And Now I Feel Guilty

One of the problems with comments being posted under a piece, which came out in the chat I had with Mississippi and Karl last week was that if someone chooses to be make some hateful, ill thought out comment, it is then there for anyone else to see apart from the author. And it stays there permanently. Of course I think we are all capable of making rational comments, but personally I think using a email might be easier, unless the author has said they don't mind having comments posted publicly. I had an idea, Sirat, that the star rating system could be circumvented in the manner you describe. I suspect that is what has happened in my case, perhaps in the belief, I would become disheartened and pull the stories. Still the star rating system depite its faults is what we have here and that's fine by me.

You can have a system where the author is able to remove unwanted coments. That's exactly what they have on Storymania.com, my favourite site after this one.

how I agree with your comments sirat - that's partly why I removed the star system and have ask for any cherries to be removed - I have nothing against the cherries - but they do represent such a varied point of view and it gets me really confused at times but I think they do such a good job for highlighting a piece whether you felt it to good or not as a reader or writer - we all like differing things don't we ? We should how ever be made aware from the onset that it represents someone’s else’s taste and what they feel to be a good read - yes it could be a good read or it might be well well written but ..... logic really sorry editors you do such a good job but maybe you should be more visible - yes I know of - - and Liana has mentioned that she is number what ever editor which implies that there are more than the two mentioned here - so who represents what gender or style? - you are aware that this invisibility makes it seem so false a system - even though some have made themselves known on the threads in their own defence surely for all those who don't use the threads your genuineness should be more openly displayed - front page nothing grand just your names what gender and then a link to either your own work if you post on abc or to the above page where we could find out about you and see where your coming from - that way you dispel the closed shop model - this is why I think your having to defend yourself all the time and why there is so much misunderstanding ! christ you work hard enough as it is I'm sure you deserve better treatment than been kept under wraps or having to defend yourself like this - praise or not should be visible in all circumstances don't you think ! When your new to the site your unaware of all of this and so you continue to post in hope - if you want a writer to know whether their good or not then surely it's the comment system with the option to remove at least your getting some kind of feedback having none can be just as bad for a writer as it gives the impression that your work is pointless - besides that way you do get instant feed back from people who read your work from a varied stand point not the other way around - it also gives you something to work from - only trouble then is what happens if no one makes comments on your work - so it still needs the editors and a kind of star rating to back it up ! This is a great site and should be praised for all the hard work it does on people behalf but nothing is ever perfect and without feed back such as this then the momentum will only slide backwards instead of forwards - keep up the good work all - now going for another read - am still puzzled !

I think the very fact that we've got so bogged down in talk about cherries and stars shows that we're not really happy with the system we've got. I've tried to read the stories and poems that have been recommended in these threads, either the Top 10 thread or the Most Under-rated thread, and I've been very impressed with what I've found. A thoughtful recommendation from somebody we know is probably the best guide to what's worth reading. In a way we already have the "comment" system, but it's here in these threads and only the people who know about it ever get to see it. And as iceman said it is here "permanently", or at least until the threads become old and die a natural death. I think there is a case for a comment box to accompany stories and poems, with a "delete" option for the author. As with the present star system there could be an option to switch it off entirely or maybe an option to have star ratings as well or instead. It would probably cost a bit to set up so unless there are a lot of people asking for it it's unlikely to happen.

I assumed routinely that my posted diary yesterday would be "1"d as a matter of course by the trolls, but they haven't done this yet. In fact even if they did it means nothing, zilch, they can try rating it 1,000 times and I won't care. :)

its a strange assumption ice that your work is being downrated by trolls ... could it not be just the ordinary reader?

Whoever it is wouldn't it be nice if they had some sort of identity and had to take the trouble to put their complaints into words. Then we could decide whether or not to take them seriously. Sorry, knee-jerk reaction. I'll shut up now.

what I do not understand in this oft repeated discussion that leads nowhere is this demand for web site uniformity. I'm sure if we all popped over to thoughtcafe, storymania, btgetoutthere and so on and suggest they change their systems a similar resistance would be met by the designers/owners of the sites. Although I agree the abc system is flawed - I used to bang on about fraudulant reads/ratings, badly picked cherries etc 12 months or more ago, before giving up and accepting the site for what it is - it is a unique site. I, too have had a spate of one starrers in my time. But you can turn the ratings off. If I was desperate for comments on my work other than the emails I receive here, I would enrol at one of the other sites that has the facility you all describe and possibly leave this one. I am not saying anyone is wrong in this thread but I do not understand the need to change this site when there are others out there that already serve your needs. Iceman, fish might well be right. There are many people here who, I think, vote very honestly. There was a teacher whose name eludes me at the moment - he posted under various 'troll' names - he had high literary standards and called a spade a spade and a crummy piece of writing a one star. A tad harsh maybe and he only admitted it once (why should he admit it at all?) Personally, I have not voted on any of your diaries, the good or the bad, I don't want you stop writing them.

Fish, each one I mentioned before had received the same mark roughly the same number of times. The chances of seven readers all reading the same set and all rating it "1" seems remote, although I accept it is possible. The problem here is that now I won't know if someone genuinely thinks my work is crap or they just wanted to down rate it. Personally I am not sure how you can have a good or bad diary entry, as surely is it not just a series of words about what happened to me yesterday and maybe some thought about different things I have been thinking of? I find it a useful exercise anyway as it makes me write at least once a day. :)

iceman - you are absolutely right - don''t be diverted by fluff - I was 'trolled' months ago and the silly bugger had to work through my pieces one by one and vote 20-30 times each to do it.(what kind of mind.......) There are maybe one (I think) or two poss three real trolls (the rest are fine, just playing) and he/they is/are malevolent. fish - why on earth do you keep defending them ? and stormy! I'm not into conspiracies, but ........... (oh, oh, it may be they really voted that way, oh, you're too suspicious, oh oh) the PROOF is I had far more vote ratings than people who read the piece - which gives the game away - incontrovertible evidence still on the site if anyone wants to look, for goodness sake! You (fish) know it and you (Stormy) know it. (I think, you Stormy are an innocent, but don't understand fish, who I've regarded as a wise advisor until yesterday) For goodness sake, we all know what is happening. (PS I'm not upset now, it happened long ago). Cut the smokescreens and Explain! G

I think where YOU miss the point John is in the manner of fish's post. I didn't think for a minute she was defending a malignant. I saw it as a tease of iceman. let me spell it out carefully. Obviously, work one starred seven times is deliberate. Fish was having a dig at ice by suggesting the ratings were true. No doubt she will correct me if I am wrong. My post mainly referred to the other point of this thread but iceman's post reminded me of dave angel (his name came back to me today) who would vote exactly as I described. I tagged my opening sentence on to fish's remark and then moved on to discuss how this chap voted. some people got very upset and thought it deliberate (thread is still on the site somewhere) and he eventually spoke up and admitted it was him because he thought it wrong to encourage people with no talent to think they had a chance of publication .... or something like that. Now, if you think my comments show I am behind some great conspiracy John that is up to you. I think they stand by themselves and i never talk fluff. I leave that for the soppy thread brigade. now, to move on to more relevant points that have not been debated ad nauseum: Iceman, you say a diary cannot be good or bad. True, if taken literally. I meant the writing of the diary, of course. Sorry I was not clearer. Many diary pieces have been written in various styles. David Floyd, for example, writes short entries that focus on his poetry life. last night, before bed, I read his latest 4 entries. 3 of them were ok but one made me laugh and was better written than the others. I did not vote on the three but gave the fourth 5*. Your diaries tend to be a recap of the day's events, ice and your relationship with ... . Nothing wrong with that at all, but some are written well and some, in my humble opinion are poorly written. Have a look at your cherried entries and compare them with some more recent entries. Would you not agree there is a difference? A simple recital of "then I fed the cat, then I went to work, then I blah blah blah" is bound to attract criticism on a writing site. The same information could be presented in a much better written manner. I realise you knock them out pretty quickly before you go to work and do not have time to bash them into shape but if, as you say, they are a good writing exercise for you, I feel you may want to spend a little more time on them. Hopefully, you will see these comments as constructive and not as some nutty conspiracy theory.

I hesitate to come in again on such an emotional debate, but I wonder if there might be a technical fix available for this multiple rating problem. In a lot of web-based polls and voting systems it's impossible to vote more than once because the system plants a cookie on your computer to say that you have already voted. Votes are not accepted from computers with the cookies disabled. Even that system can be got around by manually erasing all cookies and then enabling them again between votes, but it's extremely time-consuming and will mess up other cookie-based computer functions. People of the mentality that you are talking about probably wouldn't be able to beat that system.

the facts stay the same, Iceman is right. Stormy - I don't think there is a conspiracy - you are a good bloke, but not everyone is. There are those who snipe and do damage. As I stated in my post above (fact/checkable/not opinion) seems odd to me that fish is having the same joke with several people as far as I can see. I'm a reasonable guy - explain offline and enlighten me (fish)

A very good point bryan. But the site appears to have very little money to pay for some one to tinker with it at the moment. perhaps you should email your suggestion to tony cook - his email is on the threads somewhere - or just send it to the comments addy on the front page. It would also stop the flagellists using another ID to rate themselves.

i'm sure it can't be that complicated to fix it so you can only rate something once. After all you soon get pulled up if you try to rate yourself!

griff do stop being a tit ... your paranoia and repetitive arguments are getting tedious ...

p.s. if people want to excuse their ratings by blaming trolls that is fine by me ... it just makes me laugh ... and lord knows laughs are scarce on here these days ...

what gets me is ............. and sorry if i sound like an old hippy, but what the @!#$ does it matter in the long run about little stars and badges. This is a great site because it is free and open for anyone to get their words read. It's great because it's constantly changing and unpredictable. Like a railway station really. When i hear people quibbling about ratings and times read etc it strikes me as materialistic or at the kindest , anally retentive. I know we are all different and thank god for that. But it makes me laugh (pisses me off) when people use moral values to justify their acquisitiveness. I quote " There is a conspiracy - you are a good bloke, but not everyone is. There are those who snipe and do damage" Is this a site about writing or is it a god spot? Since when did a good writer have to be a good person? Maybe we should have a halo system so if you don't get cherried you can still have a pat on the back for not upsetting anyone. Poo! loads of it

I think I would be scared to rate anything after reading all that, and if I was an editor I would probably be afraid to give out any cherries in case I cherried the wrong thing and upset somebody. Bryan's idea is a good one and as freda says it wouldn't take very much to set it up. It would also get around a perfectly genuine problem which is that if you're anything like me you'll return occasionally to a piece that you like and you may not remember whether you have rated it or not, hence end up rating it twice or even more times. To have an automatic sentinel just makes the system that little bit more fair. To reply to stormy's spiel about "web site uniformity", why shouldn't sites develop a bit with time and adopt best practice from elsewhere? Why should the present arrangement here be sacred? if there are better ways of doing things and good ideas that we aren't putting into practice then let's change and make the site even better. If we lived by the spirit of stormy's conservatism we would still be conducting our affairs in much the same manner as mountain gorillas. I suppose we still are in some areas but I don't think it's to be encouraged.

dear sirat, are you a spin doctor for president blair in your spare time? I believe I said I agreed that the system is flawed and that no one on the thread was wrong in what they said. Neither did I present a case against your ideas or urge for the status quo. I was merely being pragmatic in that many sites do not make major changes once the code has been set up. Places like thoughtcafe which are run as a hobby by a website designer often change only because of the enthusiasm of the owner/hobbyist. yours, urbane guerilla

mountain gorillas have more sense than to worry about cherries and ratings. "Have a banana and be cool" is not a bad motto

dear fish - you dodged! (4/5 above) and in public! facts are facts and excuses are excuses (getting thin) maybe you don't understand - I forgive you! The facts are on the site ( 59 votes and 32 readers one piece) Could be 'very enthusiastic voters' I agree. that would gell with your theory, but somehow... So I'm repetitive, SO sorry! but am awaiting an e-mail to explain your unfounded mud-slinging dodge again? poor possum! A (potential ) friend. G

Stormy: thanks for the pointers! I will bear it in mind in future entries :) You are correct in that I knock them out before work, and yes some days are just a chronology of what happened to me, and some times they are not.

I've done that in the past Karl, and it does leave you feeling a bit mean. Perhaps the rating system could be tweaked a little to show a more accurate score.

I agree with your star policy Karl. Think about the charmers who vote 1 (probably more than once) to 5 rated pieces and you'll see that you have nowt to be guilty about

.

I always vote and I always try to be fair, but it's so limiting with a 1-5 choice, I think a percentage of a hundred or 1-10 gives a lot more scope. That's really horrible Karl that you wanted to praise someone (after all a four vote puts it in the top 20% of the work on the site) and all you managed to do was knock it down the rating. I agree that the system could do with re-evaluating. I'd have been dead chuffed with a four vote from you.

By the by, I checked my diaries for the second set and found that exactly eight readers had voted them "1", then I checked my other set and found the first one written back in mid June had similarly been "1"d. When previously no score had been entered, the next letter B was untouched. Looks to me that someone has downgraded the second set, in one case where I got a 5 they had to do it 16 times. I dont think for a moment that the number of "1"s actually reflects the diary's work.

Can the "charmer's" pc be rigged to explode on voting 1?

Here's an idea, since everyone here says they never vote 1, and few of us would bother rating a 2 or 3 star piece. Instead of 1-5, why not have just a one star and a two-star that the readers can select. The one star is for very good work, and the two-star for outstanding work. That way you can ONLY vote if you're impressed.

Seems fair to me. If the work is not marked it just means it is not good enough to be considered "very good work" or even "outstanding".

i agree entirely about the one and two star rating. in the past i have given a couple of ones, and because i felt the person could at least try harder and deserved a kick up the @!#$ but that was in the beginning - when I assumed everyone used the rating in an impulsive and outspoken way now I know it's generally considered out of order to mark down, it renders the 5 star thing obsolete

There is in my opinion a major flaw in the whole star rating thing. It's anonymous and impersonal and because of that it's wide open to abuse. If somebody wants to be nasty they can go through a person's set giving everything a 1. Nobody will ever know who did it. If they just want to bolster the ego of a friend they can give all their pieces a 5. People can form secret pacts to give each other's work high scores. According to a discussion I had off list (and this may not be well known) you can even rate the same piece over and over again so that it looks as if ten people have read it and all given it a 1 or a 5. Like everyone else I trust the people who rate my stuff not to be total w***ers, but we know perfectly well that there are a few of them about. Rather than change to a two-star system or a ten-star system, I would like to see us going over to the same thing that most other sites have, namely a comment box under each story. The arguments on both sides have been well rehearsed. The editors fear that pride would be hurt and insecure young writers discouraged by savage comments. But at least when it's a written comment you can make some kind of assessment of the person making it: whether or not they are able to spell and write grammatically, for example, whether they have more than a 100 word vocabulary, and whether they need to hide behind some kind of made-up name or are willing to identify themselves. And of course the written comment gives the reader the opportunity to be constructive and helpful. They can let you know where the weaknesses are in a piece, or which bit didn't ring true for them etc. I would far rather have a comment like that, even if it pointed out quite a lot of problems, than a pretty meaningless five star rating. But maybe I'm just funny that way.