Halloween Contest Off-Topic Thread 2

[oggbashan]

Sadly, I think so. Personally, I want to discuss what stories are on top but people freak out when you mention the stories with the top ratings as they assume that some post deep in a thread that a few dozen people will read will trigger a horde of trolls descending on the story.

Any high rating, contest or not, can attract votes from people who might think 'It isn't THAT good'. When no rating was visible until a story had 10 votes many reached that point with a perfect 5.00 and reality followed.

I would say something to the effect that the Piss & Moan thread is for discussing votes and comments.

But mentioning a particular rating even in that thread, little read though it might be, could be cited as 'evidence' of trolling.

I don't think people asking questions that aren't specific to the particular contest is much of a problem, but I've only paid attention to two contests.

I've been involved with the contests for more than a decade. The discussions in the support thread have become more angry in the last few years.

I would definitely discuss the sweeps and that the winners aren't determined until Laurel does a manual review of the votes of the top stories.

We don't know how the sweeps work and what process determines the winners. We don't want to know because that information might be used by people who want to manipulate the contests. All we do know is that there are sweeps and the result depends on the last one.

 

[Arngrim]

That is why I posed the question above. What should I include in the opening post for contest support threads?

Should I include 'Don't post ratings'; 'Don't quote the trolls'; 'Don't mention 1-bombs' and so on.

I could edit the first post to include Laurel's official announcement which includes HOW TO submit to the particular contest - when Laurel posts it.

I could include links to stickies. I agree with sr71plt. Few people read the stickies.

I could include links to relevant FAQs.

But I don't want a first post that is a wall of text.

As for an off-topic thread? It doesn't have to be wholly about moaning and conspiracy theories. It could be about the questions, like mine, that aren't specific to the particular contest.

Anyone could start an off-topic thread at any time if they want to. I don't HAVE to be the person that starts the Official Contest Support thread.

I could edit the first post of the Winter Holidays thread to include suggestions but I was aiming to start with next year's Valentine's Day support thread.

What would be useful for people considering entering a contest for the first time? Apart from - "Don't take the contest too seriously. You can't win a life changing sum of money and your rating could fluctuate."

Let's face it -- an off-topic thread is inevitable. Some members of the community have a very hard time letting things go. Even if that wasn't the case, you'd still have random new people showing up making mountains out of ant hills.

I don't disagree with sr71plt's point that no one really reads the stickies. The question is why?

Suppose you are new to the boards and came because you were interesting in the a themed contest. You have many questions about how they work. You see a sticky for "Welcome Authors! PLEASE READ!" thinking the answers might be there. After being presented with a warning about trolling, you then have five links. You see one for "Literotica Contests" with the caption "All the details on our monthly & special theme contests." thinking, alright, this must be it! Only the link gives you a list of all the MONTHLY winners and gives details on how the MONTHLY contests work. Nothing about the themed contests despite the caption saying so.

So now what? You go back to the original five choices. You see "Frequently Asked Questions" deciding, okay, maybe I'll find something there. You're presented with another twelve links. You decide "Literotica Contests" is the most logical choice. You're then presented with five FAQs. Three of the five do not apply to your query as they talk about monthly, yearly, and "other" (survivor) respectively. So that leaves:

Q: What contests does Literotica run? What prizes can I win?

A: There are three main types of contests at Literotica. The winners of these three types are chosen by readers (votes). There are also other smaller contests throughout the year with other criteria.

Okay... that tells us nothing. Finally, we have:

Q: What are Special Contests? How do they work?

A: Special contests take place at irregular intervals throughout the year, usually around holidays such as Valentine's Day, National Nude Day, and others. The rules & prizes for Special contests are the same as for Monthly contests, with special exceptions that are posted with the contest announcement, which is posted in the Author's Hangout and linked on the Front Page of Literotica with a week of the start of the contest. Past Special contest winners, can be found here. A full listing of this year's Special contests can be found here.

So... another paragraph that tells you very little, provides even more links (one directly to the Author's Hangout you came from), and proceeds to say the rules and prizes are the same as the monthlies. You know, the first place you visited which could have said that the rules were the same.



Assuming any newcomer even made it that far, they would still say 'fuck it' and just make a new thread or ask in the support thread (assuming it's on the first page). People are lazy on a good day and to have something that's supposed to be helpful instead be this much of a hazzle is useless.

Having a new sticky that bypasses all of this while also providing information about things not provided in the other sticky (sweeps, etiquette) could go a long way. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's better than whats currently available.

But in the end, you know what they say about horses and leading them to water.

 

[oggbashan]

...

But in the end, you know what they say about horses and leading them to water.

Some recent contest winners had never posted on the Authors' Hangout. For all I know apart from Laurel's official contest announcement linked from Literotica's front page, they might never have visited the Authors' Hangout.

If you add ALL the participants in all of Literotica's forums together they are still a tiny fraction of those who visit Literotica. Posting on a forum is a minority sport.

If you look at ALL the people who have posted stories on Literotica, the vast majority of them have never appeared in the Authors' Hangout.

The number of people who post in a contest support thread is very small and a fraction of those few who are shown as signed in to the Authors' Hangout.

Edited to add: As of a few seconds ago, 27 people were shown on the Authors' Hangout out of a total of 1007 visiting Literotica. More than half of that 1007 were 'guests' i.e. NOT signed in.

Registered users of Literotica: 1,969,075

Guests are many more than that...


So we are preaching to a tiny congregation.

 

[8letters]

Any high rating, contest or not, can attract votes from people who might think 'It isn't THAT good'. When no rating was visible until a story had 10 votes many reached that point with a perfect 5.00 and reality followed.

I'm not following you here. My impression is that most stories are read (and voted on) by readers who come upon them on the category hub(s) of their choosing. When they see the story on the hub, they see the story's score.

What I did was post a list of the top stories in the contest based upon rating so that if people wanted to read a contest story, they could start with the top stories. I was criticized for doing so because posting a story with its rating will trigger hordes of trolls downvoting the story. I don't see that happening, but I edited the post to eliminate the list.

But mentioning a particular rating even in that thread, little read though it might be, could be cited as 'evidence' of trolling.

The Piss & Moan thread would be for discussing votes and comments on your own stories. I'm not sure of your point - does that address it?

We don't know how the sweeps work and what process determines the winners. We don't want to know because that information might be used by people who want to manipulate the contests. All we do know is that there are sweeps and the result depends on the last one.

True. I think that new contestants should be made aware that the last sweep (sweeps?) are very aggressive and can move ratings significantly.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm not following you here. My impression is that most stories are read (and voted on) by readers who come upon them on the category hub(s) of their choosing. When they see the story on the hub, they see the story's score.

The Contest Stories are linked to the front page of Literotica during the contest. People can come straight to the contest entries. That visibility means that contest entries get much longer exposure than on the New list. Contest entries are usually accessed NOT through the category hub but through the contest list. That list does NOT show the current rating, nor the category.

What I did was post a list of the top stories in the contest based upon rating so that if people wanted to read a contest story, they could start with the top stories. I was criticized for doing so because posting a story with its rating will trigger hordes of trolls downvoting the story. I don't see that happening, but I edited the post to eliminate the list.

It has long been suggested that giving the current rating of a CONTEST story is detrimental to that story because a high rating attracts jealousy or rabid fans of another author and then the particular story is attacked with low votes. It is also true to a lesser extent of high rated stories in categories but - if it happens - it can ruin a contest story's chance of winning a CONTEST.

The Piss & Moan thread would be for discussing votes and comments on your own stories. I'm not sure of your point - does that address it?

If you believe that stating a contest story's rating could attract deliberate attacks by trolls and jealous other contestants - then putting that rating anywhere on the Authors' Hangout could lead to that particular story, even your own, being voted down. If you believe that, then don't post current ratings. If you DON'T believe that, remember that other people DO think it does happen so it would be preferable not to post ratings.

True. I think that new contestants should be made aware that the last sweep (sweeps?) are very aggressive and can move ratings significantly.

The sweeps affect stories with a small number of votes far more than those with hundreds or thousands of votes.

 

[Arngrim]

So we are preaching to a tiny congregation.

And it's only getting smaller. By my count, there are three individuals in this contest alone who entered but claim to never enter again, entered but dropped out, or didn't enter because of the negativity.

So then, how do we save our flock? Are they worth saving because they are so few? I'd like to think yes. Doing nothing will change nothing. All the while, it's going to take more than you or I to keep the faith.

 

[8letters]

If you believe that stating a contest story's rating could attract deliberate attacks by trolls and jealous other contestants - then putting that rating anywhere on the Authors' Hangout could lead to that particular story, even your own, being voted down. If you believe that, then don't post current ratings. If you DON'T believe that, remember that other people DO think it does happen so it would be preferable not to post ratings.

90% of stories are out of the contest after their first day.

Do what you want, Ogg. Sorry I wasted my time trying to be helpful.

 

[Arngrim]

90% of stories are out of the contest after their first day.

I don't agree. There have been many stories that were seemingly out of contention bounce back and place. Similarly, there have been stories leading the pack for the entire contest's duration that ended up not placing at all. You just never know.

Of course this is just more fuel for conspiracies.

 

[oggbashan]

...

Do what you want, Ogg. Sorry I wasted my time trying to be helpful.

It wasn't a waste of your time, nor of mine. It explores what happens and what people THINK happens which of course is different. Your contributions were thoughtful and useful.

What I would like is for the contests to attract hundreds more entries. It ought to be possible. Other writing contests on sites that don't have Literotica's massive numbers of daily visitors can get thousands of entries.

 

[NicoleZ]

What I would like is for the contests to attract hundreds more entries. It ought to be possible. Other writing contests on sites that don't have Literotica's massive numbers of daily visitors can get thousands of entries.

Then for the love of God do away with the Anonymous voting and comment systems!!!

* Only ONE vote on each story would be possible (with cookies to keep track and the IP logged in case they wipe their cache)

* If some vote for one author and against several others , oh so EASY it would be for the sweeps to get it right and get rid of that sort of fraudulence!

* Should a Litterotica member be found to be involved in those sort of shenanigans, they could be named-and-shamed (sticky). Repeat offense, the member is banned and all stories by that member, if any, are deleted

* With comments only possible via a Litterotica account or a valid email, abuse would be that much harder, especially during a competition

No system is ever 100% foolproof, but the current one is a complete shambles with the sweeps an utter joke. In all likelihood this is the reason why there aren't that many competition entries (about 60-70 for the Halloween contest?). Has anyone looked at how those other sites with 1,000+ entries do it?

 

[lovecraft68]

It wasn't a waste of your time, nor of mine. It explores what happens and what people THINK happens which of course is different. Your contributions were thoughtful and useful.

What I would like is for the contests to attract hundreds more entries. It ought to be possible. Other writing contests on sites that don't have Literotica's massive numbers of daily visitors can get thousands of entries.

I've thought this many times. That a site with this many authors-I would hazard to say the authors who post even a handful of stories a year could number well over a thousand possibly thousands only gets 90+ stories in a contest and that's a good number the last couple of years.

I wonder how many know about it. Lit advertises it on the home page, but the majority of people enter lit through a bookmark in my case my home page.

She advertises it on the forum, but its only a small amount of authors who come to the forums. I think lit advertises it through twitter, but you have to be following them to see it.

So I wonder if most just don't know about it? That and a lot of people just don't enter for reasons ranging from not thinking they could win and why bother to "I'm not good enough"

 

[lovecraft68]

90% of stories are out of the contest after their first day.

Do what you want, Ogg. Sorry I wasted my time trying to be helpful.

I agree with you, but add that it depends on category and vote total.

If I post an incest story and it has a good day one and that night I'm at 4.74 but with 200+ votes its doubtful I could place. Once you hit a few hundred votes you reach a point where a sweep is not going to give you more than a few point jump.

The stories that have lower vote totals however could see a large jump and come out of nowhere. Hence the thought lower voted categories have an advantage due to the sweeps and each removed bad vote being worth more.

But in general I agree, you know a story has no chance fairly quickly in popular categories.

 

[Bramblethorn]

All I know is that as soon as I started continuously asking my readers not to vote more than once on my stories or downvote the competition, the number of votes swept and number of fives swept from my stories fell off a cliff.

I doubt I'm alone in having fans acting "on my behalf" without my knowledge or approval. The good thing is, it appears most of them listen when you tell them to stop it.

There are far more readers than writers on the site, and all it takes is a quick stroll through the comments section to see how passionate ( in some cases, rabid ) they can be.

That's where I draw my conclusion that fan shenanigans are a far larger share of the whole than anything authors can muster. In my experience, they were actually harming the performance of my stories, rather than helping, based upon the rapid change when I told them to cut it out.

uh huh.

Some time back, I noticed suspicious voting patterns on another author's stories. Not subtle stuff here; I'm talking about stories that had already been out for a month or so, and then suddenly got a hundred votes in a single day, virtually all of them 5s. The stories were already well rated and sitting in a toplist, but not that well rated. It was pretty clear that somebody was stuffing the voting in a blatant sort of way.

I reported it to Laurel, and those hundreds of votes got swept, and the ratings dropped. Then a couple of days later they came back - report, sweep, drop, report, sweep, drop. Until the author announced that they were leaving the site because votes kept disappearing from their stories.

I had assumed that it was most likely the author multi-voting to boost their own work, but apparently not. Presumably some over-zealous fan tried to "help" their fave writer and ended up ruining it for them instead, and although I think I did the right thing by reporting the stuffing I'm sad it turned out the way it did.

 

[sr71plt]

uh huh.

Some time back, I noticed suspicious voting patterns on another author's stories. Not subtle stuff here; I'm talking about stories that had already been out for a month or so, and then suddenly got a hundred votes in a single day, virtually all of them 5s. The stories were already well rated and sitting in a toplist, but not that well rated. It was pretty clear that somebody was stuffing the voting in a blatant sort of way.

I reported it to Laurel, and those hundreds of votes got swept, and the ratings dropped. Then a couple of days later they came back - report, sweep, drop, report, sweep, drop. Until the author announced that they were leaving the site because votes kept disappearing from their stories.

I had assumed that it was most likely the author multi-voting to boost their own work, but apparently not. Presumably some over-zealous fan tried to "help" their fave writer and ended up ruining it for them instead, and although I think I did the right thing by reporting the stuffing I'm sad it turned out the way it did.

Your conclusion doesn't really flow from the evidence you give. And, sorry, that fans generate 100 votes on someone's old story a couple of times doesn't compute with me like the author having latched on to some sort of vote generator him/herself and tried it out. You are basing your view on it being by fans because the author complained about missing votes and left the site? Sorry, that doesn't convince me in any way.

 

[lovecraft68]

uh huh.

Some time back, I noticed suspicious voting patterns on another author's stories. Not subtle stuff here; I'm talking about stories that had already been out for a month or so, and then suddenly got a hundred votes in a single day, virtually all of them 5s. The stories were already well rated and sitting in a toplist, but not that well rated. It was pretty clear that somebody was stuffing the voting in a blatant sort of way.

I reported it to Laurel, and those hundreds of votes got swept, and the ratings dropped. Then a couple of days later they came back - report, sweep, drop, report, sweep, drop. Until the author announced that they were leaving the site because votes kept disappearing from their stories.

I had assumed that it was most likely the author multi-voting to boost their own work, but apparently not. Presumably some over-zealous fan tried to "help" their fave writer and ended up ruining it for them instead, and although I think I did the right thing by reporting the stuffing I'm sad it turned out the way it did.

But you would think the author-presuming it wasn't him doing it-would have noticed that huge influx of votes? Seeing a hundred votes in one day on a story well past its time in the sun as a new story?

Your post reminds me of a similar situation where an author left because he felt his story was being bombed and another author's story pumped up to switch places in the top lists.

 

[lovecraft68]

Your conclusion doesn't really flow from the evidence you give. And, sorry, that fans generate 100 votes on someone's old story a couple of times doesn't compute with me like the author having latched on to some sort of vote generator him/herself and tried it out. You are basing your view on it being by fans because the author complained about missing votes and left the site? Sorry, that doesn't convince me in any way.

On one hand...I could see the author saying "I'm leaving' in indignation to cover up for pumping their own stories up.

On the other...if an author can latch into some vote generator, then why not a reader? There's fans and trolls alike on this site rabid enough to make it a mission to inflate/ruin an author's story.

 

[sr71plt]

On one hand...I could see the author saying "I'm leaving' in indignation to cover up for pumping their own stories up.

On the other...if an author can latch into some vote generator, then why not a reader? There's fans and trolls alike on this site rabid enough to make it a mission to inflate/ruin an author's story.

Who has the most incentive? Who's getting any reward there is to get? It almost always works to go with common sense.

 

[lovecraft68]

Who has the most incentive? Who's getting any reward there is to get? It almost always works to go with common sense.

I agree the author benefits and is the obvious culprit, but there are some obsessive readers here as well.

I'm sure the site could answer that if they chose to make the effort. According to Bramblethorn's post, the site did multiple sweeps on the story when it was reported. You'd think after the second one the site would have looked into it, instead of just running sweeps every time it was reported.

This is another example of how ditching anonymous votes could cut down on this shit. You can only vote once from a user name. But countless times from anon if you can keep refreshing their IP or finding some automated bot to do just keep voting.

 

[sr71plt]

I just apply common sense to whatever evidence I see--and I don't spend a lot of time looking for evidence or yammering about it. If someone brings up an explanation that doesn't pass my sniff test, I'll just say it doesn't and move on. In this case, it doesn't.

 

[EverLux]

Then for the love of God do away with the Anonymous voting and comment systems!!!

* Only ONE vote on each story would be possible (with cookies to keep track and the IP logged in case they wipe their cache)

* If some vote for one author and against several others , oh so EASY it would be for the sweeps to get it right and get rid of that sort of fraudulence!

* Should a Litterotica member be found to be involved in those sort of shenanigans, they could be named-and-shamed (sticky). Repeat offense, the member is banned and all stories by that member, if any, are deleted

* With comments only possible via a Litterotica account or a valid email, abuse would be that much harder, especially during a competition

No system is ever 100% foolproof, but the current one is a complete shambles with the sweeps an utter joke. In all likelihood this is the reason why there aren't that many competition entries (about 60-70 for the Halloween contest?). Has anyone looked at how those other sites with 1,000+ entries do it?

I agree with you and others about disallowing anonymous voting.
The comments, on the other hand, don't really bother me, because the author has ultimate control over those and can remove them at any time.

If the comment is particularly nasty and unrelated to the story/writing, then it should be easy not to take it to heart and just delete it (or not--author preference).
If the comment provides helpful feedback and criticism, then it's valuable whether it's posted anonymously or not.

Plus, some of my favorite comments came without account names attached. I'd hate to miss out on those

 

[sr71plt]

The Web site's intent for the contests (that they pay for) seems to be a bit different from that of some authors. I think the Web site is trying to use the contests to expand reader participation, not contract it. Thus, cutting off anonymous response anything would be going in the wrong direction in fulfilling that goal.

 

[StrangeLife]

Then for the love of God do away with the Anonymous voting and comment systems!!!

----

* With comments only possible via a Litterotica account or a valid email, abuse would be that much harder, especially during a competition

You have some good points regarding the voting system - though I believe that simply hiding the scores while the contest is running could solve most of the problems as well.

But regarding the abolishment of the option of commenting anonymously I cannot agree. Being a Lit author myself I almost always comment anonymously because I don't want to get into "a quid pro quo" situation with other authors. I want to be able to give my honest opinion - not as StrangeLife but as a critical reader. The person who wrote the story I just read deserves that.

Besides, Lit already has an option for contributors to disable anonymous comments. But if they use it, they probably won't get any feed-back from me...

 

[Bramblethorn]

Your conclusion doesn't really flow from the evidence you give. And, sorry, that fans generate 100 votes on someone's old story a couple of times doesn't compute with me like the author having latched on to some sort of vote generator him/herself and tried it out. You are basing your view on it being by fans because the author complained about missing votes and left the site? Sorry, that doesn't convince me in any way.

If it was the author multi-voting, I wouldn't have expected them to be so aggrieved when the votes were swept. Why would somebody go out of their way to draw attention to those irregularities?

OTOH, perhaps I'm underestimating people's capacity for brazenness. I just checked and the author has recently returned - along with some very, shall we say, peculiar scores on their latest work. So you may well be right.

I agree the author benefits and is the obvious culprit, but there are some obsessive readers here as well.

I'm sure the site could answer that if they chose to make the effort. According to Bramblethorn's post, the site did multiple sweeps on the story when it was reported. You'd think after the second one the site would have looked into it, instead of just running sweeps every time it was reported.

To clarify, I PMed Laurel about it at the time and from the brief discussion we had, I believe she looked into it beyond just running sweeps. I didn't ask for more details.

This is another example of how ditching anonymous votes could cut down on this shit. You can only vote once from a user name. But countless times from anon if you can keep refreshing their IP or finding some automated bot to do just keep voting.

Judging by the spam PMs I've been getting lately, it's quite possible to set up a bot that creates new accounts.

We have this discussion every few months, so I'll keep my points brief:

- There is no technological solution for reliably preventing people from multi-voting, unless you're willing to link Literotica accounts to real-name IDs. It would probably have to be credit cards.
- Anybody who thinks it would be a good idea to collect real-name ID info on a prominent porn site running on old IT infrastructure needs their head examined.
- Anybody who would give their credit card info to &etc., for the purpose of voting on a story contest, also needs their head examined.
- Any sort of "one IP address, one vote" measure will do far more to block legitimate votes than to thwart cheats. Seriously people, go read up on how IP addresses work; they're not even close to being a unique person identifier.
- Probably about 90% of legit voters on our contests are anon. (That's just a guess, but based on view counts vs. numbers of logged-in users I think it's safe to assume that most people don't log in unless they have a need to do so.)
- Most of those people won't be interested in setting up an account just to vote, so blocking anonymous votes would greatly reduce the number of legit votes on story contests.
- If you reduce the number of legitimate votes by ~90%, you make every fraudulent vote 10x more powerful. For anybody who knows how to get past simple protections, that makes it EASIER to cheat and harder to detect that cheating.

So be very careful what y'all wish for. Getting rid of anonymous voting might well have the opposite effect to the one you're hoping to achieve.

 

[sr71plt]

Yeah, I think you underestimate folks' capacity for brazenness--and overestimate the interest of reader fans.

 

[ChloeTzang]

If you believe that stating a contest story's rating could attract deliberate attacks by trolls and jealous other contestants - then putting that rating anywhere on the Authors' Hangout could lead to that particular story, even your own, being voted down. If you believe that, then don't post current ratings. If you DON'T believe that, remember that other people DO think it does happen so it would be preferable not to post ratings.

And maybe make that clear on that first post for each contest so that newbies coming in don't get surprised.......and annoyed.... and leave as quickly as they arrived.