Score sabotage

[lovecraft68]

My second story went to I/T. It wasn't even incest; it was a sister-in-law story. It was about half a Lit page, and the editing was mangy.

But somehow, on the morning it posted it was the first story on the I/T hub, and on the New list. I checked it when I got up about six hours after posting, and it had thousands of views. I refreshed the page, and it had 2000 more views. It was getting hundreds of views/minute. That died down pretty fast, but it's still one of my most-voted stories, and one of my lowest-scoring.

I thought I'd avoid incest when I started out, but then my next eight stories went to I/T.

Ahh....the I may write this, but I will never write that....but then you do as lit ultimately corrupts muahahahah

I always had a thing for bro/sis going back to my teens. When I was writing my long sibs series I used to say I'd never write a mom son...I just thought it was an abuse of power situation even with consent

Then I decided, well I'll try one...and it was a gateway drug as I have written who knows how many at this point

Then I had a longer phase of never touching daddy daughter because I have daughters and would never want anything to think I ever for a second saw them in that light

Then it shifted to this is fantasy, just like I'm not writing about my mother, I'm not writing about my daughters...and I've done a few, always with the daughter as instigator because for me personally dad instigating is rapey

Then...the last one "I, lovecraft68 whose incest stories are not strokers and who believes in trying to make the implausible plausible, will never write full family incest!" I used to think its just mindless orgy and how pandering and stupid.

But then, I'd written almost everything else in every kink I wanted, and I started seeing it as...okay, I think its silly and stupid, but...why not put up or shut up, and try to write one with some type of reason it happens...

And that gave birth to my Family Affair series which is for now anyway only for sale.

What's next? Whatever I immediately think I'll never write most likely

 

[lovecraft68]

Just don’t expect high scores in Loving Wives unless the cheater suffers retribution. A lot of retribution. Otherwise, expect to be 1-bombed.

Its a lot of attention, but not always the kind you want

 

[NotWise]

I would love to see the trendline of views in I/T over time. Was it always so popular on this site? It seems like something happened in the last couple years causing that genre to absolutely explode and every porn site became totally plastered with it. The top viewed/rated/hottest videos are all in this category. And I feel like it wasn't always like that!

I'm a fairly recent member here, but I was reading Lit back around 2000. I think I/T was the biggest category even then.

 

[lovecraft68]

I would love to see the trendline of views in I/T over time. Was it always so popular on this site? It seems like something happened in the last couple years causing that genre to absolutely explode and every porn site became totally plastered with it. The top viewed/rated/hottest videos are all in this category. And I feel like it wasn't always like that!

Interestingly enough, on Google Trends interest in this search term peaked in 2014 and has been declining ever since, which seems a few years too early to me. Maybe all that traffic which used to scour Google for it just went directly to porn sites as it started to gain popularity.

Anyway, I'm a nerd. Stuff like that makes me curious.

Just lit or in general? Because Taboo is the number one porn search especially step sis step mom.

I trust google the way I trust MSNBC or Fox news.

 

[NotWise]

Maybe it was mainstream porn that caught up to erotica in the last few years?

I suspect so. There certainly seems to be plenty in mainstream porn now.

 

[lovecraft68]

I suspect so. There certainly seems to be plenty in mainstream porn now.

Yup step and "real" but its funny when people act like its something new when Kay Parker's Taboo came out in 1980 but I imagine the anonymity of the net blew it up.

Porn hub released a map of what the biggest searches per state was and RI was teen...I would have thought that just by myself I could have pushed it to taboo.

 

[Woody110]

Thanks everyone for chipping in. I’d been giving thought to simply turning off the scores and you’ve helped me make my mind up about that.

To touch on a couple of points though...

I need to clarify that I didn’t start this thread to bitch about the scores I received. I’m happy with them. I simply wanted to express my observation that the whole point of scoring is easily undermined on this site, affecting us all, and see how you feel about the issue. It was not ‘woe is me’ but ‘this sucks for everyone’.

An example of the strange score behaviours I saw is all three chapters in a series gaining one vote apiece in a short space of time, all of them negative. Another is the middle chapter being the only one to attract ongoing votes, all of which just brought the score down. That chapter happened to be the highest rated of the three by quite a margin. One more example is the third and most recent chapter in a different series receiving a rash of obvious one bombs, going from 4.92/24 to 4.77/27 in a short space of time. Obviously I’m not saying that my stories can’t receive low scores. What I am saying is that the patterns seem fishy. And once again, not a complaint - an observation.

Voboy, I don’t know you yet so I’m not sure if you meant to sound condescending or if it was accidental. I’ve been writing for decades and I’ve been on Lit since January so I can assure you I don’t write for the scores here. I didn’t say I don’t worry about the scores, I said I don’t worry that mine are too low. Of course the scoring system itself concerns me. If I’m putting my work out there for critique, whether the feedback is good or bad I would like it to be honest. Also, I wasn’t asking you to help me rationalise my response to anything. I asked you how you explain an odd phenomenon that mildly irked me. No coping strategies requested or required. I’m not averse receiving insightful advice that I didn’t even know I needed, but you are just way off.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

These days BDSM on Lit is practically dead - what you say might explain it. But it being dead means fewer people post there which in turn results in more inexperienced writers/practicioners posting there...

I have a theory about the lingering death of the BDSM category. As BDSM became more popular, a lot of people started trying to own it. Everyone from pretenders to long-time practitioners felt they had the right and responsibility to tell other people what BDSM should mean and how it should be done. Much of this happened under the guise of promoting safety. Many of the people who did it, and still do it, seem to be looking for recognition as BDSM authorities more than they seem to be looking to contribute to the well-being of other people.

On bulletin boards, in chat rooms, and in story comments, people were taken to task for discussing, thinking about or writing about BDSM in ways that didn't conform to the ideologies of the self-appointed enforcers. The level of self-righteousness is absolutely toxic. It spiraled as time went on. What started out as advocating safe words and consent became a rigid orthodoxy.

The biggest problem with mind-policing something like BDSM in the context of erotica is that it ignores the fact that BDSM stories are fiction, just like any other category. It is a theme and a concept, not a catechism. Or at least, that's how I see it. I haven't seen it in a while, perhaps because I rarely even check the BDSM category (my previous favorite), but well-written stories in the category were often flamed for the characters' lack of written agreements, check lists, safe words, ground rules, et cetera.

I realize that there are plenty of people who use all of those things in their actual practice. At least, I assume there are. I am convinced, however, that most of those things do not have a place in most stories unless they are a plot point. Safe words are an obvious exception because their very existence creates a type of tension. But when characters start filling out pre-sex checklists, I lose interest. When characters get undressed to have sex, I assume they take their socks and shoes off, but I generally don't want to read about it.

I think all this injected a sterility that was incompatible with the category, or with creativity in general. It's not surprising that a lot of what we're left with is uninspired. The badly written stories, the stories that don't really belong in the category, and the stories that one fears may have been written by twelve-year olds without a firm understanding of anatomy have always been there. But like you suggest, they just didn't show up in top lists because there were appropriately drowned out by other, better stories.

I doubt anything but time can fix the problem. I recently started submitting my own stories, and I'm not sure I can see myself ever submitting something in that category. I suppose my own perceptions of the readership for that category have become skewed by the BDSM police. I can certainly see that as a category, it might be susceptible to the sort of score sabotage suggested by the OP.

I've wondered about score sabotage myself. I've seen mathematically impossible changes in my score that did not correspond to one of the site's sweeps to adjust for fraudulent voting. I've read explanations attempting to explain how this happens, and none of them would convincingly account for what I noticed. I had one story jump from #1 in the category (after it had over 100 scores) to not even showing up in the top list, even though my lowered score still should have showed up on the third page of the top list. Then it showed up a couple of days later in a position consistent with the oddly lowered score. Who knows?

My thought is this: whatever the vagaries of Lit's scoring and ranking systems, they probably (hopefully) apply to all authors equally. If trolls are bombing the stories in a particular category, I would expect all the stories in that category to be affected. I suppose it's always possible that some tremendously insecure author is attempting to snipe authors they view as competitors. No system is completely safe from the bored and emotionally unstable.

I still care about the score because it's the best metric I have for whether there's an interest in my story. I care about the comments more, though.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

Ahh....the I may write this, but I will never write that....but then you do as lit ultimately corrupts muahahahah

I understand this. Published my first story in 2009. Swore I'd never write a gay male story as it is not my thing, and I personally find it distasteful.

A lady got in touch with me and asked me to write a story based on scene she saw on a tv show where two straight guys engage sexually in an online VR world.

The idea intrigued me and I'm working on Ch 3, but my quandary is where to post. Gay male or trans or incest (So far the two guys, who live in different countries, only hook up online, and the friend of the MC uses a female avatar with male genitals. But one of the two also has sex with his mom, At first in world unknowingly, then mom finds out it was her son, so... )

There also the MC crush who may get involved as well. No idea where this is going.

 

[SimonDoom]

A lady got in touch with me and asked me to write a story based on scene she saw on a tv show where two straight guys engage sexually in an online VR world.

.

Was it the Black Mirror episode, Striking Vipers? I thought about that too as a source for a story but haven't come up with an idea yet.

Good luck with your story. It sounds like category choice is going to be difficult.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Thanks for this comment, gave me a lot to think about. Would you agree that maybe there is some bias in the BDSM category towards specific kinds of BDSM, too? There's loads of bondage and S&M content, but it seems like people forget what "D&S" stands for. IMO, any story with a significant theme of dominance or submission belongs in that category. BDSM is not all whips and chains and leather and humiliation.

I think there is an emphasis on the bondage aspect, but I'm not sure how I would quantify it. With the categories available on Lit, it seems to me that the BDSM category is the appropriate place for stories with any combination of bondage, domination/submission, sadism, masochism, and power exchanges. That includes stories where the trappings of BDSM are really more of a sex-toy kink than any sort of psychologically based sexual encounters.

Honestly, the stories that just use the trappings of BDSM are not to my taste, but I think it is the appropriate category for them, and I assume that there are readers who want to read those stories. Otherwise, they wouldn't show up on top lists. Those readers' tastes are as valid as mine.

I'd be reluctant to say that the BDSM category is the only place for stories with dominance/submission themes. I'm currently in the middle of a series I've published in the Non-Con/Reluctance category that has D/s overtones, but I wouldn't consider it a D/s story. I think an incest story with D/s overtones should probably stay in incest. There's a good argument for leaving gay male stories with D/s overtones in gay male, because there's probably a greater reader affiliation with the gender dynamics than with the tone of the encounters.

I don't really know why there aren't more D/s-focused stories. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that the D/s writers and readers may have been over-represented in the exodus when the BDSM police started running amok. A good D/s story is easy to ruin with pre-sex checklists.

 

[MelissaBaby]

So...score sabotage...

I published a story in March that scored around 4.80. (Mary and Alvin Ch. 32). When they tallied the scores for the monthly nominee for Best Romance Story Award at the end of the year, a story that scored 4.85 won. After the award was announced, there was a sweep, some 1-bombs were removed and my story has a score of 4.90.

https://i.gifer.com/1cRK.gif

 

[ElectricBlue]

So...score sabotage...

I published a story in March that scored around 4.80. (Mary and Alvin Ch. 32). When they tallied the scores for the monthly nominee for Best Romance Story Award at the end of the year, a story that scored 4.85 won. After the award was announced, there was a sweep, some 1-bombs were removed and my story has a score of 4.90.

https://i.gifer.com/1cRK.gif

You'd think the award would be done before a sweep, not after. That sucks.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'd be reluctant to say that the BDSM category is the only place for stories with dominance/submission themes. I'm currently in the middle of a series I've published in the Non-Con/Reluctance category that has D/s overtones, but I wouldn't consider it a D/s story. I think an incest story with D/s overtones should probably stay in incest. There's a good argument for leaving gay male stories with D/s overtones in gay male, because there's probably a greater reader affiliation with the gender dynamics than with the tone of the encounters.

I've been posting a fair bit of BDSM content in the last few chapters of my current serial on Lesbian, and it's been received well there.

Not that I've experienced it first-hand, but I understand some authors also found BDSM very unfriendly towards stories with male submission, and that over time that may have become a bit of a vicious cycle - fewer people posting msub led to fewer msub readers, making it less friendly to those who remained.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Not that I've experienced it first-hand, but I understand some authors also found BDSM very unfriendly towards stories with male submission, and that over time that may have become a bit of a vicious cycle - fewer people posting msub led to fewer msub readers, making it less friendly to those who remained.

I found BDSM readers to be unresponsive - although in fairness what I posted there was BDSM lite. The view count wasn't too bad, the scores pretty good, but around 1:150 rather than my usual 1:100 (and Mature as high as 1:60).

 

[MelissaBaby]

You'd think the award would be done before a sweep, not after. That sucks.

Well, shit happens. I have won months before, and I have two nominations for the 2019 Awards, so I don't begrudge the other author getting their due. But, yeah, it stings a little bit.

 

[jsmiam]

I have a theory ...snip... though.

This. The answer to everything in BDSM is always it seems, is “that’s not real BDSM”. (I’m not a BDSM person, btw, just an observer of it and it’s million different definitions. )

I was laughing hard at the other thread here about the St. Andrew’s Cross. I wanted to reply there, and not just to the OP, but to everybody and their different versions, “if you can’t capitalize and punctuate it, you’re not ‘real’ BDSM either. “.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I found BDSM readers to be unresponsive - although in fairness what I posted there was BDSM lite. The view count wasn't too bad, the scores pretty good, but around 1:150 rather than my usual 1:100 (and Mature as high as 1:60).

My longest story (7 pages) is in BDSM but has only 9 votes. It really couldn't go in a different category, but really hasn't got many readers (probably because it's about switching roles). I did do the maths recently and if voter 10 gives it a 5, it should get a red H. But that may take years.

In the meantime, a story I posted years ago and didn't really fit the category, as commenters told me, has been suddenly getting a bunch of favourites and upvotes over the last few weeks. Lit readers sure are an odd bunch! (self included)

 

[jsmiam]

The math nerd answer to the OP's question - it's the (currently) low vote count

I’m pretty sure this subject comes up on a regular basis but please bear with this newbie and let me come to you all for some insight.

What’s with the score sabotage? It’s clear from a regular look at the behaviour of my scores that ....<snip>.... Either way, please talk to me about your take on it all.

Thanks! Woody

...<snip>...going from 4.92/24 to 4.77/27 in a short space of time...

Here's the math-nerd answer to one very common issue, one that definitely applies (OP Woody confirmed that his vote count was at 24 through 27 in an example) in this case: The answer is, (a) your score can swing quite wildly when a 1-score (aka one-bomb) occurs until you reach about 50 to 100 votes, and (b) one-bombs can (and do) arrive anytime, not just when the story is new (You just don't notice them as much when you have more votes). And (c) Poisson (as in Poisson distribution) is pronounced "pwah-sonn" (because it's fun to say.)

There's (roughly speaking) a point of critical mass, where the impact of a one-bomb diminishes drastically. With just a few votes, a low score impacts the score in a noticable, drastic way. When a story has hundreds or thousands of votes, the score change is hardly noticeable, and sometimes (as you hit the mid to high-hundreds) seemingly invisible (due to rounding.)

Some examples, with intentionally easy math.

1. A story has 1 vote and a score of 5. If the very next vote (second vote) is a 1, the point total is (5 + 1) six divided by 2, and the final score is now a 3. In this case, a one-bomb lowered that score by two whole points. (Oh - Emm - Gee, right?)
   
2. A story has 9 votes and a score of 5, meaning it has (5 times 9) 45 points total. If the tenth score is a 1, the total points becomes 46 (45 + 1), and the score becomes 46 divided by 10, result = 4.6. So at ten votes, a one-bomb can cost 0.4 of a vote. Definitely substantial.
   
3. A story has 99 votes and still (this gets hypothetical) a perfect score of 5, meaning the score has (99 times 5) 495 points total. If the very next vote (100th) vote is a 1, the total points becomes (495+1) 496, and the score becomes 496 divided by 100, result = 4.96. So at 100 votes, a 1-bomb impacts the score by 0.04 of a point. Noticable, but notice how it's ten times smaller than the impact when you were at ten votes.
   
4. At 999 votes, the score is (999 times 5) 4995 total points. A one-bomb makes the total points (4995+1) 4996, which makes the score 4996 divided by 1000, result = 4.996. This one is interesting for the math rounding reasons too; Literotica's score here would still show as a 5, because it only shows two decimal places, and 4.996 rounds to 5.00.

Clarifications: These examples are 100 percent accurate mathematically, although in real life, the vote counts wouldn't fit such perfect examples. The real numbers will be a jumble of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s, and the opportunity for rounding also obscuring the impact of a score becomes more of a factor. (A score of 4.50 for example, could (before Lit rounding the presented score) have been 4.4951 or 4.5049, so the flow of how the next vote impacts the score can also be impacted by that 'invisible' part of the score.

Conclusion: Still with simplified math (30 votes, although the OP was at 24 votes) - Let's pretend a perfect sore of 5 and 29 votes, 145 points total.) If the 30th vote was a 1, the points total is 146, the score is 146 divided by 30, which is 4.86666667, rounded to 4.87, an impact of 0.13, enough for a person to seek out conspiracy theories. (But no, it's not a conspiracy, it's just the score is more volatile when the vote count is low.)

Verdict: I'm not defending one-bombers. I'm not saying there are zero cheaters nor zero unbalanced people with vendettas against categories, content, or authors either. What I am saying, there's a reason that this question (in general terms) usually comes from an author with a (welcome, btw Woody, glad you're here!) brand new story that doesn't yet have a lot of votes. The answer is, it's because the score fluctuation (volatility) is hugely noticeable when the vote count is low.

Soon (most categories), your vote count will hit that critical mass point, and you won't see the fluctuations as dramatically.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Here's the math-nerd answer to one very common issue, one that definitely applies (OP Woody confirmed that his vote count was at 24 through 27 in an example) in this case: The answer is, (a) your score can swing quite wildly when a 1-score (aka one-bomb) occurs until you reach about 50 to 100 votes, and (b) one-bombs can (and do) arrive anytime, not just when the story is new (You just don't notice them as much when you have more votes). And (c) Poisson (as in Poisson distribution) is pronounced "pwah-sonn" (because it's fun to say.)

Showing the math was the most helpful explanation of this I've seen. My brain knows how to do this, but my long-standing and deep-seated aversion to practical mathematics prevents it. I had an experience that I'm not sure can be completely explained this way. My story had about 65 votes. (I'm not sure that's exact, but it's close.) The average score was 4.87. Two hours and four votes later, it was at 3.87.

I know that Lit periodically adjusts scores for outliers and fraudulent voting, but I don't see how that could have applied. One author and frequent poster here mentioned in response to another post that one of those sweeps had just happened. He made that comment the day before my score jumped a point. I'm a new author here and I only had around 20 followers at the time, so I certainly didn't have a fan base crazy enough about my work to find ways to vote multiple times. In other words, I don't see a reason for high scores that were not outliers to have been stripped.

A few days and around 40 votes later, my score was up to 4.86. I'm less sure I'm remember the 4.86 correctly, but it was high enough that I was in the first position in my category's top list. The next day, it was down to 4.81, and it was off the top list altogether, even though a score of 4.81 should have landed me solidly in the middle of the list. A day and a half later, my story showed back up where it ought to have been on the list, among the other 4.81s.

I'm not going to let it drive me crazy, but I would love to know how this happens. I see no reason I would be targeted, so I assume that whatever it was that happened to my story happens to other people's stories, too. Any thoughts?

 

[SimonDoom]

Verdict: I'm not defending one-bombers. I'm not saying there are zero cheaters nor zero unbalanced people with vendettas against categories, content, or authors either. What I am saying, there's a reason that this question (in general terms) usually comes from an author with a (welcome, btw Woody, glad you're here!) brand new story that doesn't yet have a lot of votes. The answer is, it's because the score fluctuation (volatility) is hugely noticeable when the vote count is low.

.

This is a useful insight, and not just for the newbies. A 1-vote isn't necessarily "illegitimate." Some readers simply like to vote this way. To a certain extent, there's a random factor at work here, and every once in a while your story will be hit by the random (but not necessarily illegitimate) 1-bomber. Their crazy opinion counts as much as anyone else's, because there's no objective standard for what is a substantively legitimate vote. The effect is felt more when your story has not been voted on often. After a while the effect is much less noticeable.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Showing the math was the most helpful explanation of this I've seen. My brain knows how to do this, but my long-standing and deep-seated aversion to practical mathematics prevents it. I had an experience that I'm not sure can be completely explained this way. My story had about 65 votes. (I'm not sure that's exact, but it's close.) The average score was 4.87. Two hours and four votes later, it was at 3.87.

If your recall of 3.87 and four additional votes is correct, and given the short time in between, I'd say that was a scoring glitch. Mathematically, that's a drop in the total score of 49, which is impossible with only four votes. My guess is you saw one part of a sweep go through but not a second part, later corrected by the bounce back you later mention. A one-time score blip, I'd say. Don't micro-watch the movements up and down, is my advice .

 

[Woody110]

Thanks again for your replies

Cheers again to everyone who chipped in on the score fluctuation issue. It’s great to hear your thoughts and your own experiences of this.

I’m no maths nerd myself and I appreciate the breakdown of it from jsmiam. I think I had a grasp of the ‘sliding scale’ effect depending on how many votes are already on the pile but, as Enchantment_of_Nyx rightly says, this explanation sums it up so well.

I’d hate for anyone to think I believe my stories above getting a low score, and I certainly don’t think all 1s are illegitimate. It was purely the manner in which they appeared that caused me to wonder if they were indeed genuine. I realise there is absolutely no way to know.

It does leave me conflicted about whether to give readers the opportunity to vote on my stories at all. At present, voting is turned off. I love feedback though and I hope readers might be more encouraged to share their thoughts in a comment if that’s the only avenue open.

Do you have any experiences of turning voting off?

 

[Bramblethorn]

This is a useful insight, and not just for the newbies. A 1-vote isn't necessarily "illegitimate." Some readers simply like to vote this way. To a certain extent, there's a random factor at work here, and every once in a while your story will be hit by the random (but not necessarily illegitimate) 1-bomber. Their crazy opinion counts as much as anyone else's, because there's no objective standard for what is a substantively legitimate vote. The effect is felt more when your story has not been voted on often. After a while the effect is much less noticeable.

This. No doubt some 1-votes come from griefers who are just trying to make the author feel bad, but without other evidence it's also possible that they are legitimate readers who happened to dislike the story.

One other thing that probably misleads authors watching their scores: if your story is in H territory, getting more 5s than 4s, then every new 5 only raises the score by a small amount. But every new 4 (or lower) drops it by more. If you're on 4.8, the negative impact of a 4-star vote is 4x as large as the positive impact of a 5-star.

So you will see a pattern of slow increases, punctuated by the occasional sudden drop. If you don't know to expect this, those drops can look awfully suspicious.

(again, not saying that bombing isn't a thing, but not everything that looks like bombing actually is.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

[*]A story has 9 votes and a score of 5, meaning it has (5 times 9) 45 points total. If the tenth score is a 1, the total points becomes 46 (45 + 1), and the score becomes 46 divided by 10, result = 4.6. So at ten votes, a one-bomb can cost 0.4 of a vote. Definitely substantial.

But, weirdly enough, that one-bomb also pushes this story into "hot" territory, because you need at least ten votes to qualify.