[ SECRET POST #3317 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3317 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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05.
[D.Gray-man - Miranda Lotto]


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06.
[The Thick of It]


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07.
[Golden Kamui]


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08.
(The Lost Boys)


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09.
[Marble Hornets/troyhasacamera]


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11.
[@midnight with Chris Hardwick]



















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 037 secrets from Secret Submission Post #474.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ketita]

without the kudos button people wouldn't comment much more than they do now

I'm not sure that's true. It has to do more with the commenting tradition etc., but I consistently get a higher percentage of comments on ff.net than on ao3, even today. More comments for fewer views, too.

For example, one fic I posted relatively recently on ff.net and ao3, on ao3 I have 32 comments for 3362 views. On ff.net, I have 28 comments for 1389 views. That's about 1 comment for every 100 views on ao3, vs. 1 comment for every 50 views on ff.net. Clearly, there is a cultural difference between the two sites regarding leaving comments, and this is consistent across all of my fics that I've posted on both.

As for numbers - I get what ayrt is saying. While I will sometimes go look at the numbers and be like "whee, look at this number", a much more powerful motivator for me is going back and reading responses, which reminds me what people liked and didn't like and how excited they were. I remember specific commenters and the conversations we've had. It's much more personal and long-lasting for me than a kudos is - I won't go back and be like "ah yes, I remember when [user] left me that kudo! what a great kudo that was".

[hwc]

My fics on FFN have more comments as well (though in my case it's always an unfair comparison as I have mostly fics written for anime fandoms, and those have always been AO3's red-headed stepchildren), but I put that down to a different commenting culture on the site. For example, I get a lot more "thank you for writing this" comments on FFN than AO3.

That culture is specific to the site though, IMO. So even if you remove the kudos button (or didn't have it implemented in the first place) I don't think it would make that much difference in the number of comments.

Do you go back and think "oh, I remember when [user] said they liked the fic - that was great!"? That's what kudos basically are for me - "I like it" comments. Whether I get those as comments or kudos doesn't really matter. The specific comments I remember and are the longer, more detailed ones. And those aren't the ones that people substitute with kudos anyway.

Maybe it's different for me because comments have never motivated me to write, anyway. They are nice to get and for the first few hours after posting I'm anxiously awaiting the first reactions, but after that I just lose interest. Getting AO3's daily kudos notification and seeing a kudos for an old fic is just as lovely to me as getting a review for the same fic. It's less "someone liked it enough to comment" for me and more "someone is still interested in this old fic!".

(The most valued reader feedback for me are actually bookmarks. I sort by bookmarks to find fic on AO3, so I place more importance on them than on kudos or comments, lol.)

[ketita]

I do think though that comments are especially meaningful in chaptered fics. Because you know who the usual commenters are, you get to see how they respond to each chapter, and it opens room for interaction.
More than that, kudos can only be left once per fic - with comments, you can get an idea for how many people are still reading and still interested.
I would also argue that most commenters don't just write "I like it". I've had lots of detailed comments talking about what they liked the most, or how the fic affected them, etc. But even if it's simple, if I'm rereading comments I'll reread those too - whereas I won't look back and recall who left kudos on a fic.

I agree though that there's validity to all forms of feedback, and I do appreciate all of them. But it's the personal relationships I develop with people who read+comment that make fandom exciting for me.

[hwc]

That's a very good point about chaptered fics. I hadn't considered it because I only post finished fics (I almost never finish WIPs :/), but you're right that comments are really the only way of communicating with authors in a chaptered stories.

I suppose it's just a difference on how we look back at fics. The first thing I do when I look back at the feedback a fic got is to take a look at the kudos. I get a huge kick if I see the name of an author I like in the list. And only then do I reread the comments.

Do you develop relationships with readers on AO3? I feel like that was mostly a LJ-era sort of thing that got lost when authors started posting on AO3, but maybe that's just me.

[ketita]

I've actually had a whole bunch of people that I've gotten friendly with through fic comments. Generally if people leave me chatty comments, I try to chat back, and sometimes this has led to exchanging tumblrs and then skype etc.
The lack of community is part of the reason I fled tumblr, though. So it's not completely lost, but I think that you need to be open to it as an author and be lucky with your reviewers.
It's only really happened with multiparters or people who went through commenting on ALL my fics, though.