So currently posting Japanese Internet Sex Confessions and it's really interesting - the voting is crazy. At one point it was 8.4+ and I've seen to drop to 6.9x - seems to mostly hover around the low-mid 7s but such variance. L
Just wondering others experience with anthology type posts or stories that have a wide ranging plot, because all I can think of is that people are voting after a certain tale and because it may not be their preference then they downvote? I dunno.
After being here for just over a year, my .02c is to ignore the score entirely. That way leads to madness. As you note, there are a number of reasons why readers may vote, many of which have nothing to do with how well the story was written. Instead, focus on any constructive criticism you may receive.
Ignore the score, focus on the numbers. Most people don't put a lot of thought in to their scoring. It's not "Well, I like the story and the characters, but there's a lot of spelling mistakes and the sex is boring, so I'll score it a 7". You're dealing with "That was fun, I'll give in 9."
However, the number of people scoring arguably matters. It shows engagement. Taking time to leave a score, or better a review, is rare. If you find that the number of new scores is dropping rapidly over time that may indicate that you're losing readers. This sort of thing is easier to track with longer series, but still worth thinking about.
Oh, I just looked at the story in quest. It has a total of 87 votes for that 6.98. That's a small enough number that scores can vary rapidly with just a few new readers. For example, if you had 13 new readers today who all voted 10, the story would jump to 7.37; but if all 13 voted 1, it would drop to 6.20. That's a huge spread for only a dozen readers.
I've had a story rated 8.7 after 2 days. It dropped all the way to 5.6, then climbed back to 7.4 in only 48 hours. Until there are well over 100 votes, scores can be erratic and mostly meaningless.
Probably more important than score is the number of people who read chapter 5 and beyond. Very few will read chapter 5 if the first 4 were bad.
Only circumspectfully related, if a story has one vote and its score is 4.17, can anyone tell me what that vote was?
AJ
Possibly the vote was a four. Given that the score is now aggregated with all the other scores, I would think a high number is lowered and a low number raised.
Among other factors in the score calculation, the system removes the top and bottom 5%(1/20), but of course the system can only remove whole votes.
Because of this, how a given vote affects the over all score can get a bit complicated if the new vote brings the vote count to the next even multiple of 20.
Only circumspectfully related, if a story has one vote and its score is 4.17, can anyone tell me what that vote was?
Because the top and bottom 5%(1/20) votes are removed in calculating the score, in the story lists it will not display a score if it has less than 20 votes.
The author's story stats page might be an exception to this.
in the story lists it will not display a score if it has less than 20 votes.
Nope. Not correct. You just have to look at the recent posted story list and see stories with displayed scores and only 16 votes.
You just have to look at the recent posted story list and see stories with displayed scores and only 16 votes.
Then that's a recent change. It used to display --- for the score if there were fewer than 20 votes.
ETA:
I just went and checked the New Stories list and the home page. Anything that lists a vote count and a score has more than 20 votes. Everything else is showing * for both votes and score.
Anything that lists a vote count and a score has more than 20 votes. Everything else is showing * for both votes and score
Wrong again;
"How I became a piss slut" 19 votes.
"Lollibots" 19 votes.
"Counsellor Wendy2" 19 votes.
"Everyone has a price" 18 votes.
"CAthy Huggins" 19.
"So sue me" 19.
"Naughty Naked" 17.
"Never meet" 19.
"it all works" 17.
"Rubber Duckie" 16.
"Phan" 16.
And a few others, but I'm sure you get the point.
In the sister site scifi, it appears that limit is even lower at 8
I'm tempted to say 'no' on that as well, but I can't say for definite either way. You/we would need to ask Laz for the actual definitive answer. But I have no recollection on it being recent, and it depends on what you class as 'recent' as well.
But I have no recollection on it being recent, and it depends on what you class as 'recent' as well.
Within the last couple of years.
It's been discussed on the forum before.
For example, this thread: https://storiesonline.net/d/s6/t3807/bug-in-category-search
Or this thread: https://storiesonline.net/d/s2/t7778/blank-rating
Note: Lazeez commented on that first thread but did not correct the threshold except to say that the minimum threshold of votes to show a score is different on the sister sites.
the minimum threshold of votes to show a score is different on the sister sites.
Probably due to the less volume on the other sites.
It's been discussed on the forum before.
And I see you stated the incorrect figure of 20 there as well.
And I also see that you have stated that disingenuous information in the second thread as well. Probably best if you stop doing that, since it would appear that it's incorrect, or if it was correct once, then its no longer currently the case.
or if it was correct once, then its no longer currently the case.
Did you miss the part where Lazeez replied on one of the threads without challenging the stated figure.
Yes, I won't quote it any more going forward, but unless you can come up with positive evidence that it was wrong then...
Is it possible to delete votes and, if so, could the 20 be a trigger? So if a story reached 20, then someone deleted their vote, could the system display a score despite there only being 19 active votes?
Is it possible to delete votes
You can change a vote, but I don't think you can delete it.
Did you miss the part where Lazeez replied on one of the threads without challenging the stated figure.
Yes, I won't quote it any more going forward, but unless you can come up with positive evidence that it was wrong then...
For the love of god.... I just gave you over 10 items of evidence to prove that you were wrong... And pointed out that anyone could see that just from the recent stories list.
Lazeez replied on one of the threads without challenging the stated
You are correct, Laz neither confirmed nor denied a figure (because he absolutely hates the subject and has stated on many occasions that he would prefer to do away with scores entirely). Just because he has not stated a figure, does not automatically make you right.
I'm coming to the conclusion that you are trolling now, so I am dropping out of the conversation. Believe what you want to believe.
Edit: added a 'he'.
I'm coming to the conclusion that you are trolling now,
DS is NOT a troll..!!
Whilst he and I often disagree on stuff he does sincerely try to provide accurate advice. I too would have said that votes are not displayed until twenty votes have been cast. So yes, you are correct that the minimum has changed, but recently enough that neither DS or I noticed.
It is unfair to defame someone for offering an honest opinion. Not that DS needs me of all people to defend him.
:)
DS is NOT a troll..!!
Utter poppycock!
DS lives under a bridge, has poor personal hygiene, wields a huge club and charges travellers a toll for passage ;-)
AJ
and charges travellers a toll for passage
Everyone needs to make a living somehow. :)
if a story has one vote and its score is 4.17, can anyone tell me what that vote was
I'll take a stab - just my opinions though.
I'm guessing that you've seen a score with only one vote because it's your story, and normally there needs to be more votes for a score to be seen (from comments here in the past, I thought it was 20 votes, but just today I've seen votes counts down to 16, and an old saved set of 'new stories' pages from Aug 2020 that I have shows a story with a score at only 17 votes) ETA - spot checks in my incomplete archive of updates shows the same right back to 2011; the earliest I've found is The Subway Horror by winkastheywill, story ID 68934 at number 28 in my updates info archive saved Aug 11th, 2011 at 10:13PM, with a score 5.34 after 17 votes. This archive has a column for TPA - blank (rather, '-' meaning 'none'; blank was 'not enough votes') for the given story, non-blank for others; the TPA column disappears in Mar 2013.
The user-visible score is calculated by excluding the extreme few scores (5% each end I recall Lazeez stating here, or possibly the old forums), averaging, then deskewing to set the average score for the relevant voting period to 6 whilst leaving 1 and 10 in place. It's quite reasonable to assume that the same function is used wherever a score is displayed, so this 4.17 is the result of the deskew function being applied to a single vote, with an integer value. Since, AFAIR (from comments made here) the raw average score (prior to deskew) is in the mid-8's, the action of the deskew function will be to lower all displayed score (apart from 1 and 10), so the assigned score will be above 4.17; assuming a 2-part piecewise linear fit on the deskew (not guaranteed but the simplest to understand and code, so likeliest to be used) we can calculate an inverse of the deskew to work out the site-average vote for the relevant voting period for each possible given score (5 up). A cast vote of 5 calculates to a site average of 7.19, 6 to 8.14, and 7 to 10.08; so, the cast vote will have been a 6.
'recent'
pennies, copper colored worth one hundredth of a dollar, a coin issued since 2020 are re cents.