Comments worth deleting

[Panty Wrangler]

Some comments make your day, and some are obviously worth deleting (an anonymous comment attacking you or the story in some baseless way for example); but negative comments, in general, are something I welcome. I wouldn't say I enjoy them, but they stand a better chance of helping me improve as a writer where positive ones may help motivate me.

Recently a story of mine got a non-anonymous comment criticizing the actions of my MC. They didn't seem to be criticizing my writing, per se; but rather the character of the character.

The story is an intentionally formulaic I/T entry I produced in a matter of a few weeks based on a silly conversation, so nothing deep. I think I convey the light-hearted nature of it upfront pretty well. All the same, I'd like my characters to be at least a little interesting and to not kill the verisimilitude.

What a loser.

his knees at his chest and his arms folded around his legs quietly crying

One of his parents betrays the other and he stills trying to pick up chicks

Would you keep a comment like the above criticizing one of your characters?

I was also surprised by the number of BTB comments. I have no issue with those - they indicate those readers found something missing in my story or want more, so they're informative at the least. I was just surprised to see so much of that, and right out of the gate too, on an I/T story where the characters they wanted to be burned are really just props in the story. I thought that was something more commonly seen in LW.

To be honest, the characters they wanted burned were actually a lot of fun to write. The reader response to them was interesting and gives me ideas for follow-ons, but I suspect I'd take it in a direction that might not satisfy their thirst for blood.

 

[lovecraft68]

This isn't up to anyone here but you.
If you want to delete it, do so, want to leave it, then leave it.

 

[desecration]

I guess it depends: do you want other people to read the comments?

If you do, think like an editor and eliminate the time-wasters, whether stupid, repetitive, off-topic, or whatever.

If you don't care, leave the mess and let anyone who dare wade in do their own filtering, I suppose.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'll always delete the "You suck!" "This sucks!" "What a shitty story!" those short responses in the negative aren't really criticism but attacks on the writer.

 

[Panty Wrangler]

I guess it depends: do you want other people to read the comments?

If you do, think like an editor and eliminate the time-wasters, whether stupid, repetitive, off-topic, or whatever.

If you don't care, leave the mess and let anyone who dare wade in do their own filtering, I suppose.

I like this perspective. I can easily ignore the comment, it's not really bothering me. I suppose I'm just sorting out where I want to draw the line and that's where using this forum as a sounding board really helps.

Interestingly there was a much nicer comment just a little later that happened to make that same point of preference, though not as a criticism of my writing - for that they kindly and gently pointed me to an article about head-hopping.

I do like reading the comments since it takes much more effort for readers to send me feedback that way than it does for them to vote and move on. Also, I don't think I want the job of curating comments. For now I'm going to leave it up there. It's not worth the bother of deleting and at least does show that reader's preference for a relatable protagonist.

 

[Panty Wrangler]

I'll always delete the "You suck!" "This sucks!" "What a shitty story!" those short responses in the negative aren't really criticism but attacks on the writer.

Agree! Those cross the line and don't deserve a shred of tolerance since they offer none to begin with.

 

[rescatooor]

I think all press is good press. If I see a story has a lot of comments, I might take it as a sign of the story at some point having been quite popular or at least widely read. So I'd leave all the comments in, as long as they're not an ad of some lady telling other commenters to come and pm her, as has once been the case.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Agree! Those cross the line and don't deserve a shred of tolerance since they offer none to begin with.

Yes, but being a bit of hypocrite, I tend to leave the one and two word praise postings. I love them, though they, too, offer little in the way of why this or that is good! but how doesn't like to hear, amazing, sexy, or awesome.

 

[rescatooor]

Oh, and if you are really lucky with a bad comment, you will soon see another person comment in counterargument, defending the decisions you made, claiming that they make the story better.

Sometimes I find a story here that I really like but that has barely any sex in it. In those moments I feel compelled to comment favourably, because I know someone will not.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I generally won't delete any comments. Negative comments reflect on the person leaving them, and I will usually see other readers taking the negative commenter to task for what they wrote.

I like leaving the idiotic comments that some readers leave which demonstrate that they have the reading comprehension level of a squid. Other readers get a kick out of those. Criticizing a fictional character in a story on an erotic literature site for owning a strip club, and similar erudite observations generate amusement for all. The same with comments about the proper use of pronouns when the reader can't distinguish between narrative and speech.

 

[RetroFan]

I say leave the comments good bad or indifferent, because many of the negative ones say more about the person who left them than the person who wrote and posted the story and can be amusing. The site administrators tend to delete really bad comments in any case. For example I had a comment appear once telling me to go and kill myself, and it was deleted soon after.

 

[Nylonian]

I'd keep it all up unless they were really blatantly trolling and/or annoying.

 

[BiscuitHammer]

Flawed and weak characters sometimes hit too close to home and compel said readers to lash out, often viciously. The character reflects something they see in themselves and desperately hate, so they attack.

My webmistress keeps and deletes comments based on relevance (I think). If it is constructive criticism, she keeps it. If it's mindless vitriol with no explanation, she deletes. I've turned off Anonymous comments because there were too many bigots making racist comments and too many rage-filled incels making obscene comments. I'll never give subhumans a platform.

I'm amused by the example you gave, you clearly triggered the reader and reminded them of something they hated in themselves. I'd store a screenshot of it, if nothing else...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I delete some, those that are a personal attack, or that prove the person hasn't even taken the time to read the story and attacks me or my wife personally.

Other stupid comments I leave as they just show that they either don't know what they are talking about or shows they really didn't read the story.

Then again I just might be in a bad mood and delete them just because they annoy me.

 

[8letters]

To my knowledge, I've deleted two comments. One was "Totally ruined by flipping the POV's back and forth. You're a better writer than that." on a story that only had one POV. I deleted it because I assumed it was posted to the wrong story. The other comment I've deleted attacked other commenters, which I consider unacceptable.

I don't delete negative comments because other readers will typically post a comment saying the negative comment was wrong. One recent example is this comment (which I did strongly consider deleting):

Lol, what feminist trash. You want equality... Dutch the first date but he has to pay it they do on a real date? What's equal about that? She's a big strong independent woman, but she needs someone to protect her at the gym? And the consent thing is one of the most retarded trash ANYBODY could think of. The impracticality alone is unbelievable. The only guys that will ever agree to that silly shit are pathetic little cucks. The kind the woman is going to leave or cheat sooner or later because she needs more then pussy. Hell, the author is such a pathetic example of equality that even in the story the guy has to stick to the consent parameters but the girl doesn't. That not equality. That's a little girl picking and choosing the best and worst of societies rules and passing on the ones she doesn't like. Anybody that mentions patriarchy should be laughed at... They are such cute little morons,too stupid to understand the concept of an idea owning them ..

The next comment was:

Okay, since there are other posts about errors, etc...I am going to comment, also.

I saw a few things here and there...little things that should have been caught...BUT, did not detract from the story to the point of having to be ugly about it!

The subject matter...this is "8letters" story, not that of all the readers...he wrote it with a specific story in mind...8letters made the story work...

The comment(s) about "feminist" this-or-that-get over your BS attitude...it made the topic interesting...reflects the OH SO WRONG TILT OF THE WORLD AND THE 'POLITICAL CORRECTNESS' too many people have in regard to their view of the world. Get over yourselves folks-be attentive to HOW YOU TREAT EACH OTHER.

It is like 'fetishes' and the like/dislikes people have...if we are fortunate enough to find one to share our kinks, so much the better! Demands patience, which this world seriously lacks!!

So...Great Story...want to see a follow-up...

 

[SimonDoom]

In the nearly 5 1/2 years I've been publishing stories here, I think I deleted one comment. I don't remember it precisely but I think it was nasty and personal and included obscene words and I just decided no, I'm not going to put up with that.

But I've received a lot of extremely negative comments and left them up. I think they are a useful reminder that you can only control what you write but you cannot control how people react to it, and you have to have a thick skin and accept that. To me, a thick skin is part of being a writer. Laurel has deleted far more of the negative comments on my stories than I ever have. Some of the nasty comments I received were amusing and I wish she had not deleted them.

 

[Djmac1031]

I've yet to delete any negative comments, I figure all that might do is instigate them further into attacking and down voting my other stories.

If it's constructive criticism, I'll usually address it in a friendly manner.

If it's just a "this sucks" type thing, I ignore it.

 

[TadOverdon]

I treasure this one. It was actually an email sent anonymously after I deleted a far nastier and more personal version of it from my story comments here.

The sender took such pains to hide his identity that it seems curious for him to have just cut-and-pasted much of it from the comment posted here using his literotica account. Not to mention his characteristic misspelling and grammar challenges.

stop publishing your garbage. stop putting your not incest crap in the incest category. you suck as an author and your storys are so unarousing that i feel like my genitals shrink any time i come across another 1 of your storys.

You know something? The "Tad" pen name may not be the cleverest pun on Earth, but I think it's memorable enough that there really was no reason for The - uh, my anonymous correspondent to have "come across another 1" of my stories after the first and gone on to read it. Unless his genitals are sizeable enough for him to feel some need to minimize them further. Which I very, very much doubt.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You know something? The "Tad" pen name may not be the cleverest pun on Earth, but I think it's memorable enough that there really was no reason for The - uh, my anonymous correspondent to have "come across another 1" of my stories after the first. Unless his genitals are sizeable enough for him to feel some need to minimize them further. Which I very, very much doubt.

If I could make annoying guys' dicks shrink just by writing stories, I'd quit my day job and go full-time on this.