One Complaint

[TarnishedPenny]

No problems, GT. It's something that irks us all, to some degree at least. I certainly have a very devoted little pinhead of my own.

The funny thing is that the trolls don't ever seem to drive anybody to actually quitting as a writer, so the psychology of Why has always puzzled me.

Cheers - and vent if you need to.

 

[8letters]

I think there's so much going on behind the scenes with sweeps and such that incredible things happen when you look at short-term changes in ratings for a story with a very high rating and not a lot of votes. I try to capture the stats for all of my stories at least weekly. Looking at the incremental changes to the votes and rating for the first 44 days of my story "My European Summer Vacation (With+)", I get:
First day, 55 votes averaging 4.64 stars
In a day, 30 votes averaging 4.70 stars
In a day, 26 votes averaging 4.87 stars
In 8 days, 40 votes averaging 4.67 stars
In 6 days, 5 votes averaging 5.95 stars
In 4 days, 2 votes averaging 3.16 stars
In 3 days, 7 votes averaging 3.31 stars
In 7 days, 4 votes averaging 5.93 stars
In 7 days, 4 votes averaging 4.69 stars
In 7 days, 11 votes averaging 5.02 stars

I suggest looking at the bigger picture - are you happy with the overall rating of the story? Are you happy with the number and type of comments you're getting? If yes, then be happy and ignore the day-to-day fluctuations.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think there's so much going on behind the scenes with sweeps and such that incredible things happen when you look at short-term changes in ratings for a story with a very high rating and not a lot of votes. I try to capture the stats for all of my stories at least weekly. Looking at the incremental changes to the votes and rating for the first 44 days of my story "My European Summer Vacation (With+)", I get:
First day, 55 votes averaging 4.64 stars
In a day, 30 votes averaging 4.70 stars
In a day, 26 votes averaging 4.87 stars
In 8 days, 40 votes averaging 4.67 stars
In 6 days, 5 votes averaging 5.95 stars
In 4 days, 2 votes averaging 3.16 stars
In 3 days, 7 votes averaging 3.31 stars
In 7 days, 4 votes averaging 5.93 stars
In 7 days, 4 votes averaging 4.69 stars
In 7 days, 11 votes averaging 5.02 stars

I suggest looking at the bigger picture - are you happy with the overall rating of the story? Are you happy with the number and type of comments you're getting? If yes, then be happy and ignore the day-to-day fluctuations.

I want to learn your secret for getting scores over 5!

 

[NotWise]

I want to learn your secret for getting scores over 5!

That almost certainly means that votes were removed as well as added during the period. The net effect puts the change in score over 5.

 

[JaneRamsey]

I don't get trolls here for the stories...it's not like you're forcing anyone to read anything....

 

[Emirus]

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Can a troll vote more than once on a story? Wouldn't that mean somebody could sit all day and give himself thousands of "5" votes? Maybe some people do that.

You could always do a trial. Pick one of your stories (say “friendly” undertaker which is on 3.99) and spend a couple of hours giving it one 5 star after another and see what happens. If it’s spotted that the story score has suddenly gone up to 4.50 and you are contacted then explain what you are doing and why. If nothing happens you know there are no checks in place. Either way you have the answer to your question.

My last story started off with 5’s. Within a couple of days it was down to 3.50. Over the next week it climbed to 4.35. Then in 24 hours it was down to 4.13. It’s now at 4.20.

I think I know what the answer to your question is. Maybe I’ll sit at my pc for a couple of hours.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

You could always do a trial. Pick one of your stories (say “friendly” undertaker which is on 3.99) and spend a couple of hours giving it one 5 star after another and see what happens. If it’s spotted that the story score has suddenly gone up to 4.50 and you are contacted then explain what you are doing and why. If nothing happens you know there are no checks in place. Either way you have the answer to your question.

My last story started off with 5’s. Within a couple of days it was down to 3.50. Over the next week it climbed to 4.35. Then in 24 hours it was down to 4.13. It’s now at 4.20.

I think I know what the answer to your question is. Maybe I’ll sit at my pc for a couple of hours.

I suspect they might go through initially, then (given the same IP over and over) get culled at a sweep.

 

[Emirus]

I suspect they might go through initially, then (given the same IP over and over) get culled at a sweep.

But would that be the case? I can’t imagine that Laurel devotes any of her time to thinking about people abusing the ratings scheme. As for IP addresses will their technology be programmed to look for patterns of the same IP address voting? Is any record kept of IP addresses?

As for the sweeps I don’t know enough about them. I know they happen and I thought that although they took into account that there could be some false 5’s the intent really was getting rid of the trolls 1’s and 2’s in order to give a truer reflection of readers views. Other than that I’m at a loss.

Do you request a sweep of your stories or one particular story? If admin makes the decision to do a sweep what’s their criteria? Do they sweep several authors at the same time or just one at a time? Do they do a sweep if a reader requests it? That doesn’t seem right.

A writer has just had 117 5 star, 2 4 star, and 1 1 star vote removed over 18 stories. It’s the second sweep of their stories in 2 weeks. Why is that? Despite this 17 stories are still well into the 4.50 plus area. But that’s not the point.

So whose got the knowledge to tell me, and no doubt others, in detail exactly how the sweep system works. Because there’s no point requesting one yourself, to try and overcome the trolls, if it’s going to work against you.

 

[8letters]

So whose got the knowledge to tell me, and no doubt others, in detail exactly how the sweep system works. Because there’s no point requesting one yourself, to try and overcome the trolls, if it’s going to work against you.

For Laurel to tell anyone in detail exactly how the sweep system works would defeat it, as people would then know how to get around the sweep system.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You could always do a trial. Pick one of your stories (say “friendly” undertaker which is on 3.99) and spend a couple of hours giving it one 5 star after another and see what happens. If it’s spotted that the story score has suddenly gone up to 4.50 and you are contacted then explain what you are doing and why. If nothing happens you know there are no checks in place. Either way you have the answer to your question.

If you do that from the same device or PC, the system will only allow one vote. It remembers the IP address from each log in. To game the system you'd need to bounce your IP address around (which is how the cretins game the system) or vote from multiple devices. Don't encourage stupidity.

 

[ElectricBlue]

A sweep goes through the entire story file at least monthly, more frequently during contests. You don't need to ask for one, you don't need to have a story in the contest. Everyone's stories get swept at the same time.

The algorithm is obviously kept secret, but a little bit of thought tells you the system records things like IP addresses, time on page - so someone opening a story, going straight to the last page and voting will be deleted. The sweep removes one-bombs, and "helpful fives" also disappear.

For a one-bomb to stick as a legitimate vote, the troll would have to sit with each page open long enough for a reasonable "read" duration to be recorded. Mind you, basement dwellers have plenty of time on their hands, so there is that. Up-voting stories would use the same time-on-page rule, I imagine.