Abusive rating/double rating

[Vesnic]

Some slavering little shit named Riku918 has ratings-bombed Todestrieb--twice. I don't know how that's even possible, but it would be great if at least one of these ratings could be removed. It totally fucked my story, which is already full of fucking, so it really didn't need any help.

He also bombed Katie's Secrets of the Night with totally crap commentary that seemed more pulled out of his ass than based on the actual writing.

I'd like to suggest that he's an emotionally stunted, sexist little troll and doesn't deserve any say whatsoever, as he contributes nothing whatsoever.

But at the very least please don't let him shoot me down twice. I think I can politely insist on that much.

[donteatpoop]

It looks like only one of those ratings counts. Not sure which; but it says "out of five ratings" and if you counted both of that persons ratings it would be six.

I'll message Severenz so he can look into what manner of bullshit we're really dealing with here; but at the very least I wanted to mention that (at least on the surface) it doesn't appear that both ratings are counting.

[Vesnic]

Your post reminded me that it is in fact possible to "do the math" since the star system only appears in whole and half-values of stars. You're right: unless I'm totally off, it only works out if the one-star rating is counted with the four tens. It still makes me uneasy that more than one rating is showing up at all since the system usually tells you to fuck off when you try to rate something twice. I also stand by the claim that this is in fact an abusive rating, no matter how many times it's counted, so thanks for letting me know you're on it and have passed it on to Sev.

[End Master]

Yeah, only the most recent rating counts. I've gotten double ratings before on stories. (One on Legend where I got a 10 the first time by the guy and then a 1 the second time!)

But isn't this sort of the nature of the beast and just the risk you run by posting shit on here for the mindless Internet drones to gawk at?

I get abusive ratings (along with abusive comments) all the time. Like some stupid bitch on here recently "rating bombed" TRASH for no good reason, and I didn't see the need to make a fuss about it.

I dunno, I mean I know it's really annoying, but I hate the idea of just having ratings deleted just because the author doesn't like them. Either that or just delete them all. (Which I used to do, until I got too lazy to bother)

I do fully endorse the idea of the author being able to make comments and calling the rater a fucktard though, which I am thankful we have the option of doing.

[Vesnic]

I dunno, I mean I know it's really annoying, but I hate the idea of just having ratings deleted just because the author doesn't like them.

Um, no, I think they should be deleted because they're abusive and weren't cast in correspondence to the story, but merely to a trolling behavior on the part of the rater. And I brought up Katie's story to underscore that I'm not just feeling fluffed that some people don't like my writing, but that I actually have a larger belief behind this, a concept that gets insulted whenever assholes are allowed to run rampant and to effectively quash other people. And no, I don't believe that just being online somehow delivers a carte blanche for every dickcheese out there to take a big public shit wherever he pleases. That's like building a big, beautiful city and then the moment you're done and you and your friends are surveying the results of your labors, you hand over cans of spray paint to a couple of random losers who just dropped in and say, "Yes, please by all means, go CRAZY!" In my book, that's fucking nuts.

I have seen too many examples from my own life and others' of how the internet and "real life" aren't as arbitrarily separate as we make them out to be. Why should we just let everything be sold out to the lowest, the basest, the most mindless and unfeeling element in our society? The ratings system is small potatoes but yeah, I do think it's a symptom of a march larger and more serious problem, and one I don't care to endorse, tacitly or otherwise.

Purely abusive ratings have no place here, not for me or anyone else who receives them. I have supported other people when they've had similar complaints and I in turn don't complain if someone delivers an even halfway cogent explanation for their decision to basically ensure that my story will almost never be read again in the future. I received some great private feedback from people on Todestrieb in particular, had some interesting exchanges, had my eyes opened to aspects of the narrative which I had never really considered before. That's why I'm here. "Interactive" fiction is named thus for a reason. So no, sorry, I don't delight, not even in the most undeveloped and puerile part of myself, in handing firecrackers to trolls and saying "Please. Harm me." Where's the wisdom in that?

Obviously, I am pretty burned out on this whole subject at the moment. I have been absolutely appalled watching some of the responses that Robin Williams' daughter received from cowards on social media, taunting her, telling her she deserves to suffer or that they were glad her father, that guy who made us all laugh when we were kids, was dead. What the fuck? And to then hear people say that "she should have known better because it's the internet" is really just the icing on the cake. In other words, we now have this huge part of our lives which is allowed, even encouraged, to be utterly lawless, utterly soulless, utterly unaccountable? That's taking personal freedoms way too far when some random asshole's right to silence, quell, bully, intimidate or otherwise injure an innocent person is somehow more compelling than that person's right to express their grief or any other human emotion or thought. Obviously, social sanction is no longer an effective means to remind people of how to be people, so in terms of the Internet with a capital I, yeah, that's pretty fucked. Resorting to legal means seems very risky, but the options are quickly running out. A legal measure on its own does not insure tyranny. It's all about implementation and objective. But that is waaayy beyond the scope of this post.

Infinite Story is not a nation. We don't have to worry about trouncing people's Constitutional fucking freedoms if we decide that maybe, just maybe, damaging verbal diarrhea does not constitute valid, protected speech under the auspices of our very private, very specifically intended organization. In short: what do we owe to the trolls? The details of how the ratings system could be overhauled have already been talked to death, with just about every possibility examined. All anyone has to do is dig up one of those old threads. But in the absence of that actually happening, then yeah, I'm going to stand up for myself and for the idea that not everything in virtual life or real life or any life is predestined to be a steaming pile of shit.

Baby steps, you know, First step: fix the ratings: second step, ?, third step: LOVE AND COMPASSION. Nah ain't that niiice?

[End Master]

How is he trolling? Maybe he genuinely didn't like specific stories and just didn't want to be bothered to leave a comment to as why. There's no law from the heavens that says that you MUST leave a comment. It's not like he did a Threadkiller and said "LOLOL FURRIES!" in the comment section or some shit like that.

I guess the only way to find out would be to PM him (or her, can't really tell by the name)

I know you feel strongly about this, but I'm just saying I had this argument before with Michael of all people because he was once bitching about getting an 8 on a story and thought it was insulting because he felt like he should have gotten a 10. (Then turns around and rating bombs me AND Katie with 1s, due to a forum argument. Lol.)

I'm just saying no matter where you go there is someone that's going to not like you (or the story) for whatever reason and it's ridiculous to expect to always get the ratings you want.

I just don't want a place that turns into fucking Deviant Art where you get prima donna artists screaming about every little criticism and demanding their genius to be respected and nothing less than a 10 will do.

And no, you're not doing that right now, before you think I'm accusing you of such, you made your position clear, I just don't agree with it.

[Vesnic]

There is no comparison between me and Michael. I'm not whining over an 8, I'm complaining about a 1 on a story which had until then received only tens, which won the contest and had received an overwhelming amount of positive critical feedback. I think there's enough of a disparity there to raise some serious questions. Besides, this guy is obviously more than capable of writing feedback since he praised your stories quite highly. For me, there's not even proof he read my story. I don't think that's acceptable.

You call DeviantArt full of primadonnas and maybe so. I haven't spent much time there. But let's not kid ourselves that the IS system is fair. Some massive weight of averages might work for your stories, where there is a ton more readership and the outliers get flattened by the sheer volume of feedback. But how are my five ratings to compete with your fifty? Why should I be penalized for writing a story which has a more niche interest base and therefore a lower reader volume?

[donteatpoop]

We've all had shitty and unfair ratings on our stories. We just bitch about it in the forums. There are plenty of threads where we complain about it. But in no case were any of the unfair ratings deleted.

So vent away, by all means. But I don't see severenz deleting the user's ratings on your story. Maybe deleting one from showing up, but not deleting the rating all together.

You have the option to purge your ratings by deleting them all starting from 0 ratings. Plenty have done that before, if that's what you're into. But you'll have to wait for those 10's to appear again and run the risk of another 1 being thrown at you by some other tard.

And I don't see anything abusive. He/she ddin't say anything, just rated you. Might have actually hit 'back' or something and thought he forgot to rate or something. I don't know how this person did it, but a bad rating is a bad rating. It doesn't make you or your story less awesome, it just means someone dind't like it for some reason.

I've had bad ratings on stories for being too descriptive. I thought that was shitty. I had a rating from user who said she loved the whole thing but it ended when she was really getting into it, so she rating it low... despite loving the whole thing.

Shit happens.

Still though, thanks for catching the glitch. I don't know what severenz will do about it, I'm just trying to give you a semi-realistic idea of the outcome... that one of the ratings will probably disappear from your ratings list, but one of them will stay. I haven't heard back from severenz yet, but if I had the magical computer powers that he has that's how I'd do it.

[End Master]

But let's not kid ourselves that the IS system is fair. Some massive weight of averages might work for your stories, where there is a ton more readership and the outliers get flattened by the sheer volume of feedback. But how are my five ratings to compete with your fifty? Why should I be penalized for writing a story which has a more niche interest base and therefore a lower reader volume?

Well you're right and I agree that to a certain extent, it isn't fair when you've got a fairly well received story with only 4 or 5 rating and then someone comes along and rates it a 1 or 2 for various reasons and dumps it into sewer.

I do have stories that don't have 50 ratings and only have 6 or 7 of them and one bad rating drops them into the toilet, so I'm well aware of what you're talking about.

I guess this is a case where our personalities differ on it.

I mean for example you don't tend to get negative ratings/comments at all on pretty much anything you write. So you getting a little mad about one that looks like it's more of a uncalled for attack rather than genuine criticism, seems reasonable.

Now because I get a lot more of them if I made this same thread complaining about every low rating where they didn't leave a reason why or just wrote something stupid like "Furries" it would come off more like whining on my part and I really would look like one of those primadonnas from Deviantart or fanfic net or any of those other places like that.

So, I sort of take the approach of, "Yeah, another idiot on the internet what else is new." and just move on for the most part.

Of course we all have bad moods so I mean I'm going to lash out occasionally if its something particularly stupid (Yay, for the ability to write comments in the story section) I also get some really funny negative ones too, so it's not always a bad thing, but anyway that's the reason why I feel this way about it.

[Vesnic]

Of course we all have bad moods so I mean I'm going to lash out occasionally if its something particularly stupid (Yay, for the ability to write comments in the story section) I also get some really funny negative ones too, so it's not always a bad thing, but anyway that's the reason why I feel this way about it.

Aren't you afraid that in so provoking these same idiots, they'll just go down the list of all your stories, trashing them one by one? This has made me feel intimidated in the past, particularly when the rater doesn't even speak so I have no idea who or what I'm dealing with.

I'll do what you guys suggested and not get my hopes up too high. Since we've all had it happen to us at one point or another, we can maybe commiserate over a virtual microbrew and/or a Shirley Temple for End, who doesn't drink.

Also, I felt that the mere mention of Michael today warranted a little seance and calling of his corpulent spirit from the depths of Hades back into the light where, for a brief time, he manipulated my arms and fingers to type messages of amusing bombast and swagger, and to post a brand-new selfie, licensed exclusively to Infinite Story, a real homage to that Master of all masters, Pablo Picasso. Perhaps I should just shuffle the horrid little thing off to DeviantArt once the effects of the demonic possession have worn off.

Well I'm turning in early. I seem to have a fever and all that expostulating earlier took the mickey right out of me. Good night, lads. Sleep tight.

[End Master]

Well, I figure someone might do that anyway even if I don't say anything. I don't think most of the random lurking readers have that much patience or even check the comments section after they've already left one, but I can't really worry about it.

Like I said, the only one who did the concentrated rating bombing on me with several stories was Michael. Though I think DEP actually had a girl once back in the earlier IS Days that was rating all his stories low and leaving insulting comments.

[Vesnic]

I have written to the above-mentioned user and have received no response. He signed on for a period of two days, during which time he wrote several reviews, but contributed nothing to the site in any other way. He hasn't been seen since.

[End Master]

Sounds about right.

http://infinite-story.com/profile/comments.php?id=15103

But most people don't even bother with reviews and ratings let alone actual writing, they just sign up to presumably read and just disappear from this place.

(Never understood that really, since one can read stuff without even signing up)

[Vesnic]

My story Todestrieb doesn't seem to be updating its overall rating. Could someone please check this out? Thanks.

[donteatpoop]

Severenz is working on the site right now, it may be related; but I'll let him know.