Enough is enough

[vmystere]

All,

I have contributed about 100,000 words to this site. I am done.

I will leave what is here, here. (To paraphrase Bill Clinton) But, I will contribute no more.

This system of rating is too annoying. I have a choice to either ask that the system be changed (Which I have done.) or protest by withdrawing my contributions. Since the system seems unwilling to change, I will do the only sensible thing: cease my contributions.

The last story I contributed achieved a rating of 4.70 with 29 readers. It is now at 4.48 with thirty-one readers. I have done the math and I am pretty sure that even two "1s" is not sufficient to knock it down that far. If it is: that is pitiful anyway. (Whatever you may think of what I do, it is not worthy of a 1. The insult has been registered -- and I am reacting.)

If people want to be vindictive and rude: that is their right. But it is also my right to deny them their "fun."

VM

 

[Mr_Neb]

Not that's its any consolation but the average of the two additional scores was 1.29.

Go check out www.asstr.org.

No votes, no prizes, no board, just lots of readers. I'm not slamming this site. I like it but I also post there as well.

Good luck.

Mr. Neb

 

[Guest]

I too have had a story go from top ten to not even on the page the next day. Unfortunately some are using the ratings to play games to advance their own stories. However, I come to this site to read the stories and to have a place to post my stories for others. I have received some very good feedback, and a few negative ones. But when it is all said and done the rankings really don't mean anything except it is easier to get a story read when it is near the top of the lists. Don't stop posting after all did you post for the rankings or to have your stories read?

 

[thumbs2_ca]

I agree with boatin on this one.
I do not post my stories strictly for the rating. I post them for feedback (which so far has been Zero. lol) and I enjoy writing them. I do not think any story deserves a 1 and I very seldom vote less than a 4.
I hope you stay on the site but I am going to check that other site as well

 

[Laurel]

As Posted On Another Thread:

It's a tough situation. Here are some comments I've made in the past about it:

One thing that is obvious, and has been since the Internet began, is that there is no perfect solution to this issue. For those of you that have been around a while, I'm sure you know that one of my favorite sites is the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com). For years, they (along with zillions of other sites, including Rolling Stone and Amazon) have used a voting system very similar to the one we use today. These bigger companies with zillions of programmers, Harvard grad CEOs, and corporate think tanks never came up with a better solution than what we are using now. The fact that "everyone else is doing it" doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to find a better solution. I'm only trying to illustrate the fact that this is a 6+ year-old problem which millions of people have attempted to improve upon without much luck at all.

In the case of IMDB, once they had millions of registered users they decided to institute a policy by which you must be registered and logged in to vote. This idea certainly has the potential reduce the amount of fraud, but by no means is it a solution. I could very easily register 50 users at IMDB today and 1-vote Fight Club to my heart's content. We had a "member votes" Top List, but the reality is that this site has less than 30,000 registered members of which perhaps 50% are active in any 30 day period. On an average day, more than 200,000 people visit the site, most of them coming to read the day's new stories. Because of the adult nature of the site, and because of the fact that they are here to read, not necessarily to interact, the vast majority of visitors seem to have no interest in registering as members of Literotica. This is certainly fine with us, but it does not lend itself to a situation like IMDB where only registered members would be allowed to vote. Maybe in the future if there were ever several hundred thousand active registered members, then this type of system would be effective.

As far as the idea of someone who cheats winning the prizes, I (perhaps naively) believe that over time things tend to balance themselves out. For example, one thing that is rarely discussed here is "up-voting" - the opposite of "down-voting". If your enemies are more likely to give you lower scores because of who you are, then it stands to reason that your friends are more likely to give you higher scores. While some on the board are concerned about authors voting up their own stories, others are concerned about authors who may "down-vote" stories by other writers to try to boost their own ranking. In the small picture, each of these actions would seem to compromise the integrity of the system, but if you step back and look at the big picture, you'll see 10 people "up-voting" each story, 10 people "down-voting" each story, and 1,000 people voting their honest opinion on each story.

Regardless of who wins any contest or prize, there will be hundreds of authors each month who are just as deserving but who did not happen to have the .0001 extra score to push them into the top spot. The same argument can be made for the Nobel Prize, the Oscars, the Pulitzer Prize, Miss Teen USA or any number of other respected awards. The fact that one person wins the contest and a hundred others don't does not mean that the winner's work is objectively superior. It simply means that the winner was chosen by his or her peers and/or fans to receive a prize as a representative of a large group of people who probably each deserve it just as much as him or her. It is just not possible to give a prize to everyone, and I don't think that means we shouldn't give one to anyone.

The Internet Movie Database is a site that I have used on a regular basis for years. I certainly don't rely on their scores as the word of god, but I do find them to be helpful in their context. The context is that of the Internet and specifically that of opinion - the opinion of human beings, all of whom are filled with emotion, all of whom are prone to mood swings, and all of whom have lived different lives and experienced different things. People are going to vote different ways for different reasons, I think we agree on that. Then, the big question becomes "What is a VALID vote and what is not?"

If I vote down a movie, or a story, after seeing only the very beginning of it, is that any more or less valid than someone who views the whole thing and then up votes it because they happen to like Julia Roberts, or Anal Sex? What about the person who down votes it because they had a bad day or because there were spelling errors? Some people may be voting on grammar, others on content, others just to be nice or mean. This simply means that the system is based on human beings, not robots. I believe, though, that given enough votes over enough time, you are going to get a fairly accurate, but certainly not perfect, idea of what a large group of people think of the piece of work they are voting on, whether that be a movie, a story, or a scientist working on a cure of AIDS (Nobel prize reference!)

If our litmus test is whether something has to be perfect to be useful, then I certainly wouldn't be very useful to anyone. Luckily for me, that's not the test. I don't believe that we need to prove that the system is 100% perfect for it to be useful to both authors and readers - frustration and all. Perfect, is itself a term so subjective that we would could probably never achieve it for more than one person at any time.

We have been working on a feature which will allow authors to turn on or off voting on each of their stories at any time. I'm hoping that this option, along with the re-introduction of "Times Read" stats, will be online in the next 30 days. We are also going to add two more top lists - Most Viewed and Most Voted On. If a reader decides to give you a 1-vote, that vote will only serve to move you up the two other lists.

Our programmer is also working on the Member Votes feature. Once enabled, you will be able to see what actual members voting think of your story, in addition to the general readership. Since the Members votes are stored in a database, there is absolutely no way that a member can vote twice on the same story. Of course, this does not mean that a member won't give you a 1 because they don't like you.

I know there are those of you who think we don't care about the voting, but that's simply not the case. The idea that because we haven't solved the problem, we must not care, is more than a little unfair. We've struggled long and hard to make the voting suitable to everyone. We have limited time and limited money, but we are doing what we can with what we have. But no matter what we do (and I know I've said this before) we cannot determine voter intent.

I think once the new top lists, Member Votes, and Times Read stats come into being, this will make a lot of you happier. But no matter what happens, there will be those who are unhappy with their story scores. We will continue to do what we can, and we encourage (as always) your constructive comments and suggestions!

I would also like to add that the voting and rankings were added at the insistence of the writers. They were not something that existed when the site first went up. Writers asked for them, we put them up, and even now if we removed them we'd make more people unhappy than happy.

 

[JUDO]

Join the club.

V -

Hey! Join the club!

Yeah, voting sucks.

I have been pissed off and depressed numerous times after receiving ones on my submissions (ask anyone). Voting here or on other sites is really no better, if it's a numeric system that tries to encourage voting. Currently numeric voting is the only method the site has implemented, but soon several are more to come, I'm told.

Now, I just watch the ones hit my stuff and be quickly followed by a multitude of 5s. I just have to laugh as the submission goes up and down and up and down. It's a real teeter-totter of frustration for sure, but if you don't submit erotica here...where you gonna go?

Yes, I know there are other sites, but I like this one. I like the people who run the place. I like the other authors here. I like the feedback I get (what little there is) and I like the opportunity to participate and become a better writer.

Frankly, all that matters to me is becoming a better writer. The rest of the shit is just icing from a cake that would make me too fat if I craved it all the time.

If you feel like leaving is a real solution, then Bon Voyage!


- Judo

 

[Guest]

Joining the band wagon

I have to agree with everyone...especially since I've had a #1 story Mrs. Steel now since the end of June. I've "watched" it
<slowly> falling from its previous high mark 4.87 all the way down to 4.79 where it is now. And....doing the math, with the
total number of voters then until now....nothing but 1's and 2's
have been thrown against it since then. I am sure its from those
wanting to "de-throne" it....but as Laurel and everyone else has
indicated....theres really not much to be done about it at this point.

Laurel....I "do" like the idea of posting just the number of "readers" for the stories...and then somehow including that info into the mix for final stats. If anything...that certainly will tend to level things out on a much fairer playing field!

And bottom line is........it IS the feedback that keeps me going and keeps me wanting to write and post here.

So...don't go away, hang in there like the rest of us!

To sleep...........perchance to dream - William Shakespear

 

[Natalie Nessus]

Ratings

 

[Pokerman]

I had a story debut at #1...the next day a couple of people had '1' voted it down to 122nd.



I know this is probably unrealistic, but the system i'd love to see is this:

Anyone can come to Lit and read the stories.

Anyone can send anonymous feedback to the author.

Only people who register, with a verified e-mail address, can vote. (And ONE registration per addy only...) No anonymous voting allowed.

Anyone voting a "1" must send feedback to have the vote counted...and since they are registered, their e-mail addy would be included with the feedback. This might make people think twice about voting down a story with a "1" just to be mean, if they know the author will know who they are. (Sure people might try voting down a story with a "2"...)


THAT ALL SAID....I love this site, and am very appreciative to Laurel and Manu for all the hard work they do in keeping this site up and running, and for giving amateur writers like us a chance to post our work. (Not to mention the BB site and the Chat Room....)

THANK YOU LAUREL AND MANU!!!

 

[Harbinger]

a possible solution?

I'm new to posting here, but I've noticed (!) that the issue of voting is pretty important for some people. I don't know if this would be helpful or not, ( I'm not a techie) but I ran across a site called Hotornot.com, where people send in snapshots of themselves so that people can vote on their looks on a scale of one to ten. This is from the FAQ page for the site:

"My rating and my votes don't seem to match. What's wrong?

Official HOT or NOT scores are normalized to account for things such as the fact that different people have different voting styles. For instance, some people, for reasons unknown to us, only vote 1-5. Should a 5 from these people count as a 5?
Many standard scoring systems use normalization techniques, including the Olympics and the tests people take to get into college in the US. We still give you the chart, which represents raw data, just for fun."

Perhaps they have a method for accounting for inconsistent voting? On the other hand, people would have to get used to the idea that a typical story would average out to about a 3.0.

Maybe those among us who are blessed by the Muse of Machine Code can put their heads together?

 

[Natalie Nessus]

 

[Natalie Nessus]

 

[Ray Dario]

Laurel,

You know I love you and I think you do a great job with this site. And I know you care. But I would like to respond to some of your comments about "Voting Up"

First "Voting Up" would only average out in the end if two things were true. You would have to get as many erroneous 5 votes as 1 votes and your story "should" only rank a 3.

To the first: After being here for a while, I believe that it is obvious that the same people who are slamming others are probably the ones who "Up Vote" their own stories. I have talked with several other authors here and have heard the same thing repeated many times.

"I don't vote for my own stories because I want to see the true results"

These people are not "Down voting" anyone else (at least I don't think they are) and they are not "Up voting" their own stories. But the slimeballs who are into manipulating the votes probably do both. I won't name examples because I honestly don't know who they are and I hope to remain ignorant.

So if my assumptions are correct then the "Up Voting" does not even things out, in fact it makes it worse.

Now on to the second point. If your story has a rating of say around 4.5 then a single 5 vote will not help its rating nearly as much as a single 1 vote will hurt it. In fact it takes many 5's to make up for a single 1. If your rating is around a 3 then a 5 helps about as much as a 1 hurts, but let's face it, if your story is rated around a 3 chances are you are not getting many "down" or "up" votes unless you have just pissed someone off.

To me the people who 1 out of anger are much less disgusting than those who 1 to manipulate the vote.

as an aside: By the way guys, when you write crap that is absolutely horrible and the first day it is on you have a rating of 4.98 with 502 votes, do you really think you are fooling anyone? Your story is still crap and you are still a lousy writer even if you can copy a script from a hacker chatroom and use it to manipulate the vote. That doesn't make you a better person and it doesn't make your story better. It just makes you pathetic! (Please note: I am not saying that all stories that get 500 votes and a high rating are crap. Not at all. I have read some very good stories that deserved the high rating and the high voting. And then I read the one with six thousand misspelled words, no punctuation, deplorable grammer, no plot, no character, and basically truly worthy of a score of 2 and yet it mysteriously has many votes and a super high score)

This said, I know that Laurel and Manu are doing the best they can with this site, and I happen to think it is the best story site on the internet. It is unfortunate for everyone on these boards that these pathetic, useless, morons were not left in a dumpster when they were born. I can only surmise that their mothers were probably too high on crack to get them to the dumpster and somehow they survived by sucking the scum from the bathroom floor for the first six years of their pathetic lives.

But hey, who am I to judge them. I will instead thank Laurel and Manu for all the work they do to keep this site the best there is and I will try to contribute what I can to their success.

Thanks Laurel! Thanks Manu! Thanks Literotica Programmers!

Great Job!

Ray Dario

"Child molesters are fucking with our future" - by unknown

 

[Caitlyn O'Shame]

I feel that I should add my 2 drachmas to the thread here. My poem "He touched me like no one else" appeared yesterday as the top poem under favorites. It is flattering to have one's peers appreciate a piece of work and it feels great to believe that something you write actually might be somewhere (albeit low!) in the realm of literature. Having said that, I don't for a second believe that my poem is the best one on the site. Is it a good one? Yes I think so, and the criticisms and replies have been very encouraging and warm. The poem conveys deeply personal emotions and I think that many readers recognize this and it touches them. Am I waiting for the Pulitzer? Hardly! It's a decent poem , nothing else. I will add that since it showed up on the 'popular list' all of a sudden, there was an apparant influx of 1 and 2 votes, and I expect more. Does it matter? Heartfelt no. I wrote that poem to share the experience. I just want people to read it. There is no doubt that some characters are manipulating the scores in their favour - petty and pointless.

C.

 

[M_Z]

To all concerned:

A few personal observations- I am a long time reader and a fairly new member. I do not vote often, as I am sure many readers don't. I came here to read erotica, not politic, schmooze, or rant and rave. (So what am I doing now?)

At some point recently, voting seemed to become more important to authors. At the beginning or end of stories authors now ask for votes. This is a new phenomenon(sp?) to me; perhaps I'm slow. I would like to know, not being an author myself, why the sudden interest in voting?

M_Z

 

[Guest]

Am I missing something?

I wanted to take a second here and respond in part to Ray Dario's comments.

Like <everyone> who happens to see their stories reach the top twenty five postings or so, we "all" seem to get bombarded with
one's for whatever reason(s). However as the system is now, everyone IS equal with regard to the way things eventually shake out, unless of course someone has figured out a way to vote more than one time.

What I wanted to address specifically is the comments Ray made
regarding "Top" stories with 500 votes or more that are "crap".
I have no idea if Ray was refering to one of mine or not. And that's really not the main issue here. I've never considered myself to be a "writer". I don't do it for a living, I've not had formal education etc. I "know" I've made some gramtical errors,
punctuation mistakes etc in my stories. I think "most" do. And I
am hopefully improving those errors with each story that I write. But point is....I didn't join this service to be a writer. I joined this service because it gave me the opportunity to be a story teller.

And I think maybe that's the part that I'm missing here. I've received (at least) fifty plus "feedback" responses to a story that is currently amongst those top stories. In a majority of those, the comments I received regarding it, they were about the story itself. Not if I had misspelled a word, or forgot a particular puncuation mark. (Not to say I didn't have a couple of those...I did.)

But what I found interesting was that the negative gramatical or punctuational feedbacks were always sent by anonymous, with the exception of one who was from another Literotica@ writer who has been "kind" enough to give me constructive input to my
writing which I have taken and tried to improve on. Again...I'm not perfect and far from it. (Thank you by the way).

But personally, I don't read the stories posted here and either "vote" on them, or not vote on them for the way they are written as much as for what I enjoyed reading because of the story being told.

And yes, I agree....not every story I've read have I necessarily enjoyed. And not every story I've written has been well received or enjoyed by everyone else either. But I prefer NOT to write like that, I enjoy writing for myself as I find it relaxing and entertaining. I also enjoy writing (story telling rather) with the hopes that someone who reads the story I've told, will also enjoy it and perhaps send me feedback regarding it. Good or bad...as that is a gage for me to know if the story worked, or didn't work.

And finally, IF a story actually does seem to appeal to a large group of readers, and because of it ends up with a significant number of votes, going in.......I certainly hadn't written it with the expectation that it would. The fact that one may reach that certain level, maintain a high percentage (even with the one voters out there determined to knock it down), I "do" take from that the satisfaction that enough people did read it who actually did enjoy the Story Telling.

And that's what keeps me wanting to write and post here. Yes,
admittedly its nice to see a story do well. And while the "voting" thing may be an imperfect measure, its not "the" whole reason for writing and posting.

Its for sharing an idea.....a thought....a story.... with anyone interested in reading it.

To sleep........perchance to dream - William Shakespear

 

[Bluetrain]

hey, all.

two things:

1. to go by numerical ratings rather than by written feedback seems shortsighted; the numerical rating system is, by its nature, flawed inasmuch as it can't accurately refelct the "true" worth of a story. written feedback, no matter how little of it there may be, provides a much better ego stroke.

2. as long as I'm happy with my writing, that's all I really care about. yes, i do appreciate and care about feedback, but at the end of the day, it's my own self-assessment that's the most honest. there're stories I've posted here, like the first "Clearing by the River," that I'm pretty happy with, no matter what the numerical feedback. other stories, like "Lisa," that i'm not happy with at all, get rave feedback.

i realize every writer needs and yearns for positive feedback to a creation all our own. it's hard to reconcile insecurity with a care-less attitude.

3. i always find it amazing that Laurel finds the time to post such long, exhaustive replies. that shows dedication and passion!

and 4 (yeah, I know I'm two over, but oh well), I will now contradict myself by saying that I'm working on a story that I have put months into developing adn revising, and if the feedback -- numerical or written -- is anything less than awesome, I will cease writing and contemplate my navel for all eternity.

cheers,

bluetrain

 

[Ray Dario]

Re: Am I missing something?

However as the system is now, everyone IS equal with regard to the way things eventually shake out, unless of course someone has figured out a way to vote more than one time.

What I wanted to address specifically is the comments Ray made
regarding "Top" stories with 500 votes or more that are "crap".
I have no idea if Ray was refering to one of mine or not.

Thesandman,

First of all, NO! I was not talking about you. I have read your work and it is good. Like you said, maybe not perfect, neither is mine or anyone elses, but your stories are good. You work hard to make the stories interesting and the characters are sound. Your two stories "Mrs. Steel" and "Twins"

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=17966

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=16795

are two of the best stories on the site. And don't kid yourself. You are both a great storyteller and a great writer.

To the other authors out there, who don't manipulate the vote. I wasn't talking about you either.

In fact, I went and looked for the one example that I was specifically thinking of and it has mysteriously disappeared from the site. I don't know what is up with that, maybe I was just hallucinating in a sleep deprived state when I saw it, but I don't think so.

On to the second point. It is easy to manipulate the vote by spoofing the IP address in the header of your HTTP request. There are scripts available on the internet that do this for you. I'm not going to say where or how you do it, but trust me it isn't hard.

It is also not Laurel and Manu's fault. They have no control over Internet communication protocol and I doubt the W3 consortium would respond quickly if they made a change request.

BTW : I only know this because in my other life I am a Web Programmer among other things.

So all of you authors out there of whom I have the greatest respect. Please don't read my earlier post and assume I'm talking about you. If you haven't "REALLY" manipulated the vote then I am not refering to you, even if you, like Thesandman, have multiple stories with very high ratings and more than 500 votes. If you came by them honest then I'm not talking about you, and you have my respect and awe!

Ray

 

[LadyDarkFire]

I am a pretty new author to this site, but I have enjoyed reading the stories for a while now, and I have a suggestion. What about making it so that with any vote, you have to supply a reason? That way all readers would be heard (not just the registered ones) so you would get a fair repersentation of the readers, and you could ignore the ones with short things like "because I can" and get feedback on mispellings, and tense problems. A good answer for a 1 would be somewhat like "Problems with the technicalities, poor charactor developement, and general lack of definition in the plot" and a 5 could carry something like "Wonderful charactors, great plot, and good details" that would also help weed out people who vote things down because they do not like the content matter.

 

[Guest]

Wow....

Wow.....

Thanks Ray.......High praise coming from someone with your talents...(Seriously). I do consider myself a "newby" still. And
still learning, still trying. But thanks very much for the comments,
very much appreciated!

For Lady Darkfire: (And a big Hi there to you as well!)

The <problem> with the idea you presented is this. Someone
could "still" vote a (1) and then say exactly what you indicated regardless of whether it was true or not. So giving an explanation along with the vote wouldn't really reslove the issue.
If anything, if everyone had to take the time to explan or justify a vote....good or bad....you'd find out in the long run that people
would simply quit voting.

I know for myself that sometimes I forget to even vote after I've read a story. And though I may go back later to actually vote for it, if I had to go through and give justification and reasonings for everyone I read, I'd just read them instead and let it go at that.

Again....the system certainly isn't perfect, but I know Laurel and Manu are working on some pretty good ideas. So "patience" in
this sense really is a virtue.

And thanks (Laurel) for your post instructing us on how to add the "addresses" for our stories. (I'm so new to this, I didn't know
how to do that!)

And again.....thanks Ray for including the URL's above to Mrs. Steel and Twins. Much appreciated!

To sleep........perchance to dream - William Shakespear

 

[LadyDarkFire]

Re: The Sandman

Hello to you as well. I did consider that, but I thought that by making it rather short, you could avoid that. You could also have some presets for each number as an option. An example of that would be if you select a 4 you get option a, b, c, or d, and an option called "other" with a text entering box. That way people could do a fast vote, or take the time to show everything. Plus, it would allow you to get a bit more feedback than usual. I do have complete faith in the people who run Literotica, but it is interesting to kick around ideas like this.

 

[PAUL C]

One votes

I stopped counting at 20. I have over 50 story parts and 600K in words.

Ignore them. When they realise that they don't matter to you they will go away. And if they don't, ignore them anyway and just feel sorry for the person who's sole source of pleasure in this world is to do that.

Be aware that your story's give pleasure to many and be thankful for that. Feedback is a bonus to be cherished.

Malicious '1's. I don't give tham a thought. Nor should you.

 

[PAUL C]

Horrified

Tham should read them.

I really do need an editor.

I've approached 12 so far and nobody wants the job.

Perhaps the person who votes '1's?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the one's!

Gee....

I just wanted to say "thank you" for all the people who hated
my newest story The Ecstasy Motel. To go from 4.70 to 4.38 in
one day has got to be a new all time high-low.

Obviously it is a very poorly written story and I sincerely apologize for such horrible writing....(oops, there we go again),
I meant...Story telling.

If it wasn't so obvious.......it would almost be funny.

Gee....maybe Thesandman really should take a poll here ya think?

All those in favor that I give up posting here entirely, say so here. And seriously.....I'll quit submitting stories. If you really
think they're that bad....then I guess I'm wasting my time as well as yours. And I've got better things to do with my time than write "crap" if thats what you think it is.

So all you anonymous voters out there....go for it. Poll me out of existance here, and I'll simply disapear if thats what you really think of my stories.

As posted originally....sometimes enough IS enough.

 

[Laurel]

Re: Thanks for the one's!

All those in favor that I give up posting here entirely, say so here. And seriously.....I'll quit submitting stories. If you really
think they're that bad....then I guess I'm wasting my time as well as yours. And I've got better things to do with my time than write "crap" if thats what you think it is.

Since this appears to happen to all stories (according to most), I think you're making a mistake in taking it personally.

When a story hits a certain level, it hits the Top Lists, gains more votes, and people tend to be more finicky. I know some of you don't believe that's true, but it is - not just here, but on other sites as well. I've talked with quite a few other website owners and they all hear the EXACT same things from their users as you all express here.

There may be authors who are voting down other author's stories - as has been suggested - but the fact that EVERY story that reaches a certain level gets voted down means if it is indeed authors who are responsible, then it's many, many authors who are doing it, and they're doing it to each other's stories. Thus, it all evens out. Frankly, when you consider that we have less than 40,000 members - only a fraction of which are authors - yet we have millions of unique visitors to the site every month, it seems unlikely that this is the problem.

It's very, very, very difficult to vote several times on a story AND HAVE IT COUNT unless you're a tech geek and go through all the steps that Ray Dario explained. We do have things in place that 1) stop multiple votesand 2) discount multiple votes.

But people hack into the FBI's computers all the time, so anything's possible. People can get around any system if they put enough time and effort into it. Frankly, I doubt that anyone is going to spend that much time and effort just to be top of the BDSM list, or to win a measly $100. And if all this were the result of fraud by an individual, would that person's stories not always float to the top? I cringe when I type that, because I don't want this to turn into a situation where authors are flinging unfounded accusations against each other. But I'm sure we're more mature than that...

An author wrote me earlier very upset because her poem had dropped significantly in the ranks. "6 people gave me a 1.5!!" she insisted. I had to explain to her that that was impossible, that there was no 1.5 vote, that she had done her math wrong.

Which brings up a point...you all have access to limited data - the number of votes and the averages. As you get more votes, the possible combinations of numbers that make up any vote average grows exponentially. I think sometimes people make assumptions about what the votes are, and they think the worst instead of the best. They think it must be a whole slough of 1s and a few 5s, instead of a steady stream of 2's and 3's with a couple 1s and 5's thrown in.

We didn't put the voting score up to upset you. We put it up because YOU, the writers, asked us for it. When our programmer gets the new stuff finished, you will be able to opt out of the voting altogether if it's upsetting to you. There will be new top lists. But I can't promise you that you will receive all 5's. I can't promise to go over to the houses of all voters and interrogate them as to the reasoning behind their votes. And when the Times Viewed feature is up (very soon!) and you see how few people vote compared to how many read, you'll see that questionaires and other things that may discourage voting are not necessarily a good idea.

That's all for now! Thanks for your wonderful work, and stay positive!