Weird rating goings-on

[Writer61]

Before, I thought Lit was dealing with this kind of troll by 'sweeping' periodically through and dropping obviously outlier ratings, but this was almost a 'real-time' adjustment.

The sweeps target votes made in bad faith rather than outliers per se.

 

[lovecraft68]

Can anyone help me understand? Not long ago I had two consecutive stories receive a total of 1,000 rates. My next 30 plus stories, my last, have not received 1,000 in total. I realize some story titles, tags etc appeal more than others but this is a huge difference. Do authors get promoted at times?
Also some 25 consecutive stories received very generous ratings but suddenly the next 15 or so were much less generally received. I am aware of trolling etc. I also know my stories vary in quality and appeal but again the change is dramatic.
Is there anything that I might be doing to cause these fluctuations?
Thanks Satsumabook123

Are they all in the same category? All in the same series?

 

[RocketGrunt]

Can anyone help me understand? Not long ago I had two consecutive stories receive a total of 1,000 rates. My next 30 plus stories, my last, have not received 1,000 in total. I realize some story titles, tags etc appeal more than others but this is a huge difference. Do authors get promoted at times?
Also some 25 consecutive stories received very generous ratings but suddenly the next 15 or so were much less generally received. I am aware of trolling etc. I also know my stories vary in quality and appeal but again the change is dramatic.
Is there anything that I might be doing to cause these fluctuations?
Thanks Satsumabook123

First of all, ratings are a proportion of viewership. There are more engaged fanbases who have a higher conversion of views to ratings, and less engaged fanbases that are more likely to read without rating. But metaphysically it is impossible for a story to be rated without being viewed.

Different categories see dramatically different levels of traffic. Later chapters in a series get less viewers who are more engaged, a simple reality of attrition. And finally, ratings aren't rescinded very often, so older stories have more ratings than younger ones.

For example: you post some stories on Taboo/Incest, and some other stories on BDSM. A LOT more readers hit up the T/I board for stories, so understandably you get more *readers* on the T/I stories than the BDSM stories. Some story sections have a lot of viewers but they are wildly unevenly distributed. The Erotic Couplings section gets so many submissions that many of the entries don't get seen on the front page on the day they come out, and get lost without their "first day bump." So unsurprisingly your "Her Sons Mag's Create Havoc" story has almost 33 thousand views, and your "Stepbros and Stepsis + One = 4" story has less than a tenth of that. This is because the latter is on EC, where people seeing the title will think it's in the wrong section and where it could easily have been lost in the slush pile.

Example 2: Your Virgin Educated Before the Wedding series has seen twenty seven thousand views on the first chapter, and only eight thousand on the second. Because pretty much everyone who reads chapter two reads chapter 1 first and some people don't go on to reading chapter 2 at all if chapter one didn't grab their fancy (giving 1 view to chapter 1 and zero views to chapter 2) and some people reread chapter 1 when chapter 2 comes out (giving two views to chapter 1 and only one view to chapter 2).

 

[feel_the_beast]

The sweeps target votes made in bad faith rather than outliers per se.

I would assume bad faith votes deserving of removal were identified by virtue of being outliers.
I suppose Lit could use other info to identify suspect voters, such as: new account, no published works, no comments, but lots of low score votes; this would pretty clearly be an account created for the sole purpose of trolling others.

 

[Writer61]

I would assume bad faith votes deserving of removal were identified by virtue of being outliers.

Most probably are outliers, but not all 1s and 5s are given in bad faith.

I suppose Lit could use other info to identify suspect voters, such as: new account, no published works, no comments, but lots of low score votes; this would pretty clearly be an account created for the sole purpose of trolling others.

I think this is (broadly) how they do it.

 

[RocketGrunt]

I would assume bad faith votes deserving of removal were identified by virtue of being outliers.
I suppose Lit could use other info to identify suspect voters, such as: new account, no published works, no comments, but lots of low score votes; this would pretty clearly be an account created for the sole purpose of trolling others.

It has to do with patterns of voting. If one IP downvotes forty different stories in less than ten minutes, you're reasonably sure that the person didn't actually read the works.

We don't get to know the exact criteria they have for sweeping up troll votes. Lately the people who downvote works off the toplists to make room for the stories they want to be on the toplists have taken to giving out 2-star ratings and spacing them out over time. This because it became publicly speculated that the sweeps were identifying clusters of 1-star reviews. The more exactly the sweep criteria are known, the more exactly the trolls will conform their downvoting habits to bypass them.

The use of raw average in toplist placement gives trolls incredible power those toplists. The number one on the Nonhuman toplist has over nine hundred and sixty five-star ratings, and it could be kicked out of the Top Fifty with twenty 1-star ratings. If a single person knew the exact criteria to avoid sweeps, one hater could shout down over a thousand fans over a few days.

 

[feel_the_beast]

I would assume bad faith votes deserving of removal were identified by virtue of being outliers.
I suppose Lit could use other info to identify suspect voters, such as: new account, no published works, no comments, but lots of low score votes; this would pretty clearly be an account created for the sole purpose of trolling others.

It has to do with patterns of voting. If one IP downvotes forty different stories in less than ten minutes, you're reasonably sure that the person didn't actually read the works.

We don't get to know the exact criteria they have for sweeping up troll votes. Lately the people who downvote works off the toplists to make room for the stories they want to be on the toplists have taken to giving out 2-star ratings and spacing them out over time. This because it became publicly speculated that the sweeps were identifying clusters of 1-star reviews. The more exactly the sweep criteria are known, the more exactly the trolls will conform their downvoting habits to bypass them.

The use of raw average in toplist placement gives trolls incredible power those toplists. The number one on the Nonhuman toplist has over nine hundred and sixty five-star ratings, and it could be kicked out of the Top Fifty with twenty 1-star ratings. If a single person knew the exact criteria to avoid sweeps, one hater could shout down over a thousand fans over a few days.

I have a new story that just got trolled: the numbers clearly show someone tagged it with a score of '1'. I'm reasonably confident this will eventually be deleted, the next time Lit conducts a sweep. But it's still intensely annoying.
I'm so disgusted by this trolling that I'm tempted to be agreeable to some measures to try to curtail it. For example: Must be an active member for a month before you're allowed to vote. 'Active' meaning a reasonable amount of online activity, in Lit, not just setting it background while you play Counterstrike. Or maybe only people with at least one published story, with some minimal rating [3.0?], say. It would not, in fact should not, be retroactive. Anything to make trolling more work would probably stop 90% of it.

 

[StillStunned]

Anything to make trolling more work would probably stop 90% of it.

It would stop 90% of legitimate feedback too.

And remember: a 1* vote isn't necessarily trolling. In fact, I'd say that most votes are legitimate. You might not like it, but there's nothing to say a reader has to give you a high vote. They might not like your style, or your characters, or your ending, or the subject matter, or a typo on page 3, or Mondays, or themselves, or stories that are written in 1P present, or anything shorter than 17 Lit pages, or UK spelling, or run-on sentences, or detailed descriptions of penises, or any of a million other things.

If the reader doesn't like your story, or you, for whatever reason, they're perfectly entitled to drop a 1.

 

[Writer61]

Not all low scores are given in bad faith.

You simply don’t know if that 1 was a troll or not.

 

[Writer61]

The number one on the Nonhuman toplist has over nine hundred and sixty five-star ratings, and it could be kicked out of the Top Fifty with twenty 1-star ratings. If a single person knew the exact criteria to avoid sweeps, one hater could shout down over a thousand fans over a few days.

Your example requires 20 people to avoid detection.

 

[feel_the_beast]

It would stop 90% of legitimate feedback too.

Respectfully, I would dispute that. I believe the majority of feedback is from established members who would fulfill the requirements just doing the ordinary things members do. Even just something like: member for a week, logged in a few time over that time, nothing else, would help.

And remember: a 1* vote isn't necessarily trolling. In fact, I'd say that most votes are legitimate. You might not like it, but there's nothing to say a reader has to give you a high vote. They might not like your style, or your characters, or your ending, or the subject matter, or a typo on page 3, or Mondays, or themselves, or stories that are written in 1P present, or anything shorter than 17 Lit pages, or UK spelling, or run-on sentences, or detailed descriptions of penises, or any of a million other things.

If the reader doesn't like your story, or you, for whatever reason, they're perfectly entitled to drop a 1.

Strictly speaking, yes...but who reads all the way through a 6 page story they HATE, just so they can drop a '1' on it? Most of us with legit intentions, once we realize a story is not our cup of tea, just move on to the next one without commenting or voting. Forcing myself to plow far enough into a story that I truly believed deserved a '1' vote, to give the story its fair chance, would be like torture.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Strictly speaking, yes...but who reads all the way through a 6 page story they HATE, just so they can drop a '1' on it? Most of us with legit intentions, once we realize a story is not our cup of tea, just move on to the next one without commenting or voting. Forcing myself to plow far enough into a story that I truly believed deserved a '1' vote, to give the story its fair chance, would be like torture.

If I hate the first page of a 6 page story, and I know I hate it, what's to stop me from pressing the "I hate this thing" button? The 1* literally says "hated it" above it. I think that's totally valid.

That said, I get really annoyed at bad ratings when they drop a story below a threshold. 4.8 -> 4.79 feels really bad.

 

[Chase_Storm]

We don't know how it works, and the site doesn't want us speculating publicly about how it works.

I've followed many of these threads and seen this sentiment echoed time and time again.

I'm curious where it comes from. There seems to be very little, if any, contact from the admins about, well, anything. Yes, yes, they're very, very busy. I understand that.

If someone has a link to this decree, I'd love to see it.

 

[IWroteThis]

Respectfully, I would dispute that. I believe the majority of feedback is from established members who would fulfill the requirements just doing the ordinary things members do. Even just something like: member for a week, logged in a few time over that time, nothing else, would help.

Strictly speaking, yes...but who reads all the way through a 6 page story they HATE, just so they can drop a '1' on it? Most of us with legit intentions, once we realize a story is not our cup of tea, just move on to the next one without commenting or voting. Forcing myself to plow far enough into a story that I truly believed deserved a '1' vote, to give the story its fair chance, would be like torture.

So, you're not interested in honest feedback, just pats on the back. Got it.

Sorry, but it's perfectly legitimate to realize you hate a story after reading less than one page of it. You don't have to read the whole thing to know how you feel. It's also perfectly legitimate to jump to the end and share that feeling by giving it a 1* rating.

It doesn't happen more often because readers tend to be more lazy than honest. As you desire, most readers don't rate stories they don't like, because they abandon it before they get to the rating option at the end. Of course, that's one of the reasons why story ratings don't really mean what people like you delude yourself into believing.

 

[StillStunned]

Respectfully, I would dispute that. I believe the majority of feedback is from established members who would fulfill the requirements just doing the ordinary things members do. Even just something like: member for a week, logged in a few time over that time, nothing else, would help.

Strictly speaking, yes...but who reads all the way through a 6 page story they HATE, just so they can drop a '1' on it? Most of us with legit intentions, once we realize a story is not our cup of tea, just move on to the next one without commenting or voting. Forcing myself to plow far enough into a story that I truly believed deserved a '1' vote, to give the story its fair chance, would be like torture.

Someone who actively dislikes your story has as much right to give their opinion as someone who wants to praise it. But as the ratings are heavily skewed towards the higher end, it's clear that people are already more likely to vote 5* than 1*.

In fact, if the voting system were more strictly regulated, readers might be more inclined to take 3* as their baseline, and reserve 5* for truly exceptional works. And then where would you be? Lamenting the days when anything below 4.5* was considered a failure, that's where.

 

[Bazzle]

Someone who actively dislikes your story has as much right to give their opinion as someone who wants to praise it. But as the ratings are heavily skewed towards the higher end, it's clear that people are already more likely to vote 5* than 1*.

In fact, if the voting system were more strictly regulated, readers might be more inclined to take 3* as their baseline, and reserve 5* for truly exceptional works. And then where would you be? Lamenting the days when anything below 4.5* was considered a failure, that's where.

I just think that Lit should put a line under the stars when you give a 1 or a 5 it says 'you really disliked this story, tell the author why'/'you really loved this story, tell the author why'

 

[StillStunned]

I just think that Lit should put a line under the stars when you give a 1 or a 5 it says 'you really disliked this story, tell the author why'/'you really loved this story, tell the author why'

And "You seem indecisive, what's the matter you pussy?"

 

[alohadave]

I've followed many of these threads and seen this sentiment echoed time and time again.

I'm curious where it comes from. There seems to be very little, if any, contact from the admins about, well, anything. Yes, yes, they're very, very busy. I understand that.

If someone has a link to this decree, I'd love to see it.

Admittedly, it's received knowledge. I haven't cared enough to track down the official statement saying so.

 

[Writer61]

Admittedly, it's received knowledge. I haven't cared enough to track down the official statement saying so.

I suspect that there isn't one.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I just think that Lit should put a line under the stars when you give a 1 or a 5 it says 'you really disliked this story, tell the author why'/'you really loved this story, tell the author why'

They must have listened to you, because they just put up this snazzy new feature called "Comments"

I think it'll revolutionize everything.

 

[old_prof]

I've followed many of these threads and seen this sentiment echoed time and time again.

I'm curious where it comes from. There seems to be very little, if any, contact from the admins about, well, anything. Yes, yes, they're very, very busy. I understand that.

If someone has a link to this decree, I'd love to see it.

I've only been on the forum about 9 months and I have seen two warnings from the AH moderator about it, one threatening to shut down a thread.

People who have been here longer have asserted that Laurel posted it here. And yes, she does (very rarely) comment in this forum. Twice, I believe, since I've been here. Apparently, it used to be more common.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I suspect that there isn't one.

There is, three or four years ago.

It's also common sense not to speculate how the sweep algorithm works publicly, so that the system can't be gamed.

 

[RejectReality]

Yes, there's an unwritten rule about not speculating on how the sweeps work in public. It's been said by the mod and by Laurel. Trolls do indeed lurk here looking to see if anyone's complaining so they can bask in the sweet rewards of their work. If you're giving them hints on how to potentially make their scumbaggery even more effective... Even if you're completely wrong, you can lead them down a garden path where they may figure out something you didn't because they're actually attempting to exploit the system and thus have a way to actively gather data.

The sweeps aren't perfect by any means, but they're the only way to mitigate this stuff without discouraging your average joe from bothering to vote, and making the trolls bigger fish in a smaller pond.

The only real way to reduce the damage trolls can do is to keep writing, keep submitting, keep building your following, and overwhelm them with numbers.

 

[Ianus4]

Strictly speaking, yes...but who reads all the way through a 6 page story they HATE, just so they can drop a '1' on it? Most of us with legit intentions, once we realize a story is not our cup of tea, just move on to the next one without commenting or voting. Forcing myself to plow far enough into a story that I truly believed deserved a '1' vote, to give the story its fair chance, would be like torture.

Only in general terms, not based on specific stories or authors:
Perhaps the author forgot to label the trigger tags, and the reader met with an unpleasant/upsetting surprise in the middle or at the end of the story. Or there may have been a characterization error that made the reader feel that the story's development was not credible: for example, a shy, sensitive character suddenly starts acting like a slut without any warning. Or a loving relationship turns into humiliating smut. Or the ending feels rushed or doesn't feel believable.

 

[alohadave]

but who reads all the way through a 6 page story they HATE, just so they can drop a '1' on it?

It's not like you have to read every single page. Skipping to the end is not hard.