So . . . Maybe Some Advice? · 5:05am Dec 13th, 2013
Today, I made someone quit the site. Literally. I . . . don't know how to react to this. I made a rather derogatory remark about his story after reading a chapter that I truly hated, and it was because of that that he quit.
So, I am at a bit of an impasse. See, he is going through tough times, and if you question the validity of that, look at this story. He hadn't updated it in a year almost. So . . . now I have to deal with the fact that this guy is gone. But I also feel bad for trying to get him back. If he is truly having life problems, then he needs to be dealing with that. This site isn't worth it.
So now I am here, wondering what to do. I already message him literally on everything that he offered on his page: Deviantart, YouTube, and his Google+ account. I also message him on Fim Fic, but I don't know how effective that will be.
Do you guys have any advice for me here? If you are wanting to see his blog, it is here. I am going to mark Nightmares that way I can get the most amount of people to see this and possibly give advice. I know, I am abusing the power, but this is rather serious to me. I don't like doing that to people.
So, yeah.
Wow, I'm not sure what to say in a situation like this. Perhaps trying to drag him back here when he has a lot going on in his life isn't the best idea, but telling him how you feel is probably a good choice of actions.
Most people come back on their own, and you probably shouldn't be the person chasing him down.
At best you're just going to make him feel worse, and at worst you're feeding a drama whore. 
Well...I mean it sucks that he left and your statement probably was a little rough around the edges.
But that doesn't mean you should apologize for the criticism itself. I mean, you're an editor. You're good at seeing this sort of stuff. If it was bad, it was probably bad.
But regardless of its quality, I feel the most you can do is apologize but try not to push the matter. Like a lot of users said on the blog, he does need to practice a little selective skin thickening.
I would say that's a bit of an overreaction (on both your halves), but the comment may have combined with stress of multiple things going on at once to make him break down. Perhaps give him some time to cool down before apologizing and attempting to bring him back.
Everyone's got a sob story.
Personally, I think he was gonna leave regardless. I didn't really find your comment to be too terrible, and if you didn't say something, someone else would have said something "mean" and triggered his exodus eventually. This is the internet, if you can't take very simple criticisms, then you're going to be having a tough time doing anything.
I also wouldn't be too concerned about it. If I had a dollar for every time some fanfic author declared they were "leaving," and then returned a few days/weeks.months later, I could buy the site from Knighty and make Twiluna a mandatory part of the Featured Box. I also had a similar experience:
>does Fanfiction Reading Updates
>favorites and writes about a "first contact" story
>someone comments that its grammar "made my eyes bleed"
>author deletes story as a result
It sucked knowing that my little blog post series caused a fanfic's permanent deletion, but then I realized it was inevitable. Someone would have said something to the author eventually and the story would have been deleted. Those with thin skin will eventually be cut.
Edit: I went to go check out the story to
enjoy the butthurt that's in the comment sectionlook at it, when I noticed the synopsis:Judging from that, this wasn't the first time something like this has happened, since it's very rare someone deletes their story on accident.
(Fimfiction editing bug nearly deleted my comment.)
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Well, I would like to thank everyone for giving me the advice, though it seems everyone has come to the same consensus. I kind of expected it, but I just don't usually have something like this happen to me. I mean, my words don't ever mean anything on this site anyway. So, I could say whatever and no one would care. But when someone does, and it has a less-than-desirable effect, I kind of get concerned.
So, I guess I'll just move on from this. If they guy comes back, he'll do just that. I mean, I can't really say that I'll ever like his story. It truly was a terrible chapter that I read, and I certainly didn't see it improving, but if the guy truly wanted to make the story as good as possible, then he would have just went back and improved it.
So, thanks, everyone.
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I think you may already know this by now, but in general it's not a good idea to be an ass to people. I know, I was the same way with Kiadan (at least that's how I think you spell it?) It was on one of his stream channels and I said something really hurtful and I could see him read the comment with expectation and suddenly it's like he broke. He went really still and got really quiet and just stared straight ahead. Needless to say i felt awful about it.
I'm sorry that you feel this way, and the only thing I can tell you is what you are already doing. Apologize. Apologize sincerely and promise to not do it again.
I try to keep my own words fairly soft, in case I end up having to eat them. And if I encounter something here that's truly awful -- something that I didn't write, anyway -- I tend to move on to the next activity, on the basis that I don't feel qualified to give more than perfunctory advice on such matters, and on the truly awful stuff, that's nowhere near enough.