Question about "1 bomb" rating attacks

[inkyscandal]

Hi all,
I'm trying not to be paranoid, but something weird seems to be happening to my stories' ratings lately. They acquire a few new votes and the average score falls precipitously. Is it possible some person or bot is systematically rating all my chapters with 1-stars? How would I know if these are real votes or just anticompetitive behavior by folks trying to keep their own work on the category top-rated page?

I guess at the end of the day I don't care, but it is annoying to see a score go from, say 4.78 with 29 votes to 4.18 with 34 votes, right?

Thanks for any insight you all can provide.

 

[PennLady]

What category are your stories in? That might explain some of it. Loving Wives especially seems to be ground central for 1-bombs and trolls.

 

[TxRad]

With that score, yeah, you probable pushed someone down the top list for that category and got bombed to get them back up.

With any luck, the end of month sweeps should clear it until they do it again. or you could PM laurel, the site owner and let her know what is happening. make sure and include a link for her to your story. You'll find her name up in the sticky section.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hi all,
I'm trying not to be paranoid, but something weird seems to be happening to my stories' ratings lately. They acquire a few new votes and the average score falls precipitously. Is it possible some person or bot is systematically rating all my chapters with 1-stars? How would I know if these are real votes or just anticompetitive behavior by folks trying to keep their own work on the category top-rated page?

I guess at the end of the day I don't care, but it is annoying to see a score go from, say 4.78 with 29 votes to 4.18 with 34 votes, right?

Thanks for any insight you all can provide.

If you see suspicious voting on your own story or anybody else's, use the "report this story" option on one of the affected stories and use the text field to request a sweep of votes. Works pretty well - though like PL says, if you're posting to LW you may get tired of reporting before they get tired of bombing. Some authors set up an alt specifically for their LW content to keep bombers away from their other score.

That said, even with straight 1s it shouldn't be possible to go from 4.78/29 to 4.18/34. If those were the exact numbers, it probably means some of your 5s got swept along with new votes coming in.

 

[TxRad]

If you see suspicious voting on your own story or anybody else's, use the "report this story" option on one of the affected stories and use the text field to request a sweep of votes. Works pretty well - though like PL says, if you're posting to LW you may get tired of reporting before they get tired of bombing. Some authors set up an alt specifically for their LW content to keep bombers away from their other score.

That said, even with straight 1s it shouldn't be possible to go from 4.78/29 to 4.18/34. If those were the exact numbers, it probably means some of your 5s got swept along with new votes coming in.

I just checked some scores and yes, it looks like a sweep went through sometime during the day.

 

[sr71plt]

I think this is happening to most all the authors all the time. It just goes with the territory of posting stories here.

 

[lovecraft68]

With your initial score being that high I am sure a rabid fan of an author(or fans or sad to say maybe the author themselves) bombed you to push you down the list.

really pathetic period, let alone the fact this is a free site, its not like there is anything at stake.

I have a story that without even looking at the list cam tell it must have moved up a list because as soon as it goes up a point its right back down, the sweeps do help.

You can also use the report a story feature and when it asks for a reason put you feel you have been hit with suspicious troll votes.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Every time I piss someone off they one-bomb me, then a sweep undoes the damage.

Over time decent scores geld one-bombs, and your scores float towards the top.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Under 100 votes your score is volatile and susceptible to sharp swings based on very few additional votes. The 4.78/29 to 4.18/34 swing, however, is both extreme and mathematically impossible. You most likely lost 5s as a result of a sweep and then suffered some malicious 1 bombs. Overall, not a good day for that story. The next sweep should wipe out those 1s.

 

[walkerlong]

I'm a frequent victim of malicious 5-bombing. These trolls will rate my stories really high, just to goad me into feeling all superior. Then my pain is all the more acute when they come back later and aggressively vote the story down. It's diabolical!

Sometimes I outsmart them by not checking my scores for whole hours at a time.

 

[inkyscandal]

Wow, thanks for all the responses. It's nice to learn I'm not imagining things. Perhaps the next sweep will change things. As for the stats in my original post, I wrote them from memory so I am sure they are inexact. I don't write down my stats, so I don't know what they were before, it just seems in the last 2 weeks (since one of my chapters started approaching the top lists in the Exh&voy category), all my recent chapters have had nothing but declining ratings. But who knows, maybe they are legit votes from people who just don't like my style.

Btw: the story in question is Tease to Please, which started in Exh&Voy and whose 11th and final chapter appears in the Erotic Couplings category. When I started writing I didn't expect it to become so big, but then it developed quite an earnest little following, so I carried on through to the end.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[trace_ekies]

Wondering

.....

 

[FragileUnbroken]

Wow, I'm really glad to read this. I had been discouraged. I had some stories doing well and then saw sudden drops that didn't make sense. I don't consider myself a great writer, but the fast drops didn't add up. I'm super new here so I don't know the ropes and I'm still a little wrapped up in the novelty of watching my scores, so that makes it worse.

I don't know what a sweep is, but it's encouraging to think that any maliciousness doesn't last.

FYI this was in BDSM. I don't know if that one is one of the ones that get hit by these 1 bomb very often.

Is it unethical to counteract that a little by 5 starting your own stories?

Another question. Does turning off scoring on your stories impact how well it reaches people?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

IRL most writers suck and most readers are dolts plus we live in an age where everyone gets a tee-ball trophy and runs a victory lap around AH.

 

[DeYaKen]

Hi all,
I'm trying not to be paranoid, but something weird seems to be happening to my stories' ratings lately. They acquire a few new votes and the average score falls precipitously. Is it possible some person or bot is systematically rating all my chapters with 1-stars? How would I know if these are real votes or just anticompetitive behavior by folks trying to keep their own work on the category top-rated page?

I guess at the end of the day I don't care, but it is annoying to see a score go from, say 4.78 with 29 votes to 4.18 with 34 votes, right?

Thanks for any insight you all can provide.

I don't think there is evidence of anything untoward going on. The numbers of votes you are talking about here are so small that they are easily influenced by extreme votes. If you were talking about this happening after a couple of hundred votes it would be a different story.

Look at it this way the first 29 people who feel strongly enough to vote thought it was great, then along come five who absolutely hate it. It's only five votes but it's fourteen percent that hate it. of course the score dropped.

If you look at the trends you will see that very few stories maintain their initial high score even fewer start low and climb higher. It's just the way it is.

Don't get paranoid, there is nothing weird about what is happening, it's pure chance.

 

[FragileUnbroken]

I don't think there is evidence of anything untoward going on.

Don't get paranoid, there is nothing weird about what is happening, it's pure chance.

I actually think the OP is correct. Out of sheer OCD fascination and novelty, I watched my numbers pretty close for a couple of days after each submission. A couple of them experienced what she is seeing too, but since they made it off the front page and the views slowed down, they slowly creep back upward.

That being said, I think there is something untoward going on, but it's something petty and easily remedied by the votes getting cleaned up eventually.

In the end, what I've learned from this, is that you can't look at the numbers to guage how well your stories are received, and the better thing is to write because you enjoy it, write from your heart, and let it be what it is.

The comments say more than the ratings do, and you do have a little control over that. This Laurel who runs the site seems absolutely brilliant at trying to make this place as safe and fair as semi anarchy can be.

 

[DeYaKen]

I actually think the OP is correct. Out of sheer OCD fascination and novelty, I watched my numbers pretty close for a couple of days after each submission. A couple of them experienced what she is seeing too, but since they made it off the front page and the views slowed down, they slowly creep back upward.

That being said, I think there is something untoward going on, but it's something petty and easily remedied by the votes getting cleaned up eventually.

In the end, what I've learned from this, is that you can't look at the numbers to guage how well your stories are received, and the better thing is to write because you enjoy it, write from your heart, and let it be what it is.

The comments say more than the ratings do, and you do have a little control over that. This Laurel who runs the site seems absolutely brilliant at trying to make this place as safe and fair as semi anarchy can be.

I stand by what I said. in the bit you chose not to quote.
You can't even begin to see a score as how well a story is received until it has at least a couple of hundred votes. Study some statistics and you'll see why. a modal system instead of an arithmetic mean might give you a better idea of what people think, but you have to live with what you've got.

 

[Tsotha]

Why not simply deactivate voting? What information, exactly, are you authors getting from it?

There is no guideline for voting. One person might come along and think, "this isn't perfect, but it was a fair attempt, so I'll be nice and give it a five." Then another comes along, thinking: "this is really good! But compared to <my favorite writer> it's trash, so I'll give you a 3." And that's not even considering trolls and serial 1-bombers, or even worse, trolls with technical knowledge, who can bypass the sweeps.

 

[RejectReality]

Almost everything that highlights a story and increases its initial exposure lifespan is based upon score.

If you turn off voting, your story slips into obscurity that much faster. Even a sub-4 score will get you read more than no score at all in many categories, because it appears on the toplists/spotlights/etc.

When you turn off voting, you're giving up readership. It's as simple as that.

Why not simply deactivate voting? What information, exactly, are you authors getting from it?

There is no guideline for voting. One person might come along and think, "this isn't perfect, but it was a fair attempt, so I'll be nice and give it a five." Then another comes along, thinking: "this is really good! But compared to <my favorite writer> it's trash, so I'll give you a 3." And that's not even considering trolls and serial 1-bombers, or even worse, trolls with technical knowledge, who can bypass the sweeps.

 

[StrangeLife]

One-bomb one-bomb you're a one-bomb
You can give it to me when I need to come along
One-bomb one-bomb you're my one-bomb
And baby you can turn me on

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/hexenal/tom-jones.jpg

 

[robertreams]

One-bomb one-bomb you're a one-bomb
You can give it to me when I need to come along
One-bomb one-bomb you're my one-bomb
And baby you can turn me on

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/hexenal/tom-jones.jpg

well, you earned your name!

 

[trace_ekies]

... You can't even begin to see a score as how well a story is received until it has at least a couple of hundred votes. ...

One of my stories, at 204 votes, was 4.48. Now at 699 votes, it is also 4.48. In the last approximately 500 votes it has had a low of 4.47 and a high of 4.49. Admittedly, it did have a 4.50 after the first two votes but that was followed by some pretty wild swings. It took 204 votes before it settled into a +/- 0.01. I lean toward agreement with DYK.

 

[Tsotha]

That's a good reason. Thank you.

Almost everything that highlights a story and increases its initial exposure lifespan is based upon score.

If you turn off voting, your story slips into obscurity that much faster. Even a sub-4 score will get you read more than no score at all in many categories, because it appears on the toplists/spotlights/etc.

When you turn off voting, you're giving up readership. It's as simple as that.

 

[RejectReality]

That's not to say that turning off voting is bad for everyone, though.

If you have dedicated personal stalker(s), they're probably going to drive your scores down so low that you gain no readership benefit from leaving voting on.

The roller-coaster ride of scores may be distressing enough to steal the creative drive from some. If you're not writing, nobody's reading, so turning off scoring and getting on with writing could be a positive there.

 

[Tsotha]

That's not to say that turning off voting is bad for everyone, though.

If you have dedicated personal stalker(s), they're probably going to drive your scores down so low that you gain no readership benefit from leaving voting on.

The roller-coaster ride of scores may be distressing enough to steal the creative drive from some. If you're not writing, nobody's reading, so turning off scoring and getting on with writing could be a positive there.

One thing I've noticed is that long stories divided in chapters tend to get better scores as time goes by — I imagine the first few chapters serve as a gateway of sorts, filtering away both those who simply don't like the story and the less rabid trolls, who would (example given) 1-bomb a story for featuring a kink they don't approve, and simply leave.

There is still a frightening number of people down-voting, though. Possibly trying to get their own stories into the top 10 list.