What's with authors not accepting comments or feedback?

[oggbashan]

I think that this was an "in faith" critique of the story based on reading it--even if you think the commenter just didn't "get what" you were writing and not in the realm of the nasty comments that warrant deleting or turning off all comments. I think it would be appropriate for you to respond with the explanations you've given here in your own comment on the story.

Thank you sr71plt.

I agree that it is a comment that should be left, but I have copied my comments above to a comment on my story.

PS. The rating on Femdom Makeover has reached a massive 2.88

 

[Bramblethorn]

BUT - I'm not going to delete that comment because anonymous has obviously read the story thoroughly and has taken time to explain his (I assume his) reaction in detail. I think anon is wrong and has his own preconceptions of what a story should be, but I am grateful for the effort taken to comment.

What do you think?

I support authors' right to delete any comments they feel like deleting, but for myself I'd leave that one. As you say it's misguided, but it is at least a bona fide comment about the story.

The ones I'd be more likely to delete are the ones that approach the story merely as an excuse to launch into a rant about the poster's personal obsessions. I haven't had them myself but I've certainly seen them on other stories; as far as I'm concerned they're just hand-crafted spam, and the writers ought to be setting up their own opinion blogs rather than piggybacking off somebody else's readership.

 

[oggbashan]

I support authors' right to delete any comments they feel like deleting, but for myself I'd leave that one. As you say it's misguided, but it is at least a bona fide comment about the story.

The ones I'd be more likely to delete are the ones that approach the story merely as an excuse to launch into a rant about the poster's personal obsessions. I haven't had them myself but I've certainly seen them on other stories; as far as I'm concerned they're just hand-crafted spam, and the writers ought to be setting up their own opinion blogs rather than piggybacking off somebody else's readership.

The comments on my story Nylon Overall might fit as "a rant about the poster's personal obsessions." and are longer than my original story.

I have left them as an oddity.

 

[oggbashan]

Thank you sr71plt.

I agree that it is a comment that should be left, but I have copied my comments above to a comment on my story.

PS. The rating on Femdom Makeover has reached a massive 2.88

I support authors' right to delete any comments they feel like deleting, but for myself I'd leave that one. As you say it's misguided, but it is at least a bona fide comment about the story.

...

As I expected with this particular anonymous, as soon as I posted my response he returned with another comment. He just hates femdom and leaves comments that the woman has wrecked the relationship.

Returning to read subsequent comments and replying again is NOT normal behaviour for comments. This anonymous seems threatened by any women characters who are not submissive.

I will leave the three comments for a while - his two and mine - but probably delete them after the contest.

 

[MarkoAaron]

My stories are welcome for comments and rating, but I have a troll that likes to haunt me. On my stories and feedback requests here on the forum.

He and I had words once, and now he makes a great effort to criticize my stories and one bomb them as well.

 

[NotWise]

When your whole community boils down to words then "having words" is something that you can expect will have consequences.

 

[Inspirinious]

I have just begun posting my second story, and it is my first multi-chapter story. I put the 2nd chapter into the Lesbian Sex category which started a firestorm of comments that the story was in the wrong category. The comments/discussion got so heated, and not very much about the story itself, that I deleted the comments on that chapter and closed that chapter to comments.

I really did not like doing that, but I felt the comments were not appropriate for the story. I think that comments about which category I used, should have been sent to me privately.

I am considering opening a discussion thread about the use of categories, as I have other questions on this this topic.

 

[sr71plt]

I am considering opening a discussion thread about the use of categories, as I have other questions on this this topic.

You might do some forum research here and in the Author's Hangout on this topic first, as it's been talked to death and structural changes have about a zero chance of happening anytime soon.

 

[Inspirinious]

You might do some forum research here and in the Author's Hangout on this topic first, as it's been talked to death and structural changes have about a zero chance of happening anytime soon.

Oops. I just opened a new discussion thread on the use of categories.

I am relatively new to this part of the Forums. I did try to find guidance about the use of categories, and didn't find anything very relevant.

Sorry if I rehash an old topic.

 

[oggbashan]

I have just deleted two anon comments on a contest entry because they were personal attacks on me, not comments on the particular story.

If someone says 'It's rubbish'; 'It's boring'; 'It's badly written'; 'It's crap' - those are all valid. Insults about me because they don't like the category, or femdom, or stronger women - deleted.

 

[oggbashan]

Back to the original question...

People who post stories on Literotica do so for a variety of reasons that are personal to them. It is a free site on which to put your stories.

However bad a writer the author is, however many mistakes of spelling, grammar or plot - that person has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in creating that story.

You might think they could have made a better use of their time by learning English. That is irrelevant and their choice. They perhaps ought to have used an editor, or a beta-reader, or just spell-check. Whether they did or not their work took effort.

Readers have paid nothing to read the story. They can back click at any time and read another one of the tens of thousands of stories on Literotica. Voting on a story and/or leaving a comment is a deliberate act and takes little effort - far less effort than the author took to write and post the story.

Anonymous abuse deters some authors from posting at all, and that is a disservice to all users of Literotica. If an author has chosen to turn off comments, and/or to turn off voting, that is their decision, and unless they leave a note, we don't know why.

Constructive criticism? How some of us wish we would get it. Really helpful criticism is rare, and if accurate can be painful for the author to read and accept. We ought to accept it, and be grateful for it, but the first reaction could be 'Ouch!'.

Destructive criticism? That is common and is often a result of the reader just not liking the category, the plot, or the characters. Some of it can be revealing in that the reader believes some of the characters are real and unpleasant or behave badly. If the person leaves an adverse comment because they didn't like what X did - they have accepted the reality of X - the author's construct.

But some comments are not criticism at all. They are just hate-mail as a comment. Why should anyone have to accept that? If it was an email, the spam filter would move it out of the in box. But unless we turn ALL comments off, or all anonymous comments off, we can't filter them and many anonymous comments are relevant.

We don't know WHY a particular author turns comments off, but they have that right, and for some of us it is the ultimate deterrent after continued abuse.

But we ought to respect the author's effort in creating and posting a story however bad it is.

 

[oggbashan]

Today's illustration of a comment from anonymous on my contest entry Certainties who has obviously accepted the reality of the characters and their situation:

Oh hell no!

Now is when you throw the bitch out and divorce her. Charge her with spousal abuse, sodomy, illegal restraint and a number of other things. Make sure all your family and friends know she was responsible for the divorce. What a bitch! Really a story of abuse and non consent. Nothing funny about it. You really missed the mark on this effort.
1 star.

I see this as a valid response, but this anon seems to be lacking a sense of humour/humor.

 

[lovecraft68]

Today's illustration of a comment from anonymous on my contest entry Certainties who has obviously accepted the reality of the characters and their situation:

Oh hell no!

Now is when you throw the bitch out and divorce her. Charge her with spousal abuse, sodomy, illegal restraint and a number of other things. Make sure all your family and friends know she was responsible for the divorce. What a bitch! Really a story of abuse and non consent. Nothing funny about it. You really missed the mark on this effort.
1 star.

I see this as a valid response, but this anon seems to be lacking a sense of humour/humor.

But if a man did all the things this guy was bitching the woman did, he'd be a hero to the asshole leaving that remark.

Keep up the Femdom Ogg, some one has to keep reminding the 'real men' here how small their dicks-and brains-really are.

And they're better off with you, you humiliate the men, I hack them to pieces-literally- in some of my stories.

 

[oggbashan]

But if a man did all the things this guy was bitching the woman did, he'd be a hero to the asshole leaving that remark.

Keep up the Femdom Ogg, some one has to keep reminding the 'real men' here how small their dicks-and brains-really are.

And they're better off with you, you humiliate the men, I hack them to pieces-literally- in some of my stories.

Thank you, lovecraft. Writing Femdom, even very mild versions, means I'll never be popular, and many of my Femdom stories lose their Red H as soon as a 'real man' finds them.

It's not just on Literotica that there is a bias against Femdom. Try any picture search for Femdom activities, and you'll find women as the victims more often than men. As for BDSM? Try to find men as the subjects.

 

[sr71plt]

As for BDSM? Try to find men as the subjects.

You mean other than in Gay Male, I presume.

 

[oggbashan]

You mean other than in Gay Male, I presume.

Yes. Gay trumps BDSM as a category.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes. Gay trumps BDSM as a category.

No, I meant in terms of having men as the subject of BDSM. You said you'd be hard pressed to find that at Lit. Not in GM.

 

[oggbashan]

No, I meant in terms of having men as the subject of BDSM. You said you'd be hard pressed to find that at Lit. Not in GM.

I appreciate that, but GM BDSM is a minority of stories in Lit.

What I really meant was that if you search the internet for pictures of women tying up men, after the first couple of pages the pictures are of men tying up women, despite the search parameters.

 

[SrahFox]

It's not worth the stress

Pretty much all of my stories have comments turned on, I'm here to have my stuff read and to know if anyone finds them interesting, and I do get both good and bad comments on them. Usually the good outweighs the bad and I can reread the good and be reminded that its possible the negative commenter was just a jerk who gets a hard on from being such. I have problems with my grammar and spelling at times (I'm not a moron, I just have some learning issues) so most of the negitive comments tend to be about that. They do sometimes get very abusive, so the abusive ones I just delete. I've learned that the biggest jerks are sometimes taken care of by other commenters, and those people, and my fans make it worth the negative comments.

However I have one story that I've turned comments off on, because people just seemed to have issues with it. The comments were hurtful, and abusive at times and really just not helpful in any way. In the end I found it wasn't worth the upset from those comments, it just wasn't. Why in the world would I bother to allow that to continue, why would I give them an avenue to be a jerk? Maybe if I had enough decent comments to balance them I would have deleted the bad ones and moved on, but really, how many people read erotica with zombies in it?

I don't feel I'm particularly delicate or easy to upset, I understand that not everyone will like what I write, and really I'm fine with that. I'm not writing for them anyway. However I don't think there is anything wrong with being upset over someone trashing something I take so much time and heart to write, not when the commenter is just being an *ss. I find huge value in the comments, good and bad, so I can't imagine turning them all off, but I don't find it hard to understand why someone might not want to risk it. Not everyone has the skill to let negativity just roll off them, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't find negative comments upsetting.

 

[trigudis]

Really annoying, when you get to the end of a story (good or bad) and can't post a comment or at least send feedback to the author.

Thoughts?

The best thing about this site is the INSTANT feedback we writers get. That's what keeps us posting. It sure ain't the money.

 

[swingerjoe]

I figure I'll contribute my two cents here. A writer named javmor79 has recently begun deleting any comments that don't apply to his story or to comments made by other readers (such as the usual garbage like "kill yourself", "eat shit and die", and the daily back-and-forth between Bonnie/Vastie and her detractors.) I think it's a terrific idea, and I plan to do the same.

Of course, as soon as he did this, there has been a chorus of readers who now accuse him of being cowardly and "afraid of negative comments." These knuckleheads apparently don't see the difference between harsh criticism and irrelevant garbage.

I'm happy to report that javmor79 has also joined my protest of the ratings feature in the Loving Wives category, which now makes it a two-man protest. My thought there is that ratings in that category are entirely meaningless and are used as a weapon by the various groups that inhabit that category: the "cucks", the "BTB's", and the "RAAC's".

If a cuck reads a BTB story, it automatically receives one star. Same goes for BTB's who read any story that doesn't end with the cheating wife in a body bag. Any story that adheres to their preference receives an automatic five stars. There is no gray area in between. Because of those people, the ratings in that category have lost all meaning and purpose. If you come across a four-star LW story, is it because it's a quality story or because the story ends in divorce? Who knows? The better question is: who cares?

Naturally, the trolls of the LW category react to the disabled ratings feature with the usual cries of "coward" and "too afraid to allow voting." What really irritates them is that one of their weapons has been taken away from them. Yet another great reason to disable the ratings feature.

I'm hoping that other LW authors join javmor and me in this effort to clean up the LW category. I think this site would be much more enjoyable for authors and readers alike if all LW authors shut off the ratings and deleted irrelevant comments.

 

[patdown]

I turn off the comments section. Having seen the moronic comments of some who it seems are not living in reality or fail to understand these are often fictional stories, I don't want to give them an easy forum to draw me and my efforts into their wigged out heads. People, if they want to make the effort, can reply can send a response via email. Even then I've had people send messages saying I must be gay, or I would never let my wife do that to me, you must be a man hating lez. Yes I've received complimentary messages as well, and some legit critiques but the truth is, I'm not writing for the approval of people that I have no idea who they are or what they're thinking. I write what comes to me and I think makes for a good story. I fully understand not everyone will like any story but if someone does then they found something they liked. It's not up to me to come up with something that is universally appealing. If you don't like what I'm writing, you're free to just skip it and move on to one of the hundreds of other new stories.

Besides the ratings I look at how many people favorite either my stories or me as an author. When time permits sometimes I check how many stories or authors those people have favorited and granted some have them in the hundreds but at least those people got to the end of a story to click on it.

 

[susurrus]

I haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know what all has been discussed, but there are multiple reasons for not allowing comments, etc.

First: For a very long time, the only feedback option was email. Then, when public feedback came online, a lot of authors never bothered to turn the option on for their older work.

As well, an author may decide not to accept comments on a story they know will just rile the trolls. It has nothing to do with not being able to accept criticism, it's that there are people out there who go OUT OF THEIR WAY to rant against story content they don't agree with. It doesn't matter if there is a warning at the head of the story that there may be content that is deemed objectionable by some readers, I fully believe that there are folks out there that look for that kind of thing just so they can get their righteous ire up.

It's also possible to decline "anonymous" feedback. I've gotten called on that in the past. Once again, those who have commented on that particular point claim I don't want the negative comments. The thing they don't realize is that declining anonymous feedback also makes anonymous positive feedback impossible. The reason I turned off anonymous feedback is that I decided that the anonymous "This is the best story I've ever read!" was just as un-helpful as "This is the worst story I've ever read!" While the former was a nicer ego stroke, it really didn't give any insight as to how I could improve myself as an author than the latter.

Certain types of story get the trolls all hot and bothered, too, and something that REALLY gets their negative fires burning is a story that has content they believe belongs in a different category. For instance (and this is the biggie): ANY kind of contact between two men belongs in "gay male," regardless what other activity occurs in the story. There's a cantankerous part of me that would love to write a story with six or seven purely lesbian scenes in it, and throw in one male on male, just to see what the trolls do. Probably their heads would explode. I know for sure they'd cry for a negative scoring option, since they'd have gotten their little peters all hard reading about all the pussy being thrown around, then been hit in the face by a cold fish when the two cocks started going at it.

 

[susurrus]

I figure I'll contribute my two cents here. A writer named javmor79 has recently begun deleting any comments that don't apply to his story or to comments made by other readers (such as the usual garbage like "kill yourself", "eat shit and die", and the daily back-and-forth between Bonnie/Vastie and her detractors.) I think it's a terrific idea, and I plan to do the same.

Of course, as soon as he did this, there has been a chorus of readers who now accuse him of being cowardly and "afraid of negative comments." These knuckleheads apparently don't see the difference between harsh criticism and irrelevant garbage.

I'm happy to report that javmor79 has also joined my protest of the ratings feature in the Loving Wives category, which now makes it a two-man protest. My thought there is that ratings in that category are entirely meaningless and are used as a weapon by the various groups that inhabit that category: the "cucks", the "BTB's", and the "RAAC's".

If a cuck reads a BTB story, it automatically receives one star. Same goes for BTB's who read any story that doesn't end with the cheating wife in a body bag. Any story that adheres to their preference receives an automatic five stars. There is no gray area in between. Because of those people, the ratings in that category have lost all meaning and purpose. If you come across a four-star LW story, is it because it's a quality story or because the story ends in divorce? Who knows? The better question is: who cares?

Naturally, the trolls of the LW category react to the disabled ratings feature with the usual cries of "coward" and "too afraid to allow voting." What really irritates them is that one of their weapons has been taken away from them. Yet another great reason to disable the ratings feature.

I'm hoping that other LW authors join javmor and me in this effort to clean up the LW category. I think this site would be much more enjoyable for authors and readers alike if all LW authors shut off the ratings and deleted irrelevant comments.

The ratings all the way around are meaningless, just for the reasons you cite, though you're correct, LW is the biggest minefield. Hell, even the TRUE Loving Wives stories, where there is no cheating, no mixed categories, just a man and woman having good sex, don't do well.

As I mention in my previous post: even warning these goons what kind of content is coming up is no deterrent, because I fully believe some of these guys (let's face it, they're primarily men), look for such things, just so they can "flex their muscles," and vent their impotent outrage, then go trotting off, all smug and self-satisfied.

I actually wrote a story a while back that poked at the trolls, including a lot of the kind of things that their comments would imply they wanted to see. Many of the comments proved they didn't get it. The ones who DID get it, thought it was hilarious.

Oh, and the kinds of comments you cite, the "kill yourself" and the like, are not criticism. I wouldn't hesitate to delete them, either.

 

[susurrus]

I have just begun posting my second story, and it is my first multi-chapter story. I put the 2nd chapter into the Lesbian Sex category which started a firestorm of comments that the story was in the wrong category. The comments/discussion got so heated, and not very much about the story itself, that I deleted the comments on that chapter and closed that chapter to comments.

I really did not like doing that, but I felt the comments were not appropriate for the story. I think that comments about which category I used, should have been sent to me privately.

I am considering opening a discussion thread about the use of categories, as I have other questions on this this topic.

Some of this comment will be a re-hash of what I've already said.

Category is difficult to come up with on some stories. Not every one fits neatly into the list Lit has given us to work with, and some of the categories are extremely vague.

To cite a personal example: I just recently had a story (Sean) posted to the main site. It's a story about two male blood cousins who explore a curiosity regarding sex with other men. They are NOT gay men, and my belief is that the greater taboo is the incestuous component of the story. However, even had they BEEN gay men, I still hold to my original contention regarding which category it should have been filed under. I even wrote a warning at the head of the story to let readers know the kind of content they were going to encounter, and there are still knuckleheads who read the damn thing, if one of the comments and the score are any indication.

Category is a real sore spot for some readers, and none are more vitriolic than the homophobes.

But, anyway, back to category. Again, going by personal experience... I have a story that is Incest, BDSM, bi (male) sex, lesbian, and I don't remember what all else. Where do you put something like that? Not every story has a clean-cut place for it to go. You just have to use your judgment and make your decision. If the site moderators decide the category you've chosen isn't the best fit, they will sometimes change it. I've had that happen on at least one of my stories in the past.

To be honest, I say we just all continue to write what we write, and f*ck the trolls (and not in the good way). As has been pointed out, it takes time, imagination, and effort to write a story, regardless of its quality. It takes none of that (especially imagination) to click a "1" and/or misspell "Ur story suks," and go trotting off into the night with a self-righteous spring in your step.