Coping with trolls and negative feedback

[RedJaime]

I have issues with this as well. This is why I choose not to participate in the forums often. For me, I don’t understand why people post negative comments without constructive criticism behind it. Too me if you want to be negative you’re wasting everyone’s time but it’s the internet and they can do as they please.

 

[tennesseered]

Negative comments

Negative comments are just part of the landscape, especially on LW, I'm finding. I just received about 40 negative comments out of 15K views in 24 hours, which isn't too bad when you consider the percentage of disagreeable people you meet everyday. I don't seek affirmation from those people in real life, so why should I be bothered by online anonymous disagreeable people? The low scores they give out are meaningless in any event, although some commenters seem to think I fret about it. This is all just dirty writing, right? Not great literature, right? I'm my own worst critic and ultimately I write for myself. Admittedly, I was momentarily intrigued by the woman who PM'd me, asking me to spank her. Sorry, Toots, too busy.

 

[Emirus]

...What does annoy me more are the Trolls who will take pleasure in hitting you with a 1 star as soon as possible on release, but not bother to tell you why?

The first vote for my latest story, Hela - Retribution, was a 5. It didn’t take long to be down around 3 after 5 votes in total. You don’t need to be a maths genius to work that out. It rose to 4.35 after 25 and then after 29 it’s down to 4.24 after a 4, 4, 5, and a 1. Nothing you can do about the people who probably don’t read the story just drop an anonymous bomb.

The most comments I’ve received (bear in mind I’ve only got 5 stories to my name) has been Early One Mourning which has 9 complimentary comments, 8 of whom put their name to their comment. The only other comment was from an Anon who spent 38 lines explaining to me how, in his opinion, my first paragraph should have been written. He finished his comment with “if you delete this comment, save the advice for later and give it a think over.” I wouldn’t have deleted it anyway because I thought it was funny and left a tongue in cheek reply which he’ll never read, of course, but I thought future readers might enjoy. I don’t know if he read further than the first paragraph and if he did what he thought of the story itself because he never mentioned it in his comment. He obviously spent some considerable time on thinking about and composing his comment which was in the end a complete waste of his time.

https://www.literotica.com/s/early-one-mourning

 

[Tigersman]

As a volunteer editor I save all my negative comments for PMs. My negative comments are actually constructive criticism concerning grammar, spelling, punctuatin and consistency. I usually suggest the author print off their story so they can read through it slowly in hopes of catching any errors. If I post a comment it's always positive.

 

[PrevertOne]

The only thing I delete is spam. Everything else, including the bad, I keep. I take the trolls as a badge of honor. Laugh at the bad, appreciate the good.

 

[Sputnik57]

Trolls...

Best to simply ignore, or add a basic acknowledgement without rising to the level of abuse that's been aimed at your work; it's difficult to contain yourself when it gets personal, but that's what excites the poster of the comment.

You can soon determine whether it's genuine criticism or not, from the text, and as you'll find, nearly 100% of the abusive stuff is from 'Mr Anonymous', being brave behind that veil of anonymity. I've been plagued at times, by an individual - the comments, gist, and format, indicating it's the same person - and at one point blocked comments from anonymous sources, but this also stops those who wish to show appreciation etc. whilst hiding their identity.

Just keep it in mind, that this how some people get a thrill out of life, and just live with it!

 

[Cockhole]

Trolls

I delete replies that criticize the content within the category. I've received some that criticize my IR story that is posted in the IR category. I also delete any personally insulting comment, although I haven't had many. There is a commenter that tells you he voted 1* and then usually insults you personally. I delete him every time. I don't delete critical feedback that points out errors in syntax or grammar in general. I learn from those.

 

[LightningSeed]

Coping with hateful feedback

If it’s constructive criticism then it’s really good and I love it. I wrote a couple stories with no quotation marks and heard a lot about it, some of it valid, some of it just not comfortable with a different form. But it’s all valuable.

If it’s just venom from some Anon, then I just move on.

If it’s venom from a reader with a log-in I try to figure out the core of their anger. Posting in Loving Wives, I think there’s a lot of pain there. If I can give them some catharsis then I can live with that too.

The ones that really suck are the ones that begin with “I’m looking for a mature man...” I know I’m a noob but can’t something be done to shut that down?

 

[Megamuffin]

You can head off some negativity by starting with a content warning. I used to get some flack for having bisexual male content in my group sex stories from the self-loathing crowd, but if you put up a "dudes blowing dudes" sign right at the front door, they usually don't bother navigation to the last page to comment.

But if someone is criticising in good faith and constructively, bring it on.

 

[Panthergirl]

All off the same story:

"EVERYONE who enjoyed this shit must be isolated from society to some kinda island where they gonna starve to death."

"This is easily the best story i have ever read."

"It took five years to write this garbage? I'm surprised the author hasn't died."

"Easily in top 5 stories of the site."

"THANK YOU. For not adding more to this crap. Please please please never write again."

I was trying to find the Death Wish that went something like, Please never write again and die... I wasn't sure which order they were supposed to occur in. I imagine if I died, I'd definitely never write again, so I'll wait on that.

Negative feedback, if it's not just troll negative, is emotion. If you evoke emotion, you wrote a good story. Whether they like or hate the material or characters, they felt them. You wrote well enough to draw them in past the first paragraph, that is a win to me.

 

[DreamerByTheDiamonds]

Meh. I don't care. As long as a comment isn't spam (stupid I'm looking for a mature man crap), I say leave it up. I've gotten a few negative comments, and that's fine. I'm actually a pretty crappy writer anyway. I generally think that people are free to say they hate something as much as they want, even if it does seem trollish (although I don't think I have any troll comments so far). At least, that's how I deal with negative comments. As far as I know, I only delete the spam. If anything, I think negative comments are mostly good because it can give you an idea on how to improve your writing.

 

[thewinedarksea]

I get some negative comments. I don't mind them too much, particularly the anonymous ones. I feel good enough about my writing to shrug it off.

If someone I know and trust criticizes me, I'm often grateful for it, eventually.