Every story I post gets 1 star’d

[Purechicanery]

Incest, we have the bible thumpers (what are they doing here?)

Really, just that one category?

EDIT: Thinking the only category they might not be against is Loving Wives, if they're a little confused as to that category's content.

 

[emma_tv]

Thank you all for the replies, I’m glad, or appalled, that this is very common with all authors.

I will not take it personally.

Time for a trimmed mean score? (Remove the top 5% and bottom 5% star ratings)

 

[BlueZen]

I'm not sure if these sweeps that are done cover it this much, but I think an account who only votes 1 stars, or even just 1 stars in a particular category is just trolling, and their ratings should be discarded. Even more effort can be put into it to curb rating abuse, but this seems like a very easy thing to do that wouldn't take much man-power from the site administration.

 

[SimonDoom]

Thank you all for the replies, I’m glad, or appalled, that this is very common with all authors.

I will not take it personally.

Time for a trimmed mean score? (Remove the top 5% and bottom 5% star ratings)

If you can learn right out of the gate not to take it personally, it will help you as an author here. I think almost all of us experience the 1-votes. I have.

Here's the good news. They can't stop you. Try to ignore the bad votes and focus on continuing to publish your stories. Focus on the good, not the bad. This is how I think. I concentrate on trying to reach a readership that enjoys and appreciates my stories, and I ignore those who don't like what I do. Over time, this strategy works. At this point, I don't even care about the 1-votes.

 

[Writer61]

Hi,

The vast majority of my stories immediately get a 1 star rating, like the same person does it with everything I post,

It is possible that there is someone with a beef against you, or the TG category.

Do other authors get this?

Most do, but not to the extent that you seem to. Analysis suggests that I have 1-stars on 9 of my 38 stories, about 0.2% of total votes.

On the whole, your stories do well, so settle for that.

 

[caleb35]

Thank you all for the replies, I’m glad, or appalled, that this is very common with all authors.

I will not take it personally.

Time for a trimmed mean score? (Remove the top 5% and bottom 5% star ratings)

The trimmed mean score has been discussed/debated before. Bottom line, it's not really a solution. Given the current rating system, 1-star bombs are just part of the equation. Any kind of solution would be a wholesale rethinking and likely implementation of a new rating system/paradigm.

 

[PapaRomantic]

I got bombed overnight. Happens to every story I publish, and I know why. Won't stop me, but it is frustrating at times.

 

[StillStunned]

1 bombs are the great leveller. We all get them, we're all as vulnerable to them as everyone else.

Annoying? Yes. Frustrating? Obviously. But there's nothing we can do about them except write the best stories we can, find our readers and hope the good scores outweigh the bad.

(I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who has too many stories to follow the scores obsessively anymore. I realise not everyone is at that point.)

 

[TarnishedPenny]

An additional thought. Back to the toddler analogy. The trolls are like toddlers spouting potty words; it's the reaction they live for. OP, solid question and fairly taken, but I wouldn't spend much time complaining as you're telling them they've hurt.

Welcome to the playground that is Lit.

 

[MrPixel]

I call it "score vandalism". Unfortunately, it can't be removed with paint thinner and a rag.

That it continues to be tolerated when there are minor policy changes that could mitigate the problem is all on management.

 

[lovecraft68]

I call it "score vandalism". Unfortunately, it can't be removed with paint thinner and a rag.

That it continues to be tolerated when there are minor policy changes that could mitigate the problem is all on management.

I know a lot of people here don't like to hear this but there is also a possibility some of these one-star votes are legit. Someone can just not like your story and whether its because of some personal moral stance, something you used that hit them the wrong way, they didn't like the ending, etc...it is plausible someone can read the story and give it a one because they didn't like it.

How does the site determine that? If they can see the story was opened and immediately bombed, sure, but trolls know the way around that.

I can't help adding that its funny how no one complains about getting a five on their eight page story five minutes after it came out. That's not a legit vote, but they're 100% okay.

 

[alxuk]

I have just read one of your stories. You write beautifully. People can be just jealous and mean sometimes. I wouldn’t mind those 1s if I were you.

 

[IWroteThis]

This means my stories lose traction, as who wants to read a “one star” rated story?

Scores don't appear on stories until you have a certain number of votes. Yes, it will pull your average down, but you're the only one who can see that 1* rating from a single vote.

I never understand why anyone would give a 1 rating. Seems overly nasty to me.

Feedback is pointless if it's not honest. Why not just remove all but the 5* rating so nobody's feelings get hurt? Heck, just have it vote automatically when you click the link? That will make everybody feel all warm and fuzzy inside, right?

If you’re not enjoying a story why not just leave & read something else?

I hate to break this to you, but ratings aren't just for authors. If they were, they would only appear on your works page, not on the story itself. The simple fact is, ratings are there for potential readers. In theory, they represent the overall impression of people who were enticed to click the link based on title, category, and short description. If only people who give it 3* or above are allowed to vote, then it's pointless, as it sets a falsely positive expectation.

Sorry, but the ratings aren't supposed to be a praise machine, spewing out primarily 5* ratings, with an occasional 4* to keep authors "humble" about their writing. It's supposed to be about honest feedback.

 

[yowser]

You can always just sing The One Bomb Song.

 

[MrPixel]

I know a lot of people here don't like to hear this but there is also a possibility some of these one-star votes are legit. Someone can just not like your story and whether its because of some personal moral stance, something you used that hit them the wrong way, they didn't like the ending, etc...it is plausible someone can read the story and give it a one because they didn't like it.

How does the site determine that?

If they're there to discourage the author by voting their squicks, then they shouldn't have clicked on the story in the first place, or clicked out. Hanging on to the end just to bomb is still vandalism.

Determination can be made by requiring registration to vote, and tracking (internally) how a registrant votes. An account with a consistent history of bombing can then be excluded from affecting scores. Even just not showing the voting frame on the last page for non-members would go a long way.

Before you carp at me about, "That will drive off readers!", no it won't. You don't have to sign-up to read. Real-world, big-boy sites with 5-star rating systems require registration. "Multiple accounts!" More trouble than it's worth.

I'm in the process of slowly moving my stuff to a site which does in fact require membership to vote, so for me personally, I have a solution.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

While I'm fairly certain I seem to have a few personal trolls, I find stories submitted for events and contests, like Halloween or Valentines Day, seem to bring out the bottom dwellers in droves. The additional exposure is the tradeoff as I see increased traffic across all my stories when I submit for a contest.

I do wonder what the motivation is for people that seem to go out of their way to downvote our stories are. It's alien to me to hold a grudge to the point of following someone so you can one bomb their stories, just like I don't understand down voting other authors in a competition. If I win, I want to win on my merits, not because I sabotaged my competition. I mean, one bombing someone else's 4.8 isn't going to raise your 3.4, so...

 

[TarnishedPenny]

After a moment (giggle) thinking on this, I would venture that one-bombers (may the door out of Mom’s basement warp and stick!) have a number of different motivations, outside of legitimate absolutely-lacking-the-slightest-literary-merit scoring, which of course exists:

• There are misanthropic individuals lingering on the New Stories page, bombing everything as soon as it appears.
• There are those with a particular hate-on for a given author or authors. This may be due to artistic jealousy or it may be due to some comment the author posted on a totally unrelated topic or it may be do to something else entirely.
• It may be the topic. Loving Wives for instance seems to have a pretty polarized readership, one split between those expecting the cheating wife to be punished in every conceivable way and those wanting the injured party to struggle through and somehow reconcile with their erring mate. The two sides seem hell-bent on punishing writers who use what they perceive is the wrong ending. Some have claimed (I can neither confirm nor deny) that such knuckle-draggers will follow writers into other categories.
• Most sadly, I have been assured that there have been serious attempts in past to sway contests by systematically bombing other participants showing high scores. Hopefully that doesn’t happen anymore, but the possibility exists.

No doubt there are others. What is important for a writer seeing what appears to be one-bombing is to remember that some one-bombs can be legitimate. Second, don’t moan about it here, because that tells the troll they’ve hit a nerve. Third, grow a thicker hide, ‘cause this is just part of how this game is played. Fourth, the site does fairly regular ‘sweeps’, taking away perceived unfair votes (usually ones, but often fives). These generally come during formal contests and everybody benefits. If an author thinks they are being specially targeted, they can at any time request a special sweep of their works by hitting the Report icon on any one of their stories and ask for a sweep. It’s not guaranteed, but it’s possible.

Last point. The site (rightly, I think) discourages online speculation as to how sweeps work. One might guess right and offer would-be trolls insights on how to evade.

 

[Bazzle]

In my opinion there a few factors at play.

1) people using this platform are either using their two little brains in their scrotum (or in the single brain located in the g spot) which if not tickled the right way doesn't like what they've read. Which I think is actually as an erotica site, is allowable.
2) Like graffiti artists ruin walls and trains down voting the art of writing is their fun. Spend an evening 1 bombing stories.
3) There are Neuro diverse actions taking place where things are 'not right' and have to be sorted - especially when it comes to the top ten lists.
4) For me Stacnash told me I can't learn and never should write...so those 1 bombs are a real representation of my work.

1 bombs with no feedback are depressing and part of life on here. "Why didn't you like this story?" Would be a question that the site should ask after a 1 bomb.

 

[Writer61]

We all assume that 1-stars are malicious, and I expect most of them are, but it is possible that they are justified.

Early in my Lit reading career, before I got better at selecting stories I liked, I gave one a single star because it was written absolutely terribly: a poor story with terrible spelling and punctuation. If it were not so short, I would have abandoned it before completing it.

 

[StillStunned]

We all assume that 1-stars are malicious, and I expect most of them are, but it is possible that they are justified.

I got a comment on "Into The Night" that the reader had noped out. They didn't like the stream-of-consciousness run-on sentences. I don't think the commenter voted, but if they had it would have been completely legit.

I've also had quite a few low votes, including 1s, for "You Know You Shouldn't". And fair enough: mother/child incest, overtones of non-consent, 2P POV, the constant reminders that the whole incest thing is actually wrong... and the sex doesn't even go far enough. All those low votes are legitimate.

Other stories have had 1s dropped on them for all kinds of reasons. "The Hardwood Son" for not being "real" incest. "Closeness" for insisting on physical distancing during a Covid infection. "Flesh For A Fourth Fantasy" for not ending in an orgy.

Overall, I think the legitimate 1s outweigh the troll 1s by a considerable factor.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I did a little math based on my average rating over all my stories assuming 2 one-bombs per story.
This is what removing those two votes would to to my ratings banded by vote count. Of course, this is meaningless and your milage will vary.

 

[Writer61]

Overall, I think the legitimate 1s outweigh the troll 1s by a considerable factor.

I think the opposite, and we might both be correct depending on the category (I mostly publish in EC and E/V with a few GS).

 

[old_prof]

The point that the 1-bombs really got to me was when I had very few followers, so my earlier readership was very low. An early 1 could keep my rating depressed for the first several days. I can still see which stories got this treatment 8 months later, not from the rating, but from the views. Consecutive stories with similar ratings could have very different views permanently. Once I could reliably get fifteen votes or more the first day it no longer hurt nearly as much.

People writing in the high volume categories like T/I or LW just don't get this. And some authors with large followings forget what it was like.

 

[MiaBabe23]

Hi Emma,
I had a glance, and your stories are mostly H-rated?
As someone who reads as much as writes, I find it egotistical when the majority of responses are to say that anyone giving a one star rating must be insincere
Having a glance at the opening to your most recent story - I could note it’s intelligently written, self-aware and reflective slow-burn; or I could equally find it self-indulgent, discursive and lacking in sexual content
Just enjoy and be proud of the high ratings you’re consistently getting; but don’t believe what people tell themselves here that only positive ratings should be allowed

 

[Writer61]

An early 1 could keep my rating depressed for the first several days.

These are definitely the worst.

Three of my four lowest-scoring stories had a 1-star rating in the first ten votes. The other one is an early piece that has received more 4's than 5's.