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isozymeso i read some meta about how kudos devalue reader interaction with fan work. fan work is being taken for granted, these essays posited. possibly, even, readers were lazy and entitled. an idea was floated: instead of letting people click an I Liked That button, maybe getting rid of the junk food version of feedback would force encourage people to eat healthy and leave long, thoughtful comments.
setting aside the question of would removing kudos on AO3 lead to more comments (no, it would not), i'd like to talk about the value of my hit counter and my kudos number for me. and i'm going to start with a digression.
when i was in College, i hung my senior art thesis in the Smith Gallery, which was a small room right by the entrance to the cafeteria. the show was eight big charcoal drawings (6 feet high, more or less) and a handful of smaller ones. they represented a huge amount of work. i remember locking myself in the semi-private studio for eight hour stretches, blasting ceremonials by florence and the machine, working until my hands were covered wrist to fingertip with black. the concrete floor underneath where i was drawing would collect a pile of broken charcoal pieces and bits of eraser and fine black dust. it was freezing in there. i put soul into that project.
an absolute maximum of 1,500 people walked through the gallery while my show was up; probably significantly fewer, but that's how many it would have been if every student had come to visit. it was, and is, one of the most important things i've done with my art.
5,000 copies is a respectable number of sales for a debut novel. 10,000 is a very good sign for your career.
videogames aren't considered a success until sales cap 5,000,000.
it's hard to keep large numbers straight. it's very easy to look at 1,500 compared to 5,000,000 and think, good grief, 1,500 is nothing! practically zero! but -- 1,500 is every person at my school.
my fanfiction isn't a big deal, certainly not by BNF standards. i've got a couple fics with more than 5,000 hits; more hovering between one and two thousand. i get about a 100:10:1 hits:kudos:comments ratio, which gives me a warm feeling of accomplishment. i love the comments! i go back and re-read them when i'm sad; i do an embarrassing wiggle of excitement when i see [AO3] Comment on... in my inbox; I show them to my wife all "look, look, someone liked the fingerbanging one!" but the hits and kudos are important to me too, because i imagine the 1,500 students, or the 5,000 books, and i think "my fic has been seen by so many people."
maybe it feels different if you are more fandom famous than i am. maybe the less personal quantitative feedback becomes a dull background roar. but i know what it's like to publish stories into the void where you don't see how many people clicked on and quietly enjoyed your story. professional short story markets don't have kudos or hit counters, and tell you what, i convince myself every time that the only people who've read the story are the people who've commented on it. so i don't get to imagine the auditorium full of 300 people and think "i got a chance to talk to all those folks for 4,000 words." i imagine the dude who writes reviews for rocket stack rank sitting in an empty cafe, rolling his eyes and putting me down for another three out of five stars.
frankly, the fandom feedback experience is better now than it was a decade and a half ago. still no money, granted, and it's still easy to forget that 2,500 isn't zero even when 250,000 exists, but better.
setting aside the question of would removing kudos on AO3 lead to more comments (no, it would not), i'd like to talk about the value of my hit counter and my kudos number for me. and i'm going to start with a digression.
when i was in College, i hung my senior art thesis in the Smith Gallery, which was a small room right by the entrance to the cafeteria. the show was eight big charcoal drawings (6 feet high, more or less) and a handful of smaller ones. they represented a huge amount of work. i remember locking myself in the semi-private studio for eight hour stretches, blasting ceremonials by florence and the machine, working until my hands were covered wrist to fingertip with black. the concrete floor underneath where i was drawing would collect a pile of broken charcoal pieces and bits of eraser and fine black dust. it was freezing in there. i put soul into that project.
an absolute maximum of 1,500 people walked through the gallery while my show was up; probably significantly fewer, but that's how many it would have been if every student had come to visit. it was, and is, one of the most important things i've done with my art.
5,000 copies is a respectable number of sales for a debut novel. 10,000 is a very good sign for your career.
videogames aren't considered a success until sales cap 5,000,000.
it's hard to keep large numbers straight. it's very easy to look at 1,500 compared to 5,000,000 and think, good grief, 1,500 is nothing! practically zero! but -- 1,500 is every person at my school.
my fanfiction isn't a big deal, certainly not by BNF standards. i've got a couple fics with more than 5,000 hits; more hovering between one and two thousand. i get about a 100:10:1 hits:kudos:comments ratio, which gives me a warm feeling of accomplishment. i love the comments! i go back and re-read them when i'm sad; i do an embarrassing wiggle of excitement when i see [AO3] Comment on... in my inbox; I show them to my wife all "look, look, someone liked the fingerbanging one!" but the hits and kudos are important to me too, because i imagine the 1,500 students, or the 5,000 books, and i think "my fic has been seen by so many people."
maybe it feels different if you are more fandom famous than i am. maybe the less personal quantitative feedback becomes a dull background roar. but i know what it's like to publish stories into the void where you don't see how many people clicked on and quietly enjoyed your story. professional short story markets don't have kudos or hit counters, and tell you what, i convince myself every time that the only people who've read the story are the people who've commented on it. so i don't get to imagine the auditorium full of 300 people and think "i got a chance to talk to all those folks for 4,000 words." i imagine the dude who writes reviews for rocket stack rank sitting in an empty cafe, rolling his eyes and putting me down for another three out of five stars.
frankly, the fandom feedback experience is better now than it was a decade and a half ago. still no money, granted, and it's still easy to forget that 2,500 isn't zero even when 250,000 exists, but better.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-30 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 12:34 am (UTC)I bear no ill will towards the lurkers, you know? I definitely was one for a LONG time before I was confident enough to join in discussions! It didn't mean that I wasn't loving things.
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Date: 2019-02-01 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-31 12:34 am (UTC)idk if it's because I don't write much, and consequently don't really think of myself as a writer or define myself by my writing, but even a kudos email in my inbox brings me a little spark of happiness. The only time I get a little bummed out about comments is when something is for an exchange and the person I wrote the piece for never says anything (which unfortunately has happened the last two times I've done them, sigh), but that's kind of a different context.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 12:37 am (UTC)Exchanges are definitely something different. One thing that I have been wrestling with is if I should start replying to all of the AO3 comments that I get. I'm keeping up with my DW comments and it makes me feel really good; it's a great time! One goal at a time, I suppose.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 08:02 pm (UTC)Yeah, even a little thing makes a difference. One of my fics has been receiving an absurd amount of kudos (for me) this week because of the Resident Evil 2 release and it's a little mindblowing.
I definitely try to reply to all of mine, but I don't get a lot, so it's not too hard - probably a few have slipped past me that I meant to get back to later, but not too many.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 01:42 am (UTC)Weirdly I've also seen a couple posts about how the kinds of feedback that in my deviantart poetry days I would've considered concrit, aka comments of the highest value, are not okay and are in fact what chases writers out of fandom (!!!). Because negativity or something.
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Date: 2019-02-01 03:16 am (UTC)my feelings on concrit are mixed at best -- i'm a really ornery motherfucker so i only want to hear hardcore crit from people i trust. on the other hand i love when people comment with what spin-off ideas my fic gave them or how a theme showed up to them and all the things it might mean or could be explored.
sort of related, i know it's now frowned upon for people to comment going "will there be a sequel because oh my god please keep writing this" but...i can't say i dislike people wanting more of what i'm making. i mean, i write what i want to write regardless, but i'm always happy to be enabled.
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Date: 2019-02-04 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 08:45 pm (UTC)because as someone who DOES remember those days, I adore the kudos button. It tells me someone liked the thing! it made it easier for them to tell me they liked the thing! hooray!
no subject
Date: 2019-02-01 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 02:50 am (UTC)I write multiple fics for a ship and often see the same users leaving kudos. In trying different ways to start a discussion in comments with these serial kudosers and anyone else reading, I've found that making a direct request (e.g. 'if you'd like to, let's talk about what you like about the ship and characters in the comments') isn't very effective. I've gotten no results either from linking to my tumblr for chatting in private and away from AO3.
It'd also be nice to be able to attach a name to guests who've maybe left kudos on multiple fics. Once when I was writing for a rare and rather controversial ship, I'd only receive 4 kudos per fic - 2 from my fandom friends with accounts and 2 from anons. I can't help but wonder if they're the same Anon 1 and Anon 2 who've been following my work and ended up not asking in case I scare them off.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 07:30 am (UTC)As a writer and a reader and a basically shy person -- leaving a comment is fraught. I've been in fandom for almost 20 years. In that time, I've seen so many expectations of commenting...
-- you should leave concrit, specific and helpful, so that the author knows how / what to improve.
-- you should only leave a positive critique, to boost the author and encourage her to write more.
-- you should leave a comment at least a couple of lines long, preferably mentioning 1 or 2 specific things in the story that you really liked. One- and two-word comments (like, "Beautiful!" or "Loved it!") are lazy and don't really give the author any helpful information about what was good.
-- one- and two-word comments are perfectly okay; at least the author knows you liked her story, and it didn't fall into a void.
... and there are some other iterations I'm forgetting. The thing is, if someone has been in fandom any time at all, they're aware of all these expectations, and a kind of paralysis may set in. They don't know what or how or how much to comment, so they default to kudos.
OR
The reader is so overwhelmed by the wonderfulness of the story that their brain kind of goes white-out and !*^$)%#@(%^$&!, and they can't express it, so default to kudos.
OR
The reader thought it was a nice story, that left them with happy feels, but nothing big or deep to comment about, but they want to let the author know they appreciate it, so kudos.
= = = = =
I think I've wandered from the question you asked, which was do you have any experience with encouraging repeat readers who leave kudos to leave short and simple comments?
The point I'm trying to make is -- everyone does fandom interaction at their individual comfort level, which changes with fandom experience / their real-life health and/or stresses, how much time they can squeeze out between home/work/kids, etc, and other factors that I'm too tired to think of. (It's midnight, here.) If they leave kudos, it's because they don't feel capable of offering anything more.
The thing is, your idea of "short and simple comment" may be 20 minutes of wracking their brain, worrying if they're doing it "right", or feeling that they're leaving themselves incredibly exposed and liable to be chastised for committing some horrible faux pax. Seriously, I've seen people say that leaving comments used to be a panic-inducing event for them. Obviously, those particular people worked through it, but there are probably many readers who are just beginning that journey into comfort.
Long story short (too late!) I don't think there's any gracious way to encourage kudos-leavers to leave comments instead. However gently you think you're sending the message, the receiver is likely to hear, "Kudos aren't GOOD ENOUGH!!! Why don't you express your appreciation PROPERLY and leave a decent COMMENT?!?!?" If it was me (back in the day), I'd have crawled deeper into my shell, and would never again leave a kudos on any of your stories.
For the suggestion 'if you'd like to, let's talk about what you like about the ship and characters in the comments -- if it was aimed directly at me, I'd probably panic, IE "Oh my god, what can I say, what if she doesn't agree, I don't want to make her feel bad, what if I was wrong when I thought the story meant xxxx?" Talk about being put on the spot; I'd never make a similar suggest to any specific commenter.
So that 'encouragement' left under a specific someone's comment would probably be very off-putting. BUT!!! If you put a similar encouragement in the Author's Notes that's a general invitation -- something like, "I love to chat about the characters and the ship; if you're interested, leave a comment and we'll go to town!" (or however you'd express enthusiasm) -- nobody feels put on the spot, and you might get some takers. But quite possibly not, because of all the points above.
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no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 08:18 am (UTC)I also wish there's a way to reassure readers that even if some misunderstanding happens, I won't call them out on committing a faux pas or passive-aggressively vagueblog about them off AO3 (another deterrent to commenting to add to your long list). Commenting is stressful and can be a tricky skill to learn, yet I can't help wonder about the missed opportunities for building a rapport with like-minded fans.
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Date: 2019-02-02 09:15 pm (UTC)...building a rapport with like-minded fans
I think part of the problem may be that a lot of longer-term fans may not view AO3 as a good platform for discussion. Comments and answers, yes. But a free-wheeling exchange where anyone can jump in seems to be easier in LJ or DW -- partly because, if we're interested, we can track all comments on a post. I don't think AO3 has that feature; I know when someone responds directly to my comment, but won't see other comments/responses unless I go back to the original story.
Many long-term fans had LJ and/or DW before AO3 was available, so there was an automatic division when AO3 showed up -- LJ/DW for conversations, AO3 for stories and thank-you comments. No, probably not everyone, but that's certainly how I see the split.
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no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 08:09 pm (UTC)+1 to everything.
Another consideration for me is if I read a lot of the person's fic I'm less likely to leave a comment. Because if I left a comment on this fic I suddenly feel obligated to leave a comment on the next fic and the one after that. Which is a fun and exciting anxiety spiral waiting to happen.
So, paradoxically, the more I like an author the less likely I am to leave a comment. I'll hit the kudos ever time, but you won't hear peep from me in the comments.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 09:02 pm (UTC)<g> I expect we all have our idiosyncrasies. I'll leave a comment every 4 or 5 fics, and kudos the other times. If I comment more often, I start to feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over. So, yeah, it's a tricky proposition.
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no subject
Date: 2019-02-03 01:08 am (UTC)Kudos might replace comments for the more borderline cases between "I am too nervous to comment ever" and "I comment on everything ever, try stopping me." If your comment was going to be just "Cool fic, loved it" you might decide the button is more efficient, and maybe those are the cases that people would like to steer toward commenting instead of kudos. It probably won't push the "don't want to comment" group of readers to make comments, though, and is likelier to make them go silent instead. And even if it does push the in-betweens to comment, their comments are unlikely to be much more than "I liked this, thanks." Is that really worth making the non-commenters go silent for? As for the "will always comment" group, they won't be affected either way--kudos is just an extra feature for me, I comment on AO3 just as I do on FFN or DW. So kudos are mostly about calibrating the reactions of the "won't comment" and "might or might not comment" groups, and I think on balance they generate more interactions, not less.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 07:50 am (UTC)I am someone who leaves a mixture of comments and kudos. If I leave a lot of kudos on one author without commenting it's either because I liked the works but don't have anything much to say about them, or I'm not in a commenting headspace due to mental and physical health issues. Either way the author asking me to comment would easily make me very anxious and self conscious and probably just discourage me from leaving kudos on other works.
As a writer myself, I always work on the assumption that writers want comments, and leave them as much as I can. So there's not much an author could say to make me more likely to leave one, even an author whose works I enjoy. Maybe making commenting less of a cognitive load by saying "here are some specific things I'd be curious to get readers thoughts on" etc would make me very slightly more likely to do so but that's about it.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 08:32 am (UTC)I'm the same too. I've noticed that in certain active fandoms (e.g. Buzzfeed Unsolved RPF), fans seem less anxious about commenting even for PWPs that in general don't get as many written feedback as SFW shipfics or even Explicit romance. So I wondered if it just so happens that the demographic for these fandoms are more likely to be comfortable with commenting or if the community have specific practices to encourage commenting (e.g. releasing fic teasers on private Discords).
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Date: 2019-02-03 03:38 am (UTC)That's an interesting question. I have definitely noticed that some fandoms leave more comments than others, but have no idea what the causes are.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 08:40 am (UTC)[1] I have a full-time job which involves a lot of translating between humans and computers, and then I come home and parent my children and by the time they're asleep I don't want to talk to *anyone* for a while.
I've think for me at least the way authors encourage comments is to consistently *act* as though they welcome them. Whether that's responding to comments other people have left before I got there (I will pretty much always read existing comments before adding any) or e.g. notes on a chapter or series update saying "thanks for your lovely comments on [last part], I'm so touched!" That gives me some idea what I can expect if I do feel able to string some words together that time.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-02 09:25 pm (UTC)(real life stuff) I don't want to talk to *anyone* for a while.
Yes, exactly! Or I've stayed up way too late to finish the story, too tired to comment before I climb into bed, and by morning I forget to go back and comment. Or I'm reading offline; finish one story and immediately start another, then commenting on the previous story once I'm online again just slips my mind. There are so many things that can get in the way of commenting.
And yes about authors responding to comments. If I see multiple comments that the author has never answered, I just shrug and leave a kudos. It feels judgy on my part but, you know, that's life -- when I say 'thank you', I expect 'you're welcome'.
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here from thisweekmeta
Date: 2019-02-03 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 03:41 am (UTC)