Story stars (votes)

[Dylan1]

Hi all, I was wondering, is there any way of seeing who votes on stories and more importantly what stars they give. Out of curiosity it would be nice to know ( not that we could do anything about it ) who consistently gives one star no matter if the story is good or bad. Thank you.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's not possible for the obvious reason - revenge voting. Literotica admins also don't give a rat's ass about people who consistently bomb other stories with 1*.
It is what it is, a flawed system that isn't likely to get better. You better get used to it

 

[SimonDoom]

A non-anonymous voting system would be a terrible system, because it's a strong disincentive for people not to vote honestly, out of fear of retaliation. Voting should always be anonymous.

I think there is an unwarranted feeling among many authors that there's something illegitimate about a low vote. It's not true. It's a mathematical certainty that some stories are in the bottom 20 % -- why shouldn't a reader give them a 1 to indicate where they rank in the hierarchy of stories? An honest ranking imparts useful information to potential readers looking for stories.

 

[THBGato]

It's a mathematical certainty that some stories are in the bottom 20 % --

Is it? Why? Why does one story have to be better or worse than another?

Right now my favourite story is X; tomorrow it might be Y. Does that mean X got worse? No.

It's like marks on a test: if I get 100%, that doesn't prevent other people (the rest of the class even) from scoring the same. This isn't a sport's league. We are not competing with one another, therefore there is no requirement for there to be a bottom 20%.

 

[Oniafox]

A non-anonymous voting system would be a terrible system, because it's a strong disincentive for people not to vote honestly, out of fear of retaliation. Voting should always be anonymous.

I think there is an unwarranted feeling among many authors that there's something illegitimate about a low vote. It's not true. It's a mathematical certainty that some stories are in the bottom 20 % -- why shouldn't a reader give them a 1 to indicate where they rank in the hierarchy of stories? An honest ranking imparts useful information to potential readers looking for stories.

Agreed. I am obviously disappointed if I get a low rating for my books on Amazon. But my average is higher than JK Rowling! I’d be happy to swap my sales for hers

 

[alohadave]

Is it? Why? Why does one story have to be better or worse than another?

Right now my favourite story is X; tomorrow it might be Y. Does that mean X got worse? No.

It's like marks on a test: if I get 100%, that doesn't prevent other people (the rest of the class even) from scoring the same. This isn't a sport's league. We are not competing with one another, therefore there is no requirement for there to be a bottom 20%.

If the range of scores is between 90 and 100, the ones at 90 will be at the bottom of the scoring range.

That's strictly scores, it doesn't imply worse, just lower scoring within that set.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Is it? Why? Why does one story have to be better or worse than another?

Right now my favourite story is X; tomorrow it might be Y. Does that mean X got worse? No.

It's like marks on a test: if I get 100%, that doesn't prevent other people (the rest of the class even) from scoring the same. This isn't a sport's league. We are not competing with one another, therefore there is no requirement for there to be a bottom 20%.

You are right in the sense that this isn't a competition or a zero-sum system, at least on paper. Theoretically speaking, every single story could be a 5.00 story even though it's easy to see that that would make voting absolutely pointless. In practice though... yeah, it's a system that is used for sifting through the immense Lit database, so readers feel motivated to give the story a rating they think it deserves. It's also human nature to reward something that pleased you and to punish something that displeased you.
On top of that there are top lists, contests... and all of that creates a competition of a sort. The system wouldn't be bad at all actually if it wasn't so easily abused and if it wasn't so easy to vote multiple times on the same story. Then there is the artificial threshold of 4.50 that makes your story much more visible to readers, etc.

 

[THBGato]

If the range of scores is between 90 and 100, the ones at 90 will be at the bottom of the scoring range.

That's strictly scores, it doesn't imply worse, just lower scoring within that set.

Yes, but...

It's a mathematical certainty that some stories are in the bottom 20 % -- why shouldn't a reader give them a 1 to indicate where they rank in the hierarchy of stories?

Simon seems to be implying (and my apologies if I've misunderstood him) that circa 20% of stories should get a 1 as that is their rank.

That's what I was disputing. I think stories should get the score readers want to give them on their own merits, with each score being independent of the scores of other stories.

As you say, those at 90% (e.g. 4.5) could be the bottom 20%.

 

[SimonDoom]

Is it? Why? Why does one story have to be better or worse than another?

Right now my favourite story is X; tomorrow it might be Y. Does that mean X got worse? No.

It's like marks on a test: if I get 100%, that doesn't prevent other people (the rest of the class even) from scoring the same. This isn't a sport's league. We are not competing with one another, therefore there is no requirement for there to be a bottom 20%.

Putting aside voting, yes, there must be a bottom 20%, at least by my standards. I think erotic stories, like everything else in the world, vary widely in quality. I can make a pretty quick judgment into which quintile I want to place a story. In practice, I rarely give 1s or 2s or 3s, because I rarely finish those stories, and I don't vote if I don't finish the story.

It's not a matter of competition. That keeps putting the focus of the scoring system on authors, when it should be on the readers. The purpose of a scoring system is to convey information to readers to help them choose stories. Our feelings as authors in the matter are irrelevant. I can't speak for you, but I find scores an imperfect but useful way of sifting through the thousands of stories here. If every story had a 5, the system would be worthless to me, and to all readers who like me look at scores.

If a test results in every body in the class getting 100%, then it's a worthless test. It's too easy. It should be difficult enough to sort out those who excel from those who don't.

 

[TheLobster]

Stack ranking the stories, or putting them in percentile buckets, is probably not the main purpose of Lit's rating system.

If it were, we wouldn't need a complicated 5-point scale. The goal could be achieved by a simple "like" button (and you don't even need the "dislike"). Tally all the likes, sort the stories by their count and voila -- you have your ranking, along with the percentile brackets.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Is it? Why? Why does one story have to be better or worse than another?

Because then scoring would be redundant.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Stack ranking the stories, or putting them in percentile buckets, is probably not the main purpose of Lit's rating system.

If it were, we wouldn't need a complicated 5-point scale. The goal could be achieved by a simple "like" button (and you don't even need the "dislike"). Tally all the likes, sort the stories by their count and voila -- you have your ranking, along with the percentile brackets.

That would not work because older stories would have a large advantage. Readers don't need to check the scores to see which story is oldest.

 

[THBGato]

Because then scoring would be redundant.

No it wouldn't. Are my As at A level* redundant just because other people got the same grades?

*(that's like a 4.0 GPA for US readers)

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I rarely give 1s or 2s or 3s, because I rarely finish those stories, and I don't vote if I don't finish the story.

Agreed. Life’s too short to spend doing things one doesn’t enjoy.

If a test results in every body in the class getting 100%, then it's a worthless test. It's too easy. It should be difficult enough to sort out those who excel from those who don't.

In one sense perhaps. Yet if the class was supposed to teach a given subject and every student learned it perfectly, in all its details and nuances, then no.

In the context of this site, wouldn’t it be wonderful if every story was superlative, hitting every one of our desires?

I’ve often thought that the unicorn scores one sometimes sees are indicative of the author not having ever annoyed anybody, never having picked up a devoted one-bombing troll.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

No it wouldn't. Are my As at A level* redundant just because other people got the same grades?

*(that's like a 4.0 GPA for US readers)

Certainly some stories can have the same score. Ties happen. But if you scored all stories the same then scoring would be redundant. Some have to be better or worse than others (in whomever's opinion) and so some would be scored higher and some lower. Someone will always be in the lowest percentile. I could sell 10 million books but if you and Simon each sold 11 million, I would still be in the lowest percentile. It can't be avoided.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’ve often thought that the unicorn scores one sometimes sees are indicative of the author not having ever annoyed anybody, never having picked up a devoted one-bombing troll.

Or, the author has written an exceptionally good story.

Every time this discussion come around, folk seem to forget the fundamental notion that, all things considered, readers reward something good. The emphasis is always on, "Oh my god, look how evil readers are, always pounding my story."

Maybe the story wasn't very good, and some people might need to accept that. It's a radical concept, I know, but that's how every other scoring system on the planet works. Apparently Lit is different, somehow...

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Every time this discussion come around, folk seem to forget the fundamental notion that, all things considered, readers reward something good.

No, readers reward something that they like or agree with. And once in a while what they like is good prose, good story, good plot, but not enough to statistically isolate any of that as a factor.

Maybe the story wasn't very good, and some people might need to accept that. It's a radical concept, I know, but that's how every other scoring system on the planet works. Apparently Lit is different, somehow...

Absolutely, but by the same token very often that 4.7 story is also not very good at all yet the author is all chuffed that he wrote something good.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Or, the author has written an exceptionally good story.

Entirely possible, EB. Many of them are very good. My point is that, without complaining about the Lit scoring system, it must be acknowledged that it is mathematically susceptible to down-votes. For an author to have maintained a steady stream of 4.9x scores is a pretty solid clue that the trolls have ignored them - and even very good writers get one-bombed.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

What proof do we have that these "one bombing trolls" actually exist?
Why would they ignore some people and target others?
It's just some wild conspiracy theory.

 

[12oclocktales]

The stars ask readers to vote based on how much they liked the story and not whether they thought it was good or bad. Big difference. There aren't too many readers on here analyzing stories pointing out literary qualities.

 

[mirafrida]

I've been scratching my head over my recent story - it made it to 190 votes with a 4.51, and then in the 60 votes since got pushed down to 4.43. I've never had a story follow that trajectory before...

 

[Bamagan]

What proof do we have that these "one bombing trolls" actually exist?
Why would they ignore some people and target others?
It's just some wild conspiracy theory.

Lines of evidence that support the existence of such trolls:

• Regular sweeps conducted by the site remove votes, and most authors here report an increase in story rating as a result, suggesting that most of the removed votes are low scores. In some cases, it's possible to calculate what scores were removed and confirm that many of them were 1s that the site apparently deemed illegitimate by whatever criteria they use.
• A number of authors who are active during the time of day that stories are posted have reported receiving one-star votes within minutes of the story going live. I have observed this myself, before I turned off voting on my stories (and it was part of the reason I did so). Such a pattern suggests that whatever the voter is basing their scoring on, it can't be actually reading the story in question.
• We occasionally get someone on the boards who brags about doing so, although they usually wind up getting banned and deleted pretty quickly. Such folk generally lack credibility, but their behavior would be unsurprising in a hypothetical one-bombing troll who has some kind of grudge or agenda motivating their actions and wants to be acknowledged for it.

There's a more-than-semantic difference between evidence and proof, but the evidence suggests that it's more than a conspiracy theory, at least in the context of the site at large. The evidence doesn't seem to support a conclusion that trolling is a massive, systemic issue such that all scores are inherently invalid, but the fact that the site attempts to mitigate suspicious votes/voters suggests that it is, or at least has been at times, a serious concern for them. One may or may not agree that the site's concern is warranted, but there's even less evidence for evaluating their behavior than we have for evaluating voting behavior.

 

[onehitwanda]

“The finest line of poetry ever uttered in the history of this whole damn country was said by Canada Bill Jones in 1853, in Baton Rouge, while he was being robbed blind in a crooked game of faro. George Devol, who was, like Canada Bill, not a man who was averse to fleecing the odd sucker, drew Bill aside and asked him if he couldn't see that the game was crooked. And Canada Bill sighed, and shrugged his shoulders, and said, 'I know. But it's the only game in town.' And he went back to the game.” ​

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

Bitching about the rating system is baffling. Any system can be manipulated if enough people put their minds to it and there will always be bad actors. It doesn't help that Lit mods sometimes move things behind the curtain and the algorithms are opaque (aren't they all?)
I get that writers are upset by malicious scoring and the behaviour in some categories is shockingly partisan. I was upset myself at the few one stars that I've received but, as @onehitwanda has so eloquently said, "It's the only game in town."

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Lines of evidence that support the existence of such trolls:

• Regular sweeps conducted by the site remove votes, and most authors here report an increase in story rating as a result, suggesting that most of the removed votes are low scores. In some cases, it's possible to calculate what scores were removed and confirm that many of them were 1s that the site apparently deemed illegitimate by whatever criteria they use.
• A number of authors who are active during the time of day that stories are posted have reported receiving one-star votes within minutes of the story going live. I have observed this myself, before I turned off voting on my stories (and it was part of the reason I did so). Such a pattern suggests that whatever the voter is basing their scoring on, it can't be actually reading the story in question.
• We occasionally get someone on the boards who brags about doing so, although they usually wind up getting banned and deleted pretty quickly. Such folk generally lack credibility, but their behavior would be unsurprising in a hypothetical one-bombing troll who has some kind of grudge or agenda motivating their actions and wants to be acknowledged for it.

There's a more-than-semantic difference between evidence and proof, but the evidence suggests that it's more than a conspiracy theory, at least in the context of the site at large. The evidence doesn't seem to support a conclusion that trolling is a massive, systemic issue such that all scores are inherently invalid, but the fact that the site attempts to mitigate suspicious votes/voters suggests that it is, or at least has been at times, a serious concern for them. One may or may not agree that the site's concern is warranted, but there's even less evidence for evaluating their behavior than we have for evaluating voting behavior.

The sweeps are the result of the contests, people trying to game the system to win a contest is a separate issue than "trolls".
Also, some people's scores have gone DOWN after a sweep, oddly no one seems as concerned about the 5 Star Faerie as they are about the illusory One Bomb Troll.

Most of the complaints about the scoring system come across as "sour grapes" from people who aren't happy with their scores. It's always easier to blame someone else when we don't get what we want.