The scoring still has me confused...

[Darkniciad]

That's why I always try to answer the question as best as possible in the first post.

Every topic goes off the rails on Lit, so it's best to settle the actual discussion as quickly as possible before it's lost in the circus

 

[sr71plt]

And I think you got your answer in Dark's first posting--and we all could have drifted away somewhere else then.

 

[lovecraft68]

Uhm... It's not a glitch - it's math.

381 x 4.21 = 1604.01

1604.01 + 1 + 2 = 1607.01 ( Add a vote of one and a vote of two )

1607.01 / 383 = 4.1958

As to why 1s and 2s are considered troll votes - this question comes up all the time. Very few people ever answer that they vote below 3, but instead, back-click. Even if you assume there's plenty of lying going on, there's probably a reason for that lying - and it's probably malicious voting of 3 or below. Otherwise, people would admit to it, saying they use the full range of the voting scale, as some do.

Then there's the fact that large chunks of these 1s and 2s are accompanied by poorly-spelled rants full of death threats and personal insults.

There's no real surprise that votes below 3 are considered troll votes. All the evidence points toward most of them being exactly that.

And then there's this post. You jump all over people for calling 1s and 2s troll votes, then turn right around and say it isn't fair that those same votes can drop your score so much, and that Lit should find a better way to calculate it.

At least, I would be confused if I didn't know you were just trying to stir shit for entertainment.

It's not "unfair" I was agreeing that it is frustrating that one one bomb can undo several 5 votes. And if a story has only 20 or so votes like in some of the low voted categories a one bomb can be "fatal"

I agree the majority of 1's are trolls most likely not personal ones, but the type that run down the incest and LW section and just down vote every story.

My other point is that I believe that it is possible someone can legitimately think that one of my, or your, or anyone's story can suck and say I'm giving it a one. I personally have never one bombed out of respect for the fact that writing takes work, but others are not so kind.

The issue and an unsolvable one most likely is to try to eliminate the troll voting. If the system sees the same IP address laying down ten 1 bombs in a ten minute time span, block that address, they are obviously someone not reading the stories.

 

[lovecraft68]

And I think you got your answer in Dark's first posting--and we all could have drifted away somewhere else then.

Buy yet, like all threads, it becomes train wreck fascination and cyber rubber necking.

 

[TxRad]

First of all, a 4.00 score is 80%, which is a very good score.

To level the scoring out, the easiest way would be to us 1-2-3-3.5-4-4.5-5. This would do away with the anything less than a 5 effecting the scores so much. It also would be very easy to do, programming wise.

 

[Darkniciad]

First of all, a 4.00 score is 80%, which is a very good score.

To level the scoring out, the easiest way would be to us 1-2-3-3.5-4-4.5-5. This would do away with the anything less than a 5 effecting the scores so much. It also would be very easy to do, programming wise.

That's going to move contradictory to the increase in voting that we've seen from the star voting system, though.

People are used to the 5 stars as an internet standard. Having other divisions ( especially only on the latter half of the scale ) is going to make people scratch their heads, and may cause a drop in voting again.

More accurate scores vs. reader participation by voting isn't even a contest in my opinion. "More accurate" is going to be questionable, but "More votes" is a proven and steadily rising benefit of the star voting system.

 

[lovecraft68]

First of all, a 4.00 score is 80%, which is a very good score.

To level the scoring out, the easiest way would be to us 1-2-3-3.5-4-4.5-5. This would do away with the anything less than a 5 effecting the scores so much. It also would be very easy to do, programming wise.

Exactly, the equivalent to a "B" on your report card. But it seems people expect a 5 and anything less they are bummed out.

The .5 would get confusing. It shouldn't, but its hard enough to get them to look at 5 stars and click 7 or 8 choices would blow their minds.

 

[Dual_Triode]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

I have to side with Dark - the current 5 star voting system is simple and encourages reader participation.

The scoring system isn't broken. However, with any mathematical average, there is the built in assumption that all of the scores are are part of a algebraic number system. In other words, a score of 5 is one more than 4, which is one more than 3, etc. In a system where scores can be compared to each other by subtraction, then averaging yields useful information.

Sorry for the math lecture. The scoring system for Literotica is not perceived this way by either the readers or the writers. The difference between 5 stars ("Loved It - One Of The Best!") and 4 stars ("Really Liked It - Good Read!") is not perceived than same as the difference between 1 star ("I Hated It!") and 2 stars ("I Didn't Like It Much!"). It's like we are looking at a bag full of colored balls and asking, "What is the average color?"

So, any numeric scoring system which tries to quantify the reader's perception of quality and enjoyment will suffer from this problem. The only way to gain insight into the voting is to show a histogram of ratings, similar to the charts you see on Amazon. That, however, would be a big programming project.

 

[sr71plt]

The layman's response to all this math is that the problem seems to be that many of us think the red H system, as it exists, gets in the way of identification of a wealth of reads that are well above the heads of most of what is posted to Literotica. The current system is that no pointing is being done to what the website itself has identified as a "Good Read," giving no differentiation in highlighting between this and "this is trash."

Now that the actual numbers are being applied to each story where the reader can see them, to encourage the reader to look for good read, perhaps it's best now just to drop the red Hs (as some have suggested).

In any case, the website is pretty impervious to any suggestions like this, so it's all in the realm of wishful thinking.

 

[lovecraft68]

The layman's response to all this math is that the problem seems to be that many of us think the red H system, as it exists, gets in the way of identification of a wealth of reads that are well above the heads of most of what is posted to Literotica. The current system is that no pointing is being done to what the website itself has identified as a "Good Read," giving no differentiation in highlighting between this and "this is trash."

Now that the actual numbers are being applied to each story where the reader can see them, to encourage the reader to look for good read, perhaps it's best now just to drop the red Hs (as some have suggested).

In any case, the website is pretty impervious to any suggestions like this, so it's all in the realm of wishful thinking.

I guess it's like anything else. People seem to need to be told what to read. Oh, that doesn't look or sound interesting, but look it has an H! I better read it

Then the flip side, hey great title, great tag line, oh.... it's a 3.9 guess it sucks I'll move on.

Because I follow Levay I use the terms lemmings and "The herd" quite often. This is a great example. People can;t even decide what looks good to them or not. a symbol has to do it for them.

I think out of the 6 or so stories I have on my fav's page only one has an H. But the others are just as good and I never even look at scores.

I also don;t decide whether or not I want to check out an author based on whether or not they have a sea of red, or hardly any at all. I'm also not swayed be W's or E's. People can mock me for a number of things, but the system would be better if the average reader was a little more like me, and could get off the H. To me its more a reward for the author than a guide for the reader.

 

[nakdsub]

I wasn't gone to say anything more on this thread, but...

I feel I'm still getting a little bruised unfairly. With all due respect to Darkniciad, his first post explained only the result of the voting, not the actual route by which those scores are determined as did his other post where he showed the mathematical formula used in arriving at the scores.

That is was I was looking for, not the effect, but the cause.

Nor was I complaining about my score of 4.19. I realize it is not a poor score, (not as good as I would like, maybe) but I'll bet we all can say that.

Once again, my thanks to Darkniciad for posting the mathematics involved, I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciated it.

As for the elusive, "H", I sit in admiration of those who's stories achieve them on a regular basis.

 

[lovecraft68]

I feel I'm still getting a little bruised unfairly. With all due respect to Darkniciad, his first post explained only the result of the voting, not the actual route by which those scores are determined as did his other post where he showed the mathematical formula used in arriving at the scores.

That is was I was looking for, not the effect, but the cause.

Nor was I complaining about my score of 4.19. I realize it is not a poor score, (not as good as I would like, maybe) but I'll bet we all can say that.

Once again, my thanks to Darkniciad for posting the mathematics involved, I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciated it.

As for the elusive, "H", I sit in admiration of those who's stories achieve them on a regular basis.

Write a series and you will definitely get them. chapter stories do better the higher they go because you get dedicated fans and the uninterested drop off.

Building up your favs helps as well. They like you then you start getting more guaranteed five's to work against the one's.

 

[nakdsub]

Thanks Lovecraft...

I have 23 stories published here so far, several of them have been 3 and 4 chapter stories, but alas, only two have resulted in the ever elusive, red "H".

I don't really dwell on that, not that it wouldn't be nice, believe me, and I certainly have been disappointed with some stories, but I pretty much write for myself and know even before submitting, the score will most likely not be that good.

I also know my stories get counted down because of technical errors. Try as I do, I never catch them all and I have big problems with editors. They either want to totally chance my style of writing, or they take two weeks to correct errors only to find that they have missed as many as I do.

So, I plug along doing the best I can.

 

[sr71plt]

I guess it's like anything else. People seem to need to be told what to read. Oh, that doesn't look or sound interesting, but look it has an H! I better read it

Yes, precisely. That's what a lot of authors are complaining about. Even by the websites own rating definitions, readers aren't being told about all that's clearly worth reading here.

 

[ScouriesWorld]

Which is why mr pilot we have the FAVORITES list...

... the pefect guide to great writing for all LITEROTICA visitors. You definately can't go wrong with any of these masters:

Some of the Favoritest Authors

Many Feathers (3116)
scouries (2943)
Slickman (2934)
rgjohn (2913)
alwayswantedto (2902)
BarondeSade (2869)
Goldeniangel (2513)
TryAnything (2348)
JazCullen (2344)
sarahhh (2188)
Ahabscribe (2168)
youbadboy (2128)
nikki_2021 (2078)
​

 

[TxRad]

Which is why mr pilot we have the FAVORITES list...

... the pefect guide to great writing for all LITEROTICA visitors. You definately can't go wrong with any of these masters:

Some of the Favoritest Authors

Many Feathers (3116)
scouries (2943)
Slickman (2934)
rgjohn (2913)
alwayswantedto (2902)
BarondeSade (2869)
Goldeniangel (2513)
TryAnything (2348)
JazCullen (2344)
sarahhh (2188)
Ahabscribe (2168)
youbadboy (2128)
nikki_2021 (2078)
​

Yes the readers can go wrong by going by this list. All they have to do is check one of your stories or one of your alt Sarahhhh's stories to find that out.

All the rest are pretty good writers but not the best on the site. They post a lot of stories and have good fan bases, nothing more and nothing less.

For those that may not know, scouriesworld/Jacqui O. is Scouries number one Alt, propaganda alt, that is.

 

[sr71plt]

Not that the casual reader can find the list where it's hidden on the site or would believe any of Scouries's baloney by reading his lists here on the forum.

 

[TxRad]

Not that the casual reader can find the list where it's hidden on the site or would believe any of Scouries's baloney by reading his lists here on the forum.

Just making sure any newbies that read this know what the score is. If not, some of them might get the idea from the way he words things that he has some pull or is associated with Lit when in fact the complete opposite is true.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

I am also going to eat crow when I say that when JBJ says everyone here expects a plastic trophy, he is absolutely right.

Nah. I expect gold trophies.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

I mean people are so spoiled here they think a three is a low vote. By the star rating a three means "good job, keep going" yet people get mad when they get them.

But I think voters rarely give a 3 for work that really is "good job, keep going". There are occasional exceptions, but most of the stories I've read whose scores are below 3.9 have turned out, in my opinion, to deserve much worse.

 

[estragon]

Unfortunately, Carlus is right; a 3 vote is really the equivalent of "meh". Howbeit, I have to agree, however reluctantly, with JBJ. Everyone wants to win the lottery without buying a ticket. Or, at least, without buying more than one.

But, as has been said so often, the voters need have no qualifications whatever. They need not be unbiassed, intelligent, well-read or even much above semi-literate. So my only judge of a good story is my own taste, what genres I like, and what authors' work I have enjoyed in the past. I'll try new authors' works, of course.

That said, I'd love to get a red H.

 

[TNP_]

I think there is something not quite right here...

Uhm... It's not a glitch - it's math.

381 x 4.21 = 1604.01

1604.01 + 1 + 2 = 1607.01 ( Add a vote of one and a vote of two )

1607.01 / 383 = 4.1958

Since the scores are obviously rounded to 2 decimal places then a score of 4.1958 would be rounded to 4.20, which is not what nakdsub is seeing. 383 x 4.19 is 1604.77. So 2 more votes resulted in less than 1 point increase. Isn't it possible that the increase in votes was combined with a sweep that removed other votes, so what nakdsub is really seeing is a swing of more than 2 votes? How many would be impossible to say since the vote count went up, but how else to explain a 2 vote increase with less than a point added to the total.

I hope you don't mind a lurker jumping into your thread here but I find discussions about the inner workings of the site very interesting.

And I also find the numbers being bandied about here very, very humbling. 383 votes? I have 12 stories up now and if I add all the votes from all those stories going back to March 2011 I'm at 227. So 383 for 1 story is kind of mind blowing to me. I won't even start on the numbers for views you guys have.

 

[Darkniciad]

You have to account for the initial score, which is already rounded, and there's no way to know by how much. It's always possible there were new votes and sweeps, but have to work with the data I have.

If you want to blow your mind with stats, write an incest story. My high vote total in that category is 2695 and highest view total is 176,346, both posted in December. *laugh*

It takes a while to build a readership, and it depends upon category as well. I think my max vote total as Dark is somewhere in the 200-250 range. Those above are both in other pen names where I write in the more widely read categories.

Since the scores are obviously rounded to 2 decimal places then a score of 4.1958 would be rounded to 4.20, which is not what nakdsub is seeing. 383 x 4.19 is 1604.77. So 2 more votes resulted in less than 1 point increase. Isn't it possible that the increase in votes was combined with a sweep that removed other votes, so what nakdsub is really seeing is a swing of more than 2 votes? How many would be impossible to say since the vote count went up, but how else to explain a 2 vote increase with less than a point added to the total.

I hope you don't mind a lurker jumping into your thread here but I find discussions about the inner workings of the site very interesting.

And I also find the numbers being bandied about here very, very humbling. 383 votes? I have 12 stories up now and if I add all the votes from all those stories going back to March 2011 I'm at 227. So 383 for 1 story is kind of mind blowing to me. I won't even start on the numbers for views you guys have.

 

[TNP_]

You have to account for the initial score, which is already rounded, and there's no way to know by how much. It's always possible there were new votes and sweeps, but have to work with the data I have.

If you want to blow your mind with stats, write an incest story. My high vote total in that category is 2695 and highest view total is 176,346, both posted in December. *laugh*

It takes a while to build a readership, and it depends upon category as well. I think my max vote total as Dark is somewhere in the 200-250 range. Those above are both in other pen names where I write in the more widely read categories.

Hi Dark,

I'm not trying to be deliberately difficult, or maybe it's obtuse, but how much rounding could there possibly be? The scores go to 2 decimal places, the only rounding could be from the thousandth to the hundredth of a point.

Is the formula for scoring consistent across all categories? I suppose that one of the benefits of a low number of votes is that it is easy to follow the changes. For my stories the math is pretty simple. I tend to get sporadic single votes and the math tells me easily if I get a 4 or a 5. Or less. And when I do the math the rounding appears to be pretty straightforward.

As for writing incest stories, I actually have. 2 in fact, with a 3rd on the way if I ever get off my ass and finish it. And while they have been relatively popular compared to some of my other stories they are not the most popular either in terms of views or votes. I guess the category I write in matters a lot more than I realized. I work exclusively in the Celebrities category. Not everyone's cup of tea of course but I like it.

 

[Darkniciad]

Once you get up into the hundreds of votes, it's not that easy to calculate. If someone gives you a 1 or a 2, you notice it pretty easily. If your score is over 4 and a couple of votes come in that are 4 or 5, it's a lot of guesswork, because the visible score may not change at all.

For example, let's assume that 4.21 is at the bare minimum possible to round up from 4.21

381 x 4.205 = 1602.105
1602.105 + 1 + 2 = 1603.105
1603.105 / 383 = 4.185

It arrives at the bare minimum to round up to 4.19, which is what appeared on the public numbers.

381 x 4.205 = 1602.105
1602.105 + 4 + 5 = 1611.105
1611.105 / 383 = 4.206

For another example.

There's just no way of knowing for sure. You can get close, but you'll never have an absolute answer without the hidden data behind the displayed average score.

Hi Dark,

I'm not trying to be deliberately difficult, or maybe it's obtuse, but how much rounding could there possibly be? The scores go to 2 decimal places, the only rounding could be from the thousandth to the hundredth of a point.

Is the formula for scoring consistent across all categories? I suppose that one of the benefits of a low number of votes is that it is easy to follow the changes. For my stories the math is pretty simple. I tend to get sporadic single votes and the math tells me easily if I get a 4 or a 5. Or less. And when I do the math the rounding appears to be pretty straightforward.

As for writing incest stories, I actually have. 2 in fact, with a 3rd on the way if I ever get off my ass and finish it. And while they have been relatively popular compared to some of my other stories they are not the most popular either in terms of views or votes. I guess the category I write in matters a lot more than I realized. I work exclusively in the Celebrities category. Not everyone's cup of tea of course but I like it.