The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread

[TxRad]

Welcome to the one and only "The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread"

Please come on in and enjoy.

Any other Contest thread you might see is a fake so don't be fooled.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Welcome to the one and only "The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread"

Please come on in and enjoy.

Any other Contest thread you might see is a fake so don't be fooled.

That's not entirely true. In a few days, there will be a legit thread about another contest - Earth Day, I believe. There may also be a bogus thread about the same contest, so glance through the threads to see which of them is for real. Tex and I and some others will let you know.

 

[Darkniciad]

No, the troll has decided to combine the next three years worth of contest threads into one so he can boost the views into "bestseller" range by hitting F5 on it until he's blue in the face and bumping it every day. So, we shouldn't see a new fraud thread, just the same fraud thread that will be stinking up the forum, aiding and abetting trolls, and confusing newcomers while he posts better than 50% of the posts in the thread and claims it's "Popular"

Meanwhile, in tonight's track:

Only updated scores and votes again.

Average score is now 4.29 with a median of 4.33

The average number of votes is 244 with a median of 180 and a total of 20,738

The average number of swept votes is 7 with a median of 2 and a total of 588

 

[Boxlicker101]

No, the troll has decided to combine the next three years worth of contest threads into one so he can boost the views into "bestseller" range by hitting F5 on it until he's blue in the face and bumping it every day. So, we shouldn't see a new fraud thread, just the same fraud thread that will be stinking up the forum, aiding and abetting trolls, and confusing newcomers while he posts better than 50% of the posts in the thread and claims it's "Popular"

Meanwhile, in tonight's track:

Only updated scores and votes again.

Average score is now 4.29 with a median of 4.33

The average number of votes is 244 with a median of 180 and a total of 20,738

The average number of swept votes is 7 with a median of 2 and a total of 588

Yeah, he has 188 out of 326 posts on his thread. It will have a long life, because he will keep posting to it, and Tex and you and I will be telling people to ignore it and him.

However, what I said is there will be other valid contest posts, probably one for every theme contest, and maybe a few extra ones.

 

[DG Hear]

It would be nice if we could convince Laurel to make the Authors Contest thread a sticky thread through the duration of the contest. That way it would always be near the top of the forum. Say a few days after the contest is over it could move on it's way and be replaced with a new contest thread.

Anyone close enough friends to Laurel and Manu to make this suggestion?

This one is about over. Best of luck to all that entered.
DG

 

[Darkniciad]

That might seem like a good idea, except that people have reached the point where sticky threads become effectively invisible.

Most assume that everything up there is for first-time visitors, and isn't really worth looking at once they've been here a few times. People abused sticky threads for several years, pinning way too many topics to the top of the forum across the whole internet, and completely killed the usefulness of them.

So long as people post regularly and keep the thread from falling off the bottom of the first page, they likely get more exposure in the regular data stream than they would in a sticky.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well while we await the results of this contest, don't forget to tune into the other thread where the "real" contest winners are to be announced today.

should be fun to see how he justifies himself winning again.

 

[Darkniciad]

Not really. He never justifies himself winning. He thinks it's a foregone conclusion because of his awe-inspiring greatness, and wonders why people don't seem to understand that

The fewer people who click on the fraud's thread the better. I make it a point to avoid doing so more than once every three or four days.

 

[PennLady]

Well while we await the results of this contest, don't forget to tune into the other thread where the "real" contest winners are to be announced today.

should be fun to see how he justifies himself winning again.

Winners are due to be announced tomorrow, Feb 12. Can't wait to see.

 

[Darkniciad]

"Due to be" is the key phrase *laugh*

With the way the increased traffic and story load is mucking with everything, I wouldn't hold my breath

 

[lovecraft68]

"Due to be" is the key phrase *laugh*

With the way the increased traffic and story load is mucking with everything, I wouldn't hold my breath

I forgot, were the winter results announced on time?

my other question is do they in fact "freeze" voting on the entries at some point before they do the final sweep and figure out the winners?

 

[Darkniciad]

My guess is that there's a "stopping point" ( which may not be the announcement day. I've long suspected it's the day before at midnight EST IOW, about 12 hours )

They can then exclude any votes after that point from the final tally, as they're obviously date tagged to deal with the monthly contests.

So they probably don't freeze the voting, they just ignore any votes after the cutoff for the purposes of determining the winners.

 

[sagethorns]

I've finally gotten a chance to read through a lot of the stories. Some really good entries making for a tough competition.

Having not been through this before,I'm interested in what the sweeps do. I don't quite have the "loyal" following that some do . I'm just interested to see how much general trolling there is.

Good luck all.

 

[Darkniciad]

Soon enough

I hope they actually make the announcement tomorrow. It's very convenient for my tracking when the announcement falls on a weekend. I don't have to rush around as much to grab "snapshot" tracks to try to capture the final scores and vote totals as closely as possible to what they were when the winners were determined.

That also leaves me more time to do a final detailed report on sweep totals and percentages.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well I just lost 60 votes which is no concern, but lost two points. The first sweep also carved me for about 60 or so votes, but not really a score change. I have a hard time believing I had 120+ "cheerleader" votes

If anything I expected a rise as at one point earlier this week I had a stretch where I received 4 votes and and dropped 3 points meaning it was pretty much a trolling and thought the sweep would bump it.

Then again if any of us knew how it worked it wouldn't be any fun.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Well I just lost 60 votes which is no concern, but lost two points. The first sweep also carved me for about 60 or so votes, but not really a score change. I have a hard time believing I had 120+ "cheerleader" votes

If anything I expected a rise as at one point earlier this week I had a stretch where I received 4 votes and and dropped 3 points meaning it was pretty much a trolling and thought the sweep would bump it.

Then again if any of us knew how it worked it wouldn't be any fun.

I have a hard time believing your score dropped from 4.70 to 2.70, or anything like that. That's what a drop of two points would be.

 

[Darkniciad]

I saw 3 votes vanish off mine so far. No change in score.

As I always say, it's probably not that you have that many cheerleaders. It's that you have a cheerleader, and they happen to share an IP octet with other voters.

Or, somebody is cheerleading for someone else, and happened to also vote on your story, and the system wipes all their votes because they can't behave and vote once on their favorite. Strongly suspect this happens.

The more votes you have, the more likely you are to get hit by this "friendly fire" designed to eliminate sneaky multi-voting by getting a new IP and voting again.

When you have people like he-who-shall-not-be-named trying to rig everything all the time, everyone suffers for the sake of trying to eliminate his massive fraud.

I'm pretty sure he meant .03, Box.

 

[ScouriesWorld]

for those of you who don't look at the SW contest thread...

...or who have been banned from visiting it...

here is the final full track of contest figures before the PALACE started jiggling them. The list has story title, author, category, rating score, votes, views, comments and favorites listed. The list has been sorted from top to bottom by votes recieved.


Autofellating Brother? scouries I 4.68 1251 52042 34 30
Finding the Truth DG Hear LW 4.12 1084 42203 75 7
Getting Mom in Shape HeyAll I 4.35 1026 118854 14 32
Valentine Treat: WhoreWife Creampie AverageBear LW 3.91 827 40547 26 8
Incest on Valentine's Day HeyAll I 4.51 686 51810 13 31
Cheerleader Submission: A Love Story silkstockingslover ILL 4.59 674 94895 31 24
Home is Where The Heart Is lovecraft68 Mat 4.85 646 22830 65 27
Inside of You Cia81 G 4.76 605 19581 29 36
Joe DG Hear EC 4.40 603 17877 27 2
Flirting Goes Too Far DG Hear R 4.50 577 17158 21 1
Payback is a Bitch, You Slut Bitch SusanJillParker LW 2.87 533 48400 22 3
I [HEART] Intercourse PA AverageBear I 4.51 465 38875 8 21
Super Sunday silkstockingslover L 4.56 429 40495 18 14
Compromised Ironiclaconic MC 4.71 421 18810 14 10
Valentine's Day with Work Wife hermes25 EC 4.36 415 33774 8 6
Valentine's Day Threesome silkstockingslover GS 4.33 411 41388 17 10
Fairy Holiday CatBrown R 4.56 386 11064 17 8
My Love is Your Love NightTempest G 4.75 373 14388 22 43
My Sister Turned Me into a Slut BuckyDuckman I 4.43 325 59040 8 11
Miss Match Dual_Triode R 4.36 311 13254 7 5
A Night of Unconditional Submission silkstockingslover EC 4.49 309 36921 10 15
Secret Valentine curlyspurs EC 4.56 308 19227 10 10
Pierced by Cupid's Arrow honey28 F 4.65 302 19093 10 15
Here We Go Again! double_entendre R 4.56 294 7595 17 6
Chocolate Covered Cherries DG Hear NE 4.78 287 14694 27 7
Heart-shaped Box RejectReality Mat 4.54 281 17412 0 7
Jenny and Me DG Hear EC 4.01 280 18833 12 3
The Nutty Chocolatier sagethorns MC 4.40 276 12998 6 3
Rose, For My Daddy Scaramouche123 I 4.07 265 28958 6 7
Eve's Awakening MsAlexisofLDW LW 3.31 222 40042 14 4
Lost and Found rachlou R 4.31 219 7443 8 6
Valentine Threesome Comixgrl GS 4.13 218 27547 5 6
One Last Valentine's Day CambriaRose R 4.64 210 9511 21 8
Alexandra's Valentine's Day nicecthulhu FT 4.50 207 20743 9 5
What Bears See TxRad Ex 4.31 206 15786 7 8
Over a Piece of Pie Chiara23 R 4.53 204 8910 5 4
The Name of the Game TxRad GS 4.38 200 23961 5 5
Paper Cock learsdaughter EC 4.12 193 15334 7 7
Cheating Heart the_sex_kitten EC 4.34 186 12040 10 6
The Teacher's Valentine EsotericNiceGuy NC 4.23 186 26349 2 9
Carla Rodgers, Sex Therapist clive2007 I 4.34 185 23807 3 6
Golden Arrows RedHairedandFriendly SF 4.69 182 9907 23 9
Maggie and The Professor lazyways R 4.51 172 9230 9 2
Valentine's Exhibitionism/Voyeurism SusanJillParker Ex 4.06 xxx 24192 xx 8
For Your Pleasure samantha4 A 4.33 153 19874 6 4
Love Potion randibyrnes R 4.59 148 4028 12 5
Meant To Be Together, I'm the One SusanJillParker FT 4.22 142 28986 6 5
Yolanda and the Professor olivias Mat 4.14 128 17455 5 1
Eros Gets the Job Done Angellica1612 R 4.32 127 7236 5 4
Mike and Chris Together Boxlicker101 T+C 4.58 121 11973 3 4
Turnabout's Fair Play Angellica1612 Ex 4.47 115 10988 5 4
Go For Broke estragon NE 4.32 114 10472 9 1
Valentine's Day Surprise gab365 GS 4.07 112 20074 3 2
One Day My Prince Will Come carlieplum BDSM 4.20 108 8650 4 4
Twinkle, Twinkle My Wishing Star SusanJillParker R 3.76 108 6529 2 2
Cupid's Arrow odax EC 4.31 104 9496 5 3
Absinthe Akerbeltz R 4.07 98 6002 1 1
Just Another Normal Day a_dani365 NC 4.10 97 16040 10 2
Budget V-Day oOScarletWingsOo EC 4.15 94 7392 2 1
Summer Sucks! rampant404 ILL 4.00 90 41021 4 5
Cupid's Power PrincessErin R 4.47 88 3114 2 2
The Giver sr71plt G 4.32 84 7840 12 3
Snowball's Chance patientlee A 4.21 82 23815 1 3
Val's Valentine's Day Panties EesomeBeastie Toy 4.38 79 9664 4 3
Magical Night Wildfire8470 BDSM 4.38 76 9232 4 7
Uh-Oh KeithD G 4.00 74 14860 5 2
First Valentine's Day misskatie87 EC 4.18 73 8019 4 6
Gamine and Gambler Five_Eight BDSM 4.29 69 12637 1 2
Vanessa's Tale Chiara23 EC 3.78 64 6913 10 0
I Love You Sean Renaud R 4.02 61 3723 2 0
Valentine's Day, 1945 PhilLanderer FT 4.45 60 5408 3 2
Zoie's Valentine ZoieDoulos BDSM 4.53 55 6968 5 4
The Lynch Pin Transverse I 4.12 50 29312 5 4
14 Ideas for Valentine's Day Tara_Neale HT 4.12 49 8374 3 3
Schwanky brentcanuck Hu 3.58 43 6202 5 1
A Valentines Promise Lady_Eryka NE 4.22 37 2635 1 0
St. Valentine Defeats the Wolf MrMax59 R 4.06 36 3491 6 2
Happy Valentine's Day PhilBear R 3.25 36 5523 5 0
Ellie and the Great Cupid Heist EesomeBeastie SF 4.43 35 2436 5 1
Free Sugar PMWhite Ex 3.53 34 7485 2 0
Pauletta's Valentine Boxlicker101 G 4.04 27 3590 1 1
A Date to Remember LoveForWriting EC 4.00 26 4387 1 2
Chapter Seven Zrnko_Pisku R 4.15 26 2106 3 0
Our First Valentine's Day CallMeBambi EC 4.04 25 4406 2 2
Funny Valentine PaulBenham BDSM 4.12 16 3759 0 0

 

[Darkniciad]

^
||

Better known as the King of Trolls tossing a roadmap to his fellow trolls to try to affect the outcome of the contest in the final hours.

 

[lovecraft68]

I have a hard time believing your score dropped from 4.70 to 2.70, or anything like that. That's what a drop of two points would be.

okay .02 smart ass. yeesh.

 

[silkstockingslover]

sweeps

What if a contest occured and no sweeps?

Hmmmm...I have seen no real change in my story scores (good or bad) based on the tiny sweeps...

SO either the super sweep is still ahead...or there were way less trolls this time...

I wonder which it is...

 

[lovecraft68]

What if a contest occured and no sweeps?

Hmmmm...I have seen no real change in my story scores (good or bad) based on the tiny sweeps...

SO either the super sweep is still ahead...or there were way less trolls this time...

I wonder which it is...

They may be going through the categories one by one. I lost 60 votes and a couple of points a few hours ago, so they might be heading your way.

I think that is how it worked in the Winter contest. A bunch of people were saying they were getting swept and I saw nothing then overnight had a bunch of votes removed and a few points added to the score.

 

[Darkniciad]

The last several contests have showed a lot of pattern sweeping, rather than across-the-board ( until the end sweep )

I see a lot of category-based sweeping, while some I believe are trolls sweeps that simply show up more in categories that have a lot of them.

Most of the people who see small sweeps are just experiencing residual losses from a major sweep running on someone else's story, I believe. I've always suspected that problem voters are having their entire voting record wiped out, regardless of where, when, or the value of the vote cast.

Likewise, I believe this is why non-contest stories see sweeps during contests.

I know that's what I'd do.

If you haven't seen a large sweep, you're very likely to see one within the next 24 hours ( unless the announcement is delayed )

Virtually nobody comes out without a fair-sized bite by the final sweep.

 

[Boxlicker101]

What if a contest occured and no sweeps?

Hmmmm...I have seen no real change in my story scores (good or bad) based on the tiny sweeps...

SO either the super sweep is still ahead...or there were way less trolls this time...
I wonder which it is...

I hope the sweep is still ahead. For a GM story I wrote, I know it had at least two one-bombs, and they have not been swept. For my other story, TS & CD, I lost one vote last night with no change in score.

 

[lovecraft68]

In case anyone is wondering, the great imposter won his own contest again.
You know the reason he does this is so no one else can report back that there is no prize.

Sigh, I guess we'll just have to settle for hoping to place in this lame contest we entered.