A day of analogies
Jan. 13th, 2012 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootApropos of yet another round of exasperation with commenters who somehow think they're fit to be my beta or that it's okay to put a review in the comments:
Let us remember, please, that comments on fic are a direct, one-on-one conversation with the author, in the author's space.
If, during a party, some dishes were served that you happened not to like, or a dish was prepared in a way you found odd, you would not go find the host and/or cook and inform them that you suppose they made a good effort but that lamb had too much cardamom in the sauce. Not unless you were an asshole, at any rate. A good friend might sneak into the kitchen for a taste beforehand and note that maybe the sauce could use some alterations, but once it's done and on the table? If you don't like it, you just don't eat any more, possibly mentioning to another guest you know shares your taste that they should stick with the olive spread. This is a party, not a restaurant. You didn't pay for this food. You are the beneficiary of the host/cook's generosity and a guest in their space, and there's nothing to be served by telling them they didn't make the lamb the way you, personally, like it. You won't get lamb the way you like it, next time; you'll probably just not be invited back, since you clearly have such a huge problem with the host's lamb recipe that you just had to tell them about it.
Fic doesn't even carry the potential pressure to stay that a party does. There's no shadow of an excuse to buttonhole the author and complain over a fic not being written to your personal preferences.
Reviews are different. Those are in the reviewers' space (or should be, thank you very much) and those are for the benefit of readers. Pointing out both what you liked and didn't like is not only excusable but, indeed, the very business of a reviewer. An author who demands only positive reviews is delusional and living in diva-land. An author who demands only positive comments to the fic itself, and that reviews be addressed to their actual audience not to their topic, is telling readers to remember whose "house" they're in and who they're speaking to.
Besides, what do you think will happen, if you do comment that way? Will the author go and revise that finished story? No. Will the author magically start writing just the way you want them to? No, not even the ones who think they should try.
But doesn't the author want to improve in her art? asks the devotee of the Holy Concrit, puzzled and offended that their faith offering has been rejected.
Some fandom-states subscribe to the Church of the Holy Concrit as their official faith, and accept or even encourage all readers leaving "how to improve" comments. Some most signally do not. Anyone tempted to proselytize their personal faith in heathen lands might find it instructional to look up the Crusades (One through Nine) and just how little result they had outside of vast death and destruction. In little, that's pretty much the pattern you'll see over Concrit, too.
Teal deer: in someone else's fandom space, check the profile/info/about before you assume it's hunky dory to tell them to their face all the things you, in your towering judgement, didn't like about their fic. Failure to do this may result in a swift smack on the nose.
Didn't like someone telling you your comment was substandard? Remember that feeling.
Let us remember, please, that comments on fic are a direct, one-on-one conversation with the author, in the author's space.
If, during a party, some dishes were served that you happened not to like, or a dish was prepared in a way you found odd, you would not go find the host and/or cook and inform them that you suppose they made a good effort but that lamb had too much cardamom in the sauce. Not unless you were an asshole, at any rate. A good friend might sneak into the kitchen for a taste beforehand and note that maybe the sauce could use some alterations, but once it's done and on the table? If you don't like it, you just don't eat any more, possibly mentioning to another guest you know shares your taste that they should stick with the olive spread. This is a party, not a restaurant. You didn't pay for this food. You are the beneficiary of the host/cook's generosity and a guest in their space, and there's nothing to be served by telling them they didn't make the lamb the way you, personally, like it. You won't get lamb the way you like it, next time; you'll probably just not be invited back, since you clearly have such a huge problem with the host's lamb recipe that you just had to tell them about it.
Fic doesn't even carry the potential pressure to stay that a party does. There's no shadow of an excuse to buttonhole the author and complain over a fic not being written to your personal preferences.
Reviews are different. Those are in the reviewers' space (or should be, thank you very much) and those are for the benefit of readers. Pointing out both what you liked and didn't like is not only excusable but, indeed, the very business of a reviewer. An author who demands only positive reviews is delusional and living in diva-land. An author who demands only positive comments to the fic itself, and that reviews be addressed to their actual audience not to their topic, is telling readers to remember whose "house" they're in and who they're speaking to.
Besides, what do you think will happen, if you do comment that way? Will the author go and revise that finished story? No. Will the author magically start writing just the way you want them to? No, not even the ones who think they should try.
But doesn't the author want to improve in her art? asks the devotee of the Holy Concrit, puzzled and offended that their faith offering has been rejected.
Some fandom-states subscribe to the Church of the Holy Concrit as their official faith, and accept or even encourage all readers leaving "how to improve" comments. Some most signally do not. Anyone tempted to proselytize their personal faith in heathen lands might find it instructional to look up the Crusades (One through Nine) and just how little result they had outside of vast death and destruction. In little, that's pretty much the pattern you'll see over Concrit, too.
Teal deer: in someone else's fandom space, check the profile/info/about before you assume it's hunky dory to tell them to their face all the things you, in your towering judgement, didn't like about their fic. Failure to do this may result in a swift smack on the nose.
Didn't like someone telling you your comment was substandard? Remember that feeling.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 07:50 pm (UTC)I thanked her sincerely.
I keep wondering, is there really a major space where this kind of behavior is acceptable? Or do these people just not get smacked with the rolled up newspaper often enough?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 07:55 pm (UTC)But... telling someone that a story isn't intrinsically excellent? That's rather beyond the pale, I think. That's more like "I got recced this and came in with expectations set really high and was disappointed" or something. Or just flat-out boorishness.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 08:01 pm (UTC)I could tell they /did/ come from one of the places that recced me; it was on the Naruto novel thing. And she also said something about not going past the second chapter if not for the glowing reccs because she didn't like the pacing of the start. Which, you know, I kind of wish she had taken as indicative and not gone on! For fuck's sake, I swear I get more idiots of that stripe from the really good reviews. If you don't think the review was correct or justified or whatever, bitch at the reviewer, not me! It is not my duty to fulfill expectations defined by a third party. *deeply exasperated*
no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 11:27 pm (UTC)When the subject of concrit came up on the Yuletide comm, I also pointed out that some people have deeply-rooted issues about being criticized, such that the cost/benefit of what you could learn vs. how badly it could stress you out and de-motivate you might not add up in the ideal way, and I wouldn't want to make our spaces all "take it or shut up" toward people in that situation.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-13 11:39 pm (UTC)I keep wanting to tell the over-eager critters "leave the poor writers alone to get on with their own learning curve".
no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 04:49 am (UTC)... I really thought that times had changed. Sorry it's still going on and happening to you! o.o
(In shared sympathy, I did get a comment the other day, "I just want to thank you for cross-posting your stories to the Archive. I wish all LJers would do the same. :-)" ... I said "you're welcome" and said how I liked having the AO3 around to archive to. On the other hand... that was *all* there was to the comment - not a single word about the story, not a vote in the poll (my version of a 'kudos' on LJ), and not a comment or a kudos on the archive side either. WTF? Who leaves a comment like that without saying anything about the story? I'm glad I'm contributing to the archive... BUT WHAT ABOUT MY STORY?! ;p Ah, people. So different, so fannish.)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-14 04:57 am (UTC)I do think the pendulum swings back and forth. And the younger a group is the more likely they are to believe, as a body, that concrit is to their benefit. And nothing says "I am really young" more than the urge to paint with a wide brush, and assume that your experience is the whole of the world. So there's always a new reservoir of converts to the Holy Concrit coming up. Shame, that.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-16 01:34 am (UTC)Even if I do sort of think it's funny when they leave suggestions that are both incorrect and misspelled/written with poor grammar.I'm sorry that this person was so faily. :(
no subject
Date: 2012-01-16 01:42 am (UTC)(I generally do smack them with their own mistakes, when they do that, just because for fuck's /sake/. And /then/, of course, it's me that's being all /mean/. *rolls eyes* Morons.)
I immediately thought of your post
Date: 2012-01-27 12:52 am (UTC)http://alatrific.livejournal.com/36085.html?thread=363509#t363509
Did I mention this was crack fic? Which means, not all that horribly serious? And that if she at all followed my work she'd see I don't write like this every day?
But she loves the fic! So much! In a footnote to the grammar police.
;p
Yes. Your post immediately came to mind, though I might not actually reply.
Ah, the poor abused fans for us mocking them!
Re: I immediately thought of your post
Date: 2012-01-27 01:23 am (UTC)Re: I immediately thought of your post
Date: 2012-01-27 01:29 am (UTC)