Accidental 1-bombs?

[LexxRuthless]

I got the following comment on my most recent story, Temper, Temper!

"herojababout 2 hours ago
This was my second read through and it was just as good as the first time. One concerning thing I found was that my rating was some how changed from 5 stars to one. How did that happen? Im going to contact literotica about that BS. Great story"

It's the first I've seen such a thing, and if this member hadn't liked my story enough to give it a second read, he would likely not have noticed it had even happened. I made a note of it in the Tech Support forum, but then wondered, "Wait, could this have happened with anything I voted on?"

I went to the last couple stories I know I voted on; HeyAll's Wrong Prescription for Mom and JohnLaw1950's USAF Lawyer Finds Love with DIL. Neither story showed that I had voted, but at least they weren't showing 1-bombs.

What I am left wondering is how often this happens? Even if it's uncommon -- say, once in 50 times -- that would still have a significant impact. It would take a story that should have a 4.80 score with 800 votes and drop it to 4.72. If it's happening once in 20 attempted 5-star votes, that score falls to 4.60.

It's probably not the case; it seems far more likely we have a few bored trolls with too much time on their hands. However, if there is another glitch that is causing this to happen regularly, we might not have any more down-voting going on than normal. Just unintended bombing from readers who actually really liked the story.

 

[lovecraft68]

The thing that sucks is his bomb would have stuck because it was a legit read in the system.

Unless he thought he voted 5 and clicked one by mistake? I've had someone contact me to apologize for accidently clicking the one, and this was before they could be change.

Your vote no longer showing on those stories is concerning as well....were they swept? Is this part of the massive glitching going on?

 

[NotWise]

I got the following comment on my most recent story, Temper, Temper!

If the system is recording votes incorrectly, then that might explain the overall low ratings.

 

[SimonDoom]

There could be different things going on here.


One is the glitch that the Site has recognized, that seemed to be happening from about March 10 to March 24, where large numbers of votes were being deleted for reasons no one understands. That problem appears to have been corrected, because I'm seeing steady vote increases every day since March 24. In the last 24 hours none of my 36 stories lost votes and most gained some.

The other problem may be the result of clumsy fingers, especially on phones. It's easy to touch the wrong part of a phone screen without being aware of it. If that's true, then this truly is an "accidental" problem as a result of user error and not a problem that is likely to result in systematic downvoting.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

There could be different things going on here.


One is the glitch that the Site has recognized, that seemed to be happening from about March 10 to March 24, where large numbers of votes were being deleted for reasons no one understands. That problem appears to have been corrected, because I'm seeing steady vote increases every day since March 24. In the last 24 hours none of my 36 stories lost votes and most gained some.

The other problem may be the result of clumsy fingers, especially on phones. It's easy to touch the wrong part of a phone screen without being aware of it. If that's true, then this truly is an "accidental" problem as a result of user error and not a problem that is likely to result in systematic downvoting.

I’m noticing a lot of what I think are ‘returned’ or ‘refunded’ votes, like 200+ this morning, but my ratings are dropping steadily and are as low as I can remember. Older stories with very high ratings are dropping 0.2. It could be user error in part, but I’m not convinced that the site stats system is running properly yet.

 

[HeyAll]

As already mentioned, the scores across Hubs are at record lows. It makes sense that something like this is happening.

 

[SimonDoom]

I’m noticing a lot of what I think are ‘returned’ or ‘refunded’ votes, like 200+ this morning, but my ratings are dropping steadily and are as low as I can remember. Older stories with very high ratings are dropping 0.2. It could be user error in part, but I’m not convinced that the site stats system is running properly yet.

I'm not either. I agree with the way you've described the added vote totals -- it looks like votes that were deleted have now been restored in part. But I've continued to see an odd downward creep in my overall story scores that I had not seen before, including during the humongous vote deletion last summer.

It is possible that the Site has implemented a new system to sweep votes that takes a harder look at 5 votes, so maybe we'll all have to get used to lower scores. There's nothing unfair about it as long as it's evenhanded and uniform in application.

 

[RejectReality]

Make sure you linger a few seconds before deciding that a previous vote is no longer registering. I was blinking through a few of mine, and one wasn't lit up initially, but then did after a few seconds. Maybe 5? Not a huge amount of time, but long enough for me to think, "There's one," before it finished loading.

Pulled up my snapshot from 3 days ago. I'm up 2229 votes. I've got 7 scores that went down by .01, and 8 that went up by .01. Two outliers are +.10 and -.03, but they're new with low vote totals ( sub or barely 100 votes ) The only other outlier is "You Serious?" which is down .02

One thing to consider is that they may very well have turned off the sweeps temporarily. It's a logical thing to do to eliminate variables and reduce strain for large out of the ordinary queries going on. That would only apply to the last week or so, though.

ETA: The toplists all seem to have 4.50+ scores as recently as the 17th and 18th, so maybe that does jive.

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

Beyond the fact that the probable number of methods (M) by which discrete voters (real people plus their alts) at Literotica (V) can make the decision on how they cast their vote being represented by the equation:

M=V+1

I have yet to read an authoritative view on what a "legitimate" vote is beyond it being what a reader "liked."

While a objective view of every story published on Lit would likely show bell shaped curves in many objective "tests" for quality, I don't look at technical skill as much as my own "given and druthers" in "liking" a story. I'm probably not alone. The story has to be readable and make sense, but I care not if American, British, Canadian, or Jamaican English is used or if the writer owns a copy of the 'Chicago Book ...'

Sure 1-bombs dropped 10 per minute two minutes after a story debuts are illegitimate. Maybe 5's to all stories written by one's favorite author ... but ...

I certainly don't vote on a bell shaped curve. Mostly I reward stories I really like with 5s. If I find I don't like a story I am not compelled to finish it. I don't, and I don't vote on anything I don't finish. I don't read stories in categories I don't care for.

I only vote using one alt that has my favorite authors listed, one I have never used to publish or access the Bulletin Board. I have probably voted 5-stars on 90% of my favorite authors' combined catalog. Those votes along with a few other votes on individual stories -- with 90% or so of those votes being 5-stars and maybe 10% (or fewer) being 4-stars I have never, ever voted less than a 4, I don't even vote 4s anymore -- totaling maybe a vote or two a week over 20 years.

Is this methodology "illegitimate?" What if it's 1,375 5-stars and 125 4-stars?
(It's likely far less as many of my favorite stories have been deleted over time.)

I have seen what I perceive to be the aggregate scores trend downward for a long time. In my mind I have attributed this to increasing numbers of authors of different skills and unappreciated kinks. Increasing numbers of disaffected readers voting down categories and kinks they dislike. And in part the fruit of Literotica's success, that people increasingly find new stories to be less "new" the more they read.

I don't know the answer. I really, really, really, really, really don't envy those looking for a solution.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Beyond the fact that the probable number of methods (M) by which discrete voters (real people plus their alts) at Literotica (V) can make the decision on how they cast their vote being represented by the equation:

M=V+1

I have yet to read an authoritative view on what a "legitimate" vote is beyond it being what a reader "liked."

While a objective view of every story published on Lit would likely show bell shaped curves in many objective "tests" for quality, I don't look at technical skill as much as my own "given and druthers" in "liking" a story. I'm probably not alone. The story has to be readable and make sense, but I care not if American, British, Canadian, or Jamaican English is used or if the writer owns a copy of the 'Chicago Book ...'

Sure 1-bombs dropped 10 per minute two minutes after a story debuts are illegitimate. Maybe 5's to all stories written by one's favorite author ... but ...

I certainly don't vote on a bell shaped curve. Mostly I reward stories I really like with 5s. If I find I don't like a story I am not compelled to finish it. I don't, and I don't vote on anything I don't finish. I don't read stories in categories I don't care for.

I only vote using one alt that has my favorite authors listed, one I have never used to publish or access the Bulletin Board. I have probably voted 5-stars on 90% of my favorite authors' combined catalog. Those votes along with a few other votes on individual stories -- with 90% or so of those votes being 5-stars and maybe 10% (or fewer) being 4-stars I have never, ever voted less than a 4, I don't even vote 4s anymore -- totaling maybe a vote or two a week over 20 years.

Is this methodology "illegitimate?" What if it's 1,375 5-stars and 125 4-stars?
(It's likely far less as many of my favorite stories have been deleted over time.)

I have seen what I perceive to be the aggregate scores trend downward for a long time. In my mind I have attributed this to increasing numbers of authors of different skills and unappreciated kinks. Increasing numbers of disaffected readers voting down categories and kinks they dislike. And in part the fruit of Literotica's success, that people increasingly find new stories to be less "new" the more they read.

I don't know the answer. I really, really, really, really, really don't envy those looking for a solution.

There are a few different issues to sort out. I hope this is helpful, but I am almost certain none of this is original. If I spent hours perusing older threads on this forum, I could probably find everything I’m going to say has already been said here.

First, there is the issue of what constitutes a “good” Literotica story. There are two distinct components due to the nature of this site: the literary component and the erotic.

Evaluating the literary value of a story is more objective. If the story is plagued by poor grammar, punctuation errors, spelling errors, incorrect homophones, etc. then it is obviously a low quality story and should get lower scores. Assuming the writer has made the effort and has developed the skills to avoid the obvious mistakes, then there is the “next level” of narrative. Does the writer tell their story so that you as a reader can follow it and understand what is happening? Describing the characters and developing them through dialog is challenging and not everyone can do it well. Finally there is the story itself—the plot and pacing, the conflict and resolution, the real “art” of telling a story so that the reader is taken on a journey as they read it. That is a lot of criteria, but most readers can immediately recognize high-level prose and will often feel compelled to reward it with a 5-star vote.

The erotic value of a story is almost completely subjective. I have read many beautifully written stories on this site that absolutely did not arouse me one bit. Likewise, I have had a few critics of my stories say something like, “This could have been a good story, but you had to ruin it by throwing in butt sex. Yuck. 3 stars.” Writing a sex scene well is one of the trickiest things we do here, and even if you write it really well, it won’t “do it” for everyone.

However, really hot sex scenes can make up for a myriad of literary shortcomings. Some readers will feel compelled to give a story a 5-star review because it got them so worked up, despite less than stellar technical writing.

The vast majority of readers don’t vote. That ratio varies from story to story and category to category, but getting votes from 5% of your readers would be fantastically high. Usually 99% of the views on your story will not result in a vote. There are many readers who like a particular type of story, and if you have delivered what they were looking for and did it well, they’ll reward you with 5 stars.

There are a handful of readers who vote often, and who read many of the stories on the site. Some of those have very specific self-imposed standards that they follow. Those are the folks who usually give either 4 stars or 3. Then there are the folks who read your story and get annoyed because you included some element or kink that really ruined the story for them, like my aforementioned critic. At best, they will give your story a 3.

I think we can agree all of those are “legitimate” votes. The two or three readers who like my writing style but hate the fact that so many of my stories contain anal sex regularly let me know about it. I expect them to give me a 1 or 2. That’s still a legitimate vote, even if I know they haven’t read my entire story. Most readers who feel compelled to vote on a story either do so because it is one of the best-written stories they have read recently, or it really turned them on, or they thought it was awful.

Where the votes become “illegitimate” is when someone is voting repeatedly on the same story, or when they vote on stories they haven’t read at all. Those could be 5-star votes just as easily as 1-bombs, but what we see on this site is almost never a neat bell curve. It is a free site, with loads of aspiring amateur writers. The stories are all over the place and so are the scores.

However, over the course of years, there are relative norms that we’ve come to expect. Veteran writers here can look at a story and within a couple of minutes tell you what they would expect the score to be. There have certainly been some days in the last 23 years that there were a lot of poorly-written submissions, and there have been other days when several incredible pieces were published at the same time.

What we’re seeing lately is that scores on new stories are getting crushed across the site, and if you look at some of those stories they should have much higher scores. I can read a story by a new author in Incest / Taboo, for example, and tell you, “That story is solidly written, the sex scene is okay, it’s a little short, and it’s a new author. I’d expect it to be around 4.45, maybe flirting with a ‘Hot’ rating.” Then I glance at the current score and see it’s 3.68 -- with 1488 votes. And that makes no sense.

If it was an isolated incident, then perhaps there was a reader who found something really offensive and they decided to spend their entire day down-voting that story. Certainly “illegitimate” voting, but it happens on occasion. However, you can look at any category and see this same thing happening to story after story after story.

So, back to your case: Those authors you have favorited for a reason, right? Their work is typically really good, or you wouldn’t be following them. In that case, it shouldn’t be a surprise that you find most of their stories deserve a 5-star rating. If you are reading them and feel that way, each of those votes is legit. It would not be legitimate if you merely scrolled to the end and 5-starred every story by an author just because you liked something else they’d written, or because you were friends, or because you thought they were attractive in real life or something. Likewise, it would be unfair if another Literotica member targeted all of your work and down-voted it without reading each story.

Okay, sorry. That got really long and far away from the OP.

 

[mynameisben]

There's no such thing as an "accidental" 1-bomb. Those bastards do it on purpose, they are relentless, and they will get you every time.


Ben

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

There's no such thing as an "accidental" 1-bomb ...

Oh, I disagree. It neatly explains why all of those stories that I have written don't have scores of 5.50 to 6.00.

 

[AvroAnsonXIX]

There are a few different issues to sort out. I hope this is helpful, but I am almost certain none of this is original. If I spent hours perusing older threads on this forum, I could probably find everything I’m going to say has already been said here.

First, there is the issue of what constitutes a “good” Literotica story. There are two distinct components due to the nature of this site: the literary component and the erotic.

Evaluating the literary value of a story is more objective. If the story is plagued by poor grammar, punctuation errors, spelling errors, incorrect homophones, etc. then it is obviously a low quality story and should get lower scores. Assuming the writer has made the effort and has developed the skills to avoid the obvious mistakes, then there is the “next level” of narrative. Does the writer tell their story so that you as a reader can follow it and understand what is happening? Describing the characters and developing them through dialog is challenging and not everyone can do it well. Finally there is the story itself—the plot and pacing, the conflict and resolution, the real “art” of telling a story so that the reader is taken on a journey as they read it. That is a lot of criteria, but most readers can immediately recognize high-level prose and will often feel compelled to reward it with a 5-star vote.

I think I agree with you. I'd say that "in a perfect world" the most beautiful prose would deserve a 5.00 (for the technical part of the score), readable prose that doesn't detract from the story a 4.00 (technical score). If the quality of prose distracts from my reading then I look for something else to read. Since this is entertainment, I don't waste my time trying to figuring it out.

The erotic value of a story is almost completely subjective. I have read many beautifully written stories on this site that absolutely did not arouse me one bit. Likewise, I have had a few critics of my stories say something like, “This could have been a good story, but you had to ruin it by throwing in butt sex. Yuck. 3 stars.” Writing a sex scene well is one of the trickiest things we do here, and even if you write it really well, it won’t “do it” for everyone.

This is a major sticking point for me. I wish I had a dollar for each comment or PM I have received saying basically: "I love your story but why not make the MCs friends from school instead of siblings. It would make the story more better because incest is wrong!"

If it was tagged: brother-sister, sibcest, and incest, and published in Incest Taboo. Then, sorry, no -- I understand it is unenforceable, but -- voting a BDSM story down BECAUSE you don't like BDSM is illegitimate. I have mixed feelings about poorly categorized stories -- as an author I can withdraw a story but I can't demand it be published where I think it belongs. So maybe when a reader disagrees with placement it's legit -- although less so if its accurately tagged --.

However, really hot sex scenes can make up for a myriad of literary shortcomings. Some readers will feel compelled to give a story a 5-star review because it got them so worked up, despite less than stellar technical writing.

Agreed: That is sort of the point of the site.

The vast majority of readers don’t vote. That ratio varies from story to story and category to category, but getting votes from 5% of your readers would be fantastically high. Usually 99% of the views on your story will not result in a vote. There are many readers who like a particular type of story, and if you have delivered what they were looking for and did it well, they’ll reward you with 5 stars.

There are a handful of readers who vote often, and who read many of the stories on the site. Some of those have very specific self-imposed standards that they follow. Those are the folks who usually give either 4 stars or 3. Then there are the folks who read your story and get annoyed because you included some element or kink that really ruined the story for them, like my aforementioned critic. At best, they will give your story a 3.

I think we can agree all of those are “legitimate” votes. The two or three readers who like my writing style but hate the fact that so many of my stories contain anal sex regularly let me know about it. I expect them to give me a 1 or 2. That’s still a legitimate vote, even if I know they haven’t read my entire story. Most readers who feel compelled to vote on a story either do so because it is one of the best-written stories they have read recently, or it really turned them on, or they thought it was awful.

No, sorry -- it's unenforceable but -- (1) voting on a story you don't read is completely illegitimate. (2) in my opinion, voting down a story tagged 'anal' because it contains anal sex is illegitimate. (3) mom said say something nice, so I don't give out votes less than 5.00. I used to vote 4.00s and 5.00s, if there were a 4.50 I might vote 4.50, but given the way others vote 3.00s to downgrade a story I don't vote 4.00s anymore. (I probably don't finish 95% of stories I start, and only vote on those I really like, so that's maybe 1% of the stories I start.)

Where the votes become “illegitimate” is when someone is voting repeatedly on the same story, or when they vote on stories they haven’t read at all. Those could be 5-star votes just as easily as 1-bombs, but what we see on this site is almost never a neat bell curve. It is a free site, with loads of aspiring amateur writers. The stories are all over the place and so are the scores.

However, over the course of years, there are relative norms that we’ve come to expect. Veteran writers here can look at a story and within a couple of minutes tell you what they would expect the score to be. There have certainly been some days in the last 23 years that there were a lot of poorly-written submissions, and there have been other days when several incredible pieces were published at the same time.

What we’re seeing lately is that scores on new stories are getting crushed across the site, and if you look at some of those stories they should have much higher scores. I can read a story by a new author in Incest / Taboo, for example, and tell you, “That story is solidly written, the sex scene is okay, it’s a little short, and it’s a new author. I’d expect it to be around 4.45, maybe flirting with a ‘Hot’ rating.” Then I glance at the current score and see it’s 3.68 -- with 1488 votes. And that makes no sense.

It's not just new stories. I've noticed a general downward trend in scores on older submissions. The powers that be won't tell us the formula. Do votes disappear when the voter leaves the site? Do they have a formula for eliminating votes by alts? Does this system use IP addresses, which indicate servers and not users?

If it was an isolated incident, then perhaps there was a reader who found something really offensive and they decided to spend their entire day down-voting that story. Certainly “illegitimate” voting, but it happens on occasion. However, you can look at any category and see this same thing happening to story after story after story.

Using alts to vote more than once is clearly illegitimate. I have multiple alts so none of my IT stories co-mingle with my BDSM stories or my Group Sex stories. But I only vote on my "reading" alt. I also manage a large business unit, I could easily cheat and create 100 alts on 100 independent computer terminals and the site would never know the difference. So I have no clue how to police this, or even if it should be policed. Percentage wise, in the main does it even matter?

So, back to your case: Those authors you have favorited for a reason, right? Their work is typically really good, or you wouldn’t be following them. In that case, it shouldn’t be a surprise that you find most of their stories deserve a 5-star rating. If you are reading them and feel that way, each of those votes is legit. It would not be legitimate if you merely scrolled to the end and 5-starred every story by an author just because you liked something else they’d written, or because you were friends, or because you thought they were attractive in real life or something.

It has been theorized that one way the site determines if a vote is "legitimate" concerns patterns. But most people are creatures of habit, so most people vote in patterns. I know that I do, 5.00 or no vote. (Was a finer, more discrete choice available I might vote a 4.50 or 4.75.)

Likewise, it would be unfair if another Literotica member targeted all of your work and down-voted it without reading each story.

Too late, that's been done several times.

 

[jsmiam]

Exactly twice, I have accidentally scored something just from an accidental swipe of my finger across the screen, and realizing oh crap I accidentally scored something. It’s something that almost definitely wouldn’t happen to me on a computer with a real mouse, but slip happens with touchscreens, the smaller it seems to me the more likely. One was my own story, which I never vote on (intentionally) and another was someone else’s. It was before someone pointed out that the new site pages let you change scores.

As to the new ability to revise a score: It’s interesting. I’ll point out that there’s no way to tell if a revised score survives the sweeps process though. (one way or another). Based on the programming skill on display here, it’s fifty-fifty that the score change was an intentional feature.