There also needs to be a button for “this is the 5000th time I’ve read your fic because I’m having a horrible day and this is the only thing in the world that always brings me happiness.”
*helpful*
I’ve been seeing this float around for the past couple of days, and I’d like to jump in and talk about why people don’t tend to do exactly this – basically, it’s that simple, but it’s not that simple.
As previously discussed, there are many reasons people choose not to comment, but they fall under two big categories: confidence and community. Confidence is the one I want to talk about here, because we’ve already established that the reader in question wants to leave feedback that conveys a certain message.
First, many readers don’t believe that authors appreciate very short, simple comments. One reason that a button or other pre-formatted option is so appealing is that it includes an implicit promise that this is not only accepted, but encouraged. Personally, I believe that we’ve gotten ourselves into a cultural catch-22 in this regard: authors are often criticized as “whiny,” “demanding,” or “guilt-tripping” when they specifically request feedback of any sort. I’ve heard several people state that they’re less likely to leave a comment if an author asks for them. (How did we get here from the “please R&R” of ye olde FFN, or the “like comment and subscribe” or youtube? I don’t know, and I’d love to find out.) However, the flip side of this is that readers are forced to navigate unwritten cultural rules as to what sort of comments an author wants, because they’re not getting any guidance on the matter. Will a short “I love this” be gratefully accepted, or will it be seen as lazy and annoying? Is it ok to comment without going in-depth into specifics of the story? Is it ok to leave a long, rambling, emotional comment on a story? Is it ok to leave feedback on really old fics? Is it ok to comment multiple times on a story or a single chapter?
To authors, most of these questions seem pretty obvious – yes, we pretty much love every comment that’s polite (don’t leave something that just says “update soon,” please), whether it’s a single emoji or an entire essay in capslock, it’s better not to give concrit unless it’s specifically requested, and the same person coming back to leave multiple comments is akin to hearing a chorus of angels… but readers often don’t know this, and even authors struggle with confidence in commenting (”sure, I like this thing, but how do I know anyone else does?”) without even getting into how anxiety, Language Struggles, and simple shyness can make commenting difficult. Here is a good discussion about this topic, for further reading.
So, there’s the confidence, but we have another problem on the horizon, and that’s the mobile website. Depending on how well your phone plays with ao3, and how adept you are at typing, even short comments can be annoying, and long comments that require specific references or referrals to the story can be borderline impossible unless you have a system. The simplest answer is to just save a list of comments in your notes app, and copy-paste them to the story… and I can feel a portion of y’all cringing when you read that, because copy-paste comments, oh no, that’s wrong.
But… why? As an author, I know that most other authors would love to hear that someone is rereading their story, whether or not that comes in the form of a comment (copy-pasted or not), an updated bookmark, a tumblr message, or even a smoke signal. And yet, as a reader, I feel bad for leaving such a short comment – and so, I often don’t, and it’s a net loss for everyone.
So, in summary, there are specific reasons as to why people don’t leave comments saying “this is the 5000th time I’ve read your fic because I’m having a horrible day and this is the only thing in the world that always brings me happiness,” and we’re never going to move forward by saying just leave a comment unless we also address the root problems regarding confidence, a lack of communication, cultural trends in feedback, and technological barriers.
-Mod Rose
if you’re not already following @longlivefeedback I strongly recommend them because of posts just like this
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