Does this happen here?

[Guest]

Ok, I hate being picky, and sounding like a bitch or ass, but I wrote a story for the halloween thing. For the first four or five days it was posted, it got 7 5's, and one 4. Since then, I have recieved only 4 more votes, all of a 1. I have been getting great feedback, with requests to do more stories.

A few other stories with previously good scores have suddenly started plumeting in the contest as well. Is it just me, or are there really people immature enough here that they don't rely on talent, but rather cheat by scoring competitors stories as low as they can to bring down opponants scores?

As it stands, I don't have that many votes. There is no way i am going to have 50 in time for the voting to be done, and I am ok with that. What bothers me is that someone out there, or more then one someone, has to go around cheating to just make thiers look better.

Grow up, who ever you are.

 

[Softly]

Yes, it is here!

It is very common, as you will see, if you read several previous threads about the subject.

It became worse, much worse, when cash prizes were offered. Now, having one of your stories enter the top fifteen of a "Top List" is a kiss of death. Only stories with hundreds of votes survive the attack. (There is suspicion about some of these stories as to how "that" story generated 250 votes in one day.) I have had a story that was number ten, drop to the bottom of the second page in one day with with eight or nine 1 or 2 votes.

At this point, with sixty-one stories posted, I am content when a story arrives at and stays on the first page of a "Top List" catagory. A story ranked number forty, with a score of 4.45 will maintain its ranking forever, since only honest voters take the time to vote on it.

Advice? Any story of yours that maintains a score of 4.0 or higher is a hit. Pity the poor shit who has to live with himself after he votes a 1, 2, or 3 on someones original effort, that he got to read for free.

 

[Lekov]

Observations



It's sad but often true of any rating system. If you can't win on your efforts, hinder the other person's. We're taught to do it in sports, and often it happens in the workplace, so why not here when $$$ get involved as well. I am pretty new here, but not to writing nor competitions and BB's. I've been watching the rate on my story as well as other people's in the top sections. Of course my writing may not be to everyone's tastes, but it is funny when my first entry here is standing at about 4.7 and in the matter of a day plummets to a 4.0 after a few scores of 1. Now, that's fine and dandy as I don't have a lot of votes. I've seen stories with 20 or 30 or more votes that were hangin' high and suddenly started to dip. By dip what I mean is doing the math and seeing that a story with a score of 4.5 and 25 votes suddenly getting 4 scores of 1 in a row. Softly, I agree with you completely. It's a sad thing when the work of good people is 'lowered' because those of lesser ability want to win instead of concerning themselves with good writing or a fair contest. It makes a mockery of the entire purpose of this website.

 

[Celtic_Heart]

It hadn't even occurred to me that negative vote rigging takes place but, human nature being what it is, It doesn't really surprise me.

Personally, I try not to worry too much about the votes and concentrate more on the feedback people send me. If someone likes a story enough to drop you a few lines telling you that they enjoyed it then, to me, that is far more satisfying than worrying too much over what vote you get.

E.G. One of my stories, "Share & Share Alike" has a rating of 4.53 and has been voted on 51 times. Not bad but when you consider that the story has had 14265 views, it kind of pales into insignificance. Even more surprising is that it is the sequel to a story "Birthday Treat" that has only had 1779 views and yet scores 4.44 with 111 votes.

Who was it that said, "lies, damn lies and statistics"?

 

[Blayde]

It had not occurred to me...

but I'm not surprised to hear it happens. Very sad indeed.

Now if I could only see the holloween stories to vote on them, none of the links are working for me

 

[Marxist]

THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

The solutions are simple but hard to stomach for the "1" dilemma.
You could make this a true community by doing this:

1. In order to vote you have to have contributed a story.
2. No one is allowed to vote anonymously (a working email must be provided).
3. All votes must be followed by a written critique, even if it's "hey, that really sucked."
4. No one is allowed to critique anonymously.

By instituting those rules you open up a whole new range of problems such as, "you voted low on mine, so i'll vote low on yours". But I do believe it might take away the arbitrary low votes simply because your piece is successful and I want revenge.

I know this happened to me for sure because as soon as I gave a certain poetess an honest (she fucking asked for it!) opinion of improvement, I got "1" votes on both of my works. I really don't care but I think that both are well written and deserve to have a chance at winning and being viewed by people who use the rating system as their guide. Because, face it, how else are people going to know?

MARXIST

 

[Gilly Bean]

Re: THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

1. In order to vote you have to have contributed a story.

MARXIST

Just a thought, but from the sounds of it, the people who go in to 'lower' scores are the ones who are also competing.

I put a stop to it on mine, by now refusing votes. Sure I won't win, but I wasn't even anywhere near the amount of votes. If someone wants to vote bad on mine, I would rather it be a reader, and not a writer who only want's thiers to look good in comparison.

 

[Marxist]

Gilly

In order for that proposed "solution" to work you'd have to institute all of the rules.

If I didn't like Gilly's work for example I could honestly say, I voted you a "2" and here are the reasons why. In reply you could e-mail me, vote a low score specifically on my work (anon. you had no idea who did it before), and tell me the reasons why you did what you did.

The thing that fucks up the voting system as it stands is that you can anonymously slam someone without them knowing how or why or most importantly WHO did it. If I gave Gilly a "2" and I was ranked three spots behind I'd think we all would know why I voted that way.

The other proposal, that I forgot to post, would be to open up the voting. That is, the whole world would know I voted a "2" for Gilly and everyone who hates me could ask me how stupid I am.

It's not perfect but it would be an improvement. It's the anonymous voting and posting that stifles creativity on this site. I have no problem telling anyone what I think of their work.

MARXIST

 

[Lekov]

Responses

I'm glad to see that openly so many people are annoyed with such tactics, but hopefully no one will be discouraged from further contributions. As for finding the Halloween stories, you can find several of them under the stories link and looking up the newer ones. I'm fairly new here though, so more specific info from some of you vets here would be helpful.

Marxist is onto something as a rule, I think. I see what Gilly's saying and she is right. The 'guest' voting or whatnot is usually done by competitors who have stories all ready in, so it's directly linked to the issue discussed. However, I see what Marxist is saying as well, because if a person's dumb enough to offer tons of low feedback coupled with idiotic replies, he will likely get the same treatment from all those he attacked.

Such a system would limit the number of votes dramatically, but in earnest it would not bother me in the least. A point to the story-submission arguement would be (and I have again seen this before) where you have to be a registered user. No biggie. However, they use aol and various free email accounts to create 10 or more user names. Sure, all their own stories come in under one so the one name gets a good 'rep', but then the others are used to 'torpedo' the competition.

I DO want to point out that the above as well as the subject started by unregistered is more the exception than the rule, but it's easy to see why a person gets frustated with unseen attacks. ;o) please keep up the great writing everyone!

Lekov

--- I must be here 'cause I'm not all there.

 

[Marxist]

If I understand you right Lekov, the only low tech around the system that I proposed would be to assign a different story to each author with one author as the absorber of good hits. I think you're on to something there, but think about all the stories you'd have to create.

And besides I do believe that your IP address is stored when you vote and limits your ability to re-vote from the same place, so unless you go higher tech. I don't think you're going to find an easy way to rig it.

I do know for a fact that people are rigging the vote but we shouldn't talk about them or how they do it. There's not a lot of money at stake here, just pride.


MARXIST

 

[Gilly Bean]

And besides I do believe that your IP address is stored when you vote and limits your ability to re-vote from the same place, so unless you go higher tech. I don't think you're going to find an easy way to rig it.


MARXIST

IP addy is logged, but the only way to not get around that is for people who have set IP's. If you have a dial up connection, your actual IP changed each and every time you log on. Hence, the people out there who can go to the same story a hundred times a week, and make it nose dive, or make it sky rocket.

For those who have a cable modem, or a dsl, or T1, they have a 'set' ip that will look the same all the time.

 

[Lekov]

re: marxist

That's why I was essentially in agreement with you that a person should have to submit a story first. Gilly does however, make an excellent point to the ip thing. Actually, between spoofing software, proxies and dialups using companies such as AOL who hand out vastly different IP's on every connection, I could likely post hundreds of new IP's every day. =P

That brings up another point I'm curious about though. Is lit only counting registered votes now? Reason I ask is I have a pair of on-line friends who said they read my story (not hard to guess which as I have only submitted one) and voted for it as unregistered users. However, my vote count did not change at all that day or the following few (until I got smacked with a few 1's, hehe). Just a point of idle curiosity.

 

[Marxist]

OOH, YOU GUYS ARE VERY CORRECT

I don't have dial up, you guys are right, but geez what are the prizes around here?

I guess if you wanted to go through the trouble of spreading out your stories to "false" identities just so you can vote you could. But it would rob your main "good" identity of recognition.

If we opened up the board, with no blind votes, wouldn't it show who voted twice or more? Maybe we'd have those who would 5 everybody to death out of fear for their own hide, but no system is perfect.

All I know is that "1" votes are not all that discouraging to me but being ranked far below a sucky story kind of hurts. But hey Lit.'s free and I haven't asked for my money back yet.

MARXIST

 

[Pokerman]

The one and only time I voted a "1" on someone was a story that had constant misspellings, grammatical errors and gaping holes in the story. But I also sent feedback to the person saying what I didn't like.

I'd like to see people be forced to give feedback to vote a 1 or a 2, as to what they didn't like.

There was discussion a while ago, I believe, that once the new server was up and running, to have two voting listings. One for overall votes, and one for votes by registered users. Don't know if thats still in the works or not. (Or if I'm remembering correctly either...)

Personally, it would be nice to be ranked highly, and to win the cash prize. But I also wish to remain as anonymous as possible, and if I ever win a prize at lit, I promise to tell Laurel and Manu to donate it to one of the World Trade Center funds. (Not only would it be a nice thing to do, but I want to see their look when money arrives from Literotica lol).

 

[Marxist]

I just started a new thread HERE if anyone wants to post a love letter to their favorite author or story. Maybe we can overcome the "1" monster with more real feedback from people whose opinion counts.


MARXIST

 

[Couture]

The IP logging system sucks. Not only does it allow multiple votes be logged easily, it keeps legit votes from being cast, since they are pooled.

I don't care if 'I' don't know who voted, but I would like Literotica to start logging the username-email addy of the voter. This way they could see if someone was acting as a spoiler.

http://literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=46698

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Life's not fair, and that sucks...but it's also true and something that there's no hiding from. This site is set up on a basis where anyone can join and be a part, without paying for it. THat's the great thing about it, no one is excluded. That also makes it crude, because even those people who do this type thing will also be a part...
We take the bad with the good, because, the good still outweighs the bad...here, at least it does.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I think there should be two voting systems.

One is people's choice. As is. Do the top lists and a people's choice every month. No prizes, or maybe a gift certificate to the lit store.

The other is contributor's choice. They pick cash prizes, top lists, etc. Why? It's easy to set up a lot of anonymous email accounts. It's a serious pain in the ass to set up a lit account and put stuff in it. Have these pick the cash prizes.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Good idea...

Only those with at least one contribution can vote for the prizes? I like...

 

[Quiet_Cool]

A winner of a People's Choice voting could also be awarded with a letter (say "P") denoting that the story has won in that catergory, although it may not win another prize. This would give the story some recognition for its achievement...

U like?

 

[Marxist]

I think there should be two voting systems.

One is people's choice. As is. Do the top lists and a people's choice every month. No prizes, or maybe a gift certificate to the lit store.

The other is contributor's choice. They pick cash prizes, top lists, etc. Why? It's easy to set up a lot of anonymous email accounts. It's a serious pain in the ass to set up a lit account and put stuff in it. Have these pick the cash prizes.

Excellent suggestion!! How do we get Laurel and Manu signed on?

 

[letsallgetlaid]

SO Relieved

I am so relieved after reading this. I honestly hadn't thought people would be out there trying to vote bad just cause they were vindictive jerks, I thought they actually didn't like my story. I had posted a story and it got a huge number of views and a hand ful of really good votes then suddenly it bombed and I got all bummed.
I like the idea of having some sort of system, but I do like the anon feedback, there sould be a way to send feedback anon, seperate from the voting thing. perhaps just a simple form insead of the e-mail thing, that's just weird and my computer doesn't like it, that could be done anon and that would get a wide range of people just telling you what they think. I feel obligated, not that that's bad, to write to people who write me an e-mail, and I don't like making others feel obligated and a nice note that says great story is sort of like giving a stranger a hug (which I strongly advocate as well.)