Oct
17th
2017
Little Venting · 6:26pm Oct 17th, 2017
- Reads a story
- Notices some issues that could be improved
- Writes a long post explaining some of the issues with said story, and how it could be improved in the future.
- Comment may or may not be deleted
- Story gets heavily downvoted
- Author claims it's because people are jealous/don't like X/conspiring against author and has nothing to do with actual writing
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Hopeful_Ink_Hoof · 475 views
·
#frustration
#venting
#anger
#writing
#story
#author
#ego
#arrogant
Try sending it as a private message? If ignored, let it be.
4700618
Honestly, I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. Besides, it doesn't really help with what was frustrating to me about it. It's more about the arrogance of it I guess? The idea that the only reason a story is downvoted is because of something personal from the voter and not based on actual issues with the story: either objectively such as spelling or grammar, or more subjective such as feeling an emotional investment in the characters. Having such a view creates a position that makes it harder to grow and improve. Not impossible, but slower and much more difficult.
4700652
Oh, I understand that. However, there is a smaller chance of getting a negative reaction to the message than if it was posted for everyone to see. It is the difference between a person pulling you aside to tell you that your fly is down, versus them yelling out "hey, check out those briefs!" Some folks prefer not to have their flaws paraded out 'in public,' and will react negatively to criticism, however constructive, presented in such a way.
also there is the known mob influence that cohesive opinions have.
one walloftext comment written positively or negatively will influence those who were ambivalent about the story they just read, and as ambivalence is as ambivalence does, the easiest least-investment-highest-reward way to channel this new infuence is by upvoting or downvoting when they originally intended to not bother voting at all.
Worse still is that a comment with a high upvote count gains a snowball effect of assumed importance by each consevutive ambivalent reader, while each post with a high downvote count acts like a NOT gate inverter to thos who were going to vote one way or the other.
real life people is a mess
4700854
But wouldn't that high upvote on the comment be a strong indicator that it's something the other reader's agree with? That maybe people who read the story but had trouble articulating it themselves saw those problems issued as similar to how they felt? Maybe since it has numerous upvotes, it touches on something that the writer should think about and try to work on?
4700865
yes, but if you hadnt pointed it out, suckers with a lesser developed literary critical analysis organ would have been upvoting it, or at least not downvoting because ambivalence.