An Open Letter to Dislike Voters · 3:13am Dec 20th, 2016
I am a writer. I adore criticism and creative improvement, and when I hear back from my readers I rejoice! Whether it is positive praise or critical evaluation, hearing from you is always a potentially eye-opening affair that I always look forward to. Now, the voting system in Fimfiction is not super helpful to that ideal in itself. I would love to know what you think about my writing. I want to know what you think, whether its praise or condemnation. I see all the up-votes on a story and smile; but, when i see down-votes, I am merely left wondering...
Why?
What do you take issue with? Is it the content, the style, the characterization, the formatting? What is it that makes you down-vote a story? I am perfectly okay with you doing so; but down-voting a story does nothing to improve my understanding as a writer. I want to improve. I want to make my stories better. To do that, I need to know the "why" behind that vote. I want to hear from you. I need to hear from you. If you take the time to read a story and down-vote it, please let me know why you did so! Without that critical evaluation, I won't find reason to improve. I assume you want to read good stories on Fimfiction; stories that you enjoy with content that you like, correct? If you down-vote a story without providing feedback on it, that does nothing to give me a direction to work towards.
So I ask; next time you down-vote any story, whether it's mine or anyone else's work; please, provide some critique! A reason for your vote, a suggestion for improvement, and a problem us writers can work towards addressing. Even if we don't agree with that appraisement, we can use it to get an idea of where you're coming from, and who the audience here at Fimfiction is.
TLDR: If you down-vote a story, please tell us why!
Thank you! 
Well, both of your fics are clopfics, and it's without a doubt there are some users who just habitually downvote anything of clop, no matter what it is. It sucks, but that's just the way it is.
Outside of that, I think people, probably the same ilk who downvote just for something being clop, also downvote because they despise a premise. Not just 'oh it's a Displaced fic auto downvote', but a downvote on anything they dislike the premise of, no matter how tame the actual content. It could be because they don't like the ship it's about, or they don't like the concept, period. I'm guessing that would be the source of a few downvotes on some of your fics, such as people who ship GlimGlam with Trixie or Twilight or Sunburst instead of Spike.
I've had nearly 200 comments this month and a grand total of two of them were sufficiently constructive that had they downvoted I'd have been fine with it. Fortunately, downvotes seem to be frontloaded. One fic I had went 2-2 in the first 4 votes, then one downvote out of the next 90 votes.
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Hiya! Thanks for responding to this old post. Glad someone thought to read this and I wasn't entirely shouting to the void, though it's been awhile. When I wrote this blog, it was mostly out of annoyance and a desire to improve. It's pretty clear that you can't please everyone, no matter what you do; like you said, there are people who will downvote, dislike, or discourage material for their own petty reasons, regardless of the quality or presentation. Thus, I think it's best to write for yourself, and the people who support or critique your work, rather than the silent minority clicking a down-pointing thumb. If I'm happy with what I've done, and most people seem to be too, then I must at least be doing something right!