It finally happened...

[dream_yahoozie]

I finally got my first hate comment. I was at work, perusing/watching my story stats. Oh look, a comment. Imagine my surprise when it was not praise. Nor was it a critique or even general dislike. I could understand disinterest or the like.

The story is part of a series about a boy who turns into a girl thru alien interference. It has Trans ideas and concepts but it isn't that.

I thought I was writing a cute story. Turns out anything with gender changing will upset some people.

I debated leaving/removing it all day. Finally decided to report it. It shouldn't be on my mind, and soon it won't be anymore.

ALSO, they did it anonymously.

 

[dirk2024]

I didn't read the story yet, but I'm sure it doesn't deserve that comment. No story here is going to deserve that comment.

Why did they even read the story? It's obvious from the title what's going to happen. You have a tag that indicates what's going to happen. It's their fault.

 

[AwkwardMD]

You made the right call.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

The story is part of a series about a boy who turns into a girl thru alien interference. It has Trans ideas and concepts but it isn't that.

I thought I was writing a cute story. Turns out anything with gender changing will upset some people.

[Looks at story she will begin revisions on in two days, which has gender changing.]

Good to know.

--Annie

 

[dream_yahoozie]

[Looks at story she will begin revisions on in two days, which has gender changing.]

Good to know.

--Annie

I'm not letting it affect me. Other than probably not getting that HOT rating anymore *sniff

But I'm going to keep creating what I want to create. I hope you do as well

 

[WCSGarland]

On the brighter side, at least you received a comment explaining why they hated your story rather than the 1 bombing without comments explaining why they hate it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It finally happened...​

Assuming it’s the comment I just read, report it. I know it’s anonymous, but still.

There are some disturbed people out there.

“You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace
And control your urges to scream about all the people you hate”

The men (and it’s often men) who are freaked out by gender transformations / transitions are normally in deep denial about their own sexuality. The same people who seek the approbation of other men and the feedback from other men that they are not gay. It’s actually very sad for them. They are missing out on living a fulfilling life.

Keep writing what you want to write.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It's the internet, some people are assholes.
Don't let them get you down. Write the stories you want to write.

 

[TheLobster]

Finally decided to report it. (...) ALSO, they did it anonymously.

Why would you waste moderators' time on an anonymous comment, when there is nothing actionable they can do to it other than what you can already do yourself?

Simply remove it and move on.

 

[onehitwanda]

Go placidly amidst the noise and haste,
and construct elaborate execution scenes for intolerant motherfuckers.
- Max Ernst, Desiderata

 

[nice90sguy]

Reporting a comment is the right thing to do when you're unsure whether a comment is hate speech, because those type opf comments can potentially damage the site's reputation.

Personally I'd have elicited views on the comment from other authors here in this Forum before doing that.

My experience of anonymous comments is that they're often from people who need to vent, and they can be pretty incoherent and blurty sometimes. So I treat them the same way as I do crazy people I encounter in the street. I'd rarely call a cop on them unless I think they're dangerous.

In the last 22 years of receiving comments on my stories, I'd say that the "hatefulness" percentage has remained pretty much the same. So it's just the "shifting moral Zeitgeist" (to quote Richard Dawkins) that's made us recategorize expressing negative views on trans/race/religion/sexual practices as hate speech.

 

[dream_yahoozie]

Why would you waste moderators' time on an anonymous comment,

I don't know if it was a mobile thing or not, but the option to remove comment didn't exist. Only report.

Later at home on my laptop I had the option to remove.

 

[iwatchus]

Just as a by the way. We do not know what information the site keeps about "anonymous" comments. They may keep IP address. They may keep the actual user as well if it was someone who was logged in by chose to submit it anonymously.

 

[PennyThompson]

Just as a by the way. We do not know what information the site keeps about "anonymous" comments. They may keep IP address. They may keep the actual user as well if it was someone who was logged in by chose to submit it anonymously.

Yep, I think it's a good bet that if you're logged into an account and choosing to comment anonymously, Lit will know who is making the comment.

Especially since truly anonymous, not-logged-in comments get manually approved, and a user meeting the reputation threshold can post without moderation, it seems like a great way for a troll to post hate speech and other rule-violating comments and a report would be appropriate.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@BrokenSpokes had an anonymous commenter leaving similar grade comments, and when she reached out Laurel said to report things like this, rather than deleting it, so the site can look into it. Laurel did not elaborate on the site's capabilities but they are perhaps more than we realize.

EDIT: at the very least it gives the site the opportunity to track frequency, and if their comment moderation needs to be expanded.

 

[lovecraft68]

You do what you feel is best for you but my advice is always to leave it there because many of these trolls come back to the scene of the crime and if they see you removed it, they feel they got a win for getting under your skin. Some will even comment again.

I let their ignorance stay there for all to see and sometimes other readers will bash them for you.

But its your story so its up to you, I'm just giving the other side of the coin to the 'delete everything' crew.

 

[iwatchus]

I had my first case of a commenter defending me recently, although not from a truly nasty comment like you got. But, as Mr lovecraft notes, that feeling is sweet.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

You do what you feel is best for you but my advice is always to leave it there because many of these trolls come back to the scene of the crime and if they see you removed it, they feel they got a win for getting under your skin. Some will even comment again.

I let their ignorance stay there for all to see and sometimes other readers will bash them for you.

But its your story so its up to you, I'm just giving the other side of the coin to the 'delete everything' crew.

That’s a good instinct, I think.

However, prevalence is also a major dynamic when it comes to problematic ideas and speech: the more people see it, the more they feel it’s within the bounds of reasonableness. If people never see unreasonable comments then they are much, much less likely to indulge in them themselves.

Humans are tribal basically.

Psychologists will tell you that if you want people to stop doing a particular thing then you don’t put out a message that says ‘too many people are…’. Instead, you should always say ‘most people don’t…’.

While a troll may get a momentary feeling of satisfaction that their comment was acted upon if it’s been deleted, they’ll also be starved of the thing they want: attention and fuss.

 

[AwkwardMD]

That’s a good instinct, I think.

However, prevalence is also a major dynamic when it comes to problematic ideas and speech: the more people see it, the more they feel it’s within the bounds of reasonableness. If people never see unreasonable comments then they are much, much less likely to indulge in them themselves.

Humans are tribal basically.

Psychologists will tell you that if you want people to stop doing a particular thing then you don’t put out a message that says ‘too many people are…’. Instead, you should always say ‘most people don’t…’.

While a troll may get a momentary feeling of satisfaction that their comment was acted upon if it’s been deleted, they’ll also be starved of the thing they want: attention and fuss.

This

 

[AwkwardlySet]

That’s a good instinct, I think.

However, prevalence is also a major dynamic when it comes to problematic ideas and speech: the more people see it, the more they feel it’s within the bounds of reasonableness. If people never see unreasonable comments then they are much, much less likely to indulge in them themselves.

Humans are tribal basically.

Psychologists will tell you that if you want people to stop doing a particular thing then you don’t put out a message that says ‘too many people are…’. Instead, you should always say ‘most people don’t…’.

While a troll may get a momentary feeling of satisfaction that their comment was acted upon if it’s been deleted, they’ll also be starved of the thing they want: attention and fuss.

What you said makes a lot of sense, but it's not all black and white. People ARE tribal, and authors are no different. If most authors start removing comments they judge to be hate speech, then you can bet your ass that they will soon start removing even those that simply contain different opinions or criticism. I've seen a lot of authors here saying they removed a comment they disliked, and when they linked it, we could see it wasn't hate speech. I would have liked to see this comment too, no offense to the O.P.
My fear is that we could end up becoming feedback censors, which is hardly good for us or for the readers.

There's a fine line there, and I'd rather choose freedom of speech, with all the downsides that could come of it, than censorship and fake reality.
History has shown that people will always find other outlets for their beliefs, and deleting such comments, while it might make commenters behave a bit more here on Lit, won't change their beliefs in any way. And all we might end up having here is skewed feedback.

 

[TheLobster]

I would have liked to see this comment too, no offense to the O.P.

The comment OP is (almost certainly) talking about referred to the recent mass shooting in Minneapolis and tried to insinuate that the character in the story would now commit a similar act due to them having changed gender.

There wasn’t any legitimate feedback or criticism there, only vitriol, and at best it was only tenuously related to the story itself (and probably not at all).

Deleting it would be akin to washing off a vulgar graffiti off of a wall, so I wouldn’t hold it against the OP at all.

 

[PennyThompson]

There's a fine line there, and I'd rather choose freedom of speech, with all the downsides that could come of it, than censorship and fake reality.

The comment OP is (almost certainly) talking about referred to the recent mass shooting in Minneapolis and tried to insinuate that the character in the story would now commit a similar act due to them having changed gender.

Yeah... I think I'm fine with marking that line right about here.

 

[AwkwardMD]

One other thing worth noting is that comments like this often get wiped anyway. Whenever the site does its voting sweeps, for votes that don't accompany "an honest read of the story" (i have no idea how they judge that), they will also wipe any comments that were made by that same user if it was made at the same time.

I have a lot of "I've chosen to leave the above comment in order to" artifacts strewn throughout my stories where the original comment is long gone, and it was sweeps that wiped them.

 

[Justplainjeff]

I finally got my first hate comment. I was at work, perusing/watching my story stats. Oh look, a comment. Imagine my surprise when it was not praise. Nor was it a critique or even general dislike. I could understand disinterest or the like.

The story is part of a series about a boy who turns into a girl thru alien interference. It has Trans ideas and concepts but it isn't that.

I thought I was writing a cute story. Turns out anything with gender changing will upset some people.

I debated leaving/removing it all day. Finally decided to report it. It shouldn't be on my mind, and soon it won't be anymore.

ALSO, they did it anonymously.

If you choose, you can eliminate ALL anonymous comments. I did that more than a few years ago, and haven't regretted it one bit.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The comment OP is (almost certainly) talking about referred to the recent mass shooting in Minneapolis and tried to insinuate that the character in the story would now commit a similar act due to them having changed gender.

There wasn’t any legitimate feedback or criticism there, only vitriol, and at best it was only tenuously related to the story itself (and probably not at all).

Deleting it would be akin to washing off a vulgar graffiti off of a wall, so I wouldn’t hold it against the OP at all.

Wow, that's the last thing I'd expect as a comment on an erotic story. There are some certified loonies out there.