Yes, the Toplists are Broken

[FrancesScott]

<noir>Forget about it, Frances. It’s Literotica.</noir>

I’m now visualizing the perpetrator as Roman Polanski in a fedora with a switchblade.

 

[SugarStorm]

Hi - not trying to hijack the thread, but a quick (possibly dumb) question:

It looks like the new cutoff for Lesbian Sex All Time is around 4.84 now (with a few outliers at the very top).

I noticed HobokenSweat has two works in the Top 5, but I’m getting Internal Server Error when trying to open those stories, or even their profile.

Is that a sign the account was removed, or just random Lit shenanigans?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Hi - not trying to hijack the thread,

THIS thread?? Hahaha!

Funniest post so far this year.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I write in LW.
What's a Toplist? Is it a BDSM thing?

https://www.literotica.com/top/

 

[THBGato]

Here's a little experiment:



So, let's see what happens to this story. It's already number 1 on the relevant top list (as you seem to only need 80 votes to get on the Letters & Transcripts all time top list) but it hasn't been down-voted... yet.

I'll be curious to see what (if anything) happens to it when it gets to 100 votes. My experience with other stories is that, as soon as they've hit 100 votes, they've dropped. (e.g On a wing and prayer chpt 2. was at 4.86 after 100 votes; it's now 4.58 after 116.)

If, as some people have suggested, there is a bot at work, this would suggest that 100 votes is the trigger, rather than the story appearing on a top list. Because, if it was just appearing on the top list that was the trigger, this would have been knocked down already.

I volunteer as bait/tribute!

 

[lovecraft68]

Here's a little experiment:

View attachment 2597942

So, let's see what happens to this story. It's already number 1 on the relevant top list (as you seem to only need 80 votes to get on the Letters & Transcripts all time top list) but it hasn't been down-voted... yet.

I'll be curious to see what (if anything) happens to it when it gets to 100 votes. My experience with other stories is that, as soon as they've hit 100 votes, they've dropped. (e.g On a wing and prayer chpt 2. was at 4.86 after 100 votes; it's now 4.58 after 116.)

If, as some people have suggested, there is a bot at work, this would suggest that 100 votes is the trigger, rather than the story appearing on a top list. Because, if it was just appearing on the top list that was the trigger, this would have been knocked down already.

I volunteer as bait/tribute!

Just posting that here will get it a bomb or two.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hi - not trying to hijack the thread, but a quick (possibly dumb) question:

It looks like the new cutoff for Lesbian Sex All Time is around 4.84 now (with a few outliers at the very top).

I noticed HobokenSweat has two works in the Top 5, but I’m getting Internal Server Error when trying to open those stories, or even their profile.

Is that a sign the account was removed, or just random Lit shenanigans?

Both clicking the story and the author name lead to an error. I tried searching their name in the author index and nothing comes up so it appears that account has been removed.

 

[lovecraft68]

I’m now visualizing the perpetrator as Roman Polanski in a fedora with a switchblade.

If that animal were here with a switchblade I have ideas of what could be done with it, and him.

 

[TheLobster]

Here's a little experiment:

View attachment 2597942

So, let's see what happens to this story. It's already number 1 on the relevant top list (as you seem to only need 80 votes to get on the Letters & Transcripts all time top list) but it hasn't been down-voted... yet.

I'll be curious to see what (if anything) happens to it when it gets to 100 votes. My experience with other stories is that, as soon as they've hit 100 votes, they've dropped. (e.g On a wing and prayer chpt 2. was at 4.86 after 100 votes; it's now 4.58 after 116.)

If, as some people have suggested, there is a bot at work, this would suggest that 100 votes is the trigger, rather than the story appearing on a top list. Because, if it was just appearing on the top list that was the trigger, this would have been knocked down already.

I volunteer as bait/tribute!

Even at 99 votes, this story is already some evidence against the bot hypothesis if it does indeed appear on the toplist. There is no systematic way to query for stories that are at or above 100 votes, so it’s not really possible to create a bot targeting them without doing seriously silly things (like sweeping through all stories and specifically cherry-picking those very few at the vote count boundary).

The alternative explanation is that there is botting going on, but not in L&T. Considering it’s a pretty dead category, it wouldn’t be surprising if trolls didn’t bother.

 

[RejectReality]

Both clicking the story and the author name lead to an error. I tried searching their name in the author index and nothing comes up so it appears that account has been removed.

Either that toplist is frozen, or the stories are still in the database for the toplist to poll and sort. I'm voting for frozen at the moment, because I haven't seen it move in a few days. Stories can be in the database and inaccessible to the public. That usually makes them inaccessible to the toplist polling as well, though. Fun fact: Prior to friendly URLs, every attempted click would have actually generated a view in the statistics of a story still in the database but unavailable.

The author's account is absolutely gone from the public side of the site — at least under that name.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Here's a little experiment:

View attachment 2597942

It got 99 votes from just 1100 hits??

 

[THBGato]

Just posting that here will get it a bomb or two.

Yep! LOL!

 

[RejectReality]

Yep! LOL!
View attachment 2597974

Well, one of those 4 votes was a 5 from me. I will note that it's still showing in the toplist as 99 votes, so some imaginary bot attacking 100+ stories in the toplists ( and for some unfathomable reason, not just anything in the toplist regardless of vote total ) wouldn't have even seen it yet.

The probability that more than one of those votes in such a short period of time is natural and not a result of this thread is so negligible it's ridiculous. ( My 5 was absolutely a result of this thread, so 1 of 4 confirmed )

If anybody wants a new conspiracy theory, there's certain people whose entire existence seems dependent on troll bombs coming in twos, so if that happens before the evidence of it even hits the toplist...

LOL

 

[RejectReality]

It got 99 votes from just 1100 hits??

My Letters & Transcripts submission had a similar pattern. You get a subset of your larger readership who read and vote on it because it's you. If they didn't follow you, they probably wouldn't have known it existed. It severely skews normal vote to view ratios in extremely low readership categories.

 

[THBGato]

Thanks for the vote @RejectReality

It's interesting, because with other stories of mine that have been hit hard once they get 100 votes, it's always been with batches of 4 votes...

I'd already posted about this story going to number 1 on the New Milestones thread, and nothing happened to it then. But that 100th vote definitely triggered an almost instant negative response.

 

[TheLobster]

It got 99 votes from just 1100 hits??

It’s a 750-worder.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

My Letters & Transcripts submission had a similar pattern. You get a subset of your larger readership who read and vote on it because it's you. If they didn't follow you, they probably wouldn't have known it existed. It severely skews normal vote to view ratios in extremely low readership categories.

99 from 1100 is like 9%! My L&T has 35 votes from 3100 or a little over 1%. I suppose that I have literally no appreciable following.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It’s a 750-worder.

So is mine.

 

[TheLobster]

So is mine.

 

[RejectReality]

99 from 1100 is like 9%! My L&T has 35 votes from 3100 or a little over 1%. I suppose that I have literally no appreciable following.

I'm not sure I have a track from the early days of mine... It's skewed now because it was highlighted by being a finalist in... the annual awards I think it was? The views shot through the roof when that happened. I'll have to dig and see what tracks I have.

ETA: Lucky. I have a track from 13 days later on the 25th for this pen name only, which is the only track I have from that whole year. LOL I was sitting at 104 votes 2615 views at that moment for my L&T. In '23 it was 240 on 9504 views, and today it's at 318 on 16377.

 

[RejectReality]

Interesting. I have a 4.91 currently sitting at 91 votes. I guess we shall see how it goes.

Just don't post anything about it here until it's already crossed the threshold and things have shaken out for a half a day or so. Somebody is watching this thread and fucking with things to screw up any hope of getting good data. I've got another one close as well... Though close will probably take a half a year or more at the rate I accumulate votes on that story. LOL

 

[k_east]

Just don't post anything about it here until it's already crossed the threshold and things have shaken out for a half a day or so. Somebody is watching this thread and fucking with things to screw up any hope of getting good data. I've got another one close as well... Though close will probably take a half a year or more at the rate I accumulate votes on that story. LOL

Haha heard. I mean don't get me wrong, toplist sounds cool and obviously is a big accomplishment, but I'm a simple hobbyist with no grand ambitions. The fact that people are enjoying my writing is enough for me!

 

[SimonDoom]

Haha heard. I mean don't get me wrong, toplist sounds cool and obviously is a big accomplishment, but I'm a simple hobbyist with no grand ambitions. The fact that people are enjoying my writing is enough for me!

That's a healthy attitude. Doesn't that matter so much more than a number?

 

[lovecraft68]

That's a healthy attitude. Doesn't that matter so much more than a number?

To a lot of people, yes. But this thread proves the obsession of people knowing their score down to every single vote they get, so there's both types here.

Speaking of obsession, if all this is the work of one person who created some type of bombing script than I wish I had that much time on my hands that I could spend it doing something this petty and stupid.

 

[SimonDoom]

To a lot of people, yes. But this thread proves the obsession of people knowing their score down to every single vote they get, so there's both types here.

Speaking of obsession, if all this is the work of one person who created some type of bombing script than I wish I had that much time on my hands that I could spend it doing something this petty and stupid.

Probably some unmarried retired tech billionaire with infinite time, money, tech skills, and untapped malice on his hands. "I've got nothing better to do, let's go fuck with the Literotica authors."

Seriously, whoever is doing this and whatever, precisely, they are doing, it's got to be one of the most pathetic, petty things that one could do. Pond-scum-level lowness. I cannot imagine the satisfaction one could get from doing it.