Question if I may. How can a story lose votes? I had a story published that garnered 60 votes. I just noticed it is down to 57. Granted, in the scheme of things, 3 votes doesn't matter. But really curious on the "how." I haven't seen anything that allows a voter to rescind their vote. Perhaps a person who casts a vote has their vote removed from the story total if they?delete their Lush account? Just kind of bugging me although I know it shouldn't.
Thanks for your answer Verbal. I was kind of thinking along the same lines but wasn't sure. Wonder if the same thing happens if they simply deactivate their account. Would even of noticed it except that it is one of more recent stories so I had grown accustomed to see the number on my profile.
I'm assuming you are talking about your competition entry?
When competitions finish, I go through every story and remove all "down votes" on each story from other entrants (anything other than a "5").
One contestant (who shall remain nameless) voted every one of the other stories in the latest competition, a "3" or a "4", hoping to pull down their average scores. Little did they realise I can see all the votes and will forever have a black mark against their name!
In your case, 3 of your fellow writers with comp entries voted your story down. Those were removed.
It's a pity I have to waste half a day doing so when competitions close off, but it's a necessary task when there's foul play at hand.
Call it old fashioned professionalism that I won't allow it to happen here.
Nicola and Seeker. Thanks for the answers. It got my curiosity and now I know. Thank you! And to Nicola, a special thank you so much for doing all you do to make the competitions as fair as possible. Not to mention everything you and everyone does to make and keep Lush the vibrant site that it is.
I too found it odd that practically all of my other stories have a great preponderance of 5s, yet my competition story which seem to get rave reviews in the comments, must have had a slew of 4s and even a 3. It's demoralizing to read that readers have really enjoyed your story based on comments, yet you receive a plethora of 4s in a competition when you rarely score 4s for your normal stories.
I do have one person that has a vendetta against me and usually rates my story a 3. If I remove her 3 from my votes, all of my stories would be 4.9 or better, except my comp story which was a 4.61, I believe.
I rarely give out any 5's but some of the stories I've recently read on this latest competition where 3's or 4's, I did give out a few 5's but if it's well written then I'll definitely tell you.
I don't give rave reviews, I'm simplistic w/ my comments.
And no low-balling scores from me seeing as I don't dislike lush users.
If it's written well or not, you'll get an honest score from me.
I have a rather different attitude to scoring I guess. I really don't feel like making the effort to figure out what makes the difference between a 3 and a 4 or a 4 and a 5. If I like a story, it gets a 5 and a comment. If I don't, I move on to the next story. I am here to read for pleasure and trying to judge stories on a scale isn't pleasure for me. In fact, it smacks of work. If that means I am doing Lush wrong, then plan b is to stop voting and only give comments. Which is what I, personally, look for as a writer. I know I need those minimum ten votes in a comp but once I have those, I barely look at votes.
I think if you are going to take the time to vote, then you need to leave at least a quick comment as to why you voted the way you did.....lots of people give out 5s like they were wooden nickels, but also lots of people blow smoke by telling you what a great story it was and then give you a 3 for whatever reason....if you give me a 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, I would like to know why....any artist worth their salt relies on honest feedback in order to improve upon their craft.....as someone that has not even reached the 10 story plateau, its a bit disheartening to read glowing comment after glowing comment but then to also see a bunch of 3s and 4s for votes....just does not ring consistent and you never really find out why someone did not enjoy the story, for whatever reason......i just want consistency....when all of my other stories are 4.9 or better, then a 4.6 comp story seems a bit strange to me.....if it were my site, i would get rid of the number scoring anyway as there are too many 5s just given out to be polite....i want to read comments about my writing so that I can do a better job
I didn't intend for this thread to renew the debate on scoring in and of itself. My question was how does a story lose votes, once they're posted and Nicola answered my question.
As to scoring, you'll never have a perfect solution. Some people believe the standard should be everyone starts with an A (or a 5 in this case) and gets B or a C (4 or 3) is they don't get all the answers (or style points, or whatever criteria you use to rate the story) right. Others believe the standard should begin with C as the normal, average, or just doing what is expected and progress to B and then A if you do more than what is expected. I've even know people who believe everyone should start with F and "earn" their way to higher and higher grades (scores).
The reality is that as much as society wants everyone to be equal, people are individuals and not egalitarian. Equal opportunity is NOT the same as being equal. While we like competition when we are on top, we despise it when we're not. My brother works for a company that automatically lets go 10 percent of the workforce every year based on their evaluations. They want competition among employees and want to give employment opportunities to new people who might not otherwise be able to work with them. Some embrace it, others leave disgruntled. In his case, it isn't "do this to meet our expectations and keep your job." It is if everyone is genuinely at the 5 level (using Lush methodology) then level 5 is the new floor, it is not the ceiling.
What Nicola did and does is make the playing field even. It is patently unfair of fellow competitors to sabotage the efforts of other competitors by voting down their stories. A single 1 dramatically affects the overall score. I also applaud Sprite and other moderators who recuse themselves from voting while the competition is open. Even if they just commented, their name(s) alone would skew the numbers of readers, which I suspect is another metric used in competitions.
What started out as a question about how do you lose votes turns into yet another discussion about a voting system that will never be repaired and is nothing more than self-esteem for the author that the story he wrote achieved perfect 5's.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Herbert Spencer
Locking this as it's done its dash and the truth is out there.
