Hate feedback that is wrong!

storm_usmc

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Nov 4, 2007
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I was a journalist for a decade and I write according to stylebook, it's so annoying when anon go off on feedback about incorrect grammar or punctuation and they are completely wrong.

I'm a Marine, so it particularly sucks when somebody in military goes off on me for not doing title right.

For the record, sergeant is not capitalized unless it's in front of a name, then it's Sgt. Etc. I get this one a lot, even had people tell me I'm a faker because I don't know proper military titles.

Just a vent.
 
Annoys the living shit out of me, too.

My pet peeve is people who seem to believe the world begins and ends with the USA. When I'm reading a story set in, oh, India, and I come across a phrase or reference I don't understand, I Google. Yes, Google. Use it people. Use it before your fingers hit the keyboard.
 
Annoys the living shit out of me, too.

My pet peeve is people who seem to believe the world begins and ends with the USA. When I'm reading a story set in, oh, India, and I come across a phrase or reference I don't understand, I Google. Yes, Google. Use it people. Use it before your fingers hit the keyboard.

On that note: when you use British-English spelling and the Yanks complain about it.
 
Editing

I've been a volunteer editor since 2014. One of my favorite categories is Interracial. If the author writes a cuckold story with the wife getting pregnant by her lover, watch out. In this case most of the time the Anons will go bat crazy, attacking both the story and the author.
 
I always get annoyed when you get the "That was shit" but no explanation as to why they felt that way.
 
Best to remember not to take this website's readers seriously. Most of them are just looking for a quick wank or two. I've had a reader write an essay in the comments elaborating the things he didn't like about my story (which was pretty much everything).

They're best left ignored/deleted. :)


On that note: when you use British-English spelling and the Yanks complain about it.

no such thing as British-English. it's English. :D

There's English. And there are mistakes. :D
 
Best to remember not to take this website's readers seriously. Most of them are just looking for a quick wank or two. I've had a reader write an essay in the comments elaborating the things he didn't like about my story (which was pretty much everything).

They're best left ignored/deleted. :)






There's English. And there are mistakes. :D

that's it!
 
Not really. There are spellings, word usages, and grammar that differ between the British and the U.S. style that are perfectly proper in their separate systems. I dare say that most of what irritates authors here writing in the British style comes from American readers who are so insular that they don't know that there are other English writing styles, legitimate for their own system, out there. The converse is that there are authors of the American style who can legitimately be irritated by British-style critics who play the irrelevant "we were first" card and act superior.
 
I delete too

Irritates me too. I just delete it.

If you go off and your anon, I generally delete you. I've had a few good catches and I made corrections and moved on, but most are just annoying. And you are right about British and English, common one for that is spelling of gray/grey.
 
I was a journalist for a decade and I write according to stylebook, it's so annoying when anon go off on feedback about incorrect grammar or punctuation and they are completely wrong.

I'm a Marine, so it particularly sucks when somebody in military goes off on me for not doing title right.

For the record, sergeant is not capitalized unless it's in front of a name, then it's Sgt. Etc. I get this one a lot, even had people tell me I'm a faker because I don't know proper military titles.

Just a vent.

There is a saying attributed to the French novelist Anatole France, “Il n’y a aucun plaisir plus subtile qu’être appeller un idiot par un imbécile.” There is no pleasure more subtle than being called an idiot by an imbecile.

Hang in there - and thanks for your service.
 
There is a saying attributed to the French novelist Anatole France, “Il n’y a aucun plaisir plus subtile qu’être appeller un idiot par un imbécile.” There is no pleasure more subtle than being called an idiot by an imbecile.

Hang in there - and thanks for your service.

Love that, going to be my new war cry.
 
It annoys me when people read comments, them come here to bitch and moan about them.

It annoys me when people say 'I was a (insert occupation here)' like it's something fucking special and everybody else should bow down to them.
 
I was a journalist for a decade and I write according to stylebook, it's so annoying when anon go off on feedback about incorrect grammar or punctuation and they are completely wrong.

I'm a Marine, so it particularly sucks when somebody in military goes off on me for not doing title right.

For the record, sergeant is not capitalized unless it's in front of a name, then it's Sgt. Etc. I get this one a lot, even had people tell me I'm a faker because I don't know proper military titles.

Just a vent.

People get a certain satisfaction from nitpicking; even I do at times. It can be especially tempting when one has the arcane knowledge of baseball fans, train buffs, military historians, and so forth. (And yes, this includes information about sexuality.)

I think on this site commentators should tread lightly in this area. Otherwise it can seem like Monty Python's Department of Arguments. You get people more concerned with two lines of dialogue as opposed to the entire story.
 
no such thing as British-English. it's English. :D

It's apparent you have not used a dictionary or you would know that sometimes there are two accepted spellings for a word. One is for American English such as with the word "color" and the other is British English such as "colour".
 
The feedback here is terrible. When you can have a story rated as hot with 23k views and a single comment, it says alot about how much time most readers spend commenting. On the other hand, it makes it hard to take the negativity serious too. It often feels like most readers feel entitled to the authors imaginations and time. Not all, and thank you dearly to the ones that do offer suggestions and thanks.
 
Love that, going to be my new war cry.

I must apologize. I was doing that from memory and seem to have got it rather wrong. The meaning stays the same, but the correct original was:

Il n'y a aucun plaisir plus subtile que s'appelé un idiot par un imbécile - Antoine Rivarol​
 
Not really. There are spellings, word usages, and grammar that differ between the British and the U.S. style that are perfectly proper in their separate systems. I dare say that most of what irritates authors here writing in the British style comes from American readers who are so insular that they don't know that there are other English writing styles, legitimate for their own system, out there. The converse is that there are authors of the American style who can legitimately be irritated by British-style critics who play the irrelevant "we were first" card and act superior.

In my experience, many of the "there's only one legitimate version of English and it's mine" folk don't even know their own version well enough to be throwing stones. Here's one I encountered on Duolingo the other day...
 

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The feedback here is terrible. When you can have a story rated as hot with 23k views and a single comment, it says alot about how much time most readers spend commenting. On the other hand, it makes it hard to take the negativity serious too. It often feels like most readers feel entitled to the authors imaginations and time. Not all, and thank you dearly to the ones that do offer suggestions and thanks.

I've looked at some of the biographies of the people who have given me a "favorite" vote, and many of them have read not just dozens, but hundreds of submissions. For some of them reading on this site is almost a hobby. Perhaps they've run out of time to also comment.

You can always post in Loving Wives for ample feedback. I have a story planned for that although I will be thinking of Psalm 23 Verse 4 when posting it.
 
Yea I know what you mean about loving wives. I feel as if I may need a bag of salt with me if I'm going to keep reading comments on my own stuff. I'm affected more than I should be by Anonymous people telling me I don't care about my readers. Or that my story sucked because I let a typo slip by on a proofread when half the time even their 3 sentence comment has an error. It's good to keep in mind that the system is easily gamed, and as said above don't let it bother you to the point that it keeps you from actually writing.
 
Yea I know what you mean about loving wives. I feel as if I may need a bag of salt with me if I'm going to keep reading comments on my own stuff. I'm affected more than I should be by Anonymous people telling me I don't care about my readers. Or that my story sucked because I let a typo slip by on a proofread when half the time even their 3 sentence comment has an error. It's good to keep in mind that the system is easily gamed, and as said above don't let it bother you to the point that it keeps you from actually writing.

In the on-line world people have gotten used to commenting, voting, and so forth on everything - movies, books, TV shows - via Amazon, IMDb.com, and a legion of other sites. I suspect that, say, Zadie Smith or Johnny Depp do not read those things, and on the slight chance they do, their acclaim or money or both soothes any hurt feelings. George Lucas does not care if Mike from South Bend writes in a goofs section, "A boom mike is briefly visible in such and such a scene. . ."

Of course here it's quite different. It's not professional writers facing professional critics where that's part of the way their world works. It takes a while to get used to being judged for one's work, and it also takes time to figure out how to give that judgment in a fair way. I prefer to comment sparingly unless someone has a specific issue.
 
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