Feedback Rant
As you probably know, I've been posting my stories on Stories Online. One of the features of SOL is that it is very easy to provide feedback to the author. At the end of the story there is a box that you can type your comments in and then just click send to email it to the author. You can even do it anonymously if you want. Without a psychic connection, I don't know how it could be any easier.
This isn't what I'm ranting about. I like this feature and like receiving feedback, even negative feedback. Perhaps even especially negative feedback. It's great to receive praise and I'm as human as the next person and like to hear that somebody likes something I did, but the negative feedback is the stuff that really offers the potential for learning and growing.
Now here is where the rant comes in. The negative feedback only offers the potential for learning and growing if it gives some reasons.
I thought my SLFS post was an okay story that could stand on its own, so I posted it to SOL. Here is one of the feedback messages I got: "A total waste of time."
That was it. The total message was just those five words and one punctuation mark. If that is the extent of your feedback, why even bother? Particularly given that the issue appears to be wasted time. Doesn't sending that feedback waste even more time?
The problem isn't that this reader didn't like the story. I don't expect everybody would enjoy that story. Hell, I don't even expect most people to enjoy the story, given that there is stuff in it that would squick a lot of people. But if you're going to bother taking the time to send feedback, give the author something to go on. "A total waste of time" tells me nothing. Without some reason why you dislike the story, how can you expect the author to learn anything from your feedback?
The real reason behind this rant isn't the comment per se. It's the confusion about what would motivate somebody to leave such a comment. I've tried, but I can't come up with any motive for leaving a comment like that that isn't petty or mean spirited. I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt and see things from their perspective, but for the life of me, I can't come up with a positive spin on why somebody would leave that comment.
The bottom line for me is, if you hate a story and you can't or you're not willing to give some reasons why you hate the story, don't bother giving feedback to the author. Anybody with enough brains to string a few sentences together to make a story is probably bright enough to know that not everybody is going to like the sentences they've strung together, so there's no need to tell them just that. They already know.
Hope you're all getting as lucky as you want to be,
bbobb
This isn't what I'm ranting about. I like this feature and like receiving feedback, even negative feedback. Perhaps even especially negative feedback. It's great to receive praise and I'm as human as the next person and like to hear that somebody likes something I did, but the negative feedback is the stuff that really offers the potential for learning and growing.
Now here is where the rant comes in. The negative feedback only offers the potential for learning and growing if it gives some reasons.
I thought my SLFS post was an okay story that could stand on its own, so I posted it to SOL. Here is one of the feedback messages I got: "A total waste of time."
That was it. The total message was just those five words and one punctuation mark. If that is the extent of your feedback, why even bother? Particularly given that the issue appears to be wasted time. Doesn't sending that feedback waste even more time?
The problem isn't that this reader didn't like the story. I don't expect everybody would enjoy that story. Hell, I don't even expect most people to enjoy the story, given that there is stuff in it that would squick a lot of people. But if you're going to bother taking the time to send feedback, give the author something to go on. "A total waste of time" tells me nothing. Without some reason why you dislike the story, how can you expect the author to learn anything from your feedback?
The real reason behind this rant isn't the comment per se. It's the confusion about what would motivate somebody to leave such a comment. I've tried, but I can't come up with any motive for leaving a comment like that that isn't petty or mean spirited. I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt and see things from their perspective, but for the life of me, I can't come up with a positive spin on why somebody would leave that comment.
The bottom line for me is, if you hate a story and you can't or you're not willing to give some reasons why you hate the story, don't bother giving feedback to the author. Anybody with enough brains to string a few sentences together to make a story is probably bright enough to know that not everybody is going to like the sentences they've strung together, so there's no need to tell them just that. They already know.
Hope you're all getting as lucky as you want to be,
bbobb
posted by bbobb | 9:18 AM
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