Regression To The Mean

Nobody ever mentions how low scores also regress to a higher mean.
Actually, I have one like that. After the first week, the rating was about 4.55, Fair, and I had assumed it didn't get much interest. Now, a month later, it's at 4.82. Go figure.

Edit, that with only 50 votes.
 
I think one way to sum up the situation is that a lot of people here want the ratings system to be the Academy Awards, and they are frustrated to find that it's actually the People's Choice Awards.

Also, a factor with scores trending up over the long term that I haven't seen mentioned is rereads. The more a person enjoyed a story the first time they read it, the more likely they are to go back and reread it in the future. If it's been long enough for their vote to no longer show at the bottom of the story, they are likely to rate it highly again.
 
Also, a factor with scores trending up over the long term that I haven't seen mentioned is rereads. The more a person enjoyed a story the first time they read it, the more likely they are to go back and reread it in the future. If it's been long enough for their vote to no longer show at the bottom of the story, they are likely to rate it highly again.
Is that possible? I myself go back and reread some of my stories, but I've never seen the empty stars asking for a vote.
 
Is that possible? I myself go back and reread some of my stories, but I've never seen the empty stars asking for a vote.
I'm not sure how long it takes, but I've seen it. The most common time I notice it is when somebody writes an alternate ending to a really old story and I have to reread the original to refresh my memory. I don't remember every story that I've ever voted on, but I remember some.
 
I'm not sure how long it takes, but I've seen it. The most common time I notice it is when somebody writes an alternate ending to a really old story and I have to reread the original to refresh my memory. I don't remember every story that I've ever voted on, but I remember some.

If they are on a different computer/phone tablet and not logged in it will let then vote again.

Anon's in particular will get the chance when they change browsers or clear their cache and cookies.
 
Which can cause some issues for the writer until a sweep.
Sweeps are a thing of the past. And even if they weren't, they do the job poorly. I'm saying this from a standpoint of someone who tested casting multiple votes on the same story and then observed the effect of the sweep (back when there were still sweeps, as rare as that was)
 
I'd like to see proof of this. I don't disbelieve in it, if others think they are seeing this, but I'd like to see, in some detail, what the proof is, rather than just hearing people make vague allegations that they "know" this is happening.

Proof would be this: Give an example of a specific story, with a link to it, and give us specific evidence of the pattern of voting and scores. Characterizations of what's happening are not sufficient. We need data.
I'll give you two personal examples.

Desire & Duende Chapter 2. It was published in July 2024 and took ages to get to 100 votes, but eventually got there in February 2025 with a score of 4.92, which it had held pretty consistently over that time. It went in at number 1.

hall of fame snip- d&d 2.JPG

It immediately started falling the same day. Bear in mind it had taken 9 months to get 100 votes, suddenly it was getting 4 each day, all cast at around the same time it seemed (between 6am and 8am CET). BUT votes on Chapter 1 didn't move at all. This was not new readers seeing it and starting at Chapter 1, reading it and going "It's not that good" and awarding it a 4. No, this was just votes on Chapter 2. It eventually dropped as low at 4.56, by which point it had 126 votes. After various sweeps and some new readers, it's come up a bit. Even now, Chapter 2 has more votes than Chapter 1, which is not a common pattern.

Then just last week, On a wing and prayer 1 also crossed the 100 vote threshold and went to number 1 at 4.91. This had taken 13 months to get 100 votes. Within hours of being the number 1 story, it was at 108 votes and had dropped to 4.83. It's now 4.81 with 113 votes, with again those further votes all coming in a batch overnight.


Looking at the toplist history, that flattening on N+N seems to be quite a recent development. The most recent archive, from September 18, has a much more natural looking distribution.

Looking at one of the high-rated stories on that list: on September 18 it had an average of 4.87 from 5864 votes, and as of today it has 4.85 from 6063 votes. Doing the math, that suggests that in that time it received 199 votes with an average somewhere between 3.96 and 4.56. (I can't tell the exact number because of rounding in the scores - that "4.87" could be anywhere between 4.865 and 4.8749999).
The same thing is happening in Lesbian and has been since Oct 2024. I had four stories in the top ten at 4.92 for 5 months from June 2024 to October 2024. Right now, in the top 250, there is one story at 4.87, one at 4.86 and 248 at 4.85. I kind of sigh a little when my older stories move up to 4.86 - which they do occasionally - as they immediately get knocked back down to 4.82 or something.
 
Sweeps are a thing of the past. And even if they weren't, they do the job poorly. I'm saying this from a standpoint of someone who tested casting multiple votes on the same story and then observed the effect of the sweep (back when there were still sweeps, as rare as that was)

My Winter Contest entry lost a vote overnight and gained .03 points so they definitely aren't a thing of the past
 
My Winter Contest entry lost a vote overnight and gained .03 points so they definitely aren't a thing of the past
What I meant was that they aren't working the way they used to. Sure, Laurel still does some limited sweeping during contests, and sometimes it even affects non-contest stories. But their impact isn't even a tenth of what it used to be.

My latest story had a stable 4.85 rating and was just barely out of the all-time top list in Lesbian. Then it lost one vote overnight, and it propelled my story to 4.87, earning it a second place in the top list, which it held for several hours, until the top list mafia gave it six consecutive 1*. My story now sits at 4.73.

So you see, these rare, tiny sweeps aren't necessarily a good thing. ;)
 
I think one way to sum up the situation is that a lot of people here want the ratings system to be the Academy Awards, and they are frustrated to find that it's actually the People's Choice Awards.
True!
Also, a factor with scores trending up over the long term that I haven't seen mentioned is rereads. The more a person enjoyed a story the first time they read it, the more likely they are to go back and reread it in the future. If it's been long enough for their vote to no longer show at the bottom of the story, they are likely to rate it highly again.
Once a vote is registered from a device, I'm pretty sure it sticks forever. I'll often find a story seems familiar, to find I've voted for it already.
 
if you're skeptical about how the toplists work I think you also have to accept that there's some level of automated rating happening; otherwise you're into conspiracy territory
Say more?

Because... my knee-jerk reaction is that that sounds like conspiracy territory to me, right there. But I don't know what skepticism or automation you're talking about or what it would have to do with toplists.

Educate me?
 
If it's been long enough for their vote to no longer show at the bottom of the story, they are likely to rate it highly again.
How long does that take, and what other conditons are necessary for a vote to disappear? When/why would they not stick forever? I believe that non-anonymous votes are permanent. I imagine you're talking about anonymous ones? Why wouldn't they also be permanent and what evidence is there that they might not be?
 
If they are on a different computer/phone tablet and not logged in it will let then vote again.

Anon's in particular will get the chance when they change browsers or clear their cache and cookies.

How long does that take, and what other conditons are necessary for a vote to disappear? When/why would they not stick forever? I believe that non-anonymous votes are permanent. I imagine you're talking about anonymous ones? Why wouldn't they also be permanent and what evidence is there that they might not be?

I always use the same browser on the same computer, and I'm always logged in. I have had to clear my cookies a time or two after updates to the site broke my ability to log back in until I did, but it would be bad design to tie something long-term to my current session rather than my account.

I have no idea how long it might take or what else might be involved, as I've never attempted to track such a thing. The ones I know for sure my votes didn't appear on were quite old, but I couldn't give you an exact age on them either.
 
Say more?

Because... my knee-jerk reaction is that that sounds like conspiracy territory to me, right there. But I don't know what skepticism or automation you're talking about.

Educate me?
What I mean by that is that... Toplist skepticism -- I think the behavior of the all-time toplists in multiple categories suggests that stories that break through the logjam tend to get lots of downvotes when they do, and only authors with big fanbases can overcome that (which is why there are zero stories on the Romance toplist above 4.85 with fewer than 1000 ratings). I think those downvotes are more likely to be the result of a small number of people casting several votes each than it is a coordinated effort by lots of voters -- that's the conspiracy I referred to. If you believe that the behavior of stories rising, hitting high places on the toplist at 100 ratings and then collapsing is a normal exposure effect, then yeah, no conspiracy, just a bad rating system and perverse incentives.
It immediately started falling the same day. Bear in mind it had taken 9 months to get 100 votes, suddenly it was getting 4 each day, all cast at around the same time it seemed (between 6am and 8am CET). BUT votes on Chapter 1 didn't move at all. This was not new readers seeing it and starting at Chapter 1, reading it and going "It's not that good" and awarding it a 4. No, this was just votes on Chapter 2. It eventually dropped as low at 4.56, by which point it had 126 votes.
If you take that example, the average rating of the first 100 was 4.92; the average rating of the next 26 was 3.17. It breaks down almost exactly to 14 5-star ratings and 12 1-star ratings (or 14, 11 and 1 two-star, depending on how rounding works in the back end). I kind of think it's more likely that that's one person casting twelve votes than it is twelve people each casting a single vote.

Edit: and by automation, I'm referring to the tendency for stories to often get those sorts of votes in bunches at predictable intervals.
 
Stepping back from individual cases and example, Regression to the Mean is a valid concept, mostly. But not always.

At the risk of getting into a Pirsig-esque debate about undefinable Quality, let’s agree that each work of art each does indeed have some intrinsic value, merit or worth. High school art class daubs have relatively little, whereas works by Michelangelo, Picasso or Rubens are possessed of a great deal, are simply better. If all art were to be compared together, judged merely on merit, the masters’ works would naturally rest at one end of the scale and crayoned works taken from the refrigerator at the other.

If large numbers of people continue to judge this broad array of artistic effort, is it reasonable to think that that the relative assessed values of paintings of big-eyed children on black velvet and Rembrandt’s Night Watch will converge, regress to the mean? You’d have to work very hard to convince me of that.

I think you've misunderstood the concept you're arguing against; "regression to the mean" doesn't require the assumption that everything has the same mean.
 
I always use the same browser on the same computer, and I'm always logged in. I have had to clear my cookies a time or two after updates to the site broke my ability to log back in until I did, but it would be bad design to tie something long-term to my current session rather than my account.

I have no idea how long it might take or what else might be involved, as I've never attempted to track such a thing. The ones I know for sure my votes didn't appear on were quite old, but I couldn't give you an exact age on them either.
There's an AHer who rarely posts here, with whom I've discussed these things extensively. We both did plenty of testing. Lit handles the votes in a simple way, and it's easy to abuse. I can tell you that I managed to cast close to twenty votes on a single story before I decided to end the testing. It was back when the sweeps were still happening, and I wanted to observe the effect of sweeps on such votes.

There's plenty of stuff I could tell about the way voting works, but I keep silent so as not to encourage potential trolls and abusers. But let me tell you, there are a lot of wrong assumptions about voting.
 
Swept votes will clear the stars for logged-in users. Friendly fire is a thing in bone-cutting contest sweeps.

There are any number of ways for an anonymous user to find the stars cleared, even if they're not purposely attempting to multi-vote. Most of the unsophisticated trolls and overly enthusiastic fans are going to think they've beat the system just by doing one of those things, but those votes will be the first thing to go the next time a sweep comes through. It takes more than casting a vote for it to stick.
 
There's an AHer who rarely posts here, with whom I've discussed these things extensively. We both did plenty of testing. Lit handles the votes in a simple way, and it's easy to abuse. I can tell you that I managed to cast close to twenty votes on a single story before I decided to end the testing. It was back when the sweeps were still happening, and I wanted to observe the effect of sweeps on such votes.

There's plenty of stuff I could tell about the way voting works, but I keep silent so as not to encourage potential trolls and abusers. But let me tell you, there are a lot of wrong assumptions about voting.
I don't think you're implying it, but I want to be clear anyway.

I have never deliberately tried to abuse the voting system. I may have voted more than once on a story, but only because the option was presented to me organically.
 
Well, then I guess it's a good thing that their voting system is strictly limited to porn story rankings and not being used to pick the next President or Prime Minister.
I'm not entirely sure that's the case, considering the amount of dicks and assholes that serve as presidents anf prime ministers all over the world. I'm pretty sure that at least those votes in Anal do count.
 
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