The Halloween Competition sweep

[FrancesScott]

I’ve not been around here that long, but at the end of other competitions, I’ve seen several of my stories lose votes and their ratings go up. This has affected many of my stories, not just those in the relevant competition.

With the recent Halloween competition, there was not a single change to any of my stories. This despite one of mine - that had the timerity to briefly appear on one of the all-time lists - being systematically bombed from 4.86 to 4.80 (despite having around 250 votes).

Was the Halloween sweep less effective than normal, or is something else going on?

 

[Actingup]

There was some discussion about this on the Halloween support thread. What I said at the time was 'Eight of my stories changed in score. My 'Change Management', languishing in Erotic Horror, suddenly lost about 10% of its 87 votes and moved from 4.39 to 4.67, from which I conclude that there were some obvious bombs picked up by the algorithm and some really horrible, withered people with scaly faces live in erotic horror (and will never escape). Conversely, I had a more recent non-Halloween story in Loving Wives that was also swept but only moved from 4.17 to 4.19'. However, it was also pointed out there had been only one sweep observed, wheras normally we see several, potentially approaching the issue from different directions. As you know, we're discouraged from discussing the mechanics of the sweeps, but it might be reasonable to surmise that subtle bombing (eg bombing by covert operations teams trying to preserve their place on the top lists, regardless of the moral bankruptancy that that implies) was not picked up. You can request a sweep be done on one of your stories by reporting the story for suspicious voting patterns.

 

[DEFCOM5]

It was my first contest and sweep and I went from 252 votes to 248 and a score from 4.68 to 4.69.

The sweep has zero impact on my score

 

[MelissaBaby]

My story was swept in the early afternoon EDT. It lost several votes and bumped up from the mid 4.50s to, if I recall correctly, 4.67.

Within the next hour or so, I gained 2 votes, but the scored dropped enough that those were obvious one votes.

In every contest I have entered, there was a final sweep just before the close of voting. This year, either that did not take place, or obvious one bombs were not caught when it was.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I have noticed two sweeps on just one of my stories. So they are happening, but maybe the trolls are catching onto how they work and so are being smarter about how they bomb our stuff.

 

[SugarStorm]

Five of my stories got bumped back up to the 4.8x-range from low/mid 4.7x. I've never seen such a big change from a sweep before.

can request a sweep be done on one of your stories by reporting the story for suspicious voting patterns.

I wished I'd known that when one of mine got pummeled earlier this year

 

[EmilyMiller]

FWIW my comp entry had twelve (12) votes swept off it to go 4.21 => 4.72. Like @MelissaBaby it immediately got bombed again and there appeared to be no second sweep, the bombs are still reflected in the current rating.

There is at least one author here with terminal Miller Derrangement Syndrome and so I’m something of an outlier. Anyway, something happened, but it didn’t feel like the usual sweeps.

Like the OP I had absolutely nothing happen to the rest of my back catalog, which is not how it normally goes. It’s just an impression, but I would think there was just one sweep rather than serveral. And it felt like it crashed half way, or something.

I PMed another author who - like the OP - had seen zero impact on their portfolio, despite them suffering obvious one bombs, and said it felt like an intern had been running the process without the benefit of any notes to explain what to do.

 

[FrancesScott]

You can request a sweep be done on one of your stories by reporting the story for suspicious voting patterns.

Requesting it does not seem to be the same as anything actually being done. YMMV.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I've thought about how it works for some time, and these are my conclusions.

When contest sweeps happen, they often affect non-contest stories as well, but only the more recent ones.

I suspect that the sweep doesn't have an option to affect the stories with a certain tag only, such as the contest tag, but rather an option to affect the stories within a certain time period. I'm speculating, of course, but it's possible that Laurel can't just do the sweep on contest submissions.

And since contest stories are usually published during a period of a month or so, I suspect Laurel sets the sweep to work only on the stories published during the last month. That is why this sweep won't affect the stories from May or June or July...

If you have non-contest stories published during the Halloween time frame, you can confirm these things yourselves. Those should be affected, while your older stories shouldn't.

 

[Trionyx]

Requesting it does not seem to be the same as anything actually being done. YMMV.

True dat. I presented a detailed list of scores and how two of my better stories which were plodding along in vote frequency were bombed simultaneously within a two week timeframe until the scores dropped (many previous votes so it took a while) and then the frequent voting ceased altogether. Nothing was done after I brought it up. MMDV (my mileage did vary).

 

[FrancesScott]

True dat. I presented a detailed list of scores and how two of my better stories which were plodding along in vote frequency were bombed simultaneously within a two week timeframe until the scores dropped (many previous votes so it took a while) and then the frequent voting ceased altogether. Nothing was done after I brought it up. MMDV (my mileage did vary).

I’ve asked a few times - I asked when the carpet bombing of my top ten story was going on for example - nothing whatsoever happened.

 

[Actingup]

I've thought about how it works for some time, and these are my conclusions.

When contest sweeps happen, they often affect non-contest stories as well, but only the more recent ones.

I suspect that the sweep doesn't have an option to affect the stories with a certain tag only, such as the contest tag, but rather an option to affect the stories within a certain time period. I'm speculating, of course, but it's possible that Laurel can't just do the sweep on contest submissions.

And since contest stories are usually published during a period of a month or so, I suspect Laurel sets the sweep to work only on the stories published during the last month. That is why this sweep won't affect the stories from May or June or July...

If you have non-contest stories published during the Halloween time frame, you can confirm these things yourselves. Those should be affected, while your older stories shouldn't.

Not the more recent stories, I think, but the more recent votes. I had a story from last December that was swept, but the vote itself could have been more recent.

 

[Actingup]

I have noticed two sweeps on just one of my stories. So they are happening, but maybe the trolls are catching onto how they work and so are being smarter about how they bomb our stuff.

Alternatively, the sweeps this time were less sophisticated than usual due to Moderator workload pressures.
The thought that some of the bombers are virtually certain to be other authors leaves a sour taste in the mouth. If any of them are reading: you are uninvited from Christmas.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Like many other things about Lit, sweeps are performed according to criteria that is not shared with us. I've never tried to suss out how they work, but I'd start with things like "Did this reader click on every page of the story?" and "how quickly did they scroll from the top to the bottom?" , both of which seem easily doable from the site's side of things. I am not a coder by any stretch, but in my head that seems straight forward.

Even a black box mouse trap eventually breeds smarter mice.

 

[Actingup]

I wished I'd known that when one of mine got pummeled earlier this year

For what it's worth, I think you should still put in the report - instructions are at https://www.literotica.com/faq/publishing/suspicious-votes. They promise to review the report even though they don't reply. We might be rightfully cynical about whether they have time to do that, but I think it's good to keep the pressure on. Best of luck anyway - 1-bombing sucks.

 

[old_prof]

This sweep did feel lesser in some ways, mostly that there were not repeated sweeps, which I have noticed immediately during the last three contests (my tenure here). This one was just much less impactful than the others have been.

I have to assume it's related to the other issues that happened over the last two months here.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Like many other things about Lit, sweeps are performed according to criteria that is not shared with us. I've never tried to suss out how they work, but I'd start with things like "Did this reader click on every page of the story?" and "how quickly did they scroll from the top to the bottom?" , both of which seem easily doable from the site's side of things. I am not a coder by any stretch, but in my head that seems straight forward.

Even a black box mouse trap eventually breeds smarter mice.

While your guess is logical, there's no website that records such things to the best of my knowledge. That kind of mouse movement tracking is just way too advanced for Literotica. I suspect that a vote is just a vote.

What I think the sweep does instead is that it goes through the only other thing that gets recorded along with the vote - the user ID for registered users who voted, or an IP for anonymous voters. That would be consistent with what I've concluded while testing how the voting worked a couple of years ago.

I assume the sweep checks the IP of every vote on any individual story, and if there are IPs that are near each other, they get swept. There are also other options that make sense for the sweep to check, but this one is the most likely, IMO.

 

[AwkwardMD]

While your guess is logical, there's no website that records such things to the best of my knowledge. That kind of mouse movement tracking is just way too advanced for Literotica. I suspect that a vote is just a vote.

What I think the sweep does instead is that it goes through the only other thing that gets recorded along with the vote - the user ID for registered users who voted, or an IP for anonymous voters. That would be consistent with what I've concluded while testing how the voting worked a couple of years ago.

I assume the sweep checks the IP of every vote on any individual story, and if there are IPs that are near each other, they get swept. There are also other options that make sense for the sweep to check, but this one is the most likely, IMO.

I'm out of my depth to disagree.

EDIT: one thing I do know is that some votes are tied to comments. If a vote gets swept and that person also left a comment (and they're usually negative comments), that comment will be gone. I've seen that happen so many times, where I'll have a back and forth with someone in my comments and months (or years) later I'll go back and half of it is missing.

 

[old_prof]

While your guess is logical, there's no website that records such things to the best of my knowledge. That kind of mouse movement tracking is just way too advanced for Literotica. I suspect that a vote is just a vote.

What I think the sweep does instead is that it goes through the only other thing that gets recorded along with the vote - the user ID for registered users who voted, or an IP for anonymous voters. That would be consistent with what I've concluded while testing how the voting worked a couple of years ago.

I assume the sweep checks the IP of every vote on any individual story, and if there are IPs that are near each other, they get swept. There are also other options that make sense for the sweep to check, but this one is the most likely, IMO.

I have my own theory about how I would have done this is Manu's place. Pure speculation, but, per requests of the site, I will not disclose my concept. But it disagrees significantly from yours in some ways. Either is certainly possible. We will not know.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I have my own theory about how I would have done this is Manu's place. Pure speculation, but, per requests of the site, I will not disclose my concept. But it disagrees significantly from yours in some ways. Either is certainly possible. We will not know.

"I can't talk about my theory" is my bit. Patent pending. Keep this up and you'll owe me royalties.

 

[old_prof]

I learned from the master...

 

[AwkwardMD]

Flattery will get you a 7% discount.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I have my own theory about how I would have done this is Manu's place. Pure speculation, but, per requests of the site, I will not disclose my concept. But it disagrees significantly from yours in some ways. Either is certainly possible. We will not know.

Sure. I can think of at least one more mechanism for the sweep to work. Cookies, for example, although that one is easy to beat. Browser fingerprinting as well, but that's a bit more advanced (for Lit) and still not unbeatable

 

[AwkwardMD]

Sure. I can think of at least one more mechanism for the sweep to work. Cookies, for example, although that one is easy to beat. Browser fingerprinting as well, but that's a bit more advanced (for Lit) and still not unbeatable

Vote sweeping, as it is currently implemented, is 1000% beatable.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Not the more recent stories, I think, but the more recent votes. I had a story from last December that was swept, but the vote itself could have been more recent.

Everything I've learned about sweeps in the last ten years is that they go through the entire database of stories - certainly the last ten years' worth. I still see on occasion the scores on my very first stories lose a vote or two, and the score bumps up a bit.

Just about every time there's a contest sweep, I see an adjustment or two in my scores - I can't remember the last time I entered a contest.