Sweeps: How Common is Losing 5s?

[anthrodisiac]

During the Valentine's Day contest, my stories were swept about half an hour before the winners were announced. Story one lost 1 5 star — I'm fairly certain it's because a friend of mine rated before she read it (which I asked her not to do because I wanted her to genuinely rate it ) — but story two lost 15 5 stars.

I know it's pretty normal for contest stories to have 1-bombs swept. From the sound of it, sometimes quite a lot of them on contest entries and specific authors in general (which is really shitty). I've also seen mention a couple times about people losing a handful of 5s. But the 15 5s that were removed were amost half of the votes on that story (32 down to 17). It just seems like a very large amount, given the other story only had a single 5 removed, and for good reason as far as I can tell. None of my other stories were affected, it was just those two.

It also seems unusual because the second story had similar engagement than the first:

• 1 less comment
• 80% of the views
• 1 less favorite
• Significantly more listings (first story had 7 lists, second one had 25 at the time of the contest's end, which makes it my second most listed story).

I never noticed any strange voting behaviors, the ratings trickled in at a fairly normal pace. I don't remember seeing any sudden surge of them where it abruptly shot up, which is why I don't think someone was artificially inflating my numbers. Though I admit I wasn't keeping a close eye, nor have I figured out how to look at the rating breakdown, not realizing it was a thing until a few days ago

I hadn't planned to bring it up, even though it's been on my mind the last couple days. I decided to just write it off as weird. But someone else asked if there were strange goings-on with ratings, and a couple other people mentioned unusual behavior, as well as another author mentioning they lost a few 5s, only to have them return shortly after, so I figured I'd see if I could get some clarification as well. I'm also asking because it's genuinely baffling, and I don't like being baffled, so if I can get data on the degree of unusualness (if any), that would go a long way to giving me information to put it in context.

I figure it's one of the following:

1. People who voted on the story did so in a weird way.
2. Potential error during the sweeps.
3. Correction due to errors in the initial ratings (maybe getting double ratings instead of single ratings for some reason).
4. Someone spamming my story with 5s. No idea why someone would do that, but it's not outside the realm of possibility for whatever reason. I hope not, because that makes me feel kinda dirty by association

So... Has anyone lost that many 5s on a story in one go before? Either in a contest or outside of one? I know most of the sweeps happen during contests, so I'd expect that to be the more common case, but just figured I'd expand the parameters a bit.

 

[Bamagan]

During the Valentine's Day contest, my stories were swept about half an hour before the winners were announced. Story one lost 1 5 star — I'm fairly certain it's because a friend of mine rated before she read it (which I asked her not to do because I wanted her to genuinely rate it ) — but story two lost 15 5 stars.

I know it's pretty normal for contest stories to have 1-bombs swept. From the sound of it, sometimes quite a lot of them on contest entries and specific authors in general (which is really shitty). I've also seen mention a couple times about people losing a handful of 5s. But the 15 5s that were removed were amost half of the votes on that story (32 down to 17). It just seems like a very large amount, given the other story only had a single 5 removed, and for good reason as far as I can tell. None of my other stories were affected, it was just those two.

It also seems unusual because the second story had similar engagement than the first:

• 1 less comment
• 80% of the views
• 1 less favorite
• Significantly more listings (first story had 7 lists, second one had 25 at the time of the contest's end, which makes it my second most listed story).

I never noticed any strange voting behaviors, the ratings trickled in at a fairly normal pace. I don't remember seeing any sudden surge of them where it abruptly shot up, which is why I don't think someone was artificially inflating my numbers. Though I admit I wasn't keeping a close eye, nor have I figured out how to look at the rating breakdown, not realizing it was a thing until a few days ago

I hadn't planned to bring it up, even though it's been on my mind the last couple days. I decided to just write it off as weird. But someone else asked if there were strange goings-on with ratings, and a couple other people mentioned unusual behavior, as well as another author mentioning they lost a few 5s, only to have them return shortly after, so I figured I'd see if I could get some clarification as well. I'm also asking because it's genuinely baffling, and I don't like being baffled, so if I can get data on the degree of unusualness (if any), that would go a long way to giving me information to put it in context.

I figure it's one of the following:

1. People who voted on the story did so in a weird way.
2. Potential error during the sweeps.
3. Correction due to errors in the initial ratings (maybe getting double ratings instead of single ratings for some reason).
4. Someone spamming my story with 5s. No idea why someone would do that, and data don't really support it, but it's possible, I suppose. I hope not, because that makes me feel kinda dirty by association

So... Has anyone lost that many 5s on a story in one go before? Either in a contest or outside of one? I know most of the sweeps happen during contests, so I'd expect that to be the more common case, but just figured I'd expand the parameters a bit.

My assumption is that the kind of trolls who are attempting to manipulate the contest voting probably bestow both 1s and 5s, and perhaps a smattering of other scores. An attempt to affect the overall scoring implies that the agents know how the system works, at least in general, and that simply downvoting the stories (or authors) they hate may not do much to create the outcome they desire. If any account is believed to be engaging in such behavior, every vote they cast becomes suspect, and probably all of them are removed from consideration (assuming the site doesn't just delete the account entirely).

I don't know if such a thing was happening to you, although 15 votes out of 32 does seem like an abnormally large ratio. I've had voting on my stories turned off for quite a while now, and occasionally votes from a year or two ago vanish, which I think is probably from account deactivation, but it could theoretically be from readers whose voting behavior becomes more suspicious over time.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>
So... Has anyone lost that many 5s on a story in one go before? Either in a contest or outside of one? I know most of the sweeps happen during contests, so I'd expect that to be the more common case, but just figured I'd expand the parameters a bit.

I have lost '5's during sweeps a 'handful' of times. No, I can't put a value on 'handful.' More than once, likely less than 10 times total cumulatively across all of my stories. But I have no recollection of having lost multiple '5' votes on a single story during any one sweep.

As to a '5' disappearing and reappearing, no. Not unless you count a '5' disappearing then a new vote arriving a week or a couple of weeks later that happened to be a '5'. Much easier to just assume that was a valid new vote.

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

Story one lost 1 5 star — I'm fairly certain it's because a friend of mine rated before she read it (which I asked her not to do because I wanted her to genuinely rate it )

You could ask your friend to go to the story voting panel again. (Presuming she has an account and stays logged in.) If her vote was cleared then she will be able to vote again. If not, she will see the vote she recorded earlier.

Don’t report the results of that test here. AH standard practice is not to delve into the details of the sweeps.

 

[ElectricBlue]

1. People who voted on the story did so in a weird way.
2. Potential error during the sweeps.
3. Correction due to errors in the initial ratings (maybe getting double ratings instead of single ratings for some reason).
4. Someone spamming my story with 5s. No idea why someone would do that, but it's not outside the realm of possibility for whatever reason. I hope not, because that makes me feel kinda dirty by association

The site discourages speculation about sweeps, for obvious reasons.

Suffice to say, a "Helpful Five" can just as easily disappear as a "One-Bomb", and let's just leave it at that.

 

[anthrodisiac]

AH standard practice is not to delve into the details of the sweeps.

The site discourages speculation about sweeps, for obvious reasons.

Yeah, I know, which is why I wasn't asking, "What exactly causes one vote to be swept while another isn't," and tried to focus purely on, "Is this common/uncommon to have this amount of them?" My goal was purely to understand how much of an outlier it is to have that many removed based on other people's experience, not to understand the sweeps process writ large or figure out which votes were valid and which ones weren't.

Looking back at me considering possible causes, though, that does sound an awful lot like I'm speculating on the sweeps process I'm a troubleshooter by nature, hard habit to break My bad. Sorry about that.

 

[Bamagan]

Yeah, I know, which is why I wasn't asking, "What exactly causes one vote to be swept while another isn't," and tried to focus purely on, "Is this common/uncommon to have this amount of them?" My goal was purely to understand how much of an outlier it is to have that many removed based on other people's experience, not to understand the sweeps process writ large or figure out which votes were valid and which ones weren't.

Looking back at me considering possible causes, though, that does sound an awful lot like I'm speculating on the sweeps process I'm a troubleshooter by nature, hard habit to break My bad. Sorry about that.

This is the technical explanation of how the sweeps work, for future reference.

 

[anthrodisiac]

This is the technical explanation of how the sweeps work, for future reference.

It's all perfectly clear now, thank you!

 

[NotWise]

I lose 5* votes all the time.

My story from the Summer Lovin' contest lost 1x1*, 1x3*, 2x4* and 2x5*. Despite that, the sweep did increase the rating.

The sweeps usually come after I have too many votes to back-calculate everything swept, but there are always 5* votes removed and despite that the rating still goes up.

When I was following contest closely, a small proportion of the story ratings would drop in the sweeps, sometimes by a lot.

 

[RejectReality]

I lose 5* votes all the time.

My story from the Summer Lovin' contest lost 1x1*, 1x3*, 2x4* and 2x5*. Despite that, the sweep did increase the rating.

The sweeps usually come after I have too many votes to back-calculate everything swept, but there are always 5* votes removed and despite that the rating still goes up.

When I was following contest closely, a small proportion of the story ratings would drop in the sweeps, sometimes by a lot.

And those are the ones whose fans ( or to a much lesser degree, the author ) are trolling/cheerleading. Everybody is going to lose 5s, and there's probably a not insignificant number that are friendly fire — legitimate votes that just looked too close to a pattern the sweeps picked up on. Contest sweeps are bone-cutters, and votes are judged on more of a guilty until proven innocent standard than the other way around from my observations.

Those lost 5s aren't going to matter much compared to the low votes that vanish in the end unless someone is boosting you with multiple 5s and/or trolling other stories in the contest. Low votes have more of an impact on your score than 5s since most everything has a score higher than 4.

Providing you're not hovering on the line of qualifying, which is pretty rare nowadays outside the lowest readership categories. There was a time up until the late 00s - early 10s where anybody writing in half the categories was biting their nails wondering if they'd have enough votes left to qualify once the sweeps ran.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Providing you're not hovering on the line of qualifying, which is pretty rare nowadays outside the lowest readership categories. There was a time up until the late 00s - early 10s where anybody writing in half the categories was biting their nails wondering if they'd have enough votes left to qualify once the sweeps ran.

*Is in low readership category *

That was definitely me for a couple days, shocked I'd qualified and hoping I wouldn't get swept out. So it definitely sucked to get knocked under the limit in the final hour. But if they were dirty 5s, I don't want 'em. I'd hate to win on anything other than the merit of my work.

But hey, it's still the best story I've written on this site according to my readers. And it's one of the first stories I've written in 6 years that felt like the old me. Damn proud of that!

 

[RejectReality]

*Is in low readership category *

That was definitely me for a couple days, shocked I'd qualified and hoping I wouldn't get swept out. So it definitely sucked to get knocked under the limit in the final hour. But if they were dirty 5s, I don't want 'em. I'd hate to win on anything other than the merit of my work.

But hey, it's still the best story I've written on this site according to my readers. And it's one of the first stories I've written in 6 years that felt like the old me. Damn proud of that!

My first many contest entries were all in SciFi & Fantasy and Humor & Satire back in the day. Squeaking in above the bar was no easy task back then.

The S&F readership tends to be a little passionate/engaged and can be a hotbed of white knight fans engaging in shady shenanigans. It's one of the reasons ( aside from lower vote totals on average ) that the toplist for the category has always been one of the most volatile.

 

[Writer61]

I've also seen mention a couple times about people losing a handful of 5s.

I have had a couple of 5s removed.

But the 15 5s that were removed were amost half of the votes on that story (32 down to 17).

That is an awful lot. Might be worth a message to Laurel.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

@AH_Mod ~ we don't discuss the details of the sweep algorithm in public to help the trolls evade the sweeps. This thread can shut down right now.

 

[WhenPreNut]

My story from the Summer Lovin' contest lost 1x1*, 1x3*, 2x4* and 2x5*. Despite that, the sweep did increase the rating

How do you know?
I guess there must be a deeper analysis than just the headline average?
If so what is the path to it?
Thnx

 

[Writer61]

How do you know?
I guess there must be a deeper analysis than just the headline average?
If so what is the path to it?
Thnx

I do it by tracking how the average moves using a spreadsheet. If the average goes up, the latest score must be higher, and vice versa. If the number of votes goes down, i.e. after a sweep, I go back to remove scores from the tracker. Sometimes requires a bit of trial and error.

It works because I post in relatively low-traffic categories (E/V and EC), and most scores I get are between 4 and 5.

 

[NotWise]

How do you know?
I guess there must be a deeper analysis than just the headline average?
If so what is the path to it?
Thnx

The site doesn't provide that detail, but if votes are less than 100, then you can back out the votes that were cast. If the votes come in one-at-a-time of (sometimes) in small groups then that calculation gives a unique result.

 

[Voboy]

Lots of these kinds of threads lately...

 

[MrStill]

At the risk of stirring up a lot of dust, looks like there's been a sweep some time in the last 6 hours or so

 

[pink_silk_glove]

At the risk of stirring up a lot of dust, looks like there's been a sweep some time in the last 6 hours or so

Not for me. Someone mortar shelled half my catalog today.

 

[MrStill]

I'm sorry to hear that. My Escalation stories apparently had a visit from the cuck patrol judging by a comment on the latest one. I don't keep detailed stats, but I certainly now have fewer votes and higher scores for those.

 

[lovecraft68]

Lots of these kinds of threads lately...

People are seeing their scores drop rather than rise and its killing them.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

And again. Now I will say that most often my stories go weeks without votes. Like, I literally will go two or three weeks between single votes on my entire catalog, so I know when I'm bombed. Just had eight of my twelve stories knocked the fuck down with a single vote. And I'm nowhere near a red H, let alone a toplist, so someone out there really fucking hates me and I don't even write in LW. At least I haven't yet.

Welcome to my world. It makes me laugh when someone whines, "my story was 4.77 last night and it's 4.69 this morning, I'm so bummed, laurel do something about this!!" What the fuck do you do when a real crisis happens, you know, like chipping a fucking nail? Pfft.

So the last bombing on Friday and this one today, five days apart. Total number of votes to my catalog between those two bombings: zero.

 

[LargoKitt]

During the Valentine's Day contest, my stories were swept about half an hour before the winners were announced. Story one lost 1 5 star — I'm fairly certain it's because a friend of mine rated before she read it (which I asked her not to do because I wanted her to genuinely rate it ) — but story two lost 15 5 stars.

I know it's pretty normal for contest stories to have 1-bombs swept. From the sound of it, sometimes quite a lot of them on contest entries and specific authors in general (which is really shitty). I've also seen mention a couple times about people losing a handful of 5s. But the 15 5s that were removed were amost half of the votes on that story (32 down to 17). It just seems like a very large amount, given the other story only had a single 5 removed, and for good reason as far as I can tell. None of my other stories were affected, it was just those two.

It also seems unusual because the second story had similar engagement than the first:

• 1 less comment
• 80% of the views
• 1 less favorite
• Significantly more listings (first story had 7 lists, second one had 25 at the time of the contest's end, which makes it my second most listed story).

I never noticed any strange voting behaviors, the ratings trickled in at a fairly normal pace. I don't remember seeing any sudden surge of them where it abruptly shot up, which is why I don't think someone was artificially inflating my numbers. Though I admit I wasn't keeping a close eye, nor have I figured out how to look at the rating breakdown, not realizing it was a thing until a few days ago

I hadn't planned to bring it up, even though it's been on my mind the last couple days. I decided to just write it off as weird. But someone else asked if there were strange goings-on with ratings, and a couple other people mentioned unusual behavior, as well as another author mentioning they lost a few 5s, only to have them return shortly after, so I figured I'd see if I could get some clarification as well. I'm also asking because it's genuinely baffling, and I don't like being baffled, so if I can get data on the degree of unusualness (if any), that would go a long way to giving me information to put it in context.

I figure it's one of the following:

1. People who voted on the story did so in a weird way.
2. Potential error during the sweeps.
3. Correction due to errors in the initial ratings (maybe getting double ratings instead of single ratings for some reason).
4. Someone spamming my story with 5s. No idea why someone would do that, but it's not outside the realm of possibility for whatever reason. I hope not, because that makes me feel kinda dirty by association

So... Has anyone lost that many 5s on a story in one go before? Either in a contest or outside of one? I know most of the sweeps happen during contests, so I'd expect that to be the more common case, but just figured I'd expand the parameters a bit.

I confess I'm totally mystified by this whole ratings and sweeps process. How does anyone but Manu and Laurel know about sweeps and how they work? Have M&L explained it somewhere in a Forum or other post? As a former software tester I'm trying to imagine a fair system for calculating which ratings are fair and which are not. Does every vote plant a cookie with an ISP address? I don't believe that if I vote while logged in that my votes are tallied against my login name. The majority of my stories are rated where I would expect. Lower votes seem to come from breaking the expected paradigm of a category. There are some puzzles: The first story in a series that gets all hot ratings not getting hot. Some stories hang just below 4.5 no matter what. Some stories have lots and lots of views but very few votes. Stuff like that. But once a story gets above 20 or so votes I have no clue what the distribution is.

 

[Voboy]

I confess I'm totally mystified by this whole ratings and sweeps process.

Join the club.

How does anyone but Manu and Laurel know about sweeps and how they work? Have M&L explained it somewhere in a Forum or other post?

They have not, and they will not. Some posters claim they have inferred how sweeps work. Those people are generally careful not to talk about it here.

As a former software tester I'm trying to imagine a fair system for calculating which ratings are fair and which are not. Does every vote plant a cookie with an ISP address? I don't believe that if I vote while logged in that my votes are tallied against my login name. The majority of my stories are rated where I would expect. Lower votes seem to come from breaking the expected paradigm of a category. There are some puzzles: The first story in a series that gets all hot ratings not getting hot. Some stories hang just below 4.5 no matter what. Some stories have lots and lots of views but very few votes. Stuff like that. But once a story gets above 20 or so votes I have no clue what the distribution is.

We are heavily discouraged from speculating about how the sweeps work. It's a VERY longstanding AH policy.