How Literotica is manipulated

[DebbieH]

[No personal attacks or trolling. Heated discussions are fine, even welcome. However, personally attacking a fellow author or reader personally is not allowed within the Author's Hangout. Your document contains unfounded accusations against a Lit author. You have posted the previously in German and have been asked not to accuse other authors. This thread will be closed, per the AH rules.]

 

[Bramblethorn]

Not the main point of your post, but:

The main reasons for a bad rating (usually with one star) of an actually good or very good story are:

...

Protest: A reader finds a story so bad that he gives it one star. This does not necessarily mean the overall quality, but an aspect disturbs and annoys the reader so much that he gives the worst possible rating. In terms of examples, I found on Literotica: Racism, contempt for women, or rejection of certain practices...

Who gets to declare that a racist/misogynist story is "actually good or very good" and that a one-star vote is illegitimate?

The scoring criteria are described in terms of reader reaction: "I Hated It" through to "I Loved It". Readers have just as much right to hate a story on grounds of racism or misogyny as they do on grounds of poor spelling or bad plotting, and to downvote it accordingly.

 

[windar]

When you say "a good story" that's a matter of opinion. One person's good story is another person's crap. And with erotica even more so, because what arouses one person will have no effect or even turn off someone else. A story could be an honest-to-god literary masterpiece and fail to turn on someone who is wildly excited by a piece of utter drivel.

There are no objective standards beyond the rudiments of grammar and spelling and allowing yourself to be guided by votes as either a writer or a reader means that you are subjugating your own taste and judgement to some mass opinion, which even if that opinion is totally unmanipulated is foolish IMO.

 

[Emirus]

When you say "a good story" that's a matter of opinion. One person's good story is another person's crap.

I came across a story recently and was sufficiently intrigued by the title and description to start reading it. By the time I got to the bottom of the first page I realised, although it had a good score, it wasn’t my cup of tea. Rather than leave it there I skimmed through the rest of it just to be sure.

So what did I do? Did I leave a comment? No, because what could I say? That I didn’t like it? What would be the point of that? The story was actually quite well written with just a few errors but that’s the case with the most experienced of writers.

Should I give it a 1 or 2? I never vote less than 3. No matter what I think of a story the writer has put a lot of time and effort into it and doesn’t deserve a kick in the bollocks just because my opinion is different from most others who have voted.

I realise others will disagree with my method of voting but it’s the way I do it and if someone does use the 1 and 2 that’s up to them. I don’t have any disagreement with it. Agree to disagree is better than telling someone they should do the same as you.

 

[LAHomedog]

This wouldn't surprise me. Automated manipulation via software programs seems to happen on many or even most sites. I think it is an unfortunate sign of our times.

 

[XerXesXu]

I googled 'automated voting software' and got this response.

https://2captcha.com/software/category/golosovalki

Presumably, this type of software could easily be adapted to manipulate Literotica, it's harder to understand why anyone would make the effort.