Status Quo

[Sexytimes 5]

I want to get some opinions about an idea I have for a new ratings feature for the site and vent a little bit. It would require administrator action to let interested authors opt out of the click rating buttons system for teases. (somehow) I'm almost 100% sure there isn't the slightest chance that anyone will find this idea worth its weight in the data space it takes up but I figured some of you might appreciate hearing a fellow Milovana members thoughts.

I would like to make some teases in a permanent zero rating status.

Could we add a new (forum based) honor for interested authors down the road if enough decided to participate? How about an honorary ZOTM! Zero of the Month! We could give it to Wyatt if he demands a little more work or one of the interested authors could make the monthly post/poll. Of course nothing else would be needed except for the authors to include a Zero tag so they can be searched easily down the road.

The Z thread might be a way to get more reliable and secure feedback for some of our teases. People who want to rate a Z tease would be forced to post their rating opinion in the feedback forum. It might not spark any extra feedback but the lowballers would need to post instead of clicking and then be open to discuss their opinions in the forum setting or be completely disregarded by the members. Sounds good to me and would allow for more growth by the writers instead of just lazily clicking them into the shadows.

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What is the potential harm that can be inflicted on the community?

Well, Right now 1 votes are handed out like candy on holloween for some reason without any input or feedback. When you hand out a 1 rating it should mean the tease is horrible beyond belief. A true 1 should be reserved for teases so bad that the site should just delete them for their obvious lack of value to the community. They should be so bad that you don't even bother rating it and just report it to the administration for immediate removal before another poor tease goer stumbles into it.

The low rating of 1 should not be handed out because you are mad at an author for some reason. 1's shouldn't be handed out because you didn't like a surprise or the way a tease ended. 1's shouldn't even be handed out if you don't like the subject matter, style, timers, models or kinks in the tease. 1's should represent a most horrible tease that has no business being in existence with any honest person in the world.

This could be a problem. Mr. Tease Goer says to himself “Oh No! I had to look at a tease that didn’t participate in the lazy click ratings that aren‘t a true representation of a teases quality because so few people rate them that a tiny section of persistent clickers (both high and low voters) control whether a tease is well rated. What ever shall I do now! How can I sort thru all these new teases that have no click ratings to go by? Man, I better stick with all those clicked teases. Everyone knows they are much more reliable and secure than forum based feedback.” (Pssss. All new teases start without a rating showing when they are published anyway till they receive enough clickers!)

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What is worse? Perma zero or permanently gone?

I wonder how many authors got hammered in the ratings and dissolved back into a lurking state. I would argue that perma zero teases wouldn't hurt Milovana as much as the authors leaving or stopping their submissions. The people who don't like the idea wouldn't have to check them out. They could avoid any teases tagged with Zero. It's Simple and adds to the diversity and choices for the community as a whole.

The idea is to gradually learn and get better at making teases which doesn't always happen when nobody offers any help and just clicks and moves on to their next click. I'd rather have those potentially lost teases available for me to check out and make up my own mind. I personally think that the lack of having an option for authors to opt out of the current ratings system is detrimental to the site. We lose a lot of teases from conscientious authors who are genuinely trying to learn how to write better teases for you but are sick of or discouraged by the ratings system.

I read in the forum that 95% of ratings are from non-registered users? That sounds like a crime to me. You can’t post in the forums but you can rate our products freely? (Pssss. I’m curious about something. Why don't we allow non-registered users (members who aren't logged on or visitors) post in the forums but allow them to rate the sites main product?)

I’m contemplating whether or not this place is the right fit for me. I think there must be a lot of people who truly appreciate the people who try to entertain them but maybe I’m wrong. I hear a lot of comments and feedback about teases and most of the really negative and nasty stuff comes from those who haven’t published a single tease for the community. It is pretty darn easy to slam someone who misspelled some words or uses bad grammar when all you have to offer is your critiques that only include the negative. Never any positive or constructive criticism from some of those nasty people.

I have decided to take all my teases down and put all of my projects on hold indefinitely. I have over 30 teases in the works right now in various stages of development. (not ideas, teases) I’m wondering if it is worth my time and effort even though I know there are some really cool, honest people who like my stuff too. I wish I wasn’t so aggravated by this ratings system so I could just focus on the few people who like my teases. Maybe I just need some time to think about it. We will see.

What’s important to this community? I hope it isn’t the status quo.

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Ok guys, you talked me into it. You want a little more information about tease ratings. Very well, you asked for it.

Lets first assign a point value to the ratings buttons:

1=Ten 2=Twenty 3=Thirty 4=Forty 5=Fifty So the most points available for a single rating click is 50. The lowest is 10.

For arguments sake lets say we have a genuinely good tease called Ratings are Corrupt. Lets also pretend it has exactly the following rating stats:

It has 100 total votes: 85 four ratings, 5 one ratings, and 10 five ratings. Probably a realistic example for a decent tease in an imaginary non-corrupt ratings system. 85% rated it a four. 10% rated it a five. 5% rated it a one. The bulk of these legitimate voting users thought the tease was good. Some thought it was fantastic. A small portion absolutely hated its guts. This example is realistic in terms of percentages and reflects how the ratings system should ideally work.

Now we must enter the real world and ask ourselves a question. What rating will have more of an impact on this teases rating going forward, 1 or 5? DUH!


The 85 four rating clicks=3400 pts. The 5 one rating clicks=50 pts. The 10 five rating clicks=500 pts. So you have a possible total point value of 5000 points based on the 100 votes. The tease has 3950 points so it has a rating of 3.9 which is very close to what the overwhelming majority of viewers thought about the tease. However, you can already extrapolate that 1 ratings are far more damaging to a teases rating if it is a good tease.

How about another example to drive home the point about the damage the consistent 1 raters do to this site:

Lets say the tease has 100 total votes all rated 4 equaling 4000 out of 5000 total possible points. The next twenty votes are split evenly. 10 one rating clicks and 10 five rating clicks! So we have 100 points for the ones and 500 points for the fives. That’s 600 out of a possible 1000 points for the new votes. The new total for all 120 votes is 4600 out of 6000 points. The tease has dropped below a 4 because the lowball votes have far more of an impact on a good tease than a 5 does.

How about adding 40 more ones and 40 more fives. 400 pts for the ones and 2000 pts for the fives. The tease collected 2400 points out of 4000 possible new points. The new grand total for all 200 votes (rating clicks) is 7000 out of 10000 points. This good 4 rated tease has dropped to a 3.5 with equal numbers of 1’s and 5’s within 100 votes. This doesn’t factor in the reality that there will be legitimate, honest ratings of 3 and 4 flowing into the equation which would only give the 1 ratings more of an impact.

Lets say a tease is very good and has 100 votes with a total point value of 5000. 50 fraudulent 1’s and 50 legitimate 5 votes have been cast for the tease equaling 3000 points. This tease is a 3 rated tease even though it has 50 legit 5 ratings and no other legit votes. If you think this doesn’t happen I hope you think again because it happens all the time.

How about another example: I have a tease that has a 4.4 rating. It has 219 total votes equaling 10950 total possible points and at least 9636 actual points from the clicks. It drops to a 4.1 within 41 new votes. The new vote total is 261 for a new total points possible of 13050 and has right about 10701 points from the clicks.

So the tease gained 1065 points from 41 votes out of a possible 2050 points. This means the average clicker has now given this highly rated tease an average of 2.6. The probable truth is that the tease is being attacked. The law of averages simply doesn’t allow for such a giant swing in opinions to take place in such a short period of time. The most likely conclusion is that the tease has received a few of its normal high 4 and 5 votes but a lot of 1 votes by some party that has some reason to do that. There just isn’t any other explanation for the dramatic change in views. There will never be over 200 high votes and then a dramatic shift in opinion like that. It just isn’t probable if we are talking random variables and honest opinions.

Many of you will notice the rambling, poorly constructed sentences and incomplete thoughts throughout this post. (Sorry grammar lovers) Sorry but this is the way I talk when I'm a little bummed out. I could have went off like a crazed maniac in a hateful way very easily about many things but I held it to a minimum out of respect. My interest in spending more energy concerning this site is dwindling fast. Anyone out there want to make some changes?

Does everybody on here want to keep pretending that this ratings clicking system is correct and secure? Does every author on here that knows what I’m talking about want to keep quiet about this still? Isn’t the time right for something new on here that will allow authors to offer their hard work and not have it attacked by a few nitwits in the ratings? Some of you don’t care but I do. I just can't get beyond the rating fiasco and don’t think it’s right what has happened to so many quality authors on this site.

Bye?

[Banquo]

I can understand your frustrations with the voting system Sexytime, it is far from perfect and so very easily twisted by those out to skew the votes, but I think Seraph has shown recently that he can and will punish those who cheat with the votes to make teases more or less popular than they really are.

I don't see the need for a "zero" system, I'm guessing it would take a fair bit of programming to implement, and if you are happy for the tease not to be rated then simply ignore the ratings you do get. I would much rather that you had to be registered to vote on a tease.
There are always going to be ways around any system however and the mindless goons who give "1" votes to teases they simply don't like rather than the teases that are plain awful will always be there, just take no notice and focus on the fact that those who do enjoy will give a higher rating.

The curse of any author is the fact that not everyone is going to enjoy your work, but the way I see it if even one or two people are happy with one of my teases then it's worth it.

p.s I thought this tease was going to be about the rock band Status Quo and was very disappointed

[badjano]

1) I don't think rating should be possible without logging in/by guests.It really is a crime.
2) Having a way to rate the teases similar to the forum/explanation concept of "Z-teases" could be beneficial for good votes[5] too.Clicking seems too easy to me.

[Bandit224]

My only worry to the Zero plan is adverts/spammers. The current rating system successfully removed a good chunk of those spammers. The adverts would just spam under the Zero rating scheme to bypass the filters. It was barely a month ago that Milovana banned that jerk from London, and his 78 accounts, that were voting his adverts as 5 and legitimate teases as 1.

[Nezhul]

Authors who care about the rating so much that they are ready to quit writing whatsoever - I don't care about loosing them at all. As long as someone enjoys your work - it should be fine. Rating? That's a ridiculous thing to weight your work. The ones who like the tease will comment on forums, and it's their opinion you should listen to, not the fact that you have half a star less that you could have.

what an emo-mode.

[Venus]

In my opinion the rating system works in general. A tease which is rated between 4 and 5 is in most cases a really good tease. And a tease which is rated 2.X or less is in most cases not a good tease.

Your examples with the 4.0 rated teases and the much greater impact of the 1 votes than the 5 votes are correct but that is obvious. Because the 1 is much further away from the 4 than the 5.
So you could easily invert these examples. If you have a tease rated at 2.0 then a 5 has a lot more impact than the 1.

For me there are two possible solutions to figure out, if there are many inappropriate votes.
1. A detailed view at the ratings. You can see how many people voted 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1.
So you can see how most of the people voted and you can easily recognize if there are too many 1 votes if the average rating is 4.X, or if there are too many 5 votes if the average rating is 1.X.

2. A percentage of the votes is eliminated whereas the lowest and highest ratings are eliminated. For example you eliminate 20% of the votes. 10% of the highest and 10% of the lowest votes.

I take your first example, but I don't multiply the votes by 10, because that makes no sense:

It has 100 total votes: 85 four ratings, 5 one ratings, and 10 five ratings. Probably a realistic example for a decent tease in an imaginary non-corrupt ratings system. 85% rated it a four. 10% rated it a five. 5% rated it a one.

(5+(85*4)+(10*5))/(5+85+10) = 395/100
Here is the rating as you said 3.95.
Now we eliminate 20% of the votes. The 10% of the lowest votes are five 1 votes and five 4 votes. The 10% of the highest votes are ten 5 votes. So we have 80 4 votes left and the average rating is 4.0, which is really what the majority of the voters think.

Now we add these 40 mores ones and 40 more fives and we eliminate again 10% of the lowest and 10% of the highest. So we eliminate 18 ones and 18 fives. In the end we have 27 ones, 85 fours and 32 fives.
(27+(85*4)+(32*5))/(27+85+32)= 527/144
The average rating is 3.66. This result is very close to your 3.5 because this scenario is really extreme and I would say if nearly 50 people voted one the 3.66 is justified.
In this case we only see a bigger effect when we eliminate all ones. So we eliminate all 45 ones and we have to eliminate 45 fives. In the end we have 85 fours and 5 fives.
((85*4)+(5*5))/(85+5)= 365/90
The average rating would be 4.06. The question here: Is 4.06 justified?

The difficult part is to figure out how many votes have to be eliminated. A fixed percentage will do best in the most cases but it will have problems if the distribution of the votes is so extreme as in the example above.


In your poll, I answered No, because I don't want these permanently zero rated teases.

[iluvcbt]

I've seen some flash teases that didn't have the voting buttons attached to them. I wish I could remember any of them so I could post an example, but it seems that the voting is not a required piece of putting a tease together. Maybe that's something to look into.

[someone43]

Authors who care about the rating so much that they are ready to quit writing whatsoever - I don't care about loosing them at all. As long as someone enjoys your work - it should be fine. Rating? That's a ridiculous thing to weight your work. The ones who like the tease will comment on forums, and it's their opinion you should listen to, not the fact that you have half a star less that you could have.

what an emo-mode.

I have to agree with Nezhul here. This rating system is FAR from "Please vote how purple this looks", how much someone likes a tease is based on their personal preferences.

People who manipulate the system are just as bad; however more to the original point writing teases on here should not be about the rating. The rating should only be a pat on the back for doing a good job to the mainstream readers. I'm certain there are people who appreciate the lower rated teases (aside from the atrocious spam ones), they just did not lock on to what majority of people like.

[computergeek]

I would offer two opinions on this.

- A really awful tease might have some really cool coding in the back end that the author will refer to for later teases, examples of code.

- I might rate a tease really low because it was not my cup of tea. I might still see others enjoying it more. Example, if I could I would ban metronomes! Many out there seem to love these horrid things, I hate them!

[AllanM]

I personally feel like an author who is overly concerned with ratings probably shouldn't publish their stuff. You should do it if you enjoy doing it, and then wish to share it.

I think the majority of the community appreciates those who do share, and the ratings system works well enough for that, although I would agree with the above mentions that a person shouldn't be able to vote unless they're logged in. That seems to me to be the most viable option. Maybe a short comment box that pops up when adding a rating as well, so the lazy don't have to find the appropriate forum thread and can just give a quick description that explains why they rated it so. That way if you see a lot of low votes that are related to people not liking that genre of tease, but you do like that genre, you'll know to ignore those.

Possibly, part of the ratings system could even require a drop-down list of preselected choices/descriptions as to what I just mentioned, and an "other" in the dropdown where you type something in yourself.

When I'm looking for a new app on Google's Play Market, this is one method I use to find one; by reviewing ratings and comments with them, and ignoring those that bear no relevance to me personally.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I also disagree with all of the things you said shouldn't be considered when rating a tease. How can you mandate why someone does or doesn't like/dislike a tease? If you want a rating, you should be willing to accept the good with the bad. Like I already said, if you don't want a rating, probably shouldn't publish it.
I for one rate teases solely on if I enjoy them, or not. If a tease is mostly good, but the end sucks, you say we shouldn't give it a bad rating, but if the end completely ruins it, its no different than going to see a movie that is pretty good until the end, then sucks ass. Its going to get worse ratings. Typically, in that scenario, I move it down a star or two from whatever I may have given it originally. The point is, ratings are a culmination of individuals opinions, and cannot reflect what the author wants or desires it to. *Whcih is why I mentioned possibly altering the ratings syste, as previously stated..

Like someone else also mentioned, no system will ever be perfect...

[Incubo]

First, I'd just like to say that every time this subject is brought up, we tend to spend all our time talking about those pesky 1's...as if the low ratings are the only illegitimate ones out there. When the real truth is that there are plenty of illegitimate 5's out there as well. We're always assuming that someone out there is intentionally bringing down the ratings, but there are cases of authors artificially pumping up their numbers as well. Personally, I think both are just as bad.

Now that I've said my piece on that score...let me reiterate what I've said numerous times before. If you're writing for the ratings, or you're writing to win TOTM, then you're writing for the wrong reason. However, if you're writing these things because you simply enjoy writing, then does the rating really even matter?

As for the rating itself...you've defined what you consider a 1 star tease to be, however, there are no actual guidelines for this. Just like there are no actual guidelines for what a 5 star rated tease actually is. In other words...what a number means to you, may not be what the number means to anyone else here. Maybe this person clicked the 1 because you didn't cater to their specific kink. Does that mean the tease was bad? Well, no. Not necessarily. Maybe this person clicked a five because they really liked the model you chose? Does that mean the tease was good? Again, no. No necessarily. I recall someone here a while ago who specifically stated they will not give a 5 simply because the author didn't take the time to change the standard buttons. So the best he would give would be a 4. *shrugs* Totally his choice and he's entitled to it, but in my mind, that's a pretty tiny thing in an otherwise excellent tease to get miffed about. There are others who give 1's to everything written by certain authors because they simply don't like the guy. Still others who gives 5's to authors they do like without even reading the stuff. *shrugs* All of these are fairly meaningless votes in my opinion, but everyone is entitled to vote however they like.

My point is: if these numbers can mean whatever they want to whomever happens to be clicking them, then they are fairly useless as an actual gauge of your tease and you really shouldn't put so much stock in them. Personally, I give far more attention to the feed back threads than I ever do to the little yellow stars.

For the original question...I guess maybe I'm just not seeing the point really. Opting out of the ratings system seems to me to be essentially the same thing as just ignoring it in the first place. If you don't want your tease rated, then just ignore the little number. You're happier because the number doesn't really matter and at the same time, the voting manipulators are thrilled because they got to click the little 1. See? Fun for everyone.

[1885]

there are plenty of illegitimate 5's out there as well. We're always assuming that someone out there is intentionally bringing down the ratings, but there are cases of authors artificially pumping up their numbers as well. ..... There are others who give 1's to everything written by certain authors because they simply don't like the guy. Still others who gives 5's to authors they do like without even reading the stuff.

I think this is true and often overlooked in these discussions, but ultimately i think it's impossible to have a universal standard for what makes a legitimate vote. I've heard "That was such an amazing tease, but it didn't have any nipple play in it so I gave it a three." It all comes down to personal preference, it doesn't matter how well-constructed a tease is if it fails to meet someone's particular tastes.

The the second point - Of the people who know me, half of them think I'm awesome and the other half think I'm a dick. While they might both be right, I'm sure that leads to a lot of my own 5's and 1's. I think these points matter, because the OP is built at least partly around the idea that ratings are broken because people aren't using them properly. I don't think any one person can dictate what is a proper way to vote. As long as people vote their opinions of an author, and vote their tastes, or whatever reason they vote the number they do, the difference between a 4.1 tease and a 4.4 tease is pretty much inconsequential. They're both obviously great, and the difference is usually a matter of tastes, not quality.

So yeah I agree with everything you said about that.

If you're writing for the ratings, or you're writing to win TOTM, then you're writing for the wrong reason.

I don't necessarily agree with this though. I think writing to win TOTM is just as valid a reason to write as any. I do think if that's why an author's writing, he might want to do so with a clear understanding of the system he's writing in.

First, do we have evidence that a significant number of authors are likely to leave or stop posting if we don't initiate "perma zero" teases?

I think the best authors are all ticking time bombs in terms of when they'll snap and leave the site, because I believe the best authors are all crazy. Sexytimes has gone on self-professed bouts of raving before, I know for a fact that I'm nuts and most of us remember submatt taking down all his teases for reasons that still haunt me to this day, only if because of the treasure trove of teases lost.

I don't think there's anything you can do to keep good authors from leaving, I think you just have to enjoy their work for the time they create it, and hope they don't take their teases down permanently when they go...

...which is never not a dick move.

[Sexytimes 5]

First of all I never truly thought anyone would appreciate an idea to have teases that couldn't be rated. The fact that you all seem to think I’m out of my mind or a dick for caring about the ratings could easily be reflected back on you concerning the idea about not rating teases. Since nobody seems to care about the ratings why the hell do I have to take part in them? It shouldn’t bother a single person on here if I were allowed to publish teases without the magical click buttons.

I take your first example, but I don't multiply the votes by 10, because that makes no sense:

It makes perfect sense. It is a simple illustration showing that vote clicks are represented as a mathematical value. Go ahead and assign any value you want like 1,2,3,4,5 if you like that better. I used 10,20,30,40,50 because I like the higher point value.

Your examples with the 4.0 rated teases and the much greater impact of the 1 votes than the 5 votes are correct but that is obvious.

That is why I said that in the first place. It is obvious what is going on with the votes. Piss off the wrong people on here and you may find out someday. I liked your tease Maze of Passion and think it would be a shame if it were to get attacked and shoved down into the basement of Milovana because some ahole didn’t think it should be rated so highly. Why is all of this acceptable to you? You should be taking up for me as a fellow author.

Your idea to remove a percentage of votes doesn't hold water when talking about the example I gave because I gave exact fake stats.. My teases aren’t so good that I think they don’t deserve some mid range votes but none of them are worthy of a 1 click (even if you hate metronomes) and I know for a fact they get plenty. The examples were just to show that a good tease is destroyed in the ratings by the practice. What you should be asking yourself is why they are doing it.

In my opinion the rating system works in general. A tease which is rated between 4 and 5 is in most cases a really good tease. And a tease which is rated 2.X or less is in most cases not a good tease.

You are just not listening and are totally unaware of what is going on with the ratings. You don’t know about the ratings war at all do you. You don’t know about the many authors who have battled with these lowballers for a very long time. My teases get rated high for the first couple hundred votes (the fans) and then they take a quick ride into the basement. Do you think some of the most highly rated teases on the site haven’t had to fight a wave lowballers? Do you think some of those teases wouldn’t be rated in the toilet right now if counter actions were not taken? Nobody is willing to tell the truth on here about their actions but trust me anyway. There are so many votes cast that are just a battle that is going on between the author and his friends and the lowballer brigades. Of course there will never be a single person step up and say it like it is because they are scared.

Authors who care about the rating so much that they are ready to quit writing whatsoever - I don't care about loosing them at all. As long as someone enjoys your work - it should be fine. Rating? That's a ridiculous thing to weight your work. The ones who like the tease will comment on forums, and it's their opinion you should listen to, not the fact that you have half a star less that you could have.

So if your good teases started taking a dive in the ratings unjustly you would just sit there and be happy about it? Yeah right! Why are the ratings buttons even there if nobody freaking cares about ratings? You don’t care if I’m gone because you don’t like my stuff. Why should new users be denied the chance to see a tease because it was allowed to go into the toilet in the ratings unjustly? You know that there are very few teases rated low that get checked out by the users as the site gets more and more teases.

If I should listen to the forum comments then why aren’t you on board with a forum only based ratings alternative? Half a star my ass. If these nitwits have their way the teases will be 2’s. Even someone who hates my lack of writing skills and tease making abilities should think that is total bullshit. Why can’t you ever be cool with me and say anything other than some negative comment. Why wouldn’t you say something about the damn issue that speaks of the actual problem here? You really think I’m the problem? You know full well what’s up and yet you keep pretending like many others on here. What a shame.

I can understand your frustrations with the voting system Sexytime, it is far from perfect and so very easily twisted by those out to skew the votes, but I think Seraph has shown recently that he can and will punish those who cheat with the votes to make teases more or less popular than they really are.

I don't see the need for a "zero" system, I'm guessing it would take a fair bit of programming to implement, and if you are happy for the tease not to be rated then simply ignore the ratings you do get. I would much rather that you had to be registered to vote on a tease.

I'm not talking about being happy with non rated teases. I'm really talking about sticking it to bungholes who like to 1 rate good teases for some reason. It is so obvious what is going on here. Why does everyone just keep ignoring the problem? I can’t understand why all of you think it is so bad for an author to publish teases that cannot be rated on the site and in the same breath you say the ratings don’t matter.

I know you as a genuinely considerate and thoughtful person on here and I appreciated the limited interaction we’ve had behind the scenes with the chain and I will try to at least honor that commitment to you and the fellow authors.

I have to agree with Nezhul here. This rating system is FAR from "Please vote how purple this looks", how much someone likes a tease is based on their personal preferences.

People who manipulate the system are just as bad; however more to the original point writing teases on here should not be about the rating. The rating should only be a pat on the back for doing a good job to the mainstream readers. I'm certain there are people who appreciate the lower rated teases (aside from the atrocious spam ones), they just did not lock on to what majority of people like.

You agree with Nezhul that losing authors is great. Yet you think it is bad to manipulate the system? Why are the ratings buttons so important for you guys to defend if you don’t give a hoot about the ratings? This is so strange for me to figure out. I told you all that I thought it would be good for the site to allow authors who are distracted by the ratings to publish teases without the buttons. You could still go into the forums and tell everyone how bad you hated the tease.

- I might rate a tease really low because it was not my cup of tea. I might still see others enjoying it more. Example, if I could I would ban metronomes! Many out there seem to love these horrid things, I hate them!

So if someone puts a ton of hours into creating a tease that is put together well and doesn’t offer your cup of tea you will make sure you give it a low rating? That doesn’t sound like a person who appreciates other peoples work in the slightest.

Turn the volume down and you might enjoy your cup of tea with some of the metronome teases too. That’s one of the reasons any of my teases are liked. There are so many who feel like you about metronomes and don’t include them into their teases because they view them as mindless ticks or whatever. When someone takes the time to put them into their teases they get rated high because the fans of them are deprived. There are a lot of great teases on the site without metronomes that could easily have one added to accommodate the fans of them without hurting the tease at all. (unless you factor in the people who don’t know how to turn the volume down on their systems) Why would a person such as yourself rate a tease low because an author took the time to add some metronome files to a tease? Shameful.

I personally feel like an author who is overly concerned with ratings probably shouldn't publish their stuff. You should do it if you enjoy doing it, and then wish to share it.
Edit: I forgot to mention, I also disagree with all of the things you said shouldn't be considered when rating a tease. How can you mandate why someone does or doesn't like/dislike a tease? If you want a rating, you should be willing to accept the good with the bad. Like I already said, if you don't want a rating, probably shouldn't publish it.
I for one rate teases solely on if I enjoy them, or not. If a tease is mostly good, but the end sucks, you say we shouldn't give it a bad rating, but if the end completely ruins it, its no different than going to see a movie that is pretty good until the end, then sucks ass. Its going to get worse ratings. Typically, in that scenario, I move it down a star or two from whatever I may have given it originally. The point is, ratings are a culmination of individuals opinions, and cannot reflect what the author wants or desires it to. *Whcih is why I mentioned possibly altering the ratings syste, as previously stated..

I wasn’t mandating anything. It wasn’t a command or official order being handed down. It was an opinion coming from someone who published teases and believes the ratings are being used in the wrong fashion. It seems really important for a person like you to click a ratings button and give their quick opinion. Does that necessarily need to override some authors not taking part in the ratings? Do you think an author shouldn’t be allowed to publish stuff on the site without the rating button option for the fans of their work simply because you deserve to have a click button rating option? If you think an author shouldn’t care about the ratings then why do you seem to place so much importance on being able to click? It appears that it should go both ways here and it wouldn’t hurt you in the slightest for interested authors to publish on the site even though your buttons would be removed. None of you guys that think ratings don’t matter and yet love the ratings option would have to look at one single Zero rated tease so what’s the problem.

Capelaw

I appreciate the sentiment. I know this appears to be such a silly temper tantrum but I look at this now from a different angle. I don’t see why everyone is so attached to the ratings system and at the same time can’t understand that someone who takes the time to put up a tease might be affected by the ratings. Why would it hurt this site if an author published a tease without a ratings button? I bet their would be tons of them before long if given the option. Would that hurt this place? I don’t think so with all the posting that goes on.

My opinion is that if you have a scale of 1-5 to rate a product, the products that get 1’s should suck really bad. I just think most people would have the similar viewpoint especially when it comes to creative things like teases. There isn’t such a giant gap between the tease quality on here anyway. Stroke a little here and blah blah blah. It should be based on common sense and maybe even include a tiny bit of respect for the work that was obviously put into the product in these cases. I know there are no set rules or guidelines for anything on here but there should be starting now. The site should definitely allow authors to publish teases without the buttons if they want. It would only add to the diversity on here. The only reason not to allow it is if users place a high value on the ratings clicks the teases get and don‘t mind the negative aspects it has on authors who create the sites product.

No, I guess we don’t have any evidence unless you count me right now. It won’t be a big deal. I know there aren’t any voices to be heard like mine and everything is hunky dory and I’m the only person who thinks it could only add to the site. It is so goofy to even be taking the time to post this nonsense. There is no authors union. There is no solidarity. Only politically correct, stay in the lines, don’t rock the boat thoughts when it comes to this ratings system.

The argument that is being made over and over about not placing importance on the ratings can be argued exactly the same in reverse and has just as much weight. Why does everyone place so much importance on the ratings buttons if the ratings aren’t important? That question is equally valid as the sensible point some of you are making but it might change something a little on here and everyone thinks it is a disaster in the making.

I think if a tease gets a 1 click it should suck universally. We aren’t all so extraordinarily different when it comes to common sense and basic decency. I’m not arrogant enough to try and actually make peoples minds up for them but I know none of your teases deserve a 1 click unless a person is dishonest and maybe even an idiot.

I think it is just as big of a dick move for people to just keep accepting the status quo. It’s not hardly even a dick move to take your teases down nowadays when the teases are all available offline now. If anyone doesn’t have one of them I will give it to them if they want it for use on TeaseMe. Some of them are already available on there now. Maybe I will just dodge the whole ratings thing by creating my teases with the TeaseMe program. I didn’t want to be that big of a dick and quit publishing on Milovana for the people who don’t have the program or can’t get it for some reason but I’m sick of the ratings wars and cannot stop myself from being distracted by the ratings.

In conclusion: All of you people on this site who are attached to the ratings buttons will no doubt always have them available. I wasn’t trying to change that option for you. I was thinking it would be nice for authors to have another option available for them. Each thing I try to do out of the norm on here gets heavy flak or flops like a lead balloon. Sorry for attempting another coup of the ratings system. It would have been cool to drive the professional clickers crazy though.

[Frozen88]

I see absolutely no problem in an unrated tease section.
Doesn't hurt anyone and I for myself are more looking of who has written the tease instead of the rating.
There are some Authors I know their teases are worth the time and am always happy to see new work of them.
On Youtube you can disable comments, so why shouldn't we be able to disable rating?
People write or don't write teases of different reasons.
It doesn't seem that Sexytime writes just for ratings, otherwise he wouldn't want to ban ratings from some of his teases.

If I for myself make a tease and recognize it contains some fetishes I dislike, I either skip this part and rate it as if it wasn't there or if not easily possible I don't rate it at all.
Sexytime is right, there are only few teases deserving 1 ratings and sexytimes5 teases also don't deserve 2 ratings in my oppinion.

Should there be conditions beeing able disabling ratings?
That would be the right question.
We won't find the ultimate ratio for ratings, but we can try to help the authors keeping their fun, especially when the proposal has no essential downsides.


Sorry for my bad english

[Venus]

It makes perfect sense. It is a simple illustration showing that vote clicks are represented as a mathematical value. Go ahead and assign any value you want like 1,2,3,4,5 if you like that better. I used 10,20,30,40,50 because I like the higher point value.

It seems I expressed myself unclear. I meant that it makes mathematically no sense to multiply the ratings by 10. If you like bigger numbers thats okay but bottom line the result is the same.

You are just not listening and are totally unaware of what is going on with the ratings. [...]

You are wrong, I am listening, but you are right, I am totally unaware that there is a ratings war which takes on this dramatic scale. Maybe you have an example for me? A tease which got an undeserved low rating so I can see it with my own eyes?

You asked for a reason why we want the ratings system. Well, I give the reason why I personally want it.
Well, I made only one tease so far, but I was really glad to see that it got a rating above 4.0 and so I knew that my work wasn't for nothing. Plus the feedback via pm and the forum made me really happy and proud.

As a user I like to vote 4 or 5 on a tease which I really liked. And I'm happy to see that this tease gets a high rating, because I know the author will notice and be glad to see this.
If a tease is really bad written, or there is a bug on the second page or what ever I also give low ratings. Because for me it's not respectful to release a tease which the author didn't test even once.
If a tease is not my taste I either look how the tease is written and rate this or I don't rate at all.

After all I've read , I can really understand that you are angry about the ratings war. I think everyone would be angry if the one got a victim of the ratings war.

There must be a solution to prevent a ratings war, but still keep the ratings system. Maybe only registered users are allowed to vote? Sure the bad guys could make tons of accounts, but it's already a lot more work for them if they want to manipulate the ratings. Additionally you could track which ratings were given by each account. If there are only ones, the account could be removed, or the ratings deleted.