Imagine you have a coworker who likes to bake. Every week, they bring in a batch of delicious, homemade cookies and leave them in the break room. Next to the plate of cookies is a sign, “If you like my cookies, could you please just leave me a note and tell me what you like about them? The more feedback you leave about what you like, the more incentive I have to bake.” A hundred coworkers walk by and take a cookie. One person leaves a note. “Great cookies! Bake some more soon!”
The next week, once again there are cookies in the break room with the same sign. Once again a hundred people take a cookie and only one person leaves a note. “Nice! More soon!”
Week Three- Once again, a hundred people take a cookie. No one leaves a note.
Week Four- One hundred people take a cookie. No note.
Week Five- There are no cookies. Someone leaves a note. “Where are the cookies? I loved them. Please, please bake some cookies.”
Week Six- There are no cookies. Ten people leave notes. “I miss your cookies. They were my favorites. I loved the chocolate chips. My friend really liked the way you had almonds in the cranberry ones.”
Week Seven- Motivated by the wonderful notes, the baking coworker stays up late to bake the best batch of cookies they have ever made. That week, a hundred people take a cookie. No one leaves a note.
The co-worker gives up baking for their colleagues.
——————————————–
Please, if you like the fan fiction that you are reading, let your authors know. Stories are abandoned for a myriad of reasons, but it is very, very hard to stay motivated when you receive no positive feedback. If there is a story that you like, whether it is a completed one or a work in progress, please leave an up-lifting comment or review. By doing so, you’re providing that writer with motivation to spend their time and energy creating more stories for you.
And that way, you both win!
We got more feedback the year we took our website offline than at any other point in our 15 years of writing fanfic before that. So we put the archive back up. And all the feedback vanished again. Disheartening, but at that point, unsurprising.
Support your writers, your artists, your content creators: the people who spend time making things and sharing them for free so fandom can be nicer and a richer place for everybody.
Okay… You knocked some sense into me. And I’m honestly surprised because of it. I’ll try to write more revives.
This is the cause of a lot of unfinished fic. FFN has a page to show you your stats and you’ll have like 60K readers for chapter 1 and then chapter 2 will have only 17K readers. And the list of readers shortens as the chapters go on, until your in only triple digits and are getting maybe 5 reviews a chapter. It’s disheartening.
The cookie metaphor really hit hard
See, I was told just last week if I was baking cookies and disappointed I wasn’t getting notes, then I was baking cookies for the wrong reason. That if IIIII liked the cookies and I enjoy baking them, I should bake them whether I ever get a note or not. So which is right? We can’t have it both ways!
To me, it’s like the difference between ethics and economics (where I am treating both in their neutral, academic terms, not the loaded tumblr versions). Ethics is the study of how we SHOULD behave, based on someone’s belief or logic or sometimes arbitrary rules. And I’m not saying ethics are bad (far from it), but the reason we have to talk about them is because that’s not how people always behave. Because the rules can feel arbitrary (binaries or absolutes when the world is actually full of messy gradients) or require us to act so very much in opposition to our own instincts or interests. Economics, on the other hand, is the study of how people actually behave. The choices they actually make when faced with limited resources (time, energy, motivation). When we have only $10 but $20 worth of things we want, how do we prioritize? Or when we have limited time, how do we decide how to spend it? What activities are the most rewarding?
If you want to motivate people to behave in a certain way, it’s almost always more effective to incentivize them than preach at them. There are literally hundreds of public policy papers on this (why do you think saving for retirement is tax free? To offset the fact that people prioritize spending now to spending later). It’s why we are paid to go to work, because if they didn’t have an incentive, most people wouldn’t set an alarm for 5 a.m. and pay out of pocket to get somewhere, no matter how much they liked their work.
Telling content creators that we should create just for the joy of it is preachy…it’s telling us how we SHOULD behave. And in a way it’s true…no one should write or create art who doesn’t enjoy it. But there is absolutely no reason to POST it or SHARE it unless you’re trying to engage others, and when they don’t engage back, it’s a disincentive. That just IS. That’s the economics of it, regardless of the ethics. They will find other ways to spend their limited time. And they may continue to write, but they won’t post. The person above probably DOES still bake, but shares it with neighbors and family and people who show a bit of appreciation. Why would she keep bringing cookies in for 100 ingrates?
You don’t have to comment. You really don’t. But you don’t get to bitch at creators for not being some creative saints and behaving how you think they SHOULD. Not when you have a perfectly valid way to incentivize them yourself.
Imagine you have a coworker who likes to bake. Every week, they bring in a batch of delicious, homemade cookies and leave them in the break room. Next to the plate of cookies is a sign, “If you like my cookies, could you please just leave me a note and tell me what you like about them? The more feedback you leave about what you like, the more incentive I have to bake.” A hundred coworkers walk by and take a cookie. One person leaves a note. “Great cookies! Bake some more soon!”
The next week, once again there are cookies in the break room with the same sign. Once again a hundred people take a cookie and only one person leaves a note. “Nice! More soon!”
Week Three- Once again, a hundred people take a cookie. No one leaves a note.
Week Four- One hundred people take a cookie. No note.
Week Five- There are no cookies. Someone leaves a note. “Where are the cookies? I loved them. Please, please bake some cookies.”
Week Six- There are no cookies. Ten people leave notes. “I miss your cookies. They were my favorites. I loved the chocolate chips. My friend really liked the way you had almonds in the cranberry ones.”
Week Seven- Motivated by the wonderful notes, the baking coworker stays up late to bake the best batch of cookies they have ever made. That week, a hundred people take a cookie. No one leaves a note.
The co-worker gives up baking for their colleagues.
——————————————–
Please, if you like the fan fiction that you are reading, let your authors know. Stories are abandoned for a myriad of reasons, but it is very, very hard to stay motivated when you receive no positive feedback. If there is a story that you like, whether it is a completed one or a work in progress, please leave an up-lifting comment or review. By doing so, you’re providing that writer with motivation to spend their time and energy creating more stories for you.
And that way, you both win!
We got more feedback the year we took our website offline than at any other point in our 15 years of writing fanfic before that. So we put the archive back up. And all the feedback vanished again. Disheartening, but at that point, unsurprising.
Support your writers, your artists, your content creators: the people who spend time making things and sharing them for free so fandom can be nicer and a richer place for everybody.
Okay… You knocked some sense into me. And I’m honestly surprised because of it. I’ll try to write more revives.
This is the cause of a lot of unfinished fic. FFN has a page to show you your stats and you’ll have like 60K readers for chapter 1 and then chapter 2 will have only 17K readers. And the list of readers shortens as the chapters go on, until your in only triple digits and are getting maybe 5 reviews a chapter. It’s disheartening.
– They use terms like lemons, smut, or UST to talk about the genre of their fic.
– They have squicks.
– They want you to have squicks. Which isn’t to say that they want to squick you, just that it’s a useful term.
– *glomps*
– They leave long comments on everything the read. Possibly not in the tags. They might do something super bizarre like send a message or put their thoughts on the end of your post.
– They write disclaimers on everything. Or on literally anything, since nobody does that anymore.
– They write about orbs, and those orbs are cerulean.
– Or literally anything else is cerulean. Cerulean is an outdated term. I’m calling it.
– The tongues of their characters are still battling for dominance, even though it’s 2017, and really a winner should have been declared by now.
– They have a fear of Mary Sue.
– Characters in their modern AU are chatting on AIM instant messenger, and calling each other on landlines. There are references to Ceiling Cat, because the characters are hip to meme culture. This AU is ~modern~ after all.
– Their fic is interlaced with slightly relevant song lyrics (disclaimer, they didn’t write the song.)
– They don’t do any of above, because they are New Fandom Savy, but they write or reblog nostalgic posts about these things.
– They had a livejournal.
– They still have a livejournal.
– They ended up on tumblr only after getting into a new fandom, searching livejournal for content and fellow fans, and suddenly coming to the startling realization that livejournal has become a barren wasteland of tumbleweeds and chirping crickets.
– They miss their geocities site.
– They wrote fic for the X-Files while the original nine seasons were still airing.
– Bonus, they wrote fic for the original Star Trek and published it in a zine, before the Internet was a thing. That’s like super mega fandom old.
– They might be less inclined to call themselves “trash”, but they are totally out there, reading all the things.
Supportive Sunday is a day when we encourage you to support someone in the fandom!
There are lots of ways to do that:
Reblog this post with a fancreation you want to give more love
Kudos something they’ve written
A short comment (”Loved this!” or “Extra kudos!”)
A more detailed comment (”X made me laugh out loud!”)
Make a rec post
Send a creator a short anon ask about their work! (”What inspired X?”)
Send a reader who’s commented a short anon ask showing your appreciation! (”Your comments make my day!”)
As part of Supportive Sundays, we’re also highlighting three randomly chosen fics that don’t have any comments. Today, we’re highlighting fics from 2017′s 007 Fest!
Summary:[…]blooming flowers, ripening fruit, variegated butterflies fluttering too close to the sun and –
Falling down.
Spiraling out of control.
Crashing into the now stormy sea to die a horrible death: drowned, salt water both soothing and corroding the burnt wings.
We’re just beginning Supportive Sundays, so if you think of other things you’d like to do to increase the supportive connections in our community, make sure to reblog with your suggestions. ^ ^
Ato's Fandom Blog 