Weird rating goings-on

[RocketGrunt]

A different device and clearing your cache probably make no difference.

Twenty different logins, all using a VPN, is quite an effort even before you avoid suspicious behaviour like only voting 1*. All for a 0.0.1 drop? Somebody would have to really dislike you, or your work, to do that. It is not impossible, but it is unlikely.

They don't have to care about you or your work at all. There are people who care about who gets into the top ten of the toplists and who wins the contests that have figured out that because the site uses AVERAGE ratings, that negative votes on the competition counts more than positive votes on the favored stories.

We don't know who it is. Could be authors, could be fans. But the fact is that it works. It works because that is the mathematical output of the system being used.

Example: The top fifty of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Toplist is exclusively made of stories that have a rating of 4.85 or 4.86. At that rating, A single 1 star review will drop the rating until TWENTY-EIGHT 5 star reviews come to balance it by bringing it back up. The largest number of votes is 1595, for a story published in 2014. That implies at least 1,348 5* ratings but could be as high as 1,362. If the average rating fell to 4.84, it would leave the top fifty, and that would require somewhere between *TWO* and *FOUR* 1* ratings. If the average were to rise to 4.86, it would rise to the top three, and that would require something on the order of *FIFTY-SIX* 5* ratings.

Now, on the face of it, the prospect of fifty different stories with hundreds of votes each all having a rating that is exactly 4.86 or 4.85 is completely absurd. If you check your average ratings, you get more than that all the time. Until you spend any amount of time on the toplist. And then you just... don't. The list is curated by trolls, and if you hit the magic threshold of total votes with a 4.88, you will get 2-bombed every day until you vanish from the top fifty. It is in fact, very easy for them to do. Because it only takes a few votes to pluck a story off the top list. And once that happens, the troll hammering stops.

We know this is happening because we've watched it happening. Again and again. I have a twenty-six chapter story where absolutely every single chapter that scored high enough to threaten a position in the toplist was trollbombed down. It did so on nine separate chapters, and in each case was troll bombed until it fell to 4.83 or 4.82 at which point the trolling stopped. But also we know that it's going to keep happening because that is the actual solution to the math problem of how to get your favorite story into the top ten. There's no way you can generate enough 5* votes to get your favorite from 4.85 to 4.87, but plucking a weed down from 4.92 to 4.82 is child's play.

The trolls have won, make no mistake about that. The toplists are composed of popular works, obviously, but no matter how popular you get, you cannot stay in those toplists unless the trolls allow you to do so. The math is on their side.

 

[Writer61]

You are assuming that the sweeps do not eliminate such votes.

 

[RocketGrunt]

You are assuming that the sweeps do not eliminate such votes.

I *know* that the sweeps don't eliminate such votes. The sweeps do remove some of the trollhammers that smack down pieces to 1* star averages within the first few minutes of publication (though the damage to first-day viewership is often not recoverable), and it gets rid of enough of the contest shenanigans that the winning Winter Contest work stands at 4.84 rather than like 3.2 or something. But the Toplist curators have a system where they throw low votes in small enough numbers that they don't get caught.

Consider the absolute absurdity of me having nine separate chapters of Fighting Them There with a rating of 4.82 or 4.83. Chapter 7 has 869 votes with a rating of 4.82. Chapter 26 has 421 votes, also with an average rating of 4.82. If that was a mix of 5* and 4* ratings, that would mean that Chapter 7 had received 713 5* reviews and 156 4* reviews. Meanwhile, Chapter 26 somehow got the same rating even though less than half of the people who voted on Chapter 7 have voted (yet). With multiple chapters considered very good by the fan base, and more people willing to give the series 5* ratings than have voted on some of the newer chapters, some of those chapters would be sitting in the 4.9+ range if it were actually random which votes got in first. And indeed, that is exactly what was seen at various points.

The thing is that the toplist curation ratchet hits, and the drops in rating from that do not go away. The works don't rally back up to 4.88 after they get pushed off the toplist for the first time. The 2-star ratings stay, and the result is that all the chapters leave the toplist and don't go back on. They aren't getting trolled to the point where they lose their Red H or anything, but the trolls do get what they apparently want. Whatever stories at the 4.85 or 4.86 mark that they are protecting do stay protected.

 

[StillStunned]

The thing is that the toplist curation ratchet hits, and the drops in rating from that do not go away. The works don't rally back up to 4.88 after they get pushed off the toplist for the first time. The 2-star ratings stay, and the result is that all the chapters leave the toplist and don't go back on. They aren't getting trolled to the point where they lose their Red H or anything, but the trolls do get what they apparently want. Whatever stories at the 4.85 or 4.86 mark that they are protecting do stay protected.

About 9 months ago, my story "While She Watches Them" got its 100th vote (thanks again, @EmilyMiller!) and was catapulted to something like the third spot in the All-Time Hall of Fame for Exhibitionist & Voyeur.

As expected, it was hit with bombs until it dropped out of the HoF (which for E&V has a cut-off score of 4.79). I mentioned this on BlueSky, and the bombs were wiped almost immediately. They returned, and were wiped, and returned. That was presumably where Laurel or Manu (may they live forever) gave up.

(It's probably a coincidence that 13 of the last 16 stories in the E&V HoF are all by the same writer, all with identical scores from 800 or so votes.)

 

[RocketGrunt]

Pushing my own experience to the side, consider BurntRedstone's What Comes Next Pt. 1, which has been favorited 769 times. It has been viewed 159.9 thousand times, and has inspired 392 comments. For quite a few months, it was on the top of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy toplist, with a rating around 4.91 after actual thousands of votes were cast.

Currently it doesn't make the Toplist at all, because it has been hit with trollbombs until it fell to 4.84, at which point the attacks stopped. Note that the number 4 spot on the toplist is 4.85, and the 250th spot on the toplist is also 4.85. Sci-Fi/Fantasy stories are not allowed to stay above 4.85, but there are at least 247 different stories that are allowed to remain at exactly 4.85, presumably because they are below whatever story or stories are being protected.

These numbers are not the result of regression to the mean. It is fundamentally absurd that there be 3 qualifying stories at 4.85, 247 qualifying stories at 4.85, and zero qualifying stories at 4.87. And it gets even more absurd when you watch how frequently stories get to 4.87 or 4.89 and how rapidly they fall to 4.84 or less once they get onto the Toplist. But even if you didn't know how easy it was to knock a story off the toplist if that is what your goal is, the distribution of the ratings on the toplist (or rather, complete lack of distribution on the toplist) would give the game away immediately.

For fuck's sake, there are SEVEN stories with a Red-H and a rating between 4.86 and 4.91 on the new releases page from the past week. The fact that every single one of them is going to get dropped to 4.85 or lower the moment they hit the toplist is simply known. It happens every week.

 

[StillStunned]

For fuck's sake, there are SEVEN stories with a Red-H and a rating between 4.86 and 4.91 on the new releases page from the past week. The fact that every single one of them is going to get dropped to 4.85 or lower the moment they hit the toplist is simply known. It happens every week.

One of those stories is mine. But I have absolutely no fear of it being bombed when it gets to 100 votes, because I doubt it will get anywhere near that number. (That said, I've had stories bombed off the "Recently Popular" lists as well.)

 

[RejectReality]

It's the fans. ( or trolls who simply want to watch the world burn )

No doubt some authors are up to no good as well, but the fans outnumber them by legion. There are certain stories on every toplist that stay there despite the authors not logging in for years.

All trolls will slip up eventually, and the sweeps will get them eventually. There just aren't as many sweeps nowadays, and the number of stories they're initially targeting is narrower than it was in days of yore.

 

[old_prof]

For fuck's sake, there are SEVEN stories with a Red-H and a rating between 4.86 and 4.91 on the new releases page from the past week. The fact that every single one of them is going to get dropped to 4.85 or lower the moment they hit the toplist is simply known. It happens every week.

The very early ratings don't mean much long term (although they do help drive more views). Even a handful of loyal fans can skew the early ratings up. It's just not enough votes to be stable yet. (And an early 1-bomb or two can skew it down.as well). If you watch the seven day ratings, many stories bounce off and of routinely.

 

[EmilyMiller]

About 9 months ago, my story "While She Watches Them" got its 100th vote (thanks again, @EmilyMiller!) and was catapulted to something like the third spot in the All-Time Hall of Fame for Exhibitionist & Voyeur.

As expected, it was hit with bombs until it dropped out of the HoF (which for E&V has a cut-off score of 4.79). I mentioned this on BlueSky, and the bombs were wiped almost immediately. They returned, and were wiped, and returned. That was presumably where Laurel or Manu (may they live forever) gave up.

(It's probably a coincidence that 13 of the last 16 stories in the E&V HoF are all by the same writer, all with identical scores from 800 or so votes.)

I had exactly the same experience with E/V. Each time my highest rated E/V story hits 4.80, it gets bombed down to mid 4.7x. It’s like clockwork. Actually it’s like an automated script, which wouldn’t be impossible to write I assume.

Dealing with malicious voting is something the site used to do sporadically, but it seems to have totally abandoned the practice in recent months (aside from the less-effective-than-they-used-to-be sweeps, which are possible to avoid with a little effort).

 

[Bazzle]

About 9 months ago, my story "While She Watches Them" got its 100th vote (thanks again, @EmilyMiller!) and was catapulted to something like the third spot in the All-Time Hall of Fame for Exhibitionist & Voyeur.

As expected, it was hit with bombs until it dropped out of the HoF (which for E&V has a cut-off score of 4.79). I mentioned this on BlueSky, and the bombs were wiped almost immediately. They returned, and were wiped, and returned. That was presumably where Laurel or Manu (may they live forever) gave up.

(It's probably a coincidence that 13 of the last 16 stories in the E&V HoF are all by the same writer, all with identical scores from 800 or so votes.)

My "Spick and Span Only with a Fan" is exactly the same, climbed to giddy heights of 4.8 and then voted down to 4.78 where it has happily sat since.

I have never had any sweeps on it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I have never had any sweeps on it.

Sweeps are a BandAid on a pumping carotid artery. And they seem to have gotten less effective. Again as if an intern is running the scripts with incomplete documentation.

 

[RocketGrunt]

The very early ratings don't mean much long term (although they do help drive more views). Even a handful of loyal fans can skew the early ratings up. It's just not enough votes to be stable yet. (And an early 1-bomb or two can skew it down.as well). If you watch the seven day ratings, many stories bounce off and of routinely.

True. The long term ratings are that regardless of how high you get at some point, once you find yourself on the toplist you will be firebombed off of it. Or at least down to where you are below whatever story is being protected. Your actual ceiling longterm is about 4.85 on the SF&F board (247 stories hardlocked at 4.85), 4.80 on the Exhibitionism & Voyeur board (178 stories hardlocked at 4.80), 4.84 on T&I (218 stories hardlocked at 4.84), or 4.84 on Erotic Couplings (where there are 206 stories hardlocked at 4.84).

This is obviously the work of concerted effort by trolls. It literally could not be anything else. It is metaphysically impossible for the disparate fandoms of hundreds or thousands of viewers giving ratings across decades of activity to hivemind so exactly an appropriate average rating for each story category. Once you realize how easy it is to downvote stories that have surpassed your faves until they drop below the threshold, the fingerprints that this has happened are all over the glass.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not all low scores are given in bad faith.

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

Yes, as hard as it is for some here to believe, someone can legit not like your story.

 

[EmilyMiller]

True. The long term ratings are that regardless of how high you get at some point, once you find yourself on the toplist you will be firebombed off of it. Or at least down to where you are below whatever story is being protected. Your actual ceiling longterm is about 4.85 on the SF&F board (247 stories hardlocked at 4.85), 4.80 on the Exhibitionism & Voyeur board (178 stories hardlocked at 4.80), 4.84 on T&I (218 stories hardlocked at 4.84), or 4.84 on Erotic Couplings (where there are 206 stories hardlocked at 4.84).

This is obviously the work of concerted effort by trolls. It literally could not be anything else. It is metaphysically impossible for the disparate fandoms of hundreds or thousands of viewers giving ratings across decades of activity to hivemind so exactly an appropriate average rating for each story category. Once you realize how easy it is to downvote stories that have surpassed your faves until they drop below the threshold, the fingerprints that this has happened are all over the glass.

I think we need to stop blaming the general readers. This is very clearly a concerted effort by a small number of people, maybe a very small number. And then you have to ask, cui bono?

 

[lovecraft68]

OMG my fake 4.95-and they are fake-got busted down to a 4.86. The injustice! My life is over! Laurel needs to do something or I'll...I'll....I'll start threads about it!

This thread reminds me of old-fashioned parenting when you got a slap in the back of the head and told to grow up.

It's a free site, everyone here plays in the same sandbox and deals with the same turds that are in it. Except some aren't turds, they just don't believe you're as good as you think you are.

People crying about 4's says it all.

 

[Writer61]

My "Spick and Span Only with a Fan" is exactly the same, climbed to giddy heights of 4.8 and then voted down to 4.78 where it has happily sat since.

I have never had any sweeps on it.

I can see evidence of sweeps on my stories in E/V and EC in Nov and Dec last year.

Perhaps the way they do it does not cover all stories in a category, or the downvotes on yours did not trigger an elimination.

 

[RocketGrunt]

OMG my fake 4.95-and they are fake-got busted down to a 4.86. The injustice! My life is over! Laurel needs to do something or I'll...I'll....I'll start threads about it!

This thread reminds me of old-fashioned parenting when you got a slap in the back of the head and told to grow up.

It's a free site, everyone here plays in the same sandbox and deals with the same turds that are in it. Except some aren't turds, they just don't believe you're as good as you think you are.

People crying about 4's says it all.

Can you at least pretend to look at how ridiculous and unnatural the actual spread of numbers are on the toplists?

You can say that Burntredstone does not need to have the top spot of the SciFi & Fantasy toplist because he has 13 thousand followers and his story has 160 thousand views. But that does not change the fact that he does deserve to have that top spot, and that the fact that his story was surgically dropped from 4.9 to 4.84 so that he would be pushed off the top 250 makes the toplist a sham.

There are lots of things the toplists could be for. They could be for promoting the site by putting forward the most popular stories. They could be about building hype for trending authors. And so on and so on. Those could be achieved with the simple total number of 5* reviews, weighted for recency or not depending on whether you wanted new works to get a foot in on the toplists or not. Either way, from the standpoint of the authors, their purpose is always going to be to create an extra avenue by which eyeballs might interact with their stories.

Surely we can all agree that the current toplist model is an abysmal failure at accomplishing any of those goals, right? The toplist has been commandeered by a probably very small clique and it languishes in stasis by the mechanism of having popular and well-regarded works systematically downvoted until they are booted from the list. That's insane. And very destructive.

It's not really important to me if one of my chapters gets a 4.82 and another chapter gets a 4.76. Those numbers are functionally identical, since they are both above almost everyone's threshold to click on a story. But it would certainly be nice to be allowed to stay on the toplist from time to time and have that extra conduit of potential readership. And that can't ever happen because the system is too easy to abuse and the people who want to abuse it understand how to do so too well.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Perhaps the way they do it does not cover all stories in a category, or the downvotes on yours did not trigger an elimination.

Sweeps knock out dumb votes (regardless of value, fives just as much as ones, fours just as much as twos and threes). But it’s very easy to work out how to avoid sweeps. It takes a few minutes of thought, and then enough dedication to enact your plan (or write a script to do it for you).

 

[Writer61]

There are lots of things the toplists could be for. They could be for promoting the site by putting forward the most popular stories. They could be about building hype for trending authors. And so on and so on. Those could be achieved with the simple total number of 5* reviews, weighted for recency or not depending on whether you wanted new works to get a foot in on the toplists or not. Either way, from the standpoint of the authors, their purpose is always going to be to create an extra avenue by which eyeballs might interact with their stories.

I would like to see some sort of credibility rating assigned to voters … always vote 1, and your opinion gets the lowest weighting. But, I don't think the voting system will ever change.

That said, perhaps different ways of presenting the data, along the lines that you suggested, would give readers a way to select stories that appeal to them. Also, different views would make it harder for trolls to game the system.

 

[dct10538]

Trollbombing is interesting and the people who do it are vigilant. We have recently posted eight chapters, one at a time over days, of what will be a longish novel. Within minutes of a chapter dropping at its regular time, a one-star review appears.

There must be a large pot of gold involved in being on those top lists! We'd be upset if this wasn't entirely a vanity project.

 

[RocketGrunt]

Trollbombing is interesting and the people who do it are vigilant. We have recently posted eight chapters, one at a time over days, of what will be a longish novel. Within minutes of a chapter dropping at its regular time, a one-star review appears.

There must be a large pot of gold involved in being on those top lists! We'd be upset if this wasn't entirely a vanity project.

I found that happened when I submitted something to a contest. Ultimately, trollbombing doesn't hurt my engagement very much if it waits until I've already got 100+ ratings and have a high enough rating to tank the hits and still keep my red H. But Trollbombs that happen on release really hurt engagement.

I'm not really familiar with the goings-on of the Lesbian Sex board, but if you're hitting that kind of preemptive attacks, it might be that there's someone who is anti-kink or something. I know that some of the boards have content activated troll mobs that attack stories that trigger them. Loving Wives is kind of infamous for it, because the board has NTR fetishists and Cheating Revenge fetishists locked together in the same room with nothing but two knives and a bottle of whiskey. The Lesbian Sex board might have a vocal group with similar feelings about dominas, I dunno.

 

[dct10538]

I found that happened when I submitted something to a contest. Ultimately, trollbombing doesn't hurt my engagement very much if it waits until I've already got 100+ ratings and have a high enough rating to tank the hits and still keep my red H. But Trollbombs that happen on release really hurt engagement.

I'm not really familiar with the goings-on of the Lesbian Sex board, but if you're hitting that kind of preemptive attacks, it might be that there's someone who is anti-kink or something. I know that some of the boards have content activated troll mobs that attack stories that trigger them. Loving Wives is kind of infamous for it, because the board has NTR fetishists and Cheating Revenge fetishists locked together in the same room with nothing but two knives and a bottle of whiskey. The Lesbian Sex board might have a vocal group with similar feelings about dominas, I dunno.

Interesting. The reason behind it is kind of inmaterial to me. It could be board specific, it could be personal (for example, someone who has been "ignored" by me) or it could be for some other reason. Nothing we write is going to be good enough for the precious red H, I don't care about contests or board politics, and I'm here for the long game, so I don't really care.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I found that happened when I submitted something to a contest. Ultimately, trollbombing doesn't hurt my engagement very much if it waits until I've already got 100+ ratings and have a high enough rating to tank the hits and still keep my red H. But Trollbombs that happen on release really hurt engagement.

I'm not really familiar with the goings-on of the Lesbian Sex board, but if you're hitting that kind of preemptive attacks, it might be that there's someone who is anti-kink or something. I know that some of the boards have content activated troll mobs that attack stories that trigger them. Loving Wives is kind of infamous for it, because the board has NTR fetishists and Cheating Revenge fetishists locked together in the same room with nothing but two knives and a bottle of whiskey. The Lesbian Sex board might have a vocal group with similar feelings about dominas, I dunno.

Yeah, getting whacked when your view count is under 20 can nuke your score. Easy to drop a non-insigificant amount in one or two hits (over 0.2), as I found out in the Christmas contest. Niche/low-follower-count writers are probably a lot more susceptible than established authors or those posting more common stuff.