trouble | Srs Bsn Poll: Linking vs Commenting

So, let's say you've created the Platonic Ideal of Internet Something. You've made the most awesome vid ever, your artwork is so awesome it's making grown Annas weep, you've written the most awesome blog post ever on an important subject, your fic is the best thing since sliced bread and maybe even before... You know, the sort of stuff that people link, comment on, and discuss.

Noting, of course, that every Awesome Thing is going to get negative as well as positive commentary, what do you think about people who just link with 'Go see this, it's awesome' (or even lengthy additional commentary) versus people who comment to say "This was awesome, thank you!". Or do you prefer people to do both? And what about people who think what you've created is awful and you should feel awful? Comment? Link? Both? Neither?

I'm genuinely curious what people think and feel about it in regards to themselves.

Poll #4287 SRS BSN

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

View Respondents

Assuming Positive: Linking vs Commenting: Fight!

View Answers

Linking is awesomer than Commenting!
6 (13.6%)

Commenting is better than Linking!
1 (2.3%)

Link AND Comment! Two great tastes that taste great together
34 (77.3%)

I am deep in Not Caring Country and I'm not coming back
3 (6.8%)

Assuming Negative: Linking vs Commenting

View Answers

Linking is better.
10 (23.3%)

Commenting is better.
12 (27.9%)

Link & Comment.
15 (34.9%)

Keep your negative commentary to yourself, thank you.
6 (14.0%)

Obligatory Melle question

View Answers

Maple
9 (22.5%)

Vanilla Bean
16 (40.0%)

Cinnamon Kiss
16 (40.0%)

It's like deja vu all over again....
9 (22.5%)

Other
8 (20.0%)

Turnabout being fair play, I sometimes feel woeful when something I worked really hard on gets very few comments, even if it ends up getting a lot of hits that seem to be from "positive" responses (like a recent post I did that I can see doing the rounds of twitter links, but has garnered all of three comments). And yet, I rarely comment anywhere anymore, I mostly link, and I'm not sure that all spaces are generating discussion so much as they are generating back-patting. I don't know. It's very fraught, isn't it?

In more positive news, school starts soon and I am so excited I could dance. Late night openings at the library!!!!!

Current Location: Coffee Shop with coffee flavours of coffe
Crossposts: http://troubleinchina.livejournal.com/569140.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

jesse_the_k

Hmmm.

My answers are based on my own behaviors. In a perfect world, I would immediately comment on the author's platform, then link-with-explanation at my locale – for positive values. For negative values (sometimes abbreviated "point & laugh" or "link & moan" I very rarely comment at the author's because I'm rarely interested in debating on the net. (No, really).

Yeah, but in this imperfect world, I leave positive comments at the author's, and do link spams every 8 weeks or so at my place.

From:

trouble

I'm really anxious about commenting when I'm logged in as Anna-from-FWD as opposed to

trouble, because we're a medium-name blog and it just seems like I'm speaking For The Blog at that point, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. :(

In an ideal world, I would always tell people their posts were awesome, though.

From:

ironed_orchid

This is very close to my strategy

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Negative feedback may not be fun, but it can be useful. If people post flames, I won't hesitate to delete those. But honest criticism is acceptable. Sometimes people point out errors that I missed and can fix. And if they just happen to disagree with me, well, I'm not trying to build an echo chamber.

From:

trouble

I usually judge whether or not I know a person well enough, or care enough about the discussion, to get really involved. (So, if I come across something in my network that makes me really angry, I'll probably just scroll on by, but I might say something to someone on my reading list.)

From:

crossedwires

That's what I tend to do. And sometimes I link/quote & respond back in my own journal.

I will leave positive comments, though, and sometimes recs.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Yes, that makes sense. I often get into intense discussions with my regular readers. I am less inclined to spend that kind of time elsewhere.

From:

onyxlynx

All things being equal (ie, coffee, sufficient brain, and energy) I usually link and, if I remember to, comment. Sometimes I comment, then link. Occasionally I do both, although that usually has to do with quoting a chunk of the post.

I try not to do negative comments. (Comments to correct errors are my function on the 'Net.) Once in a while the snark is strong in this one, though.

From:

trouble

I'm really lousy at commenting lately. It feels like I have nothing to say. :(

From:

sasha_feather

I put "keep your negative commentary to yourself" but that was really hypocritical of me, considering how negative I can sometimes be. I think both links and comments are always good, generally speaking. When saying negative stuff, well, sometimes I will lock my posts as you have seen. As for what others do? I would hope they do what they feel comfortable doing. I suppose I would rather people speak up and let me know if something I have written bothers them or makes them uncomfortable, so, therefore I should theoretically play by the same rules.

With fanfic and vids and such, I usually do try to comment if I liked it, since comments mean a lot to me, even if it's only a couple of words.

From:

trouble

I've gotten better at commenting when I like vids, and sometimes better at when I like fic, although those comments tend to be "I liked this!"

From:

recessional

Wandering in from network: I think commenting is particularly useful if the person you're talking about ISN'T following you, or likely to see where you link.

I am always seriously startled when I discover that someone, say, recced and linked something I wrote - because it's almost never by anyone who commented, and I have no idea, until someone else tells me.

From:

trouble

Hmm, good to know! :)

From:

capriuni

FTR, I would've commented on your MDA post, but one longtime member of my f'list volunteered for them for over a year, and I couldn't think how to make the comment I was feeling without alluding to her, and if she'd found that comment, it would've been .... awkward.

As it is, she got appologist for the MDA in my journal. But at least there, I was able to answer her directly.

(Edited to fix a typo and to add: Other: Cherry/Almond --with the Vanilla Bean! Please? Yes!)

Edited Date: 2010-09-07 04:39 am (UTC)

From:

trouble

Oh no! I wasn't meaning to sound like I was complaining about you! I am just feeling a bit down about the fact that many of our hardest-hitting posts (like almost anything meloukhia writes about disability in developing countries, say, or about prison) never get commented on, and yet if I wrote a post right now about Glee, I would get at least two dozen comments, especially if it was "GLEE: TERRIBLE"

From:

capriuni

Oh, no! I wasn't meaning to sound defensive because I thought maybe you were complaining about me (We could go in circles about this forever, couldn't we? *hearts you*).

I was just saying how I wanted to comment and link, but then, thought better of it (*Pst: I think I started to pull away from this friend, as a friend, when she started volunteering for THEM, and the way she defends their continued reliance on Lewis just lets me know that she does not get it).

I think the way this culture is set up, especially over the last 20 years or so, people are discouraged from discussing topics that are "Bigger than them," and are encouraged to think of themselves as experts on the popular culture.

"Text your vote NOW, for the next American Idol!!!" has replaced the true discourse of a viable democracy...

From:

torachan

I find that while I always leave comments on fic posts if I liked the story, I am much less likely to comment on non-fic posts and to just link instead. I don't know why. With fic I feel like even if I am not articulate or have anything to say I can just say I liked it or whatever, but with serious issue type posts, I feel like I have to say something smart and thinky and just saying "great post" doesn't cut it. :-/ So I tend to just link instead.

Ideally, pingbacks would be something that actually worked on DW and LJ and thus people would know they had been linked. I would like to know I've been linked and I have no problem with people knowing I link them. But fandom is so dead set against pingbacks (even when they're not sending you the text of locked posts) that I don't know if that will ever happen.

From:

trouble

I'm with you on the fic thing. I'm never quite sure what to say about a post that I think is really awesome and yet have nothing else to say. "This is good, thank you" always seems so pathetic.

From:

sabotabby

Usually I find out when someone has linked to me—either they're on my friends list, or someone is like "THIS PERSON LINKED TO YOU." But sometimes I don't know. FEED MY EGO PEOPLE.

From:

trouble

You are awesome and I loff you, and the next time I get it in my head to write something scathing on the internet instead I'm going to write a "Why I Love Sabotabby (And you should too)" post. (It will always talk about the awesome that is Zingerella. And the kitties. And maybe even admit that Toronto is not evil.)

From:

meloukhia

There's something deeply amusing about leaving a comment to say I don't leave Internet comments, but, uhm...

...yeah, I don't comment. I really don't like the medium of comments at all, except on DW, where I feel more like I am hanging out with friends. On the Internet elsewhere, my comments are rare, like unicorns.

So, when I find work I like, I usually try to link it up; I'll mention it on my public Twitter and possibly drop it in Tumblr or one of my linkspams (I try not to do all three because some people follow me in all three places and I feel like that would get really annoying). If I REALLY like it, everyone who talks to me on IM will be bombarded with the link and demands to love it.

If I encounter work that pisses me off, I usually just pretend it doesn't exist, or I rant about in on DW, where other people can rant with me, and it is a happy festival of ranting.

I think there's kind of a--I mean, 'negative commentary' is a little vague--for me, if I see something that I think is pretty solid, but has a fundamental problem, and I know the creator and feel like it's worth it, I might drop an email along the lines of 'I really liked your piece on [whatever], but I noted that you kind of elided [this issue] and was curious to know if you'd be exploring it more at some point.' I'm a big fan of praise in public (with linking, in my case), chastise in private.

And, you know, speaking for myself, I tend to get very nervous when something is getting a lot of hits and I can't figure out where they are from. So I always appreciate it when I get an email saying 'I really liked your piece and linked it' because then I go 'oh, ok, those aren't from a secret forum where everyone is going 'look at this [pejorative of your choice]'.' Also, since I don't really leave comments, I also tend not to read them, which makes email the better way to reach me just in general.

Long comment is long.

Edited (Typos blargh) Date: 2010-09-07 02:08 pm (UTC)

From:

trouble

♥

From:

kake

The type of content I post publically is rather different from the type you post, so I'm not sure my opinion is really useful. But just in case: I like to be linked, very much, because what I'm trying to do is build up a resource of useful information for people to find in the future. So the more links the better — even if they're in the context of someone saying how ignorant or wrong I am.

I would prefer people who disagree with something I write to let me know, so I can look into it and correct it if necessary. I'm learning about my subject as I go along, so there are bound to be mistakes.

I don't mind getting no or very few comments, because plenty of people have told me that they like what I'm doing but that they often don't comment because they have nothing to say on that particular subject. Again, this is quite topic-specific; I sometimes post things that people don't really have much of an opinion on other than "oh yes, I like that too", which is a nice thing to hear, but isn't necessary. I guess this ties into your back-patting observation. There are quite a few blogs where I never bother reading the comments because I know they'll just be 50 iterations of "this is great!" but no actual content beyond that.

I don't think I've ever commented on FWD, though I read it almost every day and have pointed several people to it both as a whole and as individual posts. (I think I have a bad case of "why would anyone care what Kake thinks?")

From:

trouble

Oh, heck if everyone who ever visited FWD actually commented on it we'd have to get a full-time comment moderator and it would be a horrible pain, so please don't think that I'm complaining! :) It's just always interested what gets comments and what doesn't, and sometimes it really does feel like one's talking to one's self, you know?

♥

From:

ginny_t

I've commented on FWD--at least twice! CanIhaveacookie?

From:

trouble

Yes, but not until you come to Halifax! :)

From:

ginny_t

I'm going on the premise that negative means "constructive criticism" rather than "assholish trollery."

From:

silveradept

I usually try to both link and comment to the awesome when I come across it. In places where it's not a cesspool and the people there might actually debate instead of repeating discredited talking point, I would try for linking and commenting on things I don't like. In practice, that usually means linking and snarking in my own space because the comment space is usually composed of too many dittoheads.