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

[anehan]

I obsess over my comments on fics. And all kinds of comments, really. I have to know the author of a fic or a post well before I can just shoot a comment off the top of my head. Usually I just read and re-read my comment and worry whether I've managed to say what I wanted to say.

Then there's of course the fact that I rarely know what I want to say. And that applies to both fic posts and other kind of posts. I may have half-formed thoughts which I'd like to share, but they look so stupid when written down that eventually I delete everything I'd written and wander away.

I think I want to direct the text of my icon at myself right now.

[dancing_serpent]

I saw that comment meta on my dwircle this morning and followed the link but didn't try to discuss it before now because overall I found that post quite annoying.

For me it's actually a matter of decision. As you said, my feelings about a story are almost always more complex than a simple "I liked this" - but if it comes to commenting with some short approval or saying nothing at all, because I don't know how to express my own confusing thoughts, I go for the short comment option.

And that thing about hit counts...the OP made it sound as if it was a new invention, but yeah, lots of archives have it implemented, and I know of people on my dwircle/flist who add hit-count modules to their fic entries.
I've been posting to FF.net since 2006 (I think) and I'm used to pretty much the same comment/hit ratio you described.

[lian]

*comments*

I loved your meta!

;D

[starlady]

I often have trouble coming up with a comment that isn't bland approval even on fic that I really have loved, but I know it's important to writers so I find myself leaving that sort of comment anyway. But I don't feel as much compulsion to do that on the AO3 as I do on LJ, which I like.

As a comment receiver, I appreciate comments as well as hit counts. But I unquestionably feel obligated to respond to almost every comment both on the AO3 and on DW (since I don't post fic to LJ).

[hl]

IAWTP

Also, 'read the room' may be the single most unhelpful thing to say to encourage people to comment ever. And I've heard a lot of things.

[anatsuno]

I cam here via lian! I was also puzzled by the reaction to the hitcount stuff - it's like there's an LJ generation of posters who always deluded themselves that the numbers of comments on LJ reflected their numbers of readers accurately? I am puzzled. haha, so puzzled I said it twice!

Well. Yes. *g*

[jaaaarne]

Heeey, welcome back! :) I was wondering where did you disappear for so long and if everything was quite okay. Nice to see you again. :)

As for the commenting on stories part, I personally have very little restrictions when it comes to social communication on the internet (and sometimes in RL, too; yes, I'm one of those nasty strangers that can start a friendly chit-chat with you while standing in the same aisle in a bookstore *gg*). So, I often comment on other's stories and entries. :) I do try to read the room lately, but still often forget what going against the tide can cost me, so yeah. *gg* Reading the room, but not always taking it into consideration. *gg*

I never expect replies to my comments when I comment on stories, although I gather this is an unusual behavior. And, which is worse, it works both ways, which means I rarely have the urge to reply to the comment someone else left on my story. That's not because I'm awkward to do it. I just don't see the point, because generally it means saying "thank you" to a person for saying "thank you". 8) But, like I already said, it seems to be an unusual way of thinking.

As an author I love me every comment I can get. :) It's not like I wouldn't be able to sleep without them, of course, but they're really nice. I wouldn't demand them from readers, though. Like you said, people have different reasons for not leaving comments, and I sure wouldn't want anyone to struggle with composing a comment because it's supposed to be a polite thing to do, not because they genuinely want to say something to me. Besides, even if there were no comments, I still have the story and the characters living in my head. :) That's a reward in itself, I think. At least when you care for your storyverse. :)

[amaresu]

Heh. I went off for several paragraphs about why I don't want people commenting just because they finished my fic. And I wasn't the only one. Although the vast majority seem to think that the point of comments are to get them rather then to hear from people who actually enjoyed their fic.

But, then, I count things like favorites/bookmarks as equal to a comment.


Re: Hit counts

I know the past few years has seen a big decline in archive use. There are fandoms out there, big ones, without a central archive now. That makes me sad, but gives me good hopes for AO3 filling in that gap. I think the result of this though has been people forgetting things like hit counts and how that relates.

And every archive is different, I think AO3 is still going through a learning process as people figure out how things work. But, for me, the Teaspoon is about 1:10 or so, HLFiction is maybe 1:50, Wraithbait 1:100-150. It's not the ratio that matters to me so much as a consistency. Because as long as my ratio is consistent then I know that my writing is consistent. When my ratio gets out of wack then there's a problem.

I may go make another comment about this on the post. C/P here I come!

[elspethdixon]

Reviewing everything you read may only take a couple of minutes per fic, but those minutes add up -- the first two years in my current fandom, I tried to review every single fic I read, like actual thoughtful reviews where I listed exactly what I'd liked about the fic and not just "Great fic, I loved it"s, and read most of the fics posted to our comm, and I Burned. Myself. Out. As the months went by, I found myself reading less and less fic, going off to lurk in other fandoms when I wanted to relax and read for pleasure, because I was only a lurker there and didn't have to, you know, *do* anything while/after I read - there was no social component and no energy commitment required, just like reading a published book. (I've probably read hundreds of fics in fandoms I've never been active in without reviewing, because I read *quickly* and often and always feel weird commenting on old fic, or fic outside my fandom written by people who don't know me, and because I started reading fic back in the days when everyone had websites on geocities, and reviews required the dreaded and terrifying step of emailing the author).

My New Years Resolution was to start reading and reviewing in my fandom again, but thus far I have a grand record of three fics reviewed since January. I really need to just suck it up and stop being such a lurker. And reply to reviews no matter intimidating it is, or people will start thinking I'm ignoring them.


People stressing out over hit counts puzzles me a little, or at least, I'm puzzled by the degree to which some people are upset by it. You *always* get more hits than comments, particularly is a fic is long - not everyone reads a fic in a single sitting. Some people read it more than once. Even if every single reader left a comment, you'd probaby; still get at least three times as many hits as reviews. Ten times as many, for extra-long fics. There are some long-running WiPs that I go re-read from the beginning after every update, which means the author's probably gotten dozens of hits on the fic just from me alone.

I have huge social anxiety problems, so even a three word sentence takes a lot of spoons out of me

You're not the only one. I stress over replying to reviews, rather than over reviewing, but I have friends who do both. Sometimes, even posting an lj comment is more social interaction that someone's capable of at the moment. Hmm... actually, I don't stress over reviewing on lj or dw or ff.net/AO3/yuletide, but I'll pretty much never review if I have to email the author directly in order to do so. Post an lj or dw comment, yes. Leave a review on an archive, yes, but sending an email to someone I don't know just seems so intrusive that I can't bring myself to do it, even though I know intellectually that they'd *love* getting it.

[51stcenturyfox]

Hi! Here from metafandom's delicious.

I agree that worrying about hit count in relation to comments isn't productive; I had a non-fandom blog for ages and people on the internet in general read and lurk a lot more than they engage.

Comments (any sort - detailed reviews, concrit or just "I liked this!") are awesome, to me, but some people will read and never comment, and that's okay too. Except we get a dollar or a pony when people comment. Oh wait, we don't! :D

But that brings up the point... why are you writing fic? If it's to entertain, which is my reason (along with, you know, having a story to tell), comments can indicate that people were entertained enough to comment instead of stopping after one paragraph because a story's not their cup of tea, so that's satisfying.

[nic]

(Here via MF)

1) My feelings about a story are almost never as simple as "I loved this!".

Me neither, but I will invariably leave a comment like that and be done with it. Because I KNOW myself and I know I'll never come back to comment properly. I like to say something at least.

[ssquirrel_fic]

Here from metafandom. I just wanted to agree really - the more I liked the story, and the less well I know the author, the harder I find it to comment. I want to do it justice, but worry I'll just come across as an idiot!
xXx

[franzeska]

Not to mention all those hits from tag wranglers repeatedly looking at your fic to try to figure out who on earth that mysterious crossover character is really supposed to be. (No, seriously, I keep realizing I'm driving up people's hit counts spuriously and going "Doh!")