Overthinking or Not? · 11:56pm Apr 19th, 2020
A bit of an odd blog, but after publishing my newest story I've come to notice something. All my stories that feature actual LGBT themes have relatively the same amount of downvotes and generally similar ratings. I always like to provide warnings if the sub-theme happens to be one that's particularly more sensitive upsetting and doesn't match the site's provided content tags (i.e. gender dysphoria) but otherwise, everything I've done with those themes has otherwise been correctly rated, (generally) indiscernible, and not really containing any content that would otherwise be described as morally objectionable or super downvote worthy. Hell, most of the time I have these subjects/characters they are subplots to larger stories. (In that case, I'm not really including those since the downvotes could be other things.)
So, this leads me to believe that there might be a spite-reader or something like it due to how it's generally not advertised that I've written stories about LGBT characters. I've never really imagined why or how I could have inspired a spite-reader, but who knows. Has anyone else had similar problems with including LGBT stuff? Do they rack up suspiciously similar numbers of downvotes? I haven't had anyone venture into my comments to say anything, but that just might be someone not wanting me to laugh at them. I'unno. This i just getting kind of bizarre, especially since I've had to deal with LGBTphobes in group forums and PMs kind of a lot recently.
I'd get it if someone downvoted a story of mine and left a comment explaining why, and of course, that's happened before, but these are always on stories that have pretty pleasant comment sections, so it adds to the weirdness.
i think spite downvotes are definitely a thing. not that there might be a gaggle of folks following you around and slinging mud at yr content, but when you check the same site every day, or you're over-exposed to a content stream, it's easy to react in-system in a way you don't really rationalize as connecting with the creator. it could just be something as simple as 'i don't read these kind of stories but it's featured, so i'll downvote so more stuff i like will show up'. not necessarily logical, but the intent is sensible.
Imagine downvoting a cool, gremlin's, story. Can't relate tbh.
Eh, downvotes happen. All there is, and there doesn't need to be a good reason.
You're going to get 4-10 automatic downvotes on basically anything and everything anyone could find even mildly objectionable. The only real way around this is to have your story never get popular in the first place, honestly. I wouldn't pay it too much mind—there are always going to be nasty people out there that want to bring you down and this antiquated rating system just facilitates them. The best thing to do would be to just ignore them and keep writing what makes you happy. The people that are going to enjoy your stories will still read them anyway and considering how many dislikes popular fetishes get and still manage to hover around the top of the feature box, you should be okay.
I have long suspected this but I don't have numbers to back it up.
I just ignore downvotes both as a writer and reader. I've read excellent stories with high downvotes just cause a jack
got a grudge against the author.
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Holy's got a point, yeah. Some people downvote if they don't like your face (I think I have a spite downvoter that follows me... probably one of my exes. Eh), but you can't let that stop you from writing. People downvote for petty reasons, too, like certain ships or certain ponies they dislike. Sometimes I'll look at it after a short bit and every single one of my stories gained a downvote. It happens. What matters is that you keep on going, for all the people that upvote (and, uh, all the people that forget to upvote! Because many of them do.)
I've rarely found speculating about the cause of downvotes leads anywhere worthwhile. Just seems like there's never enough information to say anything conclusive unless a downvoter volunteers something, which doesn't often happen and can't be forced. So, sure, it could be a spite thing or a phobe thing, but it could just as easily not be either of those things and I don't know that there's a way to tell them apart.
I've noticed this myself, and not necessarily with stories featuring themes, but just stories that have a generally disliked character amongst the cast, or just because a certain tag is on the story. There are definitely people around here who just downvote based on tags or characters and even themes, best just to ignore it. I personally don't even pay attention to the downvotes, hell a lot of my stories haven't even broken the ten votes barrier so the bar is visible, but in my view, this many people enjoyed my story and that's good enough for me.
If I have only entertained one person with my story, I consider it a job well done, because at least one person got enjoyment from my writing.
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I've had to deal with some bigots that were blocked lately, both in PMs, some in groups, etc. One of them was banned multiple times for alt abuse and stalking me with said alt accounts. The other was doing so with one account in groups. Since it was all fairly recent, it's really started to make me wonder if I happen to have about four spite followers or something, because it's always the LGBT stories that get these kinds of votes that leave me thinking something is up. It just feels like there's too much overlap in that department, especially because this stuff really didn't happen that much until after I made a blog that made it clear I was trans some time ago.
I might talk to the mods, just to see what might be up. If anything is. My stories aren't at the point where they're bombed or getting bad rations, thank goodness, but it's at least at the point where I'm starting to suspect there's a fire to all this smoke if that makes sense.
(And I know that for a matter of fact, that the person with the alts is still following me on their main account.)
I'm certain that spiteful down votes happen, but there could be any number of reasons for down votes in general. Even a suspiciously similar number.
I've got stories that got a couple down votes less than five minutes after publishing. The fact that they happened so fast made me suspicious, but I have to go with Occam's Razor. For me it's more likely that I'm a bad writer than having people just down vote me for spite relying on any number of assumptions.
But factors do have to be taken into account. The content, the similar number of down votes, your number of followers, I believe it's reasonable to believe that you may be right and that it's a number of spite down votes. The most simple explanation relying on the fewest assumptions from things we know.
There are people who dislike things based on sexuality and gender identity that does not conform to their views, this is a large and diverse fan community with people of all walks of life, voting is anonymous, anonymity emboldens people.
That could definitely account for some of the number, but ultimately there's no reason to focus on the down votes. You got your following for a reason and their voices outweigh a few naysayers.
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The mods won't really do anything about it unfortunately. I've had multiple people go through and dislike every single one of my stories when they obviously didn't read any of them and I've been told that's not something they'd bother doing anything about it. They'll ban alts and ensure blocks aren't evaded but when it comes to downvotes you're basically out of luck unless you're getting brigaded by the dozens of trolls. Unfortunately in this situation you really just have to learn to let it go and try not to let it get to you, as the people downvoting have all the power here and can still do it even through a block. The one hope is that eventually they'll get tired of it and stop, but in the meantime you're going to get a handful of unnecessary dislikes, sadly. Honestly the worst thing you can do is show that it gets to you, as it'll just motivate them to keep doing it.
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Yeah, a few salty people I don't mind that much tbh. Let them get mad, I'm glad I bothered a dipshit like that so much. I'm just antsy that will all that's been going on recently this person might be up to something and getting whatever group of friends they can wrangle together. However, after talking with one of the staff members, they said that while I was right to worry, that this wasn't the case. I understand that people are going to have different feelings about downvotes, though.
I honestly might pull out the receipts on this person at this point, staff said it was alright. Plus, they might be trying to find someone new to obsess over.
I've driven myself mad wondering where certain downvotes come from. Er, madder. I'm not sure it's a productive thing to do.
media.oglaf.com/comic/trapmaster.jpg
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Whatever this comic comes from, it gets me.
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It's from oglaf.com, an X-rated webcomic that started out as porn and almost immediately degenerated into comedy.
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"Degenerated"? That sounds like an improvement! More funny is always good! :>
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That's how they describe it, to be fair.
And it is really funny. And it's been going on for years, so, start from the beginning and you have a metric buckton of catching up to do.
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Oh jeez! A metric fuckton. What's that in imperial? :V
I guess a lot your perceptions—uh, maybe that's not the most accurate word, but I'm going to run with it because caffeine has yet to drag me into the day. So yeah, perceptions about the issue assume an even context or playing field; maybe X or y are the reasons because there has to be a reason, otherwise there wouldn't be any.
With the anonymised format of the voting system, a context is made of everything: Oh this story is getting too many upvotes, I'm going to downvote it; Oh it's that author again, I'm going to downvote it; this subject matter offends me, I'm going to downvote it; I upvote what I like and I downvote what I don't, I'm going to downvote it. Psh, whatever, snowflake, downvoted. The list is bloody endless.
I'm not sure it's always an action motivated by spite; just an extension of internet/app/social networking culture where all of our motivations and beliefs and thought processes are smushed together into a single clickable action. That's not to say you don't have a lurking downvoter, there might just be other reasons for those stories getting the downvotes.
As a general rule, I listen and reflect on comments; I don't give a second thought to up/downvotes and the favourites/library stuff.
I'd posit that having a generally positive comments section both outweighs, and adds to, the downvotes - the people downvoting may very well not have read your story at all*, or they may simply want to register disagreement with the polite and positive comments without having to expose themselves, especially when criticism could give the impression of bigotry.
* (Clop gets downvotes immediately and automatically, but even the most innocuous things can trigger people into just hitting that red arrow. Illustration, figure 1: a friend of mine recently very kindly wrote a signal boost post for me, linking to my latest (AppleDash) story. Within one minute of that blog post going up, I got a downvote, while the reader count stayed static. In other words, someone saw that post, decided to click through, skimmed the description and hit downvote. Was it gay ponies, or just the wrong ship, or trolling? I'll never know, but something about that description made them do it.)
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Downvotes drive me nuts in that sense too. "Why? WHY? WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!" Almost drove me from the site altogether in the first couple of days, in fact, before I realised worrying about them was pointless. "Haters gonna hate", with accompanying shrug, may be incredibly simplistic but it's also quite good advice when you're literally never going to get a better explanation.
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These are some excellent points well made, although I do take "ABC added your story to Favourites/Great Stories" as a big positive - if it's a bespoke shelf for good stuff rather than the default Favourites which some people just use for RiL, I usually try to leave a comment thanking them for it. Luckily I haven't had any experience of "ABC added your story to 'Garbage'" situations!
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I am actively jealous of you, having the whole of Oglaf to read for the first time!
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I may or may not read the comic; I'm not super into mature content. And yeah, I just didn't have to deal with a lot more attacks and the like until I outright stated to all my followers I was trans, then I seemed to start getting slightly more downvotes on the stories with relevant/semi-relevant stuff. I don't think downvotes are a problem, they're good for problematic content/critique/having a better idea to guess a story's quality than on other sites. But man, some of those numbers just make me think that there's a couple super salty people out there. I know some mutuals and other names who have had their content get this kind of backlash in votes and comments before, but they usually show their faces after a while.
Staff said it didn't look like I was getting targetted, though, which is good.
See, considering how brazen some of the bigots are, I'm surprised that they're willing to be such pussies with me.
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My default response to a situation like that would be to say that they're even less deserving of your time/worry, but I'm not someone who is defined within any minority groups, and so it's neither my right or my place to say how someone who is should choose to take it. That said, if you've checked with the mods and there are no observable patterns that suggest targeting, then I imagine it's just people communicating their dislike of a concept or stance via the open and debatable form of a downvote. I mean, this is a site/fandom where you get downvotes for making the 'wrong' shipping choice within your story, so anything more serious is fair game unless you're in the top 1% of adored writers. Even then, I'd wager, you won't get a free pass.
I do find myself leaning to disagree about downvotes being useful; but then I guess it depends on what context you're wanting them for. I appreciate that they can be a barometer of good writing, but there are way too many other variables for me to accept that a story with, I dunno, 50:15 is 'good' and a story with 15:50 is 'bad'. My Twilight/Ember
romanceslug-fest got a ridiculous (comparatively) number of downvotes during the initial hours post-publishing. Nothing about that will shine a light on whether any issues exist and if so what they are, particularly when they aren't issued with any context. I personally wouldn't miss the system if it disappeared. Because I'm such a god-damn rebel! Haha5246610
I was thinking about downvotes overall. Longer stories that rack up 100+ downvotes generally mean there was probably something going in in the comment section, and of course, there's always badfics and trollfics. Those are expected to get downvotes, and sometimes it's even desired.
There were no patterns suggesting alt abuse. One or two salty people could be behind it, basically, but nothing that's inherently rule-breaking.
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It was me. Sorry about that.
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Ya got me there!