Fandom, Let's Talk About Fic a Moment, Shall We?

[mousapelli]

Here's a little timeline for you:

2008 - 5 Times Miyata Didn't Believe in Love - 20 comments
2009 - Nobody But You - 20 comments
2010 - At First Sight - 27 comments
2011 - Party Don't Stop - 6 comments. Hm.
Debut Happens
2011 - Communication - 7 comments
2012 - Say Say Say - 4 comments.

All of those (except 1 Nisen) are Tamamori/Miyata, same pairing, same fandom, in a common fandom pairing, no rarepairs, no crazy kinks or anything weird. See that precipitous drop in commenting? Right as we get to debut and we have an influx of people and fandom should be getting a swell of writers and fangirls and excitement?

I've been trying to hold off posting about this because I'm already cranky from end of school year, and I know I'll just come off sounding like a comment-whoring jackass, but when a perfectly serviceable main pairing confession/get-together fic in a band-specific exchange gets 3 comments (which is exactly what happened with Say Say Say), then I have to say that we are once again totally overdue for The Talk.

You know the one I mean.

Commenting on fic makes authors happier. Happier authors write more often and encourage new authors to write, and then everybody has more fic. You can say I'm wrong or that I just want attention, but I've written in dozens of fandoms and I can tell you 100% the fandoms with the most active commenting have the most active authors. And don't tell me it's about size, because it's not. Hikaru no Go and Loveless both had/have totally respectable fic/comment ratios, just to pick two. Kisumai(/ebi/jrs) isn't tiny, and it certainly didn't get tinier over the last 5 years.

also, okay, I do want attention, fine. That's why I post things on the internet. It's not that I will stop writing when nobody says "thank you" or "I liked this," obviously, but did I write longer and better fic back when I got more comments? You bet. And after putting in so much effort for my Fic2 fics and having it turn out like Say Say Say, did I take a break and think really hard about putting energy into new things because I was discouraged? Yup, for sure.

And I'm a seasoned, reasonably self-confident author. New, nervous authors need more support if you want them to stick around, improve, and produce fic regularly. Authors with busy lives/school/work need impetus to put their energy into writing.

Lurkers make authors sad, and sad authors don't write as much, or bother setting aside time and energy to write at all. Here's the thing, guys, lurking is not invisibility. We can see you. There's LJ stats, there's counters, I can see accidentally via my stupid clicky pokemon, how many people are clicking into a fic, vs how many people say thanks. The generally accepted figure for how many people comment out of how many people read/downloaded/did whatever on your post, in any fandom, is about 10%. Right now I'm at ~2%, sort of, and that's better than pretty much all the kisumai authors I can name. It sucks. It's not encouraging. It doesn't make me want to plan new stuff or get excited.

And maybe you clicked a fic you didn't like, or firefox crashed your tabs, or you read on your phone and couldn't comment, there's reasons people don't comment, sure. But not EVERYBODY is busy/had drama/hated it ALL the time. And if you had enough time to read the whole thing, you really don't have the 10 seconds it takes to type "I enjoyed this" and then click a button? Unless it was like a je100 drabble, but that hasn't exactly been a hotbed of authorial support either lately.

The comment that drives me the craziest, and I hesitate to bring this up because it probably means I will stop getting even this, is that at least once every week or two, I get a pm that says "I read all your stuff all the time and i love it but I never comment because I'm too shy!!!" Oh, fandom, why. It's the internet. No one cares who you are. If it worries you so much, comment anonymously! Create a sockpuppet account! Like, it's nice that you at least say that one thing the one time, but see above, how steady commenting creates a community where authors produce better fic more regularly. Lurking produces nothing but posts from me about how frustrating it is to write when everybody's a lurker.

This is why Kisumai(/ebi/jr) fandom has so few fic-producing authors. It's because everybody wants to lurk. But you can't all lurk, all the time. We used to have a bunch of new authors trying stuff out, at least a couple fics on the comm a week. Now we have a fic/fanwork comm, and there's next to nobody posting. When I repost fics to the comm, I get like 1-2 comments out of it generally, despite the influx of random people it directs to my journal.

Guys, it's so bad right now that everybody I've talked to in the last 2 weeks about this, all longtime authors, have all said I shouldn't even bother posting about it, there's nothing anybody can do about it, I'm wasting my time and should just accept that our fandom sucks. It didn't used to suck, and I don't have to just accept that. This can totally get better again!

We need more authors. The authors we have need encouragement. If you like reading fic, you've got to learn/remember that the reason LJ works for fandom is that it encourages community exchange, and if that didn't matter, then we'd all be on Fanfic.net or Ao3, just in archives.

tl:dr - here's what you can do right now:
1. Comment on what you read, even if it's just "Thank you" or "I enjoyed this." you don't have to be witty or have awesome insight or anything, just say if you liked it. I swear to you, this makes everybody happier.
2. Write something! You really can! It takes practice, and we all had a first fic once. If everybody is too shy to post, soon we'll be down to zero authors. Fandom has to refresh itself, because in case you haven't noticed, we don't have a plethora of established, regular authors just hanging around at the moment. If you can string 3 words together, we'll probably love you.
3. Stop lurking. We can see you, you aren't hiding. You're just making fandom sad.

And if all this post did was make you think I'm a jerk, I can't stop you. If it makes you happy, you don't have to ever comment on anything of mine ever again, I'll live. But here's some people and things you really should comment on, especially if you've already read them and done nothing:

Reveals for Fic2, the all kisumai exchange, which was full of good and varied fic, and was not well-commented on at all. In particular the fic I received, Hesitation, is Miyata/Tamamori and deserves way more than the 2 comments it has. 2! Fandom, I am ashamed of you.
Here's a handful of fics I got for my birthday, all of which deserve comments and love because they were good reads. All kisumai except 1 Yara/Yamaryo.
Here's the Fanfic tag for kismyshowtime, full of authors who I'm sure would love some encouragement or just a thank you.

Comments

[gemmiesky.livejournal.com]

I always try to comment, even if its just a heart. I don't read that many though. Also, I write, but as you've touched upon, I'm shy. I post in my own journal though. At least a few. And I did post a few drabbles in JE100 :)

I agree that people should comment though and that when it seems no one is paying any mind to what you are writing, you just don't always want to keep going.

I hope things get better. And good for you for speaking your mind! :)

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I know your username when I see it, I wouldn't call you a lurker or anything. But yes, it's really hard to keep people motivated on JE100 especially when there's so few other people participating or encouraging. It's a self-feeding cycle.

[peroxidepest17.livejournal.com]

THIS FOR ALL THE FANDOMS VERY HARD. <3

[imifumei.livejournal.com]

Thank you for specifically mentioning my fic, even though I wasn't very good about commenting myself. It really is hard to get psyched up when you know nobody is going to read something. It is even worse when, as is the case with some participants in exchanges, even the recipient doesn't comment. It would be nice if commenting were a more universal thing.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't say much about it because I didn't want you to feel bad as mod, but I was pretty appalled by the lack of commenting in general by the participants of the exchange themselves. No wonder it feels sort of self-defeating to write, when even writers themselves aren't particularly encouraging about it. I knew, when I got to 5k much less the 10k that it turned out, that I was putting way too much effort into the Taipi/Tama to be pleased with the results, but when the Miyata/Tama got the same results or worse, I was stung, to be honest. It makes it difficult to want to put in the effort to plot out decent fic and to edit it and polish it, when I could throw up 2k of bullshit I wrote in a couple hours and then when nobody comments, I'm not as affected by it because I can just say "well, I didn't try that hard, no surprise nobody likes it."

People need to pull it together. Older/longer-participating members of fandom need to actually model encouraging community behavior if they want newer people coming in to also participate and not just lurk around.

[elij-0650.livejournal.com]

Totally hugs & orz.
We have a new computer system at work and my brain is 100% mush.
I will give myself a treat on the weekend and read kisumai fic instead of computer manuals.

And I promise to comment coherently.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

See and it's funny, because the people apologizing here aren't people I would call lurkers. I see you around in places, I recognize your username. I know people get busy and there's no problem with that. But that can't possibly be ALL the people on here ALL the time. If I put up a poll about something, there'll be a dozen people on there at least whose usernames I've never seen before. Thats the sort of thing that is the problem.

[yararanger.livejournal.com]

I like this post a lot. ♥

[loveandcoffee.livejournal.com]

Basically - yes, you're right. I am one of those guilty of rarely commenting and I am sorry for that. I'll try my best to comment more in the future.
Having said that, I cannot speak for all fandom, but I'd like to say why I rarely comment. There are two main reasons.

Yes, I am shy. What's wrong with that? You say: "It's the internet. No one cares who you are.". Well, that's pretty obvious - but I'm not talking about "OMG PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SEE MY USERNAME AND SEE THAT I READ GAY FIC!!!11" kind of shy. I'm definitely not afraid of putting my name out there when I express my opinions and stuff. I'm talking about "Wow this author is amazing and she's my akogare (please understand this word as I don't know of any decent English equivalent), and she always writes stuff that makes my heart skip a beat and feel a lot of things. And look at the articulate, in-depth comments other people have left! And how am I going to condensate into words all I felt? Am I just going to write a silly flail+thanks kind of comment? Isn't it going to be annoying? What will she think of me? (I KNOW you probably really don't think anything and are probably happy anyway but this is not how the mind of a shy person works) damn it, I give up." kind of shy. Which is a totally different thing, even though the outcome is the same. To comment on fic when I can't express in words what I felt I have to force my nature to an incredible extent. I will try to, now that you've said you're happy even with just one liners, and I definitely want you, someone I admire, to be happy more than anything else; but deep down I'll always feel uncomfortable with just saying "I loved it, thank you".

The other reason - you might have seen me posting my translations, no? Well, of course I am thrilled and delighted when people comment and tell me what they felt reading the interview/j-web, or tell me what made them laugh in it or how their idea of a member changed due to something they said in it or make a joke about something that's in it; but to be honest I'd rather have a low comment ratio than find a couple dozen "Tama-chan is so cute ahahah thank you for translating!" in my inbox. I see that people read it via the LJ stats, and I'm content with that. So I thought (naively? stupidly?) that it'd be okay with other people, too. I see my mistake now ._.

One last thing. When you say "write something! you can!" you seem to forget not everyone is a native English speaker, and not everyone has a knack for storytelling.
I write something, rarely, in my own language, but I wouldn't do it in English although I consider my English proficiency at least decent. Writing a story requires full command of the language you write in and while there are a few ESLs who do have it and can write really good fiction, I don't consider myself good enough for that. Essays, articles, general posts? Yes, I can do those. If I'm particularly troubled with something I can always reword it, try to express it differently or just explain it using more words. But in fiction even the smallest nuance is important, and you can't just throw in a lot of information; less is more in fiction, but it requires skills that not every ESL may have.
I also don't think that even being a perfect, fluent English speaker warrants being able to write good fiction. I am definitely good when it comes to knowledge and command of my own language, and I am very proud of my non-fiction works, but even so I am not a good narrator. It's not a question of practice - if you can't think of stories in your head, or you just get a tiny snapshot with no idea of how to develop it effectively, there's only so much that practice can do.
Of course I agree with you when you say that new authors who feel like they want to try their hand at writing should be encouraged and supported; I just had the impression, not just from this post, obviously, that somewhere along the way people started thinking writing fiction is an individual's necessary contribute to fandom - while I think it's totally okay to not have this kind of talent or inclination and contribute in another way (translations, file sharing, discussion - damn, I miss NON-ANONYMOUS discussion in this fandom).

That was long and not well written. I'm sorry .__.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

See, but you aren't the problem. I know who you are, I see you around. You contribute things. As you point out, there's lots of ways to participate in fandom without writing. But just because not everybody can write, that doesn't mean that nobody should try. There just simply aren't new authors filling in spaces as usual authors get busy or change fandoms. I want to read just as much as I want to write, and there is just so little action, it's a shame.

[sashjun.livejournal.com]

Applaud, so much of it I can´t . . . because these days every time I finish a fic and then spend twice as much time as the writing took editing it, having a beta go over it, sometimes more than once, then editing some more, I wask myself why I even do it if I could just file it away and be done with it now that I have completed the story and the storyteller in me is basically satisfied.

Okay no more ranting. Just yes this!

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I've stopped having anybody beta outright because the only people I would ask to do it are also the only couple people who will probably read it visibly. You're right, it isn't worth it.

[flailinginlove.livejournal.com]

I write because I want to write and because if I don't write I have annoying plot bunnies nibbling at my brain constantly. It's a catharsis and a reward in and of itself. I've started posting again because I've found that it seems to make me finish more fic. Getting comments is a very nice bonus but not something I need to keep me happy or keep me writing. I could get 100 comments tomorrow and it wouldn't make me write more or faster. Lurkers don't make me sad. I'd rather have a few people comment because they sincerely like something than a lot of people comment because they feel that they have some sort of fandom obligation to do so. I guess that's just me though. *shrugs*

Also, I just activated the 2 week paid user trial because I was curious since I've never bothered to look at my stats before and they are so misleading.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I just think it's not unreasonable for people to say thank you to authors (or artists or translators or download uppers) who produce things in their fandom. I'm worn out of this climate where nobody does that and it's acceptable. It's not acceptable. It's dickish.

Two years ago, more people commented and participated, and more people wrote. Now, nobody does and nobody does.

[fantomeq.livejournal.com]

It really bugs me that less than 1% of my readers review. That is the nice thing about AO3, at least, that somebody can clicky the kudos button if she's in a hurry. That gets me up to 10%.

[ilanala]

I've had the exact same experience with Kanjani8 fandom, where even though the group has gotten more popular, the number of comments I've received for similar fics has dropped off precipitously. It seems like every time there's a hate meme, people start ranting about how authors should write because they want to and not for comments, which is true to a point, but it's still really nice to get comments and disheartening to get very few even when people are clearly reading your fic.

I was really nervous about posting fic when I first got into JE fandom, but people were so supportive and encouraging that I pushed myself and did it and kept doing it. If I got into this fandom now and psyched myself up to post something only to get almost no comments, I might very well give up. And then people wonder why there's less fic than there used to be...

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

yeah, it baffles me, and maybe this is just because I'm a teacher, that people in general don't seem to understand that most people will put in far more effort in a much more sustained way, if you just provide a little bit of steady feedback. Why is that so hard for us? Why are we so resistant? And I'm simplifying it to "just say thank you" because lord knows you can't give anybody complicated directions, but it isn't like the feedback has to be glowingly positive all the time. I'm okay with reasonably neutral feedback like "Hm, this didn't turn out like I thought it would" or "I haven't seen anybody else do this with this character, I tend to see it more like x or y" or you know, whatever.

It's not like I'm hunting for meaningless praise, but it's hard to take the cricket chirp of no or very few comments as anything but negative, or at bare minimum, like nobody would care if I just quit writing all together. And when you KNOW people are reading, but staying silent, it doesn't take long to start thinking "Do I really suck at this? Does everybody hate it? What am I doing wrong here?" I'm not an inherently low-self-esteem person, but after a while, even I start to feel that. Anybody would.

:/ I just wish I could figure out how to engineer a reversal of this blatant decline of community. K-pop is going to steal everybody good if we don't get it together, is already stealing most of the people on my flist.

[kuro-chin.livejournal.com]

*favorites*

I admit to not commenting as much as I should as a member of the kisumai community, but I've also decided to take up the project of actually leaving a comment to (almost) everything I read. The decline is comments is downright sad, so I hope the rest of the fandom will do the same. ♥

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I've been trying very hard in the last six months or so to comment on everything I read, even if i'm pretty neutral about it, just so that somebody is saying something, and maybe other people will get the idea. But I have to say, just doing that silently without saying out loud "I AM COMMENTING AND YOU SHOULD TOO" did not effect any change that I could see.

So, I guess, maybe this will help some.

[miquilis.livejournal.com]

As a confessed lurker I feel I should apologise. This post is very well written and I understand the frustration and recognise it as a huge problem within fandom. Not only amongst fic writers but that people don't even simply thank for subs and download links and then by consequence if people don't feel like their contribution to fandom is appreciated or even acknowledged they'll stop sharing.

But then I also understand and feel regret that I'm part of the group of people that make excuses - I was on a lj hiatus so I'm only just getting back into using it, I open tonnes of tabs with the intent to comment and then can't think what to say or procrastinate too much or change computers and the tabs are gone. In the future I really do want to make much more of an effort.

I should say sorry again as I've had Foxfire open in a tab for weeks meaning to comment on it again since you re-posted after the exchange. Well, yosh, I know what I'm re-reading in work tomorrow then.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

The thing is, for me, that when any individual person is busy or at school or on hiatus or whatever else, our fandom community should be strong enough that one missing people, or a couple, doesn't make any difference.

It's not. The amount of response I get to anything directly hinges on the busy-ness of like 3-4 people. That's ridiculous. It's sad. There's more than 4 people in this fandom and it's seriously time that most people started acting like it.

So if you in particular are not around, that's no big deal, it's not a personal issue I have with any one particular person. If you feel like commenting, terrific, and if you don't or you're too busy or you just hate this particular thing, that's your prerogative too.

But this idea that it's okay if nobody every comments on anything, and writers and uploaders and producers should just suck it up and act like it's no big deal, that's not okay. That's how we got where we are, where if I read like two fics in a week that I didn't myself write or twist somebody else's arm to force them to write it, I find that terribly exciting.

[noella84.livejournal.com]

First of all, I totally agree regarding the "this fandom should have more comments" part.
Personally whenever I read something I try to comment even if it's just to tell the author I enjoyed what I've read. As a fic author (well pretty much) I obviously feel happy for a comment, even if it's just a "Thank you", but that's not exactly the same as receiving a comment that shows the feelings of the person who read your fic. Sometimes that "Thank you" just feels like another view on the stats, and that's it. I'm not saying that everyone should write long comments or that simple thanks are useless, I appreciate that too, and I understand that the person who just writes that had his reasons to do so.

On the other hand I can’t say I agree with the "everyone should try writing" thing. I know it's potentially true that anyone can do it. I know practice makes you better.
But just because someone likes to read fic it doesn't automatically mean they want to write.
Also you need passion to do something.
In my case, since I also draw fanart, when I read comments like "I wish I could draw like that" I could answer: do it. Draw. Everyone can draw. But would that be true?
Just because something is easy for me it doesn't mean it's easy for someone else.

Now, I try to write fic and I find it extremely difficult because I'm not a native English speaker. But I'm not using that as an excuse to stop writing. I'm writing more and more, make mistakes, study new things everyday and try to improve. It takes lots of energies doing it in my own language, and it takes even more energies in a language that is not mine. But I continue because I want to. I publish things on the internet to see if I'm going in the right direction too.
Unfortunately not everyone has the patience to go through this process, not everyone can write stories or maybe they just don’t have the confidence to do so.

And yes, receiving more comments would be great but receiving useful comments would be better. Especially for new authors I think it is great to feel supported by comments, but it would be even better if comments were a space to discuss and share opinions as well as a place to show appreciation. I understand that here you are talking about people that are not even making the effort of leaving a “thank you” comment, so this is even more unthinkable probably, but I just feel that the comments issue and lack of open discussion in this fandom is a bit discouraging.

I really hope this post will make people think and decide to make an effort with comments.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I mean sure, I enjoy a long, thoughtful comment as much as the next person, but I've got half the people saying "I can't think of anything to say!" and the other half going "I'm too busy to say anything!" and the end result is that nobody says anything, and in my world with that being the case, it's just as fulfilling for me to watch a bunch of Netflix and produce nothing, since so few people seem to be interested when I do write something. Given the responses I'm seeing on this post, I'm definitely not the only one, and I think the lack of new authors who do write routinely (not even well or poorly, just routinely) speaks for itself.

So I'm giving as simple a directive as possible, in the hopes that maybe some people will just do it, which is that if people comment more routinely, other people will write more routinely in response. If I give a more complicated message, like "well, it's not so much the number of comments as the thought behind them or the feeling that you are contributing positively and other people are interested and this is worth my time, but don't worry about exactly what it says" then the people who I'm trying to convert to commenting just sort of go "..." and get more flustered over what's a good comment vs a comment that doesn't help, and then continue to do nothing, good or bad.

Let's start with just "have some comments" and then we can move towards "what makes a comment good/useful."

And I'm not suggesting that everybody has to write. I'm saying more people should try. But if i say "some people should" then pretty much everybody assumes "some people" means "people who aren't me" and then continue to do nothing but sit back and wait for fic/new authors to appear magically. There's loads of other ways to participate in fandom, and bless everybody who finds one they enjoy, but it just seems to me that getting anybody to participate in anything is a huge struggle lately.

So again, let's just get some people doing some shit, writing or encouraging or anything, and then we can talk about what's good and what's useful.

[un-sanzo.livejournal.com]

I do agree that people don't comment enough. I myself, probably don't comment enough XD.

It's a good thing you shared your point of view. Commenting to show your appreciation might seem something obvious, but before other authors brought up this problem some time ago I was hesitant leaving comments with just a "thank you" or maybe a "dfghjkl".
I do write fic (I try to at least) and I draw fanart, so I know that receiving comments makes the author happy (it doesn't make me write or draw more though), especially the first times you post something and you wonder if you totally suck or not. But I also used to think "what difference does it make to authors who have been writing for a while?".
NOW I know it does, because it doesn’t matter for how long you’ve been writing, but I think I needed to be told so.

I have to admit though, I’d love people to write longer comments more often. I’d love even concrit at everything I do, I think that this could really push me doing more, knowing what’s good and what’s not, but I understand that not everyone want to hear negative comments from random readers and there are betas and memes for that anyway.

Just out of curiosity, do you find things like Webclap acceptable? Other people told me simple “thank you”s are okay for them, but anonymous appreciation buttons are not. Since I can’t see much difference between the two things, I wonder what others might think about this~

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I myself don't mind neutral comments, or even comments that are looking for more discussion than anything else, but as I said above in some other comments, I'm trying to give as simple a directive as I can to try and get people moving. "If you read it, comment on it" is a rule that way more people could stand to embrace, and if we get some sort of movement going in that direction, then we can start talking about whether a comment is useful or helpful.

Obviously I do continue to write even as un-encouraging as the situation has become, but there are times when it isn't very pleasant. There are times when I could use external motivation. It's not like my entire self-worth hinges on whether I got 5 or 10 comments on some cute TamaMiya, but it sure doesn't feel good to come home from struggling at work all day to find I only have 1, or none. Sometimes, it feels exactly like school, where I put in more and more effort, and get less and less back from my students as a result. Maybe that's what bothers me the most about it, actually.

I see the benefit of webclaps on archive sites, where the goal is to just aggregate fic and make it accessible, but it bothers me on livejournal, which has the completely different goal of community. My fandom friends come from comments and interaction; I can't make friends with random webclap 53. If all I wanted were a number, I'd put up a counter. Also, to me, webclaps feel like catering to the lowest possible denominator, the least possible effort. Is it really so much more time-consuming to type "Thank you, I enjoyed this" and hit post? Do I have to honestly reduce our entire interaction to one button-click, and in that case can you honestly even call that an interaction? I just think it encourages even less commenting and community, and fuels the problem all the more.

[snowqueenofhoth.livejournal.com]

I'm so beyond caring anymore. I can't say the number of comments, or lack of them, affects how much or how little I write, or how often. But I WILL say that the lack of commenting is why I've stopped bothering to crosspost to anywhere outside my journal. Because then it IS annoying, to know a whole bunch more people are reading and not saying anything. So I just don't make that effort.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

Tada.

[lockability.livejournal.com]

Ello~ I comment sooooometimes but really not often enough and now I realize I had no real reason to avoid it. I guess I was just scared I'd seem weird or something. But you're totes right, this is THE INTERNET, and I was being a paranoid wackadoodle. Keeping this post for the links at the bottom, for things to read. <3 I am sorry and you don't seem like a jerk and I'm glad you pointed it out and you made me want to catch up on fandom and stop slacking on my own writing (not that I've had the courage to post anything in ages shh) LONG COMMENT IS LONG but I'm posting it and not letting myself feel weird so okay.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

lol your "long" comment is like not even half the length of most of the ones above you XD

Good luck! ♥

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

*hugs youuuu*

I'm glad you still bother to write The Talk. ♥

A brief, possibly unhelpful note from my experience as a Shy Person on the Internet: I'm much more likely to keep reading and commenting on an author's work if I see that he or she replies to comments received.

Of course I know that authors are busy, just like readers, and may not have the chance to respond to comments in a thoughtful manner. Maybe it's NaNo and all they can think of is "MUST. FINISH. NEXT. CHAPTER." Maybe they don't have comment notification and don't compulsively check.

And I'm NOT saying that anybody is obligated to thank people for reading their stuff. Nor am I claiming that every reader feels this way.

But in my case, a response comment makes me feel like the author IS glad that I read their work. Even if it's just "Glad you enjoyed, thanks for reading!" Then I know my appreciation (which may have taken some courage to express--loveandcoffee's point about shyness is well taken) hasn't just been flung out into the uncaring vastness of the Internet. (To travel on and on, like a lonely object in space, never colliding with another--okay, I'll stop now.)

To clarify: I don't mean to say that a lack of comments is the author's fault for not replying to comments! It's not. What I am saying is that sometimes even leaving that brief "I enjoyed this! Thanks for writing it!" IS hard. Getting a reply--knowing my comment will be appreciated--makes it a little less difficult.

♥

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I've been more regular about replying to my comments lately, so good to know it's worth doing.

Lately fandom feels exactly like school does, and I'm starting to feel like I just can't go on like this.

[yomimashou.livejournal.com]

Point taken! I will definitely try to comment more, despite being shy when I don't get to something through a community. As someone who doesn't write fic, it can be easy to forget how important it is to comment, so I'm glad you brought it up ^^

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it, thank you.

[shadow-fictions.livejournal.com]

Oh I know I'm not invisible, and i really don't pretend to be, one of the reasons i have lj stats turned on is so that people who check it know that I've at least been on their journals/fic comms. I'm just chronically shy around people who I don't know who's work/writing I am literally in awe of. (case in point: you). Either that or I'm just a bit intimidated. I'm getting better at overcoming the shy, really, I just worry that because I tend to read in bulk, that if I comment on everything by someone it's hard to reply to everything the commenter has said and not have it turn monotonous. Same for my commenting actually. It tends to be very flaily/an incoherent mess and if it was a long fic I feel the 'i liked this' just doesn't really cut it sometimes, and as I tend to read a lot I run out of things to say. Unless I have the time to sit and read and c/p bits I like, that is.

Basically I'm paranoid I'm annoying people constantly, especially when I'm relatively new to a writing fandom. And yes it's the internet and no-one cares and I get that authors love comments (I do write, just really infrequently) but it's hard to overcome that when it's deeply ingrained from rl experiences. It sucks, and I'm not using it as an excuse, but I can see how it could be viewed as that without knowing my life story.

And in some weird way (which totally makes sense in my head, but it is late and I have a morning exam tomorrow) I think way certain fandoms react to things tends to alter the probability of me commenting. Like with je, there are so. Many. Memes. Which can make a whole fandom slightly intimidating to those who are new to it. It's like, one unintentional wrong move somewhere and you end up namedropped on a hate meme. I know that's overexaggerating greatly, but still. There are just certain fandoms I feel more confident either writing or commenting in.

What I'm trying (so horribly) to say is that yes, I completely understand where you are coming from and I regret that I don't comment more since I visit your journal A Lot, and enjoy pretty much everything you write. Well, everything, tbqh.

If you want to call me out on anything /generally moan at me / ask me to explain something that i haven't put across very well in my 1:42am 'plz don't hate me I'll try to do better in future' reply then yay go ahead :)

Once again I'm sorry, really. :/

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting with your thoughts. Honestly I'm not trying to make anybody feel guilty so much as I'm trying to point out that passive reading has a lot of effect on authors, and I don't think a lot of people realize that it does or have ever thought about it really. When it's at the point that it's effecting even me this heavily, it's really serious.

I hope your exam went well.

[micchan.livejournal.com]

You're so right about this and well, I'm partly guilty and nowadays I try to to comment to everything I read but sometimes I fail. When first discovering the fandom I was a bit too shy to comment and with all the catching up I did I didn't always comment on all the stuff shared so shame on me.

I love your fic and I think you're one of the best writers around ♥

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying so, I appreciate it.

[staypainted.livejournal.com]

echoing a whole lot of other people when I say: social anxiety ): like I've had this post open in a tab for two days working up the courage to post a comment - which is sad. but also, I tend to read fic in chunks - because of uni & life in general, I rarely get time except for the holidays to read things. and then I read a lot of things, but I feel weird if I comment on things more than a few days old, and especially so if I'm commenting on a whole bunch of someone's fics in quick succession. I feel like I would be annoying them? Which is weird because I know I'd never be annoyed by something like that, and yet. And this is going to sound rather strange, but with a fandom like kisumai, I feel like I'm. interrupting? a conversation that people have been having for ages before I became a fan when I comment. which is ridiculous, I know. this sounds dumb, I'm sorry.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* all of those are valid reasons, I suppose, and I do know that people are hesitant to comment especially if some time has gone by.

But the problem is that everybody's 101 valid reasons = nobody commenting on anything. Nearly all the authors in these comments are expressing feelings of frustration and lack of interest in struggling against it. So I guess it's up to everybody to decide whether or not encouraging authors (and uploaders and translators and etc) is something they can set aside their valid reasons for.

[myxstorie.livejournal.com]

THIS. Sometimes I wonder if the reason I barely write any more is because I don't feel like anybody cares, or enjoys reading what I write. So if nobody gets any joy out of it, what's the point in me writing? I have far more useful, productive things to be doing with my time if that's the case, y'know?

Thank you for posting about this ♥

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

Yup. I write just because I do, but lately when I'm tired or don't especially feel like it, I don't. And posting isn't something I'm excited about like I used to be, I never feel like "I can't wait for this to be done so I can post it!" anymore.

[omoikkiri.livejournal.com]

Er, first just wanted to say that I randomly stumbled onto this entry... not even sure how. XD

There are things I agree with and things I don't in what you said, but most of my thoughts have been discussed in previous comments in this post so I'll just add the one other point I have that I don't think has been mentioned:

I don't think you crosspost much to showtime, in terms of volume*? And while the older fans of Kisumai know that you write a lot and know where to find your fics, the newer fans who've come in after debut (which imo is really who you're addressing in this entry, since like you said somewhere you do have your group of friends who comment often) won't know to find you unless you crosspost. But crossposting isn't just... a straight ratio of crosspost once → get X number of comments. I've found that the more often you crosspost, the more comments it results, because it familiarizes an audience with the author's username and also makes the author look more approachable.

I'm pretty on-and-off about commenting myself, but I'm much more likely to comment on a fic that I've found through a crosspost because a non-crossposted entry feels more like it was meant as something shared between friends, and it would just be awkward/intrusive if I jumped in and left a comment. I realize that's often not the case, but people can't help feeling what they feel.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

I know that you're right to some extent, but on the other hand, like Rachel says above, over a long period of time cross-posting hasn't helped the situation hardly at all, so she pretty much never bothers to do it anymore, and I only do it once in a long while. And in terms of what it feels like, it's not a neutral feeling, when I post to whole comm and only get one or two more comments out of it, I feel like plainly I am doing it wrong/not good enough/not what people there are looking for. If I post to my own journal and not much happens, it's a little less hurtful to be able to say, well, I didn't cross-post anywhere so maybe it's not that I suck.

And I mean, I'm a pretty stable person emotionally, so rationally I know that I'm a decent writer and I shouldn't be hurt by it or worry about it, because I have a long history in fandom to back that up. If I were still a new writer or one who wasn't confident at all, i can't say it's an experience I would repeat.

[talisa-ahn.livejournal.com]

My thoughts on all this is a little complicated, so my simple reply is that the lack of commenting on things in this fandom, not just fic but most posts in general, is disheartening and we're not being a very good 'community'.

Now for me personally (fic-wise), I feel like I'm not very good so when I post things, I generally do it assuming that people won't read it. That's probably why when I don't get comments on my things, I just think, 'Well, it wasn't good enough', but I just don't get it when people don't comment on good fic. There's just no reason not to... which is probably why I get really happy when people do comment on my fics because it makes me feel like I wrote something worth commenting on.

As for not writing/posting fic... I can't say that my lack of writing has nothing to do with commenting. Before, I used to just write and post whatever came to mind, but now I feel like what I write should be at a certain level before it's suitable to post and as a result, I get stuck and often stop midway. A lot of times, I just feel like it's not good enough. (Not looking for pity. This is just my thought process. >.> I'm working on it.)

I haven't been reading as much as I used to and I try to comment on everything that I do read, but I really enjoy what you write. I know you're not just talking about one or two people not commenting, but still.

[taleia05.livejournal.com]

I've definitely been one of the lurkers who only rarely commented on fic for which I truly apologise.

My reasons for not commenting in the past have basically all been mentioned by others above, social anxiety, inability to express myself properly, concerns about spamming when reading large numbers of older fic at once etc.

I stumbled on an old post on yeska_noka's journal about the lack of comments issue late last year which made me stop and think about it, and since then I've made sure to always comment in some way.

I'm kind of horrified though that I've contributed to fandom sucking so much for people who contribute so much to it :-(

I really hope your post helps things improve for you (and all the writers) soon.