Vote Fraud?

[assman37]

Apologies if this is covered already.

This is my first post on the site, but I have been an avid reader on Literotica since 2000. I finally had the balls to post a story on the site last month and felt it was OK for me to now read through the 'Author's Hangout' page

I have a question about vote fraud (or whatever term you guys all use). I do NOT want to be accused of doing anything like this. How do I prevent that? I certainly wasn't arrogant enough to vote on my own story, but is there something else I need to watch out for?

Thanks

 

[mynameisben]

Apologies if this is covered already.

This is my first post on the site, but I have been an avid reader on Literotica since 2000. I finally had the balls to post a story on the site last month and felt it was OK for me to now read through the 'Author's Hangout' page

I have a question about vote fraud (or whatever term you guys all use). I do NOT want to be accused of doing anything like this. How do I prevent that? I certainly wasn't arrogant enough to vote on my own story, but is there something else I need to watch out for?

Thanks

Well, if you're not even going to vote for your own story (I don't do that either) then there's really nothing to worry about voter fraud coming from yourself. The only way I can think of an author committing voter fraud is if he/she signs up for multiple Literotica accounts and uses multiple aliases to vote again and again for his/her own story.

Where voter fraud runs rampant is coming from trolls who 1-bomb stories for sport and for spite. They'll vote a story with a "1" without even bothering to read it just to lower the author's overall score. Fortunately, Lit has a mechanism in place to spot 1-bombers' actions and erase those 1-votes from the record. Still, some 1-bombs stay with you. It's a travesty, but it's something we all just have to live with.


You might want to include a link to your story(s) in your signature line to attract more voters. A little self-promotion is by no means fraud, and it certainly couldn't hurt.


Ben

 

[AvroAnson]

Not to be glib, but you don't have any control over the process. The different sides and functions of the site don't always update at the same time you might have more votes than views while the process plays itself out. The first couple monitors and from time to time eliminates votes by a secret formula. Okay, it's thousand island dressing, no wait, that's secret sauce. Folks who've been around likely can guess what that entails -- probably deleting multiple votes from a single IP address, votes from people who vote all 1s or all 5s or only on a certain author's submission, stuff like that.

And there is nothing wrong with voting once on your own story.

You might want to include a link to your story(s) in your signature line to attract more voters. A little self-promotion is by no means fraud, and it certainly couldn't hurt.

Ben, you addressed this to a new author. In that context I agree.

But if you've been around long enough you might have an angry mob with torches and pitchforks trailing behind you upset that someone who "writes nice LW" also writes "nasty BDSM" or "icky I-T" or vice versa, or all three. So it's something everyone needs to decide for themselves. If you write in I-T, BDSM or LW at all you might want to have separate identities for each. In which case it isn't cool to vote 3 or 4 times for your story. But none of us here would ever do that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Apologies if this is covered already.

This is my first post on the site, but I have been an avid reader on Literotica since 2000. I finally had the balls to post a story on the site last month and felt it was OK for me to now read through the 'Author's Hangout' page

I have a question about vote fraud (or whatever term you guys all use). I do NOT want to be accused of doing anything like this. How do I prevent that? I certainly wasn't arrogant enough to vote on my own story, but is there something else I need to watch out for?

Thanks

Beyond not doing it, I'm not sure there is much you can do there. If you like you can keep an eye on your story stats and if you notice an unexplained rush of votes coming in, you can use the "report story" button to ask Laurel to look at it, but that's a bit of work if you're not the kind of person who enjoys tracking your stats over time.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Yes, vote-stuffing happens sometimes due to authors boosting their own work, or over-enthusiastic fans, or haters trashing somebody else's work. And we get a certain amount of discussion about it on the forums. But authors don't have a lot of access to data on other author's stories. Unless it's really blatant or somebody confesses, it's hard for us to be sure of cheating on other people's stories. The most we can do is report possible cheating so that somebody with access to behind-the-scenes info can look into it.

(Also, it is okay to vote, once, on your own story. Different authors have different views on whether one should do it, but the site owners have said it's okay. In the long run one vote won't make a huge difference.)

 

[assman37]

OK, thanks folks. I remember reading a post last week or a couple weeks ago by LexxRuthless (thanks again for all your help, man!) on how to prevent manipulating votes or something like that. I just want to make sure I'm not doing anything that would seem like I'm trying to 'cheat'.

And thanks, Ben! Good advice and I'll add a signature.

 

[AvroAnson]

Duplicate post.

 

[PennameWombat]

OK, thanks folks. I remember reading a post last week or a couple weeks ago by LexxRuthless (thanks again for all your help, man!) on how to prevent manipulating votes or something like that. I just want to make sure I'm not doing anything that would seem like I'm trying to 'cheat'.

And thanks, Ben! Good advice and I'll add a signature.

Congrats on your submission!

Ah. That discussion was about long, multi-chaptered stories and the "toplists." Each category has a list of the 250 highest-rated stories in that category (see here: Toplists). There is a tendency where stories that unroll over tens or hundreds of chapters that the later chapters only have the most dedicated readers who LOVE the story vote on them and that means they end up with high ratings and thus lots of spots on the toplists.

The mention of 'manipulation' there was the possibility that some authors intentionally split their stories into many chapters to get this. But, some of those stories have been unrolling over YEARS (one since 2015 and it just had a new chapter released couple of weeks ago.) Hey, if you're that dedicated to writing a story, is that really "manipulation"? But the site apparently has some changes in the works around that whole issue and that thread pretty well covered the issue.

However you want to parse that issue, otherwise we as authors can't do much. The site runs "sweeps" - a secret process where the site prunes away what it believes are fraudulent votes, such as troll-one-bombs and the like (although a recent sweep apparently removed a '5' vote from one of my stories.) A couple of previous posts in this thread alluded to them. Only the site owners know the exact details and we just leave them to it, to lessen trolls having info to game it.

So unless you're setting up a hundred sock-puppet accounts to vote on and rave about your stories, there's not much that we as authors can do other than sit back and let it all roll.

I once had a dream where all of my characters opened accounts and one-bombed all of my stories and put in comments that "this author is clueless!!!"

As to voting on your own stories, as you've seen in this thread we all have our own beliefs and they don't agree. Do what feels best for you.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Welcome to the wide world of Lit and congratulations on your first. Exciting, isn't it?

Personally, I think it's quite proper to vote for one's own story. Others disagree, but that's OK too.

As to improper voting, stick around and you'll get a lot of opinions.

Again, welcome.

 

[lovecraft68]

Welcome to lit, congrats on the story.

There are people who vote on their own story, and there is a strategy to it. You need 10 votes to qualify for a red H so if one of the first is yours and a 5 it can help get there and if it has an H the theory is readers are more likely to click on it.

Having said that, I personally don't do it just because I think its kind of tacky, but that's my opinion, people can do whatever they want with their stories.

 

[KeithD]

Personally, I think it's quite proper to vote for one's own story. Others disagree, but that's OK too.

Some time ago Laurel said authors' (single) votes on their own stories weren't swept away. My check on that is that they probably are. If a writer wants to do that, it's fine with me. The site's voting system gives more power to 1 voters than 5 voters and any vote under 5 negates a "hot" designation, so I think letting the author vote on her/his story is just a bit of compensation support for the effort they've put into paying for this Web site.

 

[SisterJezabel]

My Facebook is filled with people asking me to vote on their baby photos in some competition, or the like. I don't post links to my stories there and ask everyone to come over and vote. I think it's harder in this forum to manipulate votes. I'm not going to head to a different public wifi spot in town, read through a story and vote over and over again.

 

[MColton84]

I don't see an issue in voting for your own story, so long as it's one vote. You wrote the story, brought it into being, so you earned that one vote. I have voted on a few of mine, if anything else out of pride in seeing it through. So I don't consider the single "pat yourself on the back" vote as an issue.

When it comes to using multiple IP addresses or duplicate accounts, that's different. If you need to give your story that much of a boost, then your story has a problem. My understanding of the contests is that they offer cash prizes for the top 3 or 4 stories. It may not seem like a lot of money, I myself make more before lunch, but it is money. If someone cheats to win a cash prize, then they are a thief pure and simple.

Long story short, pat yourself on the back but if you have to pad your story's score to win, then it isn’t good enough anyway. That's just my take on it though. To each their own.