Number of votes dropping sometimes

[soulhouse]

Out of curiosity, can anybody explain the mechanism behind the number of ratings dropping on occasion, please?

My first story https://www.literotica.com/s/fucked-stupid under Mind Control has been bouncing between 95 ratings at an average of 4.39 and 94 at 4.38. The average rating going up and down is obvious enough, but not how the number of votes could drop.

electricblue66 had told me previously that I might expect a jump in the average score around Halloween, with 1 star ratings cleared out, and that did indeed happen, with the score suddenly leaping from 4.36 to 4.4 on 98 votes, but the up and down since has me confused. I'd thought initially it might be to do with the deleted votes not subtracting from the total when cleared out initially, but that doesn't explain the subsequent yo-yoing, I believe.

 

[RejectReality]

While sweeps always happen at the end of contests, and have effects that spread throughout the entire story file, those aren't the only sweeps. Any story in the file could have suspect votes removed at any time.

Keep in mind that unless you're sitting on the page, constantly refreshing and watching things in more or less real time, there's no way for sure to know exactly what sequence things happened in.

You could have 95 votes and a 4.42, check a few hours later, and have 95 votes with a 4.50. At some point, a sweep ran, changing your score, and someone new voted, changing the score. So, one vote gone, one vote in, and you have the same vote total with a vastly different score.

You also have to keep in mind that not only 1s are removed. It's suspect votes, and that could be any value — including fives. So your score can actually do down during a sweep instead of up.

 

[soulhouse]

Thanks. That makes sense. It hadn't occurred to me that fives could be as suspect as ones. There's been almost no voting going on since the first 2 weeks of its publication, but I guess the two or three fives it's garnered recently must have been considered suspect.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

While sweeps always happen at the end of contests, and have effects that spread throughout the entire story file, those aren't the only sweeps. Any story in the file could have suspect votes removed at any time.

Keep in mind that unless you're sitting on the page, constantly refreshing and watching things in more or less real time, there's no way for sure to know exactly what sequence things happened in.

You could have 95 votes and a 4.42, check a few hours later, and have 95 votes with a 4.50. At some point, a sweep ran, changing your score, and someone new voted, changing the score. So, one vote gone, one vote in, and you have the same vote total with a vastly different score.

You also have to keep in mind that not only 1s are removed. It's suspect votes, and that could be any value — including fives. So your score can actually do down during a sweep instead of up.

Do sweeps only happen for stories entered into competitions? I've published around half a dozen stories but I've only noticed my score go up appreciably on the one story that was entered into a competition. I'm trying not to obsess about a couple of my lower scoring stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do sweeps only happen for stories entered into competitions? I've published around half a dozen stories but I've only noticed my score go up appreciably on the one story that was entered into a competition. I'm trying not to obsess about a couple of my lower scoring stories.

Sweeps are across the whole story file. I don't know how far back they go - several years at least. I've seen my earlier stories move around every now and then (I've been publishing since 2015). Contest stories are the most volatile, as there is more trolling going on during contests.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

Sweeps are across the whole story file. I don't know how far back they go - several years at least. I've seen my earlier stories move around every now and then (I've been publishing since 2015). Contest stories are the most volatile, as there is more trolling going on during contests.

I try not to, but I'm afraid I do monitor my scores quite closely. I've only recently started publishing stories, so I'm falling into the rookie trap of obsessing over them somewhat.

My most recent story was scoring quite nicely, and was at around the 4.6 mark, but then overnight it suddenly dropped down to about 4.3, where it's been ever since. Perhaps I just got a series of low marks, but that sudden, fairly dramatic change, made me suspect I was getting rogue marks.

I had been assured by other authors that your score would jump up a bit once the fabled 'sweeps' had taken place, and yet that's only ever happened to one of my stories (which was my only entry in a competition). Am I the only author who doesn't get malicious marks? That seems unlikely.

I think my main problem is I was spoiled with my first couple of stories. The first thing I wrote was co-written and published under another writer's name, and it scored around 4.8. Then the first story I wrote solo, scored 4.81. So, I got quite full of myself, thinking I was a natural and I had this erotic fiction down to a fine art. But none of my subsequent stories (albeit, none of them were entered into competition) have scored anywhere near so high.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I try not to, but I'm afraid I do monitor my scores quite closely. I've only recently started publishing stories, so I'm falling into the rookie trap of obsessing over them somewhat.

My most recent story was scoring quite nicely, and was at around the 4.6 mark, but then overnight it suddenly dropped down to about 4.3, where it's been ever since. Perhaps I just got a series of low marks, but that sudden, fairly dramatic change, made me suspect I was getting rogue marks.

I had been assured by other authors that your score would jump up a bit once the fabled 'sweeps' had taken place, and yet that's only ever happened to one of my stories (which was my only entry in a competition). Am I the only author who doesn't get malicious marks? That seems unlikely.

I think my main problem is I was spoiled with my first couple of stories. The first thing I wrote was co-written and published under another writer's name, and it scored around 4.8. Then the first story I wrote solo, scored 4.81. So, I got quite full of myself, thinking I was a natural and I had this erotic fiction down to a fine art. But none of my subsequent stories (albeit, none of them were entered into competition) have scored anywhere near so high.

It's been said here before that one should write for oneself, and the audience will (maybe) follow. Otherwise, you may fall into a pattern of chasing popularity for its own sake. So, yes, scores are an indication of how you're doing but they are not an end in themselves.

That said, we once talked about how the formula for sweeps is a site secret. (I assume Laurel must have announced at some point that they do exist, or maybe it's just obvious that they are happening.) I do have a nagging curiosity anyway of how it works. Low scores might be obvious trolls if the same voters are doing it constantly. But unless one votes for oneself, how do high scores become suspect?

 

[soulhouse]

But unless one votes for oneself, how do high scores become suspect?

Which is exactly what I've been wondering since RejectReality explained the fall in number of votes along with average rating I've experienced recently. As far as I'm aware, the only votes I've had in the last month have been a five star, followed by a five star removed, then another five star, followed by a five star removed, and the same a third time.

I'm not voting for myself, so that doesn't explain it. I've never tried voting for a story more than once, so I don't know if there's a mechanism in place to prevent that (presumably), but whether that would work by cookie or IP address, I don't know. Maybe all 3 five star reviews came from the same IP address and were removed as a result?

 

[SimonDoom]

But unless one votes for oneself, how do high scores become suspect?

It's been said before, but it's probably better not to speculate too closely about how sweeps work on these threads, lest the trolls figure out how to defeat the sweep system.