Reversing the comments slide, Part II

I've switched comment notification on for you so now you'll get an email every time someone comments on one of your submissions.

I don't mind constructive criticism. I don't expect praise only, but neither would I particularly want to see something that essentially says 'this story sucks.' But I don't mind at all hearing from a reader what could have made a story better, particularly if it's coupled with something he/she may have liked about it.

I've had a couple of thoughts on this topic...
1) I wonder if there is any evidence that shows that writers comment more than readers ? Writers know the value of the comment - be that simple acknowledgment of the pleasure received, of a superior story crafted, or, in some cases, constructive feedback as in "I would love to see the story further develop the character of xyz"

Readers have less at stake in this 'game' and I would hazard a guess that they comment less - it may be an education thing or a culture change to be addressed. In Flickr (a photography site), there are many groups that have a rule such as "Post 1, make 3 comments" (which is never actually enforced) ie: the membership privileges carry some reciprocal responsibility.

2) I also sat on the activity page for a bit today observing the behavior. It would seem that many of the reading choices made were based on either recently commented stories or recently loaded stories. A couple of comments made (by writers I had befriended) on stories I had posted early last year suddenly attracted new views.
By contrast, the highly posted readers were getting frequent hits simply because they were posting a significant amount of new material and I assume have received wonderful name recognition.

The sad part of this is that as the library has increased in size, there are gems that have become lost. One thought I had was if there was a 'Librarians Choices' section. I know everyone has different tastes, but I have seen some writing here by non-prolific writers that blow my socks off...and it would be great if these gems could be surfaced, attract more attention, and perhaps encourage the writer to deliver more.

A brilliant idea! I think it should be next to the Latest list.

A couple of observations. First, I have noticed that with so much content being loaded that sometimes very good stories can get lost in the deluge. It is a sad fact that attention is focused on the "front page" stories and if yours is there for less than a day, it will likely sink unless somehow you call attention to it. This has happened to a couple of mine--they were here and gone in a flash.

Second while a "librarian's choice" block sounds like a good idea, it's going to couse hurt feelings because it requires that someone make value judgments about what should be there.

You can always use this forum to highlight stories and/or authors that you have noticed are very good but seem to get little "play". Just start a thread and list them and invite others to chime in with their picks. Maybe you could even write a little blurb as to why in your opinion, the story or the writer are so good.

Not to mention it would also make even more work for our already overworked, over sugared, over inebriated, oversexed, under spanked and hopefully appreciated librarians.

Guy

My way of finding stories, old or new, that I might like is to use the very handy Search engine. You can put in your own detailed preferences as to what type of stories that you like and it will return a list of them for you to browse. You can narrow that selection even further, if you choose, by looking at the synopsis of the stories.

I find the Search very useful as you can set it up in any way you want to find what you are looking for.

I think the topic is one thing, and that can easily be found with search.

However, I think there is some writing here that is stunning, and regardless of genre, those stories may be worthy of a "reader's choice" label.

Gail,
As to "reader's choice" if you look under Stats and then under Favourites and Comments you will see lists of stories, authors, comments, etc. in order of popularity.

Well, gail, it doesn't HAVE to be one of our overworked (and over-whatever) librarians, it could be ANYONE. You, for example. And the mighty Februs has already provided the tool you would need in this forum. If you know of overlooked gems, you can start a thread on the storyboard, and give reviews/plugs for stories that you liked, going beyond what's 'hot' at the moment. Anyone can do it. There was a recent ''shameless plug" thread where an author could plug his or her own story(ies) [which I made use of, in case no one noticed], but there's absolutely no reason a a reader couldn't do the same thing.

hmmm... a thread called "Gail's Choices" - I can see it already.

(and if you don't have a ready list of stories to plug, I just MIGHT be able to come up with some for you)