Disappearing votes?

[Bramblethorn]

If the scoring stays low, then it will be very difficult for new stories -- no matter how good they are -- to break into the toplists. I see that as a problem.

That should be at least somewhat self-correcting: toplist stories get more attention, hence more votes, so if the new generation is harsher they'll pull the toplist stories down as well.

 

[NotWise]

That should be at least somewhat self-correcting: toplist stories get more attention, hence more votes, so if the new generation is harsher they'll pull the toplist stories down as well.

This might be practical for low-vote categories, but if a story has thousands of votes then Jeff Bezos might buy Lit before it happens.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This might be practical for low-vote categories, but if a story has thousands of votes then Jeff Bezos might buy Lit before it happens.

I can't see why the number of votes changes things. If the sweep criteria (let's assume it's a closer look at whatever passes as a "legitimate" vote) is consistent across the whole story file, then all stories are affected equally, so the relative rankings would be much the same. Maths is maths - a total sum and an average is always calculated the same way.

There's an assumption going on here that all of a sudden we've got an influx of harder voters, but where's the evidence for that? My gut feel, seeing the (small) movements in my six year old story file (with a roughly consistent output each year) is that whatever is going on is going on regardless of a story's age.

There's nothing I see that suggests my back catalogue has suddenly been hit by a whole bunch of new readers. I'm inclined to think the sweep criteria is looking harder backwards, than voters being harsh, forwards.

 

[Thefireflies]

I published a story last week, and…

I think things are functioning as usual.

I completed a story at the time the issues with the site’s voting and views became apparent, so before submitting I considered the issue and whether it was worth submitting at this time, and read comments here too.

I wasn’t in a rush because I’d also lost some votes on my highest ranked stories, then regained them (but not in the magnitudes some of you have lost and regained). I noticed some categories (Romance, First Time and Mature) appeared to receive lower scores than usual, based mostly on a paucity of red H's in the list, but perhaps, as discussed by a few here, that might be explained by new arrivals having more critical tastes? Or perhaps stories published at that time were not so good?

Who knows, but I decided to submit my story anyway, publishing in Romance last week on the 15th, and though my story was bumped down the list quick-smart, only hanging around for 4 or 5 days, it has done better than I expected with over 100 votes and currently a rating of 4.88. My story is long and I don’t have a big following, so I never expected a huge readership, and so far I’m more than happy with the result, all things considered. Furthermore, in the past before the issues of recent weeks I’ve seen 10s of votes disappear in a sweep, resulting in a drop in scores. I presume occasionally this is normal behaviour for the website.

Currently other stories of mine appear to be tracking as usual and if you check the current New list for the Romance category, there are no less than 15 stories with a red H. So as far as I can tell the site’s scoring and views are functioning normally again.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's an assumption going on here that all of a sudden we've got an influx of harder voters, but where's the evidence for that? My gut feel, seeing the (small) movements in my six year old story file (with a roughly consistent output each year) is that whatever is going on is going on regardless of a story's age.

There's nothing I see that suggests my back catalogue has suddenly been hit by a whole bunch of new readers. I'm inclined to think the sweep criteria is looking harder backwards, than voters being harsh, forwards.

Here's why I think this may be happening. It's a very rough guess, and I'm probably wrong, but it seems to be consistent with what I perceive happening.

Since March 24 the total votes for my 36 stories, cumulatively, have been going up every single day. While there may have been some sweeps that have affected votes here and there, overall votes have been going up, and they now exceed what votes were before March 10, when I noticed votes dropping like stones every day. So what's been going on for several weeks has nothing to do with restoring old votes -- it's new votes. Yet my mean cumulative story score has continued to go down. It doesn't seem likely this is the result of sweeping high votes that were cast a long time ago, at this point. Something has changed -- I think, tentatively -- with the composition of new votes. I don't know if it's an influx or it's a response, as someone suggested, to the way the five vote options are now described differently.

But if this is correct, then NotWise has a good point, and it hadn't occurred to me. Old stories with high scores and many votes are not going to be affected by this scoring change, but new stories will. What Bramblethorn said is correct, but it won't affect stories that have thousands of votes, which some stories at the tops of toplists do.

I don't know how big this effect really will be. I have been struck by how steadily the scores keep dropping.

 

[Bramblethorn]

This might be practical for low-vote categories, but if a story has thousands of votes then Jeff Bezos might buy Lit before it happens.

Not sure why low- vs. high-vote categories would make a difference here. If it's in a high-vote category, presumably it's getting lots of new votes too.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't know how big this effect really will be. I have been struck by how steadily the scores keep dropping.

I've got a couple of works in progress which are both typical EB. Slow burn; one with established characters but a new leading lady, the other with two new characters and a bit of fetish.

When I finally get them submitted, they'll be my gauge of the brave new world (if there is one). Meanwhile, my story file is much the same, movement wise, score wise - some shuffling up and down, but not much.

Maybe it's your penguins, Simon, tilting their iceberg with their voting behaviour .

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

I'm reviving this to add new info. A story of mine from early 2020, which was downvoted as collateral damage to downvoting on a story from late 2020 with the same characters, has had a reduction in votes that has raised the older story's rating. This story had not had earlier instances of vote loss.

 

[gordo12]

Not sure why low- vs. high-vote categories would make a difference here. If it's in a high-vote category, presumably it's getting lots of new votes too.

Not in my experience. The high voting volume occurs in the first couple of days after posting and then drops to minuscule amounts. One of my stories, read frequently, has gone up 1 vote in the last three weeks. The initial deluge was around 2200 in two days.

Other experiences may differ.

 

[dmallord]

Votes Dropped Feb 14-15, 2022

Update to this thread, for what it's worth.

Yesterday, Feb 15, 2022, near midnight. I downloaded my story info and compared it to data dowloaded on Feb 13. I was surprised to see the comparison had a lost of a total of 10 votes over six stories. One story lost 4 votes and there was one vote loss each per six other stories.

Must be what this tread had observed for past behind the scenes manipulations?

The overall result led to an improvement in rating for two of the stories and showed no effect on the others as they had a significant number of votes tallied; making the down shift in votes negligible.

 

[NotWise]

Update to this thread, for what it's worth.

Yesterday, Feb 15, 2022, near midnight. I downloaded my story info and compared it to data dowloaded on Feb 13. I was surprised to see the comparison had a lost of a total of 10 votes over six stories. One story lost 4 votes and there was one vote loss each per six other stories.

Must be what this tread had observed for past behind the scenes manipulations?

The overall result led to an improvement in rating for two of the stories and showed no effect on the others as they had a significant number of votes tallied; making the down shift in votes negligible.

It isn't particularly "behind the scenes." The final sweeps for the Valentine's Day contest took place on the morning of the 14th (US time). The final contest sweeps often affect non-contest stories as well.

 

[KeithD]

Update to this thread, for what it's worth.

Yesterday, Feb 15, 2022, near midnight. I downloaded my story info and compared it to data dowloaded on Feb 13. I was surprised to see the comparison had a lost of a total of 10 votes over six stories. One story lost 4 votes and there was one vote loss each per six other stories.

Must be what this tread had observed for past behind the scenes manipulations?

The overall result led to an improvement in rating for two of the stories and showed no effect on the others as they had a significant number of votes tallied; making the down shift in votes negligible.

There was a system's vote sweep on February 13th for the Valentine's Day Contest to identify and strip off votes considered erroneous by whatever criteria the site has and doesn't tell users about. Such a sweep happens for every contest and sometimes in between. Been happening for several years.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's not behind the scenes or manipulation. It's a standard sweep of suspicious votes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It isn't particularly "behind the scenes." The final sweeps for the Valentine's Day contest took place on the morning of the 14th (US time). The final contest sweeps often affect non-contest stories as well.

Yep, my most recent stories, none in contests, lost a few votes and kicked up in score when the Valentine's Day sweeps ran. The sweeps are always across the board, not just contest entries.

 

[LongDraw]

Yeah, I lost about 20 votes off my novel, but also went up about 0.26 in score, so no complaints. I assume I got -1 bombed bad the first couple days.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah, I lost about 20 votes off my novel, but also went up about 0.26 in score, so no complaints. I assume I got -1 bombed bad the first couple days.

If you follow your scores closely right out of the gate, you can spot when a one-bomb comes in, and also get a good idea how many higher votes you're getting. It's simple averages and additive maths.

 

[TxRad]

And today I lost one vote each on two recent stories and they both went down, .01. The last sweep for Valentines day, I lost a total of 8 votes and the scores went up to exactly 4.5.

The sweep giveth and the sweep taketh away.

 

[NC_Coastal]

Still not sure what or where my vote totals are. One of my stories has had 87,000 views though. That's good, right?

 

[gordo12]

There's an assumption going on here that all of a sudden we've got an influx of harder voters, but where's the evidence for that?

This is an old post but relevant. Scores in LW have declined 1.0 - 1.5 since covid hit. The views are up.

My recent story is now getting traffic from the front page instead of the hub, with about 4,000 hits over the last two days.

In the romance category, it was getting a 1/10-1/11 vote pattern. Comments ran 1/300 or so.

On the 4000 new reads from the front page: 4 comments 1/1000, one comment was very snippy. 100 votes 1/40 and worse low votes taking the story down (trolls perhaps too) two points overnight and 1 point the next morning. The last twenty-four hours have brought a further decline of .01 score. It was up quite high in the top lists and we know those boys don't like to share, so like I said, some troll work.

 

[NotWise]

Still not sure what or where my vote totals are. One of my stories has had 87,000 views though. That's good, right?

They're on your Home page, under "Works." Each entry on your list of stories has several icons and numbers. To the right of the star icon you should find two values, which are the score and the number of votes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

On the 4000 new reads from the front page: 4 comments 1/1000, one comment was very snippy. 100 votes 1/40 and worse low votes taking the story down (trolls perhaps too) two points overnight and 1 point the next morning. The last twenty-four hours have brought a further decline of .01 score. It was up quite high in the top lists and we know those boys don't like to share, so like I said, some troll work.

Those Votes per View and Comments per View are pretty much what I would expect, and a .01 movement is nothing.

What do you define as a "point"? Going from a 4.4 to 4.3? Or going from 4.41 to 4.40? The latter could easily be done by someone giving a 4 instead of a 5 (once you have a high enough vote count), which is not trolling. If the former, then yes, that's more of an effort.

Curiosity question for you - how many of your LW followers are following you into another category and then subjecting you to their usual behaviour, do you reckon?

 

[JGittes]

This is an old post but relevant. Scores in LW have declined 1.0 - 1.5 since covid hit. The views are up.

My recent story is now getting traffic from the front page instead of the hub, with about 4,000 hits over the last two days.

In the romance category, it was getting a 1/10-1/11 vote pattern. Comments ran 1/300 or so.

On the 4000 new reads from the front page: 4 comments 1/1000, one comment was very snippy. 100 votes 1/40 and worse low votes taking the story down (trolls perhaps too) two points overnight and 1 point the next morning. The last twenty-four hours have brought a further decline of .01 score. It was up quite high in the top lists and we know those boys don't like to share, so like I said, some troll work.

Don't assume it is only troll work.

During the contest, almost everyone who viewed your story knew the category and could self-select not to read it if that's their choice. The exception to that would be those who clicked your story directly from the Valentine's Day contest page, where only the story title and author are listed.

Once you've won the contest, readers will click on the story link directly from the front page. That opens you up to the complete mix of readers for all categories. We like to think readers are reasonable and if they see a category they aren't interested in, or a length of a story they don't want to read, they'll just move on. But that isn't always the case. You're a LW misogynist who is hoping to see the misery of a cheating wife getting her comeuppance and is now in a wheelchair, they won't hesitate to downvote just because that's what they do.

I've looked at several past theme contest-winning top three and in all cases, after the winners are announced, the rankings and scores change drastically. More views but a broader, less respectful audience. The romance category readers are remarkably kind in their voting patterns. By that I mean if they don't like a story, they won't vote. There are very few negative votes on stories. The mature and novel categories are similar. LW, not so much.

 

[LexxRuthless]

If you follow your scores closely right out of the gate, you can spot when a one-bomb comes in, and also get a good idea how many higher votes you're getting. It's simple averages and additive maths.

I put out a new story on Saturday and had three follow-up chapters Monday through Wednesday. With the first three, it seemed like I was getting some 4-star votes, which seemed weird. So, right after my latest chapter posted yesterday morning, I watched the "early returns" closely. Sure enough, I got 12 4-star votes out of the first 20. That's just plain weird.

Normally I see a fair number of 2s & 3s lately. Most of the time a reader feels compelled to vote on something, it's either because they really, really liked it and they give it a 5, or something bugged them, and they give it a low score. 4-star votes just don't happen that often -- or at least they didn't. Perhaps we have an influx of new readers who feel compelled to vote more often or something. "I liked it, but I didn't love it." That's how the 4 is labeled.

All these new releases resulted in a slew of new views and votes on my stuff, so I haven't seen the vote loss from sweeps.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've looked at several past theme contest-winning top three and in all cases, after the winners are announced, the rankings and scores change drastically. More views but a broader, less respectful audience. The romance category readers are remarkably kind in their voting patterns. By that I mean if they don't like a story, they won't vote. There are very few negative votes on stories. The mature and novel categories are similar. LW, not so much.

That's my experience from Contests. I've not entered many, but without doubt the Contest listing brings a coterie of readers who wander into categories they don't like, and the score drops over time, while the Contest list is on the Lit front page.

In my experience, you might get maybe 10% more readers from a contest listing, but the score will drop by 0.2 - 0.3, thereabouts. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

 

[SimonDoom]

Once you've won the contest, readers will click on the story link directly from the front page.

I've looked at several past theme contest-winning top three and in all cases, after the winners are announced, the rankings and scores change drastically. More views but a broader, less respectful audience. .

My sense is that one reason for this is that the new post-announcement votes offset to some degree the effect of sweeps. Contest stories often see dramatic increases in scores immediately before the winners are announced because of sweeps. After the sweeps are done and new readers check out the stories because they're on the winner's list, things are back to normal, including the usual downvotes. There may also be some people who just like downvoting winners. That wouldn't surprise me at all, either.