Fic Feedback Wank

Feedback on fic — whether kudos, comments, bookmarks, or recs — is a perennial source of wank (as well as useful discussion) on meme. Writers complain about readers who never leave any feedback, readers who do nothing but press the “Kudos” button on AO3, readers who leave only short comments, and readers who leave unasked-for constructive criticism (concrit). Readers complain about writers who declare their entitlement to comments but who never respond to comments or, worse, respond to them in ways that make the commenters uncomfortable.

In late June 2011, the OP of a subthread titled "A Blow-by-Blow Account of How Much I Hated Your Story" reported some random anonymous person reviewing each chapter of one of their old fics. “Their reviews were getting increasingly hostile. They started out lukewarm toward the story, but now each review is several paragraphs of things they didn't like and backhanded compliments (Usually when people write X, they make the mistake of doing Y. But yours doesn't do that ALL the time, so I guess that's a bit better.) ” The nonny turned off anon reviews, then “decided I didn't want the bother and [temporarily] locked the fic.” The got a passive-aggressive PM from the reviewer claiming to like the fic and asking why it was locked.

This anecdote set off a long wank about whether unsolicited concrit is good or bad. On the very same page, a thread titled "Do you want concrit on your fanfiction? Honestly?" was equally wanky.

In January 2012, one nonny wrote that

when I was new to fandom, the general chorus was “everyone is open to constructive criticism unless specified otherwise (and if someone does specify otherwise they're probably not a very serious author and you should avoid their work, though it's rude not to respect their wishes)”, whereas I feel that now it's shifted to “it's rude, especially if your criticism is public”. … Did anyone else notice this change, or was/am I just hanging out in different places with a different feedback culture? And what do you think?

The thread got wanktastic after another person reported having ignored concrit, only to hear secondhand that the commenter

had talked about how ungrateful I was on their journal and were advising people not to read anything of mine. For this reason I'm always wary of people who seem to think it's their mission to leave constructive criticism.“

Other gentlefailers took this person to task for not having short-circuited the problem by simply responding to the critical commenter with “Thanks.”

In the same post, a new thread, "Question for the anti-concrit anons," was begun, asking whether there were “a level of criticism you're happy/okay with in reviews.” This also became wanky, though not as wanky as the previous thread, with many writers asserting that quite a few readers offer up sneering and dubious advice as “concrit.”

In early April 2013, a Gentlefailer opined, “The Perfect Comment… Is the one that's made.” Overall, this was a fairly chill thread.

Late in the same month came this thread, “concrit tips,” in which the OP wondered about the etiquette of telling the author of “a longfic I really enjoy that [it has] developed a disturbingly sexist streak.” There were quite a few constructive suggestions, but the thread also broke out into extended wank. As one nonny put it, “I think the problem is that this concerns -isms. There is no polite way to point out that someone is sexist. Hense avoiding accusations.”

In early December 2014, a nonny graced the Fandom Venting thread with the following gem:

There's something going around tumblr about how writing is hard and how dare people give unsolicitized criticism on fics and tell them “writing is easy and you deserve to be criticized even though it's a hobby” etc etc

Well you know.

Back on the pit of voles we gave and received concrit all the time and let me tell you, it was amazing. Doesn't happen now. Know why? You whiny bitches blowing up at people for saying anything but “That's great!” and telling people who comment that you didn't ask for comments. You just want kudos.

You don't want comments? You just want kudos? Leave a note. Say “I don't want comments”. Because those of us who like engaging with our audience, who like learning what works and what doesn't because writing IS hard and we want to get better at it, no one will comment on our fics because of you. We just get these useless kudos. How about you get the fuck over yourselves and the sad, sad idea that someone might tell you you made a typo (boohoo!) because it takes time to write good, meaningful concrit and you are telling those people to shove it up their ass when you should be telling them to read my stuff instead. Especially since I put some actual effort into mine.

You inconsiderate, whiny, self-victimizing assholes.

Shockingly, this caused wank.

No discussion of fic feedback wank is complete without a link to Kudos Wank, which is not just any old wank over kudos.