Results After Yet Another Fraud Sweep

Thanks, and who got knocked off for fraud? I think there's to much moppycoddling of the "drive-by oners" and the plagerists. Put the names up in black and let everyone see, betcha we'd see a lot more leaving the sight!

Holy cow! Thanks for catching these stats Dale. It's good to know the fraud sweep technology is working. It's better to know that they're using it frequently. It's still anybody's horserace for the final five. Hang in there, all you authors. It ain't over yet!

My guess is that Gather couldn't/didn't run these sweeps regularly during the first round of the contest (most batches were adjusted once during their run, some were not adjusted at all). I'm surprised that they didn't make more of an attempt during Round 2.

What you're seeing here is evidence of the kind of voter fraud and manipulation that went on all during the contest, IMO.

Would it be possible to require individuals to comment before their vote counts? It seems like in something as important as this a person should be willing to stand by their vote with words. Just a thought.

There must be some way to validate the vote and make sure there is a real person attached to the registration. Even better would be to figure out how to recognize real Gatherers. We need to get rid of the votes by no-picture people who log in once to vote for one entry. We accept the law in politics, you have to be a citizen to vote. There must be some way to do that in Gathersburg.
Suppose Name Drop Guy invited 10,000 people to join and they did. They contributed to the Gather community, they interacted, they posted and they voted for their friend. Would that be offensive? I don't think so. It would be crowded, but fun. I don't think anyone would complain. But, all these, astroturf (is that the word?) voters, even a couple of hundred, that's just evil and maddening. Infuriating.

Well, food for thought...

I guess it's only pertinent if the so-called fraud is drive-by 1's which, I still consider a false cause fallacy compared to the 10's liberally handed out by friends.

Ken C: I've suggested that Gather have some kind of minimum Gather participation quota people have to fill before they can vote in a contest. Even if it just amounted to enough to get 5 or 10 Gather points that would weed out a lot of the astroturf stuff. If someone's not willing to spend an hour or two on Gather for you, they probably wouldn't be willing to buy your book either.

Mark, I think the drivebys and the fluffers are two sides of the same problem. I will bet you that some of the same folks who are giving out meaningless 10s to their friends' entries are sabotauging competitors with drive-by 1s. I certainly saw this happening during my leg of the competition.

I'd be in favor of a system could that could be weighted with combination of
A. total number of votes (that kills the drive by 1's...they'd be HELPING the entry)
B. Rating by the general public
C. Rating of "official" reviewers assigned to that chapter - maybe 5 each.

The "official" reviewers should be REAL gather members who "register" to review the first round chapters. Even if you have a chapter you could be one of the reviewers, just to keep the numbers high. Each entry could be given random reviewers to judge the entry. The official rating would be a mean (highest vote thrown out/lowest vote thrown out and then the avg of the 3 remaining). Moreover, the first round could week out the bad reviewers. For example if a chapter is given scores of 8, 7, 7, 9, and a 4 - the 4 obviously is wrong. Maybe they didn't "like" it, but that's not a reason to be so far off from the others. Likewise if one is rated a 5, 6, 5, 7 and a 10...well you get the point. And I bet you'd be surprised how similar "real" reviews would be.

The second round would be judged with the 3 grading systems A. # of votes, B. Rating, and C. (with a now higher weighting) Official Judges (who have passed the first round).

Lastly, I'm assuming future contests will be more genre specific than all commercial fiction. I don't think it's fair to judge a sci fi book against a romance.

Am I making too much sense here? Is someone writing all this down?
LOL

Stephen, the problem as I see it is that Gather did this to increase page clicks so they could get more advertising dollars. I don't see any evidence that they really care about what comes out of this contest. Granted, the huge number of entries was probably overwhelming, but until someone from Gather starts addressing these problems directly, and not just with some generic, "rest assured our anti-fraud mechanisms" language, I remain skeptical of their intentions.

With material gain at stake, and the anonymity of the Net behind which to cower, how anybody could believe that the honor system would work in this contest is beyond me. Once again, a triumph of mediocrity and marketing over actual creativity seems to have taken place. I am hardly one to cavil; I must confess that I have read very few of the entries, since I am not interested in mainstream fiction and have little time or inclination to read long texts from a screen (I get paid to do that during the day -- I'm not about to do it on my time off), but not much of the stuff I liked lasted beyond the First Plateau.

Lisa F: Gather ran two fraud sweeps during the part of round two I watched. Two of the entries went from leaders to toward the bottom of the pack because of those sweeps. One of the entries that made it to the top ten lost around a third of their ratings in one of the sweeps in the second round, but still managed to get into the final round.

By the way, six of the ten entries are now back at almost exactly where they were before the fraud sweep. I'm still scratching my head over that one. It had to have happened very quickly--within a matter of less than three hours. I was out dealing with real life, so I can't be more specific than that on the timing.

The other four stayed almost exactly where they were after the fraud sweep. That is very weird.

"For example if a chapter is given scores of 8, 7, 7, 9, and a 4 - the 4 obviously is wrong."

Not at all. This isn't groupthink. I think all the scores are ridicuously high. There's nothing here that deserves a 10. Nothing. Mistake-ridden cliched infodump-filled slushpile crap shouldn't advance in a writing contest. The people who studied the craft sunk like stones. Why is that? Because here, as is usually the case, crap floats.

I read through probably two hundred gushing, one-line accolades written in support of a certain chapter that was quite atrocious - I mean bottom-of-the-slush-pile rotten - and was the only person to weigh in with a negative review. It only occured to me after the fact that the 200-plus nitwits were the author's mother, brother-in-law, third cousin by marriage, etc, etc. I am beginning to also realize rather belatedly that the contest isn't working and nobody quite knows how to fix what's broke.

Yet another chapter dropped drastically since the last time I checked (approximately 5:30 pm). Forty-Two Blue got 30 new votes within the last 3 hrs and 15 minutes, and those votes dropped the average rating from 7.4 to 5.3, almost exactly the same number of votes and almost exactly the same rating as before the fraud sweep. All but three contestants have now had their scores dropped to almost exactly the level they were before the fraud sweep. The three that haven't had their scores dropped yet are Junction Blvd, Dream Wars, and Big, Hairy, and Bloodless.

I don't know what the heck is going on there. It looks like someone is simply reversing the results of this morning's fraud sweep with a massive and systematic drive-by campaign. The first 6 entries got reversed earlier, and the seventh one just within the last couple of hours. It will be interesting to see if the pattern continues.

I just panned the number 1 entry. He really blew it in this chapter.

Humans are pattern-seeking creatures. This trait often finds its way into fiction. It's the foundation for religious texts and thus age old. It may be these people actually have this many friends. Remember those Survivor parties on the final day months later?

And since we're looking at patterns, consider the even split on the gender of the writers chosen. This isn't how publishing works at all. When you factor in J.M. LeTurk is a committe of both male and female writers, it's more even more equally divided. This is deliberate reagardless of the writing which as we've seen is bad no matter who is writing it.

Barry,
A good friend of mine, somewhat new to the issues of this contest, recently said to me, "You know what this contest really needs? More reviewers!"

DUH!

I think the apathy of both the non-involved Gatherites as well as the vanquished 2,676 contestants has the administration shaking their heads. Even in the first round when there were $500 gift certificates to win, it was rare to see an entry with more than a dozen quality reviews.

I suppose somebody could have a party with a LAN set up in a spare room and have a bunch of their friends go after a particular entry at a set period, or I suppose they could just set up an e-mail list. Having thirty friends just randomly decide on their own to do drive-bys on an entry that wasn't even in the top five at the time, while other entries barely budged makes no sense.

I can't even see why it would make sense in terms of the competition. As far as patterns go, I'm just watching what happens and trying to help people keep track of it. I'll be revising the main article to show the new results as soon as I get time, so that anyone reading this can make up their own minds as to what is and isn't a pattern.

Okay, I deleted my comment about how I was too fried and annoyed to review this round. I've done three. Well, 2 1/2. You all can guess which one got the half-review.

Maybe I'm too naive. The numbers seem amazing, but thanks for posting them Dale. Anyway, I'll just keep reading and plan to rate and post comments when I'm done. I'm enjoying the chapters.

Sheila, stay tuned. If the numbers above seem amazing, you'll be blown away by the drive-by blood bath that occurred on Saturday morning/afternoon. I've never seen such audacious, directed attacks. I'm hoping for another fraud sweep soon, to clear out the trash.

It happened constantly during the first round. It's just that there were so many entries, it was harder to see, unless you were one of the people affected by it. And in that case, Gather didn't do sh**-all to correct it.

Yes, I am bitter!

Interesting developments! Thanks for the information, Dale.

The biggest mistake Lisa, was entering that early. Even the controversy I drummed up by reviewing many of the leaders at the time generated hardly any votes on my chapter. On page six nothing happens no matter who or what it is.

On page six nothing happens no matter who or what it is.I have to agree with you on that, Mark Y. I figured out how to quickly get to any page I wanted to in the contest, and posted that method here, hoping to even things out a bit (partly because my entry was way lower than page 6 after the first couple of days).

If Catherine M's entry had been in the first 4 or 5 pages for a week it would have been in the top 20, fan clubs or no fan clubs. If my entry had been in the last 4 or 5 pages that long it might have been. I had a good basic story, but I still had/have a lot of work to do to get it as good as I want it to be when it gets published.

If nothing else, the contest gave me an enormous stock of very good critiques, which I'm still using to improve my story.

Shameless plug: I put slightly revised versions of the first several chapters of Char back up after I got knocked out of the contest and would love to have still more good solid critiques. The first chapter is at:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976951229

Dale and Pat, please keep this going. This is very interesting.

Sadly, I'm not going to be able to comment on the chapters. After giving it some thought, I didn't think I could do it without bias since I now know many of these people from our off-Gather loop. Also, I'm happy to report that my latest manuscript is a finalist in another contest (judged by published authors and editors, not the general public). The last time I entered a contest with an unfinished manuscript (which is permissible in some contests), it won and I got a request. This one I need to finish, especially since it's on two agents' desks. I'll be checking in to see what's happening and I still wish all my "buds" good luck!

Judi, that's the best of news! Good luck to yo, and let us know where to find them when they're in print.

That's odd Judy because all fiction has to be finished before it lands on an agent's desk. Nonfiction can be incomplete. Remember, the real contest is held in New York every day of the year. agentquery Good luck. I had no trouble commenting on chapters including yours which I didn't rate.

Actually, Mark, it doesn't need to be finished if the agents know it's not and they still request it. Also, published authors do not necessarily need to have finished manuscripts on their agents' desk b/c many authors (at least in the romance industry) sell on proposal. The agents in question knew it wasn't finished and wanted to see it based on the "high concept" line I pitched it with when they asked what else I was working on. Thus, the value of networking and being able to speak to the people in question. Conferences are an invaluable resource.

I entered the contest to get feedback on the manuscript to see if the idea was working - through the eyes of authors published in romance. Thank goodness it seems to be. And you guys think the ratings Gather set out are tough - this one had a 1-5 rating system on 33 different criteria.

Another thing. I just ran a writers' conference with two NYT, USA Today best selling authors and both mentioned in their presentations that the minute someone tells you there's something that can't be done in this industry, someone else will pop up with a story of how it HAS been done. There are no absolutes in this industry - and I'm only able to speak on the romance publishing industry, not all fiction publishing. 1st person present can't be done? Check out Marianne Mancusi's A Hoboken Hipster in Sherwood Forest, as well as the current American Title winner's Sleeping With Ward Cleaver. Can't do first and third person POV? Check out Julie Kenner's The Givenchy Code. Can't head hop? Check out some of Nora Roberts'. Pretty much anything can be done if it's done well or if there's a reason to do it. Those are just a few examples.

On the contrary, I don't think Gather has any criteria at all. Hence, the winners, no offense meant. I guess published authors don't have to have completed fiction, but none of us are in that category. From what I understand Harlequin doesn't require an agent, nor does TOR as my article shows. Genre is diffrerent than mainstream, no question. At any rate get it done any way you can. That's what I'm doing. I sent out three different queries today. That's the gig.

I think all of those POV's can be done and are. Mostly though, beginners have to ahere to some sort of convention, unless they really pull one out of their hat. I saw this author, Marisha Pessl, last week at the LA Times Book Festival where I always see first time fiction authors. Her novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, looks like a mold-breaker and it worked.

These contests of course are to drive membership and page clicks for Gather and their advertisers. You have to be a member to rate or comment on anything posted on Gather. The problem isn't with new members coming in by request of friends with an entry in one of the contests. Of course friends and family vote-up those entries. The problem with the rating/voting system is the facelessness of the members. If you post a comment, your username is tagged to the comment for all to see, also the icon but so many use the empty orange head it doesn't really matter. But a member can rate an item in anonimity. The system probably has a linked-key between user and rating but the general public can't see it. The rating process would be more fair if a member had to comment first in order to rate. Best scenario would be for the member's rating to be displayed inside their comment box. This would make people responsible for the rating they gave an item.

Hey - did they do another fraud sweep today? I lost a few votes but not that many. Not much change.

I saw that. Several people lost 2 to 5 ratings and went up slightly. Junction Blvd lost a few ratings and went from 7.7 to 7.5. I recorded the before and after numbers, but my computer crashed before I saved it, so I don't have the specifics. Sorry.

I wonder if they're finding evidence of sock-puppetry and that's why the votes are purged? What is it that Morosco is doing?

Well, there appears to have been another fraud sweep this morning between about 7 am and 11:34 am Central time. As far as I can tell, only two contestants were affected. Junction Blvd went from 7.7 and 148 ratings to 7.2 and 115 ratings. Big, Hairy & Bloodless went from 8.3 and 135 ratings to 8.4 and 134 ratings. Junction dropped from fourth place to sixth place as a result of the sweep. They've gone back up to 7.3 and 126 votes as of 6:47 pm Central time. Big, Hairy moved from a tie for first place to sole first place, immediately after the sweep. They are now back in a tie for first with Name Drop Zone

I encourage everyone to go over there and rate and comment. The fan clubs can only decide this thing if the voting stays low.

By the way, I haven't posted the astroturf percentage lately, partly because I discovered that it was changing friend behavior in ways that I didn't feel were helpful to the contest, and partly because it was so much work. I may revisit it in the future.

I just wanted to let everybody know that while I haven't posted numbers here lately I am still keeping track of the race very closely, as are a number of other people. If numbers start moving up or down quickly in a sustained and odd fashion I will post those numbers here.

I hope contestants, friends, and third parties let the chapters stand on their own, without attempts at manipulation, especially of other contestants' scores.