Yes, the Toplists are Broken

[redgarters]

I had a story a month ago hit 4.89 on its hundredth vote. Not only did it immediately start getting the 2s and 3s, it got 2 or 3 votes a night for three weeks driving it down to 4.45 before I finally froze the voting.

I've seen that too, that's the negative effect of getting access to a wider reader pool. My latest story entered the LS top list at 4.94 with a 100 votes, probably a big share of them people who follow me or have read some of my other stories and generally like my style. But then it went straight down to 4.6 after that, probably because a mix of being a comp story and just more people who didn't like my style read it because they randomly found it on the LS top list.

 

[redgarters]

I simply can't imagine that Laurel or Manu would act so unethically. I think it much more likely that they see there is a problem with the top lists and just lack the time/resources/expertise to address it.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's something else entirely.

 

[old_prof]

I've seen that too, that's the negative effect of getting access to a wider reader pool. My latest story entered the LS top list at 4.94 with a 100 votes, probably a big share of them people who follow me or have read some of my other stories and generally like my style. But then it went straight down to 4.6 after that, probably because a mix of being a comp story and just more people who didn't like my style read it because they randomly found it on the LS top list.

I think that's an overly humble response. It's, of course, possibly true. It could be exposing your story to a broader audience dropped its score. Some of that should be expected. But surely some story actually is better than 4.84? Any one story I'll believe was coincidently beat down when it got more exposure. But I won't believe it happening to all stories. It would not surprise me if 4.84 was the single most common score on the site right now. It is a few per cent of all stories, (probably higher than that of stories with 100+ votes) but only two tenths of a percent of possible scores.

I have a real question for the collection of people here. The magical score seems to be declining. When I first noticed this, it was almost everything tied at 4.85. Is this just continual attacking out of spite, or is the troll (or trolls) trying to drive the scores down to some "appropriate" level. There is a participant in this thread who has stated repeatedly across AH that all the story ratings are inflated (I agree). I'm not accusing him of being the troll, but if he thinks that way, probably others do as well. Could they drive the line all the way down to 4.49 eventually? Maybe a decade or two? So the red H's all but disappear from older stories. It's a potential logical outcome of pushing scores down repeatedly.

 

[RocketGrunt]

Sure, that would probably work towards the same goal. I'm not defending this (if this is indeed what's happening), I'm just saying it makes more sense to me that it's a business management issue rather than troll behaviour.

We actually do know with pretty complete certainty that the flattening attacks are NOT created internally and deliberately by the site. We know this because the targeted portion is the toplist, and not the popular stories list. The toplist is old deprecated code that is slated to be removed as soon as the "more popular stories list" is up and running.

It makes no sense that Laurel or Manu would curate the list they are discontinuing when they obviously are not curating the list that is supposed to replace it. We can see the first ten entries of the "popular stories list" that is supposed to be the replacement for the toplist, and those stories DO NOT get troll bombed down to 4.84 unless they also get picked up by the old toplist.

The obvious answer is that trolls have realized that the toplist is no longer being maintained in an active way because it is slated to be retired - so they feel free to run rampant on the stories there and flatten everything down to their target number.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Well, let's watch these then.



At some point this year, a couple of these are going to break 100 votes. At that point, they're going to get hit just like Ch. 04 & 09 did. The toplists are undeniably a hotbed of trolling. ( And they're not going to uniformly drop to 4.83 either, because it's uncoordinated humans doing it, and not a script )

There is nothing on that list that interests me at all.

Quite common for 'lists' which why I find these threads so listless.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I assume by systemic, you mean caused by the site, either intentionally or unintentionally. I don't follow why you would think that.

Is it just because we're talking so many stories? The entire site does not have so many stories that a dedicated tool would be challenged by hitting all of them if it wanted to. As big as the site is in human terms, it's tiny in terms of doing anything automated to it.

No, it's because there would be no benefit to some external bad actor to target the scores of stories far down on a top list, or not on one at all, which is what I demonstrated was happening with seven of my eight stories at 4.83/4.84.

Also, due to the almost instantaneous leveling of scores that keeps them at the current threshold, whatever is driving that action would almost certainly need to be embedded in the system somehow and not some outside influence popping in a few times a day to run their script.

In reviewing my stats just now, my one story in the top 25 has received six five-star votes since last Thursday, but remains at the same 4.84 score. (Votes of less than a five would have caused a drop, even if only momentary, which I would have noticed)

Convince me that there is some dedicated external entity lurking around waiting for my score to increase and then purposely down vote it. It just doesn't make logical sense.

 

[old_prof]

Convince me that there is some dedicated external entity lurking around waiting for my score to increase and then purposely down vote it. It just doesn't make logical sense.

This is exactly what I think is happening. It is not technically challenging to write a tool that would do just that. There are ways to optimize it, but I'm not going to discuss that in an open forum. It is trivial, technically, for it to be either internal or external. There was a discussion above about the dubious benefits of this for the site, and much easier and less controversial ways to accomplish it from there side. Why would they do this then? Out of the millions of people who view this site, surely some of them are unbalanced enough to choose to do this. I can imagine any number of bad rationales for it. There are certainly means and opportunity for many of them to be doing this. Motive is unknown but not hard to conjure. I still have not heard a rational motive for Manu or Laurel to have decided to do this, when it seems to be against their best interest,

Yes Manu and Laurel certainly have means and opportunity as well. And it is not beyond belief that they are doing it.

Which is more credible? One of probably tens of thousands of use the site and either have the requisite knowledge or could acquire it reasonably are irrational about the site or one of two people, who have a vested interest in the site, are. Even if Manu or Laurel were equally likely to be unbalanced, the odds are thousands to one that the culprit is not one of them.

So my question is are you convincible. You've not given any evidence that the problem is inside the site. You have not given any credible evidence that they would be motivated to do something that seems very out of character. But you continue to dig heels in. I would gladly listen to evidence, but I've seen none.

 

[BeechLeaf]

If there are bad actors with inside access to the stats, they could do so much more. Like, change 10% of 5* votes to 4*. No-one who ever voted 5* could know that, and the author would just see a downward drift that could be explained in multiple ways.

If I had inside access and evil intent, I wouldn't be blatant about it, I'd just potter around, snipping off this head here and weeding out that there. I wouldn't behave like a script that was specifically knocking things down to a determinate number. It'd be so much easier, and more subtle, and not crudely predictable, if it was someone who had access.

 

[old_prof]

If there are bad actors with inside access to the stats, they could do so much more. Like, change 10% of 5* votes to 4*. No-one who ever voted 5* could know that, and the author would just see a downward drift that could be explained in multiple ways.

I think that would be discovered. I will not discuss why I believe this, but I have seen evidence in some weird cases (this site is full of weird case) that indicate they maintain all the votes tied back to the original voter. I guess it is necessary to show you what you voted if you reload a story. This means that registered readers would see their votes changed. Most would noever notice, but if it was happening on a broad scale, it almost certainly would be reported, either to the site or on the forum.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This is exactly what I think is happening. It is not technically challenging to write a tool that would do just that. There are ways to optimize it, but I'm not going to discuss that in an open forum. It is trivial, technically, for it to be either internal or external. There was a discussion above about the dubious benefits of this for the site, and much easier and less controversial ways to accomplish it from there side. Why would they do this then? Out of the millions of people who view this site, surely some of them are unbalanced enough to choose to do this. I can imagine any number of bad rationales for it. There are certainly means and opportunity for many of them to be doing this. Motive is unknown but not hard to conjure. I still have not heard a rational motive for Manu or Laurel to have decided to do this, when it seems to be against their best interest,

Yes Manu and Laurel certainly have means and opportunity as well. And it is not beyond belief that they are doing it.

Which is more credible? One of probably tens of thousands of use the site and either have the requisite knowledge or could acquire it reasonably are irrational about the site or one of two people, who have a vested interest in the site, are. Even if Manu or Laurel were equally likely to be unbalanced, the odds are thousands to one that the culprit is not one of them.

So my question is are you convincible. You've not given any evidence that the problem is inside the site. You have not given any credible evidence that they would be motivated to do something that seems very out of character. But you continue to dig heels in. I would gladly listen to evidence, but I've seen none.

Quite simply, why would anyone want to? There would be no financial gain. No increase to a story by targeting stories rated lower than it. Anonymity would not let your targets know of your actions against specific writers. "Because they can" is a weak hypothesis.

If you could show me that there was some logical motivation for someone external to target stories with down voting where there is no benefit for them to do so, I might be convinced. Other than complaining about the top lists, no one has done that.

The focus solely on the top lists ignores the overall scoring phenomenon that everyone acknowledges existing. From what I have seen, this is no different from other site issues that we have all experienced, such a stories getting stuck in pending purgatory, comments taking forever to post, or any number of other glitches that eventually get worked out.

Make it make sense.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Yes, you're right. Of course if I go back to the end of a favourite story, I should see I voted 5* and if I only see 4 coloured, I would be startled. It would be obvious. So it would have to be a more complicated manipulation... And at this point, it becomes a crazy complicated process; if it was Laurel and Manu doing anything, it would be after rejecting more appealing options like committing suicide or burning the site to the ground for the insurance money. For other insiders to be doing something this subtle is just insanely complicated, and very few people have that much time to spend on working out how to do it. Except some trolls in their mother's basement, who can plot it and perfect it.

 

[lovecraft68]

There is nothing on that list that interests me at all.

Quite common for 'lists' which why I find these threads so listless.

But how many times have you posted on it?

 

[MelissaBaby]

It's going to be really interesting to see what happens with the Valentine's Day contest results.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

But how many times have you posted on it?

10 before this one. Same as you.

 

[lovecraft68]

10 before this one. Same as you.

But I'm disagreeing with the OP and the obsession not disparaging people stories (oh, I'm so snotty they have no interest to me) or the lists themselves

 

[lovecraft68]

A lot of newer people in this thread who've never seen this but for those of us who have been here a long time, this is not that new.

Back when Lit had the monthly contest winners, they would run a sweep before the announcement-much like a contest sweep-but it would be site wide because any story that came out that month was eligible and it would affect older and recent works as well.

Like Reject Reality mentioned earlier on, we haven't had one of those in a long time, so it just seems something triggered the site to run one and flatten the curve a bit.

Maybe they got tired of all the score whining and decided to dose some folks with a careful what you wish for sweep.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’m not getting involved in the ego-driven melee. As I say way too often here, finding myself between a bunch of big swinging dicks is way less fun than it used to be back in the day.

But, like the Sith, the malicious votes come in pairs. The signature is that they are close together in time, but not simultaneous, and there are neither any other votes, not any accompanying increase in views in between. Of course this could be the one off result of a stochastic process. But when repeated day after day, month after month, it is a glaring statistical anomaly, to say the very least.

Please feel free to now recommence insulting each other.

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

But, like the Sith, the malicious votes come in pairs. The signature is that they are close together in time, but not simultaneous, and there are neither any other votes, not any accompanying increase in views in between.

Do they look like this?



These are the votes I received on “Statuesque”. Like you, I always get an immediate 1-bomb on publication, because we share that one special follower… who also 'follows' these authors:

Djmac1031 – I posted a new story last week, long, 9 pages. It received a One Bomb within minutes of being published, so I know whoever did it didn’t even read it.

Dmallord – The 'troll' is at it still… views 1 / score 1.

Lifestyle66 – My last few stories… have been 1-bombed within the first hours… Within the first hour and a half for one of my stories, it was at 1.17 with 6 votes! (It's now over 3.)

Jezzaz – I was online for when part 3 was posted, literally at the time it was posted. I noticed that immediately it got a 1 rating

If the vote bombs are indeed paired, and recurring, then I expect all the bombs are from that same follower. (So everyone note the dangers of posting a non-BTB story containing extra-marital sex. Even if it isn't in LW, you may pickup a troll who bombs every new publication of yours. I’ve tried reporting this to both admins. No response. There seems to be an obvious pattern to the immediate bombs but the sweeps don’t pick it up.)

And I assume that sole 3-star vote (#101) is from someone in AH, because it came within hours of me posting a facetious comment about 3-stars being my rarest vote. (They still are.)

 

[EmilyMiller]

Do they look like this?

Even closer together. Like four - six minutes apart. Always in the morning EST. It’s been happening for years. The same two 1️ downvotes close together have robbed me of three comps. They never get swept as I assume the person knows what to do to avoid a sweep (it’s not hard).

But since October last year, they’ve not been content with torpedoing my comp stories, they’ve been hammering all of my last eight stories here. Seven of them have between 10
- 15% of votes being 1️, which is wholly unprecedented for me (outside of LW). The eighth has a mere 8% 1️. All come in these signature pairs with no intervening votes and with no accompanying uptick in views.

[these are all in low vote frequency categories - even some high view categories have low vote frequency, e.g. Anal - and I can count every vote and establish its value with ease]

Each time one of these stories limps to
4.5, it gets the same pattern of down votes the next morning until it is at 4.2 or so. It feels like a script is being run.

I’ve provided extensive documentary evidence to the site, but crickets. It’s why I don’t publish here anymore.

To be clear, it’s the site’s utter disregard for blatant vote manipulation that is the problem, not the obvious fact that a minority of people are assholes.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

The same two 1️ downvotes close together have robbed me of three comps.

You can only say that you were robbed if you know that you would have won without the hit. How do you know that you're the only one who got hit? So how can you know that you were the best?