Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln how was the play?

Each time I decide to delete a comment I feel a pang of guilt because the critic did take the time to respond to something I'd written. That being said I only get rid of the comments that are troll like in nature. Such as...
"You missed the Oxford comma after the second item in the list of character traits in the third paragraph on page two! Learn English!"

Admittedly I have been made aware of mis-spellings and homophones, which I attribute to speed, auto-fill, and auto-correct errors. (i.e. taut, taught) I have since submitted a correction to that story.

I created a relatively new prologue statement which I've been posting at the beginning of my stories. In the hopes that I can get feedback on the story, not a grammar check
Constructive criticism as always is welcome in the comments, others will be dealt with in the usual manner.

I guess I'm just frustrated at the regular drive-by, anonymous, shit-posting critics rather than those that actually give me constructive critiques. I have no issue with someone dissecting the characters, or the plot, as long as they can to let go of a missed capitalization or misplaced comma.

As I recently responded to someone that emailed me a critique (the taut, taught example above) be helpful or don't waste my time. He neglected to tell me which story I'd made the mistake in, and didn't offer any other statement. No, Gee good story but this bugged me or Your story seemed pedantic and unbelievable, I would have even settled for, Didn't like it.


What I got was a William Shatner like response from someone who claims to be a professional and award winning journalist.

The word is

taut

not taught

taut - tight, stretched out...

taught...school, education.

Please spell it right and use it correctly.

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Out of curiosity's sake, do other authors remove this sort of thing from their comments section?

This comes up all the time. It's a matter of personal choice. You're the only one who can decide what's right for you. There are benefits and consequences no matter which way you go.

Personally, I leave everything up there. 9 times out of 10, if someone is just acting the ass, other readers come along and set them straight.

I would leave a comment such as the Oxford comma one and reply with a learned discourse pointing out that even the Oxford Style Manual accepts that the Oxford comma is optional, as long as the same style is used consistently throughout a work.The commenter may be a twat but in their own pretentious way they're trying to be helpful.

I try to restrict my deletions to comments of the ilk – a slight exaggeration, I admit, but not that untypical:
If the individual has added such a comment to the previous six chapters too, I will send them a PM suggesting that there is professional medical help available to help them overcome their masochistic urges to read stories that they know they're not going to like.

I would leave the taut/taught comment and reply with 'Oops. Thanks. I am aware of the difference but my grammar-checking software clearly isn't. My fault for pressing the Accept button too quickly instead of Ignore. I have submitted a corrected version of the story.'

Member389 said:

Each time I decide to delete a comment I feel a pang of guilt because the critic did take the time to respond to something I'd written. That being said I only get rid of the comments that are troll like in nature. Such as...
"You missed the Oxford comma after the second item in the list of character traits in the third paragraph on page two! Learn English!"

Admittedly I have been made aware of mis-spellings and homophones, which I attribute to speed, auto-fill, and auto-correct errors. (i.e. taut, taught) I have since submitted a correction to that story.

I created a relatively new prologue statement which I've been posting at the beginning of my stories. In the hopes that I can get feedback on the story, not a grammar check
Constructive criticism as always is welcome in the comments, others will be dealt with in the usual manner.

I guess I'm just frustrated at the regular drive-by, anonymous, shit-posting critics rather than those that actually give me constructive critiques. I have no issue with someone dissecting the characters, or the plot, as long as they can to let go of a missed capitalization or misplaced comma.

As I recently responded to someone that emailed me a critique (the taut, taught example above) be helpful or don't waste my time. He neglected to tell me which story I'd made the mistake in, and didn't offer any other statement. No, Gee good story but this bugged me or Your story seemed pedantic and unbelievable, I would have even settled for, Didn't like it.


What I got was a William Shatner like response from someone who claims to be a professional and award winning journalist.



Out of curiosity's sake, do other authors remove this sort of thing from their comments section?

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if that's all 'they' have to complain about...

Member389 said:

Each time I decide to delete a comment I feel a pang of guilt because the critic did take the time to respond to something I'd written. That being said I only get rid of the comments that are troll like in nature. Such as...
"You missed the Oxford comma after the second item in the list of character traits in the third paragraph on page two! Learn English!"

Admittedly I have been made aware of mis-spellings and homophones, which I attribute to speed, auto-fill, and auto-correct errors. (i.e. taut, taught) I have since submitted a correction to that story.

I created a relatively new prologue statement which I've been posting at the beginning of my stories. In the hopes that I can get feedback on the story, not a grammar check
Constructive criticism as always is welcome in the comments, others will be dealt with in the usual manner.

I guess I'm just frustrated at the regular drive-by, anonymous, shit-posting critics rather than those that actually give me constructive critiques. I have no issue with someone dissecting the characters, or the plot, as long as they can to let go of a missed capitalization or misplaced comma.

As I recently responded to someone that emailed me a critique (the taut, taught example above) be helpful or don't waste my time. He neglected to tell me which story I'd made the mistake in, and didn't offer any other statement. No, Gee good story but this bugged me or Your story seemed pedantic and unbelievable, I would have even settled for, Didn't like it.


What I got was a William Shatner like response from someone who claims to be a professional and award winning journalist.



Out of curiosity's sake, do other authors remove this sort of thing from their comments section?

Click to expand...

Every couple of weeks I get an e-mail similar to the one you gave an example of. My stories tend to be long-mostly in the 6-8 page range- and there will be a list of two dozen things

I love you to-should be too

etc...

The first thing I think when I see it is the person must be retired with a lot of time on their hands or have some type of Grammar OCD and can't let stuff like this slide.

Second thing is I'm on the fence about motive. I waffle between wondering if the person is trying to be helpful or its a form of trolling?

Wont be long before LIT outlaws comments as hate speech.

NOIRTRASH said:

Wont be long before LIT outlaws comments as hate speech.

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You kidding? You see the GB the site revels in it.

lovecraft68 said:

You kidding? You see the GB the site revels in it.

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I bet that a lot of publishers vet comments sent in for their most favoured authors before passing them on.

Green_Knight said:

I bet that a lot of publishers vet comments sent in for their most favoured authors before passing them on.

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Well professional publishers always have their plant reviews where people rave over the books

As for here I wouldn't expect the site to vet comments. If an author doesn't like them, they can delete them, pretty simple.

My comment about the GB is its 95% hate, racism, sexism, homophobia any kind of hate you can think of and its pretty much the only thing the site cares about on a day to day basis...so they sure as hell aren't worried about someone saying 'fag' in a comment

I only nuke comments that misuse grammar or spelling. Drives me fucking nuts.[/deadpan]

Guilt? Over deleting a comment on one of my pages? How would one even feel that?

I've never deleted a comment. I think even the most trollish and offensive and wrong-headed comments convey something useful: they remind you constantly about your readership. As a new author, I find that useful. If I deleted the bad comments and left only the good ones I wouldn't be left with a true, representative sample of the reactions that my writing is getting.

I may change my mind and delete comments in the future, but for now, I let them stay.

As a writer, I've never deleted a comment except spam. I don't get many. Even critical ones I find useful (like someone commented earlier here). I'm rather OCD about spelling and grammar - I try not to let such mistakes slip through, but it happens. It's nice when someone flags them, because I can edit the story either for here (not likely) or for other publications (has happened in the past).

As a reader (not that frequent, but I do read stories here, either out of curiosity for how fellow writers write or for the, ummm, usual reasons) I have changed my approach. I used to comment on grammar if it wasn't bad enough to keep me from finishing a story. If the grammar is horrendous, I opt out. I considered such comments helpful because, as I mentioned earlier, that's how I take such comments myself. Then I realized, by reading the AH threads, that writers here (and elsewhere, but particularly here) have very thin skin and most of them don't care to be corrected in any way, however mild or constructive - so my comments served no purpose whatsoever and were not appreciated. These days I will only comment if the author asks for comments, and barring that, only if the story has wowed me in some way. If an author invites comments, then I consider it my prerogative what comment I leave. I try to always be constructive, but I will rarely fawn, because hardly any story is perfect and because I'm not the fawning type.

To the OP - your disclaimer about constructive comments would not on its own keep me from commenting on your grammar if it was an issue, because in my book such a comment WOULD be constructive. If you don't think so and don't want such comments, then say so specifically in your disclaimer.

It is possible that the commenter who sent you an email with grammatical errors may have thought that his/her message would be linked to the story s/he had just finished reading. And he may have sent you that message to save you the possible embarrassment of making the comment publicly. But hey, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. YMMV

legerdemer said:

As a writer, I've never deleted a comment except spam. I don't get many.

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I'm amazed at how many people don't comment. In the rare cases I finish a story here, I'll leave one, usually but not always anonymously.

I just got one that amused me. An anon didn't like my use of first person, decided the main character was an asshole, and mentioned in passing that the story was at least correctly categorized but complained that it came up in a search for cheating wives. In other words I got a visit from my first ever LW fan, despite the fact that I don't write the LW category. He was everything I was promised by people here.

I've opted to leave it up without reply. Every other comment on that story is glowing praise and this comment comes across as rather idiotic. If he's typical of the LW set, why does anyone bother to write for them? Neither their praise nor condemnation would be worth the electrons they wiggled to write it.

As for coming up in a search, I'd complain about that point, too, but not to me. The tags don't mention wife or cheating, none of the characters are married, and the category has nothing to do with marriage. So seriously, web search algorithm, WTF? I'm counting on you to keep the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging guys who lose companions the way I lose pennies, far from by door. Don't let me down again.

HandsInTheDark said:

I'm amazed at how many people don't comment. In the rare cases I finish a story here, I'll leave one, usually but not always anonymously.

I just got one that amused me. An anon didn't like my use of first person, decided the main character was an asshole, and mentioned in passing that the story was at least correctly categorized but complained that it came up in a search for cheating wives. In other words I got a visit from my first ever LW fan, despite the fact that I don't write the LW category. He was everything I was promised by people here.

I've opted to leave it up without reply. Every other comment on that story is glowing praise and this comment comes across as rather idiotic. If he's typical of the LW set, why does anyone bother to write for them? Neither their praise nor condemnation would be worth the electrons they wiggled to write it.

As for coming up in a search, I'd complain about that point, too, but not to me. The tags don't mention wife or cheating, none of the characters are married, and the category has nothing to do with marriage. So seriously, web search algorithm, WTF? I'm counting on you to keep the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging guys who lose companions the way I lose pennies, far from by door. Don't let me down again.

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Are you serious? If readers don't kiss our asses we get PTSD.

lovecraft68 said:

You kidding? You see the GB the site revels in it.

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The GB got nothing on you, Pilot, and Texixicanine-Rabid

NOIRTRASH said:

The GB got nothing on you, Pilot, and Texixicanine-Rabid

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And most certainly not on you.

I haven't gotten any truly nasty comments so far, so I haven't felt the need to delete any. But I would in a heartbeat without feeling bad if I felt it was necessary.

You're the moderator of your own comments section. It's your duty to keep it clean (where "clean" can mean whatever you want it to.)

I haven't deleted any comments I don't think, even the ones that bother me to the point of replying which I then regret to stooping to that level.

I have had some comments deleted though, does Literotica delete comments? Or did the person who commented delete them?

Wait I did delete one I think because it was stupid and made no sense, but now I can't even remember what it was, just vaguely remember deleting it.

"Well, the play was all right, I guess, but the sound effects were a trifle noisy."

I've taken it upon myself to review the most recent story series I've been working on and have found multiple, glaring, editing errors. Which honestly amazes me I missed this many the first time through. Those stories don't have any comments about the grammar at all.

I guess it must be luck that every English teacher and professional book editor out there seems to read the same story, and none of my other work.

Member389 said:

I've taken it upon myself to review the most recent story series I've been working on and have found multiple, glaring, editing errors. Which honestly amazes me I missed this many the first time through. Those stories don't have any comments about the grammar at all.

I guess it must be luck that every English teacher and professional book editor out there seems to read the same story, and none of my other work.

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The reading population is pretty accepting of grammar problems.

If you did something like go to the Story Feedback forum and ask for input, then you will to get comments that you wouldn't get from the general population.

If the general population likes your story then they won't usually complain about the grammar. If they do then that's a grammar red flag.

HandsInTheDark said:

I'm amazed at how many people don't comment. In the rare cases I finish a story here, I'll leave one, usually but not always anonymously.

I just got one that amused me. An anon didn't like my use of first person, decided the main character was an asshole, and mentioned in passing that the story was at least correctly categorized but complained that it came up in a search for cheating wives. In other words I got a visit from my first ever LW fan, despite the fact that I don't write the LW category. He was everything I was promised by people here.

I've opted to leave it up without reply. Every other comment on that story is glowing praise and this comment comes across as rather idiotic. If he's typical of the LW set, why does anyone bother to write for them? Neither their praise nor condemnation would be worth the electrons they wiggled to write it.

As for coming up in a search, I'd complain about that point, too, but not to me. The tags don't mention wife or cheating, none of the characters are married, and the category has nothing to do with marriage. So seriously, web search algorithm, WTF? I'm counting on you to keep the mouth breathing, knuckle dragging guys who lose companions the way I lose pennies, far fromNOTE GLARING ERROR --> by door. Don't let me down again.

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I just wanted to say; I loved your writing until the very end when you ruined it all. I've highlighted the glaring error and intend to notify the authorities if it is not corrected ~ Annonymoose (PS: I'm diding this only to be helpful)

Member389 said:

I've taken it upon myself to review the most recent story series I've been working on and have found multiple, glaring, editing errors. Which honestly amazes me I missed this many the first time through. Those stories don't have any comments about the grammar at all.

I guess it must be luck that every English teacher and professional book editor out there seems to read the same story, and none of my other work.

Click to expand...

I find errors in my work every time I review it (and I have a graduate certificate in editing) and my editor finds errors every time I think it's ready, and I find errors each time my editor is finished editing it--and if I reread what's been published, I'll finds errors in it. Are you getting the drift here?

sr71plt said:

I find errors in my work every time I review it (and I have a graduate certificate in editing) and my editor finds errors every time I think it's ready, and I find errors each time my editor is finished editing it--and if I reread what's been published, I'll finds errors in it. Are you getting the drift here?

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When I used to edit a business newsletter, it didn't matter how many times I or anyone else reviewed it, there would be an error on the front page that would leap out at me as soon as the hard copy arrived back from the printers. It would never take me more than 30 seconds to spot.