Themed Contest Off-Topic Discussion

[lovecraft68]

I'm sure that people who wanted to manipulate things wouldn't find a way around it.

Where there is a will there is a way, but the harder you make it the less will try to do it. Right now the issue is its way to easy and nothing is done to deter it.

So we've yet to find out if some changes would help or the manipulators would adapt. But the way to find out is changes

 

[RejectReality]

People obviously don't realize how quickly the witch-hunting tactics they're using could, and most likely would be turned against them.

Multi-winners with large fanbases who write those "ridiculously long stories that only the die-hard will ever reach the last page to vote on" and are part of a Private Message cabal operating out of sight of everyone else...

How many people will turn on you once someone decides to pound your stake into the ground and gather kindling?

 

[lovecraft68]

People obviously don't realize how quickly the witch-hunting tactics they're using could, and most likely would be turned against them.

Multi-winners with large fanbases who write those "ridiculously long stories that only the die-hard will ever reach the last page to vote on" and are part of a Private Message cabal operating out of sight of everyone else...

How many people will turn on you once someone decides to pound your stake into the ground and gather kindling?

Hey, I'm over here, you can mention me by name.

They can feel free to, although there is no indication I am part of a cabal, I walked away from that when I realized where it was heading in a variety of ways.

All of my stories, not just contest winners are around the same length, I'd say I average 6 on pretty much anything, I''m a long winded writer and I prefer that to taking 24k and making it into three cheap chapters.

Oh, I enter within week one almost all the time and my stories are always straightforward and properly categorized.

So people can stab, but they'll need to refine the aim.

And if I wanted to go for wins and strategy, why the hell would I keep putting up incest stories that are never going to win, because they get to many votes to get a high enough score and according to the sweeps somehow incest has hardly any illegitimate one bombs and we all know I could never have personal trolls.

All the trolls are in the 170 vote stories that lose over a third of their votes it seems.

I'll update my story

1637 votes 4.80

swept down to 1590 still 4.80

back up to 1619 still at 4.80

I've been 4.80 since about 900 votes when I went down from 4.81.

Third straight contest with this exact pattern.

If I wanted a cheap win I know how to do it, I'm sure more than a few know how to. But most don't.

Edited to add my contest winners are 6,5,6,4 pages respectively. Not short, but not 'insanely long' certainly not double digits.

 

[Serafina1210]

I'm one of those whom Ogg mentioned somewhere in the middle of this thread as having been driven off by apparent voting shenanigans. Exhausted with it all, I took a break from writing on this site and, when I came back, resolved to enter no more contests.

In my view, the voting system here is so broken that it is a completely unacceptable basis for a contest. It's probably not possible to fix it. Among alternatives, the forum-based voting on the "Category Nominees" is so awkward that many vote counts are in the single digits. That low-turnout vote, too, can easily be gamed by persons with alts (hypothetically--I have no idea whether that's actually going on in that contest, which I have paid little attention to, not even bothering to vote though I have two entries).

I doubt that it's possible to design a corruption-proof contest framework for this site, which is built around an idea of openness that has good effects along with the bad. Among the good effects is that you get a healthy readership here; among the bad is vote manipulation.

Eh. I think I have a healthier attitude about voting now than I used to. But no contests for me.

 

[RejectReality]

That's as far as I'm going to take it, because I don't want someone using this garbage as a blueprint. You've made a lot of enemies. I think you're going to be surprised by how many people who are hauling your water right now will fill those buckets with gasoline when it's your turn to burn on a pyre of bullshit.

And there's going to be nobody left to protest except the charred corpses of the people you've set fire to along the way.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I'm one of those whom Ogg mentioned somewhere in the middle of this thread as having been driven off by apparent voting shenanigans. Exhausted with it all, I took a break from writing on this site and, when I came back, resolved to enter no more contests.

In my view, the voting system here is so broken that it is a completely unacceptable basis for a contest. It's probably not possible to fix it. Among alternatives, the forum-based voting on the "Category Nominees" is so awkward that many vote counts are in the single digits. That low-turnout vote, too, can easily be gamed by persons with alts (hypothetically--I have no idea whether that's actually going on in that contest, which I have paid little attention to, not even bothering to vote though I have two entries).

I doubt that it's possible to design a corruption-proof contest framework for this site, which is built around an idea of openness that has good effects along with the bad. Among the good effects is that you get a healthy readership here; among the bad is vote manipulation.

Eh. I think I have a healthier attitude about voting now than I used to. But no contests for me.

Rule of Thumb: If you think it someone does it. Theres nothing new under the Sun. Original ideas are as rare as new prime numbers.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Hey, I'm over here, you can mention me by name.

They can feel free to, although there is no indication I am part of a cabal, I walked away from that when I realized where it was heading in a variety of ways.

All of my stories, not just contest winners are around the same length, I'd say I average 6 on pretty much anything, I''m a long winded writer and I prefer that to taking 24k and making it into three cheap chapters.

Oh, I enter within week one almost all the time and my stories are always straightforward and properly categorized.

So people can stab, but they'll need to refine the aim.

And if I wanted to go for wins and strategy, why the hell would I keep putting up incest stories that are never going to win, because they get to many votes to get a high enough score and according to the sweeps somehow incest has hardly any illegitimate one bombs and we all know I could never have personal trolls.

All the trolls are in the 170 vote stories that lose over a third of their votes it seems.

I'll update my story

1637 votes 4.80

swept down to 1590 still 4.80

back up to 1619 still at 4.80

I've been 4.80 since about 900 votes when I went down from 4.81.

Third straight contest with this exact pattern.

If I wanted a cheap win I know how to do it, I'm sure more than a few know how to. But most don't.

Edited to add my contest winners are 6,5,6,4 pages respectively. Not short, but not 'insanely long' certainly not double digits.

^^^^^SUBSCRIBES TO CABAL TV

 

[lovecraft68]

That's as far as I'm going to take it, because I don't want someone using this garbage as a blueprint. You've made a lot of enemies. I think you're going to be surprised by how many people who are hauling your water right now will fill those buckets with gasoline when it's your turn to burn on a pyre of bullshit.

And there's going to be nobody left to protest except the charred corpses of the people you've set fire to along the way.

That's very dramatic, you should write that into a story.

The only thing I'll add is I haven't won a themed contest in two years so again adding that to the above list, not sure where someone is going to think I'm gaming anything.

Have a nice Easter.

 

[lovecraft68]

^^^^^SUBSCRIBES TO CABAL TV

Can you get that on your web TV?

 

[TxRad]

Doing away with anymouse would hurt the sites numbers. Not allowing anymouse to vote or comment would stop a lot of the bullshit all over this site but not hurt the numbers so much. In fact it might add to the registered numbers to be able to vote and comment.

As for chapters, they are not complete stories until the last chapter is posted and signed off on. Then all the chapters are averaged and one score given. Only then are they eligible to be on any top list or for anything else. And no, the length of the chapter has no effect on whether it is a chapter or not.

Posting a story at 11:59 on the deadline date is bullshit. Back in the day you had to allow for mailing things. The same should be applied to Laurel's turnaround time. That is just common sense, which seems to be lacking everywhere now days.

 

[lovecraft68]

Doing away with anymouse would hurt the sites numbers. Not allowing anymouse to vote or comment would stop a lot of the bullshit all over this site but not hurt the numbers so much. In fact it might add to the registered numbers to be able to vote and comment.

As for chapters, they are not complete stories until the last chapter is posted and signed off on. Then all the chapters are averaged and one score given. Only then are they eligible to be on any top list or for anything else. And no, the length of the chapter has no effect on whether it is a chapter or not.

Posting a story at 11:59 on the deadline date is bullshit. Back in the day you had to allow for mailing things. The same should be applied to Laurel's turnaround time. That is just common sense, which seems to be lacking everywhere now days.

I don't know that entering at the last minute is always BS, sometimes an author comes up against real life and some are very slow writers.

But when its last minute all the time that shows its a ploy. That is something easy to see for the site. That's the thing here random things are what they are. Someone pulls the same thing repeatedly you get to see what's going on.

The site and some of its die hard kool aid drinkers should go into politics. "Issues, what issues, hey look over there!" and then saying that talking about the problem makes the problem worse so....let the problem go?

This is based on what's easy, not what's fair, and that in the end is the answer.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Far simpler than all that:

Ban anonymous voting, commenting and feedback.

All votes must show the number of stars, the user ID and ISP in a pop-up list visible to anyone who clicks on the vote total.

Anonymous is the real bane of the Literotica contests.

Anyone can create a dozen non-anonymous sockpuppets, and write a script to vote with them. There's nothing here to tie a user id to a real person. And there can't be; plenty of people don't want their identity associated with an erotica site. That's why I made the initial remark: Literotica's business model demands they don't drive anyone away. Verification schemes that prevent sockpuppets are impossibly invasive. Would you really want your credit card to show a charge from this place?

I agree that getting rid of anon votes in contests, and maybe everywhere, would deter stupid cheaters and the pettiest of vengeful assholes, but people who want to rig will still rig.

Put it this way. There are two people (or maybe a person and his sock, but I think it's a husband/wife team) who reliably show up and drop a 1 and a 2 on anything I post. They do it quickly, presumably so people will see a crappy score in the new stories list and skip it. It's not a very successful strategy - I have 51 submissions; two of them don't have red H's, and those are close. I'm a good writer and people find my stuff eventually. Bombers can't do a thing about how I write and in the end it's how you write that drives scores, once you're into the hundreds of votes. All I need to do is be patient and let math do what math does.

But it irks, so I'm complained. A few times. Result: nothing. If I'm right and it's consistently the same two sources for bombs, Lit could do something. The bombers could be identified and banned from voting.

But that's not going to happen.

Why enter contests on a site where rudimentary, identifiable cheating isn't blocked? Even if you win, what did you really win? The enmity of cheaters. There's an old, old saying about pearls before swine...

 

[RejectReality]

There is a week after the close of the submission period. Everyone knows that the first couple of days are where almost all the action on a story takes place, so a week is more than sufficient for everything to shake out whether it's a day-one entry or a last-second one. For that matter, so is four days.

There are hardly any major sweeps prior to the closing of submissions, and none that anyone can say are related to the contest. Some may appear to be, but could just as well be related to sweeps of toplists, or something else. So saying that avoiding sweeps that aren't happening is some sort of advantage doesn't hold water.

There is no historical precedent for last-minute entries having an advantage. In fact, when narrowed down to the last five years or so, as requested, fewer last-minute entries placed compared to the full historical record.

Anyone who can demonstrate differently, please do so. I've already provided the data I'm citing numerous times in the past, which is easy enough for anyone to check, should they choose to take the time to do so.

Until someone presents evidence to the contrary, I will continue to call bullshit on the accusations of late entries of being some sort of advantage, because I've done the research to see for myself, and found the theory to be wanting.

And moving the deadline back to ensure every entry posts before the deadline just becomes a different deadline.

 

[lovecraft68]

In response to Hands post, yes, the site can seem to identify people. I recall reporting an across the board bombing that also involved almost thirty comments slinging racial and homophobic slurs.

At the time Laurel had mentioned in a feedback thread they were starting ti target some of those so I pm'd her to follow up the report.

She wiped everything out and in her reply said she 'knew' who the person was, that she's been cleaning up after them. Now these were all left anon so apparently there is still a trail somehow.

I would not know how because I am a tech dope. In fact so many here talk about how 'easy' it is to create multiple IP's or disguise then etc...I don't have a friggin clue how, nor do I really need to.

Also as for what he mentioned about having dedicated trolls many of us have them, but once you've reached a point where you have many more dedicated readers they are irrelevant. A quick look at Hands scores confirms he is not being hurt by a few bombers.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

A quick look at Hands scores confirms he is not being hurt by a few bombers.

In the long run I'm definitely not. I have enough readers to drown the noise scores of the jerks. I mean that's the irony of bombing - only people who are popular with fans, flirt with halls of fame, etc. get bombed. Those are the same folk who will have enough readers to make bombing more or less irrelevant in the end. Decent authors get the last laugh; poor authors never get troubled in the first place. Sucks to be a pathetic bomber.

Where it does sting - and is meant to sting - is for New stories. Folk check the New list, and I figure if they see a 4.75 or better they'll take a look. (I always give my stories a 5 when they go up - if I didn't love it, I wouldn't have posted it.) But the bombers get in quickly, and down she goes. I've had stories in the threes in the first week that eventually ended up in the 4.7s or higher.

This is why I like the idea of not showing an average score until a story has a couple hundred votes, except perhaps to the author. If a bomber can't get that sick little emotional rush from seeing a score drop - and if by the time he can see the average, his votes have likely been swept or drowned out as noise - it'll just stop happening.

Readers might complain that without early averages, they can't tell crap from gems in the New stories list this way. But I'm not sure that matters because as things stand now, I doubt too many scores in the New list are meaningful. Between bombers, over zealous fans and people just having bad days and taking it out on you... it's basically a random number.

I'd personally like to see the effect of cumulative arousal on scores. My guess is it works like this. Reader Joe or Julie reads a hot story. They get to a hot simmer, but don't reach orgasm. They move on, not bothering to vote because dicks and clits get impatient. A couple more stories and oooooh... ready to pop. One more - even if it's crap - and they get off, and vote in the afterglow.

The first story may have been awesome. But the last story gets the 5.

IE, don't write short stories. Have multiple sex scenes. Get the orgasm and you stand a better chance of a vote. Except from the guys who fall asleep right after.

 

[sr71plt]

With HOT set as 4.50, any vote below 4 stars damages the rating. Many readers won't look at any story rated lower than a Red H. The reality is that

Actually, with HOT set at 4.50, any vote below 5 stars damages the rating.

For, oh about ten years, I've been suggesting a two-level superlative ranking like a few other story sites do it: HOT set at 4.00, with SIZZLING set at 4.50. But the suggestion has just been sailing out into the void, as with all others.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm one of those whom Ogg mentioned somewhere in the middle of this thread as having been driven off by apparent voting shenanigans. Exhausted with it all, I took a break from writing on this site and, when I came back, resolved to enter no more contests.

I think you'll find that Ogg denied that it was voting shenanigans. He claims folks are driven off by the shenanigans being discussed on the the forum. I think you're supporting the contrary argument to Ogg's--that it's the actual shenanigans that have driven you off. So, you're not taking the head-in-sand approach, I think.

 

[sr71plt]

That's as far as I'm going to take it, because I don't want someone using this garbage as a blueprint. You've made a lot of enemies. I think you're going to be surprised by how many people who are hauling your water right now will fill those buckets with gasoline when it's your turn to burn on a pyre of bullshit.

And there's going to be nobody left to protest except the charred corpses of the people you've set fire to along the way.

I hope Serafina1210 doesn't think you were addressing her. The poor women would be cowering in a corner.

 

[Serafina1210]

This is why I like the idea of not showing an average score until a story has a couple hundred votes, except perhaps to the author. If a bomber can't get that sick little emotional rush from seeing a score drop - and if by the time he can see the average, his votes have likely been swept or drowned out as noise - it'll just stop happening.

Looking over the toplists, it seems to me that it's mostly the more established writers, those who've developed big followings, who get vote totals above 200. Newer writers, or those who post every few months instead of every week, depend on being able to display a decent score with a total vote of 30 or 40 or 50 to attract new readers. (I average circa 95 votes per story, though most of my things get ratings above 4.5.)

A cutoff of "a couple hundred votes" is a formula for locking in the advantages of the long-timers and locking out everyone else.

 

[Serafina1210]

I hope Serafina1210 doesn't think you were addressing her. The poor women would be cowering in a corner.

I puzzled it out after a little while. As for my being a "poor women," alas, a great many people, looking at me, have come to think of me in the plural.

 

[oggbashan]

I think you'll find that Ogg denied that it was voting shenanigans. He claims folks are driven off by the shenanigans being discussed on the the forum. I think you're supporting the contrary argument to Ogg's--that it's the actual shenanigans that have driven you off. So, you're not taking the head-in-sand approach, I think.

Your conspiracy theories aren't the only explanation for voting anomalies. You keep reiterating that it is Authors that are responsible. A few might be or might have been, but there are more reasons for vote manipulation than Authors trying to win contests.

The constant denigration of the contests is damaging them. With all the known flaws, contests are still one of the better ways for authors to build an audience.

 

[lovecraft68]

In the long run I'm definitely not. I have enough readers to drown the noise scores of the jerks. I mean that's the irony of bombing - only people who are popular with fans, flirt with halls of fame, etc. get bombed. Those are the same folk who will have enough readers to make bombing more or less irrelevant in the end. Decent authors get the last laugh; poor authors never get troubled in the first place. Sucks to be a pathetic bomber.

Where it does sting - and is meant to sting - is for New stories. Folk check the New list, and I figure if they see a 4.75 or better they'll take a look. (I always give my stories a 5 when they go up - if I didn't love it, I wouldn't have posted it.) But the bombers get in quickly, and down she goes. I've had stories in the threes in the first week that eventually ended up in the 4.7s or higher.

This is why I like the idea of not showing an average score until a story has a couple hundred votes, except perhaps to the author. If a bomber can't get that sick little emotional rush from seeing a score drop - and if by the time he can see the average, his votes have likely been swept or drowned out as noise - it'll just stop happening.

Readers might complain that without early averages, they can't tell crap from gems in the New stories list this way. But I'm not sure that matters because as things stand now, I doubt too many scores in the New list are meaningful. Between bombers, over zealous fans and people just having bad days and taking it out on you... it's basically a random number.

I'd personally like to see the effect of cumulative arousal on scores. My guess is it works like this. Reader Joe or Julie reads a hot story. They get to a hot simmer, but don't reach orgasm. They move on, not bothering to vote because dicks and clits get impatient. A couple more stories and oooooh... ready to pop. One more - even if it's crap - and they get off, and vote in the afterglow.

The first story may have been awesome. But the last story gets the 5.

IE, don't write short stories. Have multiple sex scenes. Get the orgasm and you stand a better chance of a vote. Except from the guys who fall asleep right after.

You make a lot of good points and I have no doubt you have some personal detractors, forums will get those for you.

But something worth mentioning is 'trump' categories like non consent, incest and GM get trolls who are category trolls and will run up and down the new lists looking for every NC/incest etc story they can find and tag it.

 

[lovecraft68]

Your conspiracy theories aren't the only explanation for voting anomalies. You keep reiterating that it is Authors that are responsible. A few might be or might have been, but there are more reasons for vote manipulation than Authors trying to win contests.

The constant denigration of the contests is damaging them. With all the known flaws, contests are still one of the better ways for authors to build an audience.

But when you look at Serafina's post she is saying outright it was BS that drove her off, not the discussing of BS that did.

A lot of people have seen themselves screwed here or saw others screwed and they don't need the BS. For many people a few extra comments or votes is not worth being trolled and bombed for the sin of having a better rated story than someone's friend or favorite author.

Again the continual in action and refusal to acknowledge anything is amiss is what perpetuates the discussion. Going back to chapters, that has been bitched at and pointed out since way before my time how unfair they are.

And in the monthlies money is involved and they continue to have their unfair advantage. One series just won its 6th monthly award. $450-$900 has been gained by being a long running series that has the same 300 or so readers handing it fives every installment and its up for two things in the yearly and running away with them. 8 awards on one series.

Yet the site just keeps shrugging and letting it happen, but when people bring it up, oh, stop it, your're wrong, stop driving people off or making them aware of things, just let the unfairness continue.

In the awards thread Laurel claims chapters will not be part of the yearly next year. We'll see, we'll see if it will even come back at all, but no mention of the monthlies and the top list domination.

That series I mentioned? it owns a third of the Sci fi top list, obviously but...oops doing it again.

So its site apathy more than any other factor that keeps this going.

I wasted some time and went and looked through the comments on my story that was porked in 2012 Cat Brown was an author who entered that contest, her first entry and told me in an e-mail when I didn't place she wouldn't again. The other was Moheeko said the same thing.

So was it people saying "wow, that was wrong" over and over or was it the fact it was blatantly and obviously wrong?

Can't say its too hot if someone actually fixes the thermostat.

 

[sr71plt]

The constant denigration of the contests is damaging them. With all the known flaws, contests are still one of the better ways for authors to build an audience.

the contests are denigrating themselves, Ogg.

And, yes, there are advantages to submitting to them, which I demonstrate by entering all of them and pointing out some of the advantages to new folks at least once in every contest thread. I'm just not the head-in-sand apologist that you're being. You haven't criticized me for not seeing several reasons the contests are a problem--you've criticized me for mentioning any that don't suck up the Web site. "

I don't expect the contests to get honest. There are a lot of petty and grasping people on this Web site and always will be. What I'd like--and have kept saying so--is for the money to be zeroed out. The readership naturally favors some categories over others--and increasingly is favoring verbosity in story content--but each and every story contributed to this Web site is an addition, for free, to the Web site's product, with most of the money going to the Web site and a bit of money going back to the contributors, but primarily if they write in certain categories, dump chapters in the system, write in formulas, and/or are really good at manipulating a really loose system. Just stop rewarding manipulation with money. The contests should be for fun and blue Ws should be quite enough reward.

P.S. In contrast to some folks here (you? Laurel?) I don't see myself as just a user of Literotica; I'm an investor in Literotica. I'm providing the Web site's product.

 

[lovecraft68]

First of my last two posts on this topic.

After repeatedly saying how little my-and others-last few incest stories have been swept as opposed to low voted stories...

I just lost 400 votes from my story

And that is how it works here. No, okay let me look into this, no well see I know it looks wrong, but let me explain. No, okay, we're trying to work something out...anyone have ideas.

Nope, slip in through the back door, do the opposite of what's been done and walk away whistling "Someone will point this out and the other person will look wrong"

No different from stories that are blatant rule breakers that people report repeatedly and nothing happens, then someone gets so pissed they start a shaming "how can this be here?" thread and suddenly, again without joining in the discussion to say how it just disappears.

Kind of like my 'lit doesn't allow rape?" thread I started when I found a thread where an artist had made 'covers' for his favorite non con stories and put blurbs from the stories on the covers, all blatant hardcore rape and he linked them and I took my anti-nausea pills and checked them out looking for that moment when they 'liked it' nothing all three were graphic rape all the way through.

That thread had a lot of posts and some good discussion reasonable discussions in both directions, the type the site says they want 'intelligent discussions' did they join in? Say, listen...or well....

Nope overnight the images and links were removed from my post as was the thread I found them from. However, I went into my laptop history and found the stories, all still there still here now I assume.

Last year maybe previous Carnal Flower finding the story where an 11 year old was raped, then told her father she was and he had sex with her, under age and rape...how does this get through, it wasn't 'clever' the author was pretty direct. again it goes away no explanation.

And here's another example of it. CYA.

We're told let's discuss....but its among ourselves.