So, I recently discovered that AFF has upvote shops now, which I literally didn't know was a thing. This came to my notice when a recently featured fic had around 180 upvotes. Upon closer inspection, I realized that out of those upvotes, about 115-130 or so were FAKE accounts. Then, I noticed the upvote shops banners in the foreword and I realized what was happening. So basically, these "shops" accept karma points as payment, and offer packages of upvotes for your stories. This is honestly one of the reasons why I hate the new upvote system, among others. Anyway, as you know, stories that get a lot of votes are more likely to be featured. Then, I looked back at some past featured stories, and I finally realized that this has been a thing for a while now and I was just too naive to notice. 

Here is my whole problem with this: THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF THE MOST UPVOTED FEATURE SYSTEM. It isn't about who has the most karma points and went out of their way to buy votes to get there.

The votes that you bought are not votes that your story deserves.  

I understand wanting more exposure for your story, I really do. However, there is the feature for you to bid on for a daily feature. That part of AFF is exact for this - who has the karma points to spare and wants exposure will get it. It's like laissez faire of karma points. If you're active in the AFF community, you will build up enough karma to bid. Your story is on the main page for a day, new readers will see it and check it out if they're interested in the title/description. If they enjoyed the story, they will subscribe and upvote of their own free will - because the story deserved it. 

And that there, is the difference.

Having upvote shops exist is counterproductive of the entire AFF feature system. I don't get why people do it ... having upvotes and subscribers that are bought with karma points...isn't it more important as a writer to connect with your active readers, and have them be responsive and REAL PEOPLE who enjoy your writing? I guess this is the equivalent of people buying friends in real life...?

It doesn't matter if it's a badly written story that bought votes and got featured or a well written story that bought votes and got featured - the effect is still the same. To quote our magical unicorn Zhang Yixing, "I think we all need to have a little bit of trust in each other." If you're trying to get your story out there to more readers, you can either 1) bid for a featured spot or 2) use an advertisement shop (the kind that does wall posts). Upvote shops should NEVER even be considered. Don't have enough karma to bid? We all started with new accounts, 0 karma at one point or another. Be patient, be active on AFF with comments, and EARN the karma.   

I'm a little disappointed to see what AFF has come to. For those of you who never used these ways to "cheat" the system, thank you for your honesty.

Word of advice (that can extend past writing Fanfiction): work hard, take the right path, avoid shady shortcuts, get what you deserve, and be proud of what you've accomplished.

Don't be that person who buys friends.  

That is all.

Update: Another Post about the issue and Intersting, different perspective

Update: Just to get it out there, but you can check a story's upvotes by going to http://www.asianfanfics.com/vote/story_voters/STORYID and just replace STORYID by the number in the URL of the story you are checking. Scroll back a few pages, and you if see a lot of this, or this, or this, or this, you know it's been fake upvoted. Usually, those accounts don't have a profile picture, are privated, and were created and last logged in on the same day. You can also tell by the subscriber to upvote ratio. If a fic has 500 subscribers, but almost 300 upvotes, it's most likely that the upvotes are fake. If you find a story like this, maybe take a moment and consider if you think what the author did is right and if that story deserves your read. I hope this gets fixed soon.  

Note: Do NOT bash the authors who have made this decision. What is done is done, and bashing them won't turn back time, erase what they've done, or make it fair again. I simply want people to be AWARE that this is happening. Hopefully, Jason will make a change soon to fix all of this. If you look at the list above, please don't send the authors any hate messages. I believe that there is nothing wrong with having a list like that, but if it was used maliciously, I can see how that could be a problem.

There are authors who have admitted to it, who have apologized and expressed their remorse. For those authors, it may just be time to move on from their mistakes and let Jason deal with things. I have read some sincere, heartfelt apologies and it makes me have hope that maybe not everything has gone to . However, for the authors who say "yes, I bought votes, so what? I did nothing wrong. you guys are all just haters, so off, etc etc" ... you really don't deserve to use this site.