Is there anything that can be done about troll ratings?

[Vitou]

This guy. Made an account on March 15th, started reading my story on March 15th, gave it a 1* rating, and hasn't been on since he did that on March 15th, and there's no information on his account. I think he dropped it too since the number went up. It says he read every chapter, but I sincerely doubt that, since it's 169k words.


Now, I am 100% sure that this is some kind of troll, because I have gotten into some drama on twitter the day before, and my story is linked on my account.
Is there anything that can be done about this? Could I report him and what should I say in the report? I've never gotten a 1* rating before and this is really pissing me off, since it's just some loser that got angry with what I said, and not someone who has an actual reason for giving it that rating.

 

[georgelee5786]

Reporting it is all you can do, if he left a written review. If he didn't, you can do much else, sadly

 

[PancakesWitch]

its common, people are going to drop 1 star ratings all the time, sometimes they do it whenever they see a story with high rating just to spite on them, sometimes its just other authors being jealous too. it's like that, and its life. sometimes if its a review, you can report it and it could get removed if its bad, but usually you have to live with it... You will eventually not care later on. some of my stories have been downvoted to 3 stars and they're still being read by hundreds of people with every new chapter, and i earn a lot in patreon, so reviews and ratings aren't everything at the end of the day.
I will leave you a 5 star so you're happy :)

 

[Generik0]

This guy. Made an account on March 15th, started reading my story on March 15th, gave it a 1* rating, and hasn't been on since he did that on March 15th, and there's no information on his account. I think he dropped it too since the number went up. It says he read every chapter, but I sincerely doubt that, since it's 169k words.

View attachment 26647View attachment 26648View attachment 26653View attachment 26654
Now, I am 100% sure that this is some kind of troll, because I have gotten into some drama on twitter the day before, and my story is linked on my account.
Is there anything that can be done about this? Could I report him and what should I say in the report? I've never gotten a 1* rating before and this is really pissing me off, since it's just some loser that got angry with what I said, and not someone who has an actual reason for giving it that rating.

Ignore them, you can't please trolls (or the snobs here). If it came from twitter then more the reason to never give a fuck and your best to ignore the cesspool that is twitter drama.

 

[Obsoleteness]

Google says reading 169k words would take 14-23 hours for a person reading with average speed and he did it in max 2h48m? What a beast. Call the speed-reading association!

Worst thing you can do is let him live rent-free in your head. Evict him before he sprout roots

 

[Vitou]

its common, people are going to drop 1 star ratings all the time, sometimes they do it whenever they see a story with high rating just to spite on them, sometimes its just other authors being jealous too. it's like that, and its life. sometimes if its a review, you can report it and it could get removed if its bad, but usually you have to live with it... You will eventually not care later on. some of my stories have been downvoted to 3 stars and they're still being read by hundreds of people with every new chapter, and i earn a lot in patreon, so reviews and ratings aren't everything at the end of the day.
I will leave you a 5 star so you're happy :)

thanks, I appreciate it!
But yeah, even if it's common, I'm pretty sure it was a troll, just the fact that it was 1 day after I got attacked by a bunch of people on twitter is suspicious enough. And this definitely doesn't like some author jealous of me, unless he's on an alt. Don't see anything to be jealous of either though, my story is not doing nearly as good as I was hoping at this point in the story lol

Reporting it is all you can do, if he left a written review. If he didn't, you can do much else, sadly

Didn't leave a review, unfortunately. Looks like I'll just have to live with this

Ignore them, you can't please trolls (or the snobs here). If it came from twitter then more the reason to never give a fuck and your best to ignore the cesspool that is twitter drama.

yeah, looks like that's the only thing I can do now. I try not to get into twitter drama, but it just kinda happened lol. Didn't expect someone would be petty enough to do this though.

 

[SailusGebel]

Errr, was it a review?

 

[Vitou]

Errr, was it a review?

no, he just gave a 1* rating and dropped the story. Oh wait, I just realized I said review in the title. I meant rating...

 

[SailusGebel]

no, he just gave a 1* rating and dropped the story.

You can still ask Tony, the site owner and mod of SH, to remove the rating. However, in case something similar happens in the future, if he does not find a person to be a troll\bot, he won't remove it. Lastly, explain the situation thoroughly when you ask him.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

This guy. Made an account on March 15th, started reading my story on March 15th, gave it a 1* rating, and hasn't been on since he did that on March 15th, and there's no information on his account. I think he dropped it too since the number went up. It says he read every chapter, but I sincerely doubt that, since it's 169k words.

View attachment 26647View attachment 26648View attachment 26653View attachment 26654
Now, I am 100% sure that this is some kind of troll, because I have gotten into some drama on twitter the day before, and my story is linked on my account.
Is there anything that can be done about this? Could I report him and what should I say in the report? I've never gotten a 1* rating before and this is really pissing me off, since it's just some loser that got angry with what I said, and not someone who has an actual reason for giving it that rating.

Nothing much can be done, save to grit your teeth and continue on.

Or you can do what I did, which is to move to another site that is more accepting to my genre (and less trolls too).

 

[Vitou]

Errr, was it a review?

no, he just gave a 1* rating and dropped the story

You can still ask Tony, the site owner and mod of SH, to remove the rating. However, in case something similar happens in the future, if he does not find a person to be a troll\bot, he won't remove it. Lastly, explain the situation thoroughly when you ask him.

where can I ask him? Discord?

Nothing much can be done, save to grit your teeth and continue on.

Or you can do what I did, which is to move to another site that is more accepting to my genre (and less trolls too).

The troll came from Twitter, so it doesn't really have anything to do with the site I'm posting the story on. Oh and I already tried on AO3 and Wattpad and it's doing worse on both sites. I gave up on wattpad almost instantly lmao, the site is actually just trash, it doesn't even have the option to show stories by latest.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

no, he just gave a 1* rating and dropped the story

where can I ask him? Discord?

The troll came from Twitter, so it doesn't really have anything to do with the site I'm posting the story on. Oh and I already tried on AO3 and Wattpad and it's doing worse on both sites. I gave up on wattpad almost instantly lmao, the site is actually just trash, it doesn't even have the option to show stories by latest.

There are other sites, like HoneyFeed, which is more 'kinder'; though the stories there lean more on JPN side of things.

In any case, it's your call. Either take it headlong, or move away. Those idiots won't disappear, anyway.

 

[SailusGebel]

where can I ask him? Discord?

You can PM him here, I think? https://forum.scribblehub.com/members/tony.11/

 

[doravg]

Welcome to the club.

Now that I have a readership on AO3, I can migrate the stories there, and leave them here as well, if anyone wants to give them a chance. SH is wonderful, but it does have its bad apples. That said, I think I will be migrating my shelved books there too because I just want to give them a home. My Wednesday update slot is opening up in about seven weeks!

 

[KrakenRiderEmma]

I got one like this yesterday on my main series, who didn’t even bother to check off that they’d read “all the chapters.” Just followed, clicked one star, then hid profile. Before they did that, their profile showed having read none of the story (only the “tags and content warnings” which is my first chapter) but giving it a one-star rating. That’s so egregious that you’d think it could be “silently factored out of the average rating” when someone’s basically admitting they didn’t read the story, aren’t leaving a review, and are just doing a “drive by 1-star,” but IDK.

I’m happy to give high ratings to counteract this kind of trolling too. I’m guessing it’s usually people who don’t like the tags or genre regardless of whether the story’s any good. (In my case I’m sure some of it is due to use of AI tools to assist with a minority % of the content, and I guess I have to be fine taking lumps for that!)

 

[crbrearley]

I had one of these and they were, indeed, living rent free in my head. I mean, I had five readers, suddenly I had a sixth but apparently he dropped my series and gave it one star in the same day. It really threw me off. I kept trying to figure out if I'd incorrectly tagged something and I went through the first chapter looking for anything offensive. And I somehow found something. So, it could theoretically be legit? But was still very weird.

 

[melchi]

I am fairly sure it is just a cat behind the keyboard that ran out of dishes to knock off the counter.

 

[Anon2024]

I troll people that way all the time. I mean, there must be balance. Someone gives everyone 5 stars, so to balance I must give them 1 star.

 

[Sleds]

I've got one months ago, but didn't bother to searches through all the readers who it was. It was mean to happen someday, if it's not here it was on another site. Reporting it are meaningless in my opinion, just take it and move on, that won't be the last one who want to get on your nerves if you continue to write.

 

[Vitou]

UPDATE!!!
I asked Tony if he could remove the 1* rating and he did it! If anyone here had this happen to them, just send a message to Tony about it. But only do it if you're 100% sure it's not a real rating.

You can still ask Tony, the site owner and mod of SH, to remove the rating. However, in case something similar happens in the future, if he does not find a person to be a troll\bot, he won't remove it. Lastly, explain the situation thoroughly when you ask him.

And thank you for telling me! :D