Sick and tired of "1-" bombs.

[nikisixx]

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[AlinaX]

We could have an eBay-style system where we, the authors, rate readers.

 

[nikisixx]

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[AlinaX]

I see them as well, but... hey. I just love that I get hundreds of votes compared to the one or two likes I get on my tweets and blog posts. So what if there are a few assholes out there. Clearly their lives suck.

 

[nikisixx]

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[Sextified]

I would like there to be a small quiz before one has the ability to vote. I would be willing to bet, many that vote don't even read the stories.

I finally got used to voting on my old site. I just had to ignore it. It changed over time, and I think they did eventually require a "comment" on the lowest possible vote. But the cranky bastards just started using 2's instead. Eventually the website owner tracked down a few of the accounts doing that, and they were rather well known authors trying to push other accounts "down" to raise themselves "up" on their Top 100 list. They did indeed just do a drive by, each time they logged on, and gave 1's to anyone above him. He got caught, finally, because he voted a '1' for a 25,000 word story three minutes after it went online!

Overall, readers there just eventually either voted '5' or nothing at all. So the scores for newer writers slowly climbed up, eclipsing the older contributors. Voting quickly stopped letting you know if a story was good or not.

Worse, I think that since that system also 'used' to allow the authors to 'see' the voters and send them messages? The readers got tired of getting angry PM's from the authors about their low votes. One of my list mates was famous for yelling at his fans that dared to send him a '4' vote.

Not a good way to make or keep friends!

Eventually most of the long time readers just stopped voting AND commenting at all, and turned their accounts to the "Anonymous" setting.

I was really hoping that Literotica readers had changed during my long absence from here. So far, I have had one comment and three votes, before I self-deleted that underperforming version. I'm much happier with the totally reworked version, but am having a hard time locating a few pre-readers for it.

 

[nikisixx]

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[SimonDoom]

OK. Clearly my point is not understood. No bother. No point in pushing it further.
I will calm down soon.

In the end, it is not a big deal. If all we have to worry about
are the votes on Literotica, then life would truly be bliss.

You should not assume your point is not understood. Nearly all of us who have written stories over any period of time have dealt with this same issue, so, yes, we understand. But our reactions to the so-called "problem" may be different from yours; that's not proof that we lack understanding. It just means we've thought about it and decided to respond differently.

Here's the thing, and this is not just addressed to you but to everyone else here: when you drop a story into the Literotica ocean via publication, you cannot have any expectation how it will be received. You are entitled to nothing. Some people may love your story, and some may hate it. A 1-bomb is not obviously and objectively any more "illegitimate" than any other vote. To some degree the troll response at this Site reflects the way real-world readers respond to real-world stories. Sometimes they hate something after the first few paragraphs so much that they immediately scroll to the end and want to let the author know how much they hated it by 1-bombing them. Believe me, I've had plenty of such reactions to my stories -- some of them for reasons that seem utterly daft to me.

Is that illegitimate? Well, it doesn't seem right to me. It's uncomfortable, for sure. But an awful lot of people do that. It may not be kosher, but it's not the end of the world, either. To me, that element of bad faith and randomness is a SMALL price to pay for the opportunity to publish stories to a very wide audience of erotic story readers, many of whom are VERY appreciative of what I write. Judging from what I saw from scanning your story submission list, and your scores, you, too, have appreciative readers. So the question I would ask you, that I've asked myself and come to an answer about, is why focus on the few bad eggs when you obviously are getting a lot of appreciation? Why not focus on the good, not the bad?

To me, it seems like a weird trade-off to say, "I'm so mad about these few 1-bombs that I'm going to leave Literotica and forego the opportunity to connect my stories with hundreds of readers who will enjoy my stories."

That makes no sense to me.

 

[Anahiya]

For what it's worth, as a reader I never vote but to give 5 stars. I can't see the point of rewarding hard (and free) work with low grades, even if I didn't like the story.

On another note, I've been told (and noticed myself with a story I had beta-read) that if you give a grade too fast after the story's published, or skip pages, your grade will be automatically deleted.

 

[nikisixx]

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[Sextified]

However, independent of the votes, I still believe that knowing a "page-visit duration" would probably be the most important addition to the Literotica system for authors. With this, we would know if the readers for example only read the first paragraph, if they get to the end, or if they skip large chunks. This is very simple to implement from the point of view of the system/server and it would be also a way to know something about the "quality" of the voting.

Random opinions from a strange girl!

The way the other site ended up helping the author's was by giving stats for "Views" and "Reads".

Views indicate that the visitor had been enticed by either your author Rep, Title or one sentence Description. That allowed the potential reader to see the first page of your story.

Reads gave you the number of visitors that actually clicked the next button, and actually went on to read the second page. You never got to know who finished reading it, but it really seemed to help Authors craft their opening pages, choices of titles, and their descriptions. Not perfect, but helpful.

Not such strange questions.

As authors, we all put part of ourselves out there, and that makes us feel vulnerable. Sometimes, at least for me, it's not hearing anything at all that is the worst. But yes, low voting, or worse spammers spewing random hate beats us down.

My one and only recent comment was a complete and rather terse dismissal of my style, method and the way I presented the content. Luckily, after a week of distance away from that version, I actually agreed with them.. and eventually took that version down.

The new rewrite, still waiting for a few readers before it will get reposted, is so much better!

Hang in there.

Or even better yet, use the emotions that you are feeling to fuel your writing and make it better. That was what I ended up doing.

 

[SimonDoom]

For what it's worth, as a reader I never vote but to give 5 stars. I can't see the point of rewarding hard (and free) work with low grades, even if I didn't like the story.

On another note, I've been told (and noticed myself with a story I had beta-read) that if you give a grade too fast after the story's published, or skip pages, your grade will be automatically deleted.

Well, here's an alternative viewpoint. If everyone did what you did, every story would either have a "5", or no score, and readers would be unable to use scores to make a meaningful assessment of what they want to read. It seems to me that when we vote we should vote in accordance with the way we would want people to vote, generally, and the only way that we can want people to vote, generally, if we are rational, is to vote accurately. Otherwise, there's no point to the scoring system at all.

If you think a story is a 5, give it a 5. If it's a 4, give it a 4. If it's a 3, give it a 3. If it's a 2, stop reading it and do something better with your time.

I seldom give stories grades less than 4 because I usually don't finish such stories and I don't score stories I don't finish. I also sometimes don't vote when I feel like a story is somewhere between a 4 and a 5 and I don't feel comfortable possibly sabotaging an author's ability to get a red H. But I see no reason why readers should be squeamish about giving stories 3s or 4s where they are deserved.

 

[SimonDoom]

But as I said. We all lack sufficient information about whether a vote is legitimate or not. Sorry, it is the truth.

That's true. But why does it matter so much?

What is a "legitimate" vote? If I read half a story and think "this is the worst piece of crap ever" and I scroll quickly to the end and give it a 1 is that illegitimate? Says who?

This Site, in fact, does have a method of weeding out such votes, over time -- the sweeps. Nobody knows exactly how they work. The Site owners don't disclose how they work so they don't get defeated. That seems reasonable. But there are sweeps, lots of them, and over time they eliminate many of those 1 votes (and other "fraudulent" votes).

But supposing you're right and that there are "illegitimate" votes that get factored into the score and yet don't get eliminated via sweeps, the question remains: who cares? Why does it matter so much? And to the extent it matters a little bit, how can it matter more than the opportunity to have your stories exposed to a wider audience than on any other erotic story website?

That's what I mean when I say I just don't get it. I don't see why it bothers people so much.

 

[KeithD]

Sorry to say, but I don't think the system is going to change, so you'll need to adjust somehow. If the voting gave me major heartburn here, I'd either not post here--and I post at other Web sites, ones that are a lot more generous to my stories--or I would turn voting off. (I'll have to say that there's a site I post at where the ratings are a lot lower generally than they are here.) The Web site gives you the opportunity to turn off voting.

I'm sympathetic; I just don't see it changing after fourteens years of experience--experience that includes posting mostly in a category that's tolerated, but not encouraged, at Literotica and having obvious detractors going from the discussion board to my stories to punish me. Literotica gives me the most reads, but other, more supportive Web sites, give me more of the strokes. I just even out the rewards I look for in posting.

 

[yibala2]

Well. I'm serious.
There are two major defects with the system in its present form:

1) we have no idea as authors if "visits" to stories correspond to actual "story reads".
2) the voting system is open to fraud; there is no way to know if a person that votes
has actually read the story or if they are playing with numbers.

Sorry for my lack of confidence, but it is getting to the point that I am thinking of getting out!
It would be too bad, because I think that I am improving as a writer.

Sorry to everybody for my angry rant.... I have written 10 stories. They have all suffered
from this 1-bomb problem! I know, because I have followed the scores carefully.

I sympathize with you. My last story went up two weeks ago, and after getting several "5" votes, got one or two "1" votes, which I suspected had nothing to do with the story's quality. (One of the 1-bombs was just swept out today, btw... your stories are all pretty new, so your scores may benefit from sweeps too.) I couldn't help but be pissed. What writer doesn't want the satisfaction of knowing that readers universally and perfectly "get" their vision?

But in the end, it is just a number. It helps me as a writer SO much more to get a comment about what readers thought worked or didn't work in the story, or to get equally precious feedback from other writers. Someone out there will always dislike my work, for whatever reason or no reason, so why let that get in the way of doing what I enjoy?

So few readers actually vote that I wouldn't want to do anything to make voting harder. I've heard other writers say it's about 1 vote per 100 views, on average, and I feel lucky to be doing slightly better than that.

If it helps, most every author here understands how you feel!

-Yib

My stories

 

[nikisixx]

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[lovecraft68]

We could have an eBay-style system where we, the authors, rate readers.

I think you mean old school e-bay where the seller could give negative feedback to a non paying, or difficult buyer.

Years ago they changed it so sellers cannot leave anything but positive for buyers. You can report non paying and get your fees back and the deadbeat gets a make believe 'strike' on their record, but its been tested and nothing is ever done.

So its all one sided to the buyers...so Lit is exactly like E-bay.

 

[yukonnights]

Well, here's an alternative viewpoint. If everyone did what you did, every story would either have a "5", or no score, and readers would be unable to use scores to make a meaningful assessment of what they want to read. It seems to me that when we vote we should vote in accordance with the way we would want people to vote, generally, and the only way that we can want people to vote, generally, if we are rational, is to vote accurately. Otherwise, there's no point to the scoring system at all.

If you think a story is a 5, give it a 5. If it's a 4, give it a 4. If it's a 3, give it a 3. If it's a 2, stop reading it and do something better with your time.

I seldom give stories grades less than 4 because I usually don't finish such stories and I don't score stories I don't finish. I also sometimes don't vote when I feel like a story is somewhere between a 4 and a 5 and I don't feel comfortable possibly sabotaging an author's ability to get a red H. But I see no reason why readers should be squeamish about giving stories 3s or 4s where they are deserved.

As we've discussed before on this subject; The shiny red H skews the perception of the five point voting system. In reality, a 2.5 rating should indicate an average quality story. The OP's ratings are all over 4.00. Also, Literorica does deal with improper voting via the periodic vote scrubs which remove those deemed invalid.

I imagine that we all enjoy the red H, but to obsess over it means we've lost touch with the rating realities.

 

[nikisixx]

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[lovecraft68]

As we've discussed before on this subject; The shiny red H skews the perception of the five point voting system. In reality, a 2.5 rating should indicate an average quality story. The OP's ratings are all over 4.00. Also, Literorica does deal with improper voting via the periodic vote scrubs which remove those deemed invalid.

I imagine that we all enjoy the red H, but to obsess over it means we've lost touch with the rating realities.

3-Liked it keep on writing
4-Really liked it good read

Neither of those votes are meant as a negative, but people will be upset because a three will bring you down. A four will also keep you from that holy grail of a Red H.

When you consider that 4 is really liked and 5-is loved it and the average score on this site(removing the anomaly of loving wives from the equation) is a little over four...meaning the reality is...this is a soft voting site!

It would be "tough crowd' is the average was in the mid to lower threes...so anything over four is pretty good.

I think the H does skew things in people's minds, but at this point if it was done away with people would still obsess about the score and want as high as possible.

What I don't like is thinking that over time the trolls-especially in contests-have figured out a 1 will most likely be swept, so they started dropping 2's instead and as I just said a 3/4 keeps people down in a contest and from an H...so what is lit going to do? Start sweeping 3's?

Are we going to get into participation award voting where its 5 or nothing? An entire site filled with 5 star stories and H's?

they have to draw the line somewhere. As it is I think they cut to deep, sometimes a one is because that reader honestly hated the damn story.

 

[lovecraft68]

Look. The point is neither banal, nor is it a question of obsessing.

The truth of the matter is that the H also skews people's perception.
Also, a low score means that a story slips into obscurity much faster.
That is all. Nothing more.

I agree people use the H in the sense of thinking 'It must be good, I'll read that one"...anyone who reads here knows that is misleading. Same thing for top lists, I've read some of the all time top stories and left feeling...it must be me because I didn't thing it was a big deal.

Stories on this site are no different than movies or books ...the big names and budget get all the reviews and attention, but the lesser known more obscure stuff are the undiscovered gems.

Best thing you can do is try and come up with eye catching or clever titles and descriptions to help pull the reader to look at something besides a score.

 

[nikisixx]

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[Sonatatre]

Votes can certainly be something it is easy to obsess over. There are certainly 1-bombs going on, but I think we also need to remember that for a lot of voters only two votes are valid. If you liked it, you give a 5, and if you did not like it, you give a 1. That is what I think most readers do. The number of 2-4 votes seem to be very low.
That the votes can still be so high, shows that there are a mostly more people that prefer giving 5s over giving lower scores. I know I did the calculations on one of my stories, and Could see that if all gave either 5 or 1, the numbers of 5s very a massive amount more. Even if calculating that all gave either 5 or 4, the numbers of 5s were still very high.

I do have a story from earlier in 2020 that is sitting on a 4.46 rating with 68 votes, and I am desperately hoping that it will eventually be able to climb over 4.5
I fear it might just not be a good enough story to get there.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I would then invite anybody here to expound further with an intelligent, provoking, and moreover compelling argument for voting systems.

The way I see it is this - votes are given roughly one in a hundred Views, a comment is left by one in a thousand. So one-bombs and spurious votes might be, what, ten per cent (I think it's far lower than that, but for easy maths...) so people fretting about 10% of 1% which is 0.1%.... You can see where I'm going with this. It's the noise floor in a mid-fi sound system.

In all of these threads, and I've seen a few, nobody has yet walked in with anything like a "workable alternative". It's the Lit system, for better or worse, and if you don't want to engage with it on its own terms, turn voting on your stories off and don't engage with it at all. You probably won't get as many readers, but the site gives you the choice.

 

[SimonDoom]

I would then invite anybody here to expound further with an intelligent, provoking, and moreover compelling argument for voting systems.

Why would one want to do that?

I haven't read that book. I suspect, contrary to your suspicion, that hardly anyone here has read that book.

I want voting, as imperfect as it is. I suspect most people at Literotica, readers and writers, want voting, as imperfect as it is. That is a sufficient justification for voting. If you don't like it, you have the option of turning it off.

If you believe it has no value then how can you possibly be "emotional" about it? You can ignore it, and you should ignore it if you think it has no value.

I have a suggestion, which is to take a deep breath, bide your time, keep publishing stories, and withold judgments on the way the Site does things until you've given it more time. Focus on the good and ignore the bad. The benefit of being able to publish stories to a big audience seems to me to outweigh by several factors whatever "injustice" results from its flawed voting system. I cannot understand getting upset by it.