Note: This is not a rant, nor a complaint. Just an observation.

I was taking a look at my stories on the Sex Stories site, and noticed something. I do not allow anonymous votes because it's way too easy for the trolls to vote stories into oblivion. That means that I can see exactly who voted my stories up and down.

Here are the current totals on stories I posted since the beginning of the year:

Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 1: 15 positive, 2 negative votes.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 2: 11 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 3: 8 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 4: 9 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 5: 9 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 6: 6 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 7: 8 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 8: 8 positive, 1 negative vote.
Tales of a Secret Sex Writer, Chapter 9: 7 positive, 1 negative vote.
The Worst Day Ever?: 7 positive, 1 negative vote.
Shadows on the Street: 6 positive, 1 negative vote.

As it turns out, all of the negative votes except for one are from the same user. (I'm not going to mention the name, because I don't want to encourage any retaliatory action by members and I'm not asking for action to be taken by the mods)

I don't mind negative votes if a reader honestly doesn't like my stories, but that user has 0 forum posts and 0 comments, and joined XNXX last December. In other words, his entire activity on this site has been to vote on stories, and he has voted down every single one of the stories that I've posted since he joined.

Add to that the fact that without his votes, all but one of my stories in that time frame would be rated 100%.

The obvious conclusion is not that he honestly doesn't like my stories, but that he doesn't like me. That doesn't bother me; I know I've gotten in a few arguments here. It just seems a rather petty and passive-aggressive thing to do. I want my stories to be judged on their merit, not on whether people like me or not.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. Maybe the voter really didn't like my stories, although I have no idea why he would keep reading knowing that he's not going to enjoy them.

I was just wondering if any other writers have also noticed similar actions by a particular person.

(On a more amusing note, the other person who voted down Tales of a Secret Sex Writer Chapter 1 has all the chapters in their Favorites list, including Chapter 1. Go figure)

 

That sort of thing is very common on the story site. That's why I don't post there. It's much better here on the story forum where we have a writers' community and a give-and-take with each other. The story site is teaming with mean trolls who lay in wait to bushwack stories for no reason other than THEY CAN. It's a shame but it's a fact. Just ask Toucan Play.

 

I think this will inspire me to write more since so many people seem to like my stuff. My lowest is sitting at 55%. I don't remember ever seeing anything above 85% ever.

We can have a contest like Prurient Purveyor suggested sometime ago and aim for the lowest rated story.

 

Thanks for responding. I know there are plenty of trolls over there; I was mainly asking if other writers have experienced the same thing with a particular user who seemed to register an account just to vote down stories.

 

That particular troll (marcdoodle) votes negative on any story that does not allow anonymous voting. He hasn't targeted you in particular. It's some kind of crusade against anonymous voting.

There was someone else named "vendetta" who used to do the same thing, then stopped. It's probably the same person.

 

Well, it IS possible that he just doesn't like your material. Granted, it's odd that he would keep reading it after the first three or four stories didn't appeal to him, but not outside the realm of possibility.

More likely, though, to my mind at least, is that this person objects to your blocking votes from anonymous users. Last year there was a critic who made a habit of voting down any and every such story, usually without reading them. Lately I've noticed that another site user appears to be doing the same thing now, though that has not been confirmed. The rationale, as it was expressed to me when I contacted this person (by which I mean the now-departed critic, not the present one), was that denying anonymous votes is a way of artificially inflating a story's score and that it is "not fair" to those stories that maintain very high ratings the more difficult way (allowing anonymous votes).

While I admit that when I turn off anonymous votes on a story it is with the full knowledge that this often inflates the score (and therefore the number of reads), I don't personally consider this unfair, since I'm not doing anything that any other author couldn't. Further, opening an account takes all of a minute, so any reader who really wants to vote surely can. If they choose not to, it's none of my concern. I'll grant you that having two different "courses" for stories when they are in direct competition unbalances things a bit, but, frankly, I didn't make up the rules, I'm just working within them.

In any case, if I'm right about this particular crusader he will probably growed bored with his agenda in short order, as the last one did. In the meantime, it's an annoyance, but it's just the price of doing business I guess.

EDIT: I see that 1BDaddy just barely beat me to the punch here.

 

No its not he material, its they have an ego problem, your story was probably higher rated then theirs so they voted u down, it happens to everyone, too many small dicked peabrained heads on sexstory site, they have an issue with any story rated higher then there own.

 

FYI:

It wasn't me. I don't vote on stories. Why? Because I don't read them.

(I don't like to READ my porn. I prefer pictures...preferably the moving kind.)

However, if I notice a story thread that has a twisted sick fuck sort of title I will "scan" the story just to see if it contains twisted sick fuck content.

If it does contain such bile...then I'll post my post of disapproval in the form of a written middle finger....

View attachment

:neutral:​

 

No its not that at all. He doesn't write. he is the same as XNXXVENDETTA with whom we shared a genial thread last year and who went out of his way to screw my stories as well as others.

He actually believes he is on the side of justice and fair play.

But anyway DC aint it grand to know its nothing personal

(Bet he feels misunderstood too)

 

In view of the number of reads achieved by certain stories on the Low-rated stories list I have tried posting some material and voting it down myself. However, when I did this some trolls gave me positive votes so the stories were lost in the limbo that is the 50-80% range. You just can't win with those guys.

 

My stories have been hit by that asshole too. I believe that if site admin gave access to the forum mods to the IP logs on the Stories site that when we learned the identity of this person, we wouldn't be too shocked. I suspect it is a forum writer because of the high percentage of our stories that get hit. That's the only proof (not even really proof, of course) I offer, certainly not worthy of a McCarthy-esque investigation. Just the normal shit one has to deal with in a site such as this.

Edit: Of course, I'll get the random negative vote too, with one guy saying "Huh? Oh, I didn't know I voted negative." This from a forum (GD) regular, and I'm thinking, yeah, you're full of shit. Thanks for the FOUR NEGATIVE VOTES dickhead. <shrug>

 

Maybe, we can't be sure either way,its just that when I was abusing XNXXVENDETTA and invited him to show me how it was done he straight away said he wasn't a writer and my suspicion is this person is doing the same thing.

Was your story restricted to members only voting?

 

Okay, so it sounds like this guy isn't just downvoting my stories, he's doing it to other authors as well.

In one sense, that's unfortunate. If it's just some guy who doesn't like me, well, I'm not too worried about that. It bothered me a couple of years ago when I went from the third highest rated author on the stories site to being knocked off the first page by the systematic downvoting (exactly 2 negative votes per day for weeks) of my stories, which led to a rant and ultimately some changes to the website. But I did what any author should do in that situation, and kept writing. And now I'm comfortably in the middle of the first page of highest rated authors, with enough positive votes that I'm pretty much immune to the same type of attack.

But I know that a lot of authors aren't as thick-skinned as I am, especially newer ones who haven't established themselves and therefore aren't as confident. I'd actually prefer it if the troll limited himself to my stories rather than attacking other authors.

And JoeDirty, you would definitely be at the top of my list of people who have a motive to attack my stories; I know we've ended up on opposite sides of plenty of debates. But you say you didn't do it, and I have no reason to doubt you.

 

I've run into the same problem with my stories. I've had many chapters that have been in high 90s for weeks then all of a sudden I get about five or six negative votes in the same day takjing them down the list.

In the last few weeks everytime one of my chapters hits over 97% I will almost instantly be hit with 2 or 3 negitives right away. I don't turn off the anonomus voting so I don't know who it is specifically but I find it dispicible that people have to boost their own stories only by taking shots at others.

I don't tend to be harsh enough with people to vote them down when I actually don't like the story, so I would never do it to simply boost myself up. I think anyones stories should stand out on their own for the writing and not the ego.

 

Perhaps the negative vote from this one person was made accidentally?

 

Well, I tried posting one story without allowing anonymous comments and he hit it within minutes. I've never posted any stories in this forum. I have no idea how he even finds unvoteable stories to shit on. It's pretty remarkable dedication he's showing.

 

Only option is to remove negative votes and just have voted, do away with %, and tally up votes. The leader board would be the amount of votes not %

 

It must be a bot then. If you get negative votes so soon after posting a story, even without posting anon votes/comments, the only thing I can think it could be is a bot or the person voting them down has no life and sits looking for new posts.

 

Vendetta actually said he was voting it down because of not allowing anonymous votes kind of petty I think, don't vote for the story because you did or didn't like it just because of one thing that any person can do.

 

That's probably what happened. Either that or there's some kind of Jekyll/Hyde thing going on and Mr. Hyde voted it down but Dr. Jekyll really really likes it.

Or, considering the taboo themes of the story, maybe it was Mr. Hyde who likes it.:excited:

I agree. The only criteria for voting on stories should be whether the reader liked it or not. Besides, if I had my way there wouldn't be a choice; all voting on all stories would be from members only (and I would even go so far as to limit it to only members who have posted 10 comments on the forums). It makes more sense that way; if you just want to read the stories, that's fine, but only members of the community should be allowed to influence the site.