Author tantrums

[AwkwardlySet]

You are making assumptions about the relationship between what you say in this forum and the scores your stories receive that I think are unfounded. I don't make any assumption at all about the connection. I am sure there are cases where this happens but the number of people who participate in this forum is such a tiny and insignificant fraction of the total readership that I question the significance of the connection.

I've been in heated arguments with more than one AH-er and I have never received any score bombing as a result. There might be some trolls who lurk and read our discussions and who are maybe capable of doing such things but I firmly believe that all the regular AH people are way above doing anything like that.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You are making assumptions about the relationship between what you say in this forum and the scores your stories receive that I think are unfounded. I don't make any assumption at all about the connection.

When someone goes rage on you and a half an hour later all of your stories have exactly 1 more vote and they're all down, that's a direct connection. And it has happened to me four or five times.

I'm not saying that there's no one petty enough on the forums to do it, but the chance that it's a significant enough number to affect ratings seems unlikely.

Oh yes there are.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

When someone goes rage on you and a half an hour later all of your stories have exactly 1 more vote and they're all down, that's a direct connection. And it has happened to me four or five times.



Oh yes there are.

I've experienced a similar reaction to heated discussions with a few people on here. Coincidental at best, but in my eyes, it's a pretty strong coincidence. I kinda think it depends on who you piss off...

 

[SimonDoom]

When someone goes rage on you and a half an hour later all of your stories have exactly 1 more vote and they're all down, that's a direct connection. And it has happened to me four or five times.

That sounds like more than a coincidence, and I'm sorry to hear about that. But "four or five" times isn't that many times, even if it's happening.

Personally, I can't imagine doing it. No amount of vengeful satisfaction could overcome the feeling of, "My God I'm a shit." Maybe some people don't mind being shits.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

That sounds like more than a coincidence, and I'm sorry to hear about that. But "four or five" times isn't that many times, even if it's happening.

Personally, I can't imagine doing it. No amount of vengeful satisfaction could overcome the feeling of, "My God I'm a shit." Maybe some people don't mind being shits.

Four or five times in a little over a year? Considering that there are never more than three to five dozen regulars in the AH at a time, four times out of 60 is almost 7%. That's a lot.

 

[lovecraft68]

Thanks for these insights! I'm new to active participation in Lit (long time reader), but the patterns do seem very similar to various mailing lists / groups I've been in over the years. But what a joy it is to encounter such deep expertise, history and even ego in a different context, rather than endlessly obsessing over the chord progressions of (insert artist name here) or getting lost on open platforms like the Twitter cesspit.

I'm sure some here think I have an ego here. Probably one of those things that these are words typed on forum with no emotion, body language, tone, or nuance. I can say however, people who think that mistake ego for apathy, or occasional disdain to some extent. Disdain can be construed as ego, but in my case its more like an eyeroll in the form of, 'they actually said that"

 

[lovecraft68]

Indeed, I point this out from time to time and because of that apparently I'm a cunt-and-a-half, regarded as among the worst people here and get my scores bombed. That's what happens when you uncover egos.

I like to use the expression that people don't like when the mirror is held up to them. Its easy to judge other people, and we do all do it from time to time, but that same person will not see in themselves any of the negative they see in others.

 

[lovecraft68]

Agreed. I'm not saying that there's no one petty enough on the forums to do it, but the chance that it's a significant enough number to affect ratings seems unlikely.

There's been a lot of cases of things said here have led to some sudden bombs and occasionally a nasty anon feedback to go with it. I don't think its as common as it was a few years ago, many of that type have moved on.

But just because an unpopular forum post, or spat with another poster, is followed by some trolling, it's worth noting it may not be from the other party or a regular here. We have a lot of ghosters here, and there's a few posters here that have a name for the forum and hide their pen name, which always makes you wonder.

Like most things, the truth is in the middle. Sometimes a bomb is a random bomb, sometimes its personal.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Four or five times in a little over a year? Considering that there are never more than three to five dozen regulars in the AH at a time, four times out of 60 is almost 7%. That's a lot.

That's not a meaningful calculation.

"Four times a year" is the same thing as "0.33 times a month". If you divide 0.33 by 60, you'll get 0.6%.

It's also the same as "0.011 times a day". If you divide 0.011 by 60, you'll get 0.02%.

And if you go the other way and call it "400 times per century", you'll end up with 666%.

Does that mean that 666% of all AH regulars are revenge-bombing your stories? No, it just means that when you divide apples by oranges the results will be bananas.

NB I'm not questioning the suggestion that people sometimes target stories over AH interactions (I once had somebody leaving crappy comments who outright told me they were doing it for AH reasons) or that this is happening to you. Just saying that this "7%" is not a meaningful number.

 

[RejectReality]

There's been a lot of cases of things said here have led to some sudden bombs and occasionally a nasty anon feedback to go with it. I don't think its as common as it was a few years ago, many of that type have moved on.

But just because an unpopular forum post, or spat with another poster, is followed by some trolling, it's worth noting it may not be from the other party or a regular here. We have a lot of ghosters here, and there's a few posters here that have a name for the forum and hide their pen name, which always makes you wonder.

Like most things, the truth is in the middle. Sometimes a bomb is a random bomb, sometimes its personal.

Look at someone like Freddy, and it's fairly obvious his behavior on the forum was attracting troll votes that depressed his scores. If you look at his list now since exiting the forum, he gets red Hs on a fairly regular basis. Getting one was a crack-pipe dream when he was on here showing his ass every day.

Extreme example, but for anyone who remembers him, it's a pretty convincing argument for significant trolling coming from the forum. ( and specifically, the AH which is almost the only forum section he visited ) Granted, it was trolling a troll, but it's trolling nonetheless.

 

[SimonDoom]

Look at someone like Freddy, and it's fairly obvious his behavior on the forum was attracting troll votes that depressed his scores. If you look at his list now since exiting the forum, he gets red Hs on a fairly regular basis. Getting one was a crack-pipe dream when he was on here showing his ass every day.

Extreme example, but for anyone who remembers him, it's a pretty convincing argument for significant trolling coming from the forum. ( and specifically, the AH which is almost the only forum section he visited ) Granted, it was trolling a troll, but it's trolling nonetheless.

I showed up Dec. 2016, and from what I understand the worst of it had passed. Still, the behavior during my first year was worse than what I've seen since. I don't think this place is that bad. Most people are courteous and positive and even most of the ones who can be rougher around the edges than normal seem to want to engage genuinely.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

That's not a meaningful calculation.

"Four times a year" is the same thing as "0.33 times a month". If you divide 0.33 by 60, you'll get 0.6%.

It's also the same as "0.011 times a day". If you divide 0.011 by 60, you'll get 0.02%.

And if you go the other way and call it "400 times per century", you'll end up with 666%.

Does that mean that 666% of all AH regulars are revenge-bombing your stories? No, it just means that when you divide apples by oranges the results will be bananas.

NB I'm not questioning the suggestion that people sometimes target stories over AH interactions (I once had somebody leaving crappy comments who outright told me they were doing it for AH reasons) or that this is happening to you. Just saying that this "7%" is not a meaningful number.

All right, like I said it has happened to me (just me who knows how many times to others) four or five times in the past year (maybe more and I've forgotten). That was my original statement. I also said that there are somewhere between three and five dozen regulars in the AH at any given time.

So I purposely made my estimate the low end of the range four times from 60 users which works out to 6.67%

If we take the high end and use five times from 36 users (3 dozen) we get 13.89%.

I'll give the AH the benefit of the doubt and round down and say that it's somewhere between 6 and 13%, and further benefit of doubt to assume my impression that it's closer to the lower end, say 6 to 8%. It's hardly scientific, I certainly admit but it is a fairly strong argument, especially if you consider that we're only talking about my catalog which is easy to count the bombs because I get no traffic. How many people do you think bomb LC68 (who is one of the few who might actually be more hated thatn I am) and he never knows because he's a high profile writer who writes in high traffic categories like incest and LW and the bombs get lost in the hundreds of votes there? Safe to say that the rate is higher than I have calculated.

Bottom line: Oh fuck yeah, it happens!

 

[lovecraft68]

Look at someone like Freddy, and it's fairly obvious his behavior on the forum was attracting troll votes that depressed his scores. If you look at his list now since exiting the forum, he gets red Hs on a fairly regular basis. Getting one was a crack-pipe dream when he was on here showing his ass every day.

Extreme example, but for anyone who remembers him, it's a pretty convincing argument for significant trolling coming from the forum. ( and specifically, the AH which is almost the only forum section he visited ) Granted, it was trolling a troll, but it's trolling nonetheless.

I don't think this comment landed the way you intended it to. At least not for me, Thanks for the validation.

 

[lovecraft68]

All right, like I said it has happened to me (just me who knows how many times to others) four or five times in the past year (maybe more and I've forgotten). That was my original statement. I also said that there are somewhere between three and five dozen regulars in the AH at any given time.

So I purposely made my estimate the low end of the range four times from 60 users which works out to 6.67%

If we take the high end and use five times from 36 users (3 dozen) we get 13.89%.

I'll give the AH the benefit of the doubt and round down and say that it's somewhere between 6 and 13%, and further benefit of doubt to assume my impression that it's closer to the lower end, say 6 to 8%. It's hardly scientific, I certainly admit but it is a fairly strong argument, especially if you consider that we're only talking about my catalog which is easy to count the bombs because I get no traffic. How many people do you think bomb LC68 (who is one of the few who might actually be more hated thatn I am) and he never knows because he's a high profile writer who writes in high traffic categories like incest and LW and the bombs get lost in the hundreds of votes there? Safe to say that the rate is higher than I have calculated.

Bottom line: Oh fuck yeah, it happens!

I posted a thread about this, but won't bother digging it up. Two years ago I posted a story in LW-a category that I have nothing but disdain for a faction of it, and have always been vocal about it. Part of the intent of that story was to go fishing and see what bit.

Easier than I thought because it was the first comment on the story.

by Anonymous user on 09/27/2022

Lovecraft68 is, perhaps, the nastiest troll on Literotica. Go over to the Author's hangout and see his opinion of Loving Wives readers and writers. He is constantly railing against LW writers and readers, calling everyone here "incels," trying to get the site to run everyone off and prevent them from reading commenting or writing. The nastiest rat in the shit house, that's Lovecraft68. I suggest that readers give him all the respect he gives others: one star and a fuck you, bitch

All the proof anyone needs that either an author here, or a ghoster, runs to people's stories here and attacks them.

Irony of me saying things about LW under this name and for anyone to see, and they reply anon. I'd expect no less.

But credit where its due, they're right. I am nasty. That's why I own them.

 

[MyBareTorso]

That sounds like more than a coincidence, and I'm sorry to hear about that. But "four or five" times isn't that many times, even if it's happening.

Personally, I can't imagine doing it. No amount of vengeful satisfaction could overcome the feeling of, "My God I'm a shit." Maybe some people don't mind being shits.

Some people LOVE being shits! Everywhere!

 

[RejectReality]

I don't think this comment landed the way you intended it to. At least not for me, Thanks for the validation.

Wasn't meant as a disagreement. Some don't seem to think it happens, so I was providing an example. Thought about linking it to show the proliferation of Hs, but I once suggested he drop off the forum and see how much it would change his scores. Since he's heeded that, ( whether because I suggested it or not ) I don't want to provide an easy link to restore that trolling. ( Hence why I also use the generic term everyone from those bygone days knows him by, rather than any of his actual pen names, which I wager many have forgotten ) Far more consideration than he deserves after some of the shit he pulled, but he's just plugging away adding new work to the site, so I'm willing to let him do him. Suppose I could have screenshotted it and blanked out everything but the dates...

I'd say that Keith is another good example. He gives zero shits about sugar-coating anything, and it pisses people off. It's obvious from the way his scores jump after sweeps that he's got some forum-based trolls. Granted, he also posts to the politics forum, so there's a fair chance that most of his trolling comes from there rather than here. Still the forum, though.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I posted a thread about this, but won't bother digging it up. Two years ago I posted a story in LW-a category that I have nothing but disdain for a faction of it, and have always been vocal about it. Part of the intent of that story was to go fishing and see what bit.

Easier than I thought because it was the first comment on the story.

by Anonymous user on 09/27/2022

Lovecraft68 is, perhaps, the nastiest troll on Literotica. Go over to the Author's hangout and see his opinion of Loving Wives readers and writers. He is constantly railing against LW writers and readers, calling everyone here "incels," trying to get the site to run everyone off and prevent them from reading commenting or writing. The nastiest rat in the shit house, that's Lovecraft68. I suggest that readers give him all the respect he gives others: one star and a fuck you, bitch

All the proof anyone needs that either an author here, or a ghoster, runs to people's stories here and attacks them.

Irony of me saying things about LW under this name and for anyone to see, and they reply anon. I'd expect no less.

But credit where its due, they're right. I am nasty. That's why I own them.

Hey! I'm also the nastiest rat in the shithouse! Showed up on one of my earlier stories; I hoped I was uniquely favored, but alas.

 

[Bramblethorn]

All right, like I said it has happened to me (just me who knows how many times to others) four or five times in the past year (maybe more and I've forgotten). That was my original statement. I also said that there are somewhere between three and five dozen regulars in the AH at any given time.

So I purposely made my estimate the low end of the range four times from 60 users which works out to 6.67%

If we take the high end and use five times from 36 users (3 dozen) we get 13.89%.

I'll give the AH the benefit of the doubt and round down and say that it's somewhere between 6 and 13%, and further benefit of doubt to assume my impression that it's closer to the lower end, say 6 to 8%.

I understand how you're getting the number. I'm just saying that "four times divided by 60 users" (or 5 divided by 36 or whatever) is not a very meaningful calculation.

It doesn't mean "7% of AH regulars troll your stories". (Could be just one person who did it all those times.)

It doesn't mean "7% of the time when you say something people here disagree with, your stories get bombed shortly after".

It's a number that can be changed drastically by doing the calculation on a per-day or per-century basis, which is usually an indication that it's the wrong calculation to be doing. It'd be more meaningful to just leave it at "four or five times a year".

It's hardly scientific, I certainly admit but it is a fairly strong argument, especially if you consider that we're only talking about my catalog which is easy to count the bombs because I get no traffic. How many people do you think bomb LC68 (who is one of the few who might actually be more hated thatn I am)

I'm not sure you're hated as much as you think here. (This is not to suggest that you're wrong about the cause of the bombing, just a side observation.) Unsolicited personal opinion follows, spoilering it so you can choose for yourself whether it's anything you care to read.

You have strong opinions which you voice frequently, and a somewhat black-and-white attitude to a lot of topics, with some over-eagerness to interpret other people's motives for the choices they make. (I could probably be justly accused of some of those things myself.)

You've made it clear that you're not chasing popularity here, and I respect that far more than I respect people who come here demanding that everybody love them. I do think it's possible to have strong opinions and express them without being quite as abrasive as you sometimes are about that, but I don't see anything to make me think that's coming from malice.

There are a few people I look at and think "the forum would be a better place if they fucked off forever" and there are people I look at and think "they add something, I just wish we could have better conversations without getting into the same unproductive loops every time". For me, you're very much in the latter category, and I doubt I'm the only one. There are times when I find you frustrating but that's a very long way from "hate".

There's more I'd like to say, but it's along the lines of "here are some examples of people in AH who are far more hated than you are" and you can no doubt see why that would not be a wise thing for me to post.

Bottom line: Oh fuck yeah, it happens!

I believe it happens, I'm just nitpicking about how to quantify it. Nitpicking about how things are quantified is a strong instinct of mine

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It doesn't mean "7% of AH regulars troll your stories". (Could be just one person who did it all those times.)

Well, multi-accounts aside, you can't bomb a story more than once. Further to that, I had four of my stories bombed a couple of months ago and I wondered why all ten weren't bombed. Then I realized that the four that were bombed were the four most recent, which means that the bomber had already bombed the first six at a previous time. He would have bombed them again if he could. This does lend credence to your notion that the same person could be repeatedly bombing, but still, one account cannot bomb the same story more than once, so the AH has more than one bomber. If every few weeks/months your same stories are getting bombed, it's more than one person. If they were alting, they'd bomb you twice on the same day. I know because I've been bombed dozens of times on the same day by the same person who spam attacked me on like 15 accounts in chat.

Just to be clear, I have no ambition to be the most hated and do not consider it any sort of badge of honor. I really don't care, but just to observe, if we were all ranked by most hated, safe to say that I'd be in the 85-90 percentile or up. We don't have to get into why, it's just data. I mention this because it simply makes my account a good study - high hate and low traffic and on top of that only one story that has any controversial content, making my data very easy to study and isolate the bombs. If you want to know how the bombers operate, you won't find much clearer examples than my experiences. I get bombed because people in in the forums and in chat don't like me personally. As far as the forum (really the AH because AH and SRP are the only forums that I participate in and folks in SRP keep to themselves, there are no hot topics or politics) is concerned, yes my chat presence muddies the data, but when someone goes rage on me in AH and 10 minutes later my scores are down, yeah, it's someone in AH. Again to be clear, I've been bombed many many times, I say four or five because those are the ones that I KNOW were from the AH. Then there are another half dozen times that I know it was from chat, and in between another half dozen times that I don't know where it came from, so my 7% estimate (admittedly as unscientific as it is) is actually likely significantly higher.

No matter what the actual numbers are, it is safe to say that there are definitely people here in the AH (more than one or two) who are willing to bomb someone's stories over what they might say in a forum thread. Anyone who thinks otherwise, I'm just letting you know.

 

[Actingup]

No matter what the actual numbers are, it is safe to say that there are definitely people here in the AH (more than one or two) who are willing to bomb someone's stories over what they might say in a forum thread. Anyone who thinks otherwise, I'm just letting you know.

Perhaps they think they're doing the world a favour, Unabomber-style. Of course, if they're reliably picked up by the sweeps, it's an exercise in futility.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

if they're reliably picked up by the sweeps

They're not. Sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. About four years ago I had someone spam attack me in chat in multiple accounts, flooding my PMs with spam. I probably still have the transcripts, the evidence that I sent to the mods. If I showed it to you here you would be like "wtf??? seriously? holy shit!" you've never seen anything like it. So I reported like 12 or more account IDs that had spam attacked me and got them all banned. Well, a ban from chat is not a ban from the rest of the site. At that time I had one story posted here. It had a 4.6 score from 22 votes and was dead, it was getting no action at all. A week later someone asked why my story was 1.8. I checked it out and it had like 50 votes and a 1.8 score. Obviously the person that spammed me and got all those alts chat banned went and bombed my story on all of those accounts and more. The sweeps came through it came up to 2.4.

Also, as I told above, someone recently bombed my four most recent stories. Why not the first six? Because they had already bombed them months before. So I doubt that the sweeps removed those first six bombs.

So yea, the sweeps work but they are far from perfect. Not that I expect them to be. I'm sure that they do as good of a job as they can.

 

[SkyBubble]

I may have it.

I am EXTREMELY pissed.

I write all my own work. I have now had three stories THAT I WROTE rejected as AI, one of them for a THIRD time. I am inclined just to remove all my stories (70 of them) from the site and stop writing here. I find it insulting that they would do that. I've just about had it.

I've been writing here for 18 yes, since 2006, and I like this site a lot. But I am tired of being subjected to such questionable treatment.

If I disappear soon, you'll know why.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hey! I'm also the nastiest rat in the shithouse! Showed up on one of my earlier stories; I hoped I was uniquely favored, but alas.

Dammit!

Did you pick up on the shithouse part? Apparently, they don't view the AH itself in high regard.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Well, multi-accounts aside, you can't bomb a story more than once.

I'm not sure why you seem to cling to this belief. Anybody with a basic tech understanding of the internet can cast multiple votes. It's actually quite easy and I can prove this to you anytime you want.
Considering my own experience, it's easy for me to believe that someone is bombing you. I seriously doubt I am anywhere near to being liked around here but I never had reasons to believe it was someone among the AH regulars who was doing it. I could be wrong of course but I'd rather believe that the people with whom I'm interacting are above it and that the malicious voting that does happen as a result of forum posts comes from many anonymous people who also read these threads.
I agree with you about sweeps. Some people here seem to believe that Laurel sweeps the stories regularly. Whether she did it in the past or not is debatable, but she hasn't been doing it for a while, that much I'm pretty sure of. She does sweep during the contests, especially near the end, and sometimes other stories are caught by it, mostly newer stories as far as I could tell. But I am quite convinced that's accidental rather than intentional.

 

[RejectReality]

I'm not sure why you seem to cling to this belief. Anybody with a basic tech understanding of the internet can cast multiple votes. It's actually quite easy and I can prove this to you anytime you want.
Considering my own experience, it's easy for me to believe that someone is bombing you. I seriously doubt I am anywhere near to being liked around here but I never had reasons to believe it was someone among the AH regulars who was doing it. I could be wrong of course but I'd rather believe that the people with whom I'm interacting are above it and that the malicious voting that does happen as a result of forum posts comes from many anonymous people who also read these threads.
I agree with you about sweeps. Some people here seem to believe that Laurel sweeps the stories regularly. Whether she did it in the past or not is debatable, but she hasn't been doing it for a while, that much I'm pretty sure of. She does sweep during the contests, especially near the end, and sometimes other stories are caught by it, mostly newer stories as far as I could tell. But I am quite convinced that's accidental rather than intentional.

Yeah, casting multiple votes isn't remotely difficult. I could drop 9 in a minute or so if I wanted to with zero prep. Give me a minute or so and I could drop another 9. Rinse and repeat. I could expand that by several per wave if I took a few minutes to prepare. Casting multiple votes that survive a sweep is another thing altogether. What I was describing is the most basic evasion of the controls, and would be painfully obvious. They wouldn't last 3 seconds into a sweep.

It's the monthly awards being behind that's reduced the sweep activity. Whenever Laurel processes those, every story from '23 will likely see wild shifts, as will a large number of other stories throughout the database. The primary target of a sweep is a specific set of stories, but once that starts picking up someone's shenanigans, that same behavior ends up going away sitewide. I strongly suspect that once you reach a certain threshold of scumbaggery, every vote you've ever cast likely finds its way into the void, regardless of value.