It's a sad day when....

[M_K_Babalon]

100% agree with your disagreement. I love getting constructive criticism, my readers are my beta readers and constructive criticism is a godsend. I've become on line friends with some of my pickiest critics because they keep me on my game. If Laurel gave the same priority to edited stories that she gives to new stories I would have replaced everything I've posted here with corrections submitted by my readers. Making an edited story wait weeks and sometimes months for someone to click a mouse is unreasonable.

The ego driven thing is the flaming mongooses who toss a 1-bomb on a well-written story because they like a different story better or their particular kink wasn't front and center. "Duh, look at me! I can tear down a writer with a big vocab... voc... dey know lots a words!" That's what pisses off most writers. If you feel a need to give me a 1 then tell me why. And use a legit account so we can converse. This site would be 100% better for writers and readers if there was no anonymous voting and votes required a comment from a verified account.

I'd rather have a comment section like AO3, where you can respond to these ingrates.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

That's an awesome observation.

Given what I've seen on the subreddits. I've been here almost fifteen years, I started writing fanfics in 2019, no fic reader can hurt me now.

 

[Duleigh]

No, the site would be FAR worse. Feedback would be a trickle.

Prove it
I know other sites that are troll free by instituting these simple rules

 

[Voboy]

Prove it
I know other sites that are troll free by instituting these simple rules

It needn't be "proved." It is Laurel's opinion and she has her numbers to back it up. That's all there is to it, really.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Prove it
I know other sites that are troll free by instituting these simple rules

What a bullshit response. Stats prove over half the comments are anonymous. If they are removed we will lose 60% of comments. And votes, who knows? 75% anonymous? Votes will get destroyed which will make the bombvotes weigh more in the averages.

Get rid of anonymous voting and commenting just to keep you from getting butthurt? You can delete any comment that you want.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Get rid of anonymous voting and commenting just to keep you from getting butthurt? You can delete any comment that you want.

He can block all votes on his stories. Problem goes away completely.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

He can block all votes on his stories. Problem goes away completely.

But then he can't get the positive responses and he's here (probably more than anyone else) to be told how good he is.

 

[SimonDoom]

Prove it
I know other sites that are troll free by instituting these simple rules

Laurel herself has said that feedback and votes would be cut in half if you required registration. That's proof enough.

I voted as an anonymous reader for years before I signed up. It wasn't for any particular reason. I didn't want to go to the trouble of registering. I had no interest in belonging to anything.

We all face exactly the same thing. We're all in the same boat.

I receive idiotic comments from non-anonymous voters who tell me they've given me a 1 or a 2 and are nasty about it. There's no reason to believe that eliminating the anonymous readers' feedback will improve anything. For me and for probably most authors, the mere fact that it will reduce feedback, good or bad, makes it worse. I strongly do not want that.

 

[SimonDoom]

@Duleigh , I scanned your story list. You've published 106 stories here. You've done exceptionally well in terms of scores and have good view numbers as well. Your average story score is significantly higher than mine. I looked over some of your story comments, and your stories get plenty of praise, too. You seem to have plenty of very positive comments from anonymous commenters as well as non-anonymous ones.

By every measure, you have achieved success, and nothing that anonymous or unregistered commenters or voters have done has prevented you from achieving that success. So what, exactly, is the problem that must be solved? This is what I don't understand. You cannot claim that the Site allowing anonymous/unregistered voting is somehow holding you back from success, because it obviously is not. What is the problem? If you don't like a comment, you can delete it. Getting 1-votes, from either anonymous or non-anonymous voters, is not a problem. It is a feature that the Site allows with its voting system. We're all subject to the same voting system. Judging from your scores, you aren't suffering any more from downvotes than I am. Probably less so.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Laurel herself has said that feedback and votes would be cut in half if you required registration. That's proof enough.

I voted as an anonymous reader for years before I signed up. It wasn't for any particular reason. I didn't want to go to the trouble of registering. I had no interest in belonging to anything.

We all face exactly the same thing. We're all in the same boat.

I receive idiotic comments from non-anonymous voters who tell me they've given me a 1 or a 2 and are nasty about it. There's no reason to believe that eliminating the anonymous readers' feedback will improve anything. For me and for probably most authors, the mere fact that it will reduce feedback, good or bad, makes it worse. I strongly do not want that.

I can provide some slightly-better-than-anecdotal evidence as to whether cutting off anons would lead to fewer comments; ratings are a little more nebulous, though.

Lush has a system where only registered users can comment, and I cross post a decent chunk of stuff to both sites. Some of them are LW and some aren’t; I’ll skip the LW ones to avoid muddying the waters too much, given LW’s volume of comments.

In addition, most stories were posted within a few days on each site, so time lag also isn’t an issue. There is a bit of an issue in that Lush has a 10K word limit, so I posted in chapters for many of these, but the numbers across parts are pretty even. Still, I’ll pick 10K or less stories to keep it accurate. Ish.

Under Penalty of Law (IR on both sites) has 40K views and 30 comments on Lit, or about .7 comments per 1K views. On Lush, it’s at 5K and 8 comments, or 1.6 comments per 1K views (hereafter c/kV).

New Year, New Experiences (both Group) is at 48K views and 64 comments (1.33c/kV) on Lit and at 5.7K views and 22 comments (3.86 c/kV) on Lush. Notably, it was a contest entry on both sites, so it received that bump in both places.

Our Wild Hunt (EC on Lit and Outdoor on Lush) got 35.6K views and 45 comments (1.26c/kV) on Lit, with 3.8K views and 12 comments (3.16c/kV) on Lush.

So, overall, more 2-3 times the comments per view on Lush, but a LOT more eyeballs on Lit. Lit also does have the advantage that their system allows for (minimally) nested comments, so there’s more reason TO comment over there, because it’s possible to have a conversation in the comments. However, unless we’re wanting something like a Chan board (we’re not), Lit would have to implement registered-user-only comments for that.

 

[mirafrida]

Based upon my own subjective opinion, of what I've read, I believe about 20% of stories, or maybe more, deserve a one.

Obviously you are not afflicted by this wrongthink Simon. But in a perverse way, i feel like the more you ponder the fact that the average LitE story is pretty darn mediocre, the more annoyed you are likely to be when YOUR story gets hit with 1s.

As ever in life, the banal advice to focus on the positive and ignore what cannot be controlled is wise.

 

[SimonDoom]

Obviously you are not afflicted by this wrongthink Simon. But in a perverse way, i feel like the more you ponder the fact that the average LitE story is pretty darn mediocre, the more annoyed you are likely to be when YOUR story gets hit with 1s.

As ever in life, the banal advice to focus on the positive and ignore what cannot be controlled is wise.

I'm human, so of course I get annoyed when somebody gives me a 1 and I don't think it's deserved. But I don't elevate my annoyance to a principle. I don't feel a desire to change the system because somebody votes according to values I don't hold. They have just as much a right to their values as I have to mine. I accept that. I think we all have to accept that.

 

[RejectReality]

I can provide some slightly-better-than-anecdotal evidence as to whether cutting off anons would lead to fewer comments; ratings are a little more nebulous, though.

Lush has a system where only registered users can comment, and I cross post a decent chunk of stuff to both sites. Some of them are LW and some aren’t; I’ll skip the LW ones to avoid muddying the waters too much, given LW’s volume of comments.

In addition, most stories were posted within a few days on each site, so time lag also isn’t an issue. There is a bit of an issue in that Lush has a 10K word limit, so I posted in chapters for many of these, but the numbers across parts are pretty even. Still, I’ll pick 10K or less stories to keep it accurate. Ish.

Under Penalty of Law (IR on both sites) has 40K views and 30 comments on Lit, or about .7 comments per 1K views. On Lush, it’s at 5K and 8 comments, or 1.6 comments per 1K views (hereafter c/kV).

New Year, New Experiences (both Group) is at 48K views and 64 comments (1.33c/kV) on Lit and at 5.7K views and 22 comments (3.86 c/kV) on Lush. Notably, it was a contest entry on both sites, so it received that bump in both places.

Our Wild Hunt (EC on Lit and Outdoor on Lush) got 35.6K views and 45 comments (1.26c/kV) on Lit, with 3.8K views and 12 comments (3.16c/kV) on Lush.

So, overall, more 2-3 times the comments per view on Lush, but a LOT more eyeballs on Lit. Lit also does have the advantage that their system allows for (minimally) nested comments, so there’s more reason TO comment over there, because it’s possible to have a conversation in the comments. However, unless we’re wanting something like a Chan board (we’re not), Lit would have to implement registered-user-only comments for that.

Lush has never allowed anonymous commenting. It's also had a culture that was comment-friendly since inception as well. This was also reinforced by a widely-used setting which required someone to enter a public comment in order to cast a vote. There was no warning of who did or didn't have this setting active. The only way you discovered it was to cast a vote, at which point a comment form would pop up, which you would have to fill out in order for the vote to count. This caused many to start with the comment before even bothering to cast a vote, because a good chunk of authors were going to force you anyway. Prior to favorites becoming the method of voting, that system was all but unused. Your favorites per view rating was even worse than the comment per view ratio here.

Comments used to be far more common on Lit as well. When the favorites system was initially introduced, it was little used. You had a strict, small limit on the number of favorite stories and authors you were allowed to enter. As that limit was steadily increased, it became a more popular method of showing approval, as it provides a benefit to the reader as well in the form of a bookmark. In addition, the culture of RVC ( Read, Vote, Comment ) that existed here in the AH, and to a lesser extent on the site at large, was eroded by a few who loudly and tenaciously decried it as incestuous and nefarious. Comments steadily decreased as favorites increased, and in about 2011, the numbers hit equilibrium. Comments per view continued to decline until they were about half of the favorites before stabilizing.

A direct 1:1 isn't applicable in this case. You have to understand the context.