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Post by Lee on Sept 19, 2012 8:31:03 GMT -5
I was just looking over the comments to Jane's story and this is one thing the commenter wrote at the end:
"I do appreciate your efforts. I wouldn't bother to write to you if I didn't think you had skill as a writer. You definitely have a talent with description, but I think dialogue is an area you can work on to flesh out your characters. I look forward to your future efforts."
Again, my opinion is that this is a polite comment with constructive ideas, and a generally positive sentiment. Hopefully, this is not something people feel should be censored.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2012 8:36:10 GMT -5
To be honest I don't even mind the "I liked the old one better" comment. It was pretty benign and probably true.  I'm sure lots of people will prefer the old one, if for no other reason than they liked it first. That is not going to stop me from working to improve my writing. I may have started writing for the blog on a whim, but now I'm very interested in improving my overall writing ability for my own sake. It is a great outlet from my crazy life and I want to be proud of the work, even if that means some people don't like it as well. Tuna - I agree with you. *Constructive* criticism helps make better writers there is no doubt about that. Anyone who is serious about this (or even not so serious) should appreciate the feedback, both positive and negative - and for the most part I think we do. But what was said on Sean's story was totally uncalled for. It wasn't constructive at all. It wasn't even criticism - it was a personal attack. Comments like that don't help anyone. It certainly doesn't help someone become a better writer, and it took away interesting reading material from the forum. Everyone lost. |
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Post by Lee on Sept 19, 2012 9:04:32 GMT -5
Eleanore: I didn't think that comment was trolling either. It wasn't expressed rudely or as a personal attack.
This is why moderation may be tricky... I feel, to some extent, that you are all adults (I hope!) and can handle a couple of negative comments. Explicit trolling such as on Sean's story should not be allowed, but I feel like negative opinions should be okay.
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Post by Ximena on Sept 19, 2012 9:57:09 GMT -5
I guess what I am saying is, I agree with Tuna, AND with Jane, AND with Ximena. Because as my uncle says, a writer writes. We have no choice, really. And because we are stuck with this curse of having to write, whether we do it professionally or not, we are also stuck with the unfortunate fact of being misunderstood, criticized, condemned and even attacked. We have some resources now to mitigate the damage caused by trolls, but the rest of it always hurts, every time. Many of us have ''thick skin'', many of us don't, and yet we continue anyway. Because that is what we do. It is who we are. So take heart, when you are under attack, constructively or not, fairly or not. Keep writing, keep working to better say what needs to be said. Because only you can say what you need to say. And if you don't say it, who will? Well said, Luc. |
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tuna
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Post by tuna on Sept 19, 2012 10:28:15 GMT -5
Because as my uncle says, a writer writes. We have no choice, really. And because we are stuck with this curse of having to write, whether we do it professionally or not, we are also stuck with the unfortunate fact of being misunderstood, criticized, condemned and even attacked. My sentiments exactly |
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Post by janewheeler on Sept 19, 2012 14:00:45 GMT -5
Oh, I absolutely don't feel like the negative comments on my story (or Eleanore's) should have been censored! I'm always looking for more feedback, and even if it's something I don't agree with, it makes me go back and see how they might have arrived at that conclusion. If one person is confused, others probably were as well.
The thing that upset me was that we seemed to have this pattern going where one anonymous commenter would get a little hardcore on us, in this semipublic forum. I know this blog -- and this board -- have a kind of weird relationship with anonymity because devoteeism is a super-personal thing.
But people like Eleanore and I have created these online pseudonyms and personalities -- really, our brands -- that readers can refer back to. It was so frustrating not even knowing whether these negative comments were coming from one particular person, with one particular viewpoint, or multiple people. And they wanted to keep doing it in the public comments, not emailing or PMing me.
I'm the last person that will tell someone who or what to say. It's just really upsetting when I don't know who or why I'm going up against. People can immediately put you on the defensive, and you don't know how to respond! But that's the kind of thing that writers just have to deal with, so c'est la vie.
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Post by ruthmadison on Sept 20, 2012 13:19:53 GMT -5
OK, I am late to the game on this one. Just got home from work. I actually reinstated anon commenting when I got home, because I thought authors wouldn't like eliminating anonymous commenting. For example, I am looking at Ruth's last story, and more than half of the comments she got were from anonymous commenters, all very very positive. Would those people have created an account just to write a comment on her story? Likely not. As far as I know, this is the first troll we've had on the stories board. There have been some negative comments in the past, but I think they've always been respectful and constructive. So my instinct is to keep things the way they are. Alternately, I can make a setting to approve all comments, which will eliminating trolling as well. But then you'll have to wait till I'm around to approve. I can probably manage to log in once a day. Allowing Anon comments but moderating sounds reasonable to me. That's what I do on my non-fiction blog. Would that be too much work for you, Lee? I wouldn't want to increase your burden. |
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tina
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Relationship Status: In a relationship
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Post by tina on Sept 20, 2012 17:48:32 GMT -5
This has developed into a really constructive discussion and the changes of the last days to the story blog, incl. the moderated comments, are great, so thanks to everyone involved!!
There is so much action here right now with this and the discussion about collaboration between the writers and even a workshop that I as a reader get very exited!
By the way Lucretia, I totally understand, but I still do hope to get to read more from you, because from the bits I`ve read, you are really really good!
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Post by Lee on Sept 20, 2012 19:01:42 GMT -5
So far, it hasn't been a big deal. There aren't that many anonymous comments, and so far they've all been short and positive. It takes me about thirty seconds total.
Ruth: Do you feel the same as Jane that negative but non-trolly comments should get through? You've gotten a couple in the past that I might have felt obliged to moderate.
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Post by ruthmadison on Sept 21, 2012 6:46:50 GMT -5
So far, it hasn't been a big deal. There aren't that many anonymous comments, and so far they've all been short and positive. It takes me about thirty seconds total. Ruth: Do you feel the same as Jane that negative but non-trolly comments should get through? You've gotten a couple in the past that I might have felt obliged to moderate. I do agree that negative but that are not attacking the author comments should get through. It can be difficult to make a call on those! I know on my non-fic blog there is a temptation to delete comments that disagree with me and I have to catch myself and remember not to do that. As for me, none of the comments I've ever gotten on the story blog have bothered me. I know there was a time when it was difficult for me to deal with people criticizing my story and making inferences about me as a person based on my story, so I know where people are coming from with that. I'm not sure why it no longer bothers me. Perhaps because I know that I have an audience who values my work and so I can dismiss those who don't like it as not the people the story was meant for. It may also be that I've been work-shopping and receiving criticism on my writing for fifteen years now and somewhere along the way I did grow that thick skin that in the beginning I never thought I would have! On the other hand, I showed you guys the one-star review I got on Blue Moon and that hurt. My initial reaction to that was pain. I got over it though, and I wouldn't want to stifle someone's expression of her opinion. It might throw me, but I can recover. I'm extremely resilient! And I wouldn't expect everyone to be that resilient. I think Lucretia makes an excellent point that these stories are even more personal and fraught than most writing. We are showing the scariest parts of ourselves to everyone. All this is to say that I completely agree that a comment posted that makes guesses or statements about the author based on the writing are inappropriate. Critiques of the writing is helpful, attacks on the author's character are not. But feel free to have an extremely light hand in moderating any comments on my stories! |
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I'm sure lots of people will prefer the old one, if for no other reason than they liked it first. That is not going to stop me from working to improve my writing. I may have started writing for the blog on a whim, but now I'm very interested in improving my overall writing ability for my own sake. It is a great outlet from my crazy life and I want to be proud of the work, even if that means some people don't like it as well.
