Voting Reform - Your Ideas Please

[Axeltheswede]

Voting Reform

I think the voting system here at Lit. works pretty well, and provides readers with a useful tool.

As an author, I have probably suffered the vagaries of voting as much as most. Still, as a reader, I find it useful. I have seldom been disappointed in a story rated in the mid fours. I have almost always found stories rated in the mid threes and lower to be barely readable. The voting system works to help readers find quality stories.

Any author wishing not to have stories voted on can opt out of the whole process.

 

[its Leslie]

Axel you are missing the point, the numbers are not reliable. Odds are they indicate nothing at all.

 

[TheHermit]

Good Ideas - Thank you for thinking!

First let me agree with Alextheswede, the voting is useful for the writers and readers. Leslie is somewhat right too because the numbers can't be trusted, but I feel they do tell a lot; they could tell more with a few tweeks. Karmadog is right on the money with knocking a percentage off the high and low ends.

The essence of the fraud problem is a 1-vote is far too powerful, it is undemocratic. For a story to regain the rank it had before a 1-vote takes many, many 5-votes. It is horribly difficult to sniff our each fraudulent vote. [I've been shown documentation where stories that have been doing well were getting a 1 vote every couple hours for several days running, and the anti-cheat programs aren't fixing a thing]

I doubt there is a perfect solution, but combine a few ideas mentioned in here and I think you can greatly diminish the impact of fraudulent voting. Change the number values from 1~5 to 3.0 to 5.0; instantly the fraud vote wipes out far fewer 5 votes.

Then deduct a high and low end percentage as Karmadog suggested; then it would take a huge number of fraud votes to effect the ranking - at which point the current anti-fraud software might be sufficient to control it. Display the votes cast by value so readers and writers can see the distribution, then the spoilers can't hide their fraud votes; when everyone can see a story has mostly 5-votes [ or likes], but a small pool of 1 or 2's, all will know the story is well liked, it is just being attacked.

A serious flaw now is the way a fraud vote slipped in every so often hides the true popularity of a story by making it appear it is getting 3 and 4's instead of mostly 5's for example. I saw a note posted by a BSDM author who saw a series for H's disappear in over and over. It sure sounded like he gets a number of 5's, regains his H's, then bang a single vote[r] wipes them all away. Can anyone here say Sisyphus? [Greek mythology]

Yes, many writers get fraud votes, but some get far more than others. I can almost guarantee ronde's Laura's Vinyard got a bunch of 1's just before the end-of-month. It may not have been the story every reader here is seeking, but it is as well written as any story can be. Anyone voting a 1 or 2 was 99 percent sure to have been out to knock his story down for whatever psychotic reason.

Leisle's like it or not vote has a certain appeal as well, because it does greatly disarms the fraud voting, it would take many fraud votes to significantly tip the scale if a story is lucky enough to get many votes. This approach does create other problems, I hope to think on this a mite more.

Glad to see ideas coming in. Thank you.

 

[moonfire]

Moonfire here,

New here, so forgive me if what I say is obvious (and if my solutions have already been shot down).

IMO there are a few very simple and easy solutions to this problem,

(1) Disregard deviations from the mean

- keep the voting system exactly as it is
- change the way the software calculates the score

What we are sitting with is a simple statistical problem, which is that isolated deviations from the general trend can skew the mean.

One response is to calculate the mean but to leave out the values that deviate strongly from the general trend. Isolated votes of 1 in a dataset made up mostly of 4s or 5s will simply not be counted. If the 1s mount up significantly, they will be brought into consideration.

Another response to this problem is to represent the trend not with the mean (the average) but the median (the value in the centre of the spread). This is a value that gives you a much better indication of the general trend.

The only disadvantage is that the resulting score will be a solid 4 or 5, without those fine gradations.

I would go for the first option (filtering out deviant values). I really think it should not be hard to program this into the software that calculates the scores. It should be fairly easy to write software that could do this. At least I think so. I don't program. It depends a bit on how the votes are stored I think. But if you have the breakdown, it should be simple.

If you can do this, you would have fixed the problem.

(2) Counting totals for each score

Leslie’s idea of tallying likes and dislikes (456 liked, 123 disliked) is also good in principle. The problem is that any halfway good story would get 100% likes ( you would get a clustering at the top) and you would lose a lot of those small differences.

A better way is to keep the current voting system but change the tallying so that you saw the spread. The reader would then see 60 voted “5”, 100 voted “4”, 40 voted “3” and 1 voted “1”.

I would be against any attempt to stop non registered readers fromvoting. In my view an author can be eactly as vicious as a non-author.

Hope this is useful (clearly this is an old debate!)

Moonfire

 

[Axeltheswede]

Voting reform

I have to reply to itsLeslie. The voting numbers are a very reliable indicator as to which stories are worth reading and which are not worth the trouble. They give the half million visitors to Lit. each day a way to find good stories. I think it is as simple as that.

Without some kind of rating system, readership would drop off. Having to wade through dozens of stories to find something good would deter most readers.

I can't help but think any tweeking of the voting system would result in the same complaints we see now. No system would satisfy everyone. I don't agree with the assertion that the system is "not reliable".

If I remember correctly, Leslie has voting turned off on his stories. Seems like he has found the solution to his complaints with the system - nonparticipation.

 

[its Leslie]

I have voting turned off mostly because I don't really need the input basically.

My assertions that it is unreliable are mainly based on the comments of others though.

It is possible like you said, that any change will just lead to a new variety of complaints (I have sure seen that in software before).

My only interest is in finding a way to effectively hobble the destruction "1" votes inflict. And this is only in support of those that actually wish the votes to come in.

I was able to see the votes for my own stories. In truth I thought my own ratings were to high heheh (I don't really think my own stories are that hot actually).

But as I write erotica purely for an imaginative way to spend time, I am not particularly concerned how seriously my material is recieved. The idea of actually being paid for this sort of writing still makes me chuckle (but hey I won't refuse any practical means of income).

 

[dhenshaw2]

Good, bad and WOW. Them's all you need for voting. Otherwise, the East German Judge is always pumping your poop chute.

 

[TheEarl]

WSO: Nice idea about the e-mail address, but what's to stop people putting in a false e-mail address? Easily done and spammers would.

I think than disregarding anomalous votes would help. If only the middle 90% of votes are counted towards the average, then that would remove a lot of the random "I don't like the fact that you've got an H so here's a 1 to remove it" votes from the equation. Also it would remove the 5s that writers of crap stories give their own creations.

I feel quite strongly about this. As a strictly amateur author I get a big buzz from votes and feedback and I enjoyed my two Hs. Now they're gone because somebody went down the entire list of celebrity stories that have Hs and gave them 1 votes. Petty, immature and most annoyingly completely impersonal. My scores haven't recovered yet as celebrities is a select target audience and they rarely vote.

The Earl

 

[its Leslie]

I have been thinking on the middle 90% notion and I must say I am geting to appreciate it's potential as well I suppose.

People that want serious feedback will likely not mind losing some of the 5' if it also turfs those 1s from the jerk realm.

I myself think some of my votes in the past were possibly overly friendly not to entirely realistic 5 (must have had at least a few friends voting 5s for me).

If voting is to mean anything, it has to be realistic. That means leting go some overly generous 5s as the price to geting rid of the overly anti social 1s.

To date I have never read a story that deserved a 1.

 

[Guest]

Way to go gang!!

Moonfire's idea is VERY high on my list of solutions to consider. I don't recall the technical name for, but I do know the formula to make it work. You do NOT have to lose the 2 decimals either. I also got the same suggestion via e-mail from an author.

The way it works is very roughly this: You pick a percent, say 95%. Add all the 5's; is that 95% of the total cast? No, add in the 4's; is that 95% of the total cast? No, addd in the 3's, etc. The idea is once you've found your 95%[the vast majority view], add in the next lower tier of votes, then calcualte the rank just as you do now. If we can see the vote distribution, anyone can figure out exactly how their story rank was arrived at. This can also be done real time, it doesn't depned upon anti-cheating software which might not get run until AFTER a monthly contest was effected/closed.

As stated earlier, I am anxious to learn from new ideas. Also, I'd hoped to see some of you come to some of the same conclusions I had. A reform movement is more likely to get serious consideration of a group of people show a degree of like thinking. This weekend I will start a draft to summarize the suggestions made here, and in the other threads I researched or e-mails I received. Meanwhile, please feel free to add new contirbutions.

I understand you have monthly contests, as long as you do, you can benefit from a ranking system that is more difficult to tamper with. Apparently each author can decide to allow voting or not. Those that don't care for voting are completely uneffected by any reform suggestions.

For those that do care; if we can make it better, you can spend more time writing hot stories to entertain me and less wondering why your well written story abruptly fell off of the radar screen, never to be heard from again because it will take a couple hundred 5 votes to offset a dozen fraudlent 1's.

Thank you all!!

 

[TheHermit]

Guess there is a bug

The prior post was from the Hermit. I logged in via the post a reply button. Even though the system logged me in, my ID wasn't passed on to the Reply Posting - hence the 'unregistered'.

TH

 

[margo_x_x]

I say drop 1 and 2. We already have a three point system.

5, for excellence, sometimes undeserved, but often given to offset the assholes.

4, for a nice try, but not deserving the highest mark. Most stories of any value fall between these two marks.

2 & 3 are statistically insignificant. Those two holes are almost never clicked.

“1” There is no honorable reason for giving someone a 1 in the current voting system.

A ‘3’ would tell him or her that they are not there yet. What honor is there in punishing someone for trying? More importantly, what justice is there in giving triple power to the most despicable among us?

Is anyone safe from the 1 bandits?

The answer is yes!

They don’t bother to vote on truly awful stories. Hence, incredibly talented writers get 1’s, and total hacks get 3’s or 4’s. The present system distorts what it is supposed to represent.

In a three point system, there would be 100 decimal points above the midpoint, and 100 points below. With only: Bad-Good-Excellent as the choice, I could, and would vote Bad once in a while. Most votes would, and should be cast as Good, with the mark of Excellence reserved for just that, excellence.

I don’t believe in throwing out the highs and lows, creating ‘vote cops,’ or restricting the vote to some arbitrary few. Contests and prizes should be voted on by judges, not people who can write vote casting programs, and the whole of the unwashed masses should tell the writers what they like and don’t like.

Hey, I’ll never be a great writer, but I get a big kick when I see that several thousand people have read something I’ve written. I get ecstatic when someone sends me a feedback with praise, advice, or just a friendly ‘nice try.’ The only sour note is when you watch your score and see five 1’s in succession cast. It makes all the high scores suspect, since you don’t know if one of them spends just as much time massaging the scores as writing, and leaves an unpleasant taste in a otherwise delightful place.

 

[margo_x_x]

It took me a half hour to compose my little soapbox speech about the voting system. One of two short comedy stories I had submitted had just gotten its 14th vote, the other had only gotten 7. Both had been viewed a little over 1000 times. Pornship Troopers, the one that had 14, was much higher than I had any right to exspect. 4.7-something. It probably didn’t deserve to be that high, but it was light and fun, and I figured that people were chuckling when they clicked 5.

I checked back because of a poem I had submitted, and did a double take. I suddenly had 20 votes, and the story had dropped to 3.80. My guess is five very fast 1 votes so people looking for an ‘H’ or checking the higher scores wouldn’t stop and check my little ditty out.

How am I to know what people think of one of my efforts as compared to another when an obviouse vote manipulation throws everything into a cocked hat?

I’ve read and enjoyed nearly all the top stories in the humor section, but now I wonder if some of those top people are guarding their position with underhanded tricks. The current system breeds suspecion, resentment, and paints a distorted image of everyones efforts. It’s broken, and needs to be fixed.

 

[TheHermit]

Dear Margo,

I am so, so sorry. One of several reasons I offered my e-mail address up front was because I am aware of author's who no longer make any postings in here because there is at least one psycho who will rain a series of 1-votes on their stories everytime they write ANYTHING to any thread.

This may or may not be your problem this time, but you are far from alone, and it needs to stop. The possibility you mentioned would be addressed somewhat if the breakdown of votes is displayed for all the world to see for each story. If we can all see the count of each vote type, in other words how many 1's 2's 3's 4's and 5's [in today's system] it becomes obvious which stories are being attacked, and WHICH ARE NOT!!

Vermin hate the light, shine some light into a dark corrner and the rats run. I am truly grateful that you shared your experince. Regretably it seems to be a very common one.

There are likely many writer's who have not had much trouble, or have been getting screwed and don't have a clue its happening, so this may seem like 'no big deal' today. But the day they finally write that great piece they've been striving for, only to see their scores get trampled...

No system will cure lunatics, but a good system might be able to make tampering too much like work to be fun. It could be jealous authors. It could be those who simply get off on pain or control. It could be any of the several billion people around the globe who feel anyone that speaks English is satan, or anyone that writes about sex is evil. Let's hope we can do something so they can be easily ignored as they richly deserve.

TH

 

[NoJo]

Voting - the answer.

I have posted a story that was Humor and Satire story of the month last month. It dropped from 4.7 to 4.62 or something from two or three obviously tactical votes this week. And it had over 150 votes, way more than the current top Humor and Satire story. I see ronde's point about number of votes.

I don't care that much, I've had the kudos. I don't really mind that it dropped. I used to play pop music, I'm used to there being a short life-span and high turnover in the pop industry. It's actually in the interest of a site like this that stories peak in popularity. And I also think that's ok. It encourages readers, authors and hits to the site when it has a high turnover of top stories.

But I must say that voting system on this site really needs to be thought out and reworked, (which need not take a lot of programming) otherwise some authors, including me, will start to get pissed off with having putting a lot of effort into writing and getting galled by injustice.

Let's put it this way: Suppose Literotica wanted to offer $1000 a month for "best story", to raise the profile of the site. The current voting system would be completely inadequate, and would utterly fail to prevent what would effectively be ballot-rigging and real, nasty, fraud.

Most voting systems are much simpler and much, much fairer, based on a tried and tested scheme:
One person, one vote. Yes, it's that simple. Arguments would cease, and Literotica would only need to track that mutliple votes were not made from the same place (which they do anyway, I think).
Each person registers to vote, then has one vote a month for any story. I guess they could be allowed to vote for the same story every month, to give it 12 votes after a year, if they were that pathetic, or really loved the story so much.

To keep the high turnover that Literotica needs, have "Top Stories Submitted this Month" category.

 

[TheEarl]

Sub Joe, again nice idea, but it wouldn't be effective for the 1 bombers. There are programs which you can get to scramble your IP (The ID of your computer on the internet which is used to to see if you vote more than once) or give you a different one each time you dial up.

The Earl

 

[TheHermit]

Update

I am well along with the summarization and proposal document I promised. I am trying to include as many of your thoughts and ideas as possible, yet keep it short and understandable.

Once it is ready, a couple days I hope, I'll post it as a new thread. Meanwhile, new ideas/slants/problems related to a more fraud resistent voting system are always welcome. Many minds are better than one. Thank you for your input and energy.

Earl, thanks for the ID scrambler info., didn't know, but sure figured something like that must exist. And, yep, that is a long avatar ditty; don't suppose you could just provide a link for the curious. lol

TH

 

[TheHermit]

Final Update

Dear Lit Folks,

Thank you for your time and energy. I was up all night last night writing the promsied voting reform proposal.

I need to clear my head, get some more sleep and proofread it at least one more time.

I plan to post it Weds. 8/7. TH