#LLF Comment Project related

[longlivefeedback]

Feedback Rates on FFN and AO3: Initial Characterization of Data

Introduction

At the beginning of January 2018, we set out to collect some data on commenting rates on two major fanfiction sites, fanfiction.net (FFN) and archiveofourown.org (AO3), with the goal of determining whether stories receive more feedback on one site or the other.

For those unfamiliar with either platform, FFN and AO3 allow writers to post their works and receive feedback from readers. Readers can leave written feedback at the end of each chapter of the fic, which can then be displayed publicly. Written feedback is referred to as “reviews” on FFN and “comments” on AO3.

For this study, we asked respondents to submit four data points corresponding to each of their stories: the review count, the number of views on FFN, the number of comment threads on AO3, and the number of hits on ao3. To be eligible, stories must have only one chapter and be posted on both sites.

So, without further ado, check under the jump for a characterization of our data.

Assumptions and Limitations

Results only apply to single-chapter stories - we don’t know if or how this information relates to multi-chapter fics.

Samples may not accurately represent AO3 and FFN as a whole. The goal of this study is to provide a general overview, and therefore the reality may vary between fandoms and time periods.

Sampling bias: respondents are likely to be AO3-dominant users, and thus spend more time building community on AO3, which could increase the feedback rate.

Over- and under-representation of fandoms: if the feedback rate varies between sites by fandom, this could throw off results.

Does not control for date posted, and therefore may be affected if feedback rate has changed significantly over time and/or fics were posted on each site on different times. However, because we are measuring feedback rate instead of total feedback, and have a large sample size, we don’t expect this to affect the results.

Hits are counted differently on each website - however, this is ameliorated by only including single-chapter stories.

FFN counts each visit as a hit for the overall count, and tracks visitors separately. FFN hit trackers indicate that hits do approximate the number of visitors for one-chapter stories, but cannot be used to determine the exact number of readers.

AO3 counts a new hit “when a user visits a work and another user has visited that work since the last time they viewed it.”

Guest comments can be disabled on AO3, while guest reviews can be moderated but not disabled on FFN. This is likely to decrease the overall feedback frequency on ao3, but we do not know if the effect is significant.

These data do not reflect the length or intricacy of feedback - a one word review is counted the same as a five hundred word comment, and vice versa.

Who responded?

Using tumblr’s reblog graph feature, we were able to determine which fandoms are likely to make up the majority of the data by analyzing the audience of the original LLF post containing the survey link and explanation. From this, we can assume that some fandoms are underrepresented in terms of their overall popularity (Voltron), and others are statistically overrepresented (Tolkien). We also know that we have collected data from multiple fandoms, and so feedback rates in one particular overrepresented fandom are less likely to throw off our results as a whole.

Figure 1. Graph of influential reblogs of the original LLF tumblr post containing the survey link and explanation.

Reviews and comments and hits, oh my!

The survey received a total of 522 responses - aka, 522 fics.

On FFN, the mean number of views per fic is approximately 1,008, and the mean number of reviews is 5.01. The middle 50% have 133-850 views and 1-6 reviews. Fics with at least one review (444 out of 521 valid responses) have an average of 10.56 reviews per thousand hits, and the middle 50% have 4-13.46 reviews per thousand hits. The maximum number of views is 22,445 and the maximum number of reviews is 100.

On AO3, the mean number of hits is 1,339.5. The mean number of comments is 4.72. Half the stories have 257-1354 hits and 1-6 comments. Fics with at least one comment (429 out of 522) have an average of 8.67 comments per thousand hits, and the middle 50% have 2.36-11.21 comments per thousand hits. The maximum number of hits is 27,315 and the maximum number of comments is 76.

Please note that these calculations include all outliers.

Table 1. Statistics for all viable (ie, without obvious entry errors) fics as summarized above.

Table 2. Stats for all viable fics with at least one comment or one review, as summarized above. 

Figure 2. Box and whiskers plot of views on FFN (blue) and AO3 (red) with outliers (1.5 IQR of full data set below Q1 or above Q3) removed. FFN includes 462 fics, and AO3 includes 475.  

Figure 3. Box and whiskers plot of feedback on FFN (blue) and AO3 (red) with outliers removed - note that this shows AO3 with a greater mean number of comments than FFN. FFN includes 472 fics, while AO3 includes 477.

Feedback Rates

This is a frequency histogram bucketed by feedback rate (the number of comments or reviews divided by the number of hits). The data are heavily skewed right, which means that the majority of stories are clustered around lower feedback rates.

Figure 4. Frequency histogram comparing FFN (red) and AO3 (blue) feedback rates. 

Figure 5. Proportion of fics that have a higher feedback rate on FFN (blue, 71%) and AO3 (red, 29%), out of stories that have at least one review/comment on both sites (375 out of 521 fics). 

Next up: is this even a thing?

The initial characterization of our data indicates that FFN does tend to have a higher feedback rate than AO3. So, is that the end of it?

Well, no!

What we have right now are just numbers - we can’t say whether there’s an actual difference, or if these results might just be due to chance. For example, are fics that have more reviews on FFN overrepresented in our data? We also haven’t delved into the outliers, and while the overall metrics indicate that FFN has a higher feedback rate, AO3 has a higher mean and median number of comments once outliers are removed (see Figure 3). Therefore, in the next installment, we will be conducting significance testing to determine whether or not the observed difference is really a difference, getting into detail work, and discussing the implications of our results.

See you next week!

<3, dragonling and Rose

[project overview - click here for updates and other sections]

[ladylawyervillage]

The Endless Summer in Lady Lawyer Foundation

While world seems to be burning, summer comes across as never ending

§ June

- Avvocato Michela Cocchi - Studio Legale, LLF partner in various initiatives, submitted its Communication On Progress (COP) "Gratuitousness & Business: Following the Track of Law for Creativity” to United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) https://www.unglobalcompact.org/system/attachments/cop_2017/391061/original/Avvocato_Michela_Cocchi_-_SL___UNGC-COP_2016-2017.pdf?1496867577

- Shooting the Journal of the Artist-in-Residence at LLFashionArchive (LLFA): a fotoromanzo that will be presented on the occasion of next AMACI (Associazione dei Musei d’Arte Contemporanea Italiani) Giornata del Contemporaneo (GdC), October 14th      

- Starting developing the voluntary commitment made for the UN Ocean Conference https://oceanconference.un.org/commitments/?id=14668

§ July

- Selecting the most creative and innovative idea among the ones that were submitted during European Sustainable Development Week (http://www.esdw.eu/events/on-my-wish-list/): on September 25th, Sustainable Development Goals second birthday, it will be awarded a work by the artist collective ‘5, 7, 5 : 8’ hosted within LLFA Artist-In-Residence Program

- American Bar Association (ABA) 2016 Year-in-Review is now out and you can read my contribution sub Regional and Comparative Law, Section Africa - also on the ABA website https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/international_law/YIR%202017_cpy.authcheckdam.pdf

-  From July 10th to July 19th, at UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world” (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/): for more info about LLF partnerships, please see https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/search/?menu=1629&str=Lady+Lawyer+Foundation

- Defining the roadmap for integrating Law for Creativity (L4C) research into the assessment of LLFA collection: publication is forthcoming  

§ August

-  From August 23rd to August 31st, LLF hosted the first edition of LL Ephemeral Utopia. The initiative was kept confidential, and we need to wait until Autumn to find out where, what, why, who, how, reading the reportage Clotilde I. Dolci is preparing - you can follow her on https://medium.com/@ClotildeIDolci and https://twitter.com/clotildeidolci. Just a key-concept as a preview: transmuting instability into progress implies to challenge norms, rules, laws to benefit society          

§ Staying the course

- At work on the Call upon lawyers to submit practices projects related to legal profession: call closed and projects have been selected. Blueprint will be presented next December 10th, celebrating UN Human Rights Day   https://medium.com/@MichelaCocchiSL/it-is-summer-solstice-c6cbd5b15193  

- In accordance with the UN General Assembly resolution 71/280 on the modalities for the intergovernmental negotiations of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration (http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/migration-compact), the preparatory process - within which LLF has been enclosed in the list of non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, academic institutions, private sector entities, diaspora communities and migrant organizations that have been approved to attend and participate - is continuing (http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/thematic-sessions)

- On September 4th, "Lady Lawyer Foundation _ Bilancio 2016" was published: https://ladylawyervillage.tumblr.com/

...And the beat goes on ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫♪ ♫ ;-)

Comments and suggestions always welcome, and always with gratitude for wonderful treasure-trove of wisdom, knowledge, skills

[cristalknife]

On Comments, feedback anxiety on both the writer and the reader’s side

 If one could look into  my WIP draw, or take a glance at the fics I’ve actually posted, it becomes clear misunderstandings based on miscommunication is something I seem have a thing for. In all honesty is more of a lifelong study and recurring theme I keep stumbling on or consciously walking into. Preface: I am only human and mistakes can happen, but usually I try to handle the detailed label (also referred as Read the Tin or as written on the tin) of major warning with my writings that is usually missing in any other aspect of life, sort of a lovely user manual/preview so one could know to walk away before getting invested or worse triggered. 

Or at least know exactly what they signed up for.

Is it perfect? No but at least it’s there, as a writer I did all I could to avoid unpleasantness, the rest it’s up to the reader’s discretion. Which leads me to the heart of this post: comments, feedbacks, criticism, politically correctness, manners and the anxiety they produce in both the writer and the reader. 

The picture is big so I’ll divide in sides, but remember that people are made of multiple sides, and sometimes those sides are at odds or outwardly warring against each other. That’s pretty average for any irrational human being with emotions.

From the POV of an overthinking anxious writer:

1)  Ao3′s Kudos are sort of like a watered down thumbs up, after about 4-5 fic posted (or ~15K words of stories out there to be consumed), they became the kind of anxiety triggers feeding thoughts of why so many people/guests left a kudo but the story wasn’t good enough to warrant the time of a comment/review 2) Comments are lovely reminder someone found something in your words that made them react so strongly they felt like sharing that reaction with you was worth their time. 

2.1) Comments are also the cause of anxiety about their content before you have the courage to read what they says...

3) Criticisms and feedbacks can be a wonderful tool to improve your writing for the next story. But not if they are laced with insult, personal attacks in that case they are the kind of black hole that pushes people to stop writing all together, or at least stop sharing what they write. 

4) single emoji (♥), 2 char long (<3) comments takes years of effort and a lot of conditioning to remember to slip in reader mode and appreciate the effort it took to stop and do even that, instead of allowing doubts to gnaw at the back of your head with waaaiiiiit that’s all? was it good? was it bad? arrrghhh what does it even mean??? 

5) Statistics and numbers, those are the evilest of the most buggering things and the most vile tempters that will push you to compare your stories against others (a futile exercise in frustration and pointless reason to shred one’s own self confidence to the tiniest of pieces for literally nothing)

5.1) Especially when you have two writing mind frames: 

 writing the stories you want to read (and usually it is either a niche where you’ve already consumed all you could find so you write it because duh, more content might ignite back the fire please, or you haven’t found yet someone to say it how you want to read it) vs what I simply call 

 exorcism writing (the kind of free therapy exercise when something is bugging the heck out you and not leaving your mind so you put it down to words and then let them fly free, instead of trapping them on a diary you’d just return to read and start the vicious cycle all over again)

5.1.1) and your exorcism stories become more popular than the stories you want to read, because at the end of your raw ranting exorcism you managed to write something that would end up falling within mainstream tropes. Which just makes you sad because those were not the result of love and planning and endless hours of writing and editing that you put in your other stories.

6) I’m not writing fan fiction to be an educator, it is possible that my day job is being an educator, but unless I’m there writing textbooks, as a writer it is not my responsibility to teach the reader something that has to be authentic, realistic and a good practice. I’m just here to tell a story.  Or are you really telling me that you watch superheros movies and series and expect them to appear outside your window? If you just laughed then why are you looking at fanfic smut with the expectation of finding a more interesting and alternative way to have a sex ed lesson? If you subscribe to the school that a story has has to make sense... Let me ask have you ever read some of the greatest literature works like Frankenstain, Moby Dick, The Hobbit, Journey to the center of the Earth, Alice through the looking glass, Aeneas, if you did and subscribe to “fiction as to make sense” then please please enlighten me I’m rady to sit back and hear all the points you can make how any of those are realistic representations of how things go. If you  says that those are just stories told oh so long ago... Lets pick more recent ones, the Harry Potters books, Goosebumps, Twilight, The Shadowhunters Chronicles, 50 shades of , all those are listed as fiction  which yes sadly too many used as a portrait of theme touched in there as realistic because the story was not set in a fantastical world and made the mistake of treating a work of fiction as a documentary... Sorry people I’m a writer, choosing the right words matters, words meanings and definitions matter please  learn to think critically, and learn your words, there is a difference between fiction and documentary  6.1) At the same time it might be that I am the kind of writer who loves to add factually authentic things in my writings, someone who actually had spent hours and hours on research to make sure that what they have been writing is not utter and complete made up rubbish, and that’s ok too. I do not expect readers to assume it is correct or that it is purely made up, and if someone is curious they could use the comment to ask a question, I’ve never turned out a curious question, even when it was difficult to answer it

7) Just because I am writing about something, it doesn’t mean I support it...  Again those are stories, not a scientific report on a lab experiment, I can write about abusive relationships, doesn’t mean I support them, I could write about self harm or depression, doesn’t mean I am encouraging those behaviors, in fact those usually come with a Trigger Warning, why? because a reader should have the option to walk away from what should be just a moment of pleasure and relax, not finding themselves triggered because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of what was going to come in a story posted on the internet... 8) This far I’ve personally chosen to not push for comment, no beg necessary, I decided years ago to be the kind of self centered bad ass who writes for themselves, who’s not going to dangle the promises of more chapters in exchange for comments, I dislike the practice, and I find too exhausting shouting left and right hey hey I’ve written this read it read it... So I do get why my stories do not have such a large audience, it doesn’t help I’ve actually posted way less than what I’ve written over the years. I do welcome comments, though I have no clue on how to respond to short ones, or a single emoji/<3 to all chapters to those I end up answering only to the most recent one of that person and thank for their support. Longer comments are easier to answer because it gives me something to say back or comment/thanks for, though it becomes weird for me when someone speculate on future developments in what they wish to see, and since I’ve recently adopted the policy of posting only completed stories (even for the chaptered ones that will not be posted at the same time, the number of total chapter is not an estimation it is exactly the number of files I’ve divided the story into for reasons) because I do know whether something of that sort will happen or not, and I don’t want to put someone out of my story if they are too invested in see what they imagined happen... Though as I do write stories I’d like to read I’m quick to encourage aspiring writers to feel free to take that what if and work with it, just to please mention that my story inspired theirs and that I’d love to see what they come up with. Constructive criticisms, I do not have a beta for most of my works, I do not work too well depending on other people’s time, I confess even in the past I received criticisms that were not constructive if we push the boundaries and call those criticisms rather than just plain old complains, which is sort of the reason why I stopped explicitly encouraging communication. Because I do expect respect, you don’t know anything about me or what I believe in, you might make some guesses from my profile because I haven’t been shy and pretty open on them, but I won’t accept being personally attacked or talked to in a disrespectful manner just because you didn’t like what I wrote. I have no problem accepting criticisms, as long as they are criticisms and not just whining. You cannot come to me with “I hate your story” and leave it at that, you already took the time to express your opinion instead of simply walking away, the least you can do is explaining why... Otherwise I seriously don’t get why you wasted both of yours and more importantly my time and energies... From the POV of a spoonie reader who barely has the energy to read: 1)  Ao3′s Kudos are a life saver that allows you to show your appreciation (even if you are allowed only one as registered user) with only a click (and some times even that click takes so much out of you) instead of relegating you to invisible reader, barely visible number (*coughs*ff.net*coughs*)  or forcing you to make a story a favorite/followed 

2) Comments are the source of anxiety, because you might want to show support but would they get that or would it sound strange? will the author understand that a a ghsafdgsakdjfh (read: key smash) happened with excitement and love and you’ve no other words to express it? 2.1) also trying to put your support in words when you are in your pj cozily being a blanket burrito and reading from your phone in bed because there’re no more spoon left for the day it’s hard 

3) The author asked for R&R, or welcomes comments and constructive criticism. You loved the story enough to spend energies to

point out things that were plain plot hole or downright inconsistency or lose ends, pointing out botched translations from your own mother tongue and offering correction that were not google translated, in ao3 case pointing out lack of some appropriate tags, which would have 1 improved your story’s visibility and 2 allowed the reader to choose whether they wanted to read it or not both points that would have benefit you as author...

Only for the author to react: 

- badly with a why are you such a nitpick hadn’t anyone told you that you should just stay silent if you have nothing nice to tell me? - Excuse me you’re the one asking for my opinion not my adoration, I gave you exactly what you asked for, if you cannot handle your work being nitpicked or the holes in your plot being publicly poked then there’re fabulous people called Beta reader who will give you the needed dose of though love in private get one..

- badly with a don’t like don’t read -  legit reader’s counter point is  I wouldn’t have read it if you had given me a way to know then what I discovered now  [personal addendum, on a not that well low energy day it takes me less about 3 mins and half to read 1.5K words don’t came at me on your 1k long story and tell me I could have stopped reading when I noticed it wasn’t that good for me...I was done with it before I could get any warning]

- dismissively because a meet cute  clearly is an AU  - Bless your heart if you need me to point out to you that there is a difference between an Alternative Universe (AU) and a Canon Divergence and the fact that   meet cute is a trope  which in fandoms usually implies different circumstances within the fandom’s canon world  of the first meeting between the characters in the main relationship but doesn’t automatically include different premises for the character example: 

in canon: characters from a magical supernatural fandom one a wizard with magic, one a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons, in their first meeting the fighter saved the wizard’s life. 

in a meet cute:  a wizard and a fighter with superhuman speed and holy weapons meet in the middle of the forest where the fighter was hunting for food failing miserably and the wizard took pity on the fighter and offered to share their dinner, if the fighter dared to step inside the wizard’s home

in a No Power/Human AU meet cute: where there is no magic, one of the two is a barista who uses flirty coffee jokes lines to call the other’s person order, and finally discover they are an accountant so instead they start using math puns to get the accountant’s attention. 

Those are all valid stories but as an author don’t came at me believing that just because you mention a trope that is enough to distinguish between the 2° and 3° examples, or that having mentioned the trope gives you the standing to look down at me if I do have my own reasons that you do not know about  for wanting to read only stories like the second pitch and get upset but still tell you in a polite way that there are missing tags in your story, especially when you’ve falsely advertise your 3° like pitch as if it was a 2° one and I get upset and let you know about it and do so with the curtesy of signing it with my name rather than leave an guest/anonymous comment 

- shrugging off issues with the tags with a Oh but I’m bad at tagging  -

then I have 3 things to say to you buddy one) that’s not an excuse if you haven’t learnt how to do it yourself get a beta, get a friend, read more and compare what your story tells with a similar one and how that one is tagged, there’re ways Ignorance is not an excuse; 

two) you can’t claim you’re bad at tagging but then refuse to listen when someone is pointing out to you more tags for your story, dud learn how search engines work, searching by tag is basically having a filtered search, the more tags your fit your story the more venues your story can appear in reader’s search for something to read... which means visibility for your work, are you really telling me that you dislike to have that and would prefer less people reading what you post? then sorry but I think you’re doing it wrong and should get a diary��instead, not post them on the internet.

addendum: still claiming to be bad at it after having posted over 40 stories and all posted in recent times in the span of a couple of months, just suggest you lack the intelligence to learn how to do things. Which only encourages me to never ever get close to your works, certainly to never promote or share them if not actively discouraging my friends from spending their time on them.

three) and guess what?  there is a frikking I'm Bad At Taggingtag for that too!!!

As a reader I might be ranting in this post, but the long effect of those is a growing apathy and increased unwillingness to spend my energies for commenting unless I’d really really really really liked or loved a story, or I have something more than a one liner to share, which while I intellectually know it might be unfair to let the whole pay for the disrespect of few, my own survival instinct is glad I’m not spreading myself even thinner...

truthful disclaimer: in all fairness it has been my experience, that those reactions usually come from authors with already quite few stories or a decent word count out there. 

New authors are still very much enthusiastic and happy about even the smallest crumbs of recognition or encouragement, which in return is lovely because it recognise that my own time and energy as reader are worthy, that it does take effort to share an opinion or encouragement or suggestion.

4) The author might never know how that day I posted that single emoji, or two character <3,  it was one of those bad days when even opening a small water bottle to swallow down the painkillers was too much, when using a finger to scroll down the page to reach the end of the story had wiped out more energies than I could really afford and yet I still pushed myself to leave a sign that I was there and appreciated their story

5) readers should be allowed to have the “if you thought writing was hard, try commenting other people words” tag...  because sometimes especially on older platforms (yes ff.net I’m looking at you) as a reader I can’t find the energies to wipe up something to say so I become a silent invisible reader. And sometimes it’s really that I am able to stand only stories with certain characteristics, personally for example I do not have the emotional fortitude to read more a certain amount of Work In Progress at the same time across multiple fandoms because my brain can’t recall all the details and I might not feel to rereading the story from the beginning every single time there is a new chapter... 6) Maybe it’s because I’m way out of my teens, maybe it’s because even in my teens and before stories were my safe place, my escape, I do not expect things to be factually correct in stories, but I am a logic driven person, I will see those plot holes and I might even poke through 'em if I find your story good enough that I feel it would be a pity not pointing those things out. You cannot tell a classic vampire story (not the twilight kind of sun sparkling vampires but the sun burn me to ashes kind) and have your group of vampires prancing about at noon of a clear summer day without some sort of reason for that to work. I promise you, I’m not picky, I will accept ridiculous reasons like they were standing under and umbrella covered from head to toes and none of their skin was exposed to the sunlight, but do put the effort to give me a reason why I should believe it was intentional, or do not cry and complain if I do decide to point out dude you’ve normal vampires that are sunbathing and did not become piles of ashes that’s not plausible... 7) Stories are just that, something to listen to, they don’t have to have a moral for them to be worthy of being shared, they don’t have to be a mirror  of your thoughts, or they could be a mirror of your beliefs, and if I am commenting on them I’m commenting on the story itself not your connection to it. And I do need you to advertise in advance if there’re things that might be triggerish, because what might be  just a mental exercise of stepping outside your shoes, if not done might result in me walking into a panic attack while maybe I was just recuperating for one and trying to find comfort or a distraction. While I as a reader cannot know you author and where you come from, unless you want to make an ass of u and me do not assume you know where I am or what path I’m walking in my life as a reader.  8) I despise people telling me what to do, especially if I didn’t ask for an opinion... If someone (who doesn’t have an economical or authorative position over me) demands me to do something the chances I’ll be do it, especially if I was going to do it before, become nil instantaneously. I’ve been running and lurking in writing circles and fanfictions for closer to three decades at the time this is being written, and from the very beginning I found disgusting and deplorable the practice some authors adopted of bargaining reaching certain numbers of comments/kudos in exchange for the next chapter. I can respect an author saying I don’t want to get this or that, but the final result is that most likely I would walk away without commenting even if it would have been a story I would have otherwise supported. There’re few authors I do know personally, at least superficially through other channels, that have this kind of disclaimers and I still comment. But that’s because I have an appreciation and will to support the person themselves who also happened to be authors. 

[longlivefeedback]

Do you think there's a way to make kudos more specific? My beef with them is that I don't know why you gave one: Do you kudos every fic you finished, did you like it, love it, or did you think it was meh but wanted to encourage me? Even subscriptions are more meaningful as feedback to me because they tell me you want more like that, enough to want a notification. I'd really like a way to tell what an individual kudos giver meant by it. As it is they're too unspecific to do anything for me.

Hi Anon!

Personally, I believe that the lack of specificity of kudos is one of the reasons they’re as popular as they are. Many authors (myself included) would feel very discouraged if I was told that someone didn’t like my story, but they wanted to encourage me, especially if I didn’t have any information about why they didn’t enjoy it. Any criticism has to be specific or it’s going to hit hard, while praise can be general and still fairly effective.

However, you’re definitely not alone - one of the most commonly cited problems with kudos is “but what do they mean?” While we can’t tell you what each individual reader is thinking when they hit the button, @ao3commentoftheday’s survey on the meaning of kudos shows some of the most common interpretations, and we hope that the LLF project on kudos will tell us more (once Rose has time to finish crunching the numbers).

On a related note: this is one reason we’re very interested in the diversification and specialization of a variety of archives instead of relying solely on the Big Two. If kudos are so popular among both readers and authors is, in part, because they’re so general, it’s not viable to make any changes… but I would be very interested in a platform that takes this feature and expands it. For example, how would a site with multiple “reactions” as one-click feedback work? Would it motivate and reassure authors by allowing a more consistent level of low-interaction feedback on one front, without making changes to the simple comment+kudos format of AO3? Would it form some sort of halfway-step, encouraging readers who never comment to ease into reacting to works more specifically? (These are not purely rhetorical questions, by the way - we’re very interested in hearing thoughts and opinions on these topics!)

As for what you might be able to do to address your issues with specificity and feedback:

The LLF Comment Project may help you encourage your readers to leave comments, and gives you an easy way to indicate what sort of feedback you’re looking for. We can’t say for sure whether the comment project does increase feedback, other than some tentative anecdotal evidence, but we’re very hopeful!

If you’re looking for any sort of constructive criticism, ask simple questions that readers can answer - How did [scene] make them feel? Did [character]’s choices make sense in context? Which sentence/paragraph/scene/plot point was most memorable?

You could try letting readers know that you have this problem with kudos. What we’ve seen so far is that people leave kudos because they want the author to know that they enjoyed the story, and so many may be very open to dropping a quick comment if you can let them know your feelings on the matter. For example, something like “I really appreciate kudos, but I always struggle with knowing what they actually mean! So, if you feel like it, please let me know how you feel about the story.” (Disclaimer: I’m not sure about this phrasing, and there’s probably/definitely a better way to say it. I’m also not sure how readers in general would feel about this! If you have thoughts, opinions, or suggestions, please let me know.)

As a rule, not every form of feedback will work for everyone, and what one person loves, another might feel neutral towards or even hate. That doesn’t mean that one of them is wrong and the other one is right, just that they’re looking for different things and have different preferences. However, we would love to find more ways to bridge the gaps between the various methods of interactions between readers and authors… we have to communicate about how to communicate, and sometimes that’s the hardest part.

Again, everyone is welcome to offer suggestions and thoughts! 

-Mod Rose