Proposal For Voting Reform - For All To Review

[TheHermit]

Written Proposal For Voting Reform - For Anyone To Review

Below, in 8 separate posts, are a collection of ideas which have been crafted into what I hope you'll find to be a serious, practical proposal for how the current voting system can be more useful to both author's and readers, while greatly reducing the impact of fradulent voting.

Overview: Implementing Suggestions 1~3 will vastly reduce the effects of fraud voting, yet the the ranking system vitrually unchanged.

There are 9 suggestions and 3 Ideas all total. They are the first 8 of 9 posts below. I tried to attached a single .txt file, but it lost all it's formatting, see Weird Harold's comment below. The remainging ideas and suggestions are my attempt to consolidate ideas for reform expressed within the forum.

There is an exit/opinion poll, please vote after you have read the porposal, Thank you.

The Hermit

 

[Weird Harold]

I have attached a .txt file because I don't want ot lose the minor formatting and it is 3000 words, so it may be too long for a post anyway.

There is no formatting in the file when opened with IE5.5 via your link -- it's all one paragraph.

 

[TheHermit]

BACKGROUND

I've read enough threads and e-mails to feel certain that many people who care about this site feel there are flaws in the voting/feedback system. Mostly the writer's discuss this problem, but I'm not alone in feeling readers like having the better stories easy to spot as well.

It is my intention to summarize many thoughts that are scattered throughout the forum into a concise, actionable presentation. I'll attempt to represent as many of the ideas I've seen as possible. While including my opinions, I did my best to incorporate ideas and suggestions expressed in threads such as Tactical Voting, Count Me Out On Voting, Voting Reform - Ideas Please, Vote, Stupid Human Tricks, The H Files, and more I didn't think to write down when taking notes.

I wish to credit some of the folks who took the time to offer their ideas, there are certainly more, but I wasn't recording names when I performed much of my early research. Thanks to: Alextheswede, Christo, Couture, Dhenshaw2, DVS, ItsLeslie, Karmadog, Margo-x-x, Moonfire, Octivan, Ronde, StoryTeller, SubJoe, The Earl, Tyjord, Whispersecret, Wildsweetone, Wm_Sexspear and many more that I learned from. Also to a few people that e-mailed me with data they were reluctant to post in this forum.


PRACTICALITY REQUIRED

To be implemented ideas must have support, be cost effective, and practical from a programming perspective. Not knowing how this site is coded, nor what data is maintained means no outsider can be completely confident of a suggestion's practicality. However, I can make some educated guesses.

 

[TheHermit]

BIGGEST BANGS FOR THE BUCK

The heart of the frustration as I see it is gross abuse of the 1-vote. It was intended for identifying literary trash: unedited, rambling, horribly misspelled verbiage. It is clearly being used by a tiny minority as a cruel weapon. 1 and 2 votes are, in all likelihood being used almost exclusively for fraud. Therefore they could and should be de-fanged ASAP.


Suggestion 1

Without disrupting your current ranking in any meaningful way, the 1 to 5 voting values could be switched to these values: 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0


Suggestion 1A

Instead of having the numbers on the voting page, use words to minimize voter confusion. As someone wrote, #1 is a good thing to many Americans. Using titles also guides the voter into voting an appropriate numerical value for what they meant. You surely have many new readers who won't understand that a 4-vote today is almost a negative, despite the fact that the current 1~5 buttons imply they are saying "this story is above average".

These titles are just examples:

[ AWFUL - POOR - AVERAGE - ABOVE AVERAGE - WOW ]

with AWFUL = 3.0 and WOW = 5.0


Advantages:

This is highly likely to be dirt-cheap as well as easy to implement. The new and older ranking numbers will co-exist perfectly. The few stories ranked below 3.0 today might rise over time, but so what.

Some folks presently wish there was a vote between a 4 and 5 - they want to be able to say it's good enough for an H, it IS above average, but it could be better. People aren't voting in some cases because they can't justify a 5, but don't want to 'hurt' a story with a 4, so you might get actually more voting.

For brevity's sake; this will cut the fraud voter's power more than in half. If you have a high rank of 4.89 after, say, 45 votes, then get hit with five 1-votes it would require 180 5-votes to regain your original score. But it would only require 85 5-votes to counteract five 3-votes. The math to prove this is posted on the 2nd page of this thread.

Disadvantages:

None that I can see.

 

[TheHermit]

Suggestion 2

Display the vote distribution.

Advantages:

If both the readers and writers can see a breakdown of votes, attempted fraud will be far more obvious to everyone. Today, if all could see how many 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5-votes were being cast, true readership preferences and reactions would be vastly more evident and meaningful to both authors and your readership.

The numerical value of each vote is currently being stored by the system, otherwise Laurel's antifraud software couldn't back out flagged votes. Today fraud votes disappear into a lump-sum rank number. Take the sheep's clothing off of the wolves and it will be harder to hide in the flock.

Since anti-fraud software exists, it could likely be patched to populate the vote distribution buckets as it works. Over time, and without requiring extra initialization runs, the older stories could display their voting breakdown along with new stories.

Disadvantages:

No idea how technically difficult or expensive it would be to display the vote distribution. Doesn't seem like it would be terribly hard or costly, but that is for Laurel to say. The red H could be replaced by displaying the 5-vote [WOW] total in red or BOLD for a 4.5 or higher rank if freeing that space would help.

Sample Display: Awful=nnnn Poor=nnnn AVG=nnnn AbAvg=nnnn WOW=nnnn

 

[TheHermit]

Suggestion 3

Option 1: Accept that there will be an anti-social minority bent on being terrorists/cheats - compute the stories rank with that as a given. Adopt a strategy that assumes the worst. Using the current 1~5 vote range for purposes of example, start adding the votes cast from 5 down until 95% of the votes are found, add in the votes from the next tier, then compute the rank.

Examples: If adding together the 4-vote and 5-vote counts yields 95% of the total votes cast, then add in the 3-votes and compute the rank. In other words, if the vast readership says the story is a 4 or 5, ignore any 1's or 2's - they are almost surely fraud votes. This makes it even harder for the fraud voter another way too, they can't be sure where to cast a vote for it to register; too low and it will surely be ignored, higher, and it won't actually effect the rank very much.

If 3.0[former 1] and 3.5's [former 2]are potentially dropped for a popular story, the fraud vote might have to be a 4.0[former 3] to even be picked up. This means many more fraud votes have to be cast to have the former impact; it may become almost like work plus easier to detect via the multiple vote software. A story with no fraud votes against wouldn't be effected.

If you have to add together the 3, 4 and 5 votes to get 95%, then add in the 2 votes before computing a rank, and so on. A story that is so bad that it got many 1 and 2 votes will end up having them all counted because the computer would get down to the 2's or 1's before finding 95% of the votes cast.

I've read "what about friends voting?". I say this: how many friends can a person have? When it only takes 5 1-votes to wreck a story, and 180 to get back to where you were, which is the real problem? No system can stop pal votes. A hermit like me will have few friends, someone with 20 pals will always have an edge if the 20 are willing to vote dishonestly. However, based upon the sentiment I'm reading, the vast majority of author's merely want a fair understanding of how the readership receives their latest work.

I suspect if you create a poll and ask the question "Are you more worried about cronies pushing up a story, or a fraud attack sinking your story?", most would simply want a trustworthy ranking. I read one author who's only goal was to get a better score than they got for their prior story, yet it is clear fraud voting is terminally skewing the rank numbers downward.

Option 2: Instead of adding top down until 95% of the total votes is found, some folks suggest taking a percentage off the top and bottom. This would be a good second choice because it still attacks the horribly destructive fraud votes. Only someone like Laurel who's had to waste tons of time digging into fraud votes would be able to give an opinion of the percent of stories getting significant fraudulent 5-votes. I suspect very few do, so I'd hate to see 5's come off of every story unless necessary.

Advantages:

The programming to add either formula would likely be short and simple, therefore very low cost. I suspect there is only one place where the ranking number is actually computed after each vote is cast, I'd expect only a very few lines of code would be needed at that spot. This approach would require that the votes by type are stored and available as each vote is cast.

If this succeeds in keeping the real-time rankings fairly accurate, over 99% of us will be happier, better informed, and Laurel can spend far less time having to write Grrrr. Only the bad guys lose in this deal.

 

[TheHermit]

SUGGESTION 1 TO 3 SUMMARY

A democracy is about majority rule. Today a single lame-brain with a tool The Earl mentioned in 'Voting Reform - Ideas Please' can decide just how far down any story will sink, not the voting public. I am convinced this is going on now. Worse still, because the votes by type are hidden, most of the fraud voting is invisible.

I've seen enough documentation to be convinced the current anti-fraud software is only partially effective against the few very fraud votes it now takes to significantly distort/lower rankings. Furthermore, no matter how good your preventative software, a determined troll/bandit/terrorist/cheat will eventually find a way to get a few votes in.

I feel either Suggestion 3, option 1 or 2, combined with the current sniffer software and the first two suggestions could wipe out most of the problem.


ADDITIONAL IDEAS AND CONSIDERATIONS

A number of author's suggested a 1 to 3 vote range, or only voting LIKED IT or DIDN'T LIKE IT. Others suggested a TOP LIST based upon the most BEST/LIKED IT/WOW votes.

Other suggestions were for only registered people be allowed to vote. There was a further idea to only give registered people 1 vote per month. Requiring written feedback and/or an e-mail address to vote was brought up. The biggest problem with these approaches is you'll likely get far fewer votes, and maybe give cliques and peoples with lots of time to use the Bulletin Section a big voting advantage. Also, converting all of the existing stories my be very difficult.

 

[TheHermit]

Suggestion 4 & 5

I hung my hat on suggestions 1~3 as my best guess of a combination of actions most likely to succeed AND most likely to be actionable within your existing framework. No re-education needed, easy enough that an overworked Laurel might consider it, plus the old and new stories could still be ranked alike. Virtually no data conversions are required.

However, another way to attack fraud voting is to emphasize the positive. You could show which stories in each category have the most BEST/WOW votes, all the 1-votes [3.0] in the world wouldn't effect that number. A system that rewards 'positive' voting is harder to sway, but it would have to be within each category; How To stories seem to get very few votes, while Incest Stories get a lot of attention/votes.


Suggestion 5

For those people thinking maybe only author's should have a vote, consider this: Only registered votes would be provided [actually see] an additional option on the voting panel. Registered voters can, in addition to the normal vote, can click on a special LAUREL button. [As in bestowing a laurel upon an exceptional story]. Rules, only 3 laurels per ID in a given month, no author can vote for their own story. The top 100, 200, or whatever LAUREL vote getting stories could be sorted like the READER VOTING Top List.

 

[TheHermit]

OTHER INTERESTING IDEAS

Idea 1)

I believe it was Storyteller that thought it would be good if written feedback and or an e-mail address was required to give a 1 or 2 type vote. It might have a positive effect. Maybe a few people would think twice before punching in a lowest vote. Some people who are making what Laurel has referred to as a legitimate 1-vote might actually say why they're hammering your story.

I don't think that any system can verify that an e-mail address is legit, so you might as well accept anon's. Fraud voters can type gibberish to fool the system, but at least it might slow them down a bit or make their handy-work more recognizable.

Idea 2)

Christo wondered about only allowing registered voters to vote for the very lowest settings. Anyone one could vote for AVERAGE - ABOVE AVERAGE - WOW, but only a signed in voter could cast a AWFUL - POOR vote.

I felt it was a very interesting thought, but might not be necessary if Suggestions 1~3 work as hoped. If they don't, combining Idea 1 and 2 might have a definite deterrent effect.

I'd suggest recording how many low votes are made by ID. The computer could produce an action report listing those ID with inordinate low voting activity for possible reversal and closure. If all off the votes they cast get reversed, the fraud voter will have wasted a lot of their time and achieved nothing. Since the levels that trigger action would be unknown, now the troll would have still more to worry about.

Idea 3)

Tons of writer's want more/better feedback. Consider redesigning the Feedback page. The current page is very 'busy'. It could do more to encourage a reader to drop a line.

Begin it with a short message such as: "This author would love to get a few words from you to better understand what you liked the most and the least, if anything. Your e-mail address is OPTIONAL."

For registered voters, fill in their e-mail automatically if they unclick anon. This would reduce typos in the email addresses. Show all the other GO TO type options further down the Feedback page. Remove any that no one ever seems to use.

 

[TheHermit]

Suggestions 6 to 8

Add a Suggestion Box Forum. I've seen a variety of posts which said to me that a degree of frustration exists because people have no idea if an idea or suggestion important to them has reached site management. You can have a few rules or guidelines posted to suggest that only short, fully developed ideas be posted there. It is not an area for discussions, only for posting something you'd like you'd actually drop into a box at work.

The forums are the places to float and haggle over ideas. The suggestion box would be for polished, finalized proposals. Laurel, or whomever, would periodically 'empty' the box, leaving a short note that the suggestions have been read. then that thread could only be closed by management.

I offer this idea with the hope that Laurel would have less work if those things meant for her were organized and left in one place instead of spread over a zillion threads. Maybe if people could see what suggestions have already been made along with replies from Laurel, she wouldn't have to address the same ideas repeatedly.


Suggestion 7

Same as 6 for bugs and problems. I posted a bug that explains why Unregistered sometimes appears in the forum instead of a user ID. I left a note in the thread Voting Reform - Ideas Please, but I have no idea if the people that need to know about it to fix it will ever find it.

If adopted, instead of many people posting the same problem in many places, wondering if anyone knows, it could be posted once. Anyone could browse the known problems list to see if their bug has been reported. When fixed, a quick "Fixed on mm/dd/yy" could be posted for anyone wanting to find a status. This might save Laurel a lot of typing, plus alerting anyone still having that problem the Laurel's fix wasn't a universal cure.


Suggestion 8

FAQ sections exist for a good, well understood reason. I saw a number of questions from newer people that arise time and again. Would a 'Been There - Done That' section or new FAQ document save a lot of typing?

One example was vote counts and viewed counts being out of sync, I think I saw that one several places. If someone creates a good response to a recurring question, maybe the Q & A could become a numbered thread with just that Q&A in a special Been There - Done That section. Then a Search might find it, or old hands could direct future questioners to #nnn. Like the joke about the prisoners who've been in so long, they numbered all their jokes and just shout "17", or "43" to get a laugh.

 

[TheHermit]

Suggestion 9

If nothing else is done, save this document in a permanent location so that down the road people with ideas or questions can be referred here so they at least know what has been considered already, then devote their energy to fresh thinking.

[Could I submit this as a How To section piece? How To Fix a Pain-In-The-Ass! LOL]

************

I hope more of you think this proposal is a WOW than an AWFUL. I don't know how many voices it takes to change Titanic's course, but I've shouted "ICEBURG", now it's your turn. I'll be happy to help a more more if there is something I can do, but a parade takes people willing to walk-the-walk. I don't see myself leading a march, I hope someone some of you are willing. My best wishes.

Please respond to the poll so some idea of the number of people interested enough to read this proposal can be known. Thanks.

That's it. I'm done. Back to my cave. TH

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Suggestion 9

I hope more of you think this proposal is a WOW than an AWFUL.

I'd rate it more of a Ho-Hum.

Most of your suggestions wouldn't do anything to reduce fraudulent voting because the fraudulent and malicious voters will simply vote the minimum they can and skew the numbers within a different range of arbitrary values than the current sytem offers.

In an older thread on voting problems, I made a couple of suggestions -- one of which you've included ("regularizing scores") -- but both were philosphically unacceptable to Laurel's free speech philosophy.


I'm content that voting here is, for the most part, as fair as at any other site that offers feedback. Over time, a story's true worth will usually shine through in spite of any malicious intent in the voting. My only remaining concern in the voting here, is when it affects monetary or other prizes.

The playing field is essentially level for all authors here and as a way to determine the relative merits of a story the voting system functions. Any absolute worth a story may have isn't measured by the voting, but by feedback. An author has the option of accepting or rejecting criticism offered in feedback and can better gauge the mood of their readership.

High voting scores are nice, but except where awards and prizes are concerned, they aren't an objective measure in any way.

 

[its Leslie]

Considering the tens of thousands of votes that get thrown out for being questionable during a very real and very genuine and very serious vote (I am referring to the US voting proceedure for national elections eh).

I think it is entirely acceptable that if 80+% of votes are 3s 4s and 5s, to just turf the 1s and 2s. 80% was just a sum I grabbed at random, maybe 75% would be worthy.

Sure everyone is entitled to their opinion, and it's laudable that Laurel is protecting the right of assholes to vote 1, just as freedom of speech protects the rights of say Neo Nazis, to say the holocaust is mostly myth.

But in the final analysis, do we reeeeeeally giving a flying fuck for the rights of those 1 vote assholes really?.

I mean do we authors really care? Is it more important to preserve their right to piss us off, or to safequard our ability to cast more useful, less hostile, more constructive votes among ourselves.

I personally would like the ability to cast a vote for an aspiring author's latest work. I would like to be able to say hey not bad dude, I gave ya a 4, and I think with some polish you have some 5s in ya.
I would rather the voting was something we could all enjoy with a sense of satisfaction, if it was more or less harder to fuck with.

I know the votes mean something to some. Sadly I have refrained from voting in some cases because I thought, why bother, I think it was a 3 maybe a 4, but if I cast my vote I am not helping them really. The votes are just not trustworthy enough.
Input is nice, but who wants to hear something they will never fully feel like trusting.

Some times it takes just a little detail to make or break a situation. Case in point, both here and on another forum (a wargaming forum), there is the needed software to alert me that a thread I have posted to has seen a new post. This seemingly minor detail is the only reason I care a wit for this or that other forum. Because in the end, I am not going to endlessly browse threads to check if one of my comments has drawn any sort of reply.

A more functional voting process could greatly magnify the effective draw of the site here (assuming that more is better).
I don't know what manner of device Literotica employs to gain monetary worth here, but it must surely be capable of benefiting from yet more traffic.

 

[Pure]

Some of these proposals (like similar ones seen before) are not bad. The main problem is that the author --TheHermit-- mainly seeks to raise all votes and all scores -- "All shall have prizes". This, the author may not know, does NOT appeal to Laurel, and for several good reasons.

In any case, it's a hard sell.

The author doesn't mention one simple measure; simply eliminate 1's.

I'm not sure about the .5 votes, i.e. having five ratings from 3-5.
There's no reason integers can't be used.


I like the idea of words explaining the numbers, so that 3 (or whatever) is said to be average. "5" could be explained as, "top 5%" or 'one of the best I've seen this month'.

The idea of distributions is interesting, maybe not that hard to do.

The author isn't quite logical at that point, since he simply tries to eliminate low votes.

He doesn't see a problem in fraudulent "5" votes. What he should have said, in my opinion, is that, from the distribution, take off the top 5% and the bottom 5%

As for the other proposals, they tackle almost intractable problems with varying success. It would be good to get more comments, and perhaps a friendlier set up would do that.

The old idea of making low votes explain themselves probably can't work. The vandal simply gives a 1 and says, "you suck, you suck, you suck" or "you suck!!!!!!!!!!" to the minimum required message length.

In fact it would be good for the 4's to explain, "I didn't give you a 5 because of....."; that would be useful.

The ideas of tallying registered votes separately may have some degree of merit. Each story would have a 'general' vote average, and a 'registered' vote average.

The author doesn't deal with multiple registrations, however.

Another proposal, not made, that I like is to have an 'authors' vote, tallied separately. Let anyone with 5 stories be considered an author. Tally these separately, so a writer can see the 'author' votes and average separately from the overall votes and average.

I do like the proposal of limiting 1's from a single source, say , weekly, daily and hourly limit. Yet in theory, suppose I want to amuse myself by finding BAD stories and giving them 1's. Why can't I, having found 5 bad ones in a single sitting, give out five 1's?

Again, the author is too focussed on raising scores, and is drawn to complexity, but some simple ideas are of merit. **Eliminate 1's and encourage feedback in various ways. Eliminate top and bottom portions of the scores.

 

[Weird Harold]

Some of these (like similar ones seen before) are not bad. The main problem is that the author mainly seeks to raise all votes and all scores -- "All shall have prizes". This, the author may not know, does NOT appeal to Laurel, and for several good reasons.
In any case, it's a hard sell.
...
The ideas of tallying registered votes separately may have merit. Each story would have a 'general' vote average, and a 'registered' vote average.

FWIW, registered votes are recorded separately from the total votes. They're only used to determine contest results, and displaying them generally wouldn't improve voting complaints, because, for the most part, stories that win, win by either vote count.

Other than regularizing votes by tossing a certain percentage of top and bottom scores, there is essentially nothing that can be done to the voting system that will make a material difference in which stories score highest. They might score higher by a point or two less than they do now, but for the most part, the story rankings would remain the same.

No matter how the raw data is manipulated or restricted, the stories all settle into a "natural" order. What numeric values are assigned to the scores that rank them in that order, it all comes out about the same.

The one constant in malicious voting seems to be that the more an author bitches about votes, the more malicious votes they get. The whiners are the only ones who benefit in any way from eliminating the "one" votes -- then they can whine about all the malicious "two" votes they get.

A minimum vote has the same effect whether it's called "one" or "4.999"

 

[Pure]

As to
"a minimum vote has the same effect whether it's 4.999 or 1"

This is a valid point, as far as ordinal ranking goes.

Cardinal scores change.

This, unfortunately seems to be the author's main purpose, as I and you have said, in different ways. In particular, compressing all votes in the 3-5 range, does not affect ordinal ranking.

While initially things would look better, eventually the score for a 'hot' or 'top' story would have to be reset, at, say, 4.75.

Then, if you do your math, you'll find that "3" has the same drastic effect on maintaining 4.75, as "1" currently does on maintaining 4.5.

[Added comment on distributions. While it would be interesting to see distributions, as the Hermit proposes, they wouldn't do what he thinks they do: Say a writer gets ten 4s and ten 5s and four 1s. Can you validly say, He's a good writer, *really* worth 4.5, who's unfairly attacked by four vandals? No. I think you might get the same voting pattern at the local McDonalds. Obviously there are thousands of high votes (5's) on their package, yet a few of us snobbish gourmets hate it, and would give it a 1. Can you correctly say, "MacDonalds is *really* good, except for the disgruntled votes of a few weirdos?" No. Obviously]


On another note:
I was visiting "nerve" magazine online, and like some other places, there is a log for feedback on a story. It's kind of nice to see the comments of others, listed. I wonder if lit could allow a writer, say, each month, to have such a feedback page for ONE story?

 

[Weird Harold]

On another note:
I was visiting "nerve" magazine online, and like some other places, there is a log for feedback on a story. It's kind of nice to see the comments of others, listed. I wonder if lit could allow a writer, say, each month, to have such a feedback page for ONE story?

I once suggested (when the site went to the script driven story database) that each story should create a thread in the story feedback forum and post a link for "public feedback" with the links for voting and anonymous feedback.

Apparently the programmer was baffled by the suggetion and couldn't figure out how to implement it (or just didn't understand what I proposed, since the programmer was Russian.)

Using the BB forum with "rate this thread" turned on would give a separate voting score to compre to the "official" score -- although there would be some confusion about whether it was the thred or the story being rated that way.

 

[its Leslie]

Well I guess "whining" can't currently apply to me I suppose.
Having voting not on right now, I am merely interested in making voting more employable.

But I do agree, a fraudulent 5 is every bit as much of a problem as a fraudulent 1 in the end. People could be casting biased 5s just as much out there (might even be more fauning sicophants out there than assholes for that matter).

Makes you wonder if some of the Hs were achieved unfairly due to biased favouritism.

 

[Octavian]

Voting Reform

First I want to say thank you to Hermit for the proposals he has made to reform the voting. It is obvious to me, at least, that a lot of effort has gone into this.
For what it is worth I would favour proposal 3. But the existing system could be improved simply by showing the % of ‘5’s in the score. At least it would provide some balance to the ‘1’s.

Weird Harold says only the ‘whiners’ gain by eliminating the ‘1’ votes.
This is a disingenuous argument. All us ‘whiners’ want is the elimination of malicious ‘1’s. And who gains from this? You do! How does any newcomer to Literotica begin to identify what stories are worth reading out of the 26000 that are on the site? It is more likely to be by the scores, isn’t it?

As I post this I know my story is being zapped to oblivion. Five ‘1’s have been given in two days. Who loses from this? You do! It is a very good story. Three days ago it might even have gone to the very top of the charts and now it will soon disappear into the mass of mediocrity. I know I sound conceited but I make no apology. I know its worth.

But I don’t suppose that I am the only new author to be made to pay for threatening the established order. There must have been others and this will continue without some reform in the voting system.

We all lose out if good work cannot be recognised.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: Voting Reform

This is a disingenuous argument. All us ‘whiners’ want is the elimination of malicious ‘1’s.

As I post this I know my story is being zapped to oblivion. Five ‘1’s have been given in two days.
...
We all lose out if good work cannot be recognised.

I was not making a disingenuous argument, merely making a factual observation based on the periodic reoccurance of this topic over that last three years.

Every time outrage is expressed against malicious votes, those who are most vocal gain an increase in malicious votes on their stories -- at least those whose stories are readily identifiable.

I have never experienced the phenomenon first hand on any large scale, because I don't post here under the pen name I post stories under. The twits who vote to spite the "whiners" have to work a little harder to strike at my stories. Not to mention that I usually make it fairly clear that it doesn't bother me if they do strike at my stories.

What most have found is that rather than try to change a voting system that, basically does what it's supposed to, starting a thread with a link to a specific story, or putting your author's page as a link in your signature will boost your scores for good stories and counteract malicious voters.

By the time a story reaches 100 votes or so, the "natural score" for the story starts to emerge -- perhaps a bit lower than it properly deserves but very close to it's "true" rating.

I don't have access to the raw scores, but I suspect that there are very few 2 and three votes -- most are ones or fives with a fair sprinkling of fours from people who won't rate anything "excellent."

The dynamics of voting favor high votes and in the long run malicious votes just don't matter unless you spread bait for the trolls around your stories -- ie let them know it bothers you.

 

[TheEarl]

But in the final analysis, do we reeeeeeally giving a flying fuck for the rights of those 1 vote assholes really?.

I mean do we authors really care? Is it more important to preserve their right to piss us off, or to safequard our ability to cast more useful, less hostile, more constructive votes among ourselves.

I care. I loved my H's. I'm not churning out stories that quickly atm (at least not any that I would be proud to put on Lit), so I'm very protective of my two best and some bastard gave me 1s because he went through every story in the Celebrity top list and gave them all 1s and screwed my scores. Never mind that it's not personal, those H's meant that people were reading my work and actually cared that I'd done it. Because those two are in Celebrities they don't get as many reads or as many votes, so they haven't worked off the 1s yet.

The Earl

 

[NoJo]

Ones

Eral, same happened to me . It's like when someone "keys" your car door. I was livid, and revenge fantasies took hold of me.

I think though it's best to take a breath, and write a new story. Blow the fuckers away.

 

[Pure]

The 1s can discourage, yes. But to the Earl, I say,
abatement is not so complicated.

To the Hermit, I say,
it doesn't take a 2000 word proposal to abate the problem.

1)Simply lop of a percent (say 5%) of the bottom and top scores.

I'm not sure why the Earl is so upset if all top stories are hit, his status in the top 10 or 20, whatever is unaffected. It's true that some categories run high; some, like bdsm, at times run low on "H" stories, but the best are usually near the top.

2)If the Earl simply wants to know his scores minus any 1's, then The Hermit's proposal for display of distribution would suffice.

3)To actually abate the problem (of loss of Hs) there would have to be a restriction on 1's cast during a single site visit, or on a single day.

4)Also, registration might be required to vote, with each registration requiring a nominal sum, say $5 a year and a Visa or other cc number.

To the Hermit:
See, it really isn't so complicated. Whether anyone wants it, is a different question, and whether the side effects are worse than the disease is also open to debate. I personally would favor 1), maybe 2) and yes, to 3). I'm not sure about 4).

 

[TheHermit]

Check Your Facts

I am responding to some of Pure and Weird Harold's comments. It seems highly doubtful to me the Pure read very much or very carefully. The comment that I was 'just trying to raise the scores' is ridiculous. What I suggested is a short series of do-able steps that will simply report a score that is very close to what the readers are voting. It is called honest reporting. What you have today is highly questionable trend reporting.

I suspect from some other comments made by you and Harold that you do not truly appreciate the disproportionate power now given to the tiny minority that periodically throw out 1-votes like rice at a wedding. The Lit system was predicated upon the ideal that people would vote what they felt. This ideal is practiced by 98% or more of the voters, the remaining two percent, and it can be a little as 1 control freak, can turn the judgment of the 99% upside down. A story with almost all 5-votes can suddenly disappear so far down the Top List that no one but a very few readers will ever notice it again.

If you had the ability to plug voting scenarios into a program or spreadsheet as many of the author's have, you would instantly see the mathematical truth of what I wrote. SUGGESTIONS 1 THRU 3 WILL VIRTUALLY ELIMINATE THE IMPACT OF FRAUD VOTING AND REPORT WHAT THE READERSHIP IS SAYING.

Weird Harold seems to suggest that nothing should be done because nothing has been done in the past. That Laurel won't act in order to preserve 'free speech'. If true, the free speech currently being protected is the same free speech practiced by 19 terrorists on 9/11. Yet we give the pea-shooters to the good voters [5-vote] and A-bombs [1-votes] to the terrorists who are casting votes simply to destroy. Furthermore, it is highly improbable that the fraud votes are evenly distributed.

A story will NOT necessarily recover over time. It takes very few fraud votes to insure a story will never recover - there are only so many votes even the best story will ever get. As stated before, it takes 180 5-votes to offset the impact of 5 1-votes. That kind of impact is why you have constant fraud voting. If they couldn't see you were being screwed, they'd get bored and leave.

As for Laurel not acting in the past… that is possibly because this community has never really pushed for reform. With thousands of threads, the stray idea here or there is not likely to prompt an overworked person to devote resources to making improvements. When I added the poll I certainly hoped at least several hundred people might vote for change. The present handful of respondents WILL be ignored. But it is also hard to make all those people in the Lit community that might want improvements aware there is a flag they could rally around.

I read a great definition of Insanity - Continually doing the same thing, yet expecting different results.

To anyone wanting change, consider telling people about this thread in other forums or threads you visit. If you see someone upset by fraud voting, direct them to this thread to cast a vote for reform. You don't have leaders here, you don't have an author's spokesperson, but you can spread an idea via word-of-mouth. If you're tired of a few people deciding where your story will rank instead of the readers, YOU have try, and try again, to make it a broad-based concern.

 

[its Leslie]

With regard to Laurel "doing anything" I guess it all comes down to....

Why did Laurel set up Literotica, and currently, what is Literotica to Laurel.

If Laurel is merely "busy" then it would be a simple matter of delegating the task.

If the site is merely an "indulgence" then Laurel will never have any more interest in worrying over the matter than any other indivdual in Laurel's position.

If the site is producing income (I am assuming it is), and that is its true function and purpose, then indulging fussing over a minor side issue is also unlikely to rate high priority concern (especially if it doesn't inherently generate in come).

That is it in a nutshell.
It is never going to rate any attention, if the attention will be devoted to an endeavour that has intrinsically little worth to those that must make the change.

So while all our opinions are valid ones, we may be discussing an issue, that will never be resolved for lack of any interest by the contolling parties.