Beneath the microscope, you contain galaxies.
Suppose I had thumbs. Wait, wrong hypothetical question.
Suppose there were a story on fimfiction written by a 10-year-old, and it was a very good story for a 10-year-old, but a very bad story for fimfiction. Further suppose this is not a contradiction.
You don't know anything else about the 10-year-old, and you have to give the story a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. Which do you give it?
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I'd watch as they get banned, because fimfiction has a minimum age of 13
I'd dole out a thumbs down to teach that child this world is unfair and that they'll need to toughen up and get off my lawn.
2752006
But Plum, fimfic would lose half its userbase of this was enforced. :V
I wouldn't vote either way. I save thumbs down for things that have given me some special reason to dislike them. "Bad fic by a kid" isn't special. But thumbs up are for stories I have enjoyed in some way, even if they're not favorites, so if I didn't enjoy it, I'm not going to upvote it. So I'd leave it alone and move on to something else.
Given who you are, I have to ask: are the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" buttons connected to anything--like electrodes, the valves on a tank of mustard gas, or the door to a cage full of blood-crazed weasels?
And given who I am, I have to ask: If so, on which side of the separating wall--mine or the 10-year-old child's?
2752028 this guy has it right
Thumbs are strange. If I like something, I give it a thumbs up. If I don't I just stop reading early on and move on. I have only used thumbs down when I feel the overall quality went from good/decent to shit, and now I can't stop reading cause I'm in too deep and gotta know the end, so if I finish or not, I'm miserable either way.
So my usage of the thumbs down is shit, cause I'd give a [overall quality-wise] good beginning, bad middle/end story a thumbs down and a total shit all the way story nothing, cause I didn't bother continuing.
I think some [dumb] people think that thumbs up/down is like voting for content you want or don't want to see, but I don't think any decent writer cares that much. Writers gonna write.
Grab another 10-year old, have them read it, and then decide?
seraphinae.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/56d.gif
To the question I'm going to assume that I somehow know the author is 10yo. Maybe it says so in the author bio (I more frequently encounter ESL in this manner, rather than young age). Or maybe I know them IRL.
Most likely, I'm going to not give it a thumb either way, but I'd leave a rather encouraging comment with a dash of constructive criticism, maybe a bookshelf add to one of my "lite n fluffy" bookshelves. But under the preemptive knowledge that you'll call me out for not voting, then fine, I pick the downvote. It sucks, because young authors, ESL authors, and other fledgling types can put a lot of work and heart into a fic, and a crappy audience reaction can really risk a death knell of an otherwise-promising new career. But at the end of the day, Fimfic and Youtube and all of these public content sites are services for the consumer. Ego-stroking the author does occur, but only as a side-effect of the readers getting what they want. And there's no "junior division".
I do remember lamenting, at last Bronycon, that wouldn't it be great if we had some sort of event/contest to encourage young fanfic writers. And then I realized that hosting such an event would get my ass sent to jail faster than you can say "Chris Hansen."
Depends on whether or not this particular ten-year-old has kicked me in the shins recently.
Thumb down. Then reporting.
I've had this happen, actually. I had a follower who was 11 (and posted an alarming number of selfies and blogged in such a way that I have zero doubt of this.) I followed her because it made her very happy, and to keep an eye on her, and she was a great writer for an 11 year old (and frankly, about middle of the road by larger fimfiction standards.) I always tossed her a thumbs up, and would do the same for anyone under 15 or so that I found. By 15, you should be reading enough grown-up stuff to know "good" from "bad" writing. "Should" being the operative word there.
You're only giving up and down as the options? Alright, I'll play.
Thumbs down. I'm older (in the childish "I'm older therefore I'm right" sense), I'm selfish, and I want to have a say about what belongs on this site and what counts as "good". So while I wish the child a good day and good luck in school, their story is going to be judged like any other user's.
If they seem precociously concerned with responding to criticism with a maturity that no 10 year old possesses, then maybe I'll direct him/her to some sympathetic soul who can recommend some good beginner writer books.
You can never start too early, after all. And it's certainly impressive that the kid had the desire to create and the gumption to post.
Depends, But, if the writer is good at what they do no matter what age they are so a thumbs up.
Honestly, if it was written by a ten year old, I probably would not have read it in the first place, as the description for the story would probably give away that they weren't a good (for fimfiction) writer, and I wouldn't bother. If I did actually read it, unless it was appallingly bad, or featured subject matter I hated, I'd probably just stop reading. Only if it was really bad, would I thumbs down something.
I have a difficult time imagining a situation in which I am required to restrict my information passing with a ten year-old child to thumb-based communications.
Except for this, of course:
pbfcomics.com/archive_b/PBF250-Uncle_Duncan.jpg
Okay, seriously, because this is a serious question:
Is "10-year-old" a metaphor for something-- say, someone in fragile mental or emotional state?
If not, and they're a real 10-year-old, then:
Unless you are known to their parents, I'd say you should not be interacting online with them at all.
Because I know you have innocent intentions and you know you have innocent intentions, but there is this thing called "the appearance of impropriety" and when a stranger interacts with a minor on line--that's what everyone besides you and me sees.
And if you are known to their parents or guardians, then I think you should be asking them for help instead of us.
I'm sure that sounds harsh and suspicious, but it's not nearly so harsh and suspicious as the parents of a 10-year-old when they find out their kid's been chatting with a strange man in an online forum. Or anywhere else.
This is not me trying to sound more worldly or hard-headed than you (for a change). This is me telling you what I honestly think is the good and right thing to do, as well as the thing that will keep you in the clear.
I gave it a thumbs up and an encouraging comment, because I was deeply moved by a blog post a few months back. I think it was by PresentPerfect, and it was a reminder that a lot of teenage, first time authors are deeply affected by criticism, and when I read it I felt compelled to offer encouragement to first time authors.
2752211 2752185 2752028 I said "hypothetical question" because it is a hypothetical question. I"m trying to get at the question of how you'd prioritize the needs of the site (supposing thumbs up and down mean something) versus the impact on the writer, so I posed an artificial question with the artificially-imposed constraint that you have to vote. Saying you wouldn't vote is dodging the question.
Personally, I'd probably regress it towards the mean--vote it down if it had more than 10 upvotes per downvote; up otherwise. I guess that doesn't answer my own question, though. I asked because I don't have a real answer.
Downvote and leave some encouraging comment/advice.
Though:
Made me laugh and
Was my first thought.
2752237
The reason I can't decide is I don't have enough information to base a judgment. The hypothetical is too vague. In some situations it would be a definite this-a-way or that-a-way. I don't know if you're reviewing something of a child's for that child, or for other children, or for other adults, or if the child even knows about it, or if you're deciding whether to put a macaroni painting on the fridge, or if you're choosing a prom theme.
I really have no idea what to say without actual context. What you're providing is not enough to evoke anything but arbitrary sentiment.
2752211
Actually, this is one of the reasons I followed my 11 year old follower. As a woman (and a mother), I was in a unique position where it wasn't automatically creepy, and I could keep an eye and make sure no one was acting creepy towards her.
To that end, I'll offer to anyone else: if you know a kid online and you need someone to keep an eye out or act as a go-between to offer them crit or assistance, I'm happy to help.
2752237 I don't feel that honestly answering what I'd do is dodging the question. I guess if you hold a gun to my head and say I have to click something, I'll click the thumbs up, because I feel giving a thumbs down without a really good reason is a bit of a dick move, but I think "It doesn't need a vote either way" is a perfectly valid response. It's what I do to the vast majority of stories I look at on this site.
Also, as far as the "needs of the site" goes, it's a bit silly (and maybe self-centered) to think it harms the site to upvote something that's bad. Things that are absolute shit make it to the feature box all the time, and the site survives. Why should I get myself all twisted into some ethical knot about needing to leave thumbs down on bad stories?
2752237
The following idea gets batted around a lot, but I don't recall your personal feelings on the matter: deviantArt's official Critique feature? Maybe I'm biased, but whenever I encounter those in the wild, the advice is nearly always constructive. (Whether or not the advice is good advice can be hit-or-miss) Plus, the author enabling this feature indicates that they're willing to learn and improve.
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/615/323/027.jpg
2752237
Well thank God.
I object. You phrased your hypothetical question in terms of a subject that is highly fraught for reasons other than, and much more significant than, the ones you had in mind. My response took those reasons into account, because I thought you were at some risk from them. And although you said it was "hypothetical," surely you know that word is a commonplace used when people wish to coyly discuss questions which are anything but hypothetical.
But since I would not have you think I would dodge the question, I vote "thumbs down."
If I'm absolutely compelled to vote… thumbs up. What I'd be more interested it doing is leaving a constructive comment, less about the story itself and more about some safe(r) places to go online to practice the craft.
2752012
Extra points for the level of appropriateness this response gains on a Bad Horse blog.
2752237
I'm glad somebody's mentioned this, even if it was the blog author himself. Regress towards the mean is exactly what I'd do, and I don't consider that a serious breach of the scenario, because we're never going to be denied that information in this scenario (or at least, not without making it much more hypothetical than it already is). My voting pattern on mediocre stories is always this: upvote if it's getting too much flack, downvote if it's rated better than it deserves, novote most of the time. That doesn't change if it's a 10 year old writing the story. The thing that might change is my commenting behavior, but only that.
2752247 Well, we already knew you'd go for the downvote.
Assuming that "very bad story for fimfiction" means I don't like it, then thumbs down. I've always been of the opinion that the quality of a work should be judged on its own merits and nothing else. That's not to say that I wouldn't take the circumstances of the author into account should I provide critique of the work or give advice on general ways the author could improve; my advice to someone just starting to write is going to be different from someone whose been doing so for five years.
But this wouldn't impact my opinion of the work itself.
I'd probably judge it the same way as any other story. Perhaps a little softer on the purely technical stuff. If the story has a cool idea I like in it, thumbs up. If the story is really generic/cliche/unoriginal, well, theoretically thumbs down. Though I don't thumbs down any story even if I dislike it intensely. So basically, the author being a young writer doesn't actually impact my reply criteria. I try to have that mindset of anything I read around here.
My general rule of thumb (groan) is that if it's an honest effort, and I feel that the author tried, I'll give it a thumbs-up. Since we're not dealing with professionals, for the most part, I can overlook some grammatical and structural errors, and my tolerance for those goes up with the quality of the story.
For all we know, you might be a ten-year-old.
fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/353/0/4/thinking_pinkie_by_muhmuhmuhimdead-d4jm4ze.png
I vote (or not) based purely on content. Author status does affect my commenting, however. Someone looking for honest criticism will get it, someone being a prick will get nothing, and all the wide emotions in betwixt. I worked with kids in that age range for a number of years, so for the prima facie hypothetical I wouldn't pull any punches, but I would mind my language a bit more than usual.
Probably.
To be honest, I probably would have stopped reading and gone to a different story before finishing, and thus probably before finding out the author was only ten. Since I never vote on a story I do not take the time to finish, I wouldn't vote.
If it's a bad story, it's a bad story. If I (for some reason) know the author's ten, I may leave an encouraging comment, though.
Bad Horse, I really think you know the answer to this one. Everyone on this blog knows the answer too, even if they don't follow it.
If you know it's a ten year old--just a little kid--then you upvote. No buts.
You believe in a morality that governs humans; to whom to do you have a greater responsibility--the art of writing, or a fellow person? And fimfiction is a community of which of these first--of people, or writers?
It's first a community of people, and to them you have the higher responsibility. The person always comes first in consideration when reviewing; if you don't know anything about them then you don't know anything about them. But the minute you do, it's no longer about the story or art, it's about the person.
2752012
Hmm, have you ever wondered if the reason why the world is so unfair is because it's full of people thinking they ought to be conduits for unfairness instead of trying to protect others from it?
2752882 I suppose all competitors in a race should be given a gold medal for participation then? This isn't about doing the nice thing, it's about doing the right thing. I hate having my dreams crushed just as much as the next guy, but I'm better off for not making the varsity baseball team. It isn't realistic to put all you effort into something where you are all but guaranteed to fail. Writing is great, but it needs to be done on the side. There are many excellent authors on this site, but I don't think the next JK Rowling (not the best author, just the wealthiest one I can think of) is among them (I would love to be wrong here).
And I got completely off track there, feel free to disregard and just look at RainbowBob's earlier comment.
2752938
Which is precisely why you put the person first in this scenario and upvote. Hardly a gold medal.
I am intrigued though: are you saying it is good to dissuade someone from being a writer when they ought not to be?
2752955 That's one thing that writing has going for it. While it isn't a viable career choice, you can still do it on the side and be a teacher or doctor, or whatever as a source of income. i would still judge to work based on content alone, if it's bad, I'd down vote and leave a comment.
Also, did you up vote your own comment?
2752147
Man, I remember when I was young, the main rule on the internet was "Don't give out your name, address, or phone number, and don't post pictures of your dumb self on the internet."
Now Facebook has flooded the internet with so many photographs that the odds of anyone choosing you to rape-torture-murder are vanishingly small. Though, let's face it: this has probably always been the case, and we're just not as paranoid anymore.
The sad thing is, there are probably more creeps on Facebook than on random internet communities, even on a per-capita basis.
2752967
With this I mostly agree, when it comes to fiction writing, or novel writing, for the average person. But then to use this as justification to downvote is to try and determine by ourselves what another's destiny ought to be. Which I suppose isn't what you yourself do, since you said:
Interesting...so when making a judgement it is good to purposefully ignore other information available to us in preference for only a particular fraction of it? We should not consider all the information and variables before we decide?
I vote based on the quality of a fic, not my feelings about its author. That way, when the author sees my thumb up, they know it's because I thought their writing was good, not because I thought they were a nonnative speaker or 10 years old or otherwise handicapped. I am a fan of neither coddling nor consolation prizes.
I am intrigued by this, as it really calls to point the author-vs-content biases in a "like" system. A lot of people "like" things because of who wrote it, more than the actual content, but plenty of people do the opposite as well.
For me, this is very difficult to say with the information given. A "very good story for a ten-year-old" must, to me, mean something with SOME redeeming quality in it. Going by my own internal models of children, I would expect it not to be strong on grammar or other technical skills, but I would assume it shows a spark of true imagination or character insight instead. If it has NONE of those things, then it's not a good story by ANY standard (at least that I would ever apply.)
Then you gave the contradiction of saying it's a very BAD story for fimfiction, and asking me to assume that's not an actual contradiction. I know that's a running joke, but I take it seriously. Either a story is good (by my standards) or it is not (again, by my standards.) What I like is not necessarily what fimfiction considers good, nor what would be statistically considered "good" for a ten-year-old either.
All that said, I don't mean to wiggle out of the answer to the question I THINK you're asking. That is, would I be more likely to give a "like" to a young author than another author at the same low standard of story. The answer is yes. Well, most likely. I am more willing to forgive mistakes for a younger author, as technical expertise is something that is most assuredly a learned skill, and therefore one that can improved upon. Likewise, it's the one most inexcusable to fail at (as it merely takes work/practice) if you're an older/experienced author. The spark of imagination and idea though, that's something harder to teach, and so when I see that, it matters a lot more to me than the technical details. So, a story with a good spark to it from a ten-year-old gets a like, despite the poor spelling and grammar, but a 20-year-old wouldn't get a like, as she should have learned that by then.
2752998 I don't want to feel like I'm giving them an up vote out of pity. The fact that he's only ten isn't going to come into play when judge the story. Would the fact that they're ten make writing a story impressive? Of course it is, but that doesn't automatically make the story good. I would love to continue debating this with you, but I have better things to do with my time.
I imagine in this scenario that there is an author note or similar saying so, and that it is at the end of the story. In this case I believe the best action would be to not vote, just maybe comment with some constructive criticism.
However, maybe downvoting might be for the best in the long run. No 10 years old would stop after getting praise for a story they most likely crafted in an afternoon, and that one story would quickly turn into 10. I would probably make a point to downvote further stories, and say something about "having someone more experienced look over the story before posting" or something.
Not that this scenario would ever happen, since I almost only read things by recommendation.
If I absolutely had to pick one or the other or face some nebulous but undesirable consequences, and assuming that the author's age was made clear somewhere in the story description or biography blurb, and I had to face similar consequences if I didn't read the story, then I'd give it a thumbs up. While the story would be below the expected level of quality for Fimfiction, if it showed genuine promise for a child of that age, I would want to encourage him or her to continue writing, whether with or without magical pastel horses.
However, outside of this unlikely hypothetical situation, I would choose to abstain, since a binary voting system is insufficiently granular to properly convey the complex interplay of forces at work. Furthermore, I'm not even sure if I'd want to read the story, especially if the description was at the same "good for a ten-year-old" level. If I did, I would offer an encouraging comment, but not a thumb.
2752012
I agree.
2752882
The people who look at ratings are also people. And I've heard that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
2753206
It has nothing to do with pity, but rather building stronger writers who will succeed as opposed to fail, and upholding the laws of human decency and human consideration above those of art and narrative. Though having pity towards a ten year old is hardly worthy of shame or embarrassment, Ra1nbowCrasH. However, if you have better things to do then determining what is a right course of action in life, then that's fine.
2753367
And the people whose stories are the subject of those ratings are people too. And pray tell, what "needs of the many" do you speak of?
2753367
How personally are your sensibilities harmed by seeing a story you find undesirable in the popular or featured stories section? Compare it to how your ten year old self would feel about a large number of downvotes on the story you wrote and published yourself. (Especially since almost all of the people who downvoted won't give you the courtesy of a comment explining in human terms why they didn't like the story.)
Besides, unless you're systematically checking the age of all authors and down voting the ones who are too young, (plus using a few alt accounts to help,) then you're hardly going to have any noticeable impact on "the needs of the many".
2753396 I would hardly consider this debate about whether or not we should judge a story based on who wrote it rather than the merits of the story itself to to be a reflection upon how I live my life. Even if it was, is it really your business? If we were debating something that actually mattered like abortion, genocide, or racism I would care more and it would be a better reflection of my views on morality. I just don't believe in giving kids unrealistic expectations for what the real world is like.
If you really want a hug box, I would recommend you go back to tumblr.
2753430 Owning my disagree here. I find this an interesting topic, and while I'll agree it's not life changing on a global scale, it's still sparked some interesting debates.
If you're not wishing to continue the discussion, perhaps consider just not responding rather than getting aggressive? I know it can be frustrating to tell someone you don't wish to keep talking and having them respond and seemingly ignore your wishes, but sadly we can't control others (Unless you're Bad Horse). Getting the last word can be satisfying but if it has to come at the cost of you getting annoyed then perhaps it's better to not have it.
2753396 It really sounds like they want to end the discussion, so it might be better to engage other folks on here. Jedi Master Ed and Pav seem interested in continuing the debate.