1⭐ Rating Bombing

[pjh776]

Holy shit, again with the whining?!

[fenway]

Holy shit, again with the whining?!

Yeah, it's gotten a little out of hand. I let my frustration with the situation get the best of me. In my defense though, I'm getting in a tizzy over a legitimate issue that I believe is worth keeping attention on. And, just like anyone who brings up an issue could be perceived or labelled as whining, I'll whine in a more effective manner I suppose. However, that statement is a little ironic a coming from you man. :P

[grelgen]

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

Stop deliberately misunderstanding comments or bother to read them through, whichever you need to do to actually understand what's being discussed.

no, i read you post. I saw that what you want is a list of people who give your teases a low rating. so you can move to have them all banned. so you can flood their inbox with DMs. im not misunderstanding, only recognizing patterns of behavior.

[fenway]

no, i read you post. I saw that what you want is a list of people who give your teases a low rating. so you can move to have them all banned. so you can flood their inbox with DMs. im not misunderstanding, only recognizing patterns of behavior.

Nope, you obviously didn't read them or you'd know this isn't really about my teases, or people giving things a legitimate low rating. You'd know it's about people doxing. You haven't read the thread. And what do you propose would be a good solution to this problem that three authors on this thread alone aside from myself have also commented is a serious issue?

[fenway]

Also, what are you talking about? DMs??

[grelgen]

no, i read you post. I saw that what you want is a list of people who give your teases a low rating. so you can move to have them all banned. so you can flood their inbox with DMs. im not misunderstanding, only recognizing patterns of behavior.

Nope, you obviously didn't read them or you'd know this isn't really about my teases, or people giving things a legitimate low rating. You'd know it's about people doxing. You haven't read the thread. And what do you propose would be a good solution to this problem that three authors on this thread alone aside from myself have also commented is a serious issue?

doxing is the act of releasing the private details of your enemies to the general internet with the intention of inflicting harm on them. how the hell is people giving low ratings considered doxing?

I doubt you want it fixed, otherwise you wouldn't still be posting 6 teases that could be 1 tease with chapters. Aside from my previous three suggestions, here's 3 more:
1. remove the ratings system, make the site editor pick the TOTM
2. you can ignore them and just post to your hearts content
3. make <2 star ratings require a feedback form. you get to see the feedback

also, I highly doubt anyone is doing what you suggest where they sit through the entirety of a tease with the sole purpose of downvoting it. It's more likely that the ratings are getting queued and they all hit at the same time. I've never even looked at one of your teases, I saw your first batch hit and knew it was going to be boring and derivative because they're all from the same author posted within a day of each other, which makes it very likely to have just been a bunch of copypasta.

also, also, a DM is when you:
1. click on a name
2. click on Send Private Message
3. fill out the form and click Submit

You can also click on "Add foe". I have no idea was that link does, but it sounds like a good time

[fenway]

doxing is the act of releasing the private details of your enemies to the general internet with the intention of inflicting harm on them. how the hell is people giving low ratings considered doxing?

Hey a fair point. I didn't realize I had been using that wrong as I had confused it with general reputation destruction as opposed to something more niche and specific. Thanks!

I doubt you want it fixed, otherwise you wouldn't still be posting 6 teases that could be 1 tease with chapters.

People can publish short teases or longer teases however they prefer. I've done both and releasing one tease with chapters is not nearly as effective. I'm sorry you don't like that but that's not an indicator of whether or not I personally want solutions to problems.

Aside from my previous three suggestions, here's 3 more:
1. remove the ratings system, make the site editor pick the TOTM
2. you can ignore them and just post to your hearts content

These along with making a subscription system, creating a proper tagging tool, or encouraging chaptering within teases don't address the problem of people rate bombing. Like ignoring them isn't a good suggestion. Rate bombing demotivates people from creating which is bad for the community. Just ignoring the problem wasn't a good solution when rate bombing made people quit in the past, it won't be a solution if people quit because of it sometime in the present, and it still won't be a solution when people quit because of it in the future.

3. make <2 star ratings require a feedback form. you get to see the feedback

This is the one proposal you've made that is actually a potential solution. Problem, I suspect many people select teases based off the rating exclusively. And what if people write jibberish as the feedback? What if certain accounts are found to only give <2 star ratings to every tease on the site? What do you do with those accounts? I'm legitimately asking because I don't see how this is very different from what I suggested, and since you aren't an author, I won't accuse you of wanting to punish people who rated your teases poorly.

also, I highly doubt anyone is doing what you suggest where they sit through the entirety of a tease with the sole purpose of downvoting it. It's more likely that the ratings are getting queued and they all hit at the same time.

There was already a person on this thread that basically said that this was exactly what they were doing.

I've never even looked at one of your teases, I saw your first batch hit and knew it was going to be boring and derivative because they're all from the same author posted within a day of each other, which makes it very likely to have just been a bunch of copypasta.

I don't care if you've looked at any of my work or not? What made you think I cared at all about this? But since you mentioned it, a 4.5 star average for the entire 16 part series means they either aren't boring and derivative, or that the hundreds of people who have voted enjoy boring and derivative. Take your pick. Which one is it? Having said that, continue playing or avoiding whichever things you choose to, I assure you I could not care less what you do with your time.

also, also, a DM is when you:
1. click on a name
2. click on Send Private Message
3. fill out the form and click Submit

I know what a DM is, although I understand why you'd might have thought that's what I was asking about considering the doxing mix up. No, I'm wondering what this is about me apparently wanting to flood peoples inboxes with DMs? That was a joke right?

[grelgen]

But since you mentioned it, a 4.5 star average for the entire 16 part series means they either aren't boring and derivative, or that the hundreds of people who have voted enjoy boring and derivative.

or, a culture of always praising work, regardless of it's quality, has been engendered.

I know what a DM is, although I understand why you'd might have thought that's what I was asking about considering the doxing mix up. No, I'm wondering what this is about me apparently wanting to flood peoples inboxes with DMs? That was a joke right?

let's say you find person X is constantly viewing your work ironically just to rate it lowly. you could DM that person to ask them "why you do?". regardless of their reply, there would be nothing to stop you from DM them a second time "why do you hate me?", then it turns into "i feel like im being attacked" which ultimately turns into a banning. anonymous ratings are ultimately healthier for any collective. while you have people that consistently rate lowly, you have people that consistently rate highly.

Again, I don't rate anything. You don't want my honest opinion, and i really don't want to give it to you, mostly for the reasons above.

[Domi-nation]

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.

These along with making a subscription system, creating a proper tagging tool, or encouraging chaptering within teases don't address the problem of people rate bombing. Like ignoring them isn't a good suggestion. Rate bombing demotivates people from creating which is bad for the community. Just ignoring the problem wasn't a good solution when rate bombing made people quit in the past, it won't be a solution if people quit because of it sometime in the present, and it still won't be a solution when people quit because of it in the future.

As long as there is a rating system in place there will be ways to game the system.

As you mentioned, low ratings have a high impact on highly rated tease.

Here the issue is the 1 star rating bombing. We could easily add a math function that would automatically ignore ratings that deviate more than 95% from the mean value (which is commonly done in stats).

But then, someone with enough determination could easily have 5 accounts and rate a tease 4 star to lower the rating. Which would effectively have the same impact as a 1 star rating on a tease with a rating higher than 4. Then, who would we be to say which 4 rating is invalid and which user is in fact a fake account and should be banned?

That's why when your conclusion is that improving the tagging tool doesn't address the problem of people rate bombing. Mine would be that preventing rating bombing is only a quick and not maintainable fix to the underlying issue.

I think the real solution would be to improve the rating system and the search functionality in a way that people would be less prone to give low ratings.

The rating system currently has 2 uses:

• For users: to find quickly a tease that they will enjoy

• For authors: to know which of their tease performed best (that information can be later used to try to understand why and improve subsequent teases)

However I think we could all get more from the rating system and at the same time lower the amount of rating bombing by improving the tags and at the same time allowing users to rate on tags instead of the tease as a whole.

The idea would be to have more specific interest tags than currently available (maybe a poll could be done community wide).

For example we could add the following tags: hentai, story, serie, rpg, edging, pot, ...
Also currently we have interests and toys in the interest category but I think those should be separated.

When a user rates a tease he would be rating the tease on the interest tags given by the author.
Users would also be allowed to rate only the tags they are interested in, it wouldn't be mandatory to rate all of them.
If they wish to, users would be allowed to comment on their rating.

That way:

• Search would be improved: Users could rank teases by interest

• Authors could understand more clearly what they did well, what they missed

This is only a suggestion and it is not perfect by any mean but maybe in addition with other suggestions it might help better solve the issue.

But I think the main issue is we have no one to implement or maintain the suggested solutions, so I don't expect this issue to be solved. Maybe, if we would have been so lucky fapnip could have become an admin before lost interest in the community.

[Skip Towne]

or, a culture of always praising work, regardless of it's quality, has been engendered.

Just wanted to say that Fenway's series genuinely is one of the best things to come out of this site. Even if it's not your thing, it's objectively very well-written and has a good story and characters. I've been on this site for over a decade and the Girlfriend series is the closest to old-school classic Milovana that I've seen in a long, long time. Only reason I'm saying this is to show you that no, people aren't just rating high blindly, the series high ratings are very well-earned, and probably given by people like me who remember the glory days of this website.

[fenway]

As long as there is a rating system in place there will be ways to game the system.

But then, someone with enough determination could easily have 5 accounts and rate a tease 4 star to lower the rating. Which would effectively have the same impact as a 1 star rating on a tease with a rating higher than 4. Then, who would we be to say which 4 rating is invalid and which user is in fact a fake account and should be banned?

Well of course there will always be ways to game the system. I think the harder it is to game the system, the more determined a person will have to be to actually do it which eliminates a lot of people from doing it in the first place. I just don't see someone going into something ten times to have the same impact on it as going through once with a rate bomb as likely to happen at all.

That's why when your conclusion is that improving the tagging tool doesn't address the problem of people rate bombing. Mine would be that preventing rating bombing is only a quick and not maintainable fix to the underlying issue.

I'm only of that opinion because I don't think adding more descriptive tags would have done anything. I firmly disagree that it's inaccurate tags that are behind this. I just don't see people who set out to lower a teases rating as being stopped because the tags are totally accurate. I also don't see my solution as temporary or unmaintainable, just one that requires work.

there would be nothing to stop you from DM them a second time "why do you hate me?", then it turns into "i feel like im being attacked"

And how many DMs have I sent you? No, I believe in evidence and transparency. "Feeling" like you're being attacked isn't just cause.

or, a culture of always praising work, regardless of it's quality, has been engendered.

Yeah... except we don't have that. Even if we did, you're suggesting a culture of always crapping on peoples work regardless of it's quality would be preferable? Yeah okay bud, I'm going to stop engaging with you. I should've realized you were just trying to provoke me and that you'd be a waste of my time much earlier.

[indyc]

or, a culture of always praising work, regardless of it's quality, has been engendered.

Yeah... except we don't have that. Even if we did, you're suggesting a culture of always crapping on peoples work regardless of it's quality would be preferable? Yeah okay bud, I'm going to stop engaging with you. I should've realized you were just trying to provoke me and that you'd be a waste of my time much earlier.

Well... This is going to be a very controversial opinion but I think Milovana kind of has the culture greglen speaks of. Any tease of decent quality seems to get 90%+ 5 star ratings and a few 1 star ratings with virtually nothing in between. I don't think any tease, including my own, to deserve an actual critically reviewed 4.8/4.7 overall.

However, it gets really complicated when you factor in the fact that no one is really making money on these, even those who have a patreon make almost nothing. This grading system of 1's and 5's ends up compressing all the scores which makes the slightest variation make something fly up and down in the ratings. It also makes it harder to notice when something actually groundbreaking has been released.

When someone like me comes around that wants to give an "average" tease a 3 star rating it makes me not want to rate average teases because it would bring their score down.

I'm not suggesting any fixes because I don't know how to alter how the community has driven this aspect. However, I do think requiring writing for 1's and 5's would help.

[figroll]

I've been looking for "Female Boss Inflicts Piss Drinking During E-Stim Marathon" tease but cannot find anything rated over 4.6. As I would never play a tease with such a miserable rating my search continues

To be serious, I only use the ratings to remove the terrible ones (<3.5 say) because that's the only useful thing I can see in a simple average of such a small sample. There is many orders of magnitude more information in the descriptions, title and the first few pages than these scores provide.

Also given the very small number of votes each tease gets, changes between, say, 4.6 and 4.8 are going to be inevitable and it's just not a helpful way to rate things with such a tiny number of votes. Personally I would change it to a "Would you recommend this tease?" question as "35 People recommend this tease", in combination with information about the nature of the content is just much more useful.

Or just change the formula -- e.g. "% of people rating it 4 or 5" which would (probably) require very little code changes and keep existing votes. See here for more : https://measuringu.com/interpret-responses/

[anonymister]

Users should only be allowed to rate a tease once. That might help.

[LittleElfBoy]

fenway just fyi I just rated all your teases 1* because you're being abrasive and toxic. I don't really care if you get the mods on me for this, the changes you suggest here are ridiculous and its not like anything rides on these ratings. No one on this site except for maybe you and 3 other people cares if the tease they click on has 4.1 or 4.9 stars

How's that for accountability?