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I'm really loving the kudos system on AO3. It's not that I'm getting kudos left, right and center (I'm not, but there've been some). It's that readers have the opportunity to send me an easy, positive message, even on older stories, without any accompanying social pressure. It's just a quick, clean thumbs up, then on to the next story.
Now believe me, I love long and detailed and even critical feedback. In fact I'm all for workshops, meta and critique exchanges, and other schemes to make giving feedback habitual. I will always welcome feedback, but I don't believe that I'm entitled to it, or that I've got some authorial right to shame folks into providing it.
What the kudos system does is give readers a communicative opportunity that has been mostly absent from fanfic circles, but common to the rest of the internet. It's akin to a thumbs up on YouTube, the Like button on Facebook, and the simplest rating systems: yes or no, good or bad. Expressing yourself through clicks has become pretty natural to most of us--so why not bring it into fic writing/reading circles? But even better, the kudos system doesn't allow readers to rate a story 'bad,' thereby protecting our fragile authorial egos and preventing the spread of ill feeling by click. (Although, I think I'd be ok with readers rating my stories 'bad'--everyone's got a few stinkers, and once the rage blackout has passed, I'll probably see your point).
I mean, let's be honest. As a general rule, most people aren't leaving detailed feedback on all or even a majority of the stories they read. And that's my reading pattern too. Sometimes all I have to say is, "cool story, bro." Without sarcasm, of course. People ARE more likely to leave some kind of feedback if you make it easier for them. One click, "cool story, bro," and there's feedback on a story you wrote two years ago. Win.
Unrelated--I would really like a challenge where a group of people remix the same work. Say there are ten participants, five of them fic writers, three of them artists, and two of them mixers. We vote on what work to remix (from a pool provided by participating remixers, or perhaps non remixers) and then we create: five new stories, three pieces of art and two mixes. All riffing on the original work, but with their own unique life. y/n?
Now believe me, I love long and detailed and even critical feedback. In fact I'm all for workshops, meta and critique exchanges, and other schemes to make giving feedback habitual. I will always welcome feedback, but I don't believe that I'm entitled to it, or that I've got some authorial right to shame folks into providing it.
What the kudos system does is give readers a communicative opportunity that has been mostly absent from fanfic circles, but common to the rest of the internet. It's akin to a thumbs up on YouTube, the Like button on Facebook, and the simplest rating systems: yes or no, good or bad. Expressing yourself through clicks has become pretty natural to most of us--so why not bring it into fic writing/reading circles? But even better, the kudos system doesn't allow readers to rate a story 'bad,' thereby protecting our fragile authorial egos and preventing the spread of ill feeling by click. (Although, I think I'd be ok with readers rating my stories 'bad'--everyone's got a few stinkers, and once the rage blackout has passed, I'll probably see your point).
I mean, let's be honest. As a general rule, most people aren't leaving detailed feedback on all or even a majority of the stories they read. And that's my reading pattern too. Sometimes all I have to say is, "cool story, bro." Without sarcasm, of course. People ARE more likely to leave some kind of feedback if you make it easier for them. One click, "cool story, bro," and there's feedback on a story you wrote two years ago. Win.
Unrelated--I would really like a challenge where a group of people remix the same work. Say there are ten participants, five of them fic writers, three of them artists, and two of them mixers. We vote on what work to remix (from a pool provided by participating remixers, or perhaps non remixers) and then we create: five new stories, three pieces of art and two mixes. All riffing on the original work, but with their own unique life. y/n?
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And that challenge sounds pretty cool. I would definitely participate.
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That sounds like an interesting challenge.
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(I love the kudos button toooo.)
-A.
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