Stories I Suspect Have Been 1 Bombed

[LOAnnie2]

I also wonder how many 1-bombs might come from just posting in a wrong category. My latest story was posted in a new category for me (it could have been all over the place really). I've also posted to XNXX after reading about it tonight just to see what a difference things might make.

 

[Swilly]

I also wonder how many 1-bombs might come from just posting in a wrong category. My latest story was posted in a new category for me (it could have been all over the place really). I've also posted to XNXX after reading about it tonight just to see what a difference things might make.

I think you're very correct there. Some stories also fit multiple categories, but may not be "hard core" enough for aficionados of a particular category. For example, a story with a little light bondage or discipline may be labeled as such, but ends up being far too tame for fans of that category, so it gets hammered. The crummy part about that is, in my opinion, that an author ends up editing a story to avoid this, and the creative process is altered. What might be a great story if categories didn't exist ends up being a different story than it wanted to be.

 

[ifoifo]

I feel that I too, have been a victim of this.
I understand the reasoning behind having the rating system, but I don't think I've ever read something that was so terrible, it warranted a 1. Honestly, I feel that the 1 is used more as a weapon than as a actual rating.
Not to tell anyone how to do their job, but it would be fairly easy for the developer to write a simple code that would flag the abusers in the admin panel, and undo the damage they cause.

 

[horrorotica]

if someone really hates a story I write and gives it a 1 then that's there prerogative. I just don't understand why they keep coming back and voting 1 over and over in order to drive my overall score down. The fact they can even be bothered doing that just astounds me. People are just weird spiteful creatures I guess.

 

[LOAnnie2]

if someone really hates a story I write and gives it a 1 then that's there prerogative. I just don't understand why they keep coming back and voting 1 over and over in order to drive my overall score down. The fact they can even be bothered doing that just astounds me. People are just weird spiteful creatures I guess.

I would suspect that most stories that are one-bombed aren't even read by those who are doing the one-bombing.

 

[horrorotica]

I would suspect that most stories that are one-bombed aren't even read by those who are doing the one-bombing.

Which just underscores my astonishment for the motivations of such people. You'd have to have a mental illness to do something so spiteful to someone you don't even know.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Hard to believe that your LIT pals would do that to you. But that's how they keep those high scores for mediocre stories.

 

[lovecraft68]

I would suspect that most stories that are one-bombed aren't even read by those who are doing the one-bombing.

Yes and those are the ones that are "morally offended" by certain material

They run up and down the incest and GM and LW categories bombing away.

 

[lefric]

it's real

I have lurked here for years, and the 1-bomb is very real. One of my favorite authors is WesternTiger. 80% of his sotries used to be 4.5 or better. Now none of them are, despite the fact that he hasn't put up a new story in a while. And there are lots of comments on stories that used to ne 4.7 or 4.8 and are now 4.3 calling him a small cocked douche, etc. Every time I look at hims his stories are a little lower.

 

[lovecraft68]

I have lurked here for years, and the 1-bomb is very real. One of my favorite authors is WesternTiger. 80% of his sotries used to be 4.5 or better. Now none of them are, despite the fact that he hasn't put up a new story in a while. And there are lots of comments on stories that used to ne 4.7 or 4.8 and are now 4.3 calling him a small cocked douche, etc. Every time I look at hims his stories are a little lower.

Wow that's weird seeing he has not been "active" in awhile.

I finished my SWB series close to 2 years ago and I have noticed some of the scores sinking, but slowly.

I have also noticed the ones that are dropping are high 4.8's and they get hit right when they hit 100 votes and qualify for the top list.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Which just underscores my astonishment for the motivations of such people. You'd have to have a mental illness to do something so spiteful to someone you don't even know.

Or just be a jerk. Plenty of neurotypical people without any diagnosable mental illness are jerks.

(Also, using "mental illness" this way is kinda stigmatising to people with genuine mental illnesses - many of whom are kind and gentle folk who really don't deserve to be lumped in with internet trolls.)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yes and those are the ones that are "morally offended" by certain material

They run up and down the incest and GM and LW categories bombing away.

It aint the God Squad thumping Bibles, old friend. Its the big frogs in this lil pond.

 

[Cinner]

The sweeps actually mitigate it pretty well -- if slowly.

Between contest sweeps, regular everyday sweeps, and requested sweeps ( You can ask Laurel to look into issues with your story, someone else's, the toplists, etc. ) most of the malicious stuff from your average butthead goes away.

What it's not going to get are those professional and personal trolls who have figured out how to circumvent the controls in place. They make it a life quest to figure out how to lower your score, and usually have it down to an art.

Nothing short of forcing a sign-up to vote is going to mitigate that much. Even that would only make them work a little bit harder.

I post on numerous story sites, and I'll tell you this: No scoring system is really worth a damn for readers to use as a guide *laugh*

About all any of them do is separate the really bad from everything else ( barring personal trolls, which can put your scores into that really bad category )

Beyond that, they're too easy to manipulate, and always skewed toward the top end of the scale. Your average Joe/Jane either doesn't vote because he or she is here for a quick wank, or doesn't vote on things they don't like. It's only the people who liked the story who usually make it to the end and vote.

Some stories are just polarizing. By hitting refresh a lot, I could tell that my most recent story was drawing 10% ones, something that hasn't happened to my other stories. I think the reason was that it was different (most of the story is single-word sentences). A lot of people loved it, which I could tell from other votes and comments, but I can't deny that a decent share of readers really and truly hated it.

One-bombing to me is when people aren't voting, but trying to lower your score for another reason. It's pretty common on contests or if your story is on the toplists.

Would it help to urge you to ignore the scores and just content yourselves with producing great writing? I know that it hurts to endure assaults of this nature, I believe that I have, but the reality is that we each have 24 hours in our day, and if someone wants to waste his or her time working out how to destroy your ratings on a story or poem, who is the loser there?

 

[horrorotica]

Or just be a jerk. Plenty of neurotypical people without any diagnosable mental illness are jerks.

(Also, using "mental illness" this way is kinda stigmatising to people with genuine mental illnesses - many of whom are kind and gentle folk who really don't deserve to be lumped in with internet trolls.)

The Anti-Social Personality disorder is listed in the DSM IV which is what bad trollers have. Makes it a mental illness. Saying so doesn't mean all the nice crazy people are harmed.

 

[Laurel]

Hi everyone! This might have been mentioned and I might have missed it, but in case it hasn't:

We have a script that tags fraudulent votes (fraud votes being anytime someone tries to vote for a story more than once by trying to get around our system). If you see a story - yours or anothers - that has suspicious-looking voting patterns, please do use the REPORT THIS STORY feature to bring it to our attention and we will run a manual check as well. In the OTHER field, tell us to check the voting. When you report suspicious voting this way, the system will send us a direct link to the story and make it much easier for us to check.

If you believe multiple submissions were affected, you only need to report one of the stories. Please do not report the same story more than once in a 48-hour period. Sending a link to every story on your page will only delay our ability to respond.

Do know in advance that we will not remove votes unless they appear to be fraud.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to send me a Private Message.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The Anti-Social Personality disorder is listed in the DSM IV which is what bad trollers have.

Trolls are certainly anti-social in the common sense of the word. But unless some psychiatrist managed to round up those trolls and sit them down for an evaluation when I wasn't watching, that does not equate to a professional diagnosis of ASPD; a lot of common-usage "anti-social behaviour" is simply down to neurotypical people choosing to be jerks.

ASPD has some very specific diagnostic criteria and it's not obvious that all 1-bombers would qualify. Note in particular the "pervasive pattern" (if 1-bombing is your only symptom that's probably not "pervasive"), "age at least 18 years", "evidence of conduct disorder with onset before 15 years", and the "three or more of the following".

 

[Swilly]

I think that trolls tend to focus on a category or two. Anyone that has been here for a while knows what those are, and is prepared for the bashing stories there might get. I have two stories that are in the threes, and I'm not surprised based upon the category or content.

Worse, to me, are the individuals who purposely drive down scores to keep stories below a 4.5 rating. I am convinced that this goes on frequently. I have one story that was sitting at a 4.49 for quite some time, and it got the one more vote it needed to bump up to a 4.5. Almost immediately, a new vote came in that drove it down to a 4.48. That would have meant a 1 or 2 rating on a story that has hovering about 4.5. The content was not one of those hot button stories that would have drawn the trolls. Hard to believe there wasn't intent there.

I have a group of other stories that have received great feedback, but seem to hover just below the magic 4.5. It all seems a bit fishy to me.

Someone mentioned ignoring the scores, and I agree to a point. While we might all write because we enjoy doing it, I very much doubt we would continue if no one read our stories at all. Being intentionally pushed below that 4.5 line limits how often a story will be viewed, which limits views on other stories we might post. Unless we continue to put up content on a regular basis, we get lost in the abyss.

 

[MichaelWest]

As I have said, I ignore the numbers. Sadly I do not read as much of other people's works as I would like, but when I do, I do not let the score influence my decision to read a story. I look at the title, the description and the tags, or I search for something that I want to read and just take a chance on what I find.

That being said, I am not happy that someone using the voting to affect scores to influence readership or achieve any other agenda. I see it on my submissions, the votes are a pattern and they go against the weight of feedback I get. I did not understand it until I began entering the contests and reading the support threads for them, that is where it is discussed heavily. The site attempts to correct it as best they can, but every picnic has ants and flies it seems.

Perhaps the response is for the writers to commit to reading each other's submissions and voting honestly, using this thread for what it seems intended, asking for "peer" review. I welcome it and feel remiss that I do not give it enough.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Trolls are certainly anti-social in the common sense of the word. But unless some psychiatrist managed to round up those trolls and sit them down for an evaluation when I wasn't watching, that does not equate to a professional diagnosis of ASPD; a lot of common-usage "anti-social behaviour" is simply down to neurotypical people choosing to be jerks.

ASPD has some very specific diagnostic criteria and it's not obvious that all 1-bombers would qualify. Note in particular the "pervasive pattern" (if 1-bombing is your only symptom that's probably not "pervasive"), "age at least 18 years", "evidence of conduct disorder with onset before 15 years", and the "three or more of the following".

Get real. Its the same BS people pull at work, with neighbors, at church, everywhere. If anybody makes a dime more or their wife puts out more or their kid makes better grades, theyre gonna fuck you over. The clowns on top at LIT wanna stay there.

 

[sr71plt]

The clowns on top at LIT wanna stay there.

That does have a ring of believability to it.

Just have to take note of those who post how they are doing in comparison to others.

 

[lovecraft68]

That does have a ring of believability to it.

Just have to take note of those who post how they are doing in comparison to others.

Of course it does.

A= because its true. The top lists or at least the top ten or so are like target practice.

B= its also your built in excuse to not being on any of them.

 

[sr71plt]

Of course it does.

A= because its true. The top lists or at least the top ten or so are like target practice.

B= its also your built in excuse to not being on any of them.

As I noted, anyone who is obsessed with the ratings of others . . . ratings that are easily manipulated by the obsessed.

(what a jackass)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Where does the day go! Is it happy hour already?

 

[lovecraft68]

Where does the day go! Is it happy hour already?

Please, if he's like this drunk, he must be really anal when he's sober.

 

[sr71plt]

Fact is that Lovecraft68 is just the crazy story-putdown troll this thread is condemning--and shows it on the forum.