I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#1
Are there trolls on here who go perusing for works to downvote? Normally I'd think it was just my undeniable ego doing the talking ( :P ), but it seems that there are actually a bunch of people who like my work and agree it's pretty good. I've received nothing but 4 and 5 stars since I started writing, and usually (based on my friends' experience) genuinely angry people who don't like your work will write a good page-and-a-half piece on why you should give up on writing and go live in a hole like the sad little creature you are, and this is most certainly not the case.
I was in the top 500, I was actually starting to get some popularity, but with this random 0.5 star rating (not a review to accompany it in sight) I have been kicked back to below the top 1000.
I've asked for reviews from my readers, and a lot have, but now I'm not sure as to what else I can do. If I regain my semi-popular status am I just going to get smashed back down to obscurity again? I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, I swear on me mum, but I'm worried that those kinds of people will follow me from here to Amazon where I feel I'll have an even harder time getting positive reviews. I've been told by friends that they [the 0.5 raters] won't and that the trolls who do this kind of stuff only do it because of their perceived anonymity, but still, girl's gonna worry.
I wanna go to Amazon soon (as in next week) and I'm worried that my first work is going to get crushed with negative reviews and I'll lose all interest in writing (again, not trying to be dramatic).
What's your solution/thoughts? Have any of you experienced the same?
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#5
'Katy T Night' pid='822908' dateline='1490906412' Wrote: Thanks, that helps a lot :) That competition thing you bring up is interesting, I hadn't realm thought about that. Do other writers really sabotage each other here?

*really, not realm


'Necamijat' pid='822910' dateline='1490915189' Wrote:
'Katy T Night' pid='822908' dateline='1490906412' Wrote: Thanks, that helps a lot :) That competition thing you bring up is interesting, I hadn't realm thought about that. Do other writers really sabotage each other here?

Perceived anonymity does wonders.

I know, right? I wish there was some way that we could see who was doing it like with Amazon, name and shame.
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#6
Complaining about trolls in the internet is like getting angry whenever it rains. It's useless and only saps your attention to something that isn't worthy of it. Also, you said your ranking came from around 500 to 1000 with just one .5, that means you WF is really new and you should expect more to come. I for one is ranked below 500 and I didn't get there with all 5 stars, I got an assortment of ratings ranging from people who wanted more of the same and found something else, or simply disagreement on whatever I chose to write. Still, its the internet. You can't hope to please anybody, but if you get pissed with something like a .5 bomb on your fiction, I would suggest that you try and thicken up your skin for a little bit. Because there would be more to come, and it ain't just a .5 I'm talking about.
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#7
'TheManWithLongReach' pid='822912' dateline='1490919350' Wrote: ....  Still, its the internet. You can't hope to please anybody, but if you get pissed with something like a .5 bomb on your fiction,  I would suggest that you try and thicken up your skin for a little bit. Because there would be more to come, and it ain't just a .5 I'm talking about.

Not trying to be defensive, but I assure you that I have quite thick skin, it's just that it's irritating that people like that exist on here. As I said, I'm more curious as to if there are genuine trolls perusing the fictions looking to strike others down (made the discovery that it very well could be a competing author).
Acting like it's no big deal is either complacency with being put down or, to be blunt, ignorant. Reviews from trolls (especially ones with no actual review) have the very real possibility of affecting overall sales/views, especially when you're a new author.
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#9
This is a longstanding debate on rrl, currently mostly resolved in favor of keeping the system. The devs made unanonymous reviews weigh more, advanced reviews even more, so if you wanna fight against the .5 bombs more proactively, just do some review swaps with other authors to accumulate a buffer of advanced reviews. Good luck!
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#10
'WhoCares' pid='822948' dateline='1491010939' Wrote: This is a longstanding debate on rrl, currently mostly resolved in favor of keeping the system. The devs made unanonymous reviews weigh more, advanced reviews even more, so if you wanna fight against the .5 bombs more proactively, just do some review swaps with other authors to accumulate a buffer of advanced reviews. Good luck!

Thanks, well it seems that the trolls have gone another step further and changed all my tags. I wish I could say I was angry, but it's just kinda sad :P
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#15
'pcrider178' pid='822960' dateline='1491021008' Wrote: I don't know if you know this or how long it has been like this but when I searched for your fiction after seeing your post it didn't show me any posts at all on the page. This could be a part of the reason for those bad reviews, could you have accidentally clicked a setting that caused this?

Yeah, I unpublished everything today (publishing on Amazon), I'm pretty sure I chucked a thing up in the description though :)
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RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#17
I doubt it's the jealousy thing, those are usually reserved for people in the best rated list. Especially those that people don't think deserve to even be on there.

How many chapters does your fiction have? A lot of people put off leaving a review until a certain chapter count has been reached. Also, if you did something really off-putting in your last chapter, that could do it. I know a lot of people almost dropped Arcane Emperor when the protagonist killed his entire party without any explanation.

While it's true that a lot of people who don't instantly 5 star everything leave long ranting reviews (myself included), there are still a lot of people who just don't care enough. For example, if the flaws are hard to explain and likely to attract retribution (where you .5 star their stuff) they might just rate and drop it.

Downrating the genre does happen too. But I've only ever seen it for gender-bender.

Did you cover anything politically sensitive? If you did, then you should slap yourself for not seeing this coming... All one needs to do is look at any political news video on youtube and you'll see diehard enraged activists on both sides of an argument screaming obscenities at each other.

As a woman, I am betting you probably do it too in that case. If an author for example made a rapist protagonist, would you bother with a review or would you just drop a .5 stars on him.

RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#18
This has happened to a lot of us. They do it to people they are jealous of and fear. Feel free to message me privately if you need to. People like that suck and destroy others work because they have....oh i can't swear here huh?

Keep up the good fight!

RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#19
'DarkD' pid='823030' dateline='1491203296' Wrote: Did you cover anything politically sensitive?  If you did, then you should slap yourself for not seeing this coming...  All one needs to do is look at any political news video on youtube and you'll see diehard enraged activists on both sides of an argument screaming obscenities at each other.  

As a woman, I am betting you probably do it too in that case.  If an author for example made a rapist protagonist, would you bother with a review or would you just drop a .5 stars on him.


What did I even read...

In any case, for someone in the future that receives an uncalled-for 0.5: deal with it. It's honestly the only way to handle it. Since it's anonymous, you can't go after the person responsible in any way.

If you're getting too many low anon ratings, you're either being griefed/trolled (happened to me) or you've done something a lot of people disagree with or don't enjoy/like.

As I said, perceived anonymity (and sometimes pure laziness) does wonders.

RE: I Got Hit With A 0.5 Star For No Reason.

#20
Anonymity is bliss. If you ever do anything creative, there will always be those that are somewhat jealous. There is very little to combat this, since even if a requirement to read before rating is added, people will easily browse through a chapter and then dislike, however this may combat random de-ratings, it won't help much.

Luckily, random ratings are weighted far less in comparison to long, indepth ratings so get a few friends to rate your novel, or contribute in a review for a review to boost up.
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