel to remove votes of 5? I seriously doubt it. Even if they know that it's a list of friends being friendly.

Gauche

 

[bearlee]

Uh, no, not me. I'm not sure how many friendly fives you can get or non-friendly ones. It just seems odd that a story can lose in one case more than 40 votes and jump .12 and, I'm not talking about asking anyway. Although I just do this as a diversion, it's still fun to look at the scores and get some sense of satisfaction. And besides, fives get removed. Just got an email from an author I correspond with daily that lost two votes and his score went down so they were probably high votes. Of course for him, that means his score probably went from 4.87 to 4.85. Me, I don't aproach those kinds of numbers. But, I do know that a lot of work goes into writing stories, even the stuff I write, and for people to whack it for the hell of it doesn't make sense.

 

[SexyChele]

Now, I'm just curious: how can Laurel tell a "fraudulent" vote? If I have 50 friends that I tell to go and give my story a "5", wouldn't that be fraudulent? I'm just really confused on this.

Yes, I've heard there are people out there who hop from story to story voting them down. I don't get it, I don't understand, and it takes too much effort brainwise to do so. Besides, maybe that story that I think is so spectacular really isn't to another person.

I just would be very interested in hearing how one can determine a "fraudulent" vote. Who knows? My most recent story took a huge jump (4.42 to 4.53) in points, but very little (65 views) in views in the last 24 hours. Maybe I'm just the recepient of some kindly "story fairy"?

 

[bearlee]

I don't know enough about computers to know the answer. That's a Weird Harold question. Something about each computer having it's own address or something I guess.

 

[Laurel]

Now, I'm just curious: how can Laurel tell a "fraudulent" vote? If I have 50 friends that I tell to go and give my story a "5", wouldn't that be fraudulent? I'm just really confused on this.

In the interest of the integrity of the voting system, I can't tell you all that. I will say that we remove fraudulent 5s, 4s, 3s, and 2s as well as 1s. We do our best to remove all fraud votes - votes in which a person(s) have attempted to go around the "one reader, one vote" rule - regardless of the score.

If you happen to see what you think may be suspicious voting patterns on any story - yours or someone else's - drop me a PM with the author name and story title and I will look itno it.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Re: similar matters

Has any author asked Laurel to remove votes of 5? I seriously doubt it. Even if they know that it's a list of friends being friendly.

Gauche

I have. She did.

 

[SexyChele]

In the interest of the integrity of the voting system, I can't tell you all that. I will say that we remove fraudulent 5s, 4s, 3s, and 2s as well as 1s. We do our best to remove all fraud votes - votes in which a person(s) have attempted to go around the "one reader, one vote" rule - regardless of the score.

If you happen to see what you think may be suspicious voting patterns on any story - yours or someone else's - drop me a PM with the author name and story title and I will look itno it.

I never even realized this was being done or that there was a capability to do it. Okay, shows what I know!

Wow, that means between keeping all these new stories straight, worrying about copywrite infringement, negotiating problems from the BBs, this is just another task added to the heap! I have to say, I've just developed a whole new sense of respect for both Laurel and Manu! I'm just amazed.

Thanks to both of you!

 

[kiwiwolf]

I'm already on record as having stated that votes aren't important to me and to be perfectly honest they really don't matter that much. I would rather have a ton of HONEST feedback than a high vote that doesn't tell me anything about what the reader thought was good or bad about my work. It is only through feedback that I am going to become a decent writer.

Having said that it was a huge thrill to go and visit the top lists a couple of weeks back and find my little story perched precariously at number 8. Also getting nominated for the Critics Choice Award was a huge honour. My fingers developed independant egos and refused to type another sentence until I improved thier working conditions. Subsequently they now get 10 minute breaks every year.

I vote every time I read a story. I vote on the stories of friends of mine as well as strangers. No matter who wrote the story I ALWAYS vote honestly. If the story was crap I vote accordingly... if the story was brilliant I give it the vote it deserves plus a short message of encouragement. I've been doing this ever since I came to Lit which was about a year before I actually registered. In that time I have dished out a couple of handfuls of 5's and only one 1. I have given mega feedback and received maybe 15 replies. I like to delude myself into believing that some of the feedback i have given has helped somewhere along the line.

 

[English Lady]

kiwiwolf..i don't think its against the rules for me to say as one of the critics who read your work I dfound it very enjoyable! I won't say anything more incase i get into trouble for it*L*


I really don't pay that much attention to the votes on my stories, though its always nice to have a high score*L*

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: similar matters

I have. She did.

Well EVERYBODY knew that Killer(goody-two-shoes)Muffin would.



Just being

Gauche

 

[kiwiwolf]

kiwiwolf..i don't think its against the rules for me to say as one of the critics who read your work I dfound it very enjoyable! I won't say anything more incase i get into trouble for it*L*


I really don't pay that much attention to the votes on my stories, though its always nice to have a high score*L*

Thank you kindly English Lady. If I managed to put a grin on your face then I succeeded. Thanks again.

 

[kiwiwolf]

Re: Re: similar matters

I have. She did.

Integrity plus Muffin.