What are Random Dislikes?

In shortcut, it's a situation when you received a Dislike rating, without futher explanation ( read : Comment or PM ). However, we mostly talk about random dislikes in matter of "good" stories, or rather "quite good" stories. Random Dislikes aren't major threat to Extremely Well Created Story ( like Powers of Harmony, Upheaval and such ), however, they can be a dangerous for normal stories ( below 100 rating likes + dislikes ).

Why Random Dislikes are dangerous?

First of all. Dislikes tells the Author that the story is bad. However, without more explanation it gives author nothing. He/She know that something in his story is bad, but have no bucking idea what it is. Giving a dislike is like posting a comment : "Your story is so bad!". If it's not matched with a comment saying what is wrong in story it's totally pointless. Author will not be able to correct his/her story only from "Your story is so bad!" signal.

Futhermore, if a "good" but "not so popular" story is attacked by Random Dislikes, it will not receive attention, even if a quality of work is high. That's also why EWC Story don't need to be afraid of them, 24 random dislikes are nothing for 500+ likes. However, even four Random Dislikes can bury a story with only 12 ratings as it stood.

My usual reaction when I received Random Dislike.

Example of Story attacked by Random Dislikes :

The Seven Bells and The Six Bearers

This is one of the best examples.

Okay, now look at if carefully. We got 13/4 Rating Likes/Dislikes. Now, take a look at the Comment section. We got one guy who actually point out that something is bad ( Chapters are too short ). So, this could explain one dislike rating. Three others then, are Random Dislikes in result. But the most important part. Author see that his story is bad in some terms ( 13/4 Rating ). But, how now he should correct it? The only thing he knows, is that Chapters are too short. You know what? It's not convincing.

I took only one example, but almost ALL stories are attacked by Random Dislikes ( even the most magnificent masterpieces have some dislikes just for fun ).

Okay, but what about Random Likes?

Okay, Random Likes in general tells the author something like this : "Your story is good, keep on with a good work!". However, there are no such a term like "Perfect" story, so again, Author don't know what to correct in his story.

However, Random Likes don't bury low-popular stories. In that case, they aren't a threat to stories. Random Likes can be also used for EWC stories, they are such good that another comment won't change anything at all. Still, it's better to post comment, but if you are seriously without a time to post something, giving a Like is ok. In total, Random Likes have no negative effect to the story, so they are good in that way.

Special Announcement :

Never, ever give a Random Dislike. Writers are sensetive persons, we truly care about our pieces of writing. Giving Random Dislike is like punching author in the face with a "(Derpy Censored It ) You!" cry. Actually, I'm almost centairn sure, that readers of this post aren't a Random Dislikers. However, spread a good word, spread a reviews to improve the author's glorious works. Random Dislikers are a thorn of our marvelous site, Fimfiction.net. Even the worst fiction doesn't deserve a Random Dislike. Yes, even the worst one.

And that would be all.

Stay Awesome

Verlax

PS. I'm almost centairly sure, that Inky Jay will read this so... I'm reading Marks of Harmony and I will give review to it soon!

627560 Wow you used my story as an example. I'm touched and I so agree. I was so ticked off when I got randomly disliked on that story... It's a crossover, but everybody who has read it and knows the crossover (Garth Nix's Abhorsen Series) has told me it's pretty good. It's just plain annoying when that happens.

I have no idea why people do this. It's crazy. Crazy crazy!

I'd make a joke about it but ugh at school

Random dislikes are the Winter of my Discontent. It bugs me because it's like, "Wow, you had the time to click a button but not enough to type?"

It makes me wonder about the attention span of people on this sit-- ooh look a butterfly!

The rule of thump in Fo:E is to never look at a down vote unless there is a comment with it, because we have so many haters. And there will always be someone out there that hate an element and give dislikes because of it is in them.

So don´t think on the red numbers, look at the comments. And remember to love and tolerate in the name of Derpy!

Augh! This is all so right! Every time my story A Better Equestria received a dislike without any explanation, It infuriated me to no end. Now whenever people look at the story, all they'll see is the three dislikes on the rating and avoid it as best they can.

Random likes annoy me as well, but at least those kind of help you in some way.

When I recieve a random dislike, I just assaign an arbitory reason for it and laugh.

I hate dislikes in both stories and comments. What'd I say wrong? What's the beef? If I down vote, I try to comment what went wrong with it.

The only reason I'd give a random dislike is because I disapprove of the concept which the author is expanding on. That's not really something that you can say in a comment: "Hey, I hate your idea!" would probably not make the author feel better.

627625

Of course critique don't make feel Author better, but there is a fancy mathematical operation :

Critique + Dislike > ( Random ) Dislike

Seriously, there is nothing worse than Random Dislike. You are publishing Chapter, wait a few hours, and you see that you didn't receive any comment. Then you look at score, and see two likes and two dislikes more.

I dislike random dislikes. I've taken care of the problem, which was holy-wall-o-text rather early on but I still got a few more random dislikes...

But I thank Ultra for pointing out my bad points at nearly every chapter.

I recieved these too when i first started... Heck, I got more dislikes than Likes... and that made me realize that I can't laugh it off as a joke. It kinda stung, but It didn't make me emo.

It still kinda made me feel a teeny bit bad though not knowing what's so crappy about the story. And then I began to think that Humans in Equestria stories are just frowned upon and think they're self-inserts, even though what I'm writing is far FROM a stupid self-insert.

It's better to know the WHY. All the time. It's not the dislike itself that hurts, it's the phenomenon of not knowing. (Well, for me anyway.)

I think my own stories suffer from this also. and in one of my own stories only one person helped

The best is getting a random dislike as the first rating.

I have, maybe, given 3 dislikes in my entire fimfic experience, and for those I gave a reason. I really hate it when people dislike just for fun. Personally, I don't see anything fun about that.

Carry On

This basically describes my entire life.

There is almost always at least one douchebag who will don't vote just to ruin a stories perfect score.

Whenever I leave a downvote I will also comment about why and a way in which it could be fixed.

627570
I know exactly why people do it. There are two primary reasons: trolls and being lazy. The first one is the most sinister. The down vote won't be random so much as it will meant to hurt the author, or it will happen because the reader disagrees with the premise, characters, or something from their own personal bias that begs the question, "Why did you even read this if it's not your thing?" A good example of this, and I've heard brought up on the Bronyville podcast before, is the bias towards alicorn OCs. Look at Inky Jay's Marks of Harmony - that's a good example of how to write an alicorn OC, but just because the story even mentions such a character, there's going to be a bias shown towards it.

Being lazy is the other way in which we get random dislikes. Someone will read a story and for whatever reason their dislike it. Nothing personal, just "I didn't like this so thumbs down". It takes time and effort to write out a comment and explain one's self, and not everyone will do that. I think if you're a writer, you'll know not to go and give a random dislike, but that random dislike does a lot more to new authors than you would think.

I get sort of a mixed bag with this. Most of the time I get dislikes when I post a new chapter, but they aren't overwhelming by any means. Still it would be nice to know why people are disliking my story in the first place. Good comments boost egos, but they are merely fluff because they never tell me what I'm doing right. "IT WAS GOOD I WANT MORE!": Well ok but why was it good? I've had people criticize minor grammatical errors in my story but never have I had anyone tell me: "Wow the plot sure sucked, work on it." Me personally, I've never given a story a dislike. Even if I don't like the story that doesn't mean it deserves a huge red bar, it's just really mean spirited. Le sigh~ such is the life of an author.

I got a random dislike the day before an EQD pre-reader rejected me, so I can't help but think that they disliked it enough to downvote it. I was pretty bummed.

There's nothing quite like the feeling of a naked piece of your soul getting downvoted. You have just finished your chapter, perhaps sent it off to your pre-reader, who assures you it is good, polished it carefully, and submitted it, your heart full of hope. Then it hits the front page, maybe when you aren't looking (which can be good, because if you happen to be online while it's on the front page you spend every moment watching it like a hawk), and then...

...IT HAPPENS! Ouch! It's like a knife flashing from out of the darkness. You didn't see who did it, have no idea what you could have possibly done to offend them... and you never will, because every member of the Unholy Order of the Ninja Downvote lives in the shadows. Its members wear Guy Fawkes masks even when no one is around to see them. Especially then. You stare at your computer screen, at that little red stain that will never go away, and say, "I just don't know what went wrong..."

I've never downvoted a story. Not even if it was really, really bad. (I just refuse to upvote in those cases.) I wish I was the kind of person that was unfazed by getting a random dislike. I'm not. Somewhere out there, in the vastness of cyberspace, someone didn't like the story I poured myself into.

(Also, ever notice how a popular writer will ignore dozens of comments of praise on his/her story, yet reply to a critical comment? Or how that one downvote somehow makes you feel more than all those upvotes? There's a reason for that. It's a defense mechanism. It turns out, human beings need a considerably higher ratio of positive feedback than negative. So spend time with positive people like the folks in this group, because it's good for you.)

Ok let me honest I have given dislikes without leaving a comment as to say why. I've only done it with stories that blatantly bash Celestia or do that whole NLR/SE crap. I do it simply because I am less likely to write a very rude flame comment since I have a great dislike of those fics.

631749 In some cases I have given a dislike, but never for an author who has put effort into crafting a story worth reading, and if the author is someone I disagree with, I only dislike if there's an acceptable margin of likes for me to dislike.