"One Night in XXX” Story Event: Official Support Thread

[TarnishedPenny]

And yet another sweep within the past hour or so. Curious that whoever is trolling this hasn’t learned yet.

Thanks to Laurel and Manu for staying on top of it.

 

[ishtat]

Wow, that troll is busy

Yes and no Chloe. A couple of people have commented that their stories have been bouncing up and down the scoreboard but not all stories have. The number of views is generally averaging between 3 thousand and 6 thousand/story. One story in LW has 17 thousand and rates 3.3 with 10, mainly troll type comments, and another (in GS) has 18 thousand views with 40, mainly brief, but entirely complimentary comments. (There was one which was mildly critical but that disappeared.) This last story has steadily rated around 4.8 without any bounciness. Ok higher numbers will reduce bounce, but to no movement at all? - Not statistically possible.

I don't think any single troll/author could or would have caused these anomolies but my albeit long ago training as a mathematician tells me that a common purpose group like a misguided 'fan club' certainly could. You have a group of trolls Chloe, not just one. Hopefully they will filter out in a while.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Yes and no Chloe. A couple of people have commented that their stories have been bouncing up and down the scoreboard but not all stories have. The number of views is generally averaging between 3 thousand and 6 thousand/story. One story in LW has 17 thousand and rates 3.3 with 10, mainly troll type comments, and another (in GS) has 18 thousand views with 40, mainly brief, but entirely complimentary comments. (There was one which was mildly critical but that disappeared.) This last story has steadily rated around 4.8 without any bounciness. Ok higher numbers will reduce bounce, but to no movement at all? - Not statistically possible.

I don't think any single troll/author could or would have caused these anomolies but my albeit long ago training as a mathematician tells me that a common purpose group like a misguided 'fan club' certainly could. You have a group of trolls Chloe, not just one. Hopefully they will filter out in a while.

I don’t think it’s me so much as the event stories being targeted. The last sweep saw my rating jump back up.

 

[WoolyWorm]

I think the site may be scrubbing them very hard to favor them.

I gave one of these One Night stories a 2* rating, because I legitimately thought it was bad. (It was not by any of the authors posting in this thread, BTW). And not only did my vote for that story get scrubbed, the site seems to have wiped my votes for all other stories as well (including my own; one of my stories dropped .01 points as a result).

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

I gave one of these One Night stories a 2* rating, because I legitimately thought it was bad. (It was not by any of the authors posting in this thread, BTW). And not only did my vote for that story get scrubbed, the site seems to have wiped my votes for all other stories as well (including my own; one of my stories dropped .01 points as a result).

Well that's disappointing. I know we're not supposed to speculate about how the sweep works, but I would like to think that legitimate low votes are sticking. If someone doesn't like my story I'd like to know it. Of course I'd like them to comment and tell me why, but I'll take what I can get.

 

[NotWise]

Well that's disappointing. I know we're not supposed to speculate about how the sweep works, but I would like to think that legitimate low votes are sticking. If someone doesn't like my story I'd like to know it. Of course I'd like them to comment and tell me why, but I'll take what I can get.

I don't know what to think. As is probably consistent with SciFi&F, my story has received rather few votes -- 33 total and 23 unswept. The distribution of the votes is shown on the graph below.

Obviously there are two bodies of votes here, and that seems to render the score meaningless. The mean score (all votes considered) is 4.06, but the median is 5.0. The swept score shown by the site was 4.65 when I last checked, but that has varied wildly from 3.6 to 5.0.

Do you suppose all the votes below four are troll votes? The story has some possibly controversial elements that might cause delicate readers to down vote.

Edit: And in the time it took me to write that, the story got two votes averaging 2* and the swept score dropped from 4.65 to 4.44.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Swept and rebombed in under three hours. Some little basement dweller is being very energetic. Wonder what they’re getting out of it, given the energetic sweeping?

 

[gordo12]

Well that's disappointing. I know we're not supposed to speculate about how the sweep works, but I would like to think that legitimate low votes are sticking. If someone doesn't like my story I'd like to know it. Of course I'd like them to comment and tell me why, but I'll take what I can get.

How would you ever tell a bad 1 vote from a good 1 vote. It's impossible. All would get swept.

In LW there are so many votes that a 1 vote actually has very little effect. For instance if you have a for arguments sake a 5* story and somebody votes one that declines the overall vote total by 4 points. but with 2000 votes that 4 is divided by 2000 which is miniscule overall.

So the morning after the launch most of the LW stories were up in the 4-4.4 range. The average voting (pattern) was between 4 & 5. Then all afternoon they started to decline until they'd lost around 50 points. That in itself is a pattern that means the average votes had to be 1 & 2's because it took place over about 70 votes. And that goes against the previous voting pattern.

I don't think there's been a hard sweep through LW yet. I did notice 1 vote and 1 comment disappear and I assume some IP got blasted by the site.

For the sheer volume of all this it would have to be automated scripts hitting proxy servers to vote. No one person could do that manually.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Swept and rebombed in under three hours. Some little basement dweller is being very energetic. Wonder what they’re getting out of it, given the energetic sweeping?

It’s probably reading our comments here and getting this weird erotic thrill. Shame we can’t rate that one - I’m finding this rather funny. Who will give first - the troll or the sweeps.

 

[Piscator]

Thanks Chloe for orgaisig and all authors who participated. I've not been in one of these events before and it's truly amazing the number of takes and categories that One Night in xxx can encompass.

A wealth of material, looks like there will be a few One Night in XXX all nighters coming.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Thanks Chloe for orgaisig and all authors who participated. I've not been in one of these events before and it's truly amazing the number of takes and categories that One Night in xxx can encompass.

A wealth of material, looks like there will be a few One Night in XXX all nighters coming.

You’re welcome and I’m glad you enjoyed writing for it. Now, Geek Day is coming up in May..... big grin

 

[LoquiSordidaAdMe]

How would you ever tell a bad 1 vote from a good 1 vote. It's impossible. All would get swept.

Well, if the same IP address gave out fifty 1* votes in half an hour, those are probably troll votes. But if an IP address (or better yet, a logged-in user) gave a 4* vote and then half an hour later gave a 1* vote and then an hour later gave a 3* vote, well those are all probably legitimate.

 

[TANSTAAFL58]

Boy, the votes are all over the place. I'm getting a fair number of views and my rating has been as low as 4.05 and as high as 4.70. I was 4.61 about half an hour ago.

No comments yet.

Thanks again for organizing this Chloe. It was a lot of fun.

On to Geek Pride and Nude Day. What other ideas do you have for future events? Hints?

 

[KeithD]

Since the "anonymous" who left this comment on my "One Night in Beirut" obviously reads this thread, I'll let him/her have a thrill to read their comment here as well:

Get over yourself.
~you're a copy & paste writer.
~you're boring.
~you have no beginning/middle/end.
~no one is trolling your scores, you're just not good.

 

[gordo12]

Since the "anonymous" who left this comment on my "One Night in Beirut" obviously reads this thread, I'll let him/her have a thrill to read their comment here as well:

Get over yourself.
~you're a copy & paste writer.
~you're boring.
~you have no beginning/middle/end.
~no one is trolling your scores, you're just not good.

Well he/she had to read the story for 1 & 3 so at least you know somebody's reading

 

[KeithD]

Well he/she had to read the story for 1 & 3 so at least you know somebody's reading

Not really. Especially as I don't think either is true.

 

[gordo12]

Not really. Especially as I don't think either is true.

Obviously!

 

[ishtat]

A couple of special mentions: Kudos to BeautifulZelda for putting in her first story where it would be compared with some very good writers. Gunhilltrain because at the moment she/he hasn't cracked the 1000 views mark; hard to get eyes when there is a lot of good stuff around - mebbe that one arrived late?

 

[rebel_code]

Well, most of us who were on the EC hub are off now, as new stories were posted today during North American daylight (not a common occurrence, but it happens). So passes our brief time in the spotlight with casual readers who are not working from the event page.

Hope we all get a few more views and votes before "One Night in XXX" becomes a memory. It was fun writing and hanging out with all the good folks here. Time I guess to think about the next story.

 

[TANSTAAFL58]

Since the "anonymous" who left this comment on my "One Night in Beirut" obviously reads this thread, I'll let him/her have a thrill to read their comment here as well:

Get over yourself.
~you're a copy & paste writer.
~you're boring.
~you have no beginning/middle/end.
~no one is trolling your scores, you're just not good.

Okay, maybe no comments is better than this...

 

[PennameWombat]

Thank you, Chloe

Thanks Chloe for orgaisig and all authors who participated. I've not been in one of these events before and it's truly amazing the number of takes and categories that One Night in xxx can encompass.

A wealth of material, looks like there will be a few One Night in XXX all nighters coming.

I'll use the above and simply add my personal thank you to Chloe for setting this up. For me too this is the first such event I've made it into (and hopefully for Geek Pride too!) And to Laurel and Manu for their usual hard graft in getting all of these posted and looking after the scoring. If I can find the time to read ALL of the entries I'm sure I will become a better person.

Only comment I'll add is I don't score my own stories and while not every story I read will be to my taste, I hope that my own voting will be true to my experience of the story and not because I want the author's scores to be undeservedly deflated.

That said, I might wail at reading a particularly wonderfully crafted story while I smash my forehead on the desk screaming "why can't I do that!!!"

 

[overwatcher]

Urgh!! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I've started favoriting stories and voting, ok so that's pretty much fine, some are taking their time and others need redoing, but my comments are coming up in some cases, and not in others. Tried to post a thank you to readers on my story and it went back to a page that said I wasn't signed in did it twice before I gave up. An hour later guess what - yeah both notes appeared. I have just got through trying to send a comment for the second time for one story, did the preview, submit and then review, has come up awaiting moderator approval as have they all so we'll see I guess. Gutted because I made the effort to comment on all my favs. Oh well keep smiling everybody.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

Urgh!! I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I've started favoriting stories and voting, ok so that's pretty much fine, some are taking their time and others need redoing, but my comments are coming up in some cases, and not in others. Tried to post a thank you to readers on my story and it went back to a page that said I wasn't signed in did it twice before I gave up. An hour later guess what - yeah both notes appeared. I have just got through trying to send a comment for the second time for one story, did the preview, submit and then review, has come up awaiting moderator approval as have they all so we'll see I guess. Gutted because I made the effort to comment on all my favs. Oh well keep smiling everybody.

I'm still waiting for a comment I made on one of my own stories to show up, but it never has. That was easily over a month ago. No idea what happened to it.

I have more issues with my private messages. Sometimes I'll get a pop up saying I have a new one, but when I go to my inbox there's nothing new.
And when I do have a new one, I don't get a pop up so by the time I do go there the message is really old! I know people probably think I'm ignoring them but honestly I'm not.
I think a lot has to do with my trouble signing in. I can't log in at all on my phone. Can't stay logged in on my laptop. When I want to comment or post I have to log in every time.

 

[overwatcher]

I'm still waiting for a comment I made on one of my own stories to show up, but it never has. That was easily over a month ago. No idea what happened to it.

I have more issues with my private messages. Sometimes I'll get a pop up saying I have a new one, but when I go to my inbox there's nothing new.
And when I do have a new one, I don't get a pop up so by the time I do go there the message is really old! I know people probably think I'm ignoring them but honestly I'm not.
I think a lot has to do with my trouble signing in. I can't log in at all on my phone. Can't stay logged in on my laptop. When I want to comment or post I have to log in every time.

True, it may well be the sign in procedure, I'll try that let you know, the comments not coming up are the worse for me, I spend some time on them so to see them disappear into the ether is a bit disappointing, still smiling though.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Wow. 20 votes overnight and went from 4.9 to 4.47. Looks puzzled. How can this be? Rotflmao