Yes, the Toplists are Broken

[RoyalAuthor]

I don't get the degree of fretting about it that we see here.

I'm not fretting about it myself, except in one specifically egregious case. I just like numbers, and am sharing my person experience as more data points supporting the original premise.

I also don't understand the need to deny something that happens predictably without fail.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not fretting about it myself, except in one specifically egregious case. I just like numbers.

I also don't understand the need to deny something that happens predictably without fail.

OK, but what is the obsession with proving that it happens? So it happens. So what? It's not important. The scoring system is just an imperfect tool for helping readers find stories. That's ALL it is.

 

[RocketGrunt]

OK, but what is the obsession with proving that it happens? So it happens. So what? It's not important. The scoring system is just an imperfect tool for helping readers find stories. That's ALL it is.

Right now, because of the curation and vote flattening, the scoring system makes it so the entire two hundred and fifty story Science Fiction and Fantasy All-Time Toplist shows you FOUR stand alone stories. The entire rest of the 4.84 curated block, the entire fucking thing, is filled with chapters from a double handful of series.

Imperfect doesn't even begin to cover it. Life As a New Hire is on there 26 times. Three Square Meals is on there 82 times. Those two stories together fill up more than two entire pages. And it's not going to get better unless or until something is done about the troll bot or they finish the toplist replacement page.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I don't deny that something is happening. It may be.

I have empathy for people and real problems. People who experience loss, or illness, or injustice, or disability.

I don't feel much empathy for people who are upset because their stories are downvoted, for whatever reason. It just doesn't matter. My goodness, assholes made your story's score drop from 4.91 to 4.82 and now it's no longer at the top of a list? It has happened to me. It's not something to get worked up about. It's not something worth spending a moment of your life being upset about. It's part of the landscape of this site and its laissez-faire attitude toward the ability of readers to vote however they want to. It may not be want you want it to be, but it's defensible and understandable, and the bottom line is that it does not in any way prevent you from writing and publishing stories and having fun doing so. There's a huge readership here, and the opportunity is lying out there for all of us to connect with it, regardless of the voting system and its quirks.

I don't get the degree of fretting about it that we see here.

So presumably some things matter to you, Simon. If someone brushed off one of those, how would you feel?

The idea of dictating to others what should and shouldn’t matter to them is a little self-centered, no? You don’t get to decide for other people, only for yourself. Your choices have nothing to do with anyone else’s, neither do mine.

The difference is I don’t like to see people upset for any reason. And I never tell people their feelings are unimportant, just because I don’t feel the same way.

 

[Voboy]

Right now, because of the curation and vote flattening, the scoring system makes it so the entire two hundred and fifty story Science Fiction and Fantasy All-Time Toplist shows you FOUR stand alone stories. The entire rest of the 4.84 curated block, the entire fucking thing, is filled with chapters from a double handful of series.

Imperfect doesn't even begin to cover it. Life As a New Hire is on there 26 times. Three Square Meals is on there 82 times. Those two stories together fill up more than two entire pages. And it's not going to get better unless or until something is done about the troll bot or they finish the toplist replacement page.

Sure, but I already addressed that a few pages ago, and there have been threads about this particular problem literally for YEARS. There's nothing new to discuss about it at this point.

I doubt there is a single regular poster here who doesn't agree with you on this: yes. Chaptered works should be treated as single entities for toplist purposes. There's been good consensus around here for many years about that. We all think the site needs to make that happen.

TPTB said a long time ago that they agree this is an issue. There's nothing more any of us can do about it.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The idea of dictating to others what should and shouldn’t matter to them is a little self-centered, no?

Not nearly so self-centered as an inherent rights to score as highly as possible and to write in a troll free environment.

The difference is I don’t like to see people upset for any reason. And I never tell people their feelings are unimportant, just because I don’t feel the same way.

You want to run around protecting people's egos, it's a fool's errand. The truth is what really matters.

 

[lovecraft68]

The idea of dictating to others what should and shouldn’t matter to them is a little self-centered, no?

Irony.

 

[lovecraft68]

Sure, but I already addressed that a few pages ago, and there have been threads about this particular problem literally for YEARS. There's nothing new to discuss about it at this point.

I doubt there is a single regular poster here who doesn't agree with you on this: yes. Chaptered works should be treated as single entities for toplist purposes. There's been good consensus around here for many years about that. We all think the site needs to make that happen.

TPTB said a long time ago that they agree this is an issue. There's nothing more any of us can do about it.

This was a hot bed topic when I was new here. The ultimate example of things will never change. Back then the endless chapter stories issue wasn't just about the top lists but they constantly placed in the monthlies with their inflated scores and received monetary prizes for their gaming the system. They would also do well in the annuals which was another thing Laurel promised she would remove them from and never did.

Part of the reason I think those two things no longer exists, easier to eliminate something than fix them.

 

[Voboy]

This was a hot bed topic when I was new here. The ultimate example of things will never change. Back then the endless chapter stories issue wasn't just about the top lists but they constantly placed in the monthlies with their inflated scores and received monetary prizes for their gaming the system. They would also do well in the annuals which was another thing Laurel promised she would remove them from and never did.

Part of the reason I think those two things no longer exists, easier to eliminate something than fix them.

If that's why the monthlies stopped, it took them awhile. Lol.

Full disclosure: I did win a couple of monthlies back in 2022, with a chaptered story. I was pretty tickled, but that story had MANY months in between submissions; I wasn't exactly spamming entries weekly, or anything.

 

[EmilyMiller]

So presumably some things matter to you, Simon. If someone brushed off one of those, how would you feel?

The idea of dictating to others what should and shouldn’t matter to them is a little self-centered, no? You don’t get to decide for other people, only for yourself. Your choices have nothing to do with anyone else’s, neither do mine.

The difference is I don’t like to see people upset for any reason. And I never tell people their feelings are unimportant, just because I don’t feel the same way.

And course anyone who states that other people’s feelings only matter when they approve of the basis for them, is obviously agreeing that their own feelings aren’t important either. You can’t have your own privileged feelings that are immune to being dismissed. Once you go down the road of saying only certain types of feeling are allowed, you open yourself to others disqualifying what your feel is important.

It’s almost as if you can only secure your own freedoms by protecting those of other people. Our ancestors learned this to survive. Some of us are so comfortable, so free of need, that they think the idea of community is old fashioned and no longer applies to them.

 

[SimonDoom]

So presumably some things matter to you, Simon. If someone brushed off one of those, how would you feel?

If someone had a good argument why I was wrong to care so much about something, I would listen to the argument. I might disagree with them. But how I "felt" would be irrelevant. I wouldn't be offended by someone telling me I shouldn't care so much about something.

The idea of dictating to others what should and shouldn’t matter to them is a little self-centered, no? You don’t get to decide for other people, only for yourself. Your choices have nothing to do with anyone else’s, neither do mine.

I don't dictate anything to anybody. I don't understand that choice of words. I express my opinion. Others are entitled to disagree and I grant their right to disagree.

What I don't understand is people choosing a way of thinking that is guaranteed to result in dissatisfaction, and that's what I see in the choice -- it is a choice -- to be upset about the scoring system.

The difference is I don’t like to see people upset for any reason. And I never tell people their feelings are unimportant, just because I don’t feel the same way.

We disagree somewhat on this point. I DO think feelings are unimportant sometimes. My feelings. Your feelings. Things are what they are and adults have to cope with them.

It's not a lack of empathy. As I said, I have empathy for people who experience real problems. But the scoring system is not a real problem. It's not worth getting upset about, and I don't feel any obligation, as a result of the capacity for empathy, in "feeling others' pain" about their stories getting downvoted. My stories have been downvoted and I don't presume that others should feel sorry for me. I think it's a silly thing to get upset about. One is free to move on if one doesn't like the way this site does things. I don't understand staying here, knowing that things are the way they are, and endlessly wanting to noodle over how unfair it is that one's story isn't at the top of a list anymore. It doesn't matter.

 

[lovecraft68]

If that's why the monthlies stopped, it took them awhile. Lol.

Full disclosure: I did win a couple of monthlies back in 2022, with a chaptered story. I was pretty tickled, but that story had MANY months in between submissions; I wasn't exactly spamming entries weekly, or anything.

There's a difference between a reasonable amount of chapters and the ones that go over 50 and 100 and higher. Those have no intention of ever ending.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Others are entitled to disagree and I grant their right to disagree.

Great. I wholly disagree with you. My view is just as valid as yours. I don’t have to defend it the same as you. I can just state it as if it was true.

But hey, I’ll forget you ever said anything about what other people should view as being imprortant. So long as you realize you don’t get to decide for others, we’re good - and your previous post is moot.

 

[SimonDoom]

Great. I wholly disagree with you. My view is just as valid as yours. I don’t have to defend it the same as you. I can just state it as if it was true.

But hey, I’ll forget you ever said anything about what other people should view as being imprortant. So long as you realize you don’t get to decide for others, we’re good - and your previous post is moot.

There's a tone of snark and dismissal here that I don't understand. We're disagreeing, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there is an intolerance in your response that I do not share. I wouldn't say to you "I'll just forget about what you said." I wouldn't tell you your post is "moot." I appreciate what you say, even if I disagree with it. You're an intelligent, valuable contributor here. So am I.

To be fair, and I think this IS fair, you have done more "dictating" in this forum than I have. You are more inclined to pass judgment on what people write and fantasize about than I am. You seem obsessively concerned about winning people over to your position about the unfairness of the voting system, while my position is to shrug and suggest that people move on to more fruitful concerns, because getting upset about it obviously isn't going to get anybody anywhere.

If people want to get the vapors about their stories' scores going from 4.91 to 4.82 because of downvoting, I can't and won't try to "dictate" how they should feel. But I WILL, unapologetically, tell them that they are being silly. Because that's what I personally believe. And you can make of that what you will.

 

[EmilyMiller]

There's a tone of snark and dismissal here that I don't understand.

You just dismissed other people’s right to care about things other than what you care about. Having what you care about dismissed by others (me) is the logical corollary. You can’t have it both ways. What you care about is not special, it’s just like anyone else’s concerns, susceptible to being belittled by others according to your world view.

It’s called symmetry. You cant hold your position and deny me holding mine without disappearing in a puff of sophistry.

 

[RocketGrunt]

I am at a loss as to why anyone would spend multiple posts telling other people that they don't care about the vote manipulation being discussed in this thread. Surely if you actually didn't care you'd just... not care. I mean, there are a lot of threads that these people don't respond to. There are sportsball games that they don't care about and just... don't watch.

The best way to prove that you don't care is to just actually not care. Just, don't post anything at all. If you post more than once to say that you don't care, you obviously do care. It calls into question your integrity.

 

[RejectReality]

The toplists have historically updated once per day, in the overnight ( U.S. ) hours. If they're updating even a couple of times per day now, that changes a few things.

First, it means that even getting onto the toplist means less than it used to. You were assured 24 hours in the spotlight the way things were to pick up new readers. The bombs didn't come into play until the next evening. If it's a few hours now, it dramatically reduces the impact of making that spotlight.

It also adds another dimension of logic to the flattening beyond the war of attrition between different camps bombing each other. If the change in score is visible sooner without doing additional legwork of checking other places the statistics are available, that means there will be less over-bombing. If dickhead A bombs it, and then dickhead B comes along and sees that threatening score, then they bomb it as well, and dickhead C, and so on. The score dropping off the toplist in a few hours means dickhead D-H won't be bombing it based upon the no longer valid, higher listed score, because it's no longer listed.

I don't have perfect timing for the way it went down. Someone started reading the entire series and voting on it sometime after midnight that night. I don't know exactly when, but I saw the first favorites pop up between midnight and 2ish, which I assume are connected to those votes. I'm assuming they gave 5s to all the chapters, since none of the scores changed. ( Since Ch. 3 was reported at 4.91 on the topist ) It's possible a 4 may have been in there with some rounding fudge room, but it's unlikely the votes were anything lower.

At some point after that — which I assume to be when it emerged on the toplist — it got 6 votes that dropped the average down to 4.80. That's where it was when I came home and checked the numbers that evening. There are lots of combinations to arrive at that number, but most of them have to skew on the 1-3 range no matter how you slice it. A couple of hours after that, it got one more vote and dropped to 4.77 — long after it is reported that it vanished from the toplist. Almost assuredly a 1. Nothing else in the series has picked up any more votes beyond the initial full story read + bombs, or since.

I didn't even mention it here, because I assumed the toplists were still updating once per day, and when I checked, it wasn't there. To me that pointed to trolling unrelated to the toplist, and thus garbage data for the discussion at hand. The toplists updating multiple times a day and the story appearing there means it's actually useful.

The idea that it's some sitewide trolling script simply doesn't make sense to me. It's overly complicated, and the simple explanation that it's trolls doing what trolls have done since the toplists were first put in place is the logical one. This is nothing that those of us who have been here for years haven't seen and experienced umpteen times before.

That last 1 was probably pure spite from someone watching this thread. LOL

I also can't see how anyone believes the toplists aren't a hotbed of trolling when examples like this happen all the time. I knew this story wasn't even remotely going to be there long. It's weird. Most of the sex is transactional and quite often is a fade in to a brief conclusion, or a fade to black as the action starts. There's very little in the way of fantasy fighting between the protagonist and antagonist. They only encounter each other in person a couple of times throughout the whole series. It's a convoluted game of whore's chess where my protagonist is far luckier than really makes any sense.

That said, I love the damn thing. LOL

 

[Voboy]

The best way to prove that you don't care is to just actually not care. Just, don't post anything at all. If you post more than once to say that you don't care, you obviously do care. It calls into question your integrity.

Yeah, that's kinda silly. No offense. "Integrity?" Why on earth should I care that a random internet hothead is "questioning my integrity?"

Your horse is getting a bit high there. We post because we have something to offer to people who think they know everything. Take that however you wish.

 

[SimonDoom]

Great. I wholly disagree with you. My view is just as valid as yours. I don’t have to defend it the same as you. I can just state it as if it was true.

But hey, I’ll forget you ever said anything about what other people should view as being imprortant. So long as you realize you don’t get to decide for others, we’re good - and your previous post is moot.

The "moot" point seems unnecessary, but otherwise I agree that we are free to disagree with one another, and you don't have to defend your feelings to me. My perspective is not more "true" than yours or anyone else's. These are matters of opinion, not fact. But I think mine is more conducive to good mental health and an enjoyable experience here. You're a good author and I hope you change your mind and resume publishing stories here, because if you tweak your attitude about the voting and keep publishing I think the positives of doing so can outweigh the negatives. But of course that is for you to decide.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

We disagree somewhat on this point. I DO think feelings are unimportant sometimes.

It's not so much that feelings aren't important. It's when feelings are prioritized over the truth. We end up ignoring the truth and then we become lost, just to spare someone's feelings. Your logic is dismissed simply because you hurt my feelings. It's just very foolish.

This is what PC and cancel culture is all about. People's feelings are more important than the truth and the whole of society becomes lost. That's a bigger issue but it's the same principle.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You just dismissed other people’s right to care about things other than what you care about.

The fuck he did.

 

[RocketGrunt]

The toplists have historically updated once per day, in the overnight ( U.S. ) hours. If they're updating even a couple of times per day now, that changes a few things.


That last 1 was probably pure spite from someone watching this thread. LOL

I'm actually not sure how many times in a 24 hour period it updates? I'd believe any number between 2 and 6, but I think 3 or 4 is probably the right answer. Confounding is that I have things to do other than constantly refresh the toplists, and because the toplists are so manicured right now, an "update" can happen without anything obvious changing. You'd need hourly data for several days to be certain what the schedule was - and it might actually not be the same every day (for example: a 5-hour rotation would cause it to change at different hours on different days). But it is often different if I check in the morning and then again in the evening.

---

The final 1 is almost certainly the completion of a "pair."

As you say, there's a lot of ways to get to 4.8 at 106 votes from 4.91 at 100 votes. But since we're dealing with a trolling pattern, it would make the most sense for that to be following the pattern. And the pattern is that the troll hammer comes in pairs of 1* hits. A 1* rating followed by a second 1* rating a short time later. Since you have a snapshot at 106 votes and another snapshot at 107 votes, it would make the most sense if that last rating is something already generated by the troll vote pair having been initiated.

Dropping from 4.91 to 4.8 in 6 votes implies that your story picked up a total of 18 stars across 6 votes. That's three 5* ratings and three 1* ratings. But the 1* ratings come in pairs, so if you only got three of them, you'd expect another 1* rating to be incoming shortly after.

Getting 2 pairs of troll votes on a modest delay is actually entirely consistent with the process being automated. Especially if the pair completed after you were no longer even being displayed on the toplist. A human wouldn't bother chasing down a story that was no longer a threat, or even be able to find you, but an attack script would run to completion.

 

[Bazzle]

I'm actually not sure how many times in a 24 hour period it updates? I'd believe any number between 2 and 6, but I think 3 or 4 is probably the right answer. Confounding is that I have things to do other than constantly refresh the toplists, and because the toplists are so manicured right now, an "update" can happen without anything obvious changing. You'd need hourly data for several days to be certain what the schedule was - and it might actually not be the same every day (for example: a 5-hour rotation would cause it to change at different hours on different days). But it is often different if I check in the morning and then again in the evening.

---

The final 1 is almost certainly the completion of a "pair."

As you say, there's a lot of ways to get to 4.8 at 106 votes from 4.91 at 100 votes. But since we're dealing with a trolling pattern, it would make the most sense for that to be following the pattern. And the pattern is that the troll hammer comes in pairs of 1* hits. A 1* rating followed by a second 1* rating a short time later. Since you have a snapshot at 106 votes and another snapshot at 107 votes, it would make the most sense if that last rating is something already generated by the troll vote pair having been initiated.

Dropping from 4.91 to 4.8 in 6 votes implies that your story picked up a total of 18 stars across 6 votes. That's three 5* ratings and three 1* ratings. But the 1* ratings come in pairs, so if you only got three of them, you'd expect another 1* rating to be incoming shortly after.

Getting 2 pairs of troll votes on a modest delay is actually entirely consistent with the process being automated. Especially if the pair completed after you were no longer even being displayed on the toplist. A human wouldn't bother chasing down a story that was no longer a threat, or even be able to find you, but an attack script would run to completion.

I just imagine they keep getting hit, until the refresh.

 

[lovecraft68]

The "moot" point seems unnecessary, but otherwise I agree that we are free to disagree with one another, and you don't have to defend your feelings to me. My perspective is not more "true" than yours or anyone else's. These are matters of opinion, not fact. But I think mine is more conducive to good mental health and an enjoyable experience here. You're a good author and I hope you change your mind and resume publishing stories here, because if you tweak your attitude about the voting and keep publishing I think the positives of doing so can outweigh the negatives. But of course that is for you to decide.

You're just feeding their need for attention at this point which is their MO. A thread goes on and on that's not about them so they need to find someone to help make it about them.

I've seen a lot of people give up writing here for various reasons and felt bad for them.

Do not feel bad for this person. They have not removed their stories, they remain a 24/7 presence on this forum and use that time to attack the site by playing victim and trying to gain sympathy when not panhandling for any attention they can get.

Right now, they're painting you as another big meanie who is 'attacking' them when the reality is you refused to kowtow to their claims they have some type of empathy that you do not, and the reality is the complete opposite.

People are free to say whatever they want, but this one no longer wishes to post stories here and another person here pulled all their stories over an argument with another author, meaning neither has any real skin in this game as active authors here do, but continue to tweak the topic. Reminds me of a relative who told me many years ago, if you don't vote you have no right to bitch about how things are because you didn't try to make them better. If you no longer contribute, then...the same applies.

 

[lovecraft68]

There's an early post here made by @ShelbyDawn57 about why did we come here? And basically it was to write and get joy from that and not get into the stats and other white noise that permeates a lot of this forum at times.

This made me think of the theory about never trying to profit from your passion because once money is involved, it takes away the joy.

I experienced this with my comic book store. I started reading comics as a young child, collecting by the late seventies, selling by the late eighties by doing shows, then got into e-bay in its infancy. Eventually my wife and I opened the shop in 2002 and closed in 2009. The entire journey I still collected for myself and read two to three dozen titles a month. By the time we decided to close the business I was so disgusted and bitter from seeing how the big two only cared about milking people for every dime, no longer cared about the product, and of course Diamond, literally the only distributer in town sold out brick and mortar shops by allowing anyone to buy out of their house and do sub services at such a huge discount we couldn't compete...then came the first wave og disgital subscriptions. I could go on and on about more subtle things but the points been made

To this day I no longer buy or read any mainstream comics from Marvel or DC, I support Dynamite, Zenescope and some other indys and my collecting is strictly 1980 and older and mostly horror. But it took several years to recapture the joy of that hobby and its still been wounded in the sense I turned my back on those that turned their backs to the people that made them.

When I began writing I vowed that wouldn't happen. I wrote just for my wife, then she wanted me to try here and after some time, I said okay, we'll see how it goes and its gone well. I'm aware of the numbers, and the games played with them, aware of contest BS and the other negatives and can't say they've never gotten me a bit ticked off, but I never let it affect the reason I came here which was to write and share stories with people who aprpeciate them

And for what feel like the thousandth time I'll say look at the average scores and comments here, the site is overwhelmingly positive towards us, but yet the focus is on the minority of bombers and this type of bullshit. My 4.89 became a 4.84 is such a weak sauce complaint the 'first world problem' doesn't even cover it.

I went into selling and told myself if something in the market gets under my skin I will stop because I'm mixing money with my joy again, but having learned the lesson I drew a mental line with not getting upset about content BS, witch hunts competition etc.

My wife has also had serious health issues off and on and I've almost lost her three times since 2014. Many people here have gone through serious struggles with their health, health and loss of loved ones, grief, divorce and relationship issues, finances, battling emotional and mental health issues and life's everyday bullshit. All of these wars we fight every day should put this place in perspective.

The perspective of we can do this, we get to do this, we are doing it and we're doing it here and most people love us for doing it.

I sure as hell am not the yay team motivational type by any means but if saying this gets one person here to calm down and realize this is not that big of a deal then its worth saying.

Is this site perfect? Not by a long shot. Can it be annoying, yes, it can be. But in the end?

We have it good here, folks, we really do.