SimonDoom
Kink Lord
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2015
- Posts
- 15,776
It's up to writers whether or not to accept anonymous comments - you can turn them off if you want. Writers can also delete any comment they choose. The site provides these options already.
Posting on a forum is irrelevant - the percentage of readers who post in forums is tiny compared to the huge mass of silent readers. Besides, most of us who post on forums are opinionated ass-hats, so why does our comment have any more merit than someone who doesn't want to play in the forums? It doesn't.
Posting a story is also irrelevant. Plenty of readers (I'd suggest the vast majority) don't write - why is a writer's comment more worthy than a reader's comment? It's not.
This comes up regularly on AH and the answers are always the same - the voting system is predominantly a reader reaction tool, not a writer reaction tool, writers can control the responses they receive, the system is not ideal but it's not going to change any time soon, trolls exist, the delete button exists.
Agree with all of this.
Something we have to remember as authors is this site is not for us. It's for the readers. It makes no sense to ask the owner of this site to do anything whatsoever that inhibits the ability of a reader to offer feedback in whatever form he or she wants. If there's even a small risk that it will drive readers away or make them read fewer stories, it's a bad deal from the site's perspective. Troll activity is alive and well, and has been for a long time, and it doesn't stop the flow of stories coming from authors. So why stop it?
If you don't like anonymous comments, you can block them. If you don't like troll votes, you can develop a thick skin and wait for the sweeps to take care of them. I don't mean to sound callous, but that's the truth.