WOW! a thousand hits ...

yeah, i think Mykle's pretty good - he's got a very polished style. i think i would disagree with his final assertion in Pride of P.. though.(more of a blacksmith than a wordsmith). i would say it's the other way round - style very good, content (despite Voltaire allusions) a little less so. delicate trifles that melt in the mouth though. good work, Mykle! keep cooking the books!

well i suppose if you are going to massage the figures you may as well do it big p.i.s.s taking style ... it's worked in a sense by drawing attention to the work ... am sure everyone has scurried off to read the pride of plastic lions ... i did ... but like andrew i dont agree with it ... the content over style argument is a false dilemma ... surely the things that work best on the site ... and they DO rise to the surface in spite of manipulations ... are the things that have both ... i want both ... if i read something that has dreadful horrible style (to my taste) i will completely miss the content ... if i read a marvellous style and it says absolutely nothing to me with its content then i will move on feeling empty ... right that's all from me ... am off to chase a zebra ...

i think the rating and times-read aspects really work best for the author's concept of who might be reading his/her work. as a reader it makes no difference to me how someone else's piece has been rated as to whether i enjoy it or not. except that we will always find pieces that (by our own standards) attract unjustifiable praise or not enough. liana & fish made a stand last week for an ignored marvel from dr goats and between them they managed to bump the times-read up to an unimaginable 3. i know, i know, it IS hard to imagine but that's how it is. girl power, you know? if they worked hard enough they could probably get old goats stripped of some of his old cherries. i always like to remember that marvellous line from The Matrix : "THERE IS NO CHERRY" or something like that. *notes has gone off at a tangent* *hides zebra behind sofa and hopes fish doesn't spot it*

He does some nice alliteration... *ducks*

I wonder if he's got an agent yet, or just handles himself?

Come on, Mykle, let's here your side of the story.

It's ok - it's all sorted now :) I've just checked out the last ten and Mykle has one in there. I say it's all sorted because Mykle has obviously, and finally, seen sense: His piece has been there 4 whole hours but has only been read 58 times. Further, it has only 20 5star ratings! Nice to see that honesty is still alive and well...

You're right, Primate. His piece "Love Song" has been online now for a full four hours, yet has only been read 37 times. Mind you, 47 people out of those 37 have rated it.

Wouldn't it be terrible if this was some accidental computer blip affecting this author and not any malpractice at all ? In fact, it probably is and will stop now that the site is aware of it and can fix the problem by installing "FACE-SAVE 2002". That being the case, when it stops, we can all treat the author as someone who was merely unfortunate and forget the whole thing.

I have read mykle's stuff and I like it.. style and content.. don't agree with all of his sentiments though.. but thats not necessarily why I read things.. Are we not in danger of prejudging mykle here.. after all could be anyone on this site (not necessarily the author) who bumps up the statistics.. as for motives, who knows? The cynicism of this exercise just dont tally with the openness of the pieces, In my opinion.. so Mykle lets hear from you..

As always, Andrew, you're 100% correct. I'm just wondering how we can all arrange to be affected by an "accidental" computer blip. I wish I was unfortunate enough to have a piece of mine read over 1000 times in 24 hours. Or even have a new piece of mine read 37 times in the first four hours. That would really be unfortunate. Or even worse, receiving 20 5-stars in four hours. Poor unfortunate bloke. We've all been misjudging him. Shame on us all.

...yet they still suck their own thumbs.

Of course Karl, if that blip happened to me, I would email abc, delete the piece and resubmit it. That's what I'd expect any of us to do. 1leg - I actually like Mykle's pieces and enjoyed reading some of them (if the Plastic Lions piece hadn't been so obviously falsely rated, it would have got a cherry) , what I don't like is queue-jumping. The inflated stats don't mean the work isn't worth reading - he's probably had a lot of genuine hits as a result of this thread. As you say, it could have been someone else doing it (as happened when someone's relative came onto every thread recommending a writer's work, no matter what the conversation was about) - if that's the case, then the option above applies.

Hi everybody! Bob was a dear friend of mine at one time as you might figure out when 'Wishes' is posted. I told a lot of my friends that I was posting a kind of tribute to him on ABCtales and I think that some of them over reacted to the fact that it was suddenly dropped from 5 stars to 1. I felt upset myself -hence 'Pride Of Plastic Lions'. I shall remove 'Bobs Song' but I still feel that those lines - 'Help me Lord I know you can. Help me Lord I'm just a man' are exceptionally powerful. Sorry to have caused all the fuss. Lets hope that removing 'Bob's Song' will stop as the problems with the database. Goodluck with you writing one and all! Best regards Michael.

Hi all! I just thought that I would confirm it - Bob's Song has gone. LL & P .... Michael

Thank you for that Mykle. I wondered whether Bob's Song had got a lot of hits because people had come to the site to read the tribute, but missed the point at which people downgraded the rating from 5s to 1s, which probably triggered your friends coming to your defence. (Probably more so than was necessary, but it does show that you've got good friends) The people who post multiple 1s to lower the rating of a piece that they think is over-rated are also not behaving in a way you'd expect. I'm sorry that this situation has led to you removing the tribute to your friend. Maybe you should post it up now that the context is plainer and everyone understands how it leapt up the charts so quickly.

Thanks Andrew. I think it is probably best to let sleeping dogs lie. I have posted the first part of a Sci-Fi fantasy (Wishes) about the finding of a magic amulet which was once part of an ancient Crown. It contains a fair caricature of Bob and is perhaps a more fitting tribute to his memory - if anyone can be bothered to plough through it. I have asked my friends to leave the site alone to try and avoid any more database problems. I have not mentioned 'Wishes' to them but I expect they will trickle back (after all it's a great site) and hopefullly read 'Wishes' and recognise Bob! As I had children in mind when I wrote the original story I think perhaps it might be a bit tame for ABCtales and I doubt that I shall post any more of it. Sorry for all the problems Bob's Song caused and, in the light of what you and others have said, I agree that Pride Of Plastic Lions was perhaps an over response. Best wishes to all, Mykle.

I apologise for doubting you Mykle. Best wishes.

Keep up the writing, we in Holland like your work.

Sorry chaps, I noticed that someone is still messing with my ratings. I checked about 8.30am and they were OK but by 10.30 they had been inflated yet again. I'm sure that it's just high spirits and will not last much longer. At least it's not as bad as it was! It would help if it was only possible to vote once per posting, except perhaps for re-edits. Sorry again. Best wishes to all, Michael

Piemeltje is not me, I assue you - wrong gender. Agree with the sentiment though... Oh, almost forgot! Piemeltje = small dick.

Andrea: Piemeltje was just an easy name to go fore, it's got nothing to do with you; lol Mykle keep up your writing. I supose it's my turn now so see yeah all in my next work. Doei.

Well I did it so have fun reading it (or tring to; lol) http://www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewuser.cgi?u=piemeltje Hans.

Well I've read piemeltje's poem but I've no idea what it says. Perhaps you would be kind enough to translate for us Andrea. I notice it has a 'U' so it should not be too rude. Mykle

No no, I know it had nothing to do with me! That's what I was saying! Thought it best to post a disclaimer though, in case anyone thought I was...um...masquerading, so to speak. Being as how there ain't too many Clogs on the site, you understand. Not that I'm a Clog either, really... Oh dear, must stop rambling...

It appears you were quite wrong when you said that there were not many Clogs on the site Andrea. There seems to be a lot of people from Holland using the site. I envy them their polyglotism.. er (or whatever). See, I can't even manage English properly and they can speak several languages fluently. I wonder if that's what helps to make them tolerant? By the way the shed sounds smashing. I love spiders - are they the big crunchy ones that taste like....

Got spiders to suit every taste in my shed...

I wondered what had happened to Shelob's progeny :-)

Pardon?

What! No Tolkien fans to enlighten Andrea?

Perhaps I'm wrong - but I thought Shelob was the giant spider that 'killed' Frodo in Lord Of The Rings (Return Of The King). I can't check 'cos I've lent out my 15th copy - never to be seen again as usual. What was the spider called then?

I had that question myself. Do you think the Back and Forward arrows on the browser ? It is of course possible that the author has brought a huge readership with him and I don't like to be cynical. Karl, what do you reckon ?

that's nothing. some of my pieces have even been read twice. when i can be bothered going back a second time that is.

well...if you re edit, and then re enter the piece, the amount of times read stays at whatever it was before, even though you do lose a cherry..... ( I think) What is remarkable is that its had so many hits and only been rated four or five times?

I think the piece in question has launched into the top-ten without having been around for very long. I don't want to have a go, and I've given my views on Karl's thread. There's no publisher standing with chequebook in hand going, "I'm gonna snap up the top ten most-read authors". Anyone who does spend an hour or so of their life hitting their own work though might be better to actually read some of the other pieces on the site.

Sad, isn't it?

Interestingly, the new piece by the same author "Pride of Plastic Lions" which criticises those people at abctales who have judged him harshly, has had 18 reads and been rated as 5 stars by 27 people. Who here cannot envy that fine approval rating ? Everyone who read it loved it and half of those who did loved it so much they felt compelled to vote twice.

I've been submitting on the Getoutthere site for ages but it's died on it's @!#$ leteley due to a huge debate about vote rigging and people voting for themselves to get into the charts (you can only do it once so it's no big deal I suppose but there are prizes for top of the charts occasionally and the first few pages get read the most). Surely this site can be altered so that reading your own pieces doesn't count? if only to save some poor sad writer several hours (if not days) of his poor sad life voting for his own pieces. This is probably more useful on the star rating system as it's the only way of seeing how well a piece has been received. I had no idea you could rate your own piece (not that I ever will you understand) but it doesn't make much sense to me.

Liana - it has now been rated over a hundred times - despite only having added 20 hits. I have changed my position, having reflected. It is not an action which causes no consequence to anyone else. A new writer to the site might look at their piece with 8 hits and 1 4 star and look at a piece posted on the same day with hundreds of hits and 5-stars and lose heart - thinking that their piece must be rubbish. I'm not having a go exclusively at this writer - plenty of other people have done it, albeit with more subtlety and patience; but have a think. It fools nobody who has been here for any time, makes the writer no friends, and it just might make someone new who is a bit insecure about their writing feel even more so. This is somewhere that you can place your writing and let it stand or fall on its merits. If it does well, you can feel proud, if it doesn't, then you have learned something and can use that knowledge to improve.

is this abuse of the site connected to the site's crashing every few minutes?

Probably not, robert. For my part, I never even notice these things. I guess I don't spend enough time looking at statistics. Still, Andrew makes a good point. Obvious manipulation of the statistics makes the site look bad, not just the author. The author is causing the problem, but sooner or later, the site needs to take a stand. I'll go along with anything, including never reading this guy/gal's stuff. No point in adding to the "click inflation."

Why not scrap the 'Times Read' section? This is a site for writers who want to improve their work, not a competition to see who can hit the button more often than others. It has been a major point of contention for a long time. What good does it do anyone? It is clearly a complete farce.

I actually think this writer's stuff is not bad. Not as good as the statistics might lead you to think, but not bad. I wouldn't want people to be discouraged from reading it (and Plastic Lions is very entertaining, even if I utterly disagree with it). I wonder really how much use the top ten read facility is, other than encouraging people to do this (okay, it adds reads to those people who are there genuinely, but to be honest, those are the 4 or 5 pieces that don't actually need those extra hits) You get a cheeky message Ely if you try to rate your own work, but it isn't hard to get around it, if you're sad enough to take time patting yourself on the back. It is worth trying to give the ratings some authenticity though - having 40 odd people all give your piece 5 stars is a bit of a giveaway.