Rankings (again!)

[gauchecritic]

Now I realise I may be going over old ground here, and I'm sure Laurel, Manu or whoever have looked into this before but;

I've just noticed that in the ranking lists for top stories although the average vote cast is what gives the rating, it seems that no account is taken of the number of votes cast.

Some of the stories have not even a hundred actual votes and rate 4.89 or whatever and others have more than 300 votes and rate 4.88 etc.

This in my opinion is a grave miscarriage and not a true reflection of the 'hotness' of any particular story.

So that this doesn't become just a whinge I have a somewhat complicated solution.

By dividing the number of votes cast by the average we get;

A story has 50 votes and an average of 4 (keeping the maths simple) then that would rate 12.5

A story with 100 votes and an average of 4 would rate 25 thereby reflecting both voting numbers and average.

Unfortunately this means that a story with 500 votes averaging 1 would have a rating of 500

So now we have to weight the marking system 1 for poor =5 and 5 for hot = 1 then we have;

50 votes divided by an average of 1(voted 5) rates 50
100 votes divided by an average of 1 (voted 5) rates 100

and now

500 votes divided by an average 5 (voted 1) rates 100

This way a malicious poor vote doesn't have the drastic effect of the current system, but has a positive effect simply because it's a vote.

You don't have to change the actual voting page just the way the calculations work.

If my maths is all to cock then I apologise for this whole unreasoned thread and hang my head in shame.

Gauche

 

[Quasimodem]

And you are willing to lone Literocity a Hal2000 to run this program, right?

 

[deliciously_naughty]

according to weird harold, who's totally in the know about these things, you don't get a ranking until you have at least 10 votes, so that backs off on every story out there holding a 5.00 rating if it isn't deserved. Also, if a story isn't great, it will drop eventually.

 

[M.A.Thompson]

By dividing the number of votes cast by the average we get;

A story has 50 votes and an average of 4 (keeping the maths simple) then that would rate 12.5

A story with 100 votes and an average of 4 would rate 25 thereby reflecting both voting numbers and average.

Unfortunately this means that a story with 500 votes averaging 1 would have a rating of 500

So now we have to weight the marking system 1 for poor =5 and 5 for hot = 1 then we have;

50 votes divided by an average of 1(voted 5) rates 50
100 votes divided by an average of 1 (voted 5) rates 100

and now

500 votes divided by an average 5 (voted 1) rates 100

No offence Gauche, but is this Literotica.com or Heavyalgebra.com? All this talk of rank and voting is distracting from the fun we all should be having here. I for one am here to read and write hot stories and have a good time.

Do I like when I am getting good votes? Yes.
Am I bummed when I am not? Sure.
Is the voting system flawed? You bet.
Is there some way to make a voting system that is fair and liked by all? Doubt it. The United States has been looking for one for over 200 years.

I will stop with the rhetoric and leave you with this………



NANA MAN ROCKS!!!!!!!

 

[ronde]

If I read your math correctly, this voting scenario would reward quantity of voters rather than the quality of writing. I doubt many of the authors on this site would agree that your solution solves the problem you described.

In any ranking system based on objective voting, apparent inequities will appear. The fault is not with the system, but lies in the nature of the data. Stories with similar ratings, but different vote totals, usually indicate the size of the audience to which the work appeals. Readers will not vote unless the story grabs them in some way. This doesn't mean the story with fewer votes is "worse" than the other.

In bookstores, the votes are cast in cash, but the result is the same. Check the sale table at your local bookstore. They occasionally have books by authors with other very successful works. The publishers figured they were worth the investment to put into print. The publishers weren't wrong; the audience just wasn't as anticipated.

 

[gauchecritic]

Not rather than, Ronde, but as well as, and the whole point of the system is to stop sabotage by the one voters.

Gauche

 

[ronde]

GC, I understand your intentions, but the relative magnitude of the numbers will usually favor the number of votes rather than the rating. As your example states, a story with 500 votes and rated an average of "1" would rank the same as a story with 100 votes and rated a "5". This would seem to me to be more inequitable than the current system.

I don't usually have high numbers of voters, and I get a few "1" votes on my stories. I attribute these to voters who were truly unhappy with the experience, or to a few immature individuals with nothing better to do. I don't get upset as long as the majority of voters find my work to their liking. It would upset me if my story were "outranked" by one considered poor by the majority of voters. Your system would work for stories with the same voter rating, and I believe the relative ranking of equally rated stories is currently done in just such a manner.


My tracking of votes for a few stories would indicate "3" votes usually drop the rating more often than the infamous "1" vote.

 

[Weird Harold]

...the whole point of the system is to stop sabotage by the one voters.

What do you propose to stop sabatage and fraud of the "buddy voters" who inflate story scores? That's atually more serious, because there is money involved in gaining a high score in the first month posted.

Number of votes and how ong a story has been posted IS taken into account in the rankings.

The primary ranking is the average of votes cast, rounded to two decimal places.

Tie scores are broken by the number of votes and the date posted. More votes ranks higher than the same score with few votes. If the stoires are still tied, the older is ranked higher than the newer.

In the unlikely event that stories are still tied, they're ranked in alphabetical order.

 

[MechaBlade]

A simple "can't be in the top 25 without 150 votes" rule would fix this. One hundred fifty votes is good enough for me.

Either that or every 100 votes gives more (positive) weight to each vote.
(50 votes * 4 * (.5 each) / 50 votes = 2 average
200 votes * 4 * (.9 each) / 200 votes = 3.6 average
50 votes * 1 * (.5 each) / 50 votes = .5 average
)

This means a story with more votes, but maybe a slightly lesser score might rate higher than a story with less votes. If you want more votes to also have a negative weight to prevent this (if 1000 people say it sucks, then it deserves a worse score than 50 people saying it sucks), then treat "1" and "2" votes like negative numbers.

If any anyone complains about how complicated this is (or even gauche's method), consider how complicated it is already to make a site like Literotica. Now shut up.