This seems like a lot of fuss over Internet points.

Personally, I get off on writing my stories and reading others. I've never jerked off to an approval rating.

 

I'm not making a fuss over the score. My score is my score, I have no control over how people take it. If it was being manipulated, even in my favor before whatever has happened has happened, then I'm glad it's been dealt with, even if that brings the score down. Bashful's comments, on the other hand, are not making a lot of sense. He's speaking with authority on how the site is tracking and recording votes and giving orders like he's a mod or admin while the things he said don't track with what seems to be going on. Is he making it up? Is he pretending to know things he doesn't know? Is he communicating with site mods and does, in fact, have this knowledge and the authority to give orders? I dunno. Maybe he can't speak honestly about what he might know about how the story site is moderated and managed and so has to use vague or confusing language. Again, I don't know. Is it his job to do such things or is he taking it upon himself and feels he's entitled to give those orders? I dunno. I do take issue with his tone, though.

 

"What do you mean by this?"
I was upset that you and NCFan jumped to throw suspicion on a writer that didn't do anything wrong and imply Toasty manipulated the system without a shred of proof. You openly accused them, saying, "I'm guessing Toasty has found someway to manipulate the vote via a bot." If you're asking what I mean by 'benefiting,' I mean it in the sense that if everyone gets negatively affected on a ratings-based site but someone gets affected the least, that person benefits in the sense of gaining exposure. If mass downvoting didn't exist it's possible you'd still be on the charts nonetheless - I wouldn't be surprised, your writing is good - but the fact is, while we're in this situation, you're getting through the least scathed, which provides you with an advantage, which I have used interchangeably with 'benefit.'

"What benefit have I received that you haven't received?"
My most recent submission, Mutual Benefits (link provided for proof, not plug), which is long and would take over an hour to read, got three downvotes within its first 20 minutes of being live. It took a long time to reach even the level it's at. As well, interestingly, when I uploaded it, my highest-rated story sat at 96% and Teacher's Threat, another story of mine, came in at 94%. Both fell by over a percent. Uploading a new story caused all of my stories to take a hit in ratings. This is me guessing, but looking at the ratings on your previous stories, I'm going to guess that you were spared of this. I've come to accept that the voting system is a little wonky. It is what it is, give people a voting system and they will troll it, but I'm answering in full because you asked about what advantages you have over other writers, and asked specifically about me. And by the way, I'm a bit of a niche writer, I write long stories that are story-first and have sex in them, as opposed to stories about the sex. You are under no obligation to read my work, it's not for a lot of people here.

"If it's your position that I'm shit and you're awesome, okay."
My position is that you accused someone of manipulating the vote with a bot for no reason and it made you look like a jerk. And if you hadn't noticed, a lot of people here agreed with what I said; they were thinking it too. All I did was ask you to cut that out. If you seriously want to pretend that me telling you not to accuse people of things they didn't do is an ego thing and akin to "You're shit and I'm awesome," people are going to judge you for that because that's silly. This hissyfit isn't doing you any favors, except for with NCFan, who is also acting immature. You have a habit of assuming, see also your assumption about me having a connection to the site admins. You happened to assume Toasty had nefarious intentions without knowing the full story, and that's okay, we all make mistakes. Just move on and learn to not immediately accuse people in the future instead of doubling down. If you say, "Yeah, I did jump to conclusions and accusing Toasty of using a bot when I didn't have all the info was wrong of me," people would appreciate that, and they would see you're able to take criticism like you say you are. You would be able to demonstrate taking criticism well instead of saying you take criticism well. You're an author. Show, don't tell.

 

To be honest, it might be time to remove the voting system entirely. Or perhaps just downvotes. Make the voting system like tweets with only upvotes mattering. I don't know; it's hard to predict if that would be better or worse for the site.

 

Last part first: I have not seen any evidence that proves that Toasty didn't game the system in some way, but I also haven't seen any evidence that he did. Given that I'm just a lowly forum user, it's unlikely I would see anything, either way. A story nearly a decade old suddenly showing up like it did, while at the same time every other story losing multiple points overnight was--and still is--very suspicious. When I don't have a series in the works I'm not on the site regularly, so maybe this sort of thing happens a lot, I don't know. But if updates caused this all the time, you'd think we'd be used to it by now and it wouldn't cause a fuss. All that being said, since I have no direct evidence one way or another, I'm fine with accepting your explanation that nothing untoward happened on Toasty's end with his stories reappearing like that. Just a quirk of the site's programming. If you notice, I haven't belabored the point about Toasty since your explanation on Friday. I accepted it as, at the very least, plausible. If you need a specific apology or retraction, I'm happy to give it.

I withdraw my accusation against Toasty that he had anything to do with the weird swing in votes and apologize if my words caused him any offense.

I hope that puts that particular issue to bed.

I'm not sure what good exposure does for me since I'm posting anonymously and have no intention of profiting off of this. I use the site for writing practice since I am working on a haremlit novel, but none of that will ever be linked to my work here. If I get good rankings its not like Xnxx is going to be giving me a share of the profits because lots of people read my stories. If anything, I expect the story site makes them zilch since there are no ads. It's there because there is enough crossover to the video side where they do have ads to justify the expense of keeping it up. Same for the forum. People come for the forum/stories, and stay for the videos where the site gets some click revenue. Exposure would seem to benefit you much more than me since you have a site where people can pay you for your work. And if that works for you, that's awesome.

None of what you've described is an advantage for me or any other writer. If the site is being dogpiled with downvotes it will effect all the writers. Just because my back catalog hasn't been hit doesn't mean it won't effect future stories. (Oddly enough, Since I started this comment, Grooming pt.2 is down another .05%.) Grooming parts 1 & 2 have almost more negative votes than all five parts of Teacher combined. It's possible that my writing has taken a nose dive with this story just as it's possible that NCFan's story dropped 20+ points compared to the earlier chapters because he was blind drunk when he wrote them and hit publish, but is it likely? I still say there is fuckery afoot.

While I don't rely on this site for any sort of income or hopes of future income, the votes tell me how well my work is received and if I should continue. If my stories level off in the 70% range, like what happened with NCFan, and all those votes are from readers who legitimately didn't like it that suggests to me that maybe this isn't the best use of my time and I should move on. If they're there because of vote manipulation then that means I need to find another site to post on. I imagine many other others will feel the same way. Right now I have no idea what the case is so none of this is to my advantage.

Additionally, your words did not hurt me. I said I take issue with your tone, not your words. You didn't ask me to cut it out, you told me to. Don't take this the wrong way, but who the fuck are you? You speak of the site as if you were a mod or had access to privileged information, but you say you are not a mod. You give orders as if you make the rules. If you are in a position of authority than I am under obligation to do as you say or risk having posting privileges revoked. If you're not, you should stop speaking as if you had special information or if you are in a position to give orders to other forum members. If anything, you putting yourself into a position of authority on this issue may only be clouding it further. That's why I said earlier just what do you know and how do you know it. But if you're just guessing or speculating as to the who, what, where, when, why, and how, then you're in no better position than I was when I said I assumed Toasty was behind it.

I have nothing against you, either as a writer or a person. I understand and can even sympathize with your position. You use this site as a source of potential income so it effects you on a more personal level than it does me. But that does not give you the right to start speaking and acting like a mod or admin. I'm fine with moving on from this issue from this point forward until such time as an admin or mod makes an announcement regarding the issue.

 

I appreciate the retraction. It's all I wanted. The voting system causes headaches and I can understand the anger. I read the rest of your points but I figure we should put this to bed and let the forum go back to normal. I do like the power of the question, "Who the fuck are you?" It felt robust, it made me smile. I'm just some guy, I just speak with passion. You're correct, you're under no obligation to listen to me. I have no hard power, I've just witnessed a lot of fuckery on this site and don't mince words. No worries at all if that's not to your taste.

 

Tsk, tsk, tsk. All this fuss over down votes on a free sex story site.
Another thought could be these latest stories are not that interesting. Hence, the down votes.

Who knows. Just a thought. Carry-on.

throatHer out

 

For what it's worth I asked the mods to look into the Toasty thing and they removed the story, or the recent appearance of it, or something. They can see things we can't.

If I've somehow impugned the good name of Toasty, I apologize.

I continue to support Cham-Ee-Seul's outlook on all of this.

I continue to dispute throatHer's implication that all the recent stories suck. While the latter part of Just a Small Town Girl might not have been 95% worthy (and maybe parts 1-3 weren't either, I also sure they are nor 74% either.

 

Interesting. I imagine the removal was because of the use of characters under the age of 15. I appreciate the apology.

 

For what it's worth I asked the Sword of Omens to give me Sight Beyond Sight. It revealed the latest sex stories needed much work on story building and character development. I didn't notice any mods or bots.

I reported my findings to the Admin Team and revealed my source. They concurred with the assessment and Toasty was exonerated. Carry-on.

throatHer out.

 

Last comment: I think there is more going on than just the stories aren't that good. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. My latest story got three negative votes in the first hour. Ouch. Then 17 or 18 positive votes with only one negative vote. As more positive votes came in the score started to approach 90%. Then four straight negative votes. The pattern repeats.

Of course, some people will not like what I've written, and that is fine. It is just odd that the negative votes come in groups of three of four all at once. It appears that someone, perhaps with multiple accounts, perhaps several people, work together to knock down scores, Or maybe there is a critics circle that gets together and doesn't like anything.

I never give a rating to anyone's story unless I love it and can give it a positive. I am discouraged to think that another author or author's may be downgrading others' stories to promote their own. Not an accusation, just that I would be sad to think that is what is happening.

 

I'm somewhat in the same category as Professor Peterson (receive negative votes early on and your story is wished to the corn field) but I am dealing with it. What irks me is that people don't tell you what it was they didn't like or why they gave it a negative rating. If they would say something it would help. Even short explanations would be helpful. Also, what is up with thousands of reads and only a few votes. My last story had something like 7000 reads but only 50 votes. I understand that not voting when you dislike a story could benefit an writer and of course there is going to be a percentage of readers who will start a story and not like it for some reason but still, you would think more people would vote one way or another.

 

New writer here....Is the 6 post requirement only for starting new threads or can you reply and it count towards the magic number?

Thanks.

 

The reads but lack of votes may have to do with whether you need an account to actually vote on stories or not. I've been visiting this site for years as a reader and have never voted because I never created an account.....I will also admit, I never tried to vote because I assumed it wouldn't let me.

 

Congrats on the royalty check!

 

I generally try to follow the metric of actual feedback as opposed to metrics.

I’ve had stories over the years tank in overall rating but generate a lot of tangible feedback. Having a highly rated story with no comments just means nothing to me. Without anyway to enjoy the positive feedback and learn from the negative, it’s just empty to me.
But obviously that’s just my two cents.

 

Well Damn!!! The voting system has me absolutely brutal, the latest stories have been all over the place and the author profile still doesn't show their latest offerings.

Everything comes to an end and it looks like this site has met its end.

It was fun while it lasted. Thanks for the memories! Carry-on

throatHer out!

 

I could also leave, but I get comfortable in places and don't want to start over.

What I've decided I think I'll do is post new stories in this forum and not on sexstories. I might actually get some comments here. Sure not as many will read them, but with the voting fiasco that is sexstories, they'll get buried an fewer will read them anyway.

I've got some shorter, more action than story types that I've written the past few weeks just as an outlet. I may finish them and get them here. Then a little bit longer one that is still more sex than story. I just haven't had an idea for a longer form story.

If sexstories ever gets fixed I could always copy them over there. I've also been thinking about going through some of my earlier stories and cleaning them up. More for me that anything. The typos, etc make me cringe. Maybe trim Naked Day down in some way. I kind of liked some of the chapters that weren't as popular, so we'll see. If anything it would be a good editing exercise. Anyone want to help, hahah.

 

Last year when I put up my first story I got an invite to post on a site called PieBoxxx. It was a new site that was just coming online. I posted the first few chapters up and then forgot about it. Think it's time to go back over and check it out.

 

I see that when you submit a story, you can set it up so that anonymous votes aren't allowed. Has it always been like that or is that new? Wouldn't that solve the problem that people are complaining about? I see that throather does that for his stories.

I still don't understand the voting. I can click on the 156 votes that throather's latest story has, but I only see 9 votes. Where are all the others? My story has 96 votes but when I click on them I can only see 1!