Ratings Issue: Huh?

Last night at 1 a.m., I logged off with one of my arcs at 152 rates and a 5-star average.

Today at 5:26 p.m., I log on to that same arc at 152 rates, a 4-star average, and 25 tickets I can claim from one arc or other of mine. No numbers of ratings have changed on any of my seven arcs.

So what gives? I've gone from page 3 on the overall list to page 3 on a strictly 4-star search.

It took about 40 ratings to get the arc (Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City, arc 351727) from 4-star limbo back up to 5-stars, and now, with no discernible change, this has happened.

Let's just say I'm not too happy.

The tickets and no ratings thing can be easily explained by someone replaying one of your arcs. You only get one rating that counts, but re-rating an arc after enough time has passed (two weeks or so) will award tickets to the author. The number of ratings won't change because you've already rated it, but the total rating might if you changed your rating.

I'm not entirely sure how your arc was dropped from 5 stars to 4 with no change in the number of plays....maybe someone who had rated it positively replayed it and decided that they actually hate it and lowered their rating? Maybe a disgruntled former AE enthusiast turned griefer? Nemesis plot? Yeah, I got nothing.

I seem to recall one of the devs saying that if you re-rate someone's arc, it keeps the higher of the two ratings.

I figured on all that much. I've got a petition in explaining everything. We'll see if anything happens.

I guess mentioning/discussing anything about ratings on a public forum really is a bad idea. Hammer and Sickle dropped back to 4-star range within a half hour of being at 5 stars.

So how did all the other arcs with ratings in the hundreds get up there? I'm asking honestly--begging, really. I've been pushing some of my arcs as hard as I can since shortly after AE hit. What am I doing wrong? What can I do better?

This is one reason why I keep thinking that we should make a ratings thread here in this forum, using whatever ratings system the majority of the AE community thinks is what it should be changed to. It won't get anyone in the Hall of Fame, but it will at least create a resource for finding arcs that more than one person thought were good and would be much harder to grief.

To Coulomb2, I suspected that about a weird rounding issue, but I don't know why the coding would do something like that. I got it up to 5 stars with 3 ratings from global friends, and then a fourth rating (which counted) sunk it again.

To Wrong_Number, it was a string of global friends who hadn't played the arc. I'm definitely going to lay off the super-aggressive pushing of the arcs, as I know now that sort of behavior just opens everything up to the wrong kind of people and actions.

To Eva Destruction, you're right on that point. Admittedly, though, its feature in that section has possibly brought on as much bad attention as good. I realize that could have happened, now.

Thanks for all of your input, to all of you. I'm going to let this drop and let it go.

Another thing to consider is that perhaps someone misclicked or accidentally rerated the arc when closing the window. That could give you 5 tickets for a play but still cause your rating to drop. If they rate it again on replay, it will go back up.


WN

Thanks, WN.

I doubt there is a conspiracy or anything ... having your arc at 5 stars naturally makes it more visible on the search engine, which generates random plays from players. Some of those players may decide they like your arc, while other players may decide they hate your arc. Since most "random" plays are not people you personally know and aren't in some sort of 5-star voting cartel with you, they are less inclined to 5-star your arc even though they may not particularly like it.

So, essentially, being higher profile gives your arc more opportunity to find players who don't like it.

It seems to me that your response to low ratings has been to either publicize it more (in hopes more people will 5-star it) or publicize it less (in hopes that fewer people will torpedo it).

Purely in my opinion, you would be better served to fine-tune your arc using the feedback people have been providing in an effort to improve the overall quality of the arc. Then when you get random plays, this would give you a better chance to earn a 5-star rating from them instead of a low rating.