The Power of 1

[patientlee]

I finally understand the point of the 1-bomb outside of a contest. It's about power. I understand math and averages and all, but this morning I saw very clearly the power of the 1.

This morning I got one vote and one comment on a summer story- I Won a Basket of Porn. Yesterday I had 102 votes and a score of 4.59. This morning it was 4.55. That's a big drop with one powerful vote. (I'm not suggesting that it was unwarranted. The anonymous commenter didn't like the story.)

It finally dawned on me why trolls troll. If one little vote has that kind of power, imagine how powerful one can feel dropping those all over the place. Of course, it loses its power when applied to a story with a thousand votes, but I'm thinking the average troll doesn't care.

You learn something new every day.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yup these are the same people who get off on going on line and leaving terrible reviews on e-books they have never read, restaurants they have never gone to and movies they have never seen.

The net is a cowards paradise.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, a 1 vote is very powerful here. So is setting "hot" at 4.5. (Anything above a 4.00 means there were more 5 votes than anything else--which is pretty hot.) This is because of how the voting is set up. Posters periodically give good suggestions on how to mitigate the extreme power of the 1, but the Web site isn't responding to the suggestions.

Those trolling have found that 2 is just about as powerful as 1.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I finally understand the point of the 1-bomb outside of a contest. It's about power. I understand math and averages and all, but this morning I saw very clearly the power of the 1.

This morning I got one vote and one comment on a summer story- I Won a Basket of Porn. Yesterday I had 102 votes and a score of 4.59. This morning it was 4.55. That's a big drop with one powerful vote. (I'm not suggesting that it was unwarranted. The anonymous commenter didn't like the story.)

It finally dawned on me why trolls troll. If one little vote has that kind of power, imagine how powerful one can feel dropping those all over the place. Of course, it loses its power when applied to a story with a thousand votes, but I'm thinking the average troll doesn't care.

You learn something new every day.

Welcome to LIT.

Now! If you look closely youll notice that some writers NEVER get one-bombs.

On my alt account I have some stories that are close to the Red H, but dormant, and I wanna see what happens if they go over 4.5 after new stories post.

Ones always hurt more than 5s help.

 

[sr71plt]

Now! If you look closely youll notice that some writers NEVER get one-bombs.

Certainly not ones, like you, who turn the voting off.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Oh look, Principal Skinner's here with another personal hygiene film to show.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Welcome to LIT.

Now! If you look closely youll notice that some writers NEVER get one-bombs.

How can you tell whether other writers are getting 1-bombs?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

How can you tell whether other writers are getting 1-bombs?

Their really high scores keep rising, and their stories aren't great....very good...but not great.

 

[hylas_]

The internet is full of assholes - that's just a fact. Taking that into consideration, I wouldn't think too much about story ratings until you have a decent amount of votes. At which point the "one bombs" stop mattering. I mean really, is it that important whether your story has 4.55 or 4.59? People seem to like it, that should be your main takeaway here. Public voting systems like these can give you a rough overview, but they aren't precise enough to warrant such detailed attention.

 

[sr71plt]

Their really high scores keep rising, and their stories aren't great....very good...but not great.

Oh, look, Mr. I Am So Lonely and Crave Attention is here--preaching his usual prattle.

Again, it's very strange seeing you complaining about voting, since you've turned yours off. Not thick skinned enough, eh? Pretending that you invited it and didn't care about the votes didn't work out to well for you, did it?

 

[patientlee]

The internet is full of assholes - that's just a fact. Taking that into consideration, I wouldn't think too much about story ratings until you have a decent amount of votes. At which point the "one bombs" stop mattering. I mean really, is it that important whether your story has 4.55 or 4.59? People seem to like it, that should be your main takeaway here. Public voting systems like these can give you a rough overview, but they aren't precise enough to warrant such detailed attention.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not whining about my score dropping. I'm not even saying that I thought this was a 1-bomb. The reader genuinely didn't like the story. (Although, I don't think s/he read too carefully. The comment was about my terrible grammar and spelling, which was in the story on purpose. I may not be able to tell a story, but I can spell. )

It just provided a moment of clarity, in which I understood how much power one has with the 1-bomb in his/her arsenal.

 

[lovecraft68]

The internet is full of assholes - that's just a fact. Taking that into consideration, I wouldn't think too much about story ratings until you have a decent amount of votes. At which point the "one bombs" stop mattering. I mean really, is it that important whether your story has 4.55 or 4.59? People seem to like it, that should be your main takeaway here. Public voting systems like these can give you a rough overview, but they aren't precise enough to warrant such detailed attention.

Good point. The reason a lot of my incest stories have H's is they have high vote totals and it takes more than a few one bombs to bring them down.

Also once you have a few stories and start building a regular audience that helps as well.

Many of my stories get a lot of bombs on day one. That's when the trolls who run up and down the new story lists strike and when my personal trolls come out and hit me.

But as the next few days go by my "regulars" find me and start voting and the score rises.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Good point. The reason a lot of my incest stories have H's is they have high vote totals and it takes more than a few one bombs to bring them down.

Also once you have a few stories and start building a regular audience that helps as well.

Many of my stories get a lot of bombs on day one. That's when the trolls who run up and down the new story lists strike and when my personal trolls come out and hit me.

But as the next few days go by my "regulars" find me and start voting and the score rises.

You made this point a few months ago, and its true; yuh gotta get enough fans to neutralize TEX and PILOT and the rest. Then youre home free.

 

[Tx Tall Tales]

I agree about the numbers

The 1-Bomb is a scary thing. The main power to offset it is reader reach. The more votes you get, the less impact those nasty 1's have. I watch some of my stories bounce up and down the top-lists, as their scores roller-coaster due to the trolls. Especially during the first few days. Once they get up into the big vote counts (1000+) it slows down a lot. After hitting 3K votes, they don't do much damage at all, and I assume get swept without their effect being seen.

The stories that manage to reach the top of the Hall-of-fame lists typically have more votes than all the stories beneath them. Another story might show up near the top for a day or two, but without the 1K votes, they have no staying power. Trolls will do what they will. I even suspect that some of my more ardent 'fans' may troll other stories that look likely to pass mine. I hope not. The top of the list is a transient thing, and not worth screwing around with. I've had a half-dozen number 1s that have slipped from their perch to end up down in the 12-15 range and even lower. The Perfect Game, The Accidental Nudist Cabin, and Poolboy Benefits come to mind. The only way to keep those top spots is to keep producing, and replace yourself.

When you're working with a few dozen votes, the 1-Bomb is devastating. With a couple of hundred votes, it's painful. With a couple of thousand votes, who cares?