Sweeps: How Common is Losing 5s?

[MrHereWriting]

Sweeps: How Common is Losing 5s?

How well liked are you by the administration?

 

[EmilyMiller]

Sweeps: How Common is Losing 5s?​

It’s a common misconception that sweeps only target low votes. They don’t discriminate by value, any of 5️, 4️, 3️, 2️, and 1️ can be swept. It is how the vote is cast (and characteristics of the ‘person’ casting it) that selects for deletion [insert standard text about not divulging how sweeps work]. I’ve done my own research and confirmed my speculations about the broad nature of the selection process [you can take the girl out of science, but… ].

Recall that even a 4️ vote is a negative the way things are set up here. It seems typical that whatever is going on with the toplists can be effected sometimes with a string of 4️s in a row - but not always. I’ve also seen things like 5 x 4️s on a competition entry toward the end of voting. And seen other authors report this.

If 5️ votes are swept it’s either a) something weird but innocent about how the vote is recorded [I can’t say more], b) ‘over enthusiastic’ fans lodging multiple votes, or - the horror - c) authors inflating their own ratings.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that c) applies to you, but it’s not exactly uncommon for people to be competitive by giving their own work the rating it ‘deserves.’

 

[pink_silk_glove]

@EmilyMiller, will you stfu! already contemplating how sweep work and educating trolls and wannabe trolls on how to evade them? You are the one super pissed off and crusading about troll-evading votes. FFS! Smarten up.

 

[SmilingLez]

It will be curious to see if my ratings increase for my April Fools entry Under the Sea story once a sweep happens.

I also wonder if the lower rating is due to the ending (not the happily ever after because I also submitted it to the Tainted Love Erotic Horror challenge) and is more subjective.

 

[LargoKitt]

Join the club.



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.



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

How do we even know that such a thing exists? I know that counts and ratings change is something other than a pure accumulative way. But where did anyone who talks about how it works get their info?

 

[RejectReality]

The website has laid out the basics long ago. Stories are swept for illegitimate votes. The one and only criteria they have ever revealed is that multiple votes from the same IP/ID are removed. Everything else comes from experimentation and observation, which is imperfect at best.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The most basic information is from the pairing of score and number of votes. If a story is on 4.5/2 you know what the two votes were; likewise 4.33/3. I vaguely considered writing a quick program to see how far you could keep doing this, but by then I'd read enough here to know vote tallies weren't worth pursuing, and I haven't looked at mine since. Other people have pursued it more obsessively, but it apparently requires frequent monitoring so you catch each update.

But if you can do this - track each vote - then certain patterns emerge. A really good writer provided evidence that they had lots of 5's and some 4's, which is what most people would agree is what they deserve. The odd 3 is okay, but frequent consecutive pairs of 1's is ridiculous for a writer of such quality. And as a contest deadline approached, the sneaky buggers were bombing the story with 4's - just enough to subtly lower it. The ingenuity of both parties was impressive.

 

[EmilyMiller]

How do we even know that such a thing exists? I know that counts and ratings change is something other than a pure accumulative way. But where did anyone who talks about how it works get their info?

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/thank-you-🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏.1651290/

 

[alohadave]

How do we even know that such a thing exists? I know that counts and ratings change is something other than a pure accumulative way. But where did anyone who talks about how it works get their info?

https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/suspicious-votes

 

[IWroteThis]

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

They don't. At best, they know that they lost 22 points from 6 ratings, but they don't even really know that. Maybe the sweep took more, but new ratings came in with the same refresh and offset some of the loss.

Even if 6/22 was the correct results from the sweep…

2x1*, 4x5*
1x1*, 1x2*, 1x4*, 3x5*
2x2*, 1x3*, 3x5*
1x1*, 1x3*, 2x4* 2x5*
1x2*, 2x3*, 1x4*, 2x5*
4x3*, 2x5*
1x1*, 4x4*, 1x5*
1x2*, 1x3*, 3x4*, 1x5*
3x3*, 2x4*, 1x5*
1x2*, 5x4*
2x3*, 4x4*

I think I got those all right, but the point is that there are multiple ways to spread 22 points over 6 ratings.

 

[LargoKitt]

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/thank-you-.1651290/

Brain crackin'

 

[LargoKitt]

You know what is really helpful? If folks who dislike a story and voted low, or maybe lower than they first wanted, offered a why. As you're voting take a couple of seconds to say, 'disapointed me because....' I've gotten some of those and they are gratifying. Even a true honest flame is useful if it points out sloppiness, or a big plot hole. I even appreciate the BtB comments if they reveal what the reader was expecting.

 

[EmilyMiller]

You know what is really helpful? If folks who dislike a story and voted low, or maybe lower than they first wanted, offered a why. As you're voting take a couple of seconds to say, 'disapointed me because....' I've gotten some of those and they are gratifying. Even a true honest flame is useful if it points out sloppiness, or a big plot hole. I even appreciate the BtB comments if they reveal what the reader was expecting.

Commenting appears to be a lost art here…

 

[pink_silk_glove]

You know what is really helpful? If folks who dislike a story and voted low, or maybe lower than they first wanted, offered a why. As you're voting take a couple of seconds to say, 'disapointed me because....' I've gotten some of those and they are gratifying. Even a true honest flame is useful if it points out sloppiness, or a big plot hole. I even appreciate the BtB comments if they reveal what the reader was expecting.

Perfect world, sure, but they don;t so take what you can get.

But then the next question is, why do you not question the 5s?

 

[LargoKitt]

Perfect world, sure, but they don;t so take what you can get.

But then the next question is, why do you not question the 5s?

I do question the 5s, sometimes even when I'm giving them. Because I like elements of a story, but it isn't total magic, and yet I don't want to drag it down. But there are stories where I gave it a 5 and then mentioned that the spell-checking was sloppy, or a sex scene was a little formula. Dishonest? Yes. But sometimes I want to encourage rather than teach. And I never say "this was a rudimentary piece of copycat crap; wooden characters and sex that sounds like a shopping list. Promise me you'll never write smut again." And I might just bail rather than low-rate that story. The reason? Because for some folks great character development or pretty prose take a way back seat to 'tell me what they did so I can jerk off.' And, think about it, if "He put his hot hands on her big C-cups" gets him or her 'there' bless 'em. They must have quite some imaginations.

 

[LargoKitt]

Here's something us AHs could do on the reg. Courage, now. It's like a karaoke site I go to where the 'song theme' requires not just posting a song of that sort but commenting on x number of songs others post. Truth be told many contributions are painful. But it is a worthwhile exercise as a singer or an author to seek out what works and maybe encourage a little work in a given area. AHers could challenge us to pick 5 stories of a given genre and offer useful comments.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I do question the 5s, sometimes even when I'm giving them. Because I like elements of a story, but it isn't total magic, and yet I don't want to drag it down. But there are stories where I gave it a 5 and then mentioned that the spell-checking was sloppy, or a sex scene was a little formula. Dishonest? Yes. But sometimes I want to encourage rather than teach. And I never say "this was a rudimentary piece of copycat crap; wooden characters and sex that sounds like a shopping list. Promise me you'll never write smut again." And I might just bail rather than low-rate that story. The reason? Because for some folks great character development or pretty prose take a way back seat to 'tell me what they did so I can jerk off.' And, think about it, if "He put his hot hands on her big C-cups" gets him or her 'there' bless 'em. They must have quite some imaginations.

The thing is that I see posts (and entire threads) in the AH here about just what you post, 'why can't the downvoters tell me why they voted down?' But I have never ever ever seen a post by someone asking, 'why can't the 5 voters tell us why it's a 5?"

No one cares why. They just take the 5.

Here's something us AHs could do on the reg. Courage, now. It's like a karaoke site I go to where the 'song theme' requires not just posting a song of that sort but commenting on x number of songs others post. Truth be told many contributions are painful. But it is a worthwhile exercise as a singer or an author to seek out what works and maybe encourage a little work in a given area. AHers could challenge us to pick 5 stories of a given genre and offer useful comments.

That would not be good. Requiring people to give feedback would cut down feedback. If you;re not allowed to give a vote unless you give x amount of comments there will just be a ton less votes. That in turn would lead to more effective trolling as the troll votes would make a larger dent in a smaller vote pie. Furthermore, the comments that you would get would be along the 'liked it, awesome," kind, just to do the bare minimum to be allowed to vote.

This idea stems from the notion that the site revolves around the writers. It doesn't. It revolves around the readers. That is why the traffic is so massive (and we all love that traffic). We don't want to drive the traffic down with ideas like this.

 

[NuclearFairy]

The thing is that I see posts (and entire threads) in the AH here about just what you post, 'why can't the downvoters tell me why they voted down?' But I have never ever ever seen a post by someone asking, 'why can't the 5 voters tell us why it's a 5?"

No one cares why. They just take the 5.

If they gave me a five, I assume they loved it. When I love something, I often can't articulate why, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to ask my readers to do so. It would be nice to know what I'm doing right, but oftentimes it's easier for a reader to say what is wrong when they don't like something. So I temper my expectations and hope more for the more realistic goal.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

If they gave me a five, I assume they loved it. When I love something, I often can't articulate why, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to ask my readers to do so. It would be nice to know what I'm doing right, but oftentimes it's easier for a reader to say what is wrong when they don't like something. So I temper my expectations and hope more for the more realistic goal.

I don't buy that at all. You know why you like something just as easily as you know why you don't like something. Even if it's something that you can't quite put your finger on. It's that 'it' factor. Just as sometimes you read something and there's nothing really wrong with it, but it just doesn't have that 'it' factor. It's not grabbing you. And whether or not it has 'it' or a bit of 'it' or not, upon a deeper reflection, you can see all the things that you did or didn't like and add them up.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I don't buy that at all. You know why you like something just as easily as you know why you don't like something. Even if it's something that you can't quite put your finger on. It's that 'it' factor. Just as sometimes you read something and there's nothing really wrong with it, but it just doesn't have that 'it' factor. It's not grabbing you. And whether or not it has 'it' or a bit of 'it' or not, upon a deeper reflection, you can see all the things that you did or didn't like and add them up.

Not everyone is that introspective.

 

[StillStunned]

If they gave me a five, I assume they loved it. When I love something, I often can't articulate why, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to ask my readers to do so. It would be nice to know what I'm doing right, but oftentimes it's easier for a reader to say what is wrong when they don't like something. So I temper my expectations and hope more for the more realistic goal.

I think most of us like our stories, and would rate them 5*. They tell the stories we want to read, after all, and in a style we enjoy. We wouldn't publish them if we didn't think they were worth it.

If a reader votes 5*, they're just agreeing with us. We don't require them to justify that, because they're simply reinforcing our own opinion. It's nice to hear precisely what they liked, but overall we accept their vote because it reflects what we would vote as well. It's the lower votes that we question because we disagree with them.

Strictly speaking, if the average score was in fact 3*, as authors we might be more inclined to say, "You know, this story isn't my best work, I'd rate it 4*." And if someone gives it 5* we'd probably like to hear why.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Ideally, I'd like comprehensive feedback on every rating. But the more useful feedback are the lower scores. A 5 is an affirmation that the story is solid, though given the incentive structure in the ratings, it doesn't mean it's perfect, it's just the default readers give when they enjoyed a story. But if someone gives me a 1 - 3, I'd really like to know what they didn't like, and if it's something I can improve (helpful), or simply wasn't to their taste (oh, well). And like @StillStunned said, if I think the story was subpar but it does surprisingly well, I'd be very curious what I missed when I read it that is so grabbing readers.

Obviously, I'm not expecting it, so I'll get what I can. Even the ratings themselves are useful indicators to some degree. Not necessarily on their own, but in comparing and contrasting the stories in my catalogue that have similar themes and kinks (which in my case is all of them) to see which ones were hits and which were misses.

 

[Voboy]

If they gave me a five, I assume they loved it. When I love something, I often can't articulate why, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to ask my readers to do so. It would be nice to know what I'm doing right, but oftentimes it's easier for a reader to say what is wrong when they don't like something. So I temper my expectations and hope more for the more realistic goal.

Same if I hate something, though.

More frequently, there's so much wrong with it that I wouldn't want to be bothered. I'll be clear: I don't give 1* and I never would. I'm more apt to just back out of the story rather than that.

But if I did give 1*, I have to believe the story would be so irredeemably bad, with such egregious sins against proper spelling and sentence structure, with such gaping holes (not the good kind), lacking so much quality, that it's just a complete and total mess. Quantifying all that would require several minutes and a reasonably long comment paragraph, and for what? A hope that the writer might take my pearls of wisdom on board?

No thank you. I'd have just tagged the 1 and gone on with my day. Especially since I'd have probably been nude and hard and NOT interested in a grammar critique at that particular moment. Remember, I'm not reading here in order to find literary excellence. My motives are usually a lot more prurient.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Not everyone is that introspective.

There are a ton of people who are if they get a downvote.

 

[LargoKitt]

The thing is that I see posts (and entire threads) in the AH here about just what you post, 'why can't the downvoters tell me why they voted down?' But I have never ever ever seen a post by someone asking, 'why can't the 5 voters tell us why it's a 5?"

No one cares why. They just take the 5.



That would not be good. Requiring people to give feedback would cut down feedback. If you;re not allowed to give a vote unless you give x amount of comments there will just be a ton less votes. That in turn would lead to more effective trolling as the troll votes would make a larger dent in a smaller vote pie. Furthermore, the comments that you would get would be along the 'liked it, awesome," kind, just to do the bare minimum to be allowed to vote.

This idea stems from the notion that the site revolves around the writers. It doesn't. It revolves around the readers. That is why the traffic is so massive (and we all love that traffic). We don't want to drive the traffic down with ideas like this.

Curious thing is that some readers do explain their five, or say they want to give it a ten. Nice ego boost. Curiously, that usually doesn't translate into a 'standing O' (good name for a story) from lots of others. I also have stories with tons of views but meh ratings. "No accounting for taste said the old lady as she kissed the cow".