Score Vandalism

[RejectReality]

Trolls will find a way.

Whatever measures you put in place to prevent people from casting malicious votes, they will find a way around it. Meanwhile, you make it more difficult or annoying for the average visitor to the site. There's a limit to what Joe Schmoe will bother with, and the bar isn't very high. The amount of effort people will put in to read and vote on a free jackoff story ain't much. Every single piece of security code you put in place, no matter how "behind the scenes" it's supposed to be, is going to cause problems for thousands of users on a site this size.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Huh? You can drop a one on a story at any time, regardless whether you're logged in or anon. Whether it sticks or not depends on other parameters.

You didn't read my post carefully. Whether your 1* vote gets swept or not, that isn't bombing. Everyone is allowed to vote once on each story. And when you vote while logged in, your vote is tied to your account. You can't vote twice on the same story, no matter what. Of course, you can have alt accounts and use those to cast another vote but that's a whole different facet of the problem. Some authors use alt accounts to delve into different kinks and themes, ones they feel would be punishing for their mainline stories and that's perfectly fine. In that case, at least the admins should know who is who and set up such accounts so that the voting can be done from one account only. Sadly, that is not so. But worse than that, many use alt accounts to troll and post crap on the forum and besmirch other authors. That's just one more delightful face of Literotica that could have been prevented by setting some proper rules and moderating.

But as an anonymous reader, under certain circumstances, you can cast multiple votes on the same story. There is actually no limit for someone willing to invest the time. Those votes don't get swept away in many cases. I actually managed to vote 30 times on a single story before I stopped and those votes weren't swept. So I actually tested everything I am claiming here. People should know that sweeps are not something that happens on all of the stories - there are just too many of them and sweeps take time and CPU power. Laurel is often reluctant to use them - at least that was my impression in my scarce interaction with her.
So whatever people here claim, disabling anonymous voting would definitely reduce but also probably change the nature of the problem. With proper moderating, I believe that the problem could be eliminated even, but the same as with many other things, admins are unwilling to bother with it.

In the end, even though I wasn't gonna post my own experience on Lit and on SOL (where anonymous voting and commenting isn't allowed) because that's just one example and thus hardly a valid dataset, I found that disallowing anonymous voting wouldn't reduce the number of votes by much or maybe at all. In my own case, the same story has about 10% more votes on Lit than on SOL, which, adjusting for the size of the website, could be seen as the opposite

People speculate too much about things they can't possibly know, some of them with eye-rolling certainty. Typical AH topic.

 

[TheLobster]

Trolls will find a way.

Indeed. When it comes to this kind of problems -- security, abuse detection, etc. -- it's always a matter of the cost/benefit ratio.

Simple, client-side countermeasure such as the timer that @mildlyaroused proposed are very low on the cost ratio (how many legitimate readers can go through a story in two minutes?) and relatively high on the benefit one (trolls would have to at least open the browser's developer tools, which is already not an insignificant barrier).

But anything based on some out-of-band data about the connecting client -- such as IP address (MACs are forgotten beyond the first network hop, i.e. your Wi-Fi router) -- would be based on a flawed assumptions about uniqueness and identity. Ascertaining identity of internet users that didn't explicitly log in to your service is both a technical and ethical/legal challenge. Companies that solved it reasonably well, like Google or Facebook, reap billions of dollars from their solutions. Anything that's reliable enough is by definition a privacy infringement, too, and navigating the legal quagmire of what's allowed and what's not (esp. in the EU) is why the aforementioned companies have hundreds of well-paid lawyers.

In other words, it's a hard problem, and it's very unlikely anyone here could come with ideas that'd help solving it.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Some authors use alt accounts to delve into different kinks and themes, ones they feel would be punishing for their mainline stories and that's perfectly fine.

That is one thing I would never do. I know full well that some of the readers attracted to one of my stories in Non-consent go on to read those in LW and the others. A few have even commented and PM'd me to tell me. I recently posted a couple stories in Non consent and saw an overall rise in readership of my stories over all.

 

[KeithD]

That is one thing I would never do.

I've done it. I initially posted stories across the board under one original account. I've gotten far less hassling, higher comparative ratings, and more specialized reading traffic by separating the story accounts by genre.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I've done it. I initially posted stories across the board under one original account. I've gotten far less hassling, higher comparative ratings, and more specialized reading traffic by separating the story accounts by genre.

Oh, I can see how you would get those things, but I am looking for overall readership. I want people to read my older stories as well, crossing over categories and genres. Often if I read an author and like one story, I'll search out others. Often I'd never have read the story otherwise.

 

[SimonDoom]

In the end, even though I wasn't gonna post my own experience on Lit and on SOL (where anonymous voting and commenting isn't allowed) because that's just one example and thus hardly a valid dataset, I found that disallowing anonymous voting wouldn't reduce the number of votes by much or maybe at all.

I don't see how you can say this. Comparing SOL and Lit doesn't prove anything, because they're two different systems, reader groups, and data sets. The relevant comparison is Lit, allowing anonymous votes, and Lit, disallowing anonymous votes. How can one argue that by disallowing anonymous votes the total voting WON'T go down from what it is now? Your analysis doesn't address that.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I don't see how you can say this. Comparing SOL and Lit doesn't prove anything, because they're two different systems, reader groups, and data sets. The relevant comparison is Lit, allowing anonymous votes, and Lit, disallowing anonymous votes. How can one argue that by disallowing anonymous votes the total voting WON'T go down from what it is now? Your analysis doesn't address that.

I already said that my own case hardly makes a valid dataset, even though it's still more than what many other people here offer, which is opinions based on nothing.
By the way, what you are asking for is impossible to predict in any reasonable way. Let's say Laurel decides no more anonymous voting, starting from today. How can I possibly predict what would happen, say, after a month? How many people would actually register just so they could vote? I have no idea and I am pretty sure that no one else does either. But SOL shows that you can reserve voting and commenting for registered users only, and still get a decent amount of votes and comments. I don't know why you would find those users so different from the ones on Lit. They aren't Martians. I am actually almost sure they overlap significantly.

 

[ElectricBlue]

.People should know that sweeps are not something that happens on all of the stories - there are just too many of them and sweeps take time and CPU power. Laurel is often reluctant to use them - at least that was my impression in my scarce interaction with her.

From what I've seen over the last ten years - I joined in 2014, and to the best of my recollection, sweeps were already running back then - sweeps go through the entire database whenever they are done, which is at least monthly and several times during every contest. You can "ask for them" but they run regardless, and even if you're not in a contest, your story benefits.

I rarely enter contests, yet I always see score adjusts on my most recent stories whenever there's a sweep, and my oldest stories will occasionally have odd movements (vote numbers drop one or two, their score rises). From that I've concluded the sweep is an algorithm that runs through the whole dataset, runs through old stories as well. Whether there's a cut-off I don't know, but if there is, it's before 2014.

I don't see a reluctance to use sweeps. They're part of the site's regular routine and have been for years, and from what I can see, they serve their purpose, by catching and removing most malicious votes.

 

[lovecraft68]

Trolls will find a way.

Whatever measures you put in place to prevent people from casting malicious votes, they will find a way around it. Meanwhile, you make it more difficult or annoying for the average visitor to the site. There's a limit to what Joe Schmoe will bother with, and the bar isn't very high. The amount of effort people will put in to read and vote on a free jackoff story ain't much. Every single piece of security code you put in place, no matter how "behind the scenes" it's supposed to be, is going to cause problems for thousands of users on a site this size.

It's sad that not just here, but pretty much anywhere on the net, the trolls are far more dedicated than the decent readers....and in a sense, that says a lot about decent readers that they don't feel compelled to comment on something they like, but the trolls are happy to made the effort.

My wife made a point to me a long time ago that really stuck with me. We'd gone to buy some new furniture and the sales woman was amazing. My wife is a bit fussy on certain things, she asks a ton of questions, and although her attitude isn't difficult, she takes up a lot of time, and for these people the longer they spend with one customer the more they're losing out on as others swoop in on the new people coming in.

My wife called the store later that day, asked for the manager and proceeded to rave about the saleswoman, telling him how much time she took, how patient she was etc and put in a great word for her.

She then told me that people-especially now with yelp and other review sites, so quick to be negative and complain and bash people, but when they find someone who did a good job they rarely go out of their way to talk about that.

It really holds true in many ways.

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't see how you can say this. Comparing SOL and Lit doesn't prove anything, because they're two different systems, reader groups, and data sets. The relevant comparison is Lit, allowing anonymous votes, and Lit, disallowing anonymous votes. How can one argue that by disallowing anonymous votes the total voting WON'T go down from what it is now? Your analysis doesn't address that.

If we dropped anon there would be less votes and comment, but they would be higher scores and better comments.

Question is, you want quantity or quality?

That being said, removing the outlier of the LW swamp, most comments and votes are positive. Median score on this site is slightly over 4 out of 5, that's not an indication of a trolling readership.

 

[SimonDoom]

If we dropped anon there would be less votes and comment, but they would be higher scores and better comments.

Question is, you want quantity or quality?

That being said, removing the outlier of the LW swamp, most comments and votes are positive. Median score on this site is slightly over 4 out of 5, that's not an indication of a trolling readership.

I want both quality and quantity. Remove the anons, and I suppose it's possible that the average quality of comments will go up, but the total quantity of good comments will go down. I don't care about bad comments. I have the option of ignoring or deleting them.

 

[lovecraft68]

I want both quality and quantity. Remove the anons, and I suppose it's possible that the average quality of comments will go up, but the total quantity of good comments will go down. I don't care about bad comments. I have the option of ignoring or deleting them.

Just remember Simon, we're those big time pandering authors with no talent who chase numbers, so we don't really understand any of this...

 

[NoTalentHack]

If we dropped anon there would be less votes and comment, but they would be higher scores and better comments.

Question is, you want quantity or quality?

That being said, removing the outlier of the LW swamp, most comments and votes are positive. Median score on this site is slightly over 4 out of 5, that's not an indication of a trolling readership.

As the designated representative of the LW swamp, most comments are positive, unless it's a straight up cuckolding story. I picked a random hotwife one from the new section of LW, "Hate to Waste a Hot Dress, pt. 01," and of the nine comments, exactly one is negative re: content, with another complaining only that the last half felt too rushed. As to ratings, truth be told, they're likely more accurate there than anywhere else on the site, too; most stories, here and elsewhere, are not 4.5+ stories, and even if you give LW something they like, they'll rate it with a 4 (i.e., a "Liked It") instead of a 5 ("Loved It"), which is how things should be.

 

[SimonDoom]

Just remember Simon, we're those big time pandering authors with no talent who chase numbers, so we don't really understand any of this...

You hacked into my work in progress, Nude Day With Mom, didn't you?

 

[lovecraft68]

You hacked into my work in progress, Nude Day With Mom, didn't you?

Hey, that was going to be my title! Guess us hack panderers all think alike. What's your buddy call it, shooting penguins?

Actually mine will be in mature a milf story cause the only thing I can write are moms, just a matter of if its "your mom" or another person's mom.

 

[SimonDoom]

Hey, that was going to be my title! Guess us hack panderers all think alike. What's your buddy call it, shooting penguins?

Actually mine will be in mature a milf story cause the only thing I can write are moms, just a matter of if its "your mom" or another person's mom.

I thought sister stories were your thing now. You blew the roof off with the one a year ago.

"Another person's mom" is just a Mature story. What fun is that? Actually, I need to try one of those. Maybe a "Stacy's Mom" theme.

I'm getting back at EB by writing a spoof of his cafe stories. Revenge is a dessert best served weird.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm getting back at EB by writing a spoof of his cafe stories. Revenge is a dessert best served weird.

I've put this one along with that New Year's Resolution of yours.

Here's a title that might fit though: Unfinished Busines .

 

[RejectReality]

I'm hardly speculating that requiring registration would tank voting. I watched it happen live on Lush. When they disallowed anonymous voting site-wide the numbers plummeted for anyone who hadn't already used the setting that allowed authors to block anonymous votes. It was nearly a 50% drop on a site where you rarely cracked 100 votes at the time anyway.

It took a couple of years to get back to +anonymous vote totals, and that was despite my portfolio increasing dramatically, signing up for a paid account that highlighted every submission I made, getting several recommended read/editor's choice badges that further highlighted those submissions, and having a few highly ranked and even #1 stories in a few categories.

It was also during a period when they were aggressively advertising, which eventually resulted in them passing SOL's traffic numbers by a fair amount until they made a monumental mistake ( banning incest without warning and being absolutely smug and vindictive to anyone who complained about it ) which resulted in the necessity to institute another traffic killer, ( paid accounts required for virtually anything except basic reading and posting of stories ) and then eventually reinstating the incest category. ( Which didn't work, because they'd been so hateful to the readers and authors that few came back )

There was already an incentive for anyone who was willing to sign up, as large swaths of the authors disallowed anonymous voting/commenting, and many even required a comment in order to cast a vote. You already could only interact with a portion of the stories without an account prior to the site-wide anonymous voting ban.

Scores also went into hyperinflation to the point where nothing short of a perfect 5/5 would remain visible for long. One of mine, which had sat at the top of the Milf list for years, got a 4 and plunged from #1 to #120something instantly with a score of 4.99. You think 1-bombs are bad? Try knowing that a 4 could utterly and permanently tank a story. ( From averaging about 1500 hits per month to less than 100 )

I say again, anyone wishing for anonymous voting to be removed hasn't the foggiest notion what kind of Armageddon they're asking for. On a site like Lit where there's even less incentive for the average reader to sign up, it would be even worse.

 

[lovecraft68]

Try knowing that a 4 could utterly and permanently tank a story.

And they can take a contest story out of contention and remove a story from H status if there's enough of them or the story doesn't have a lot of votes.

The smart trolls in the contests don't drop ones.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm hardly speculating that requiring registration would tank voting. I watched it happen live on Lush. When they disallowed anonymous voting site-wide the numbers plummeted for anyone who hadn't already used the setting that allowed authors to block anonymous votes. It was nearly a 50% drop on a site where you rarely cracked 100 votes at the time anyway.

It took a couple of years to get back to +anonymous vote totals, and that was despite my portfolio increasing dramatically, signing up for a paid account that highlighted every submission I made, getting several recommended read/editor's choice badges that further highlighted those submissions, and having a few highly ranked and even #1 stories in a few categories.

It was also during a period when they were aggressively advertising, which eventually resulted in them passing SOL's traffic numbers by a fair amount until they made a monumental mistake ( banning incest without warning and being absolutely smug and vindictive to anyone who complained about it ) which resulted in the necessity to institute another traffic killer, ( paid accounts required for virtually anything except basic reading and posting of stories ) and then eventually reinstating the incest category. ( Which didn't work, because they'd been so hateful to the readers and authors that few came back )

There was already an incentive for anyone who was willing to sign up, as large swaths of the authors disallowed anonymous voting/commenting, and many even required a comment in order to cast a vote. You already could only interact with a portion of the stories without an account prior to the site-wide anonymous voting ban.

Scores also went into hyperinflation to the point where nothing short of a perfect 5/5 would remain visible for long. One of mine, which had sat at the top of the Milf list for years, got a 4 and plunged from #1 to #120something instantly with a score of 4.99. You think 1-bombs are bad? Try knowing that a 4 could utterly and permanently tank a story.

I say again, anyone wishing for anonymous voting to be removed hasn't the foggiest notion what kind of Armageddon they're asking for. On a site like Lit where there's even less incentive for the average reader to sign up, it would be even worse.

Funny how that turned out, eh?
Tell me though, if you are so sure that the same would happen with Lit, how is it that SOL doesn't allow anonymous voting, yet the stories there have consistently and noticeably lower scores than on Lit? The highest score there is 9.54/10 and it falls down very, very quickly going down the top list. I actually have a series there that is listed in the top 50 long stories with a mere 8.41/10 score. Funny stuff.

 

[RejectReality]

Funny how that turned out, eh?
Tell me though, if you are so sure that the same would happen with Lit, how is it that SOL doesn't allow anonymous voting, yet the stories there have consistently and noticeably lower scores than on Lit? The highest score there is 9.54/10 and it falls down very, very quickly going down the top list. I actually have a series there that is listed in the top 50 long stories with a mere 8.41/10 score. Funny stuff.

Scores on SOL.... LMAO.

Why don't you post the formula that determines your score there and try to explain that to anyone. The scores on SOL are manipulated to spread them out. That's an apples to oranges with lizard tails comparison.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Scores on SOL.... LMAO.

Why don't you post the formula that determines your score there and try to explain that to anyone. The scores on SOL are manipulated to spread them out. That's an apples to oranges with lizard tails comparison.

Okay, Dr. Doom.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Funny how that turned out, eh?
Tell me though, if you are so sure that the same would happen with Lit, how is it that SOL doesn't allow anonymous voting, yet the stories there have consistently and noticeably lower scores than on Lit? The highest score there is 9.54/10 and it falls down very, very quickly going down the top list. I actually have a series there that is listed in the top 50 long stories with a mere 8.41/10 score. Funny stuff.

SoL grades on a curve. It's completely different math. If I'm not mistaken do they not also toss out the outliers? You can't compare it nearly so simply.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

SoL grades on a curve. It's completely different math. If I'm not mistaken do they not also toss out the outliers? You can't compare it nearly so simply.

I didn't even intend to compare it directly. The difference in the range of scores you can cast is enough not to compare it directly. The psychology of voting must be different too. The point was that there is no need for anon voting to keep the scores from becoming meaningless. There are plenty of ways to do that. And it's not like much would be lost as Lit's scores are quite overinflated and often meaningless as it is. We discussed a thousand times already how top lists are flooded with chapters #57 with a low number of votes and insanely high scores.
People are just used to Lit's voting system and they get frustrated when they get lower scores on SOL because of the weighted scoring system there.
But the whole point is that the ranking of the stories on SOL is preserved with weighted scoring, even if the numbers are quite different. I just used it to point out that there is a way.