A top list scores tampering theory

[SimonDoom]

I thought most of that speculation was pretty absurd to be honest.

That said, I can see logical, rational, reasons for the delay/through the cracks phenomenon. I said then it would be nice to see them drop a short post saying "sorry about all that, here's what's going on".

I can't say the same for this. Ocham's Razor would suggest a clown with some sort of script.

I can't see any logical reason for the site to do it deliberately, and the pattern doesn't fit a bug.

I second the appeal to Occam's Razor. Also, the principle that one should not impute to malice what can be explained by stupidity (or, more charitably, inability). I don't think the owners of this site are stupid, but from every single thing I've ever seen and heard their capacities are stretched to the max to keep this place going, and that is a consistent and plausible explanation why they don't always deal with our complaints as quickly as we'd like. The alternative is conspiracy theory and/or bad faith, and I won't assume either without a certain evidentiary threshold being met (and it hasn't been). Perhaps I'm a fool to assume good things about people, but that's how I'm going to roll.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I second the appeal to Occam's Razor. Also, the principle that one should not impute to malice what can be explained by stupidity (or, more charitably, inability).

I just want to emphasize that I have never, ever, implied malice from Lit's owners. What I've said is that they are always taking care of their own interest, and that they do not care much or at all about the needs of authors. That doesn't imply any malice. It implies pragmatism, maybe selfishness at its most extreme. I just want to make that clear.

On the other hand, many people here implied benevolence from them. They do that daily, ranging from an idea of good-natured and helpful admins to near sainthood. And we do actually have cult-like behavior from some. Again, just to make that clear.

I am trying to analyze things without bias, from a purely neutral position. And while I might have written some partly exaggerated posts in anger in the past, it's been a long, long time since any of those. I'm trying to be rational above all.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I just want to emphasize that I have never, ever, implied malice from Lit's owners. What I've said is that they are always taking care of their own interest, and that they do not care much or at all about the needs of authors. That doesn't imply any malice. It implies pragmatism, maybe selfishness at its most extreme. I just want to make that clear.

On the other hand, many people here implied benevolence from them. They do that daily, ranging from an idea of good-natured and helpful admins to near sainthood. And we do actually have cult-like behavior from some. Again, just to make that clear.

I am trying to analyze things without bias, from a purely neutral position. And while I might have written some partly exaggerated posts in anger in the past, it's been a long, long time since any of those. I'm trying to be rational above all.

I think it is important to clarify that the wants and needs of the AH (and a subset of the AH at that) isn't the same as the wants and needs of authors.
Would it be cool to have some sort of dashboard where I could pull all kinds of deep metrics on readers and my stories? Of course it would.
What percentage of Lit authors would actually use it? Probably a tiny one, and it would probably include a large percentage of the "i write for myself crowd", but I digress.

Everyone else has something they'd love to see the site do for authors. Most of them just don't make sense from a big picture perspective.
I don't put the site on a pedestal, but I understand why they do much of what they do.

 

[lovecraft68]

This whole thing exposes what's really important to a lot of people here and its not 'craft of writing'

I hold to two things since this really kicked up

1-I have a feeling the site is involved and now not only sweeping one's but really focusing on false fives and cheerleading. Sorry, no more fake 4.94's for the trendy categories here.

2-I am getting a kick out of it because of those reasons; for what it proves is important to many and the crying over the horrible event of going from 4.88 to a measly 4.84. If this matters this much to you congrats on having such a soft life devoid of real problems.

One more thing I'll add is this has been going on a long time to various degrees and for years it was blamed on one person-two on occasion-a poster named Scouries was somehow responsible for manipulating all the toplists, all the scores, etc. Even after they left in 2012 that continued. Down to his last PM to me before he became to ill to be here TXRAD insisted this person was still here sniping the top list and all time fav list, creating thousands of alts over the years to add favs to his fav authors and keep them ahead of others.

We were supposed to believe that and it didn't take long to figure out Scouries was what Satan is to the Catholic Church, an easy distraction to take attention away from more important matters.

Still the case.

The AI issue is out of control, people are still losing stories in pending, nothing from the site, no end in sight, but oh, the top list scores!

That and 'Look, we have word count on the stories now!" Ohh shiny...

I don't know what's more askew here, some people's priorities or their conviction. "This site is awful! They did this and....Oh a feature we never asked for yay Lit!

I'm sure the site has figured out that if they keep a couple of 24/7 posting loudmouths here happy, then things are easier for them.

 

[redgarters]

My observations on this issue:
1. It's sitewide, so it's obviously not disgruntled fanboys or authors trying to manipulate certain authors or stories. The fact that nearly every category has an obvious 4.84 limit takes away that motivation possibility.
2. Non-human seems to be the only category not affected (or less affected). Whoever is responsible isn't messing with vampires and monsters, some good sense shown there at least.
3. It's obviously a bot/script.
4. Motivation wise only two things make sense to me, that it's a site management thing(for some reason) or it's an individual doing it for reasons only known to them. The site management theory makes more sense to me.

Whatever it is, that's the reality here now, and I'll just keep on writing.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

This whole thing exposes what's really important to a lot of people here and its not 'craft of writing'

I hold to two things since this really kicked up

1-I have a feeling the site is involved and now not only sweeping one's but really focusing on false fives and cheerleading. Sorry, no more fake 4.94's for the trendy categories here.

2-I am getting a kick out of it because of those reasons; for what it proves is important to many and the crying over the horrible event of going from 4.88 to a measly 4.84. If this matters this much to you congrats on having such a soft life devoid of real problems.

One more thing I'll add is this has been going on a long time to various degrees and for years it was blamed on one person-two on occasion-a poster named Scouries was somehow responsible for manipulating all the toplists, all the scores, etc. Even after they left in 2012 that continued. Down to his last PM to me before he became to ill to be here TXRAD insisted this person was still here sniping the top list and all time fav list, creating thousands of alts over the years to add favs to his fav authors and keep them ahead of others.

We were supposed to believe that and it didn't take long to figure out Scouries was what Satan is to the Catholic Church, an easy distraction to take attention away from more important matters.

Still the case.

The AI issue is out of control, people are still losing stories in pending, nothing from the site, no end in sight, but oh, the top list scores!

That and 'Look, we have word count on the stories now!" Ohh shiny...

I don't know what's more askew here, some people's priorities or their conviction. "This site is awful! They did this and....Oh a feature we never asked for yay Lit!

I'm sure the site has figured out that if they keep a couple of 24/7 posting loudmouths here happy, then things are easier for them.

My frustration isn't with the numbers, it is the list itself. Not for the ego stroke of "my story is one of the best" but because I noticed a sharp increase in views on my whole catalog when my story cracked the list.
I don't obsessively track these things, but I noticed over time from logging into my dashboard that I typically pick up a favorite or two per week if I haven't posted anything new in a while.
During the time my story was on the top list I was getting 3-4 a day, and picking up a follower or two per day as well.
It was a nice little boost.
Frankly, it was a lot better from an exposure standpoint than the contests seem to be.

 

[lovecraft68]

Frankly, it was a lot better from an exposure standpoint than the contests seem to be.

Well, the contests have a level of trolling that exceeds the top lists IMO. Its also my opinion that a lot of it has always and still does come from the forum.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Well, the contests have a level of trolling that exceeds the top lists IMO. Its also my opinion that a lot of it has always and still does come from the forum.

I won't disagree with any of that.

 

[lovecraft68]

I won't disagree with any of that.

In fact, I'll further endear myself to some here when I say that I think the forum is why fives are being swept away along with ones these days and suspiciously high scores are being brought down. Let's face it, if someone comes here with a lesbian story-or enters one in a contest-its fawned and gushed over like they're all the greatest thing ever written and score above 4.9 and a lot of that is the back slapping from people here, its trendy to crow over that category.

Time was Romance had that same thing going for it, and before that it was sci-fi. Everything here is a cycle and nothing now in terms of votes/trolling is any different than its always been other than as I believe, the cheerleaders are being targeted along with trolls and its high time that's happened.

 

[RejectReality]

Whoever has been doing it is likely crying right now. Lit obviously started running some real sweeps. Holy shit. LMAO

Literally years of accumulated scumbaggery has been wiped out recently. I wondered a few days ago why some stories had sat within a certain score range for a few days when that usually would get wiped out within hours by trolling and went to look. It was because it was below the new threat zone. Looked today, and the bar has moved again.

We'll see if it continues, but the change in a lot of toplists is just... wow.

 

[lovecraft68]

Whoever has been doing it is likely crying right now. Lit obviously started running some real sweeps. Holy shit. LMAO

Literally years of accumulated scumbaggery has been wiped out recently. I wondered a few days ago why some stories had sat within a certain score range for a few days when that usually would get wiped out within hours by trolling and went to look. It was because it was below the new threat zone. Looked today, and the bar has moved again.

We'll see if it continues, but the change in a lot of toplists is just... wow.

The problem with saying this is 'years of scumbaggery" which you blame on lack of site sweeps since the monthlies died out some time ago is problematic in a couple of ways.

From a sweep standpoint there are multiple sweeps per contest that go sitewide and six contests a year so of course that's every other month not monthly but does cut into the "years of..." claim.

The other issue which is an aside from sweeps is if the claim is this is all the work of trolls and a longtime successful story dips a couple of points then people will assume that person was doing something wrong-or maybe some of their fans were-which is not always the case, but this seems to be to reactionary of a topic for rational thinking among more than a few here.

My own example is the story I've had that's hung around the top 10 or so for well over a decade. At one point when a lot of the lists began going wonky that story went up a couple of points and took back number one and one of my other stories jumped into the top ten leavin the OP of the other toplist conspiracy thread to insinuate I benefitted hence I must be cheating, the story then dropped back a few places as I figured it would because it wasn't me its whatever stupidity goes on here with trolls and inaccurate AF site sweeps

I just went back and looked seeing you said there were changes and I'm at number 8 but 4.84 which is the number everyone seemed to be getting bumped down to, so not that I care about where the story ranks, but point is where's the change? That story was 4.87 for around a decade. Again, I rarely check the lists and have no real interest in where my stories rank, but point is I see no big change.

We'll disagree on this but although I know asshat trolls and cheerleaders exist, I put a lot of the BS here on the site itself. Blatant screw jobs in contests over the years have proven the site plays whatever games it wants whenever it wants. And as for Scouries all those years, let's face it, he was part of the site and probably still is since they haven't sold.

 

[SimonDoom]

With facts and proof in short supply,
There's only one path you can try:
Speculate!

Bots, trolls, thugs, heck, terminators,
It might as well be alligators:
Speculate!

It's fun and easy. Anyone can do it.
Give it a try. There's nothing to it.

It might be this. It might be that.
Perhaps it's just a big black cat.

So come on folks, join in the fun.
I promise you're not the only one:
Speculate!

 

[Voboy]

1. It's sitewide, so it's obviously not disgruntled fanboys or authors trying to manipulate certain authors or stories. The fact that nearly every category has an obvious 4.84 limit takes away that motivation possibility.

This. It's a hard fact to ignore.

I'm all about Occam's Razor and I firmly believe there are shadowy actors out there sabotaging peoples' scores, but the "odd coincidence" that all of them end up at 4.84 is a very, very difficult thing to explain away.

 

[Actingup]

This whole thing exposes what's really important to a lot of people here and its not 'craft of writing'

I hold to two things since this really kicked up

1-I have a feeling the site is involved and now not only sweeping one's but really focusing on false fives and cheerleading. Sorry, no more fake 4.94's for the trendy categories here.

2-I am getting a kick out of it because of those reasons; for what it proves is important to many and the crying over the horrible event of going from 4.88 to a measly 4.84. If this matters this much to you congrats on having such a soft life devoid of real problems.

One more thing I'll add is this has been going on a long time to various degrees and for years it was blamed on one person-two on occasion-a poster named Scouries was somehow responsible for manipulating all the toplists, all the scores, etc. Even after they left in 2012 that continued. Down to his last PM to me before he became to ill to be here TXRAD insisted this person was still here sniping the top list and all time fav list, creating thousands of alts over the years to add favs to his fav authors and keep them ahead of others.

We were supposed to believe that and it didn't take long to figure out Scouries was what Satan is to the Catholic Church, an easy distraction to take attention away from more important matters.

Still the case.

The AI issue is out of control, people are still losing stories in pending, nothing from the site, no end in sight, but oh, the top list scores!

That and 'Look, we have word count on the stories now!" Ohh shiny...

I don't know what's more askew here, some people's priorities or their conviction. "This site is awful! They did this and....Oh a feature we never asked for yay Lit!

I'm sure the site has figured out that if they keep a couple of 24/7 posting loudmouths here happy, then things are easier for them.

If you're writing about Em, I think she had some pretty solid evidence that she was being personally targetted. I'd be loud too. That's a separate issue to the toplist thing though. I don't have an opinion on that except that it's an obvious effect and I think any score manipulation for whatever reason (up or down) is really shitty. That said, the site could manage the issue much better both through direct measures and passive design measures - the toplist concept is well past its use-by date and puts a ridiculous emphasis on an absolute score that can be easily manipulated. Of the hundreds of thousands of stories that have been written over the years, we're only supposed to care about the toplist ones?

Restoring the monthly contests would help, especially given that there's a pretense that they still exist! But I agree with you that AI is a massive priority. Deal with the existential risks first, then work on the other stuff.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The exact number might just be an accident of the mathematics. Given the huge number of stories, a normal distribution will be pretty uniform, so if someone/something is targeting say the top 1%, that might happen to come out to everything above some value such as 4.84. (Disclaimer, I am not closely following this and am not claiming it's better than anyone else's idea.)

 

[SmilingLez]

We've discussed this phenomenon here at length, but after observing it for a while, I am pretty sure it's a script that does the downvoting rather than an actual person.

In the last half a year or so, I've had three separate stories of mine reach the #1 spot in the Hall of Fame all-time list (in Lesbian and in Fetish). That's not really something I'm boasting about, not in these times when there's such obvious and widespread tampering. I am mentioning it because it gave me an opportunity to observe the way the inevitable downvoting that followed works.

Every single time, within a day or two or three, the story of mine that was in the #1 spot would receive batches of 2-3 votes, a likely mix of 1* 2* and 3*, that would make it fall down the list. But that's not the interesting part. Even if two out of three of my #1 stories were chapters 3 and 4, respectively, there was no downvoting on the previous chapters. Each time, ONLY the top spot story was targeted.

That tells me that the downvoting likely isn't done by someone who hates me and wants to harm my stories. Why not downvote the rest of my stories, or at least the rest of the series?

What also indicates that it's just an automated script is that:

1. The downvoting continues for the following couple of days, even when the "offending" story is already completely off the whole top list, let alone the #1 spot. To lose the placement in the top lists, a decrease of score by 0.02 is often more than enough, yet after several days of action, my offending story loses as much as 0.2 before settling on a score.

I want to emphasize that the top lists refresh more often than they used to, a couple of times per day, from what I've seen, so there is no logic to the continued assault.

2. Some of the other stories that share the couple of top spots remain unaffected by the script, even if they don't have many votes, and thus, there's no buffer to protect them.


It's a script for sure. I theorized previously that the systemic downvoting in all the categories is done by the site itself, and I'm sticking to it, but there are other players out there, too.

Geez, this is beginning to resemble hybrid warfare.

The pattern you’re describing doesn’t require a script or coordinated downvoting. What you’re seeing is consistent with a backend that’s failing to update ranking tables correctly. Literotica’s vote aggregation, score recalculation, and category‑specific leaderboards all pull from different database views, and those views are no longer syncing reliably. That’s why a story can keep its hot tag while disappearing from the all‑time list, why scores drop in irregular batches, and why the refresh cycles don’t match the visible behavior.

When the underlying tables are out of sync or partially corrupted, the system produces exactly the kind of inconsistent ranking shifts you’re interpreting as targeted action.

It isn’t hybrid warfare. It’s a platform whose infrastructure is degrading and no longer processing votes or recalculations in a stable or predictable way.

As always my opinion and YMMV

 

[SimonDoom]

The exact number might just be an accident of the mathematics. Given the huge number of stories, a normal distribution will be pretty uniform, so if someone/something is targeting say the top 1%, that might happen to come out to everything above some value such as 4.84. (Disclaimer, I am not closely following this and am not claiming it's better than anyone else's idea.)

This was my provisional theory for a while, but I think it's dubious considering that before about two years ago there were more stories on long-term toplists with scores above 4.84, and then during a relatively short term the top scores flattened, indicating that something deliberate was happening and not mere statistics.

 

[redgarters]

I believe, the cheerleaders are being targeted along with trolls and its high time that's happened.

As one of the lesbian cheerleaders I won't deny that we like to pat each other's backs. That's how coven's work. But nothing I've seen with my stories points towards cheerleading somehow giving them too many 5's that are somehow out of sync with genpop readers or pushing them higher.

Say I get 10-15 5's on a story from the les coven here. In the end, that's not what pushes the story to the top of a list, if it goes there.

From my experience those cheerleading 5's come from people who actually read the story (as evidenced by comments and dm's). By sweeps logic, those 5's shouldn't be swept - and the stats show that they aren't.

I have no problem with undeserved 5's being swept. That's just not what's happening with the 4.84 thing.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Oh, I'm glad a member of the coven has used the word 'coven'. I wasn't sure if it was polite.

I was going to reply to that other point earlier: I don't think all the attention to the lesbian coven is mutual back-patting, I think it's because there are large numbers of them who write beautifully. I don't know why this one category gets so much writing that is so much better than average, but it does. The (false) impression of back-patting is because a number of them name each other, thank each other, and so on, in this forum and in author's notes. So we know their names.

I'm not part of that group but there are large numbers of them where I know I'm likely to give them a 5*. (Not guaranteed; I read and judge individually.) For me, and I can't speak for anyone else, it's not an automatic love-fest, it's recognition that they really do deserve it, in a consistently stronger way than anywhere else on the site. Their prominence is not a fashion, an accident, it's a recognition of genuine merit. redgarters (and the rest) is one of the best writers here, not just a popular kid in school.

And I don't want my 5* votes to be removed as an aberration: I meant them sincerely.

 

[redgarters]

Oh, I'm glad a member of the coven has used the word 'coven'. I wasn't sure if it was polite.

I hope I wasn't breaking some unspoken Fight Club rule. And now you have me blushing for real. Thank you for those very kind words about my writing. Not sure I live up to them, but I'll keep trying.

 

[lovecraft68]

If you're writing about Em, I think she had some pretty solid evidence that she was being personally targetted. I'd be loud too. That's a separate issue to the toplist thing though. I don't have an opinion on that except that it's an obvious effect and I think any score manipulation for whatever reason (up or down) is really shitty. That said, the site could manage the issue much better both through direct measures and passive design measures - the toplist concept is well past its use-by date and puts a ridiculous emphasis on an absolute score that can be easily manipulated. Of the hundreds of thousands of stories that have been written over the years, we're only supposed to care about the toplist ones?

Restoring the monthly contests would help, especially given that there's a pretense that they still exist! But I agree with you that AI is a massive priority. Deal with the existential risks first, then work on the other stuff.

I wasn't thinking of EM because they're never been near the top lists which is what we're discussing.

However, as you brought them up, I'll say the same thing I said to them in one of the multiple victimhood threads.

There are trolls here in this forum, not just among posters, but a lot of people ghost here. When you act a certain way, when you instigate and launch passive aggressive attacks, when you are incessantly seeking attention, when you openly egg on the trolls and also bash popular authors you are going to pay a price for that in the way of having your stories bombed and lose your protected status with the mod and site.

Is that right? No, of course not, its goddamn stupid petty bullshit. But when you act just as stupid and petty it becomes what comes around goes around so I have no sympathy for them. The fact they would defend the site and attack anyone that said boo about it, then turned on the site when they were the one dealing with bullshit cemented that. But of course, they got a sweep so the site is awesome again, until next time. Rinse repeat and they're not the first that's done this. Performance art is a longtime thing in the forums

Too many people have left here over site issues and totally uninvited abuse to pity someone who consistently asks for it.

But that is totally different from stories being targeted just for being on a list, that's not personal, that's just some weird territorial thing.

 

[lovecraft68]

As one of the lesbian cheerleaders I won't deny that we like to pat each other's backs. That's how coven's work. But nothing I've seen with my stories points towards cheerleading somehow giving them too many 5's that are somehow out of sync with genpop readers or pushing them higher.

Say I get 10-15 5's on a story from the les coven here. In the end, that's not what pushes the story to the top of a list, if it goes there.

From my experience those cheerleading 5's come from people who actually read the story (as evidenced by comments and dm's). By sweeps logic, those 5's shouldn't be swept - and the stats show that they aren't.

I have no problem with undeserved 5's being swept. That's just not what's happening with the 4.84 thing.

Thie underlying issue is-and the reason I'm tweaking-is because the long time attitude here is that any random author not of this forum, which of course is the vast majority of authors-is put down for their H's and their top list rankings. Its obvious that their stories are the product of cheerleaders, low common denominator readers who wouldn't know good material if it hit them in the head, cheating and every other excuse in the book.

But not here. No, here, if a forum member has a top spot you better believe that fucker earned it because everyone here is a quality writer writing quality stories and all 5's are earned and all low scores are trolls.

Then all you see here is the "That story from so and so is just amazing, OMG never read anything like it. Until so and so #2 posts one. Never once do you see, "I read it and well, kind of missed the mark with me," nope, everyone here is the best there is. Like I said before this was how it was for romance a few years ago, you could write one standing on your head and get gushed over for it.

If anyone said to me "I want a high score, what category?" I'll tell them that in this time, Lesbian, its low hanging fruit here. Its Mom on a son's lap territory.

Now people want to support each other that's always a good thing, but when its all "so good" all the time with disingenuous praise-and please, stop with the all those stories are just the best-five votes that's great, go on and make each other feel good. May as well get something out of being here.

But when that's the case all conversation of "That guy/girl on that top list writes like crap and they're only there because..." should end. But it never will. The elitism of the AH is laughable.

 

[lovecraft68]

I should be fair and add part of the reason no one here will criticize another member's story is because it turns into a free for all of butthurt and high drama and the person will be attacked for it. Kind of like when AMD and OM gave someone here a less than stellar review in their thread so that person had to start a thread over it, then all their friends jumped in.

So I suppose forum history dictates if you don't have anything flattering to say, don't dare say anything.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Well, yes, there's basic politeness.

There are some people in this forum who (buzzer, bird tweeting, cuckoo clock) but that doesn't mean I think they write badly or I should vote this or that way for them. But I try not to be rude about them here, I try to be polite here.

Then there's visibility. If people post here frequently, I might look at their stories. It might be a good way of finding good writers. But I also find them by checking New, by examining who existing favourite writers like, and so on. This is not public. If X likes Y and I like X, I might look at Y, but that doesn't mean I am locked into liking Y. The slightly cliquish nature of the AH provides a sometimes useful shortcut to finding others you might like, but it's only one of many methods. You're not locked into cliques.

 

[lovecraft68]

You're not locked into cliques.

Not at all, but I think some people gravitate to them because to some being popular is desirable.

I have some friends here but not the 'read me I'll read yours' variety, we just happen to have some things in common.

The proving ground here is the readers, not the small amount of folks who are here, and that is a statistical reality. But I think for a fair amount of people here, impressing the forum is a bigger deal.

Melissababy did this thread about being 'Pony Famous' and right off the bat and ever since it always makes me think in Lit terms of you want to be Lit popular or forum popular. Obviously you can be both, but it seems people lean to heavily into thinking being here gives you more weight or 'street cred' as a writer.