One-star trolls

[Plathfan]

Perhaps it would be a whole lot easier for everyone involved if you just grew some thicker skin?

Easy to say when you are... you?

getting rid of the red H, as it exists now, is the one indisputably rational improvement one could make to the current scoring system.

The current scoring system will never change, as it was designed to benefit the site, not the readers or writers. There’s no better incentive for a rooster dreaming of peacock feathers...

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

Like-only systems immediately transform into even more of a popularity contest completely divorced from the writing than what we have now. Drop a few risque pics and/or flirtatious posts on a fairly regular basis, and whatever word salad you cough up will absolutely bury everything else on the site.

I didn't realize you could put pics in story entries. So, yeah, if stories are commingling with pictures, AI spam would just take over, but I've never seen a picture in a story. Likewise, I've never seen a flirtatious post. This feels like a reaction to a problem that doesn't exist and probably couldn't exist. Or maybe I'm just not seeing enough of the site.

 

[Voboy]

I didn't realize you could put pics in story entries. So, yeah, if stories are commingling with pictures, AI spam would just take over, but I've never seen a picture in a story.

You're not going to see those unless you're looking for them.

Putting an image into a story, regardless of the theme or kink of the story, relegates it to the "Illustrated" category. If you're not looking there, you won't see any images in stories.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

The current scoring system will never change, as it was designed to benefit the site, not the readers or writers. There’s no better incentive for a rooster dreaming of peacock feathers...

A better system would benefit readers. The current system doesn't actually do much for discovery. If discovery worked on Lit, people would be able to find stories they like and not spend time with stories they hate. There are music genres I can't stand but I never spend time spamming big names with negative reviews because I can just find the music I want without being exposed to it (contra when radio determined so much—hating made sense then because it was hard to opt out). 1-star spamming is a sign that the discovery system doesn't work. That works against audience retention.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

You're not going to see those unless you're looking for them.

Putting an image into a story, regardless of the theme or kink of the story, relegates it to the "Illustrated" category. If you're not looking there, you won't see any images in stories.

So not a threat to a like-only rating system, since people who want illustrations will be voting there, not on stories, and then liking the illustrations they see.

 

[RejectReality]

I didn't realize you could put pics in story entries. So, yeah, if stories are commingling with pictures, AI spam would just take over, but I've never seen a picture in a story. Likewise, I've never seen a flirtatious post. This feels like a reaction to a problem that doesn't exist and probably couldn't exist. Or maybe I'm just not seeing enough of the site.

If you've never seen a flirtatious post or someone dropping pics, then you really haven't been paying attention. Start sending a titty pic to every account that likes a story, and with no check in the form of dislike or scoring, someone can drown everything else under a horde of drooling fools desperate for another booba. They could post the ingredient list off the back of a shampoo bottle and get 1000 likes in an hour.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Easy to say when you are... you?

Even easier for you to state the opposite because you are you.

First, growing a thicker skin takes a little effort. Why should you have to do that when the site could hold your hand for you and protect you instead? I'm being completely facetious with that one, but the example could not be more clear.

Second, your argument states that folks like me and Simon should have a harder time getting Red Hs (hence lower readership) since wee do not need such hand holding as you might, but that's okay, you can have protected higher scores simply because you are you, and you being you deserves an advantage. It's not fair to others but that's okay, so long as it's more fair for you. I'd ask you if that makes sense to you but knowing your attitude around here I'm sure you'd just find some straw argument to dismiss it all.

Like I said, or it could be better for everyone involved (including yourself) if you just toughened up. Thicker skin is a choice. "I'm sensitive and the whole world should be aware of that and step carefully around me because I was just born this way," is a cop out. Responsibility for your own feelings is a choice. Thicker skin is a choice. You don't have to believe this for it to be true.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

If you've never seen a flirtatious post or someone dropping pics, then you really haven't been paying attention. Start sending a titty pic to every account that likes a story, and with no check in the form of dislike or scoring, someone can drown everything else under a horde of drooling fools desperate for another booba. They could post the ingredient list off the back of a shampoo bottle and get 1000 likes in an hour.

This feels entirely implausible with the way posts and comments are monitored here. Do you have a single example of this you can share? And why wouldn't that work just as well with 5 star ratings? I'm honestly kind of baffled by this as something that would work here instead a place like Twitter

 

[SimonDoom]

The current scoring system will never change, as it was designed to benefit the site, not the readers or writers. There’s no better incentive for a rooster dreaming of peacock feathers...

I wouldn't quite say "never," but I think you're not far off. The Site has been doing things its way for a long time, and I imagine they can judge whether they think it's working from their perspective. Readers and authors are invested in the status quo and it's going to take a lot to convince the Site owners they'd be better off if they changed things.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

Even easier for you to state the opposite because you are you.


Like I said, or it could be better for everyone involved (including yourself) if you just toughened up. Thicker skin is a choice. "I'm sensitive and the whole world should be aware of that and step carefully around me because I was just born this way," is a cop out. Responsibility for your own feelings is a choice. Thicker skin is a choice. You don't have to believe this for it to be true.

This is probably not the best approach to helping people become less sensitive to negative comments, especially newer authors.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This is probably not the best approach to helping people become less sensitive to negative comments, especially newer authors.

First of all, would you rather that I lied about it?

Second, I'm speaking to one individual here who has a strong and distinct history of entitled attitude on these forums, not 'people (in general) becoming less sensitive'.

 

[RejectReality]

This feels entirely implausible with the way posts and comments are monitored here. Do you have a single example of this you can share? And why wouldn't that work just as well with 5 star ratings? I'm honestly kind of baffled by this as something that would work here instead a place like Twitter

Because as things stand, garbage would be down-voted sufficiently to keep it from overwhelming everything else. In a like-only system, there's no check on the drooling masses.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

First of all, would you rather that I lied about it?

Second, I'm speaking to one individual here who has a strong and distinct history of entitled attitude on these forums, not 'people (in general) becoming less sensitive'.

Isn't this person a new commenter? But just FYI, if somebody is struggling with feeling judged or inferior, pointing out 1-star bombers, haters, etc., aren't ever the people you want as an audience might be more helpful. People don't stop having feelings and doing behaviors because somebody is "honest" enough to tell them about it. They need alternatives.

I know plenty of coping strategies to deal with negative comments and downvotes, but it still isn't easy for me. For somebody who isn't used to it, it's going to be even harder.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

Because as things stand, garbage would be down-voted sufficiently to keep it from overwhelming everything else. In a like-only system, there's no check on the drooling masses.

I don't buy this. Sites I'm on with only upvotes don't have this problem, except Twitter, which is a different beast and not subject to every comment being approved. But I also don't think the owners would change even if I had few terrabytes of data proving I was right, so…

 

[RejectReality]

I don't buy this. Sites I'm on with only upvotes don't have this problem, except Twitter, which is a different beast and not subject to every comment being approved. But I also don't think the owners would change even if I had few terrabytes of data proving I was right, so…

And how many of them are porn sites?

You're dealing with hordes of drooling males who will do anything for the slightest hint that an attractive woman might give them the time of day. As with so much of these scoring discussions, I'm not speculating. I'm relating the experience from Lush. They've experimented with damn near every suggestion presented in these talks, and none have improved anything. They've only created new unintended consequences. The current status quo is like-only voting, and this is exactly what happens.

 

[ElectricBlue]

No offense, but you don't seem like the sensitive type to lose sleep over ratings.

There's an issue with one specific category whose poisonous arrows reach far.

I can feel the pain of those who dared to be exposed to LW and see their entire series affected; others apparently cannot.

Wisdom is looking how high the mountain is before you climb it. Common sense is looking at the path in front of you. Every single author who posted in LW made a choice, and if they didn't do some ever so basic homework beforehand:

"Gee, I wonder what kind of stories are in this category, and I wonder what kind of comments they get? Let's take a look... oh," then more fool them.

It's really not that hard to quickly suss out what goes on in any category, and deciding whether it's your happy place or somewhere you simply don't go.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Isn't this person a new commenter? But just FYI, if somebody is struggling with feeling judged or inferior, pointing out 1-star bombers, haters, etc., aren't ever the people you want as an audience might be more helpful. People don't stop having feelings and doing behaviors because somebody is "honest" enough to tell them about it. They need alternatives.

I know plenty of coping strategies to deal with negative comments and downvotes, but it still isn't easy for me. For somebody who isn't used to it, it's going to be even harder.

No, this person is hardly new. This person has been posting for several months and in the past has displayed/claimed a knowledge or background in trained writing. Furthermore, I could be wrong, but this poster's tone and the nature of their interactions with others when they first appeared, lends to the notion that this account may very well be an alt of someone who has been here longer.

As for the rest of your post, your grammar is disjointed and ambiguous and I cannot clearly understand your point. So, all that I can say on that is that it may be all well and good to spare someone's feelings, but not at the expense of any truth. That helps no one.

 

[ElectricBlue]

A better system would benefit readers. The current system doesn't actually do much for discovery. If discovery worked on Lit, people would be able to find stories they like and not spend time with stories they hate.

It's the readers who are voting, and yes, some readers are assholes. But that doesn't mean all reader opinions are worthless. The site encourages readers to vote (but not many do), and gives authors some control over the clown factor by allowing them individual story settings, as well as running sweeps throughout the year.

Everything else, to be brutally honest, is down to the author, what they write and how well they write it. People go on about the scoring system not being a broad indicator of quality (however you define it), but very generally speaking, it is. Collectively, the readers who do bother voting are telling you something about your story, by each applying whatever criteria they apply to their vote. They can't all be wrong.

There are music genres I can't stand but I never spend time spamming big names with negative reviews because I can just find the music I want without being exposed to it (contra when radio determined so much—hating made sense then because it was hard to opt out).

That suggests you're an adult, acting like an adult. In some categories though, you've got people acting like children, and you can't expect the site to do much about that.

1-star spamming is a sign that the discovery system doesn't work. That works against audience retention.

That's false logic. What's the connection?

It seems to me that you retain an audience by writing "good" stories, either by giving readers what they want, or not caring what they want, and giving them what you want to write. Or something in between, which I think is what most writers do.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

It's the readers who are voting, and yes, some readers are assholes. But that doesn't mean all reader opinions are worthless. The site encourages readers to vote (but not many do), and gives authors some control over the clown factor by allowing them individual story settings, as well as running sweeps throughout the year.

Everything else, to be brutally honest, is down to the author, what they write and how well they write it. People go on about the scoring system not being a broad indicator of quality (however you define it), but very generally speaking, it is. Collectively, the readers who do bother voting are telling you something about your story, by each applying whatever criteria they apply to their vote. They can't all be wrong.

That suggests you're an adult, acting like an adult. In some categories though, you've got people acting like children, and you can't expect the site to do much about that.

That's false logic. What's the connection?

It seems to me that you retain an audience by writing "good" stories, either by giving readers what they want, or not caring what they want, and giving them what you want to write. Or something in between, which I think is what most writers do.

I don't know what a good solution is for this problem, but with LW, there are three different audiences and many of them are getting stories for the other two audiences, which they chose to become angry over. (One of my favorite ridiculous comments was one from somebody angry that none of the new LW stories had hot ratings, as if I had control over that or was obligated to write him a story he wanted).

Imagine you go to a store that has 1000s of styles of beer, and you're a big fan of rauchbier, but the only categories they have are IPA, Dark Beer, Lager, and Hefewizen. Rauchbier gets thrown into the dark beer category and because it doesn't taste like what "dark beer fans" know, they spam it with 1-stars and are angry the bought. Eventually, very few people bother with making rauchbier because the people who like it have a hard time finding it, and when they do, see that it's reputed to suck. Everything gets reduced to what the biggest chunk of people like. That's Lit and that's poor discoverability. Or, tl:dr—imagine you're stuck listening to the radio all the time, but like a genre that's never played. Not fun.

Good discoverability means the people can find the specific subgenres and style like, and they're the ones who determine if it fits the standards for that category. It means less popular genres and styles find the audiences who are passionate about them. It supports both readers and content producers.

 

[Voboy]

I don't know what a good solution is for this problem, but...

Well, if that's your mindset, you're likely to be disappointed.

This thread, or one just like it, gets posted frequently. The only real consensus we've all come to is that somehow, in some way, the status quo works for Laurel and Manu.

They do not think there's a problem. Ergo, from the site's viewpoint, there doesn't need to be a solution. If you accept that mindset, it might help you enjoy the site better.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Good discoverability means the people who like the kind of thing something is can find it, and they're the ones who determine if it fits the standards for that category. It means less popular genres and styles find the audiences who are passionate about them. It supports both readers and content producers.

You control that by choosing your category, surely?

Lit has 38 categories. My favourite bookshop only has a dozen aisles, yet everyone I see there goes out the door with a book or two in their bag. They can find something, and they're paying good money.

I can't see a problem, to be honest, and no-one here pays a cent.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Imagine you go to a store that has 1000s of styles of beer, and you're a big fan of rauchbier, but the only categories they have are IPA, Dark Beer, Lager, and Hefewizen. Rauchbier gets thrown into the dark beer category and because it doesn't taste like what "dark beer fans" know, they spam it with 1-stars and are angry the bought. Eventually, very few people bother with making rauchbier because the people who like it have a hard time finding it, and when they do, see that it's reputed to suck. Everything gets reduced to what the biggest chunk of people like. That's Lit and that's poor discoverability. Or, tl:dr—imagine you're stuck listening to the radio all the time, but like a genre that's never played. Not fun.

This, in a nutshell, is the category system on lit. It is horribly outdated and wildly inconsistent. All 'fetish' gets lumped into one category while the niche anal gets a whole category to itself and oral is not represented at all. Meanwhile taboo is tacked onto incest where no one will ever find it and anyone who does accidentally stumble upon non-incest taboo there will be super fucking rage pissed that it's not incest. Then on top of that we have euphemised category names like Loving Wives and Erotic Couplings which do have some ambiguity in the expectations of what may lie within, adding more strife and confusion.

When you visit the library you can always find the topic that you want because there are clear categories and subcategories, all indexed with dewey numbers. We don't need the numerical indexing here, but full and proper categories with subcategories would solve most if not all of our issues of writers and readers finding each other to match the content provided with content sought.

Lit's category system is certainly inadequate and needs an overhaul.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

Well, if that's your mindset, you're likely to be disappointed.

This thread, or one just like it, gets posted frequently.

Everybody I know who uses Lit dislikes the shit show that is LW voting. The writers hate it, the readers hate it. The same thread coming up over and over again is not a sign that things are working, not that the people who provide the free labor for the site should shut up.

I know writers who have stories with over a million views who quit posting because of this. I know writers with brilliant stories who won't post because of this. When you're not getting money, posting to a site is supposed to give you some non-monetary reward and that's harder to get when some categories are overwhelmed by cruel, thoughtless comments.

 

[PrivateFirstClass]

This, in a nutshell, is the category system on lit. It is horribly outdated and wildly inconsistent. All 'fetish' gets lumped into one category while the niche anal gets a whole category to itself and oral is not represented at all. Meanwhile taboo is tacked onto incest where no one will ever find it and anyone who does accidentally stumble upon non-incest taboo there will be super fucking rage pissed that it's not incest. Then on top of that we have euphemised category names like Loving Wives and Erotic Couplings which do have some ambiguity in the expectations of what may lie within, adding more strife and confusion.

When you visit the library you can always find the topic that you want because there are clear categories and subcategories, all indexed with dewey numbers. We don't need the numerical indexing here, but full and proper categories with subcategories would solve most if not all of our issues of writers and readers finding each other to match the content provided with content sought.

Lit's category system is certainly inadequate and needs an overhaul.

I'd love to see a switch to just tags with a list of common tags people can easily add as well as the possibility to add custom ones, but I know a lot of people don't use tags or don't understand how to use them well. Sigh.

This post, PSG, just acknowledging the problem is real, is most of what I think most people want from the other writers on this topic. Even fairly new writers like myself realize Lit ain't going to change, but we want to share our frustrations and have some recognition that it's not just us, alone, who is feeling the pain. Being told to get tough or denying it's a problem feels like gaslighting when we know people are 1-staring stories they haven't even read.

 

[Voboy]

Everybody I know who uses Lit dislikes the shit show that is LW voting. The writers hate it, the readers hate it. The same thread coming up over and over again is not a sign that things are working, not that the people who provide the free labor for the site should shut up.

Nor did I say they should. But I think it might help them if they temper their expectations.

I know writers who have stories with over a million views who quit posting because of this. I know writers with brilliant stories who won't post because of this.

Likely, part of the reason for this is that such writers have not taken my advice and tempered their expectations.

It's understandable that they're frustrated by the existing system. But they do not control it. The only things they control are the words they post here, and their own reactions to the rating system. If that reaction is to refrain from posting, well, that's not really something Laurel and Manu care about. The evidence for that is voluminous.

When you're not getting money, posting to a site is supposed to give you some non-monetary reward and that's harder to get when some categories are overwhelmed by cruel, thoughtless comments.

Many, many, many of us have very little trouble finding those rewards. Again, for the fourth or fifth time, I think that's a question of your mindset. Which you can change whenever you wish.