Trolls *glares*

[bk_forever]

So, I just had my first trollish review over on AO3 on Chapter 15 of Through Time and Space. No mention of the contents of the chapter, or whether or not they liked it, just a complaint that my end note hadn't changed since chapter one and that I should change or remove it.

I had no idea the end note was carrying forward each time, thought it was just on chapter one, in fact chapter one was so long ago that I don't even remember writing it, so I've taken it down, but really, if people have nothing better to do than rudely point out something so inconsequential, then they must have an awful lot of time on their hands. I sent a polite reply, but I hope that person doesn't bother in future.

Comments

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

#unimpressed   #trollneedsalife

[bk_forever]

Yeah. I wouldn't have minded if they'd been polite about it, maybe as an afterword to a comment on the chapter itself, but it was the wording, nothing polite about it, and I resent being called silly by someone I don't know because of something that I was unaware of. It certainly never showed up in posting previews. *grumbles*

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've wondered if that's a quirk that AO3 will deal with because I've seen it happen on other stories and it takes me out of the story a little bit.

Actually, I should check my own story and see how it looks.

[bk_forever]

I've never noticed it before, but then I don't read a lot over there. I don't have a lot of chaptered fics (mostly the drabble collections), but maybe I should check those too. It's not something I've been aware of when posting new chapters, nothing jumps out about there being an end note and it doesn't appear in previews, so I'm not sure how I was expected to know it was happening. It gets frustrating to write over 4000 words for a chapter and have someone ignore the chapter in favour of pickily pointing out something unrelated. *sighs*

Hope your fic isn't being affected!

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I've never noticed that, really. And I read all the notes on anything I'm reading. Then again, I also "overtag" and I read everyone else's tags, and I'm not generally reading chaptered fic.

Strangely enough, I just edited the a/n at the beginning of a recent fic of mine, which is a one shot but had been planned to be longer. Apparently that was very clear, because the only comments are people like - well here's the last one: "Noooooooo. Why is this so short? I want more lol". Just that. Nothing else. Like, only one person even explicitly said they liked it. It's just feels really icky.

(In terms of end notes, though, if you put it as the end note before adding a second chapter it wouldn't have given you the option (I don't think) for a *chapter* note, only for notes, which are those for the work. And when you create new chapters you can change that. But if it was only the first chapter when you put it there then it was saved as the end note for the whole work.)

I haven't responded to the last comment yet, but I did reply to others that were similar. This one is whiny, though, so idk what to say. *shrugs*

*hugs*

Ugh, people.

[bk_forever]

Ugh indeed.

Yeah, I only put an end note on the first chapter, and that was before I posted any other chapters, so that's probably why it hung on, but I didn't KNOW it was doing that, I've never noticed anything in previews when posting later chapters. But there are polite ways of pointing something like that out to an author, and this person was not being polite, so it irritated me.

Another thing that irritated me a while back was someone commenting on a chapter just by saying 'Thanks for the update', as if, I don't know, I'd done them a casual favour by taking days of my own time and effort to write a new chapter and post it. This is why I usually only write short pieces.

Tell your reader, "it's short because that's the way I wrote it" or something, lol!

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

Yep, that'll do it.

People really do need to learn to be more polite, though. Jeez.

I hate when people just say that, gah. I mean, when I was updating my longest Game of Thrones fic pretty often (and even after that they've commented) there was a reader who commented just a short little thing each chapter with their fave part. It was basically the same format and only a couple of words each time, but I really liked that they did it. And if it had been a longer wait, they'd thank me for the update, but they weren't like, being pressuring about it, which makes it actually feel genuine. Which none of these people are.

I write nearly all short pieces, and you'd think people would either a) notice or b) see in the tags that they are labelled either drabbles or one shots. Like, ONE. SHOT. excuse you, why are you reading if you cannot read?

Yeah, probably...

[bk_forever]

It's so encouraging if people say what they like about a chapter or story, even if it's just a few words. Sadly, few people do. Maybe I overcompensate when I leave reviews at times, they tend to be quite wordy when I'm reviewing something longer than a drabble...

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

Ha, I totally overcompensate with verbosity. At least a lot of the time it gets to be conversation =D

[bk_forever]

That's one of the great parts about it. You get talking to the commenter and get a new friend =)

Too many people these days just leave Kudos, or Favourite a story. i get a lot of both,and it's nice, but nothing beats an actual comment, especially is someone takes the time to say what they like about it, or even what they don't like as long as they're polite about it.

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

Indeedy-do.

IDK where that came from.

I like the kudos and bookmarks and stuff (and if someone leaves a "nice!" comment and hasn't given kudos it feels a little weird because it's easier to click the button...) but I definitely like seeing what people actually have to say.

[bk_forever]

Kudos is too easy in some ways, it's like it's making people too lazy to comment, which is sad. I usually comment AND leave kudos, covers all the bases =)

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

True. Even if I don't comment, though, if I like something I'll leave kudos and if I'll want to read it again or if I'm adding it to my femslash comm's collection I'll bookmark it. Especially with shorter pieces, I don't often leave comments, at least not on work of people I don't know. (Like if I'm smiley because of the thing it feels weird to just leave ":D" on some stranger's work or "OMG" or whatever...) It's partly just the social anxiety, like even on the internet I sometimes try not to talk to people. It's weird. But like, I get not commenting, but commenting to say something rude? IDK rudeness seldom makes sense to me, period, so...

For me, I like the kudos, but the bookmarks are kind of more important. Because that means someone's actually going 'hmm I'd like to see this thing again'.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, I sometimes worry that I'm saying something stupid when I comment.

I don't mind people leaving smilies, lol!

I don't save bookmarks often, if I like something I download the PDF.

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

Same.

Well I know YOU don't mind lol :D I'm also a fan of leaving gifs. Esp gifs of Clara, of course.

Hmm. I always feel like it's better that the author can see it, I guess. The author and other people, who want to know what I like.

[bk_forever]

That's a good point. Of course if I like something enough to download it I'll usually review and/or leave kudos, so I guess that works too!

[clarahow.livejournal.com]

Makes sense :)

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

Some people have nothing better to do.

sorry you got trolled its horrible

[bk_forever]

It wasn't that bad, just impolite and really annoying. That person needs to find a new hobby. *rolls eyes*

[daniforblue.livejournal.com]

I just read the note. Yeah, some people have a lot of time on their hands, and the worst is they only waste it for writing stupid, hateful stuff. I don't get it. I don't have any energy left for such silly comments.

I'm mostly sad because that happened to someone like you, who is always kind and patient. Like you were in your reply. I think I would've been a lot angrier.

[bk_forever]

I'm not going to waste time getting angry at infantile people, just reminding them to have good manners and be polite will hopefully have a better effect. I'm assuming it's a young person, since they seem most likely to behave like trolls. It's annoying though, I was really proud of that chapter and the only thing they want to mention is that my author's note hasn't changed since chapter one. *headdesk*

[daniforblue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're right.

Exactly. It takes a lot to write a story you're proud of and they only mention some random, trivial thing.

Solution: Don't comment if you have nothing important or constructive to say.

[bk_forever]

Sadly, some people are only interested in 'helpfully' pointing out mistakes. I wouldn't mind if they were polite about it, especially if they took the time to leave a review, but when all they do is criticise, that's not something anyone should have to put up with on their own journal.

[too-beauty.livejournal.com]

Well rude readers are becoming more frequent everywhere, what is worse is that they never comment on what they have just read ... only on your mistakes, lack of imagination or wishing you were dead, like in my case.
Don't worry, my dear, some people have a lot of free time between their hands and nothing inside their heads ...

[bk_forever]

Well, to buck the trend, my 'troll' just apologised very nicely, which I think doesn't usually happen, so my opinion of her has gone up somewhat =)

There are a lot of rude people about on the internet though, and there's little that can be done about them other than to report them where possible.

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

Urgh! And, actually, I think that may be a bug in AO3, so really Not Your Fault. And what an odd thing to hang up a comment on.

I got a similar recently on FF.net which just said that I got it wrong because X actually learned Y from W. Nothing more. And the thing is that I do touch upon it in the early chapters, I just don't made a big deal of it later, so the reviewer eitehr read sloppily or thought it wasn't enough. It is partly a mistake from my side as I had planned to include more of it, but it got mislaid in re-writing, but it is still there. And this is fanfic, if I want to downplay something, then I can do this becuase, you know, fanfic.

I don't get some plepole! If I felt really compelled to point out something I percieved as a mistake, then I would start with saying what I did like with the fic before getting to more negative things.

[bk_forever]

Some people are just really weird. Fanfiction doesn't have to slavishly stick to canon anyway, it's up to each writer to choose what they want to write depending in the story they're trying to tell. The only times I'll offer that sort of constructive criticism is if they get something basic wrong, like having Torchwood Three be in London, or saying that Owen is Welsh when they are clearly trying to write a canon-based story. And then I put that at the very end of my review and do so politely.

It does seem to be a slight bug in AO3, but at least now I know not to leave an end note on the first chapter of a fic unless I'm posting more than one chapter at once. Or something like that, lol! I'll keep an eye on that with any future chaptered fics I might write.

On the bright side, my 'troll' came back and apologised for coming across as rude as she hadn't meant to be, so I guess not all trollish behaviour comes from genuine trolls, sometimes it's just someone who expresses themselves badly. An apology makes all the difference. Perhaps they'll be more careful with their wording in future.

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you got a nice follow up! I agree, often it can just be the wording that gets a bit wrong. It can be difficult to gauge the impact, especially if you are writing in a language which isn't your native one.

I hardly ever give negative feedback, but if I do, then it is for the reason you mention. If I don't like something then it is usually because my taste runs different and can hardly blame a a person for liking something else. Though, if one my consider my recent troll, that is just what some people feel entitled to do.

[bk_forever]

If I don't like a story, I don't comment. everyone is entitled to write what they want to write, no one has to read it if it's not to their tastes and no one has a right to dictate to someone else how they should write their story.

I was lucky. In fact, I've seldom had anything that could be called negative feedback.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the author's note because sometimes I may find a good story somewhere after the author has posted several chapters and then have to find the rest of the story. Most of the time, I won't post anything until the end and even then, only a comment that I've enjoyed the author's work. (I'm very surprised you were trolled because I've never read one of your that I haven't enjoyed, but that's just me. 😊)

[bk_forever]

In this case, the end note referred to the first chapter and I hadn't realised it was appearing at the end of EVERY chapter, but I was annoyed not by having that pointed out to me but by the rather rude way they'd phrased it.

However, the person who left the note has since apologised, she didn't mean to be impolite, so she's been forgiven. Sometimes, things work out. *shrugs*

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I've read that story, LOVED it and never noticed the note repeated... If I have to comment (and I usually won't for fear of offending a writer who dosen't know me), it would be only to compliment the story, not to criticize. (I do Document Production, not Editing..)

[bk_forever]

=D

Sadly, there will always be some people who only comment to criticise or be nasty. I got another troll over on ff.net recently. I wrote a Star Trek drabble, and their only comment was 'Leonard Nimoy is dead', which I thought was a bit of a pointless comment. I replied that I knew because he passed away just after my mother, and they messaged back 'Your mother and Leonard Nimoy are dead' and then kept repeating that message, so I banned them.

Then the following day on AO3 I got a message from an anonymous reader saying I was probably their favourite writer on the site, so that cheered me right up again =D

[asia27.livejournal.com]

Jeez, talk about stupid people?! I think much of the world knew Mr. Nimoy died but that was no excuse for the comment! You're one of about 15 writers on my page that I read regularly and enjoy immensely; one of your stories has contibuted to an idea for a piece of jewelry I want to do based on Tosh's dress at a ball you wrote about so it's just a small thing, but I give it to you in the hope of cheering you up a bit. Between you and Awatere Jones, I'm in my purple bead phase and at least three pieces are coming from that because of you both. Don't let the trolls get you down. You're better than they are and they are just plain jealous because they can't write! (and I sent you an text about a story to email)

[bk_forever]

Thank you! Glad you're still enjoying the fics, and delighted that my writing helped inspire a piece of jewellery.

I'm actually not letting the trolls get me down. The latest one was so repetitive and boring I commented to one of my friends that I can't even get a halfway decent troll. They barely even merited use of the title, lol.

I've had far more positive comments than negative ones, and today one person added about 200 of my Torchwood fics to their favourites list - that must have been quite a reading binge!