Voting and Comments

[ElectricBlue]

There is no broom. Unless someone reports something or unless there is a contest going on, the sweeps don't happen.

They happen at least once a month, and several times during contests. They run back at least ten years in the story database. If they weren't going on, why do I see vote counts drop occasionally even on my oldest stories and the score gets a slight shift - always up?

That means an algorithm is going through all my stories on some kind of cyclic basis. I've never asked for a sweep, I rarely if ever enter Contests, but whenever a Contest is running, my scores suddenly get significant adjustments, and every now and then, in between two Contests. It's a given on newer stories, which always get a few predictable one bombs in the first day, which later disappear.

I'm not sure why you keep saying sweeps don't happen - I think most of us here see the effect but pay no attention, and there's any number of newbies coming through the AH, asking, hey, why did my score suddenly move, and how come I've just lost some votes?

You're flying in the face of the evidence.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This isn't entirely true. Two or three years ago (I forget which) the Site undertook a broad-based sweep of votes that lasted a few weeks and resulted in the elimination of many votes across the spectrum, unrelated to any contest. But lately, I think you may be right. I haven't noticed as much sweep activity, outside contests, as I did a few years ago.

Two or three years ago? Yeah, probably. I remember when I first started publishing my stories here how the number of votes would get slightly reduced on all my stories every now and then. My scores would change slightly, usually going up. That would happen every two weeks, maybe monthly, I can't remember correctly. But it would happen. You could actually see the occasional sweep in action. It's been a long time since I've seen such action. I don't think sweeps happen anymore for whatever reason unless a report happens, and even when that happens, it's usually Laurel manually removing votes rather than letting a sweep happen.

I don't know what exactly changed, but it did change.

 

[Gamblnluck]

It takes a lot of "Troll one-bombing' to really affect your stats in most cases. Think about what it takes. Just how many devices and identities is one person willing to commit? My LW stories, where most people complain about 1 bombing get thousands of people voting. A dozen people one bombing is not gonna move the needle much.
If you write a story that appeals to the audience you selected (right category with what they want) you will get a decent rating.
Now what you as an author think is a decent story and what the reader does might be VERY different.
I have an idea to close out one of my stories that opens the door for a stand alone story in another category. I'm not really sure I can get that followup story to work. Oh the story would be cohesive, but I'm not sure of the reception. I'll have to see when I get there.

 

[THBGato]

[Sweeps] happen at least once a month, and several times during contests. They run back at least ten years in the story database. If they weren't going on, why do I see vote counts drop occasionally even on my oldest stories and the score gets a slight shift - always up?

Really? I've been publishing since Feb and I've not noticed.
I have one story that was 4.97 after 105 votes. By 120 votes it had 4.81. Seems an obvious case of 1 bombing. I would have thought that if there had been any sweeps it would have rebounded. To be clear, I don't care: it still has a perfectly respectable score and I never expected it to stay that high. Getting trolled like that is kind of a badge of honour. But I'm just surprised at the faith some posters here express in these fabled sweeps.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Really? I've been publishing since Feb and I've not noticed.
I have one story that was 4.97 after 105 votes. By 120 votes it had 4.81. Seems an obvious case of 1 bombing. I would have thought that if there had been any sweeps it would have rebounded. To be clear, I don't care: it still has a perfectly respectable score and I never expected it to stay that high. Getting trolled like that is kind of a badge of honour. But I'm just surprised at the faith some posters here express in these fabled sweeps.

My stories got swept just a few weeks ago and I have never asked the admin for a sweep. One of them went from 61 votes to 57. A couple of others lost a vote or two too. My stories don't move much so it's easy to see when they do move. I've had votes counts go down many times. Every few weeks. And a couple of times I've had scores go down so 5s do get removed too on occasion.

 

[TheLobster]

There had been a sweep around the end of Nude Day contest a few weeks ago. There’s probably going to be another one for the summer contest.

I haven’t noticed any sweeps other than contest ones.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

All you guys are saying kinda confirms what I've said. Laurel can sweep on request and she sweeps during contests, thus possibly catching other stories too. The regular sweeps that I remember happening every now and then don't happen anymore, as far as I can tell. I am of course aware that these are all just impressions. None of us has actual proof of sweeps happening, how often, how many stories they affect, etc.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

All you guys are saying kinda confirms what I've said. Laurel can sweep on request and she sweeps during contests, thus possibly catching other stories too. The regular sweeps that I remember happening every now and then don't happen anymore, as far as I can tell. I am of course aware that these are all just impressions. None of us has actual proof of sweeps happening, how often, how many stories they affect, etc.

Actually yes I do have proof. I can see my scores move and I can see the votes go down. Trust me. I get low numbers and lots of bombs so it's easy to see the sweeps on my catalog. It happens regularly, like every couple of months, probably with every contest, sure. I'm just not familiar enough with the contest schedule to care. And I've only ever entered one contest, yet the sweeps always seem to hit my stories anyways, so yes the sweeps are real and they are regular and they affect stories not in contests. The sweeps are no bigfoot myth at all. They are exactly as advertised. if you're not seeing sweeps on your catalog, consider yourself blessed that you get lots of action and too few bombs to notice. The last sweep that went through probably removed 3 or 4% of my total votes. That's significant. They usually take a couple of days. I will notice votes go down on one or two stories on Monday, and then on another story or two on Tuesday, and like I said above, I have never requested one. The sweeps are not a conspiracy theory, not an illusion, not an old wives tale. They're totally real.

 

[ElectricBlue]

None of us has actual proof of sweeps happening, how often, how many stories they affect, etc.

There is proof - the number of votes dropping can only mean one thing - those votes have been removed. I've had ten year old stories lose votes, so the scrub goes at least that far back. I've seen fives, ones and twos disappear from my own stories (you just need a decent memory and the ability to do very basic maths to figure these things out). Whenever a contest sweep goes through, my most recent story always loses a vote or two and gets a jump in the score.

You might not see it in your own story file, that doesn't mean the rest of us are making it up. I don't enter contests, I've never asked for a sweep, yet my vote counts and scores move around - one or two each contest sweep, one or two the next contest. Shrug.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Actually yes I do have proof. I can see my scores move and I can see the votes go down. Trust me. I get low numbers and lots of bombs so it's easy to see the sweeps on my catalog. It happens regularly, like every couple of months, probably with every contest, sure. I'm just not familiar enough with the contest schedule to care. And I've only ever entered one contest, yet the sweeps always seem to hit my stories anyways, so yes the sweeps are real and they are regular and they affect stories not in contests. The sweeps are no bigfoot myth at all. They are exactly as advertised. if you're not seeing sweeps on your catalog, consider yourself blessed that you get lots of action and too few bombs to notice. The last sweep that went through probably removed 3 or 4% of my total votes. That's significant. They usually take a couple of days. I will notice votes go down on one or two stories on Monday, and then on another story or two on Tuesday, and like I said above, I have never requested one. The sweeps are not a conspiracy theory, not an illusion, not an old wives tale. They're totally real.

I think I can confidently say that I've had more experience with being bombed than probably any other AH regular. It's an old story now even though my scores are still affected by what was happening for months and months.
Anyway, I remember sweeps occurring more or less regularly around the time when I started writing and publishing. I don't see that anymore. They were most certainly more frequent than every couple of months you mention. To me, that looks like sweeps around contests that catch other stories too. I don't know for sure, I am speculating here.

For the record, I never really meant that sweeps don't exist. What I meant, and thought was clear, is that those regular (bi-weekly?) sweeps that I think used to happen don't happen anymore. That is my perception at least. None of us can know any of this for sure, of course.

There was also one more thing I wanted to point out. What we refer to as a "sweep" is a program being run through the Lit database, analyzing and removing some votes by whatever criteria the creator used. The fact that some of the votes on your stories get removed doesn't necessarily mean they were hit by a sweep. I know for a fact (and have correspondence with Laurel to prove it) that she ( maybe some other admins too?) sometimes remove the votes manually. I've seen that kind of action on my stories more than once. I don't consider those as sweeps.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

There is proof - the number of votes dropping can only mean one thing - those votes have been removed. I've had ten year old stories lose votes, so the scrub goes at least that far back. I've seen fives, ones and twos disappear from my own stories (you just need a decent memory and the ability to do very basic maths to figure these things out). Whenever a contest sweep goes through, my most recent story always loses a vote or two and gets a jump in the score.

You might not see it in your own story file, that doesn't mean the rest of us are making it up. I don't enter contests, I've never asked for a sweep, yet my vote counts and scores move around - one or two each contest sweep, one or two the next contest. Shrug.

See my response to PSG. I think we are all saying the same thing, essentially. The only thing I was contradicting is that sweeps unrelated to contests or specific requests happen anymore.
I don't know even... maybe my perception from like almost two years ago is also faulty. Maybe those regular sweeps - unrelated to contests, never existed at all.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think I can confidently say that I've had more experience with being bombed than probably any other AH regular.

I just checked your profile and not on this account you don't.

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

I hope I'm not tempting providence but from the sound of it I must be quite lucky as I've only garnered two 1* ratings in more than 800 votes. Admittedly I haven't published that much and my stories tend to be on the long side so maybe dissatisfied customers bail before the end. I don't go anywhere near LW because that appears to be a bit of a snakepit. There was a comment about everything having to be perfect in Romance (HEA etc) that made me laugh and explained my scores for that story quite neatly.

 

[ElectricBlue]

See my response to PSG. I think we are all saying the same thing, essentially. The only thing I was contradicting is that sweeps unrelated to contests or specific requests happen anymore.
I don't know even... maybe my perception from like almost two years ago is also faulty. Maybe those regular sweeps - unrelated to contests, never existed at all.

Casting my mind back, the only time I saw sweeps in really quick succession was right at the end of contests, maybe three in the last week. Since there's a contest at least every two months, the site used to run one in between, and they've always gone through non-contest stories.

What has changed in the last three or four years is the increased number of non-contest anthologies, which fit in between contests. Each one of those gets at least one tidy up, I reckon.

 

[TheLobster]

I find it very amusing how @AwkwardlySet and @pink_silk_glove are vehemently agreeing with each other, with their only real quibble being whether the regular pace at which Lit organizes contests means that the associated sweeps also count as "regular," or whether you need separate sweeps that are on strict and periodic cadence to make a legitimate claim of regularity.

I'm all for being meticulous and pedantic but seriously: don't you have some stories to write?

 

[SimonDoom]

I find it very amusing how @AwkwardlySet and @pink_silk_glove are vehemently agreeing with each other, with their only real quibble being whether the pace at which Lit organizes contests means that the associated sweeps also count as "regular," or whether you need separate sweeps that are on strict and periodic cadence to make a legitimate claim of regularity.

I'm all for being meticulous and pedantic but seriously: don't you have some stories to write?

It reminds me, as so many Literotica discussions remind me, of the parable about the five blind men encountering the elephant. They're all feeling an elephant, but because each feels a different part than the others they argue over what an elephant really is.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

It reminds me, as so many Literotica discussions remind me, of the parable about the five blind men encountering the elephant. They're all feeling an elephant, but because each feels a different part than the others they argue over what an elephant really is.

And, of course, they're all wrong...

I'll go back to trying to herd my elephant of a summer story towards an ending.

 

[Bamagan]

There is proof - the number of votes dropping can only mean one thing - those votes have been removed. I've had ten year old stories lose votes, so the scrub goes at least that far back. I've seen fives, ones and twos disappear from my own stories (you just need a decent memory and the ability to do very basic maths to figure these things out). Whenever a contest sweep goes through, my most recent story always loses a vote or two and gets a jump in the score.

You might not see it in your own story file, that doesn't mean the rest of us are making it up. I don't enter contests, I've never asked for a sweep, yet my vote counts and scores move around - one or two each contest sweep, one or two the next contest. Shrug.

Aside from sweeps, votes are also removed when people delete their accounts of their own volition. None of the data associated with the user accounts is retained, according to the site's FAQ; one's vote history gets scrubbed with everything else, presumably to avoid a situation where one's votes get anonymized upon deletion and nothing prevents starting a new account and voting history.
And yes, there are almost certainly people with multiple accounts casting votes, but at least there's some kind of 'paper trail' when that happens, and eliminating such accounts is likely part of what sweeping does.
Doesn't really contradict what you said, just pointing out that the occasional vanishing vote might be completely unrelated to sweeps sometimes.

 

[Bamagan]

It reminds me, as so many Literotica discussions remind me, of the parable about the five blind men encountering the elephant. They're all feeling an elephant, but because each feels a different part than the others they argue over what an elephant really is.

Funny thing is, it turned out they were groping Bruce Willis.

I see elephants!

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

Funny thing is, it turned out they were groping Bruce Willis.

I see elephants!

Aieeee!

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Actually Simon, you disagreed with Awkwardly too.

There is no broom. Unless someone reports something or unless there is a contest going on, the sweeps don't happen.

This isn't entirely true. Two or three years ago (I forget which) the Site undertook a broad-based sweep of votes that lasted a few weeks and resulted in the elimination of many votes across the spectrum, unrelated to any contest. But lately, I think you may be right. I haven't noticed as much sweep activity, outside contests, as I did a few years ago.

And lobster, pedantic is the sexy word that folks like to throw around too liberally this year. Insult me all you want but be fair about it.

I'm all for being meticulous and pedantic but seriously: don't you have some stories to write?

Not only did Simon disagree with Awk, so did EB.

None of us has actual proof of sweeps happening, how often, how many stories they affect, etc.

Actually yes I do have proof.

There is proof

Go back an re-read these.

 

[MillieDynamite]

More often than not, I only get a spattering of votes one way or the other.

 

[Lifestyle66]

More often than not, I only get a spattering of votes one way or the other.

The spattering of votes made it easier for me to know when I was being trolled with 1-bombs. Stories with only 10 to 30 votes at the time seemed like a lot of votes. And any vote rating it a 1 had a MAJOR impact on the average. Then I'd get a few 4's or 5's and all was well.

Since my stories have attracted the wrong attention, I started receiving far more votes. Watching the rating change about every 15 minutes (yeah, I was obsessed), I'd see that after every 4 or 5 rating, it would be followed within minutes by another 1. So, the average was kept down to around 4.0 or less.

Then I think the turds got smarter. They began jumping on my new stories within the first hour they went public, to give me five or six 1's as the first votes to discourage others from even viewing them. When I checked on a new story first thing in the morning (EST, five hours later), it's already hanging around a 2.0 average with over a dozen votes. And with the alternating 5's and 1's, my stories are now getting HUNDREDS of votes!!! Unfortunately, I think a significant portion of the lower half are probably from my dedicated turds. And it now takes a shitload of 5's to make any difference in the average (thus my IDGAF attitude.)

Spatterings were easier to overcome. But having my very own, dedicated pet turds? Priceless! I OWN them!

 

[MillieDynamite]

Wow, someone is vindictive.

The spattering of votes made it easier for me to know when I was being trolled with 1-bombs. Stories with only 10 to 30 votes at the time seemed like a lot of votes. And any vote rating it a 1 had a MAJOR impact on the average. Then I'd get a few 4's or 5's and all was well.

Since my stories have attracted the wrong attention, I started receiving far more votes. Watching the rating change about every 15 minutes (yeah, I was obsessed), I'd see that after every 4 or 5 rating, it would be followed within minutes by another 1. So, the average was kept down to around 4.0 or less.

Then I think the turds got smarter. They began jumping on my new stories within the first hour they went public, to give me five or six 1's as the first votes to discourage others from even viewing them. When I checked on a new story first thing in the morning (EST, five hours later), it's already hanging around a 2.0 average with over a dozen votes. And with the alternating 5's and 1's, my stories are now getting HUNDREDS of votes!!! Unfortunately, I think a significant portion of the lower half are probably from my dedicated turds. And it now takes a shitload of 5's to make any difference in the average (thus my IDGAF attitude.)

Spatterings were easier to overcome. But having my very own, dedicated pet turds? Priceless! I OWN them!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The spattering of votes made it easier for me to know when I was being trolled with 1-bombs. Stories with only 10 to 30 votes at the time seemed like a lot of votes. And any vote rating it a 1 had a MAJOR impact on the average. Then I'd get a few 4's or 5's and all was well.

Since my stories have attracted the wrong attention, I started receiving far more votes. Watching the rating change about every 15 minutes (yeah, I was obsessed), I'd see that after every 4 or 5 rating, it would be followed within minutes by another 1. So, the average was kept down to around 4.0 or less.

Then I think the turds got smarter. They began jumping on my new stories within the first hour they went public, to give me five or six 1's as the first votes to discourage others from even viewing them. When I checked on a new story first thing in the morning (EST, five hours later), it's already hanging around a 2.0 average with over a dozen votes. And with the alternating 5's and 1's, my stories are now getting HUNDREDS of votes!!! Unfortunately, I think a significant portion of the lower half are probably from my dedicated turds. And it now takes a shitload of 5's to make any difference in the average (thus my IDGAF attitude.)

Spatterings were easier to overcome. But having my very own, dedicated pet turds? Priceless! I OWN them!

But you see, all those bombs get taken care of, because there are regular sweeps that make everything right!