An Annoyed Rant About Voting

[john_mcleod]

Voting, it annoys the hell out of me.

Virtually every story is rated between 3 and 5. infact i've never seen anything below 3. I know it's human nature to vote that way, but it's frustrating.

so what, you might say, just change the scale to fit: 3 to 3.5 is poor, 3.5 to 4 is average 4 to 4.5 is good, and 4.5 to 5 is great. all works out fine, right?

not really. say you're aiming for a 4.5, a hard target but possible, that means anything BUT a 5 is a negative.

1 possible good score, 4 bad, harsh. Worse still, assuming 4.5 is your target, then:

for every 4 you need a five to balance it out. fine, bit annoying that a 4's actually bad, but whatever.

for a vote of 3, you need 3 fives to cancel it out. hmmm, okay.

for a vote of 2 you need 5 fives. ouch.

and the grand price, for a vote of 1, you need 7 votes of 5 to cancel it out. SEVEN

so what does that mean though. here's a fun example (i hope you like math!)

you have a new story, it's doing well, you have 25 votes, and a score of 4.77; your best ever score. great you've got a hot story, and it's safe by miles. But just out of curiosity, how many malicious voters would it take?

Two! That's two votes of 1 and they've buggered your average. So what - you can recover, how long could it take to recover from 2 votes anyway?

to regain your previous score you'd need 32 votes of 5. thats right, 32 perfect votes it a row. any non-perfect would need cancelling out.

In other words, the tiny minority of malicious voters can easily have more effect on any single score then the vast majority of people voting in the spirit of this excellent site. The scores can be radically misrepresentative simply because sometimes people are unlucky enough to have malicious votes, and other times not.

that just sucks.

Anyway that's my rant over, i know not a pleasent post, i hope i'll be forgiven (maybe i'll find a sympathetic ear)

to be clear i'm not having a go at the site creators, i think this is an amazing thing, that some people would put that time and effort in to run a free site like this is great, and i am glad they do.

John

P.S. Just realised my rant wasn't so much against the voting method, but the type of average. the 'mean' is pants - if only there was an easy way to compensate for outliers.

 

[The_Darkness]

John, I too have been victim to this system. But, by and large it works fairly well. Roughly half of my stories are rated above 4.5 (or right at it and keep flitting above and below), and yeah, it sucks when I get reviews that say "It took me too long to get off" or "It took too long to get to the good parts" or "I got off too fast, you get a 1"

But, you deal with it and move on. I wait for 100 votes (which most of my stories are no where near) and consider the rating of the story to be an average view of what people *actually* think. That, and when people pump your stories/poems on the message boards it helps.

Hang in there, wait for quite a few votes and see how you're rated. That's what the rest of us do.

 

[john_mcleod]

yeah i know all about waiting, just had to get that out of my system

my first story was a good idea, but poorly written. it got the deluge of early votes as usual, and it did alright. 4.2 if i remember. i edited (a lot) and resubmitted it. i've spent the last two and a half years seeing it slowly creep up. just made it to 4.5 last week. oh yeah!

so, just another 2 and a half years to go then.

i can wait. really i can.

 

[The_Darkness]

Sucks, huh.

What I hate is really good stories that don't get votes but get viewed like nobody's business. My non-erotic story arc is sitting at almost all 5's...but they have 10 or less votes.

Just have to sit and wait, like you said. That's okay though, it gives you more time to write.

 

[Kassiana]

Personally, I wish more stories were rated 1. I've seen far too many awful stories on here that are rated far higher than their actual quality should allow. I understand the trolling effect, mind. I just had a continuation of one of my series stories bombed by someone (it was at a 5, now it's a 4.5). But I've voted some trash on here (yes, there is trash on here) at a 1, and damn it, I want my 1 votes to count!

"Jenny was 18 her breasts a 42 DD and this a real story!" should never be rated above a 2. Anywhere.

 

[The_Darkness]

Kass, you're dead right. I try to vote as accurately as I can, rating on sensuality, grammar, and story. If it sucks, it gets bad votes. If it's decent, it gets good votes, and if it's awesome, it gets a 5. If I edit a story for someone I tell them what it would take (if anything) to make it a 5 in my mind.

Eitherway, people bombing your stories sucks and the temptation is always there to bomb the hell out of their stories....I never have, but there's those who have admitted to doing it. It's all part of the voting game.

 

[McKenna]

For what it's worth, I'm not afraid to give a "1" and I hardly ever, ever give a "5".

Not sure how that messes up the voting, but I refuse to give anything but an honest vote just to soothe someone's ego.

 

[R. Richard]

If you have been "1 bombed," contact Laurel. Luarel will correct this type of problem. In fact there is a frequent sweep to remove "troll votes."

The problem I have is the lack of a clear criteria for voting. If I read a story that has numerous typographical/spelling/usage errors and shows little or no writing skill, I do not have a problem giving it a 1. However, I do not give a well written story a 1 just because I personally do not like the story.

 

[john_mcleod]

I know what you mean about views and not votes.

people are never happy, if you keep it short and sweet you get voted down because it's 'too short', if you're epic hardly anyone ever finishes it - and i've not found the middle ground yet.

i had one that was split into 2 parts, close to 15 000 words. took months to get 10 votes. obviously i wasn't pleased that no one was reading it.

the good part is it's a sneaky way to get a high score, the only people who voted were those who spent an hour reading it, and that means they must have reeeeally liked it. i bore all the low votes away. excellent *in my mr burns voice*

re. absolutely crap stories. well i was kinda assuming i was only talking about atleast hald arsed written stories.

re. votes, i know what people are saying about voting realistically, about 1 being poor and 5 being great and hard to get.

but the thing is, 90% of the votes out there are voted on a scale of 3 to 5. while it'd be better if everyone used the whole scale and voted accurately, what actually happens is the scale in practice is shifted to those three. and when that happens that means a vote of 4 is merely average, and 3 is poor. shouldn't be true but it is.

 

[The_Darkness]

RR, you've got it there, too. If there's things I don't like in a story, I'll generally tell them either in a private responce or right there in the public comment...but I'll still "grade" the story appropriately.

 

[john_mcleod]

i agree with you guys that the voting should be spread from 1 to 5, but thats not how it happens i don't tink (otherwise the scores wouldn't all be congregated from 3 to 5 when averaged)

you coul give guidence above the voting bar, even a plea to vote rationally, but that'd alter the voting here on, so it wouldn't be comparable with previous voting

(and yeah you noticed i made a stat up - 90% of the votes.. i have the figures, i really do )

 

[The_Darkness]

i agree with you guys that the voting should be spread from 1 to 5, but thats not how it happens i don't tink (otherwise the scores wouldn't all be congregated from 3 to 5 when averaged)

you coul give guidence above the voting bar, even a plea to vote rationally, but that'd alter the voting here on, so it wouldn't be comparable with previous voting

(and yeah you noticed i made a stat up - 90% of the votes.. i have the figures, i really do )

I've found (I think, I've not compared notes with other writers) that a little note encouraging readers to vote at the end does one of two things...it either makes sure they won't or it makes sure they will....usually on the former instead of the latter.

 

[john_mcleod]

i'm just making my tea so i didn't proof read my own comments - now you know what one of my stories looks like before i've edited it about 10 times

what i was so uneloquently saying was:

if you were of the beleif that the majority of voters were not objectively using the entire scale, but that votes were overwhelmingly clustered around 3, 4, an 5.

Then mathmatically you could argue that a low vote has much more influence over an average then i high vote. (ie. a vote of one brings down a score more then a vote of 5 pulls it up) it's my beleif that this is unfair. yes people should be allowed to vote low if they beleive thats correct, but there should also be an equivelent high vote too. as i've said, i think this doesn't exist, because the majority of votes have naturally become clustered around the high end it has devalued them.

it could be argued that aslong as each voter remains consistent in his or her voting this won't matter, i'd say thats incorrect. if for instance 1 story is voted on by 3 clustered votes (3-to-5-ers), an 3 who use the entire scale, it's score would be much lower then one which had all 6 clustered voters.

I think then, that to make the voting "fair", either one of two things could happen:

voters should be encouraged to apply the scale consistently (either all 3-to-5ers) or all using the whole scale. the problem is it would mean all previous votes before the change would be uncomparable, which i think would make this a poor option

or rather then using the mean to evaluate a 'score' another method could be used, one that either takes into account 'outliers' when computing the average, or something along the lines of 'hotornot.com' which monitors voting patterns, to adjust them to give a better alignment

both solutions are difficult of course

so there is another option

i could just bitch about it - i think i am implementing that quite well so far

 

[Guest]

i could just bitch about it - i think i am implementing that quite well so far

And doing it with style.

Bitch away, John, I enjoy a good rant.

 

[john_mcleod]

are you sure you should be encouraging the beast?

 

[English Lady]

are you sure you should be encouraging the beast?

I see no harm if it's a sexy beast

 

[Guest]

are you sure you should be encouraging the beast?

It's one of the things I do best.

 

[The_Darkness]

It's one of the things I do best.

Encouraging.....that's a new way to put it

 

[English Lady]

I thought it was incorrigible

 

[john_mcleod]

so you want a rant then eh, alright i'll give you a rant!

i bloody hate it when people use words that i've never heard of, makes me feel like a right ignorant git....anyway, so what does does dictionary.com make of it:

"incorrigible

adj : impervious to correction by punishment"

no correction by punishment? no spanking? no whipping? no twisting scraping stretching biting or slapping? not even a lil bit of figging?

i sincerely hope it's not incorrigible - or else wheres the fun in that?

 

[The_Darkness]

so you want a rant then eh, alright i'll give you a rant!

i bloody hate it when people use words that i've never heard of, makes me feel like a right ignorant git....anyway, so what does does dictionary.com make of it:

"incorrigible

adj : impervious to correction by punishment"

no correction by punishment? no spanking? no whipping? no twisting scraping stretching biting or slapping? not even a lil bit of figging?

i sincerely hope it's not incorrigible - or else wheres the fun in that?

It's fun because you have to keep trying, John. That and it's fun to be incorrigible...gets us into all kinds of trouble in all kinds of places.

 

[Guest]

so you want a rant then eh, alright i'll give you a rant!

i bloody hate it when people use words that i've never heard of, makes me feel like a right ignorant git....anyway, so what does does dictionary.com make of it:

"incorrigible

adj : impervious to correction by punishment"

no correction by punishment? no spanking? no whipping? no twisting scraping stretching biting or slapping? not even a lil bit of figging?

i sincerely hope it's not incorrigible - or else wheres the fun in that?

LOL! A guy who can turn me on and make me laugh, all in one post. I like.

Well, that definition of "incorrigible" could be applied to me. No matter what punishment is dished out, I never learn my lesson and always go back for more.

 

[The_Darkness]

LOL! A guy who can turn me on and make me laugh, all in one post. I like.

Well, that definition of "incorrigible" could be applied to me. No matter what punishment is dished out, I never learn my lesson and always go back for more.

No no no, dear Lou....you're incorrigible if YOU do something that merits punishment and YOU get punished and YOU don't learn....

Well, then again, from what I can figureout, that one kinda goes both ways, you kinky little thing...

 

[Guest]

No no no, dear Lou....you're incorrigible if YOU do something that merits punishment and YOU get punished and YOU don't learn....

Well, then again, from what I can figureout, that one kinda goes both ways, you kinky little thing...

Give it, receive it, it's all the same to me. Depends which mood I'm in.

 

[The_Darkness]

Give it, receive it, it's all the same to me. Depends which mood I'm in.

It's kinda hard to not know what you like if you like it all....