Up-voting

[thomas1965]

There are a few threads where people complain that their stories get down-voted.
I wonder if up-voting is also a problem. IMO some stories seem to be over-rated.
I wonder if maybe the author or some friends give 5* to boost a story.

Any thoughts about it?

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm sure it happens, but they may be picked up as dodgy and swept like one votes from trolls.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

There are a few threads where people complain that their stories get down-voted.
I wonder if up-voting is also a problem. IMO some stories seem to be over-rated.
I wonder if maybe the author or some friends give 5* to boost a story.

Any thoughts about it?

While anything is possible, I agree with Rusty that blatant attempts would likely be caught and swept by the system.

I also agree that there are some seriously over-rated stories here (including some of mine), but the same is true with the NYT and many other "best-seller" lists. Time is the true indicator of a story's appeal.

 

[nice90sguy]

I've only posted one story here, and didn't really think about what voting score it would get, because as a reader, I tend to ignore the ratings, and focus on the tags, title, category etc. I don't even pay much attention to who the author is -- it's so quick to simply open the story and start reading and decide whether it's worth continuing.

But now I look at my story's score every day! It's pathetic, really.

 

[thomas1965]

I assume it detected the MAC address of my phone's network adapter. That means sweeps will no longer be necessary. Well done!

This might be on a phone. A device can have more than 1 MAC address, a PC and a laptop can have WIFI and a Ethernet port

 

[ElectricBlue]

There are a few threads where people complain that their stories get down-voted.
I wonder if up-voting is also a problem. IMO some stories seem to be over-rated.
I wonder if maybe the author or some friends give 5* to boost a story.

Any thoughts about it?

The same criteria applies to a "helpful five" as it does a trolling one bomb. The sweeps will strip it out. How do I know? Experiments, on my own story file.

 

[JGittes]

I've had more 4- and 5-star votes swept in the past year than 1- and 2-star votes. Whatever criteria Lit uses to sweep the stories has determined those high votes weren't legitimate. Since the 1- and 2-star votes weigh more heavily, losing the 4- and 5-star votes doesn't hurt.

You mentioned something else in your question; some stories seem overrated. In this regard, the most important aspect to keep in mind is we're on the internet. On the hundreds of sites I've visited that employ a 4- or 5-star rating system, the overwhelming majority (90+%) of the votes are 4- or 5-star. That's how unrestricted internet voting works.

I believe readers do not have coherent criteria to determine their votes, so the literary quality reflected in the vote is irrelevant. When I'm drunk and horny, I'll vote differently than during the week after my wife kicked me out of the house.

 

[FifthEstate]

I've only posted one story here, and didn't really think about what voting score it would get, because as a reader, I tend to ignore the ratings, and focus on the tags, title, category etc. I don't even pay much attention to who the author is -- it's so quick to simply open the story and start reading and decide whether it's worth continuing.

But now I look at my story's score every day! It's pathetic, really.

Welcome to life as a Lit writer…Lol.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'll vote differently than during the week after my wife kicked me out of the house.

Hmmm...

I think I dated her once...

 

[FifthEstate]

If I don’t know the author, unless a story reaches at least 4* after a few days I won’t bother reading. For all the faults of an internet voting system, I believe for the most part, Literotica readers/voters generally get it right, especially after a story has been around for awhile. My biggest turn-offs are typo’s, misspelling’s (I just had some) and grammatical trainwreck’s. But typically those stories fall below 4.25, so I rarely see them. The one exception is LW where the trolls have been known to down-vote some higher quality stories.

 

[lovecraft68]

As far as being over rated, that comes down to your opinion vs others, and who the author is, if they're popular and the reader has been following for some time, they may give them a five even if the story wasn't great because its still an author they like

As for deliberate up voting, someone has to make a concerted effort to to it enough to make a difference. One or two fives the author can give themselves is one thing, to really boost a story needs a group of people.

Little sad history, we had a person here for years that allegedly(as time goes on I have started to lean away from the long running theories regarding this person, at least with that because he was a total d-bag here) created a legion of alts to vote and fav two of his stories. Now each alt needs an e-mail to create it, and the idea someone was creating hundreds of e-mails and doing it (still now...right) is far fetched.

However, a concerted effort to upvote stories and troll others by a group of people happened a few years ago, mostly for contests. I won't go on and on about it, other than it was real, and they were using the sweeps to their benefit using a formula for their story, but the site said no, even in the same thread one person from the group admitted it...so if you ever think something funny is going on, just call it the way it is, because nothing will ever be done, even if you could prove it.

Worry about your own score-but not as being more important than the actual story-and leave it at that, no sense worrying about what's going on with others.

 

[SyleusSnow]

This might be on a phone. A device can have more than 1 MAC address, a PC and a laptop can have WIFI and a Ethernet port

A MAC address is not transmitted across the internet. It only goes as far as the first router.

I'm not going to help 1-bombers (and 5-bombers) by speculating on how Lit detects them, but there are many ways to identify individual browsers. The EFF does great work demonstrating this, e.g. https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

 

[maryanek]

Don't be overly concerned with upvoting. Math is brutal.
If a story with 100 (80*5,10*4,10*3) votes and rating 4.7 receives 1*
- the voting can to 4.66
Second 1*? 4,62
Third? 4,59!

From 4.7 to 4.59 with 3 stars.

Do you want to know how many 5s you need to be back at 4.7?
Some of you, who complain of upvoting, may be calmed down with the information...
It needs to have 40*5!
So please, sleep good, you all
Trolls are much more powerful with their single 1* than poor downvoted LW authors who just... simply can't fight back even with army of friends.

Really not a problem LE admins should spend their manpower to solve.

 

[thomas1965]

I don't care about the votes at all.
I just was curious since I saw a few threads about down-voting, but not one about up-voting.
Most stories I looked at had about 1% of the viewers voted, really a tiny minority.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't care about the votes at all.
I just was curious since I saw a few threads about down-voting, but not one about up-voting.
Most stories I looked at had about 1% of the viewers voted, really a tiny minority.

Yep, one in a hundred = a vote, and one in a thousand views = a comment. Unless your writing is really good, or really bad - then readers let you know.

 

[Defluer]

Don't be overly concerned with upvoting. Math is brutal.
If a story with 100 (80*5,10*4,10*3) votes and rating 4.7 receives 1*
- the voting can to 4.66
Second 1*? 4,62
Third? 4,59!

From 4.7 to 4.59 with 3 stars.

Do you want to know how many 5s you need to be back at 4.7?
Some of you, who complain of upvoting, may be calmed down with the information...
It needs to have 40*5!
So please, sleep good, you all
Trolls are much more powerful with their single 1* than poor downvoted LW authors who just... simply can't fight back even with army of friends.

Really not a problem LE admins should spend their manpower to solve.

I do wish that Lit would divide it up for the authors, what the Rating Breakdown is and I've always meant to go dig into the math if there was a way from my end to figure it out. (By seeing what the latest vote(s) were and how the numbers changed.) But... Sadly I'm barely decent at writing and I wasn't blessed with the math smarts.

I also have experience with 5s being swept away, I don't know if they were nice fans or what but I've had scores drop at the same time vote count goes away. For the most part it works out though. The stories I expect to have a low rating have a low rating, the ones I think will be enjoyed are.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I do wish that Lit would divide it up for the authors, what the Rating Breakdown is

I'd be happy to see a simple histogram of the ratings.

 

[Defluer]

I'd be happy to see a simple histogram of the ratings.

Actually my Top Request, like #1 and all the others might as well start at #50, is click through percent. How many people go from Page 1 to Page 2 and so on. That would tell me my actual reads, not just views. Mentally I slice off 50% of my Views and say it's people dropping in, reading a paragraph or two and then going away. I'd be happier if there was embedded whatevers so that I could see how far down each page somebody got.

 

[FifthEstate]

Actually my Top Request, like #1 and all the others might as well start at #50, is click through percent. How many people go from Page 1 to Page 2 and so on. That would tell me my actual reads, not just views. Mentally I slice off 50% of my Views and say it's people dropping in, reading a paragraph or two and then going away. I'd be happier if there was embedded whatevers so that I could see how far down each page somebody got.

Hmm…that’s interesting. Don’t forget why most readers come to Lit in the first place. Does it help to know that 42.7% of viewers visited page 3, paragraph 7 (which happens to be when Tiffany has her most intense orgasm of the story)?

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please someone up vote me.

 

[maryanek]

The best histogram of ratings is on Goodreads!
There is everything in there!

 

[djrip]

Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please someone up vote me.

I did just the other day! That bellhop was a little bit forward...

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I did just the other day! That bellhop was a little bit forward...

But with the best of intentions and for money so that makes it okay. Thanks!