Collaborative Creative Writing Community

Katrina- thanks for clearing that up for us. BUT, in some ways the water is muddier.

"some votes are weighted down for fraud"...what, please, does that mean? A chapter gets too many 5 stars and someone at SM goes, "oops, that can't be right, let's weight this puppy down"?

"people vote based on different criteria, some are very picky about spelling and grammar, others only care about a good story idea. So in some cases, the lower votes may be actual and not fraudulent votes." Absolutely, no doubt about that...BUT, when 7 or 8 stories simultaneously drop in points, as happened the other day on the October Chill mash, doesn't that seem a little "fishy"...or, was it a "weighing down for fraud" kind of thing?

We all, I think, understand that SM is a work in progress and I'm sure we are appreciative of your endeavors as a 'go between' us and the owners. If I were one of the owners, the FIRST thing I would do (considering the site is a work in progress, etc) is insure that I had a direct link (up and down) with the site members and a programmer that could quickly "fix" those things that the majority of members were unhappy about.

This site has been "up going on 9 months, right? The voting issue has been an issue for over a month.

And still, near and dear to my heart, unanswered, is how can I take/delete my work (unmashed by anyone else) off the site?

My October Chill story went from a 4.8 to a 4.4 in an instant, based on a single vote from some spineless, no-commenting, no talent, HACK. Since the developers are reluctant to identify these spoilers and seem unable to manage the voting problems, I guess this is just a cross we will have to bear. It does make it rather difficult to invest in any sense of belonging to this place. After a while it's like "why bother?" . . .

Unfortunately, I really cannot release specific regarding the way that the developers are handling fraudulent voting. I am sorry, but we cannot risk compromising the techniques we are using identify fraud. What I can tell you is that some votes, the ones we positively identify as fraud, are weighted down exactly enough to neutralize them.

SM is approximately six months old, and while the voting issues aren't perfect, they have indeed been improved (and will most likely continue to be improved). Like Shadow said, right now, it's a cross that all users have to bear.

I assure you all that the SM team is doing all that we can to improve all facets of SM.

Happy writing!

Hey all!

Currently, we will remove chapters that have not been mashed by request. Simply send an email to support@storymash.com with your request, and your un-mashed chapter will be removed.

For chapters that have been mashed:
we will ask for permission from the other authors to delete the storyline, and it will be up to them if they want their chapters removed. If not, then mashed chapters will not be removed.

I hope this helps!

Thanks :)

Does this include chapters that are in a mash, but have no chapters following them? For example, I have two October Chill chapters that haven't been mashed. Could I remove them if I wanted?

It is my understanding that yes, you could have those removed if there were no following chapters.

Have a great day!

The site needs a content disclaimer. I've been listening to some of the other writers and it appears there are some younger people joining up. A few of the stories here deal with adult content, some of it rather graphic. Although none of us would want censorship, I do believe the main page should have some sort of warning for these younger people and their parents that they might encounter such stories.

Great idea--I'll pass that on.

Thanks!

the "star" rating or count should never be the decisive factor in determining the first 3 finishes of a contest. there should be a panel of judges from story mash( maybe 5 of them, lets say) and they simply read all of the storys and then narrow it down...i realize this would take alot of time but if the judges read the storys each day for a few months and then picked their favorites, i feel this is the best way. it is way to easy to "pump up" or "deflate" someones rating when 5 or 6 people get together and decide to narrow in on someone. thank you for reading this.

Thank you for taking the time to comment!

I definitely appreciate your feedback, and we'll take this into consideration.

Thanks!