Has anyone noticed ratings on the Main story site dropping like a rock? My first story stayed around 93% or 94% for two week and when it hit 350 votes, I went from 25 or so negatives in only two weeks to 41 negatives in a week. A gain of 20 more negatives in a week.

I've read stories on this site long before I registered here to post my own experiences and Seeing stories rate 92% and higher was common on the Top Rated Sex Stories - Last 30 Days page. Now there is only one higher than 90% at 91.6% the rest are 89.6% or lower.

Something just doesn't seem right. Ratings across the board have tanked in the last week.

 

The voting system has been broken for years. I hear they changed it again. Once a troll decides to attack your story, it doesn't matter how good it is. It doesn't stand a chance. That's why so many writers have pulled their works. That and the stupid rules/no rules thing.

 

It's called troll voting. People who can't write (and possibly some who can but are jealous of others' ratings) vote stories down. The owner, in his infinite wisdom, made it impossible for writers to vote on their own stories, so the trolls can bash at will.

That plus the unposted and sometimes altered rules on the story site have driven many writers away.

Post your stuff here. You'll have more luck.

 

In case anyone wonders, we're two separate accounts. Odd we'd say virtually the same thing. Maybe it's true!

 

Well, I'm not a writer so I guess I shouldn't have tried to answer her question. I just know what different writers have told me.

 

If you read on the story site, it must be obvious, writer or not. We all seem to feel this way.

 

Whoever is jealous of other writers & wants their stories to have higher ratings should maybe read the stories that are rated the highest & try to understand what the difference is between their stories & the higher rated ones & make improvements to their own work, try to become a better writer rather than do some cheap bullshit voting scam to make your writing look better on this one sight. How the hell can that help you in the long run? Whoever is involved in this should grow up & work on your skills. Learn from the best, don't cheat to look better than the best.

 

Why does it even matter? Do we really know other people's identity on here anyway?

 

Dark Triad is correct. But also note that there's been a troll around for years who looks for people who do this, and he down votes them just for that reason. Marc something is his moniker. He's a dickhead, but, nothing you can do about it.

 

Part of the ratings issue is because it's binary. It's either "Positive" or "Negative". Because of that the overall average is very easily impacted by a vote. There is also an issue because I can't give you an "8 out of 10". It might be a great story line and well conceived story but the grammar and writing needs help. There are times I see a story that is nothing more than a wall text. It makes it very difficult to read but the story might be good. In a binary system of Good or Bad how should that be rated?

In my opinion there will be trolls for every story. I've seen amazing stories get voted away and stories that are terrible that get great scores.

I'm not sure how you fix things.

 

@MichelleK111

Part of the problem is that neither this forum nor the story site generates any revenue. So, any expectation for additional programming, well, it may not fall on deaf ears, but, I don't believe there's a lot of incentive to invest. Unfortunately.

 

You're correct and in the end I'm not knocking the site. I choose to be here and post stories here. I'm aware of the good and the bad. There are issues that exist as they do with any site but they don't really bother me.

 

The 4:1 ratio works well for trolls, too. Since writers are no longer permitted to vote on their own stories as logged in members, a logged-in troll or group of troll accounts (all socks of the same fuckwit) can torpedo any story they like in a few minutes. One logged-in negative vote completely kills a new story. Even with four logged in positives, it only rises to an 80% rating. In other words, it's buried forever.

@horse is correct. There's no incentive to invest in any software changes to help writers, since writers and readers generate no revenue. Besides, every time the owner does something to "fix" writers' complaints, he makes it worse.

 

Lot of truth in various comments already made. There are trolls who just like being mischievous, there are negative vote accounts no matter their motivations, have always suspected that some writers vote down the competition to keep their stories on front page, etc. Also fair point if there was rating system where you could vote 8 out of 10 or 4 out of 5 might work better than simple positive/negative currently in place. One thing overlooked however and this has relevance to what op said is that when there aren't a lot of new stories added as happened recently (and has happened in past even before stories needed to be approved) is that the top stories may remain the top rated but the ratings slowly decline. If top ten stories averaged 94% rating first week but if they made it up to 20 or 30 days top rated it may fall to 91% or 90%. That may because by that time the majority of people interested in story have already read and voted and to continue at say 95% you need 19 pos out of 20 votes cast to remain rated there. If you get 16 pos and 4 negs then you lose ratings. Also as mentioned not everyone who reads/likes bothers to vote. Only issue I have with only allowing registered votes is there are a lot of readers who aren't members/registered as well as those that are but choose not to log on every time they read.

 

A lot of times I won't vote simply because I'm not a binary person. I'm not all "positive" or "negative". I've read amazing stories but find flaws. I've read terribly written stories that have an amazing storyline. How do you vote on those? Are they a "positive" or a "negative" Seeing that I can't vote somewhere in between I tend to not vote.

 

What has happened to some of my stories is an almost instant logged-in negative vote. That sinks it to zero. I can log out to give myself a single positive in defense, but what's the point? A twenty percent rating means the story is still buried deep where no one will read it unless they specifically search for stories by writer name. I've been bombed by trolls so often it doesn't seem worth it to me to even care anymore. No one sees my stuff, so why bother posting it?

The owner obviously doesn't give a flying fuck, so, to me at least, posting on the story site seems like a waste of time.

 

Let me offer my apologies to everyone. It seems that I am responsible for all of this, as one of my stories is the one that was NOT bombed. At this point I wish it had been. I'd rather see it sink like a stone than be not so subtly accused of being responsible for the ratings scandal. I would assure you that I had nothing to do with it although I doubt that would be accepted at this point. If it's any consolation, that story has dropped in the ratings as well. Perhaps in the future I will just not accept voting on my stories and stay out of this whole ratings .nonsense

 

What I would like is for the negative vote to be completely removed, and for stories to be rated solely for the number of positive votes they have. That way, there is nothing the trolls can do.

 

There are so many better way to rate stories. I think YouTube has the right idea by just using likes and dislikes. They should show number of positive and negative votes only, and remove the sort by ratings. If you want to read a good story, look for it, do not just glance at a list and pick the highest rated. FFS, when I want to diddle my bean, I at least spend a little time looking for a good video.

Also, It seems Red Czar felt like he was a target of this thread, he was never meant to be a target and shouldn't treated that way. He is a fellow writer. I'm sorry it felt tat way Red.

 

Red Czar if you didn't do anything wrong then there is nothing to apologize for. I don't think anyone was accusing anyone specific of anything. In this case I don't think anyone's stories were targeted, it was just circumstances. I know from being here for years that there have been times writers vote down each other's stories, there are negative vote accounts, there are trolls etc but doesn't mean it was what happened here. Voting system is far from perfect and maybe could be made better though it seems every time in past management changed something due to complaints they made things worse not better so I don't have much hope. I will say as long as they have stories listed on 'front page' then people will want their story to be there as it will get more clicks. Maybe change how its formatted or have stories rotate might be fairer but if it really improved things they'd never do. Wouldn't want to make sense after all these years.