Dislikes, Comments, and Trolls · 10:59pm Aug 28th, 2018
It occurs to me that this video is very much applicable anywhere online. I recommend giving it a watch.
Channeling insanity into entertaining tales since 2015-01-19.
It occurs to me that this video is very much applicable anywhere online. I recommend giving it a watch.
I always feel a twinge of sadness when someone dislikes one of my stories. They're free to dislike it, and I don't hate them for not liking it, but I often wonder why because few people respond with any kind of feedback when they dislike the story. I think something worse than a dislike is plain apathy. If someone doesn't care about what I did, I feel like I failed. I remember being an overachiever when I was in school. Getting a B on my test wasn't acceptable. An A- was barely tolerable. Life after school has been one massive failure after another, coupled with an "incomplete," so my stories become my escape.
Still, I can handle dislikes as long as people aren't awful about it. Like what was said in the video, someone saying "I... didn't really like it." Okay, I can deal with that, even though I'd clearly like to know more, but then there's the "I hope you die and burn, you <insert slur here>" people, and they are trolls (at least I hope they are, because otherwise... eek). It's easier to tell a troll in a comments section, but much harder when they only leave a "dislike." I've seen dislikes on stories that have been out for 3 minutes, and you just know those are trolls who dislike a particular author, or just want to push back against a story that looks like it's going to become very popular very quickly.
Still, all of this is a microcosm in the grand scheme of things, a tempest in a teapot. It still hurts a little, though.
4927427 I absolutely agree with you. I for one always explain why I have disliked a story. It's just courtesy. Even if the reason is stupid to others, you should explain why you dislike something so the author can try and improve. Now of course, there's no accounting for taste. If the dislike is for "I dislike character x", there's nothing to be done or be sad about. But if the dislike is for say "You keep comma splicing and it drove me insane, dislike!" Then while rudely worded, that at least offers a writer something to focus on.
If someone doesn't care about what I did, I feel like I failed.
Oh man, tell me about it... I feel I have failed the audience if my like dislike ratio drops below 90%. Which is why I shared this. We as authors need to be less sensitive about this kind of thing over all. My stories are my only source of personal pride and satisfaction.
I did once, and I disliked it too. Because holy SHIT was that the single most racist thing I have ever seen in my life. TLDR, story with a cover of a human dude in blackface, with a racial slur in the title, about a civil war era characracture of a black slave haunting Twilight in a very rapy way.
99.999999% of stories are not stuff like that soooo, yeah.
4927444 -
True. I had one reader dislike my story because they felt my prose was "too flowery." Well, my prose is flowery, it's the way I like to write, so I have to accept that there are people who do not like that kind of writing. I apologized and told them I would keep other options open in the future, but that flowery was the way I preferred to write. That one was fine, because the reader gave me their reasoning. I knew I didn't fail, just that my story wasn't to their liking for its style. I can live with that.
Other comments regarding punctuation and grammar are most welcome, though, because I can't fix problems if I don't know they exist.
Conversely, I have downvoted stories, but I leave a reason. One story I disliked because the content was just way too violent, and this was back when Fimfiction was still working out the tags system, so it wasn't as capable of content warning as it is now, and I did not like the violence and gore, and made my displeasure known. I wasn't against the author, just the story.
Agreed. I like to tell myself that I could have 100 dislikes and 1 like, and I would still be happy but that's kind of stretching it. I would be happy to have pleased one reader, but that 1 up against 100 would be awfully painful.
Oh, yes, that would be an exception. I generally speak of stories that are four or five thousand words, where there simply isn't enough time to read the content in order to leave a like or dislike. I would most definitely downvote something that racist, too, though. *yikes*
4927449
You know, it wouldn't be too hard to program the site so users have to open a story's first chapter and scroll to th ebottem of the content before they can like/dislike it... Sure that's still abuseable but it requires the content be at least OPENED.
4927606 - That would be an improvement, I think.