I guess somebody doesn't like me

[Feotakahari]

I've been looking at the trends on my recent stories, and as best I can tell, one very dedicated person is 1-voting everything I post within a day of my posting it. Most of my stories get back up above a 4 eventually, but by that point, they're off the "new stories" list, so my number of readers has dropped significantly.

I have no idea who this person is or what they want. Would it be better for me to disable voting on my subsequent stories, or would that simply drop my readership further? And is there anything I can do about whoever's following me?

 

[sun_sea_sky]

If you give yourself a single 5 vote, that will cancel out the 1 and the story will then have a 3 average. After that, it can stand on its own.

 

[lovecraft68]

If you disable voting it turns readers off sometimes.

More importantly its "mission accomplished" for your pathetic little friend.

Some of the recent one bombs are bound to go away when they have the major contest sweep next week.

I would say just try to deal with it, they'll get bored and move on.

 

[sr71plt]

If you give yourself a single 5 vote, that will cancel out the 1 and the story will then have a 3 average. After that, it can stand on its own.

I'm pretty sure that if you give yourself a vote, it will disappear soon.

 

[CeasarBoobage]

I'm pretty sure that if you give yourself a vote, it will disappear soon.

I'm not sure how true it is, but I thought that any votes for your own story (when signed in as yourself) were removed. Maybe sr71 just confirmed this.

At times I have tried to counter-act the lowball anonymous haters by voting myself a '5' from a computer I'm not logged into. For all I know, any 'anonymous' votes from the same IP address as my username logs in from are also removed. Regardless, it makes me feel vindicated and happy for a few minutes. It's all I need.

 

[RhoSilk]

Well. You see. I use an alt to post on the boards so if someone doesn't like what I say (or doesn't like me, heaven forbid) it doesn't affect my scores. Oh, and never, never pat your alt on the back.

Personally, I think the numbers are overrated. Too many people focus on that. It becomes almost like writing just for the money-never a good plan.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm not sure how true it is, but I thought that any votes for your own story (when signed in as yourself) were removed. Maybe sr71 just confirmed this.

At times I have tried to counter-act the lowball anonymous haters by voting myself a '5' from a computer I'm not logged into. For all I know, any 'anonymous' votes from the same IP address as my username logs in from are also removed. Regardless, it makes me feel vindicated and happy for a few minutes. It's all I need.

If you want to counteract the troll have a friend vote anon from another isp address.

I do think a vote not just from you id, but the isp your id was created from will get erased.

 

[nakdsub]

Unfortunately...

There isn't much you can do about; be thankful you have only one troll following you. You can turn off voting but then you have no really barometer as to how much people enjoy your work since 90% of them will not leave a comment.
Good luck.

 

[sr71plt]

It just may be that we all have about the same number of zappers following us around so that it equals out.

Still think the best answer is for the Web site to recognize that anything between a 4 and 4.5 (by their own definition) is worthy of being highlighted as well (different color "hot" symbol, but a lot hotter than 2, from which it now isn't distinguished. They've come a little way by putting the rating number by the story title on the author's page. That helps.)

 

[lovecraft68]

It just may be that we all have about the same number of zappers following us around so that it equals out.

Still think the best answer is for the Web site to recognize that anything between a 4 and 4.5 (by their own definition) is worthy of being highlighted as well (different color "hot" symbol, but a lot hotter than 2, from which it now isn't distinguished. They've come a little way by putting the rating number by the story title on the author's page. That helps.)

I think there's a couple of problems with another "hot level"

One a story that is say, 4.30 now may escape the troll because they're not taking the H away with a bomb. Now if you have a pink H for that score they'll now bomb it.

The other issue is okay, so now 4-4.5 is "Hot"

Sooner or later people will then want something for 3.75-4.00

No one will ever be happy. It amazes me people get upset with a 4.40 4 means people really liked it so what's the big deal?

 

[sr71plt]

The big deal (for them) is that it doesn't have a red H next to it.

 

[Feotakahari]

In general, I can still get pretty high readership for any story above a 4.0. My problem is that the 1-vote is often early enough to drop my score down to 3.8 or 3.9, and once it gets below 4.0, so few people read it that I only get a handful of votes. In essence, each story is "stuck" until it squeaks out just enough votes to get above 4.0 again.

 

[TxRad]

According to a post by Laurel just a little while ago, if a vote from you ISP is logged it counts. Period.

If you think you have a troll voting down all of your stories, send Laurel a PM and ask her to do a sweep on your stories. Be sure and explain the situation.

One troll isn't a problem. I have at least 4.

But 90% of their crap gets sweep regularly.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

I'm pretty sure that if you give yourself a vote, it will disappear soon.

Maybe. But my suggestion was a temporary counter to a troll. Once you get 30 or so votes, a single 1-bomb will be statistically insignificant. So if your counter-vote is swept a few days later it won't matter. Meanwhile your score is closer to 3 than 1, so other people will read it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If you give yourself a single 5 vote, that will cancel out the 1 and the story will then have a 3 average.

Whether it'll cancel out depends what sort of score you were expecting/aiming for. If you're hoping for a 'H' at 4.5, it'll take seven 5s to negate the effect of a single 1.

 

[nakdsub]

While we're talking scores...

Does anyone know what tentacles are? This is what scouries said he would use on my stories to lower their scores. I really thought he was full of it until stories that had maintained 4.5 and higher for many months, suddenly started dropping. With in two weeks everyone of my scores except 2 had dropped below 4.0. and I knew those 2 were not far behind.

I'm just wondering if anyone knows how that was done and if there is a way for the site to combat it. When I reported it to Laurel she didn't seem too concerned.

 

[Feotakahari]

Scouries maintains quite a few alternate accounts, doesn't he? A 1-vote from each of those accounts could cause a serious impact.

Edit @Bramblethorn: Most of my recent stories trend between 4.0 and 4.4 if you disregard the 1-vote, so I'm not really concerned with the hotlist. Anything above a 4 gets a decent amount of readers.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, Scouries is full of it. So full of it that I doubt he takes the time and effort to do anything to anyone's scores but his own. He's learned that he can rev folks up just with words, which don't require much effort. He seems to be doing well with it.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Whether it'll cancel out depends what sort of score you were expecting/aiming for. If you're hoping for a 'H' at 4.5, it'll take seven 5s to negate the effect of a single 1.

You can't make that blanket assertion. It all depends on the pool of existing votes. The more votes, the less the effect of a 1-bomb.

If you had two prior votes (4 and 5) giving 4.5 then yes, it will take seven 5*s to negate a 1*.

But if you have 14 prior votes then the 1* is diluted, and it takes 5 x 5* to recover. And once you get (say) 100 votes then someone has to work hard to drag you down.

Anyway, @VoteRiggers, it is a nasty thing to do to rig votes, or to threaten to do that. All you really achieve is to lower confidence in the votes, and cheapen the score. If everyone knows voting is rigged, the votes become meaningless. A low score is meaningless and a high score is meaningless. So you haven't really achieved anything except a denial-of-service attack. And if you thinks that's an achievement, go seek help.

 

[sr71plt]

You can't make that blanket assertion. It all depends on the pool of existing votes. The more votes, the less the effect of a 1-bomb.

Well, no, not really. It's just a matter of mathematics. It takes seven 5 votes to bring a 1 vote back up to a 4.50 in that combination of votes.

 

[Stella_Omega]

For all I know, any 'anonymous' votes from the same IP address as my username logs in from are also removed. ...

That would be ascribing far more sophistication and coding knowledge to this site than is actually possible...

 

[sr71plt]

That would be ascribing far more sophistication and coding knowledge to this site than is actually possible...

I don't see that. Why isn't it easier just to wipe out all repeat votes from the same IP (and all votes from the IP that submitted the story)? That, in fact, is what I think is happening.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Well, no, not really. It's just a matter of mathematics. It takes seven 5 votes to bring a 1 vote back up to a 4.50 in that combination of votes.

OK I'll grant you that, but it cuts both ways. Say you have a terrible story that has so far got 1.5 (the equivalent of 4.5 but at the other end). Now after a single 5* from some friend of the author, it will take seven 1* votes to get it back to 1.5.

<begin maths>

If the average is 4.5 then a 1 vote introduces a 3.5 vote "gap" (4.5 - 1.0 = 3.5)

To recover that we need to add back that 3.5, but a 5-vote is only 0.5 above 4.5 (ie. 5.0 - 4.5 = 0.5)

Thus the 5 vote is only a 7th "as powerful" as the 1 vote (at these levels). That is, 3.5 / 0.5 = 7 votes

Things even out a bit if your score is lower. For example if your score was 4, then a 1 vote only reduces you by 3 vote points (4 - 1) and a 5 vote increases by 1 (5 - 4) thus it would only take 3/1 being three votes to recover a 1 bomb if your score was 4.

<end maths>

 

[sr71plt]

Nobody here cares about the score going down. Only what it takes to move the score up. It take seven 5s to offset one 1--the only goal anyone is looking at is the red H.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

I don't see that. Why isn't it easier just to wipe out all repeat votes from the same IP (and all votes from the IP that submitted the story)? That, in fact, is what I think is happening.

IPs aren't totally reliable. For example with DHCP every time you log into your network provider you may get a different IP.

OTOH if you and a friend, both in the same house, vote on a story then it will appear to come from the same IP.