Fandom is an Ecosystem

longlivefeedback:

There are a lot of different groups in a fandom. There are people who draw, and those who write, and some who theorize and create metas that inspire and feed those who draw and write. There are readers and viewers and sharers and organizers. There are people who comment on everything they see and read, and people who lurk quietly in the background, and people who do do some of both. These aren’t exclusive categories, either – for example, most writers are mostly readers.

To have a healthy fandom – a fandom where creators make things because they find joy and support in doing so, and where their audience keeps coming back to enjoy the new creations – there needs to be balance. If we had a hundred writers and one reader, that’d be a mess. If we had one writer and a hundred readers, that also wouldn’t work so well.

It’s the same with commenting. Feedback is the main motivation creators have to share their work, and as such, it’s a vital component of a healthy fandom ecosystem.

However, does that mean that everyone can and should comment on every fic they read?

No!

First, we comment because we want the author to know something – generally, that we enjoyed it (and why). If we didn’t enjoy it for any reason, there’s no need to tell the author that, unless they’ve requested constructive criticism and you are able and willing to provide it.

Second, it’s not possible. Stuff happens in our lives, and we don’t always have the energy or ability to articulate a response, and that’s even without taking into account issues like anxiety.

Third, that would be… a lot. I had a fic that hit the fandom zeitgeist in a lucky way, and ended up with about five hundred subscribers. If every single one of them left a comment, I would appreciate it so much, but I wouldn’t be able to engage and have a conversation with each commenter. Simply put, we don’t need everyone to comment. There’s a lot of us, and it comes back to balance.

Longlivefeedback is focusing on commenting behaviors/barriers in the context of culture and format because we think it’s important to look at the fandom ecosystem as a whole, instead of individual behavior. If one person decides to comment on everything they read, they’re going to make quite a few creators very happy… but it’s not going to address the root issue that our ecosystem is out of whack and creators are discouraged because, overall, they’re not able to develop the relationship with their readers necessary to foster a healthy fandom.

If one person never comments, they’re not hurting anyone either. That’s just how it is, and we don’t need everyone to comment, as discussed above. No one should feel guilty for not commenting, for any reason.

However, we’re in a position where the ratio of commenters to lurkers isn’t great. Instead of reading a fic, and thinking “well, I don’t have time to comment right now/I’m not sure what to say/I just don’t feel like it right now” and moving on, some readers may feel guilty (for example, because they are authors themselves and understand the no-feedback dilemma) about not leaving a comment. For example, I tend to finish a fic and and think “well, if I don’t comment, then who will?” Because all too often, I know that the answer to that question is… no one.

Even if readers aren’t aware of how much feedback means to authors, they still face negative effects. How many fics have been abandoned, how many authors have stopped writing entirely, because they simply don’t feel like their work is worth it to the fandom? Their fics were loved, but they weren’t shown that love. Pretty much every one of those stories was valued by someone, and missed by someone.

If creators don’t have the assurance that their work is a valued part of the fandom, many will not have the motivation (or the enjoyment) to continue creating. They lose, their audience loses, the fandom loses.

Authors feel discouraged because they don’t get comments and so they don’t know if they’re throwing their work into a void. Readers may feel guilty because they don’t comment, or they don’t comment as much as they could, or their comment isn’t as long or detailed as it could be, or they feel like they have to make up for everyone who isn’t commenting – and they watch the creators become frustrated, unsure of their role, and leave, bringing their works with them.

This sucks.

We want to increase commenting overall – that is, through structure and culture, we want to make it so, say, the average reader who comments will leave 5% more comments. That’s another one comment per twenty fics, or twenty chapters. That would be wonderful.

Our data show that the mean comment rate is about seven comments per thousand hits (and that’s skewed right, meaning that most fics will have a much lower rate than this). What if we could make that ten comments per thousand hits? Or fifteen?

Not everyone would have to comment on every story. Not everyone would have to comment at all. It would just take everyone who might comment at all to comment a little bit more – we can do it together, but we can’t do it alone. 

It helps to start with our own habits, yes. Every nice comment will make a real, actual person’s day better. This is great. However, we need to look at the bigger picture, and the picture we want to see – one where creators can see how much people enjoy their work and feel rewarded (and create more!) and where readers can interact with stories as they want to at each moment, without feeling guilty for not interacting.