Sweep starting?

[iwatchus]

It looks like they are working on a sweep. Or something.

Many of the stories in my original series suddenly jumped in rating overnight. Not every story. I do regularly download stats (I know just let itbee, but I can't completely), so I can compare.

These are all stories published between mid march and mid may. And every change looks to be the drop of losing one or two 1's. And I now have four stories in the series rated over 4.9 -- my previous high was 4.88, so it is notable to me. They are all relatively low vote total stories, so dropping something can make a big difference. I think nine of the last seventeen stories changed scores.

But nothing more recent has been touched, including my Nude Day entry, which got hammered by five bombs in a few hours just over a week ago. Not sure if they are moving forward in time looking at dubious votes or what. But something happened.

 

[TheLobster]

The deadline for Nude Day submissions passes later today, so it's likely we'll see a couple more sweeps over the next several days.

 

[MrPixel]

Well something sure as heck is going on. I can't get to my control panel, and it indicates I'm not logged-in after logging-in. Yet I can still post in the forum. Weird.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Well something sure as heck is going on. I can't get to my control panel, and it indicates I'm not logged-in after logging-in. Yet I can still post in the forum. Weird.

Yep, story side seems to be down at the moment.

 

[MrStill]

Yep, my ratings have gone up. Sweep definitely on

 

[MrPixel]

Uh huh. With the control panel back up I'm seeing slight upticks for several stories. Nude Day story, though, no change. It is what it is.

 

[FrancesScott]

Do the sweeps start with old stories and move forward in time?

 

[MrPixel]

Okay, now that sucks. In the hour since I commented on my Nude Day story's score not changing in the proximity of a possible "sweep", after over a week of the score and vote count not changing, suddenly two bombs. NOT coincidence, whoever you are. I have choice words for this, but I'll keep them to myself.

I take all that back. I must have caught it mid-sweep. Four votes subtracted including the spurious votes from the past hour. Score jumped +0.3.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do the sweeps start with old stories and move forward in time?

They go through the whole data set, from what I can see, each time they run. Sweeps were introduced a long time ago to clean up shenanigans during Contests, but they affect all stories - I've got an eleven year story list, and I still see score adjustments on the oldest stories from time to time. I don't think there's any set sequence, as such.

 

[Bamagan]

Do the sweeps start with old stories and move forward in time?

I think that part of the process involves removing/nullifying fake accounts, or at least, accounts whose voting pattern suggests they exist mostly to manipulate scores. If that's actually the case, then it would not be unexpected for older stories to appear to get swept first, because the account has to be old enough and active enough for a suspicious pattern to be detected. If that happens to be an early phase of the sweeping process, a preponderance of the initial votes removed would therefore be older ones.
I don't know if fake accounts are actually a big factor here, but on a free site it's pretty safe to assume some trolls probably try it, and therefore it likely needs to be addressed as part of the process. I expect there are other phases involved, and the site discourages too much speculation into the specifics. But since the fake account scheme is one of the simplest, I think we're okay publicly acknowledging its existence and the probable response.

 

[redgarters]

Color me disappointed if the sweeps are on, my stories haven't moved an inch, even the one that has been slowly but surely downvoted for the past month.

 

[MrPixel]

...the site discourages too much speculation into the specifics.

With good reason.

 

[Bamagan]

With good reason.

If you really think that describing a game of whack-a-mole with troll alts is going too far, feel free to report the post.

 

[AH_Mod]

Let's not go any deeper into speculation. I'm going to leave that alone because it's relatively harmless, but these things tend to set off all sorts of analysis that can give trolls ideas, and just as often spiral into conspiracy theories.

 

[karina_jayde]

I certainly hope so. I've had a story plummet thanks to about 30 1-stars ever since it crept into the top lists. Usually a downtick in scores is expected when I reach the top list and thus reach a wider audience, but this is the 8th entry in a series, and no other entries are getting hit like this. Seems very clearly to be someone else in the top list hammering any other stories that get there. I've also noticed it happen with other authors, too. I'll see something new in the top lists, find it interesting, then bookmark it for later, only to then see the score is now in the toilet.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I haven't seen any change.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

Definite sweep happening. I've noticed some major jumps and decreases in my stories. On Friday, my highest rated story was at 4.83, and it had been at that level for quite a long time, but now it's dropped to 4.8. While another one of my stories has held steady at 4.62 for well over a year, but now it's at 4.7. My lowest rated story, my very first one, dropped from 4.3 to 4.15. The most frustrating one though is that one of my stories has held at around 4.48 and had been slowly creeping up to that "magical" 4.5, but now it's dropped to 4.42.

I'll also point out that I only notice these things because I like to check on a regular basis (4-5 times a week) to see if I have any comments, so I also check out the ratings.