Listen up, silent majority!

I generally comment, but I'm unsure as to the protocol for multi-part stories. It seems silly to enter a comment for each sequential part, when it can all be done with the final chapter.

Thoughts, anyone?

It depends...on lots of things. In my case, the answer might change from day to day. Do I really have something different to say about each part?

For example, for the 3000-word story that's simply been broken into five parts that I read in one sitting, there will definitely be a single comment at the end. Others I may comment once at the beginning and once at the end, and perhaps irregularly along the way. However, a true multi-story series that I read over a period of weeks, might warrant a comment for each part.

Take Drkeat's recent series work is an example: Reading that, I'm likely to have something to say about each part.

I comment on every section because many times the story can stand alone if necessary. It is a lot of hard work to create a continous series so I make a comment to show my appreciation for the effort

CS

If you are going to read the whole thing, commenting at the end would be preferable, at least for me. That way you can sum up your views of the work as a whole. Of course if something strikes you during one part or another, say something--that's ok too. I get a better sense of whether readers like the work as an integrated whole if they save comments for the last part.

This is exactly right. if we didn't adopt this procedure then you'd find the comments section of the site potentially flooded with spam. Once it's apparent someone is making genuine comments we manually remove the need for comments to be validated. Seems like a very good compromise to me.

I think you've answered your own question here, bluepencil.

Comments consist, by their very nature, of observations one wants to make, and there's absolutely no point in saying anything just for the sake of it ... only you can
tell that.

I'd tend to recommend that you reserve your measured comments to deliver once you have finished the entire series.

If, however, you feel strongly enough about an individual episode along the way - well, do of course feel free to say so!

Good luck, many thanks and happy commenting!

No-one is being forced to do anything. I've no idea where you got this notion from. You can still logon and view stories if you never ever comment but if you want to have unlimited viewing and make use of all the features that are available then you have to write a handful of words every 500 views. If people don't like this or find it objectionable there are plenty of other sites (admittedly with less stories and many less features) where they can do this to their heart's content. No-one is being forced to come on the site let alone comment. Given the number of people who give up a huge amount of personal time every day to keep the site running I find the idea that someone can't be arsed to type a short sentence every other month vexing in the extreme.


Sorry but I find it impossible to accept that someone is physically incapable of writing a single sentence yet is quite capable of navigating the site and reading 500 items. Also, we are all registered here with made up user names not real names so effectively anonymous. Clearly the computer phobia that you propose as a possible reason for not commenting isn't preventing people from using a computer to find the site, register on it, and plough their way through upwards of 500 stories.



As to having to wait for a comment to be validated (the reason for which I've explained in my previous post) being enough to put you off if I adopted a similar stance every time someone on here did something to piss me off I'd have shut the site down long ago.

Anyway, I don't feel inclined to go all over the comment thing yet again, on top of which I've written all I have to say on it in a more structured fashion in the next issue of the Wellred.

Februs,

Was "arsed" a typo or a comment of your own about those vexing people?

no problem here will try and comment more on stories only been here about a week and havent explored the site other than the stories section do many people use the chatroom ?