1⭐ Rating Bombing

[LittleElfBoy]

Here's a math lesson for you. If 500 people vote something 5 stars, and you go in and vote 1 star, that tease is going to be reduced by 0.1 rating. If 35 people vote 5 stars, your 1 star rating will lower the tease by 0.2 rating. It's not about how many good ratings a tease has, it's about how devastating a 1 star rating is. The system doesn't average the numbers after the first decimal point. So a tease that is 4.8888 is still showing up as a 4.8 on the site.

If these numbers are true, there doesn't need to be a concentrated effort to downvote at all. Most of your teases have less than a 100 ratings so just 1 or 2 guys downvoting your teases is enough to drop your rating noticeably. And that indicates to me a systematic issue with the way the star rating system on this site works rather than this being a community problem. Rather than imploring all users never to vote 1 star (and you cannot completely rule out bad faith actors anyways) the system needs to be changed so that a handful of users cannot tank the rating of a tease this significantly.

[fenway]

If these numbers are true, there doesn't need to be a concentrated effort to downvote at all. Most of your teases have less than a 100 ratings so just 1 or 2 guys downvoting your teases is enough to drop your rating noticeably. And that indicates to me a systematic issue with the way the star rating system on this site works rather than this being a community problem. Rather than imploring all users never to vote 1 star (and you cannot completely rule out bad faith actors anyways) the system needs to be changed so that a handful of users cannot tank the rating of a tease this significantly.

A) There is no way to see how many ratings anything has been given. So theoretically, any tease could have as low as one vote, or as many as there were views for it. I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers. Disregard this.

B) Bringing up how much influence a one star rating can have is not meant to just relate to my work, but everyone's. It looks at averages and how they can be influenced immensely by numbers on either extreme of the rating spectrum. Not that that's a problem, it was to show that people who think it doesn't matter voting haphazardly that it potentially has a real impact. Also, if you have thousands of ratings, a one star rating will still have a profound effect. Fiddle around with an averages calculator to see what I mean.

C) Never once was there any imploring of users never voting 1 star.

D) What occurred on January 14th was a clear example of what the OP is talking about, confirming authors works were being deliberately and maliciously sabotaged. It was not an attempt to centralize this issue on me. Although I've been the most vocal on the subject, it's because I believe in defending the authors here who've inspired me over nine years to begin writing my own teases, and continue to write better material than I could ever hope to come up with.

E) I have no problem with the rating system, just with people who are using it inappropriately. I think it is a community problem. Milovana is a good site.

[Trusfrated]

A) There is no way to see how many ratings anything has been given. So theoretically, any tease could have as low as one vote, or as many as there were views for it. I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers.

When you hover your mouse pointer over the stars of a tease's rating, it shows you how many times it has been rated.

For instance, at this moment, Your Girlfriends' Friend has a rating of 4.6 "based on 147 votes."

Milovana Trivia:

Spoiler: show

You can also see your rating to TWO decimal places (and number of votes) via the RSS feed link found on the home page. Note that it only shows the 10 newest teases.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MilovanaWebteases

I believe a tease will show "New!" until it receives a certain number of votes. Right now there is a tease recently released that says "New!" but on the RSS feed it says its rating is 4.0 based on 1 vote.

Also, it does not appear that tease ratings are rounded up. A tease with a rating of 4.76 will still show as 4.7 (and not 4.8) on the main tease listing.

Please rate teases fairly and thoughtfully. Just be good to each other, people.

[fenway]

Moderators still haven't done anything about this. I just watched three of my teases all get simultaneously rated one star by either three users completing them all at the same time, or more likely one user who opened all of them for the purpose of rating one star.

[fenway]

.

[fenway]

Here's an idea. Make ratings public.

Each tease shows who gave what rating to it.

Combine that with showing how a user rates things on their public profile, we can then see who is rate bombing and ban them from the platform.

Wow, what a simple yet unbelievably amazing solution.

[indyc]

Here's an idea. Make ratings public.

Each tease shows who gave what rating to it.

Combine that with showing how a user rates things on their public profile, we can then see who is rate bombing and ban them from the platform.

Wow, what a simple yet unbelievably amazing solution.

Unfortunately while I think a change to the actual system would be fantastic, it is really unlikely. That being said, your suggestion unfortunately wouldn't fix very much. Are you suggesting that the owner of the tease gets to see who voted what or that you need to click on a profile to see what they voted on and how? Either way sounds like it requires active moderation.

Most of the issues with voting historically have come from alternate accounts. If you ban an account they will have several others to fall back to or create new ones. There is also a newly discovered exploit that (without saying how to execute it) would not be blocked by your suggestion at all.

[fenway]

What I'm proposing is an option where you can click on a teases ratings to see a breakdown of who voted what on it, like Amazon reviews.

Then, if a name seems to pop up all of the time, be able to check out that persons profile and see their rating history to see if they're bombing because they hate a specific author, or style of teases etc.

Follow that up with profile bans and deletion, where the reviews are removed and no longer affect the standings of the teases they were trying to ruin.

Finally, make the process of joining the website more vetted than it even has gotten these days (used to be free set up with an email address on the spot when I joined and I don't think it's like that anymore?). This is to prevent people from making alt accounts to continue the practice. Resolves the bombing issue, and takes away the safety anonymity has provided trolls.

[grelgen]

so you want vengeance for other people not liking your work?

[fenway]

so you want vengeance for other people not liking your work?

Ding ding ding, we have a genius over here. If only there were a way to give you a million dollars, because you absolutely deserve it more than anyone else I know. Oh wait, don't like the sarcasm? Feel it's unwarranted and rude? Why would you come back to this thread with another stupid comment and have me call you a completely mentally stunted idiot again? Stop deliberately misunderstanding comments or bother to read them through, whichever you need to do to actually understand what's being discussed. Multiple times it's been stated that ratings are generally fine. Imagine if you will someone getting onto their computer and seeing something published by an author they don't like. They load up that authors work and sit through the entire thing without playing it, reading it, or anything with the sole goal to rate it 1 star at the end. Then they repeat the process for every author they don't like for whatever reason, or maybe do it for all of a particular authors works. That's the problem being discussed. People setting out to destroy anyone's reputation or credibility. Either you're an idiot who deliberately tries not to understand or you lack the basic fundamental cognition to figure anything out. Or maybe you're commenting against this because you're one of the people who is being talked about as being a problem in the community. Again, feel like this is rude or unwarranted? Kind of like setting out to deliberately undermine someone's work is, hey? But I'm guessing you'll once again choose to fail at recognizing the parallels. And yes, people who do what is being discussed should be punished for that kind of behavior. But I'll let you get back to it, I think your kindergarten teacher will miss you for role call otherwise.

[edger477]

so you want vengeance for other people not liking your work?

Ding ding ding, we have a genius over here. If only there were a way to give you a million dollars, because you absolutely deserve it more than anyone else I know. Oh wait, don't like the sarcasm? Feel it's unwarranted and rude? Why would you come back to this thread with another stupid comment and have me call you a completely mentally stunted idiot again? Stop deliberately misunderstanding comments or bother to read them through, whichever you need to do to actually understand what's being discussed. Multiple times it's been stated that ratings are generally fine. Imagine if you will someone getting onto their computer and seeing something published by an author they don't like. They load up that authors work and sit through the entire thing without playing it, reading it, or anything with the sole goal to rate it 1 star at the end. Then they repeat the process for every author they don't like for whatever reason, or maybe do it for all of a particular authors works. That's the problem being discussed. People setting out to destroy anyone's reputation or credibility. Either you're an idiot who deliberately tries not to understand or you lack the basic fundamental cognition to figure anything out. Or maybe you're commenting against this because you're one of the people who is being talked about as being a problem in the community. Again, feel like this is rude or unwarranted? Kind of like setting out to deliberately undermine someone's work is, hey? But I'm guessing you'll once again choose to fail at recognizing the parallels. And yes, people who do what is being discussed should be punished for that kind of behavior. But I'll let you get back to it, I think your kindergarten teacher will miss you for role call otherwise.

What did I just have to click in unread messages.... If you want this community to be abrasive and toxic... you are doing tremendous work to improve it in that direction...

[fenway]

What did I just have to click in unread messages.... If you want this community to be abrasive and toxic... you are doing tremendous work to improve it in that direction...

I've read some of your forum posts. You're of the opinion that you shouldn't have to play a tease to actually rate it. Also, you lose interest in things for no reason and I highly suspect you rating bomb. Naturally I will never hold anything you say in high regard ever. Sure, I'm probably going a little too hardcore on some people. I'm sick of y'all and your absolutely consistent bullshit. Maybe course correct the causal behavior and the consequent behavior won't follow.

[fenway]

What did I just have to click in unread messages.... If you want this community to be abrasive and toxic... you are doing tremendous work to improve it in that direction...

LOL!!! Dude, your forum posts man. You absolutely have no ground to comment about anyone making the community more abrasive or toxic. You've been called out for being a judgmental prick on other forums lmao. Sit down, sparky.

[edger477]

What did I just have to click in unread messages.... If you want this community to be abrasive and toxic... you are doing tremendous work to improve it in that direction...

I've read some of your forum posts. You're of the opinion that you shouldn't have to play a tease to actually rate it. Also, you lose interest in things for no reason and I highly suspect you rating bomb. Naturally I will never hold anything you say in high regard ever. Sure, I'm probably going a little too hardcore on some people. I'm sick of y'all and your absolutely consistent bullshit. Maybe course correct the causal behavior and the consequent behavior won't follow.

Well that shows how toxic you are.... I never gave any tease below 4 rating... and I never voted for any of your teases because I just saw bunch of them that look the same and lost interest and did not want to open them. I don't remember ever expressing opinion that voting should be possible without playing the tease, but I will not go review all my posts to call you a liar because I don't want to contribute to toxicity which of is already too much here.

It is my right to choose what teases I want to play, and to ignore what does not look interesting or too long. It is your right to judge people you don't know without arguments, but it is fine, I can hide all of your posts. The community will look much less toxic like that.

[fenway]

Well that shows how toxic you are.... I never gave any tease below 4 rating... and I never voted for any of your teases because I just saw bunch of them that look the same and lost interest and did not want to open them. I don't remember ever expressing opinion that voting should be possible without playing the tease, but I will not go review all my posts to call you a liar because I don't want to contribute to toxicity which of is already too much here.

It is my right to choose what teases I want to play, and to ignore what does not look interesting or too long. It is your right to judge people you don't know without arguments, but it is fine, I can hide all of your posts. The community will look much less toxic like that.

Honestly, Kerkerslave and a few others already responded to your avoidant and passive-aggressive style of commentary far better than I ever could.

I didn't say anything about you having to play anything, or rate anything in any way. I did call you the type of person who would downvote/ignore Mozart because he was prolific without any consideration for his actual content. Can you just join grelgen and playsafe9 on team #NobodyWantsYourCommentary? Thanks.

I'm fiercely defensive of authors works here, and I will never go easy on people who opt to dismiss or throw out publications that authors have spent hours on without any rationale besides the non-substantive critique of "I hate that author, -10 stars" or the classic "I clicked on a tease that listed kinks I knew I wasn't interested in", like "there wasn't any Estim in it -one-billion stars" etc.