Votes disappearing?

[HairCutter607]

Hi all,

We logged back in to see how readers were liking our 2 tales so far, and much to our surprise, our older story has gone from 20 votes, to 16 in the past few days. why would this be happening?

 

[Brandie69]

The site operators use some criteria (I don't know what it is, and I'm not sure anyone other than the operators knows) to "sweep" votes that are deemed to be illegitimate.

I've seen speculation that this may be because they were logged by the same user or from the same IP address. Others speculate that it may be votes that stand in plain contrast to the story's overall trend (i.e., sweeping away the odd 1 star from a story that has only 4s and 5s otherwise), although I'd find it hard to justify disenfranchising someone who genuinely held a strong but different opinion. (That's why we vote, after all, isn't it?) But again, I don't know.

I also don't know whether sweeping only happens during themed story contests, or 24/7-365, because I haven't been paying attention to the issue myself for long enough, but I can tell you that themed-story contestants seem to pay particular attention to them and they have apparently caused some fast horses to be hobbled in the clubhouse turn. I have heard, and I think you confirm, that all stories, contest entries as well as others, are subject to sweeps, but again, I'm not 100% sure.

All of that is the long way of telling you that I don't know the answer to your question.

I hope that clears things up for you

 

[sun_sea_sky]

What she said. It is a puzzle. Consider one of the competition entries has lost over 300 votes in the last couple of days, and the author reports he lost another 300 yesterday. So 4 isn't too bad.

I've noticed that if you come back to a story it knows you already voted (it says something like "you gave this story 5 stars") so it doesn't actually let you vote twice. Whether that is based on your IP address or your logged-in name I don't know. I assume your IP because you don't have to log in to vote.

So the way the sweeps work is conjecture, basically. Possibly they review the amount of time you spent reading the story and if it is too short the vote is disallowed.

I wouldn't worry too much about the votes going down. If their system works, they were basically bogus votes in the first place.

Looking at the current competition, 1072 votes have been swept in total, and for the stories which were swept, the average was 11 votes. However 16 (out of 108) stories did not have a (visible) vote adjustment.

 

[Brandie69]

And correct me if I'm wrong, Sun, but as often as not (if not more often) a sweep causes a story's score to go up, not down. In other words, from what I've seen, low votes are swept at least as often as high ones.

(Warning: I am not advocating voting while high)

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Yes, from today's analysis:

A total of 92 stories have had their votes adjusted, with 121 sweeps resulting in a new score that day which is higher than before and 21 sweeps resulting in a new score that day which is lower.

So the sweeps could be considered a good thing in general.

@HairCutter607: Did your score go up, down, or stay the same?

 

[HairCutter607]

Yes, from today's analysis:



So the sweeps could be considered a good thing in general.

@HairCutter607: Did your score go up, down, or stay the same?

Hi there,

it went up after a sweep a few days ago, where i lost 2 votes, and i think it went down to where it now sits at 3.67... 2 votes can make a big difference, when you only had 20 to begin with.

S&C

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've noticed that if you come back to a story it knows you already voted (it says something like "you gave this story 5 stars") so it doesn't actually let you vote twice. Whether that is based on your IP address or your logged-in name I don't know. I assume your IP because you don't have to log in to vote.

It's based on browser cookies, not IP. You can test this by opening up your browser cookies and deleting any from literotica.com (or just switching to a different browser) and then returning to the story you voted on before.

So it's quite possible to enter multiple votes from one IP, even inadvertently (e.g. my partner and I voting on the same story through the same net connection) but I think those get deleted in sweeps.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Oh, OK, I forgot about cookies. I suppose that is a first line of defense against voting twice. Obviously not a very strong one.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

it went up after a sweep a few days ago, where i lost 2 votes, and i think it went down to where it now sits at 3.67... 2 votes can make a big difference, when you only had 20 to begin with.

My experience is that the score tends to level out after about 2 weeks, partly probably because the number of people viewing it and voting decreases quite a lot.

I have a story that had 4.49. "Only one more 5*," I thought, "and I'll reach the 4.50 mark! (maybe)"

However I got one more vote, and it went down to 4.47. (39 votes to 40 votes).

And then no more votes this month. Ah well, that's life.

 

[2981notrohrm]

It's based on browser cookies, not IP. You can test this by opening up your browser cookies and deleting any from literotica.com (or just switching to a different browser) and then returning to the story you voted on before.

So it's quite possible to enter multiple votes from one IP, even inadvertently (e.g. my partner and I voting on the same story through the same net connection) but I think those get deleted in sweeps.

So if you use InPrivate browsing in IE (does not save cookies or history,) can you vote on a story as many times as you want?

 

[sr71plt]

I really don't see why any honest author on this site would want to know any of these ways to cheat their scores--or that formulas need to be given on the forum.

 

[Bramblethorn]

So if you use InPrivate browsing in IE (does not save cookies or history,) can you vote on a story as many times as you want?

I presume so, but it's very likely to get cleaned up in sweeps.

I really don't see why any honest author on this site would want to know any of these ways to cheat their scores--or that formulas need to be given on the forum.

Because many honest authors are curious about How Things Work. Doesn't mean they're up to mischief, just that they have ordinary healthy levels of curiosity.

Besides which, the technique we're discussing is (a) something that should be obvious to anybody who knows a little bit about how a browser works, and (b) not actually very useful for gaming the scoring system, since sweeps based on IP will still catch it.

 

[AdjectiveNounVerb]

So if you use InPrivate browsing in IE (does not save cookies or history,) can you vote on a story as many times as you want?

I'd be interested in double-voting only if the second vote erased the first vote completely and only it counted. There's times where I've reread stories and at the end looked at the vote I gave it the first time and wished I'd waited to vote since I'd have given it two or three more/fewer stars if I'd voted after re-reading instead of after the first time through. But as far as I can tell, there's no way to change your vote once it's in.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

http://www.literotica.com/faq/05315902.shtml

You must give a rating to the story to leave a comment. If you have voted on the submission previously, then the vote you leave with the comment will not count toward the submission's total.

This strongly suggests that the first vote you give is the one that counted. Not that all votes from a particular IP are removed, only subsequent ones (assuming they use IP addresses).

 

[Brandie69]

From the FAQ:

"You must give a rating to the story to leave a comment."

This is apparently no longer true.

 

[estragon]

I really don't see why any honest author on this site would want to know any of these ways to cheat their scores--or that formulas need to be given on the forum.

Concur. The trolls manage to bash quite well (or badly), and the boosters to boost (ditto), without being given roadmaps and directions how to game the system. Suffice it to say that the proprietors have erected barriers, as best they can, to prevent such behaviors.

But there should be a FAQ on the subject. It would save much time and speculation.

 

[TinyBeth]

Hi there,

it went up after a sweep a few days ago, where i lost 2 votes, and i think it went down to where it now sits at 3.67... 2 votes can make a big difference, when you only had 20 to begin with.

S&C

I'm in pretty much the exact same boat. A vote here and there had been removed, generally increasing my score (once it went down though so I'm guessing that time a higher vote was removed) but right after the last contest ended I had several votes removed and my score went up to a 3.86. I had 27 votes at the most and am down to 22 now so yeah one vote does have a major influence.

 

[AdjectiveNounVerb]

I've lost 33% of all my votes!!!!

Ok, so one single solitary vote is all that disappeared. But I only had three to begin with! Stories are way harder to write than haiku.

 

[PayDay]

I really don't see why any honest author on this site would want to know any of these ways to cheat their scores--or that formulas need to be given on the forum.

Concur. The trolls manage to bash quite well (or badly), and the boosters to boost (ditto), without being given roadmaps and directions how to game the system. Suffice it to say that the proprietors have erected barriers, as best they can, to prevent such behaviors.

But there should be a FAQ on the subject. It would save much time and speculation.

Vouch, seconded.

 

[jrgg43]

gaming the system...

I'm not particularly interested in gaming the system. As an author I am looking for honest ratings and hopefully feedback. I kind of wish that there would be a rule that would require a comment in order to give a rating, rather than a rating in order to give a comment. (I know, neither of these rules apply now.)

When the sweeps hit I lost a couple of votes in two of the chapters of the story I am working on. One rating went up and the other went down. So I'm not sure exactly what that means for my story. What I DO like about the sweeps is that at least I know the ultimate ratings are honest and I have a good idea of how my story is being accepted.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm not particularly interested in gaming the system. As an author I am looking for honest ratings and hopefully feedback. I kind of wish that there would be a rule that would require a comment in order to give a rating, rather than a rating in order to give a comment. (I know, neither of these rules apply now.)

When the sweeps hit I lost a couple of votes in two of the chapters of the story I am working on. One rating went up and the other went down. So I'm not sure exactly what that means for my story. What I DO like about the sweeps is that at least I know the ultimate ratings are honest and I have a good idea of how my story is being accepted.

This is a reading site, not a critique site.