Rules of Engagement - a poll for readers and writers

[leethet]

I've been reading, and trying to write, in a new-to-me fandom. This, and my archiving of my MFU stuff on AO3, has made me think about something.

One of the things I like about LJ is that it makes actual comments about as easy as it's possible to make them barring being face to face with an author after you've finished a story (well, easier than that - what if you hated it?). One of the things I've observed in my own reading behavior in this "new" fandom is my own commenting. Now, I don't finish about 90 percent of the stories I start to read (this is true of any fandom). Of the ones I finish, I find most to be just OK (keep in mind this includes my own [see earlier poll] so I hope I don't sound too awful). Because of this, that "kudos" button is the easiest thing in the world. It sends an accurately mild (in terms of my time investment) "this was OK" message to the author.

I like it and I don't like it.

I like it because it's the exact right level of involvement for a story I only sorta liked. If I really like something I leave a comment, because if I really like something, there's always something I have to say about it.

It echoes the "like" button on FB. This is why I don't like it (yes, I'm a hypocrite. Or just human). One of the things I don't like about FB is the pretense it allows of intimacy. Of engagement. It's an extension of those Christmas form letters - "Dear INSERT NAME HERE" followed by some boasting. It (FB) allows people to pretend to maintain relationships without any of the actual (to my old-fashioned mind) maintenance of those relationships.

In this way the "kudos" button is the same; it permits readers to feel like they've "done their part" (I don't, for the record, think readers are required to do squat for writers - just so that's clear) without having actually troubled to give real feedback. Then again, do people use it because they can't think of what to say, because they're lazy, because they're busy, because they're intimidated - or because, like me, they don't really like most stories enough to feel they merit more than a lazy, in-passing thumbs up (again, I'm not finding fault with any of these approaches, just wondering)?

So, a poll. And, as always, please elaborate in comments. The way writers and readers think about stories is endlessly fascinating to me.
[Poll #1974799]

Comments

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Regarding #2: there are some writers that can make me try anything. But they're few and far between. Generally speaking, there's a lot of fandom tropes that just don't interest me--kidfic, long term established relationship, curtain fic, etc. I don't even bother to click on the stories so my lack of comment has nothing to say regarding the quality of that particular fic.

I think all of this is much easier in a large fandom, you can kudos or comment or not and stay under the radar to some extent. Every comment and kudos in a smaller fandom like this registers.

[leethet.livejournal.com]

I can't agree more and it's kind of an issue because certainly there are very good writers out there whose stuff I don't read - whose stuff, if I did read that genre or trope, I'd certainly be liking and telling them about it. That's bound to be true of my stuff too. There will be people who'll love, like it, be indifferent, hate it, and never sample it at all because they simply don't read the kind of stuff I write. And feedback being what it is, you get a very skewed sense, I think, of what those percentages are. I'm not sure why this fascinates me so much except that as a student of human nature I'm interested in how we as writers think about things v. how things really are, and we can really never know how things really are out there in our "readership." Many of us would like to, but as a reader, too, I'm sure glad I can't be forced to respond. :-)