Yes, the Toplists are Broken

[FrancesScott]

If this thread was a dog, a vetenarian would have put it out of its misery by now.

 

[SimonDoom]

While Abdul Alhazred demands a sweep because the score on Necronomicon chapter 309 went from a 4.91 to a 4.89

It's eldritch.

 

[RejectReality]

Where does the 103 votes report come from? Like, obviously it's not currently correct, but presumably it is a total that existed at some time for it to be seen and recorded.

Unless your theory is that it is a report of a vote tally that never existed, it's a snapshot from a specific point in time. If it's 103 votes, that's a point in time that is between the time when it was snapshotted at 100 votes on the Toplist and when you checked in on it at 106 votes.

And if it is between those two points in time, it shows three 5*s before and then three 1*s after that snapshot. If it had shown an 11/7 split of stars that could still be three 5*s and three 1*s, but it could also be two 4*s and a 3* and then a 4*, a 2*, and a 1*. Or a bunch of other extremely unlikely splits. But what it actually showed was that those 18 stars among 6 votes came in the exactly predicted three 5*s and three 1*s.

For it to be anything else, the 4.91 (103 Votes) would have to be a complete algorithmic hallucination that corresponds to no vote totals that have ever existed. And even if it is an algorithmic hallucination, the three 5*s and three 1*s split is still by far the most likely. Because 5* ratings are the most common in general and 1* ratings are the most common troll vote and there is no evidence at all that any other kind of vote was cast.

If you didn't know anything about what Literotica voting patterns looked like, and you were told that six votes were cast and the total was 18 stars, you'd probably assume it was a nice like Gaussian curve at 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1. But that's INCREDIBLY unlikely given what we know about Literotica voting and trolling patterns. 3* ratings are the least used ratings on this site.

So you think that the other one has picked up 34 votes in the time between the two toplists updating? Again, you're latching onto whatever you think can confirm your hypothesis, spitting out numbers, and ignoring anything that doesn't fit your premise.

That story did not pick up 34 votes and go up .02 in whatever imaginary brief window there was between the two toplists updating. The 12 month list is simply wrong. K.I.S.S.

( For the record, I'm not attempting to convince RG of anything. That's a lost cause. All I'm doing is dropping reality checks so nobody else gets confused by the teletype regurgitation of numbers and gets pulled into this conspiracy theory, setting off yet another social contagion. )

 

[SimonDoom]

If this thread was a dog, a vetenarian would have put it out of its misery by now.

A dog chasing its tail, not understanding why others don't sympathize with its obsessive need to catch it.

 

[lovecraft68]

If this thread was a dog, a vetenarian would have put it out of its misery by now.

I keep seeing it as more of a hamster in a wheel visual.

 

[Dodola]

Obsession abounds.

Neither side will let the other have the

Last

Word.

 

[RocketGrunt]

So you think that the other one has picked up 34 votes in the time between the two toplists updating? Again, you're latching onto whatever you think can confirm your hypothesis, spitting out numbers, and ignoring anything that doesn't fit your premise.

That story did not pick up 34 votes and go up .02 in whatever imaginary brief window there was between the two toplists updating. The 12 month list is simply wrong. K.I.S.S.

( For the record, I'm not attempting to convince RG of anything. That's a lost cause. All I'm doing is dropping reality checks so nobody else gets confused by the teletype regurgitation of numbers and gets pulled into this conspiracy theory, setting off yet another social contagion. )

I don't know anything about the other one's extra 34 votes. It may well have reached a 240 vote count at some point in the last twelve months. Maybe there were a bunch of votes that got swept. We haven't been tracking that one at all. So whether it refers to a specific point in time or not is something neither of us are qualified to have an opinion about.

The One Whore's Town Chapter 3 story definitely did pass 103 votes this week. It is definitely a real vote total that it had, and definitely a vote total that it had between when I saw it at 100 votes and when you saw it at 106 votes. It is metaphysically impossible to add votes to go from 100 to 106 without passing through 103 along the way. So why would we think that the 103 vote report isn't real? It's a vote total that we have absolute certainty really happened and we have a very good idea of about when it happened.

I just don't understand how "the progression of numbers that is most likely and is also algebraically derivable from the available checked vote totals didn't happen" could possibly be the KISS explanation. You're the one spinning weird conspiracy theories. You asked us to look at a specific group of stories and watch how the numbers played out. We did that. We have enough data points that we can derive the exact ratings given and the exact order that they were given, and it matches the prediction of scripted trolling exactly. Like, EXACTLY exactly.

 

[SimonDoom]

That one vote. That one vote. The one that knocked my story from 4.92 to 4.91. I must figure it out. I must expose the nefarious plot behind it. I must expose the awfulness and injustice of a site that allows a scoring system that allows this to happen to me. I must not stop in my investigation of how it happens. Justice depends upon my investigation. No one can stop me. Never mind that my scores are higher than most of the other authors to whom I am complaining. Never mind that no one cares or that this injustice has no impact on the effectiveness of the site to deliver a product that its readers want. It's the injustice that matters. It gnaws at me. Listen to my story of woe.

Yes, barkeep, I'll have another. Could you make it a double?

 

[RejectReality]

I don't know anything about the other one's extra 34 votes. It may well have reached a 240 vote count at some point in the last twelve months. Maybe there were a bunch of votes that got swept. We haven't been tracking that one at all. So whether it refers to a specific point in time or not is something neither of us are qualified to have an opinion about.

The One Whore's Town Chapter 3 story definitely did pass 103 votes this week. It is definitely a real vote total that it had, and definitely a vote total that it had between when I saw it at 100 votes and when you saw it at 106 votes. It is metaphysically impossible to add votes to go from 100 to 106 without passing through 103 along the way. So why would we think that the 103 vote report isn't real? It's a vote total that we have absolute certainty really happened and we have a very good idea of about when it happened.

I just don't understand how "the progression of numbers that is most likely and is also algebraically derivable from the available checked vote totals didn't happen" could possibly be the KISS explanation. You're the one spinning weird conspiracy theories. You asked us to look at a specific group of stories and watch how the numbers played out. We did that. We have enough data points that we can derive the exact ratings given and the exact order that they were given, and it matches the prediction of scripted trolling exactly. Like, EXACTLY exactly.

No, it doesn't. It requires 3 magical 5s that defy anything resembling common sense to work. All my hypothesis requires is for people to be assholes.

And, poor Mage of Dockside has finally fallen to the troll army. At least I've seen the toplists update more than once in a 24 hour period now, so I know that's a thing, where it historically never was.

 

[FrancesScott]

The post-competition-winning vote suppression of my latest story (currently on 4.81 after 98 votes) has at least spared me the post-top-lists vote suppression that it would have incurred had it retained its previous 4.87 rating through 100 votes. I am grateful for small mercies!

 

[SmilingLez]

So I decided to look at the top lists. Don't know if it's broken, but definitely skewed. It seems like ten 5 stars from 10 readers are rated higher than 4.75 stars from 100 readers with 30 readers giving 5 stars

 

[RocketGrunt]

No, it doesn't. It requires 3 magical 5s that defy anything resembling common sense to work.

There is literally no reason to doubt the existence of the three 5* votes. Rather, there were a total of 8 votes. I saw a vote increment that proves a 5* rating was given. We all agree that one doesn't defy anything related to common sense. You saw a one vote increment that proves a 1* rating was given. That one is obviously "inauthentic" but we all agree it happened.

In between, there were six more votes, and we know they add up to 18. The simplest explanation is that three match the first vote and three match the 8th vote. It genuinely doesn't defy any common sense for the votes that come between the votes we have one increment series on to match those two votes. If they were any other numbers, we'd need more stories to explain the ones in the middle.

And then we have an extra data point that very much looks like a snapshot of the vote tally exactly in the middle of those six. And if it is correct, it would absolutely prove that the first four were the same and the second four were the same. So the thing that was obviously true from the beginning is simply still obviously true.

I genuinely do not know why you think it defies all common sense, or any common sense, for the numbers we weren't sure about to be exactly the same as the numbers we were sure about.

So I decided to look at the top lists. Don't know if it's broken, but definitely skewed. It seems like ten 5 stars from 10 readers are rated higher than 4.75 stars from 100 readers with 30 readers giving 5 stars

The old toplists are a 250 story list that displays stories that have been rated at least 100 times in order from highest to lowest and in the case of ties gives an ordering by total number of ratings.
The new layout has a "Popular Stories List" that also orders things by average rating and then by number of ratings for ties, but has a much lower threshold of required total votes. If you click on "more popular stories" it sends you to the old toplist page because the new page isn't live and this website is full of quarter century old spaghetti code.

If you look at most categories, you will find MUCH higher ratings on the Popular Stories List than on the old toplists. That is because there are trolls that procedurally dump 1* ratings on stories that enter the toplist of any category with a rating above 4.85. This means that the Popular List will show ten stories that have less than 100 ratings and averages around 4.9-5.0 instead of 4.84. On the Loving Wives, Taboo/Incest, and Mature boards specifically, those same troll procedures attack stories above 4.84 that have less than 100 ratings and are not on the toplist, so the Popular List and the Toplist are the same.

 

[Voboy]

That one vote. That one vote. The one that knocked my story from 4.92 to 4.91. I must figure it out. I must expose the nefarious plot behind it. I must expose the awfulness and injustice of a site that allows a scoring system that allows this to happen to me. I must not stop in my investigation of how it happens. Justice depends upon my investigation. No one can stop me. Never mind that my scores are higher than most of the other authors to whom I am complaining. Never mind that no one cares or that this injustice has no impact on the effectiveness of the site to deliver a product that its readers want. It's the injustice that matters. It gnaws at me. Listen to my story of woe.

Yes, barkeep, I'll have another. Could you make it a double?

Plot bunny: hatched.

A nice noir for the next Crime And Punishment event.

 

[RejectReality]

There is literally no reason to doubt the existence of the three 5* votes. Rather, there were a total of 8 votes. I saw a vote increment that proves a 5* rating was given. We all agree that one doesn't defy anything related to common sense. You saw a one vote increment that proves a 1* rating was given. That one is obviously "inauthentic" but we all agree it happened.

In between, there were six more votes, and we know they add up to 18. The simplest explanation is that three match the first vote and three match the 8th vote. It genuinely doesn't defy any common sense for the votes that come between the votes we have one increment series on to match those two votes. If they were any other numbers, we'd need more stories to explain the ones in the middle.

And then we have an extra data point that very much looks like a snapshot of the vote tally exactly in the middle of those six. And if it is correct, it would absolutely prove that the first four were the same and the second four were the same. So the thing that was obviously true from the beginning is simply still obviously true.

I genuinely do not know why you think it defies all common sense, or any common sense, for the numbers we weren't sure about to be exactly the same as the numbers we were sure about.

The old toplists are a 250 story list that displays stories that have been rated at least 100 times in order from highest to lowest and in the case of ties gives an ordering by total number of ratings.
The new layout has a "Popular Stories List" that also orders things by average rating and then by number of ratings for ties, but has a much lower threshold of required total votes. If you click on "more popular stories" it sends you to the old toplist page because the new page isn't live and this website is full of quarter century old spaghetti code.

If you look at most categories, you will find MUCH higher ratings on the Popular Stories List than on the old toplists. That is because there are trolls that procedurally dump 1* ratings on stories that enter the toplist of any category with a rating above 4.85. This means that the Popular List will show ten stories that have less than 100 ratings and averages around 4.9-5.0 instead of 4.84. On the Loving Wives, Taboo/Incest, and Mature boards specifically, those same troll procedures attack stories above 4.84 that have less than 100 ratings and are not on the toplist, so the Popular List and the Toplist are the same.

*sigh*

*Finds open book on an unoccupied table in an empty library with a sign next to it that says "Read me! I'm awesome!"*

*Reads what's on the open pages.*

Wow! I really liked that!

*walks away*

Now two more people have to do that as well.

Put the calculator down, think about it a minute or three, and realize that people do not behave this way.

 

[RocketGrunt]

*sigh*

*Finds open book on an unoccupied table in an empty library with a sign next to it that says "Read me! I'm awesome!"*

*Reads what's on the open pages.*

Wow! I really liked that!

*walks away*

Now two more people have to do that as well.

Put the calculator down, think about it a minute or three, and realize that people do not behave this way.

They totally do behave that way.

How long does it take for stories to get a Red H? The 15/02/2026 stories just went up. How many hours or minutes is it going to take for the first Red H to appear? A Red H requires ten people to look at a presented story and give a rating. Your story wasn't on the new stories page, but it was on a page that advertised it to some section of the audience for several hours. If trolls could see it, other people could as well.

A 5* rating does not require any explanation at all, because 5* ratings are normal. You can come up with explanations if you want to, but sometimes people just see things and give them 5* ratings on this site. And by "sometimes" I mean every fucking hour of every fucking day, because tens of thousands of ratings are given out daily and 5*s outnumber all other ratings given combined.

Would it make you feel better if you thought the three votes were given by people who'd already read your story but hadn't rated and gave it a 5* to try to keep it on the toplist because they didn't realize that the math so thoroughly favors troll votes that fifty 5* votes wouldn't have kept you on the toplist for even a few more hours? Would it make you feel better to believe that the cheerleaders that Lovecraft68 keeps trying to gaslight us into believing are a problem actually exist? Would it make you feel better to believe that three people clicked on it, put a 5* star on it, and tried to remind themselves to go back and read from chapter one when they had time? Who fucking cares why they did it? Your story had NINETY-ONE 5-star votes before it got the three that you're losing your mind about.

Real example: My story Stop Enslaving My Friends! has 1,126 ratings, with an average rating of 4.65. Chapter 2 of Stop Enslaving My Friends has 1,206 ratings, with an average rating of 4.76. The first chapter has been given at least 732 5* ratings, and the next chapter has been given at least 917 5* ratings. Sometimes people just give your stories 5* ratings. Sometimes they give you three more. Or like, a hundred and eighty more. It's normal. It's three five-star votes given over a period that was several hours long, stop losing your mind about it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Real example: My story Stop Enslaving My Friends! has 1,126 ratings, with an average rating of 4.65. Chapter 2 of Stop Enslaving My Friends has 1,206 ratings, with an average rating of 4.76. The first chapter has been given at least 732 5* ratings, and the next chapter has been given at least 917 5* ratings. Sometimes people just give your stories 5* ratings. Sometimes they give you three more. Or like, a hundred and eighty more. It's normal. It's three five-star votes given over a period that was several hours long, stop losing your mind about it.

I thought you didn't obsessively track scores. If you don't track scores, how can you be so definitive, so exact, about the number of fives?

 

[MerryeMikee]

I need to read with greater care, I keep noticing this thread and wondering why someone is posting about the Toilets not working, doh!

 

[lovecraft68]

I need to read with greater care, I keep noticing this thread and wondering why someone is posting about the Toilets not working, doh!

To be fair, this thread is circling the drain.

 

[RocketGrunt]

I thought you didn't obsessively track scores. If you don't track scores, how can you be so definitive, so exact, about the number of fives?

Please try to have basic reading comprehension. The statement was "at least" not exact numbers of 5* votes. The actual number of 5* ratings is higher for both chapters because a non-zero number of votes are less than 4*.

Your gotcha fails even on its own terms. Stop spamming the thread with inane bullshit.

 

[RejectReality]

Doubt anyone's going to fall for this cockamamie conspiracy theory at this point, so I'm going to leave you to your abacus and your rants.

 

[RocketGrunt]

Doubt anyone's going to fall for this cockamamie conspiracy theory at this point, so I'm going to leave you to your abacus and your rants.

You have a perfect user name on this sock puppet account.

Why did you call attention to your alt-handle stories if you had no intention of believing the numbers that appeared when we looked at them?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Please try to have basic reading comprehension. The statement was "at least" not exact numbers of 5* votes. The actual number of 5* ratings is higher for both chapters because a non-zero number of votes are less than 4*.

Your gotcha fails even on its own terms. Stop spamming the thread with inane bullshit.

You're ducking and weaving. 732 and 917 are pretty precise numbers to me, but you still don't answer the question - where's your data? You're having a ton of fun making sweeping statements, but unless you are monitoring every single score change - which you say you don't do, because that's only what obsessive score freaks do, right? - you have no way of knowing what score mix you've got. Yet you keep saying "everyone knows 90% of scores are 5s." No, we don't know that. Nobody does.

 

[RocketGrunt]

You're ducking and weaving. 732 and 917 are pretty precise numbers to me, but you still don't answer the question - where's your data? You're having a ton of fun making sweeping statements, but unless you are monitoring every single score change - which you say you don't do, because that's only what obsessive score freaks do, right? - you have no way of knowing what score mix you've got. Yet you keep saying "everyone knows 90% of scores are 5s." No, we don't know that. Nobody does.

Are you high right now?

I already called attention to the fact that your call-out was wrong and stupid. Here, I'll break it down for you:

"If you say that you didn't bother to check the votes as they came in, how can you look at the numbers as they exist right now and report the lowest possible number of Five-star ratings that could create those numbers?"

Look at your challenge. Look at it again. Try to wrap your mind about how fucking stupid it is. It's fucking 3rd grade math that you are fumbling. This is legit embarrassing. Go to bed. Fucking apologize for thread shitting when you wake up.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

A 5* rating does not require any explanation at all, because 5* ratings are normal. You can come up with explanations if you want to, but sometimes people just see things and give them 5* ratings on this site. And by "sometimes" I mean every fucking hour of every fucking day, because tens of thousands of ratings are given out daily and 5*s outnumber all other ratings given combined.

So then, regardless of any way that it may be calculated, a toplist is meaningless, even with zero trolling. If the readership is just indiscriminiately flinging 5s all over the place why is this thread 15 fucking pages long? A broken toplist is no less accurate than a fixed one.

 

[Voboy]

Please try to have basic reading comprehension. ... Stop spamming the thread with inane bullshit.

You have a perfect user name on this sock puppet account.

Are you high right now?
...
Go to bed. Fucking apologize for thread shitting when you wake up.

Why do you do these things? There's no way you think this sort of thing is beneficial to your "argument," is there? Turning into a public dick toward respected, long-time contributors is a bad way to convince people you're rational.