Among one of the things I have begun to notice upon waking up each morning to continue writing and editing my stories, is the process in which work can be damaged and destroyed by the actions of other people.
This process is probably known by many and that is zero-bombing or troll voting. It is something that I have been reading up on the blogs of other writers and the challenges that other writers, movie makers, and animators face every day. The idea is that the first people to vote are usually the ones that simply vote down, regardless of the amount work that the person put forth into their project. This can cause other people to become discouraged (in certain degrees) in looking at the works because there is such a low score on the project/works itself.
It is my belief that everyone should be praised for their work. This site alone consists of numerous story writers that devote their hard work and time to writing stories. It is something that does not happen overnight. I alone, at the moment that you are reading this, have spent two years writing. I can go back and see the differences of my own writing from day one to two years later. I still make mistakes, but you get better at spotting them. I can look at others that are just getting started in the process and understand the pain and struggle that they are going through in making a story.
Within a moment's notice, a few people can disrupt that entire process. The art is sickening at best. I can acclaim cases where I just upload a story onto a website. The entire book requires at least ten hours of reading and immediately within the first hour, there is a negative downvote. Did the reader perform a miracle and managed to stop time in reading my story to give it a constructive and thought out vote? No. They simply voted down without even reading it. This idea is simply known as zero bombing and it can cause more damage in the long run than the voting system is supposed to do.
I can also provide other examples. Among three of my stories, I have noticed a consistently negative vote aspect on stories where there is a "Rape" tag on it. I have to bring it into question. "Did the people come in and vote down after reading the story or were these people that read the tag and hit the downvote icon without reading the story?" In reality, the stories that I write are not even designed to bring any thrill to the idea of rape. Rape is horrific and it is never my intention to encourage it. I barely even have it in my stories. Even Gabatrix: The Violet Wave, the concept is an officer is assaulted by another. Before the deed is done, he is knocked out, causing the scene to skip almost completely. He manages to fight back the next time he is attacked and it helps drive the character's ambitions and thinking for the story. In Tales of Heroes, especially with Ryujin, I have to deal with historical concepts. Nero supposedly did horrible things to children. While I imply that he did it, I don't write the scene of events. Ryujin is perhaps the only book that truly has a non-consensual scene (separate from Nero) in it, but this is measured differently by everyone. Regardless, I have to place a tag/disclaimer to let the audience know of this.
I don't know if my readers, actually read the disclaimers that I put out for my stories, but I am getting the impression that some are not. They simply vote before reading. It is an attempt at sabotage.
In my library alone, I have been faced with this similar situation as well and while I have received a well amount of constructive feedback (positive feedback that addresses simple errors that need to be fixed and positive/general feedback in general), there are messages that I also receive that bring a lack of validity in the emailer. Be aware that I record these messages. Errors I go and fix, and those that attack me personally will be reported for harassment to the webmaster or other staff of Storiesonline. Be professional, please.
It is in my best interest to go ahead and disable the voting on a couple of my stories that have the concept of the "Rape" tag. Stories like Ryujin which, at the moment that you are reading this, I am currently remastering to fix the errors, I have disabled voting until the remaster is uploaded. Stories like Gabatrix: The Violet Wave will be disabled at least until the story is completely uploaded and the reader can have a better chance to read all of the story, and Ayida Weddo that also has "Implied Rape" will be disabled. Doing this is my only course of action.