Disappearing votes?

[NotWise]

When a sweep goes through, all stories get swept, not just those in a contest.

Maybe, maybe not. You have to watch your vote total to tell if your story has been swept. If you have a large number of votes, then the score may not tell you. Also, a story can probably be put through the process and have no votes identified as fraudulent.

At least, contest stories and non-contest stories are not swept equally. I have one non-contest story that has never had a vote removed, while part 2 of the same story has only had one vote removed (a 5* vote). I have another non-contest story with over 500 votes from which less than 3% of the total votes have been removed.

My contest stories since spring 2021 have all had 6% or more of their votes swept. Contest stories from before spring 2021 usually had 12%-15% of their total votes removed by the end of the contest. Votes would also be swept from other stories in the catalog, but not to that extent.

A lot of stories had significant numbers of votes swept between July, 2020 and March, 2021 regardless of whether or not they were contest stories. That was apparently due to a glitch in the new story page and/or some unanticipated behavior in the fraud detection system.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Sometimes old stories get swept, sometimes they don't.

I have a story that wound up in the all time top list for romance. About a year ago that must have pissed someone off because it received two x one votes in rapid succession. They're still there.

 

[NotWise]

Sometimes old stories get swept, sometimes they don't.

I have a story that wound up in the all time top list for romance. About a year ago that must have pissed someone off because it received two x one votes in rapid succession. They're still there.

If you can establish something like that, then you can ask Laurel for a sweep. I did that when someone gave one of my stories an overnight strafing. The voting pattern was a problem, and the circumstance made it pretty clear what was going on. Those votes were gone almost as fast as they happened.

 

[windar]

It's not going to happen, ever.

The Site is not going to do anything -- anything -- to reduce or diminish reader enjoyment of and use of the Site. Readers like having a scoring system. They don't give a shit that our feeling are hurt when we get 1 votes. It doesn't even occur to them. Traffic is driven by readers. It makes no sense for the Site to do anything that would make it even one iota more difficult for readers to use and enjoy this Site.

Simon, I agree with you that the site won't change anything. Where we disagree is the why. It's not because they love the readers; it's either out of laziness or lack of time to really maintain the site. Just as an example, they have on the home page "Adult News" that hasn't been updated since 2016 and "Ask Aspasia and Fern" that died in 2006. Now, you may feel that dead links are harmless and that may be so, but would a professionally run site have a link to something that's been dead for 16 years? The question answers itself. I guarantee you that people here have put more thought into how this site could be improved than the owners have.

This site is as big as it is primarily because of the first mover effect; they started when there was minimal competition and so they accumulated a very large collection of stories. But being best in 2002 doesn't mean you are the best in 2022. Not unless you constantly work at it and they don't.

And by the way, I say this as someone who has not received any "1-bombs" here as far as I know. So it isn't sour grapes, just a realistic appraisal of the site.

 

[windar]

But Lit in a way does take from the readers, for example if you sincerely didn't like a story and wanted to give it a 1 or 2 because in your mind that's a warning to others the story isn't good(In your opinion) and lit sweeps it...

In fact I don't understand the incessant crying over bombs, the sweeps at this point seem to think there's no such thing as a real one vote

How does one tell a real 1 from a 1-bomb? If you're going to have voting (which I could care less about either way) then one has to be permitted to give a 1 to a story you honestly hated and have it count.

Truthfully, I have been on many sites and never found one as obsessed by rankings as this one and I include pay sites. It's weird and off-putting. Yet another reason I will not post more stories here....

 

[SimonDoom]

Simon, I agree with you that the site won't change anything. Where we disagree is the why. It's not because they love the readers; it's either out of laziness or lack of time to really maintain the site. Just as an example, they have on the home page "Adult News" that hasn't been updated since 2016 and "Ask Aspasia and Fern" that died in 2006. Now, you may feel that dead links are harmless and that may be so, but would a professionally run site have a link to something that's been dead for 16 years? The question answers itself. I guarantee you that people here have put more thought into how this site could be improved than the owners have.

This site is as big as it is primarily because of the first mover effect; they started when there was minimal competition and so they accumulated a very large collection of stories. But being best in 2002 doesn't mean you are the best in 2022. Not unless you constantly work at it and they don't.

And by the way, I say this as someone who has not received any "1-bombs" here as far as I know. So it isn't sour grapes, just a realistic appraisal of the site.

But where do we go with this?

There are many things this site could do better. It's a two-person operation, as far as I can tell, and I have to think they are struggling just to tread water. They get 150 new stories submitted every day. What do you want? They don't seem to take vacations.

I submitted my first story in December 2016. I had never written any fiction in my adult life before that. And now I have 47 stories published and millions of views. It's hard for me to get too worked up about the site's various faults. It's been an amazing experience. And if others don't feel that way, their perspective is legitimate, too.

 

[NotWise]

Simon, I agree with you that the site won't change anything. Where we disagree is the why. It's not because they love the readers; it's either out of laziness or lack of time to really maintain the site. Just as an example, they have on the home page "Adult News" that hasn't been updated since 2016 and "Ask Aspasia and Fern" that died in 2006. Now, you may feel that dead links are harmless and that may be so, but would a professionally run site have a link to something that's been dead for 16 years? The question answers itself. I guarantee you that people here have put more thought into how this site could be improved than the owners have.

You're complaining about problems that have been fixed. All you have to do is switch to the new interface. Then you can apologize to Laurel and Manu and stop wasting space on the forum.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My contest stories since spring 2021 have all had 6% or more of their votes swept. Contest stories from before spring 2021 usually had 12%-15% of their total votes removed by the end of the contest. Votes would also be swept from other stories in the catalog, but not to that extent.

That just tells me that contest stories get trolled more, which is, I think, a common observation whenever a contest runs - so there is more junk being removed.

All I can say is, my non-contest stories get swept whenever the contests get swept, ergo, my belief that the sweep goes through the story data set equally and, I would suggest, going some way back in time. I've seen some of my older stories lose votes and bump up in score.

I can't see how or why the site would sweep a selective subset of stories - what parameters would they use to include my non-contest stories, for example, but not yours? That makes no sense.

 

[KeithD]

they have on the home page "Adult News" that hasn't been updated since 2016 and "Ask Aspasia and Fern" that died in 2006.

These were dropped in the new version of the story side of the site. They are there if you haven't switched over yet.

 

[RejectReality]

That just tells me that contest stories get trolled more, which is, I think, a common observation whenever a contest runs - so there is more junk being removed.

All I can say is, my non-contest stories get swept whenever the contests get swept, ergo, my belief that the sweep goes through the story data set equally and, I would suggest, going some way back in time. I've seen some of my older stories lose votes and bump up in score.

I can't see how or why the site would sweep a selective subset of stories - what parameters would they use to include my non-contest stories, for example, but not yours? That makes no sense.

The contest stories are the initial parameter. During that process, a list of bad actors compiles. The sweeps on peripheral stories are from stomping out those bad actors across the board, wherever they've left their mark. So the secondary sweeps are targeting bad actors rather than a set of stories. The first sweep is seek and destroy. The secondary one doesn't need to seek, just destroy.

That's what it looks like to me anyway. It's why one of my admonitions to fans is not to bomb other people either. If I'm right, their 5 on my story could get wiped out along with their shenanigans trying to "help" me out.

 

[TxRad]

The contest stories are the initial parameter. During that process, a list of bad actors compiles. The sweeps on peripheral stories are from stomping out those bad actors across the board, wherever they've left their mark. So the secondary sweeps are targeting bad actors rather than a set of stories. The first sweep is seek and destroy. The secondary one doesn't need to seek, just destroy.

That's what it looks like to me anyway. It's why one of my admonitions to fans is not to bomb other people either. If I'm right, their 5 on my story could get wiped out along with their shenanigans trying to "help" me out.

That would explain the glitch a while back. For some reason a whole bunch of bad actors as you called them got rooted up. Some people on this site don't realize that there are people on here with anywhere from dozens to hundreds of alts. I think when things switched over, those alts were connected to their main character and a whole lot of everything was wiped out.

No proof but it is a good explanation.

 

[RejectReality]

That would explain the glitch a while back. For some reason a whole bunch of bad actors as you called them got rooted up. Some people on this site don't realize that there are people on here with anywhere from dozens to hundreds of alts. I think when things switched over, those alts were connected to their main character and a whole lot of everything was wiped out.

No proof but it is a good explanation.

The explanation given points to either a cut-n-paste or half asleep error. The votes database was getting overwritten by the view update queries. Which defies logical ID naming conventions to me, but... *shrug*

Trying to string together the steps of how that could happen and the query not just fail makes my head spin. Everything had to fall perfectly in line the wrong way for it to fail successfully LOL

It does, however match the reports of lost votes. It was a steady, increasing trickle for a long time while the new story pages were in beta. Few people using the beta pages originally because it was only linked from here. Then they were made an option, and people tried them out. The reports picked up. As soon as they were made the default, the problem and the reports escalated dramatically.

 

[LexxRuthless]

That would explain the glitch a while back. For some reason a whole bunch of bad actors as you called them got rooted up. Some people on this site don't realize that there are people on here with anywhere from dozens to hundreds of alts. I think when things switched over, those alts were connected to their main character and a whole lot of everything was wiped out.

No proof but it is a good explanation.

Except, that wasn't what happened. When we had that period of massive vote loss, my 60 submissions on the site lost 11,594 votes and my scores dropped an average of .02678. It was enough to push 5 of my Anal stories off the first page of the all-time top list, and two of my incest stories as well. Other authors who have not been active on the site for a long time were hit even harder. Some of their most-viewed stories lost hundreds of votes a week. Many of those were stories that had been on the site for well over a decade. So, most of those "disappearing votes" were 5-star votes that had been accumulated over years.

 

[TxRad]

Except, that wasn't what happened. When we had that period of massive vote loss, my 60 submissions on the site lost 11,594 votes and my scores dropped an average of .02678. It was enough to push 5 of my Anal stories off the first page of the all-time top list, and two of my incest stories as well. Other authors who have not been active on the site for a long time were hit even harder. Some of their most-viewed stories lost hundreds of votes a week. Many of those were stories that had been on the site for well over a decade. So, most of those "disappearing votes" were 5-star votes that had been accumulated over years.

Hey, I didn't say I knew what I was talking about butt....

Ya want something to think about....

Go to the Favorites list. Start at number 100 on that list and scan upward. Mark and list the number of votes on any author with a gap bigger than 1000 favorites. Go all the way up to the top four or five. Now, wait a week and come back and check those numbers again and see what you find. You might find it very interesting. Not to mention who is on that list.

I'm not point any fingers, just offering up a different way of looking at all this data everyone is always ranting about.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Hey, I didn't say I knew what I was talking about butt....

Ya want something to think about....

Go to the Favorites list. Start at number 100 on that list and scan upward. Mark and list the number of votes on any author with a gap bigger than 1000 favorites. Go all the way up to the top four or five. Now, wait a week and come back and check those numbers again and see what you find. You might find it very interesting. Not to mention who is on that list.

I'm not point any fingers, just offering up a different way of looking at all this data everyone is always ranting about.

Sorry, I was looking at a very old Excel spreadsheet and gave bad numbers. The actual impact of vote loss was far more extreme. There were single days where I lost over 3,000 votes -- and that was stories showing a net loss of that amount. In other words, if my submissions had garnered 120 new votes that day, then I had lost more than 3,120. There was an older thread that preceded this one, and it was that thread that first drew my attention to the situation. It had sounded so far-fetched that I didn't want to believe it at first. Then I started looking at the small handful of Excel "snapshots" I'd taken a few months earlier and my jaw dropped. After that, I was taking those snapshots daily. For three months, my stories were hemorrhaging votes. At the beginning of this thread, I mentioned having lost over 25,000 votes (on only 60 submissions at the time). From the resultant drop in my scores, at least 24,700 of those lost votes had to have been 5-star votes.

I wish I had been paying closer attention to the toplists before this happened, in the way you described. It wasn't like I memorized any of the numbers, but I saw some stories had dropped significantly on their scores and it seemed like some of those individual stories had lost 6,000 votes or more. It seems ludicrous that the site would somehow figure out how a story that was posted in 2001 had fraudulently accumulated 6,000 extra 5-star votes over an 18-year span. It makes even less sense when you consider a lot of those authors haven't even been active on the site in over a decade.

 

[TxRad]

Lexx, what would you think of an author that hasn't posted a story in ten years staying in the top 12 most favorite authors? He only dropped to 12th in the last few months but suddenly he is climbing by big numbers back toward number 11.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Lexx, what would you think of an author that hasn't posted a story in ten years staying in the top 12 most favorite authors? He only dropped to 12th in the last few months but suddenly he is climbing by big numbers back toward number 11.

What I've seen recently is an influx of new members on the site, as well as the return of some authors and members who have been away for a long while. I would conjecture that we have a bunch of folks who, like me and Simon, read stories on the site for many, many years without ever making an account who have suddenly decided to do so. I wasn't aware you could follow authors or have "favorite" stories until I finally made my own membership almost 4 years ago, and that was after 16 years or so of reading stories on the site. As soon as I became aware of it, I promptly searched for some of my favorites I'd enjoyed over the years and added them to my own favorite lists. This has probably been happening on a larger scale recently, as people have found themselves stuck at home with time on their hands.

The author in question may have been mentioned on Reddit or another platform where folks share their favorite stories, and he's got a story or two high on the most-viewed / most-favorited lists that draw the attention of new Literotica members. He may have also mentioned his work here on another site or social media platform, which has drawn fresh attention to stories written a decade ago.

That's all conjecture, though. Perhaps we should look him up elsewhere on the internet and see what he's been up to since he stopped posting stories here?