1-Bombing on Loving Wives

[RejectReality]

Most stories in the 4.84-4.85 range should be something different, because there's a systemic effort across categories to downrate most everything that hits a toplist higher than that. The drop in the number of 4.86+ stories from 250+ in 2023 to 20, give or take a new entry or three (which will get downrated in the coming days), in 2026 is pretty suggestive.

It's always been that way. The only difference between now and ten years ago is that the monthly contests are behind/defunct and those sweeps aren't happening on a regular basis to mitigate the damage. Those sweeps cut as deep as a themed contest sweep, but the target group was every story that came out in a calendar month, rather than 100 or so for a themed contest. They found a lot more, logged a lot more, and then cleaned up a lot more from the rest of the file as a result of it.

Most categories used to have a fair number of 4.9 stories back in the day, and you couldn't get on some lists without 4.9+

It's not the number that's the target. It's competing fanbases trying to one-up each other. Everyone else gets ganged up on by whichever fan groups are the most tenacious — knocking out interlopers — before they go back to sniping each other. Absent the regular cleaning that used to happen, the numbers steadily decline, because it's easier to move a score down with bombs than to move one up with cheerleading. The numbers will just keep slowly declining until a regular sweep regimine goes in place that has a large enough target group.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

That's not what I'm saying at all, and you know it. I'm pointing out that your comments about EC are misleading to new writers, who come seeking advice about categories. That is all.

Yes, a few times you have dismissed my stance on EC simply on the basis that you have one story there that you claim is doing quite well. When I make a claim based on multiple experiences in the category I need more scientific data but for you all you need is an anecdote. That's how it works. Then I remind you that you are an established writer with a following to offset the low visibility and suddenly you get all humble, "ohh noooo, I'm not popular at all, who me? I've only been writing here 10 years. I only have 75 stories." ; )

You're right. I'm wrong. No biggie.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

But I don't avoid Loving Wives because I care more about getting a positive reactions than I do about being read by way more eyes. I actually avoid Loving Wives because I don't see the point in posting a story that perfectly fits into other categories since I already know there's a huge chunk of people in that category who will hate anything that's not a "Mean-Spirited/Angry Revenge" story.

The second part of this statement contradicts the first. You have to choose one.

 

[RocketGrunt]

But when you say the top lists are garbage, says who? You?

Fucking MATH, that's who!

We're basing position on toplists on average rating, and we know that average rating is gamable by the whack-a-mole method and we have direct observational evidence that whack-a-mole protocols are being used on multiple story boards. And beyond that, we have the unmistakable mathematical fingerprint of the whack-a-mole method being used on a massive scale.

Congratulations on your story being #2 on the Mature board with a 4.84, Your story has fifteen thousand ratings and a lot of people obviously love it. But its only possible because of unnatural voting that creates targeted plateaus in the category. The fact that there's only one story in the entire Mature category that has a higher rating than 4.84 is FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE without bad actors tearing people down.

If the votes were evenly distributed and everyone with a well-received story actually did "deserve" a 4.84, then we still wouldn't see a plateau at 4.84. People would be getting roughly five 5* ratings for every 4* rating, and that would mean that only 46.4% of them would actually be at 4.84 or higher when they got to 1000 votes. A bunch of them would randomly have picked up a few extra 4s from people who liked it but were annoyed by a typo or something, but crucially 17.2% would be at 4.85 or higher just because the reflexive 5* voters happened to get in there before the ornery 4* rating people had noticed it. And 3.45% would be at 4.86, 0.34% would be at 4.87, and 0.02% would be at 4.88.

Even if we believed that there functionally weren't any stories on Literotica that deserved to be at higher than 4.84, we should still see them on every board because of how aggregate numbers work. It is fucking inconceivable for this many thousands of votes to create outputs this uniform. A story with a Red H gets hundreds or thousands of votes, and the distribution should go up in addition to down. But it doesn't, because the numbers are cooked by trolls.

Don't worry, if we fixed the toplists to eliminate trolling, we'd do something like base it on total number of 5* votes on stories with a Red H. Your story has over 13 thousand 5* ratings, I'm sure it would still be in the top ten.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yes, a few times you have dismissed my stance on EC simply on the basis that you have one story there that you claim is doing quite well. When I make a claim based on multiple experiences in the category I need more scientific data but for you all you need is an anecdote. That's how it works. Then I remind you that you are an established writer with a following to offset the low visibility and suddenly you get all humble, "ohh noooo, I'm not popular at all, who me? I've only been writing here 10 years. I only have 75 stories." ; )

You're right. I'm wrong. No biggie.

I have thirty stories in EC, you have five, which hardly qualifies as "multiple experiences" in a category. My response isn't based on a single anecdote as you seem to think, it's based on thirty stories, which is a quarter of my output. Erotic Couplings is not the worst category, by a long shot.

 

[RejectReality]

There's no "fixing" the toplists. Whatever voodoo math you come up with, the rabid fanbases will exploit, and authors will scream bloody murder because they can't figure out at a glance how their ranking is being determined. The only fix is regular sweeps on par with the old monthly contest sweeps, which will allow for some new entries to have a little more time up in the spotlight. They're always going to get bombed down until they have enough votes to stymie the gamesmanship, but they'll get more time on stage to gather new readers in the meantime.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I have thirty stories in EC, you have five, which hardly qualifies as "multiple experiences" in a category. My response isn't based on a single anecdote as you seem to think, it's based on thirty stories, which is a quarter of my output. Erotic Couplings is not the worst category, by a long shot.

But it is what you claimed in the past. You said something like, "well I have an EC story with stats abc, xyz, so that blows up your argument." If you want to base your argument on 30 stories, you have to actually go through your 30 stories and spot the trend, not pick out a single outlier.

 

[RocketGrunt]

There's no "fixing" the toplists. Whatever voodoo math you come up with, the rabid fanbases will exploit, and authors will scream bloody murder because they can't figure out at a glance how their ranking is being determined. The only fix is regular sweeps on par with the old monthly contest sweeps, which will allow for some new entries to have a little more time up in the spotlight. They're always going to get bombed down until they have enough votes to stymie the gamesmanship, but they'll get more time on stage to gather new readers in the meantime.

Sweeps do happen, and they have not solved the problem. Regular sweeps don't work because it's actually not difficult to get your votes passed the sweeps.

Yes, a lot of the downvotes that people send off in flurries around the contests get scrubbed by the sweeps, but those sweeps haven't fixed the toplist trolling even right at the moment they happen. Because the toplist trolling is done in a less hurried fashion that the algorithm cannot recognize as inauthentic. Well-spaced anonymous downvotes that are presumably VPNed so that they don't have the same IP address. If you're watching the stories getting pushed off the toplist, the activity is obvious, but the algorithm looking at the entire stream of votes cannot identify the inauthentic ones.

The solution is to base popularity on number of 5* ratings rather than average rating. Because that's a better proxy for popularity anyway, and because it's a number that trolls cannot meaningfully interact with. They can still cheerlead for their favorites by sending them a few extra 5* ratings, but they wouldn't be able to tear anyone else down and a few extra 5* ratings wouldn't be a big deal when the actual top stories have literally thousands of 5* ratings.

 

[lovecraft68]

Most stories in the 4.84-4.85 range should be something different, because there's a systemic effort across categories to downrate most everything that hits a toplist higher than that. The drop in the number of 4.86+ stories from 250+ in 2023 to 20, give or take a new entry or three (which will get downrated in the coming days), in 2026 is pretty suggestive.

You're not wrong but as I said in another thread recently, the system is not the problem. Its as simple as it gets, here's five stars, rate it the way you want. This is the same system Amazon and many major sites use for products.

The problem is the people using it. The trolls who hate certain categories, the trolls who don't like certain authors, the forum trolls-and yes, they're real and the contest trolling is in a league of its own, etc..

We hear about all these things, but what also goes on is cheerleading and high fiving and these come from overzealous readers and you can plainly see in this forum, a bunch of friends who will slap a five on anything their friends write. Now is everything their buddies write the best thing ever the way they gush in the comments? No, it's bias or they feel simply supporting a friend. It's as wrong as all the negative things that go on and it's also an action/reaction.

One group pumps up a story, another tears it down. Anyone with some experience here can keep bringing things like this up, the point is its people, not the system and regardless of whatever system people think are better, it will be abused. Fair? No, but neither is life and if this is something some here can obsess over, then be grateful your life is that trouble free that you can spend so much time on it.

But your post is indicative of what goes on here, "These scores should be higher." I'm sure some should, but many stories seem to manage to stay with a high score, but a reasonable one 4.85 for example. Think about where a 4.85 ranks out of 5.00 pretty damn good, and we hear whining it should be higher.

But it never occurs to people that maybe the score should be lower. Maybe you have friends here cheerleading your story or a base of readers who will think "Not as good as their other stories, but here's a five because I like your work in general. To repeat another point I made prior, some people should be careful what they wish for because if a system was ever designed that rated on quality and ability, it would be a hell of a wake up call if the results were far below their opinion of themselves.

Social media platforms are simply a platform, in and of themselves they are neither bad or good, its the people who use them that turn them to shit. Same here, basic rating system, the Red H designed as a reward, top lists, contests and none of these things are bad, the people playing games are the issue.

Get rid of all scoring and the H and top lists and then all we'll have is tens of thousands of stories where people have nothing to go by as to whether they want to read it or not, just whatever they find first.

Then the crying will really start.

The site will never change anything, and in the past have blatantly lied about things they were going to fix, add, or take away.

What we have is what we have, sad but true.

But in the meantime what we have is a bunch of people who think their stories and only their stories have merit and that's mostly what I was addressing in my post.

 

[RocketGrunt]

You're not wrong but as I said in another thread recently, the system is not the problem. Its as simple as it gets, here's five stars, rate it the way you want. This is the same system Amazon and many major sites use for products.

You're so close to getting it.
Yes, it is mathematically impossible to keep bad faith actors from manipulating average ratings from 4.86 to 4.85. It is impossible because when the average is high, a negative rating counts much more than a positive rating. A single 1* lowers the average at 4.86 unless TWENTY-NINE 5* ratings come to balance it out. We can't beat the haters at this game, because it is mathematically impossible to beat the haters at this game. Simple algebra multiplies their power by dozens of times.

That's why we shouldn't base toplist positions on average ratings. Amazon doesn't naively give you the highest average rating and then the next highest and then the one after that, because that number is very easy to manipulate and providing options ordered in that way would be a very stupid thing to do.

The reality is that there's no real difference between a 4.79 and a 4.89. Both of those show a large supermajority of upvotes. Both stories potentially deserve space on the toplist, and the placement should be based on actual popularity metrics that aren't so easily spoofed.

And yet, because we give the toplist spot to the 4.89, we don't have any 4.89s any more! We've placed power in the hands of trolls by putting the crown in a mathematically undefendable tower. And the result is that NO ONE can have nice things. A 4.89 cannot be protected because a 1* at that rating counts more than thirty-six 5*s, so the war always ends in a race to the bottom that makes losers of us all.

 

[lovecraft68]

You're so close to getting it.
Yes, it is mathematically impossible to keep bad faith actors from manipulating average ratings from 4.86 to 4.85. It is impossible because when the average is high, a negative rating counts much more than a positive rating. A single 1* lowers the average at 4.86 unless TWENTY-NINE 5* ratings come to balance it out. We can't beat the haters at this game, because it is mathematically impossible to beat the haters at this game. Simple algebra multiplies their power by dozens of times.

That's why we shouldn't base toplist positions on average ratings. Amazon doesn't naively give you the highest average rating and then the next highest and then the one after that, because that number is very easy to manipulate and providing options ordered in that way would be a very stupid thing to do.

The reality is that there's no real difference between a 4.79 and a 4.89. Both of those show a large supermajority of upvotes. Both stories potentially deserve space on the toplist, and the placement should be based on actual popularity metrics that aren't so easily spoofed.

And yet, because we give the toplist spot to the 4.89, we don't have any 4.89s any more! We've placed power in the hands of trolls by putting the crown in a mathematically undefendable tower. And the result is that NO ONE can have nice things. A 4.89 cannot be protected because a 1* at that rating counts more than thirty-six 5*s, so the war always ends in a race to the bottom that makes losers of us all.

Okay, and what's the solution? To put it simply, some people flat out suck and they will manipulate any system put in place.

Trying to keep this simple, it seems like people receive mostly positive results here from an appreciative readership and should be happy about it-and many are-but some people just bitch and bitch.

That and again adding what everyone wants to ignore, there are as many people inflating scores as there are tanking them, but only one gets discussed.

In general, the forum is quick to point out a 'troll job" that knocks a story down a few points, but when a couple of authors here come running in to post they wrote a new story and ten of their friends run on over and slap a five on it, that's not a problem somehow. Their story is being elevated and that's fine, but when it gets taken down, that's not. Why?

The system gives and it takes. Always has, always will, and I-and many others here-have been on both sides of it and know nothing is ever going to change.

So I think I speak for more than just myself here in this forum when I say that the endless griping-even with there being more than a few issues we can gripe about- and whining on a predominantly friendly site has more than worn out its welcome.

If the system is that flawed and awful find another place to publish. Oh, wait, the other sites all have similar issues...

 

[RocketGrunt]

Okay, and what's the solution? To put it simply, some people flat out suck and they will manipulate any system put in place.

The solution is to remove average rating from the toplist calculation entirely.

The November update gives three Popular Stories tabs on each story category, and while it doesn't work (in the sense that those tabs aren't updating properly), it's a good and simple idea.

Tab 1: Most Popular (Category) Stories of All Time
-> This would simply be the stories listed in the number of 5* ratings they have received.

Tab 2: Most Popular (Category) Stories Recently
-> This would simply be the stories listed in the number of 5* ratings they have received divided by the number of months they've been on the site.

Tab 3: Most Popular (Category) Stories Currently
-> This would be the stories listed in the number of 5* reviews they received in the last 7 days.


That's it. If the trolls don't have a mechanism to tear things down, nothing gets torn down. People whipping up extra votes by encouraging people to read and rate their stories would be the only way to "cheat" and I would argue that isn't even cheating. Inflating scores is really hard when it's a total rather than ratio, and an extra 20 or 30 fake 5* ratings wouldn't move the needle much at all. The All-Time category would be highly resistant to change, as it should be, and the other two would have large biases toward new popular works, as they should.

Go look at the Mature Toplist, because you have pride of place on it. In the Top Ten, the difference in total votes between your story and the top ten entry with the lowest number of votes is ten thousand, six hundred, and eighty-five. That's obviously way outside of what these jackasses can make up with their one-troll-vote-per-day systems. Even the closest are still separated by 56 votes, which is significantly more than the number of troll votes per story that have scorched earth the entire site on the average rating plan.

 

[sirhugs]

You're so close to getting it.
Yes, it is mathematically impossible to keep bad faith actors from manipulating average ratings from 4.86 to 4.85. It is impossible because when the average is high, a negative rating counts much more than a positive rating. A single 1* lowers the average at 4.86 unless TWENTY-NINE 5* ratings come to balance it out. We can't beat the haters at this game, because it is mathematically impossible to beat the haters at this game. Simple algebra multiplies their power by dozens of times.

That's why we shouldn't base toplist positions on average ratings. Amazon doesn't naively give you the highest average rating and then the next highest and then the one after that, because that number is very easy to manipulate and providing options ordered in that way would be a very stupid thing to do.

The reality is that there's no real difference between a 4.79 and a 4.89. Both of those show a large supermajority of upvotes. Both stories potentially deserve space on the toplist, and the placement should be based on actual popularity metrics that aren't so easily spoofed.

And yet, because we give the toplist spot to the 4.89, we don't have any 4.89s any more! We've placed power in the hands of trolls by putting the crown in a mathematically undefendable tower. And the result is that NO ONE can have nice things. A 4.89 cannot be protected because a 1* at that rating counts more than thirty-six 5*s, so the war always ends in a race to the bottom that makes losers of us all.

you on the other hand are no where close to "getting it". Even your psudo math is mind boggling. Do you have to dominate this thread that you have already hijacked?

 

[sirhugs]

The solution is to remove average rating from the toplist calculation entirely.

The November update gives three Popular Stories tabs on each story category, and while it doesn't work (in the sense that those tabs aren't updating properly), it's a good and simple idea.

Tab 1: Most Popular (Category) Stories of All Time
-> This would simply be the stories listed in the number of 5* ratings they have received.

Tab 2: Most Popular (Category) Stories Recently
-> This would simply be the stories listed in the number of 5* ratings they have received divided by the number of months they've been on the site.

Tab 3: Most Popular (Category) Stories Currently
-> This would be the stories listed in the number of 5* reviews they received in the last 7 days.


That's it. If the trolls don't have a mechanism to tear things down, nothing gets torn down. People whipping up extra votes by encouraging people to read and rate their stories would be the only way to "cheat" and I would argue that isn't even cheating. Inflating scores is really hard when it's a total rather than ratio, and an extra 20 or 30 fake 5* ratings wouldn't move the needle much at all. The All-Time category would be highly resistant to change, as it should be, and the other two would have large biases toward new popular works, as they should.

Go look at the Mature Toplist, because you have pride of place on it. In the Top Ten, the difference in total votes between your story and the top ten entry with the lowest number of votes is ten thousand, six hundred, and eighty-five. That's obviously way outside of what these jackasses can make up with their one-troll-vote-per-day systems. Even the closest are still separated by 56 votes, which is significantly more than the number of troll votes per story that have scorched earth the entire site on the average rating plan.

the solution is for you to stop posting.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Sweeps do happen, and they have not solved the problem. Regular sweeps don't work because it's actually not difficult to get your votes passed the sweeps.

Who cares?

My 4.75 really deserves to be a 4.80 but trolls have trashed it. The site needs to do something about this!

Who fucking cares?

And yet, because we give the toplist spot to the 4.89, we don't have any 4.89s any more! We've placed power in the hands of trolls by putting the crown in a mathematically undefendable tower. And the result is that NO ONE can have nice things. A 4.89 cannot be protected because a 1* at that rating counts more than thirty-six 5*s, so the war always ends in a race to the bottom that makes losers of us all.

Who cares??

I have nice things. I have twelve stories out there in the public eye ... for free! And every once in a while someone actually reads one of them! I even have some nice comments and about seven-and-a-half fans! These are all wonderful things.

 

[lovecraft68]

The solution is to remove average rating from the toplist calculation entirely.

The November update gives three Popular Stories tabs on each story category, and while it doesn't work (in the sense that those tabs aren't updating properly), it's a good and simple idea.

Tab 1: Most Popular (Category) Stories of All Time
-> This would simply be the stories listed in the number of 5* ratings they have received.

Tab 2: Most Popular (Category) Stories Recently
-> This would simply be the stories listed in the number of 5* ratings they have received divided by the number of months they've been on the site.

Tab 3: Most Popular (Category) Stories Currently
-> This would be the stories listed in the number of 5* reviews they received in the last 7 days.


That's it. If the trolls don't have a mechanism to tear things down, nothing gets torn down. People whipping up extra votes by encouraging people to read and rate their stories would be the only way to "cheat" and I would argue that isn't even cheating. Inflating scores is really hard when it's a total rather than ratio, and an extra 20 or 30 fake 5* ratings wouldn't move the needle much at all. The All-Time category would be highly resistant to change, as it should be, and the other two would have large biases toward new popular works, as they should.

Go look at the Mature Toplist, because you have pride of place on it. In the Top Ten, the difference in total votes between your story and the top ten entry with the lowest number of votes is ten thousand, six hundred, and eighty-five. That's obviously way outside of what these jackasses can make up with their one-troll-vote-per-day systems. Even the closest are still separated by 56 votes, which is significantly more than the number of troll votes per story that have scorched earth the entire site on the average rating plan.

That is way more work than the site will ever put in and TBH I'm not sure whether to credit people like yourself who put that much thought into it, or feel bad for you, its a waste of your time and effort.

Thing is you keep saying take the five votes, take the five votes, so you're just joining in on this game that no vote under five is real, as well as ignoring the fact the cheerleaders are also a problem. You think some stories should be higher but there's just as many that should be lower.

Go look at some of the event or official contest entry stories by forum regulars here and look at the absolute lovefest you see there. Those votes are not all real.

I think the solution to make everyone happy is to do what E-bay did. Back years ago you could leave a buyer negative feedback if they didn't pay, then it could only be neutral, now it can only be positive (but of course buyers can bomb you). That's what's wanted here. The reader has an option of 5 or don't vote.

Then you'll all be happy.

Until then we'll get these round and round hamster in a wheel discussions.

But in this case it took the heat off the latest LW trolls are hot violent unhinged trash, which I'm sure several of the defenders here are happy about.

Want to adjust scores? Kick that faction off the site and see how things trend upwards

 

[lovecraft68]

Who cares?

My 4.75 really deserves to be a 4.80 but trolls have trashed it. The site needs to do something about this!

Who fucking cares?



Who cares??

I have nice things. I have twelve stories out there in the public eye ... for free! And every once in a while someone actually reads one of them! I even have some nice comments and about seven-and-a-half fans! These are all wonderful things.

But you're looking at this from the POV of someone with perspective whose entire life and paper thin ego doesn't revolve around this site

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Thing is you keep saying take the five votes, take the five votes, so you're just joining in on this game that no vote under five is real, as well as ignoring the fact the cheerleaders are also a problem. You think some stories should be higher but there's just as many that should be lower.

On a scale of 1 to 5, the average (average!!!) score is 4.4 and the scores are too low dammit!! ; )

 

[RocketGrunt]

you on the other hand are no where close to "getting it". Even your psudo math is mind boggling. Do you have to dominate this thread that you have already hijacked?

You misspelling the word "pseudo" really sold me on your pathetic ignorance. Good job.

Thing is you keep saying take the five votes, take the five votes, so you're just joining in on this game that no vote under five is real, as well as ignoring the fact the cheerleaders are also a problem. You think some stories should be higher but there's just as many that should be lower.

I'm saying take the 5 votes, because that's how the toplist works. Only 5* votes are upvotes. Popularity is based on the number of 5 votes things get. If we were on a site that was less hugboxy, a 4* might be an upvote too, but we aren't. A story's popularity is measured by the number of 5* ratings it gets on Literotica specifically.

I don't know if you're being willfully obtuse like this sirhugs guy, but right now the toplists are determined by variations of .01, which if things were handled honestly would be basically random because simple distribution effects are way larger than 0.01/5 on an average. And because it's so gamable, what we hve is way worse than that, because it isn't honest at all. Total votes differ by hundreds or thousands, and are WAY harder to spoof. The small number of cheerleader votes wouldn't move the needle at all.

 

[RejectReality]

Only counting five votes is the same thing as a like-only system wearing Groucho Marx glasses. Lush does that, and it's just as rife with manipulation as every other rating system, and becomes even more of a popularity contest than what we have here. The one and only time it had any value was the nanosecond they switched from numerical rating to like-only and treated any vote as a like. In that instant, every troll vote transformed into a positive. You could almost hear them screeching and melting like the Wicked Witch of the West.

The very next second, people started exploiting it.

I get that it's frustrating to have your 4.89 knocked down to 4.84 and losing a prime location in the toplist to pick up new readers. I really do. Complaining about it in a thread that was started about LW where most people struggle to make it to 4.0 from the overwhelming trolling there isn't gaining you much sympathy for your plight.

You cannot fix the toplists, because anything that has an internet poll at its base is going to be manipulated. Your solution is just ego-stroking, and doesn't actually solve the problem of your story getting pushed out of theat prime real estate. All it takes is one person to steal a buttload of pics from an attractive and active but not particularly popular Onlyfans girl, and start offering them up to anyone who likes as their "naughty pics". Braindead horndogs will push you off the list for some barely literate drivel in a heartbeat.

 

[Seurat]

Personally, I consider the LW the "Mean-Spirited/Angry Revenge" category.

So if I write a story about Loving Wives/Husbands, it going in Erotic Couples or Romance.

If I write a story about consensual and happy Cuckoldry, it's going in Fetish.

if I write a story about Cheating Partners/Unhappy Cuckoldry, it's going in Reluctanct/Non-Consent.

If I write a story about Swingers, it's going in Group Sex.

There really isn't any "For Accurate Categorization" reasons to publish a story in Loving Wives. The only logical reasons are to rage-bait woman haters, or gain engagement and visibility because it's a huge cesspool of readers. There are categories that cover everything Loving Wives claims to be, which is "Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more" according to it's own description.

So my advice to your valid frustration is this, never post a story in Loving Wives simply because it fits the description of "Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more," you're better off posting it in a different category that actually has readers who enjoy those kinds of stories such as Erotic Couples, Romance, Fetish, Non-Con, Group Sex, etc.

I have been trying for years to get this through to people by commenting as such on the stories. There is one writer in particular that has been posting recently in LW (my mind is a sieve on the name) with well thought out, well written. and well edited stories that are on the line between Fetish/Reluctant NC, and I think how much better received they would be if they moved them out of LW. The classification has certainly changed over the years, or rather the people reading there have moved things into a few polarized camps. The current description no longer reflects what is posted there.

 

[OddLove]

The second part of this statement contradicts the first. You have to choose one.

So you're saying I should post my stories in a category that I know has an audience who won't enjoy the story? Do you also think I should be posting blow job stories into the anal category? Cause that's how stupid your logic is.

 

[designatedvictim]

A single 1* lowers the average at 4.86 unless TWENTY-NINE 5* ratings come to balance it out

This strikes me as too much of an absolute, which isn't the case at all.

The impact of a single outlier 1* on the overall average is entirely dependent on the number of data points (votes, in this case).

You have 500 votes? That 1* you just got is lost as a rounding error as the voting system only reports to two significant digits.

You have 35 votes? That 1*, while not fatal, certainly stings.

My recent story (not in LW - I wouldn't touch that category with a ten-foot pole) got three 1* among the first 25 votes. The average took a few days to recover from that, but it did recover.

The current voting system is a fatally flawed broad metric, but it's the only metric we have.

Also keep in mind that the rating is described as liking, not quality or competence.

Technically, "This guy is in competition against my friend in the latest themed contest, I don't like it. Have a 1*, random author!" actually falls into the definition of the voting scale.

 

[OddLove]

I have been trying for years to get this through to people by commenting as such on the stories. There is one writer in particular that has been posting recently in LW (my mind is a sieve on the name) with well thought out, well written. and well edited stories that are on the line between Fetish/Reluctant NC, and I think how much better received they would be if they moved them out of LW. The classification has certainly changed over the years, or rather the people reading there have moved things into a few polarized camps. The current description no longer reflects what is posted there.

Yep. The "Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more" doesn't reflect the *actual audience. It would be more accurate if Loving Wives change it's description to "Betrayal, Revenge, Bullying, Abuse, and sometimes Reconciliation." That way it would actually reflect the audience and new writers wouldn't be accidentally posting their stories in the wrong category based off outdated information.

 

[yowser]

Yep. The "Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more" doesn't reflect the *actual audience. It would be more accurate if Loving Wives change it's description to "Betrayal, Revenge, Bullying, Abuse, and sometimes Reconciliation." That way it would actually reflect the audience and new writers wouldn't be accidentally posting their stories in the wrong category based off outdated information.

However comprehensive, that is far too wordy when 'Hating Husbands' would do nicely.