Karma will get you !

[Guest]

I am not an author I am a reader and I love erotica

And have enjoyed this site for over a year

But I think the contests need a re think
While I have loved the holiday stories
I have seen so many good stories get slammed down
And over the last few days it is beyond a joke as the contest nears its ends
One story has gone from 4.58 to a low 4.44 is two days !!
Others have disappeared from the top lists !!
I mean get real what do you think you are achieving ??
It is no indication of how great the writing is
How the authors used the holiday theme
What the true readers felt when they voted
to all the authors cheers for the hoiday spirit

Whoever the malicious reader is KARMA will get you

 

[WickedEve]

And over the last few days it is beyond a joke as the contest nears its ends
One story has gone from 4.58 to a low 4.44 is two days !!
Others have disappeared from the top lists !!

Dear Reader and lover of erotica, yes, it's frustrating! But remember, contests are very competitive. And in a holiday contest, more people are reading and voting. For as many people that sent this story up the toplist, they're are many who may think it's not that good. And of course, you do have your "1" voters that vote that way for whatever reason. But this happens with poetry too. I've been on the top and later that day I'm 8,954!

 

[Couture]

I would like to see stories that are entered in the contest to have the score hidden. I think this would make things much more fair.

Hell, it would probably be a bitch to program though.

 

[P. B. Walker]

Couture

that ain't a bad idea now that I think about it. I think alot of these people that go around giving "1" votes are doing it because they know one "1" vote will knock that person out of the contest. Of course, I would think that all the authors should be allowed to see their own score (votes), but on the page that shows the stories all the vote averages and number of votes would be hidden.

Great idea.

- PBW

 

[Whispersecret]

Where is it that people are able to view the holiday story scores? I've only been able to access my own scores on my page. I was wondering what the other scores were, just so I could compare my own. Now I know I needn't bother. My measly 4.03 isn't even close. Didn't expect to win anyway. My story was for fans of the novella.

 

[Guest]

wicked eve i have seen your reply and yes while I agree that some may not like a story.

if some one did not like story you would think that would be reflected thoughout a voting period however one of the stories i am referring to had over 700 votes at a vote of 4.58 or thereabouts and is on the top readership list with over 30000 plus votes
within a space of 30 or so votes the score had dropped to a 4.44 and i think now has disappeared off the top list completely or at least i cant find it
now while i agree some people may not like a story 30 people in a row with 1 votes i feel is streching it.
Coincidence that it is closing contest time ? i think not
hopefully the people who run this site will look at all the stories and the ratings they ALL got before they were hit

Another story which has people on this board (refer to Lakota moon thread) saying how good it is ( and it is btw) was also slammed by one voters as the author indicated.


Maybe the criteria is that if you are mentioned on the board you get hit ?
i think a list of contest submissions and that the submissions do not appear on the top lists would be great .

whispersecret i think the stories depending on the vote appeared in the top list for the relevant section.


I really must join and get a name and avatar !

Kate
Karma will get ya

 

[P. B. Walker]

An idea

How about separating the votes. One vote tally (average) is from all readers (users here, authors here, and unregistered readers with no username). The other vote tally (average) would be from readers that are registered users on this site and authors on this site. This second vote tally (average) would be used on the lists of top stories.

I'm guessing all of these "1" votes are coming from unregistered users. So yeah, they get their vote and everyone can see both vote tally's, but they don't affect the lists of top stories.

This way, the only way people could push a story down with a bunch of "1" votes (like what happened to Khul Waters) is by getting together a very large group of people who would all vote together. This is because as a registered user you can only vote once, no matter what computer you are on (i.e., if you are logged in you can't vote twice, even if you try it from two different computers). If they are willing to go that far... more power to them.


If this isn't a good idea... maybe have one set of votes that are unregistered users, users that are not authors (i.e., do not have any stories posted here), and authors (basically all votes) and the second tally of votes would be just authors on this site. That way you would have authors voting on authors for the top lists.

Just a thought...

- PBW

 

[Kate~]

great idea P.B Walker!

bit sad about the no author bit though

(My writing is lousy btw)

but whew got registered LOL

 

[P. B. Walker]

No worries Kate... that's why I put up both ideas... one vote for authors only... or one vote for registered users only. Either works for me because I really think these people that bombard stories with "1" votes are unregistered users. I'm user the WebMaster/WebMistress could verify this fact or disprove it for that matter.

- PBW

 

[VeraGem]

Honestly, I didn't even fool myself that my latest story would place well on the site, let alone in the Christmas contest. It has barely any sex and the ending is less than happy. Still, it got crushed by the voters, (currently below 3), and as much as I tell myself It doesn't bother me - it does.

Oh well. I can write what I like but I can't tell anyone else what they should like. It will have to be enough that I learned a lot in the writing - and more - I learned that my non-erotic stuff probably doesn't belong on Literotica. (Thanks, site owners, for the 'E' though, that made me smile.)

I'd like to see the contests judged by a panel of authors or editors too, but that would open another can of worms, I think. Instead of worrying about 1-voters we'd probably be worrying that the judges were playing favorites - and things would just get uglier from there.

So I'm willing to accept what is - and go back to writing erotica if I plan to submit to Literotica. In hindsight it all seems so simple, no?

 

[WickedEve]

Welcome aboard, Kate~!

All good ideas! Voting should be a perk of membership. If you're unregistered -- you don't vote! This way more people join. And it may stop some of the "1" bombers.
I do know, in most cases, when you get to the top of list or near it, your score will soon drop. So my attitude now is to enjoy the feedback and not worry about the voting. I check my score on stories and poems less and less. But with something special like a holiday contest, it would bug me to be 1 voted out of existence.
It's a shame to see a good story, that someone put a lot of effort in, get voted down. This could, eventually, discourage some writers from entering these contests.

 

[Couture]

If the story gets slammed all of a sudden, have the author contact Laurel and she will investigate for fraud. This same thing happened to one of my stories and she was able to correct it. Also, there might have been a glitch, because I got multiple feedbacks from the same person last night. So, something might be hanging up.

 

[Laurel]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for the suggestions and comments on this thread. We are currently dealing with an issue of some apparent fraudulent votes being cast over the last few weeks. These votes appear to have affected stories submitted to the holiday contest and also stories in a couple of specific categories. The fraudulent votes appear to be both positive and negative, and it appears that they came from more than one source. We're going to spend some time over the weekend investigating the situation and removing the suspect votes. You should expect to see a number of stories lose some votes, and there will be some realignment of the top list as a result.

It is still not entirely clear what entities are behind this recent attack, but we are working on pinpointing the culprit(s). If it does turn out to be a member of the site, and we don't yet have proof it is, then that account will be suspended.

Just to be clear, the bug that affected Couture was a technical problem on our end relating to our move (sorry Couture!). This new situation is an apparent attempt to manipulate the scores by a third party.

The saddest thing about this is that we're going to have to put off announcing the winners of the holiday story contest for a few days while we get this cleaned up. You can rest assured, however, that we won't let the Grinch(es) spoil our Christmas, and the winners will be now announced on or about Christmas Day.

Thanks again to everyone for submitting your wonderful holiday stories & poems, and feel free to contact me if you have questions about this.

 

[littleroundman]

Just a further point.
I've seen one of my two stories drop from 4.57 to 4.49 with only 3 votes being cast in the same time, just today.
While this doesn't concern me, I'm not doing this for any contest, I find it more than coincidental that at the same time, I received a flurry of Worm bearing emails at the account I use only for Literotica. They all carried a heading referring to the story.
So, while the votes aren't a worry, the apparent maliciousness of the people concerned is.
Oh, and the sending of the worm wasn't accidental, trust me, the emails were from people I've never heard of....or anonymous senders via here

 

[Laurel]

Hi littleroundman!

Hope you're well! It is unlikely that worms were intentionally sent your way. The worm(s) that you speak of was most likely sent to you by one of any number of self-propagating viruses. Depending on the day, we get anywhere from 10 to 1,000 of these via email. Many of the newer varmints grab email addresses from browser caches and do all sorts of funny tricks to make you think they're sent by a human, which they almost never are. We use Norton and/or McAfee, and we haven't had a machine infected for many years.

We appreciate your comments.

 

[karmadog]

I resemble that signature.