Wow, has it really been two months ...

[rodo]

First of all:



I could actually afford the membership because a few days ago my aunt sent me and my brother an obscene amount of money that she insisted our grandfather would have wanted us to have (he died six years ago), despite the fact that my mother and brother tried to argue that it really belongs to her and our cousins. Now I'm wondering which video game to spend money on ...

There's also comment meta going around, which ... urgh. Is the best way to keep me from commenting on anything.

1) My feelings about a story are almost never as simple as "I loved this!". And if they are, it generally takes me at least a few days to sort them out anyway. And then I forget to comment. Not to mention that I have huge social anxiety problems, so even a three word sentence takes a lot of spoons out of me. And it takes way more than three seconds. It takes minutes.

3) I feel a little disappointed when a comment isn't actually about the story, but on the other hand, it's someone who wants to talk to me about something. Which is awesome! Unless it's spam, but I guess we can all agree that spam is always bad.

4) Well, I suck at not criticising at least a bit in a comment. What am I supposed to do when I have to comment on something but am not allowed to say any of the things that I want to say? There are reasons why I hardly comment on fic at all, and this is one of them. Also: I love concrit.

Regarding the comments: Most people who read my fics do read them on archives with hit counts. I can count the number of journal comments that I received on my fics with my hands, and I've been posting for over five years. So my general experience with hit/comment statistics is this:

Good: > 2 comments/100 hits
Normal: 1 comment/100 hits to 1 comment/200 hits
Bad: < 1 comment/200 hits

I know a lot of LJ authors who just started using the AO3 are confused and/or hurt by this, but it's normal. There are bots, readers who don't finish, readers who prefer not to comment, and readers who open a story more than once. A hit does not equal a reader, and staying silent is not a bad thing! Authors who are new to archives or haven't used them in a while just aren't used to the culture. It's not unusual for people to lurk, they do it all the time, the only reason why you didn't notice it before has zero to do with the fact that archives discourage from commenting but with the fact that you don't notice the lurkers on journals!

Comments

[anatsuno]

if I may butt in (argh, sorry if this is too awkward); I think you should totally feel free to post stories with comments turned off! Or if you post in places where that is possible, to put in the notes that you'd rather get no feedback at all because it tends to make you anxious? I wouldn't as a reader be put off by that at all (though of course I can't speak for everybody).

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't post fic anywhere near my journal and the archives where I can post my fic don't have that option. ^^° On the contrary, the archive that hosts my fic has a complicated review system where posting reviews is actively encouraged and mods rate the reviews of readers as "helpful". For each helpful review you post you get points and when you have enough points you get a pet dragon for your profile. It's actually kind of awesome! (And I wouldn't want to deprive anyone of their pet dragon. *g*) But there is just no good way to say that I don't want to talk about the ending or share my thoughts on what might happen next.

[rodo]

That doesn't sound like a place where I would like to post either. Pet dragons are awesome, but not having a pet dragon is not.