War on the "Trolls"

[Synthia]

I think every author on Lit is fed up with the "Trolls". These folks who vote 1 or 2 on a story with a high average, usually due to some whim or some small detail in the story they took offense at.

I'm a fairly new author, so this may not be a new idea, but my solution would be: If after a reasonable number of votes (say 20) a vote comes in that is 2 or more below the average for that story, it would simply be thrown out and not counted. The reader need not know that their vote didn't count and if he/she votes 3 on a story with an average of 4.5 it would count under this system. Obviously if enough readers vote 3 then the average will and rightly should drop

Lit could program this change in the proverbial "New York minute", and I have communicated this to them. If enough authors get on this, it might eventually get done.

Synthia

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[BlackSnake]

I think every author on Lit is fed up with the "Trolls". These folks who vote 1 or 2 on a story with a high average, usually due to some whim or some small detail in the story they took offense at.

I'm a fairly new author, so this may not be a new idea, but my solution would be: If after a reasonable number of votes (say 20) a vote comes in that is 2 or more below the average for that story, it would simply be thrown out and not counted. The reader need not know that their vote didn't count and if he/she votes 3 on a story with an average of 4.5 it would count under this system. Obviously if enough readers vote 3 then the average will and rightly should drop

Lit could program this change in the proverbial "New York minute", and I have communicated this to them. If enough authors get on this, it might eventually get done.

Synthia

Try an easier fight, like the war on drugs. You'll have a better chance at winning. 1 bombers will kill your ratings. I removed over 60 of my stories from this site and published a handful of them to keep them away from the Trolls, or at least force them to pay to 'dis' them.

Good luck, I really feel you on this one.

 

[impressive]

... and published a handful of them to keep them away from the Trolls, or at least force them to pay to 'dis' them.

The ultimate.

 

[Synthia]

Hmm. Feedback doesn't sound too encouraging. I may have to think about just packing up and moving elsewhere.

I notice there are some "E's" on stories which do not have the "H" rating, and I've read some which are very good which do not have either. It's perhaps not a big deal, except those little H's promote readership, and if I wanted to just read my stories myself I'd simply print them off and do so.

Thanks for the information concerning past attempts to defeat the Trolls.

Synthia

 

[cantdog]

This is a good big site with a lot of readers. Your call, though.

 

[R. Richard]

Alas, like the poor, the trolls we always have with us.

I do feel that your suggestion is an excellent one, but very unlikely to be implemented.

 

[Extreme Bohunk]

Hmm. Feedback doesn't sound too encouraging. I may have to think about just packing up and moving elsewhere.

I notice there are some "E's" on stories which do not have the "H" rating, and I've read some which are very good which do not have either. It's perhaps not a big deal, except those little H's promote readership, and if I wanted to just read my stories myself I'd simply print them off and do so.

Thanks for the information concerning past attempts to defeat the Trolls.

Synthia

Trolls are a fact of life here.
Yes, they're annoying, but to 'just pack up & move elsewhere' means they've won.

Most of us have begrudgingly learned to accept them (and the voting system) for what it is. It ain't perfect, but it's what we got.

I have a lot of fun here, have met some way cool people, and not to mention, have a place to write stories that I wouldn't have if it weren't for this site.

 

[Recidiva]

You got 1s and 2s? I'm jealous.

Whatever you do, don't be an editor's choice.

Pisses people off royally.

 

[Liar]

I'm a fairly new author, so this may not be a new idea, but my solution would be: If after a reasonable number of votes (say 20) a vote comes in that is 2 or more below the average for that story, it would simply be thrown out and not counted. The reader need not know that their vote didn't count and if he/she votes 3 on a story with an average of 4.5 it would count under this system. Obviously if enough readers vote 3 then the average will and rightly should drop

I applaud your ambitions to get rid of the trolling, as I do when mismused and impressive raised the same issue to the agenda before. However, my objection to your suggestion is the same as my objection to their ditto. It's not a solution.

A low vote does not equal a troll. If a story has a 4.2 rating, and I honestly and truly believe it is not worth more than 2, then I'm not allowed to give an honest vote, because I hapen to disagree with the majority? Doesn't seem fair either.

One-bombers are annoying, but they come with the territory of having rating voting in the first place. I think imposing restrictions of real voters to get to the trolls is not worth it. But that's me.

 

[Liar]

I notice there are some "E's" on stories which do not have the "H" rating

<shrug> Not surprising. The E is the opinion and taste of one person (the editor). Often this one person's opinion is the same as the majority. But sometimes not. I would be surprised, and a litle suspicious, if it correlated all the time.

 

[minsue]

A low vote does not equal a troll. If a story has a 4.2 rating, and I honestly and truly believe it is not worth more than 2, then I'm not allowed to give an honest vote, because I hapen to disagree with the majority? Doesn't seem fair either.

Damn, you beat me to it. Agreed.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What's really pissing me off is having lost the ability to edit my submissions before they are accepted. The one that just went up- is missing a paragraph as I realised when I looked at my document after I'd hit the button. Well, the only thing you can do is re-post it as an edit. I added a note to Laurel saying the is the real one- would she use it instead of the original submit. And it showed one viewing before the original did. But she posted the original- with the error- and I am waiting on the edited version.

 

[oggbashan]

E without an H

I am pleased to have one story with an E.

As it was a Valentine's Day Competition entry that E attracted the trolls like wasps around a honey jar. It still has the E. Sometimes it has an H. That H doesn't last long.

But then I have a very low proportion of Hs. My stories don't please everyone. Some of them don't please ANYone.

Og

 

[cantdog]

The voting is frequently galling, because it represents an intrusion of the wider world. All people get to vote. All of 'em. Nobody is screened out. So you get some weird results.

There isn't any 'education' process before you vote. No one tells you, even, what criteria are supposed to be used, except Did you like the story? And that is a subjective thing, isn't it? The votes are going to be on a whim. And in my view, that's legitimate. It is.

Sure, you lose the H. But in the end, one has a readership, if one can write. The readership develops with or without the H's on the stories. How many people are named Synthia or liar or cantdog? Is that your name? Of course not. So to what extent does the voting on stories by Synthia impact you?

I read anything I see by gauchecritic. I loved liar's stories, they are awesome. I can't always be moved by his poems, but that's another issue. The point is, I read rggraham. I read impressive. I read cloudy. But I don't worry about the votes. After I read the first couple of their stories, I went back. It's free.

It's good writing, usually. And when I see a feature of their writing that I can also see a way to improve, I write them a PM or send a feedback message explaining what I think can be made better. Where else can you do that and be heard? God bless the internet and all who sail in her.

Now, because I know how the H system works, here, I never vote unless I have a 5 to give, because it would hurt the rating of the story worse to vote less than 5 than it would not to vote at all. That's what 'education' about the voting system has done to my own voting habits. But that doesn't invalidate the helter-skelter from-the gut voting by the public. You resent it? How much of that is resentment of the vast uninitiated?

cantdog

 

[cantdog]

I have also stopped writing for the contests, even though there were many positive features of them. The deadline made me work harder at it. My contest story, Encore was a good one. It's stolen a lot by pirating smut sites. It has almost the highest voter rating of all my stories, even now. It posted less than 24 hours after submission, dude. All that was great.

But there were other people, other authors also in the contest. What they did left a very bad taste in my mouth indeed. These are people whose personae on the boards at Lit are all smiles. Full of gushy hugs and ellipses. Hearts and flowers, man. But one may smile and smile, and be a villain, as the fellow said. These people went around to the other entries and 4-voted them, or three-voted. To help stack the deck a little. After all, the prize is a prize and the money is money.

I don't want to see that any more. It can all go ahead and happen without me. So I don't do contests and I don't sweat the votes. Once in a while a good idea, like the one impressive was pushing for, comes along, which will make the votes fairer while still having them accessible, and I support the idea. But for all the effect it's had I may as well not have bothered. The site ignored it.

Readership is more than votes. Doing a good job writing is much more. Pay attention to the important things. The public at large are sheep, and once they find out that they are supposed to like you, once they know you are generally thought of as good, they will bleat and follow the herd, and the votes will get in line.

 

[Recidiva]

I have also stopped writing for the contests, even though there were many positive features of them. The deadline made me work harder at it. My contest story, Encore was a good one. It's stolen a lot by pirating smut sites. It has almost the highest voter rating of all my stories, even now. It posted less than 24 hours after submission, dude. All that was great.

But there were other people, other authors also in the contest. What they did left a very bad taste in my mouth indeed. These are people whose personae on the boards at Lit are all smiles. Full of gushy hugs and ellipses. Hearts and flowers, man. But one may smile and smile, and be a villain, as the fellow said. These people went around to the other entries and 4-voted them, or three-voted. To help stack the deck a little. After all, the prize is a prize and the money is money.

I don't want to see that any more. It can all go ahead and happen without me. So I don't do contests and I don't sweat the votes. Once in a while a good idea, like the one impressive was pushing for, comes along, which will make the votes fairer while still having them accessible, and I support the idea. But for all the effect it's had I may as well not have bothered. The site ignored it.

Readership is more than votes. Doing a good job writing is much more. Pay attention to the important things. The public at large are sheep, and once they find out that they are supposed to like you, once they know you are generally thought of as good, they will bleat and follow the herd, and the votes will get in line.

That's pretty much why I can't take any of this terribly seriously. Anyone who is interested in winning with ambition for the money is going to win over me.

To me I just love seeing the little numbers go up, or go down. It's like playing "The Sims"

"I wonder how my little story family is doing today?"

I even like the negative feedback, it's helped me understand points of view other than my own. Not that I want to particularly visit them, but it does help to factor them into whatever equation you use for your life.

 

[cloudy]

I think what it comes down to is what's more important to you? The votes, or the opportunity to get your work out there and be read by a large, and varied, amount of people?

The votes aren't all that important in the long run. To me, anyway.

and....thanks, cant.

 

[cantdog]

There you are, recidiva. I applaud you.

Your writing is easy to love, cloudy, especially your later works. It's you who are doing me the favor.

 

[Barno]

I agree with you wholeheartedly, yet Liar has made some very good points as well. I have given a bad grade to a story that had been graded well simply because I thought it was not well written.

With this being said I wish there was some way of excluding someone who has only graded 3 or lower from voting after a certain number of votes. And more importantly, I wish there was a way to kick out some trolls that say some extremely hateful things in their comments. Just go into some of the interracial stories and you will see some pretty racist comments. All that is missing is the "N" word. I have reported them but nothing gets done. The least a web owner can do is boot a racist.

My advice is to avoid certain subjects such as interracial where the racist trolls hang out or loving wives where what can only be described as the Christian right trolls have set up shop. I am not so sure how the other subjects fare with trolls.

 

[minsue]

I have also stopped writing for the contests, even though there were many positive features of them. The deadline made me work harder at it. My contest story, Encore was a good one. It's stolen a lot by pirating smut sites. It has almost the highest voter rating of all my stories, even now. It posted less than 24 hours after submission, dude. All that was great.

But there were other people, other authors also in the contest. What they did left a very bad taste in my mouth indeed. These are people whose personae on the boards at Lit are all smiles. Full of gushy hugs and ellipses. Hearts and flowers, man. But one may smile and smile, and be a villain, as the fellow said. These people went around to the other entries and 4-voted them, or three-voted. To help stack the deck a little. After all, the prize is a prize and the money is money.

I don't want to see that any more. It can all go ahead and happen without me. So I don't do contests and I don't sweat the votes. Once in a while a good idea, like the one impressive was pushing for, comes along, which will make the votes fairer while still having them accessible, and I support the idea. But for all the effect it's had I may as well not have bothered. The site ignored it.

Readership is more than votes. Doing a good job writing is much more. Pay attention to the important things. The public at large are sheep, and once they find out that they are supposed to like you, once they know you are generally thought of as good, they will bleat and follow the herd, and the votes will get in line.

Are you sure that's what it was about, Cant? I'm not as good about reading and voting on all of the contest stories as I'd like to be, but when I do I vote completely honestly - using the entire range of options. It's a contest and that's the only fair way. I figure if the author didn't want honest votes, they wouldn't have entered.

 

[cantdog]

Not entirely sure. The feedback that accompanied the vote, the PC actually, in one case, which is still there on my Nude Day story, was pretty damning. He mocked an analogy in the story and wished me good luck, with more simpers and hugs. He was in the contest and in the top ten. I never asked him if it really was that way. But I ain't doing any contests again.

 

[oggbashan]

But there were other people, other authors also in the contest. What they did left a very bad taste in my mouth indeed. These are people whose personae on the boards at Lit are all smiles. Full of gushy hugs and ellipses. Hearts and flowers, man. But one may smile and smile, and be a villain, as the fellow said. These people went around to the other entries and 4-voted them, or three-voted. To help stack the deck a little. After all, the prize is a prize and the money is money.

I find it difficult to vote in the contests. Should I vote anything but a 5 on my fellow entrants? If I don't think the story is worth a 5 I won't vote at all.

I have been placed in one contest of all the ones I have entered. I am proud of that. The money? Didn't feature in my consideration. But then I don't expect to win. I enter to get more reads, more feedback, and sometimes more readers. I get trolls as well. They are a fact of life.

I can understand newbies to this site thinking that a 3 vote is 'average', a 4 is 'good' and a 5 is 'excellent'. With a scale running from 1 to 5 that seems logical. However many trolls are not newbies who don't understand. They vote too consistently against particular authors.

Don't blame the authors for what their fans do. I can't dictate to those who like my work. I can't deter those who hate it.

Og

 

[minsue]

I can understand newbies to this site thinking that a 3 vote is 'average', a 4 is 'good' and a 5 is 'excellent'. With a scale running from 1 to 5 that seems logical.

It's not only newbies, Ogg. I still think that. Which is why I rarely vote. I hate being accused of trolling. I've seen people bitch about getting a 4.

 

[cantdog]

I blame the, uh, fans, if you can call them that, for what they do, myself. I've seen some of the vitriol your little stories have generated, ogg. Every bit as racist as the ones Barno is speaking of. Nationalist wackos too, anti-muslims foaming at the mouth. Gad.

I posted a story with a muslim secondary character. The guy got laid in a mall by a Christian hooker, who was my protag. Man! I got so much shit. It was a good story, too. Funny, sad, human, and the sex was hot. Oh well. I took it down.