unfollowing an author

[Djmac1031]

In retrospect, my comment was probably over the top. I am a bit ashamed that I am in some ways like the BTB trolls I love to mock. I hate most BTB stories, and believe that 70% of them shouldn't be or needn't be in that category. That should be reserved for intentionally egregious behavior by the spouse or her lover. They write husbands in a way that no real or reasonable man would act. And they make the wife a little bit brain dead. So I react and post, and mock them.

We have pm'd in the past. I will apologize to her

Glad to hear this.

Seriously. Good on you for thinking about it and changing course.

A friend of mine has recently taken a hiatus from LE because of personal attacks and negativity directed at her by the type of people who enjoy inflicting misery on others for no reason.

I'm glad you're not one of them.

Seriously, thanks for restoring a little faith in people for me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

We have pm'd in the past. I will apologize to her

Good move.

She might not accept your apology though. Get her on a good day and buy flowers.

 

[lc69hunter]

Glad to hear this.

Seriously. Good on you for thinking about it and changing course.

A friend of mine has recently taken a hiatus from LE because of personal attacks and negativity directed at her by the type of people who enjoy inflicting misery on others for no reason.

I'm glad you're not one of them.

Seriously, thanks for restoring a little faith in people for me.

It doesn't mean that I thought my comment was wrong. It just shouldn't have been aimed at her.

 

[lustychimera]

If I unfollow an author, are they notified? I do hope so.

Been here since 2008, and this is the first I know of that a comment I made was deleted. Once I realized it, I made a comment that deleting comments was not nice. She deleted that one also. I then went and checked and found that she had deleted all negative comments.

She had written a little BTB morality tale, and I called her on it, saying that she had written it for the little incels that jack off to that stuff.

Funny thing is, I had given her a 4, based upon the fact that she is a good writer. I think I will go back and lower my score, just out of spite

I mean, clearly she doesn't have a whole lot of self esteem if she'll go to those shallow lengths to improve her perception of her skills. I think that's punishment enough.

It's as if she's saying that curating a false perception of her stories is more desirable than accepting the real one.

I could understand deleting negative feedback as a marketing strategy if the comments were prominently displayed before the story, but they're clear at the end, after most people have already read and formed their opinion of the content. They're for the author alone. I doubt most people even read them.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I could understand deleting negative feedback as a marketing strategy if the comments were prominently displayed before the story, but they're clear at the end, after most people have already read and formed their opinion of the content. They're for the author alone. I doubt most people even read them.

There's a Lit front page which lists the latest comments left against all stories. It's an entry point to the story, so no, they're not for the author alone.

The comment trails on my stories make it quite obvious that comments do get read, from the amount of cross-referencing that goes on. They get to be like a cumulative commentary, at times.

 

[lustychimera]

There's a Lit front page which lists the latest comments left against all stories. It's an entry point to the story, so no, they're not for the author alone.

The comment trails on my stories make it quite obvious that comments do get read, from the amount of cross-referencing that goes on. They get to be like a cumulative commentary, at times.

But, point being, are most new readers judging your stories based off the comments of previous readers? The story gets read, and then there's the list of what other people said about it.

It's not like an Amazon thing where people are trolling through the comments before they decide to pull the trigger on an item.

They look at the score, at the category, the kinks, maybe see if the first couple paragraphs catch their attention, that kind of thing. I have a hard time seeing comments as weighing heavily against an author's readership.

Or maybe I'm wrong and a big chunk of the traffic gets driven to your story from the sidebar thing.

But without any data, mine's just all speculation.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I could understand deleting negative feedback as a marketing strategy if the comments were prominently displayed before the story, but they're clear at the end, after most people have already read and formed their opinion of the content. They're for the author alone. I doubt most people even read them.

Agreed. So why do any of the rest of us care what the author does with them?

 

[nice90sguy]

If people want to criticize my stories, fine. But I expect a high standard of written English, or the commenter gets a FAIL.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Or maybe I'm wrong and a big chunk of the traffic gets driven to your story from the sidebar thing.

But without any data, mine's just all speculation.

I get a sense (gut feel) that I get an occasional feed-in off comments, particularly on older stories - I'll see a comment, and a little bump up in Views and a couple of new votes occasionally follows.

 

[alohadave]

I mean, clearly she doesn't have a whole lot of self esteem if she'll go to those shallow lengths to improve her perception of her skills. I think that's punishment enough.

It's as if she's saying that curating a false perception of her stories is more desirable than accepting the real one.

I could understand deleting negative feedback as a marketing strategy if the comments were prominently displayed before the story, but they're clear at the end, after most people have already read and formed their opinion of the content. They're for the author alone. I doubt most people even read them.

Everyone has the right to free speech, that doesn't mean you have to give them a forum on your stories to express it.

It's the writer's space, they get to control what comments they want on there.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Everyone has the right to free speech, that doesn't mean you have to give them a forum on your stories to express it.

It's the writer's space, they get to control what comments they want on there.

Like most others who posted their opinions here, I agree with this sensible approach. We can moderate our stories any way we see fit because it is a right given to us by Lit owners. I did express my opinion about the authenticity and validity of stories whose comments were filtered in such a way (not talking about insults here. I am talking about simple criticism towards the story), but as you said, it is our right to exercise as we see fit. It is mostly in that light that lc69 received criticism for complaining about his comments being deleted.
I do wonder though if we will say the same thing to authors who make threads to complain about getting 1* or 2* and their stories' ratings dipping below the level they deem right. I mean, in the same sense that it is the author's right to delete any comment they see fit without explaining themselves, it is also readers' right to give 1* or 2* to any story without explaining themselves as it is the right given to them by those same Lit owners. Yet I have seen time and again authors creating numerous threads to complain about getting this or that rating or being bombed or various other types of general boohoo. The community's response is usually to clap them on their backs and call those readers trolls, haters, and so on. Shouldn't we employ the same principle and tell those fellow authors not to complain about readers exercising their basic rights to vote as they see fit? Shouldn't we tell them to "get over it" and stop bugging us with those threads? Just some food for thought.

 

[alohadave]

Shouldn't we employ the same principle and tell those fellow authors not to complain about readers exercising their basic rights to vote as they see fit? Shouldn't we tell them to "get over it" and stop bugging us with those threads? Just some food for thought.

Those threads can be a little tedious at times, sure.

Venting with fellow writers though has its place, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Shared experiences and all that.

The difference I think is that stories are the author's space, and forums are open to anyone, so expectations are different.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I guess that I am fortunate in the fact that I have received relatively few negative comments, and even fewer abusive ones. I have never deleted a comment, relying upon other readers to 'police' those that feel compelled to spew venom or letting the admins delete those that they feel are inappropriate for the site in general.

I shared the story with readers. They share their comments with me. Fair is fair.

 

[yowser]

I do wonder though if we will say the same thing to authors who make threads to complain about getting 1* or 2* and their stories' ratings dipping below the level they deem right. I mean, in the same sense that it is the author's right to delete any comment they see fit without explaining themselves, it is also readers' right to give 1* or 2* to any story without explaining themselves as it is the right given to them by those same Lit owners. Yet I have seen time and again authors creating numerous threads to complain about getting this or that rating or being bombed or various other types of general boohoo.

Different things going on here. The 'they one bombed me!' threads get tiresome for many of us, since almost all of us who have been here awhile and have some sort of reputation, receive this sort of malice eventually.

But the feeling of fairness violation is real. I think most authors find it odd that stories with far less craft or imagination get high scores (which, after all, is the only lingua franca here and why many writers fret over the numbers so much) when their own personal work, even accounting for the rose-colored lenses most of us are unable to remove when considering our own precious output, by almost any literary standard is better than those with the ultra-high Scarlet H scores.

For many it grates.

I have never subscribed to the 'misery loves company' aphorism, but the same sort of behavior of course applies to restaurant reviews (yelp, etc.) when one's business takes a beating because of a negative, committed and organised campaign. Even in mainstream publishing this is happening, see:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/books/goodreads-review-bombing.html

People are trashing a book before it even comes out! From preprint distribution! Makes our own scene (none of us have a monetary stake in our Lit output) seem trivial.

 

[Cali_Love]

I get notified of being ‘followed’ every single day. Yet I’ve been followed by 439 readers for like 6 months straight, no change in digits. Does that mean with every new follower, someone un-follows me? Whatever.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I've only deleted one comment not requested by the commenter. That was due to a scatological reference in the last sentence. However, I copied and reposted the comment minus the last sentence explaining why I had altered the comment.

 

[Seadog777]

It's the authors choice whether or not to erase comments, so you getting all butthurt about it makes no sense.

I personally DO NOT like CindyTV because she writes "alternate endings" to stories WITHOUT the permission of the original author.

 

[lustychimera]

Everyone has the right to free speech, that doesn't mean you have to give them a forum on your stories to express it.

It's the writer's space, they get to control what comments they want on there.

While that's true and I do agree, I wonder how much of an overlap there is between people who delete "lesser" feedback and people who post on here complaining about how all they get is troll comments and never address the issues in their own writing that cause these "trolls" to comment.

My (soft) line in the sand is when feedback attacks my character and doesn't give anything to back it up, it's probably useless--though, I have had some good feedback pointing out things I need to work on in myself. So, it's not quite worth dismissing it entirely.

But if they stick to discussing the story, I do think it's valid--even if it can be annoying when they complain about it not hitting their fetishes rather than commenting on how it was written. But, that's still feedback gauging the market, so it's not invalid.

 

[lc69hunter]

Cindy and I made our peace and worked it out

 

[yowser]

Cindy and I made our peace and worked it out

You did The Right Thing.

Bravo.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I get notified of being ‘followed’ every single day. Yet I’ve been followed by 439 readers for like 6 months straight, no change in digits. Does that mean with every new follower, someone un-follows me? Whatever.

Sometimes readers hit "Follow" by accident, then unfollow when they realize.

Recently though, readers seem to have taken to using Follow and Favorites as surrogate "Like" buttons... they'll click then unclick to show appreciation but don't actually want to follow the author or keep the story in their favorites list.

That said, there is a serious lag in the Followers counter now. Often legit follows don't increment the counter on the author's activity page until two or three have been recorded, or many days have passed. At least, that's what's been happening for me for the past few months.

 

[djrip]

I've been guilty of unfollowing by misclick (the button is right below the save to list button, and sometimes they jump as something loads higher on the page, right as you are about to click). Then I refollow, and worry the author will be like, that's weird, didn't they already follow me?

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've had that happen, where I know someone followed be before, so why are they refollowing me now? Thanks for the information.

I've been guilty of unfollowing by misclick (the button is right below the save to list button, and sometimes they jump as something loads higher on the page, right as you are about to click). Then I refollow, and worry the author will be like, that's weird, didn't they already follow me?