#feedback in replies

[wip]

hi! I like threadable replies, but I've noticed that mention notifications are a little different since threadable replies were implemented (I think.) If I'm remembering correctly, we used to be able to click the notification of a mention in a reply on a post & we'd be taken to the reply that mentions us. Now, we click the notif & are just taken to the post itself. This is fine if the post only has a few notes, we can scroll through and find the mention in the replies, but if it's a post with a lot of notes it can be almost impossible to actually find the reply that mentions us. I've had multiple instances where I've been notified someone mentioned me in a reply and clicked on the notif only to give up and not be able to read what they actually said to me because there's hundreds of replies and I'm taken to the post itself instead of the reply I was notified about. I'd love if this could be changed so we could get taken to the actual reply when we click on the notification.

Answer: Hey there, @ecstaticallyelectrifying!

We believe what has happened here is that before there were threads, if you sorted replies from the newest, received a notification, and soon opened the post, the last reply would be at the top.

We agree that it has become harder trying to find the comment that notified you. This is because there is currently no available option to change the sort inside the threads—and because someone might be replying to an old reply (therefore not at the top).

The great news is that we have plans to improve this soon. Watch this space! You’ll get updates over at @changes, and hopefully, it won’t be too long until you hear more on this.

Thanks for your question!

[chloesimaginationthings]

OMG SCOOPED MICHAEL AHHHHH I LOVE HIM SM IM SO HAPPY YOUR FINALLY DRAWING THE LIL GUY

THE GUY EVER is finally here!!

[destinationtoast]

Hello! I keep hearing that fandom culture has changed, and there are less comments now than there were years ago. Have you noticed this in your analysis? Is the percentage of comments being left today lower than before?

Hey! Thanks for the question -- it prompted me to start collecting data about comments (after procrastinating on it for a while, because I had to write new code to gather comment data). I've also seen other discussions from folks also thinking about how to do this kind of analysis (like in the fandom data projects community) -- hopefully we'll end up with multiple people attacking this from different angles and getting a variety of data about comments!

I'll give a sneak preview that partially addresses your question and contains some good news. If we look at the fraction of AO3 works that get at least one comment (focusing just on one-shots for now), I think things have gotten better over the past decade on AO3*:

In other words, it tentatively looks like more works were getting at least one comment in 2024 than in 2014 (for a variety of time periods). One caveat, though -- if a bunch of works with no comments got deleted in the interim, there will be survivor bias here. I'll try to look into that possibility later. Another caveat: this is based on only like ~100 randomly selected works from each year -- this may all change with more data!

Another interesting tidbit: I still see some of the 2014 works getting comments. In fact, ~30% of works have gotten new comments over 5 years after they were posted, and it looks like ~10% of one-shots posted back in Mar 2014 got a new comment in 10 years later, in 2024.

I'm still doing other analyses; there may be other factors that better match with the discourse around how comment culture has changed. It could be that comment activity peters out faster now than it did back then, for instance. Or the total number of comments left on the popular works is less now than it was back then (though my current methods may not be able to capture that). Edit thanks to quick eagle-eyed readers: it's likely that some of what people are thinking about is ratio of comments to hits -- that is hard to compare in 2014 to 2024, because we don't know which hits came from which years. But I am working on some analyses along those lines. :)

If you have other hypotheses about what's changed in commenting culture, feel free to share! I'll look into what I can.

Some methodology notes:

*I've been tackling this by comparing AO3 one-shots posted in early 2014 to one-shots posted in 2024, and comparing activity in the days/weeks/months immediately after the works were posted. (To start with, I'm only scraping the first page of comments for each work -- meaning the first 20 comment threads -- so there are lots of comments I'm potentially missing for the really popular works. But for many works, this captures all the comments, and I think it may be sufficient for a lot of the analyses I am interested in.)

I'm choosing to focus on 2014 vs. 2024 because 2024 is close to now (but it's been long enough for comments to have settled down a bit), and 2014 was well after AO3 was established (thus it was already a pretty lively time on AO3). I don't want to collect data about every single year because it's too time intensive/too hard on AO3's servers. But if people think that I should be looking at different years, I'm interested in feedback.

Because it's only been ~10 months since March 2024, I am limiting a lot of my analyses to only look at commenting activity the first ~10 months after works were posted in both cases.

[awingedinsect]

What is it about Ao3 comments that just hit different. I see that little number go up one and I’m struck with visceral excitement like yes, you read it? You liked it?? Let’s fucking GO

[nights-at-crystarium]

!!!!!

It's my personal reading of Ardbert: he chooses simplicity because he thinks that's what Vivi needs. Vivi overthinks, Bert suggests turning that sad brain off and just going with the flow. It's valid and helpful advice.

What happens on Vivi's end is probably more cryptic, I'm just beginning to tell that he's averse to external influence, to people telling him what to do. Funnily this Ardbert moment builds up wolemet/wolgraha, one of those old men accepts Vivi as he is, while the other tries to change him, and that sinks an otherwise perfect ship.

[xfreischutz]

I don't comment on fics. idc if this is a "community" I will not leave a comment. it's the whole REBLOGS DO NOTHING all over again.

fwiw while i'm not a fic writer, it really means a lot to me when people leave their thoughts in tags and it also counters the usual 'lol why even bother it's not like anyone cares' thought -- which is not something you're responsible for fixing, of course, but if you specifically enjoy someone's work then maybe you do owe them something small at least for the enjoyment their work brought to you? i don't have an ao3 account but sometimes i leave anonymous comments or kudos on stuff i enjoyed because i want to thank the author for a good time. you didn't say you didn't leave kudos, so i'm hoping you do at least that.

in general, i think it's important for everyone to be aware that fandom has a community aspect and some of the things that i enjoyed the most in fandom was building stuff WITH other people and discussing things WITH other people, and if you take that away you just have like...content creators that you don't engage with? that's a very passive position to take in a fandom space and imo that's a void rather than a presence (lurking is/was a thing of course but i think lurkers still saw creators as People that they shared a space with, because the framing of fandoms was still a Community)

i'm not saying you must leave a comment or be publicly drawn and quartered, i'd just like people to think about how they engage with fandom and if they do at all. i'd also like to avoid any kind of implication that comments/reactions are 'owed' or 'non-creators pulling their weight/paying their dues' because that's transactional and also Not Community, i just want people to think about if and how they share the love and enjoyment of the media in common with others with sincerity.

[not-poignant]

sometimes the chronic illnesses are just really exemplary at being both chronic and illnesses and i wish they'd try a little less hard

[etirabys]

I don't have a near-age sibling but some social feedback seems ideally delivered via indelicate roasting by a near-age sibling when you are in your teens. It feels easier to take "you don't shower and that's why no one likes you" from a sibling than parent or friend. Easier to deliver as a sibling, too

your parent gently saying "you should shower more" – ignore it. what do they know about the realities of your existence...

your friend says it (also nicely) – mortifying and weird, much likelier you'll take it to heart but you'll visibly feel terrible about it for a long time, which they didn't want, and now they're even more reluctant to say things to you (or anyone really)

it doesn't get fixed so your future first partner has to say it – god. might as well die

your annoying sibling – "fuck off" + slink off to shower a few hours later

[internetgreatesthits]

[ask-thearchivists]

Finally working on the end of event comic. :>c

[compaculaaa]

Alpha Trion has Ultra Magnus (or you) ever accidentally bring home the wrong sparkling? Or almost bring home the wrong sparkling?

AT : Now that I look back on it your sire was pretty tired that day (￣ー￣)

OP : Well Uncle Kup was good company though (^^;)

[bunabi]

I'm sort of mad that they only care about three Inquisition based decisions especially as we won't be using the Keep anymore. Like what was the point of DAO and DA2 if it doesn't even matter in any way in DAV? Like even just one choice each for those games. Something. ANYTHING. Even if it's just background flavour. It's only been 20 years since DAO like plenty of characters are only in their forties now and probably still active. What they did had to mean ~something~. The only blessing is I don't have to agonise over certain choices I made that I was worried about. Downside what was the point lol I am still looking forward to it but can't pretend I'm not a bit disappointed

It's a loss for sure

I can see why they didn't want anyone disclosing details on it, because from what was shared during q&a it seemed a lot more detailed and interactive

And as usual the community council is stuck in the middle, blamed for not doing enough to stop something, again, which is delusional

I feel for them I really do

[destinationtoast]

Hi! You made another (absolutely fascinating) post about commenting trends in fandom over time, and that got me thinking about another thing I’m curious about: differences in comment culture across fandoms. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed several fandoms (the Silmarillion and The Murderbot Diaries come to mind) that seem to get proportionally more / more detailed comments than other fandoms I’ve been in. I have no idea if this is backed up by evidence or if it’s possible to analyze that kind of thing with actual data, but I think it’s interesting!

Hey! Sorry this took ages to respond to -- I believe you were probably referring to this post or the original of that thread, if you or anyone else wants a refresher on the context. :)

That's really interesting, and matches with my own anecdotal experience when I've observed when I've dipped my toes into fandoms that were smaller but had at least a handful of people posting. I would bet that communities are more likely to form in smaller groups -- you keep recognizing and interacting with a smaller group of people, and you feel more motivated to be thoughtful about their fanworks. Which I suspect then encourages even folks outside the tight-knit core community to leave longer comments.

But I have no relevant data yet -- that's all anecdotal/speculation on my part. I hope to get back to working on my ao3 comments soon and to keep looking at comment trends over time, though. And you've helped inspire me to think about analyzing comment length and to compare different fandoms, as part of that! :)

I'd also love to hear if anyone else has relevant data, or feel free to share your relevant experiences and/or hypotheses!

[3-aem]

chill tf out i was just giving an advice, you have no right to treat random ppl like that, especially when i was just trying to help. you’re a proper asshole, hope ppl realize that

who tf asked for it though

here i’ll spell it out for you since you clearly don’t understand and id like you comprehend why you giving unsolicited advice is broadly seen as entitled and a dick move by the entire creator community online: we are not an art critique circle

if your criticism ever hurts someone and stops them from wanting to draw you failed as a critiquer. your criticism wasn’t constructive it was destructive. and the chances of this happening on the internet is High.

point blank: you don’t know if someone is doing drawing something someway because they like it or not. and you voicing your opinion is thus not ‘helping’ as you so very much want to believe, it’s entitlement to think you know better.

people draw and post on here to get away from real world where critiques from ur boss or ur colleagues actually matter.

there are times where creators solicit advice or suggestions. give them there.

[nights-at-crystarium]

Counterpoint to 1: buh but his outfits!!

I think I trapped myself in a conundrum that can't be solved oh nooooo. But you'll definitely see more of his glorious bod which rivals the flatness of a pancake.

2: that's also on the menu, I've got you covered \o/

[xfreischutz]

I think its interesting that we tell people to "make art only for yourself!" but then also expect them to present it to a silent and (seemingly!) uncaring world. Like I have several fic ideas and at the moment, I *am* only "writing it for myself" which means it stays firmly in my brain because what's the point in pouring my heart into something to share if nobody cares? My fic is perfect and Just for Me in my mind with no risk of ever becoming lesser via attempts to distill it into something "real". People create and share art because its personal and part of a conversation with the viewer. It important to be the active participant in consuming the art, even if all you ever do is give it a like!

yeah! it's the commodification of work and effort into ✨content✨ and i'm not here for it (though i will say i am not immune to thinking about the algorithm and current markets when it comes to fanart/merch). i don't like that people are expected to create to have works available for perusal, my friend said that getting pageviews but no interaction is like having a booth and people looking at your stuff and just leaving...and they are Right

it feels like the culture of overconsumption and excess has reached fandom spaces. also this sentence feels very snooty and edgy like it's probably not that deep (but it sure feels like it to me)

i think there's something to be said for having an idea in your mind that can be perfect because it is never tangible/present in our world, and there's also something to be said for enjoying the process of trying to capture it to put it into the world. it just depends on what you think your duty to yourself is, and what you enjoy, and what you have the time and energy for.

but yeah shared artwork is a communication, especially in fandom and other community spaces. even if it's a like/kudo/upvote it's something! if someone treats you to a good meal the least you can do is say thanks for the food