:(

[sherryillk]

I just got admonished by a mod on the Snupin gift exchange website. How very mortifying! Someone should have told me critiques are generally considered bad form when it comes to gift fics! Why has this never come up before? If I had known, I would have been more careful! :( Gah, this has me all depressed now... T_T I don't like people thinking I did things maliciously when I was just making a comment about a story... If you state a truth about something, it doesn't really make it bad or good, right? I thought it was just constructive... Apparently not. Oh well, I'll just refrain from reviewing anything that isn't awesome anymore since apparently it's considered bad etiquette. :(

Although truthfully, this sorta sapped the joy out of things... I don't really want to leave any more comments now. Who knows what would be considered bad and get me kicked off the site? I love Snupin fics! That'll be such a crushing blow... :( Anything short of glowing has a chance of being considered critical... I went and deleted all the other reviews that I've made that weren't of me raving about the fic. *so don't want this to happen again*

*wants to crawl under a rock*

Now I'm going to be self-conscious about all the reviews I leave for the various gift exchanges going on now... I feel like someone should have posted something somewhere about not leaving constructive reviews for gift exchanges. It wasn't even a mean one and was very mild in my mind. I didn't even think anything about it... But obviously it's raised a red flag so I guess it wasn't as tame as I thought it was. :( Was this just understood? Did I miss something that said "don't say anything if you can't say anything nice, even if it's true and said neutrally"? Gah, I feel so horrible about this... T_T *totally fails*

Comments

[sherryillk.livejournal.com]

I feel like my world shifted on its axis today with that email. I'm also a big fan of concrit and more than the mindless "More" statements. God only knows I've made many of those in my early years in fandom and how ashamed of it I am now.

I just don't see the point in being offended when a review is not a flame. When people make wild and encompassing remarks that offer no basis, I can see an author being offended because obviously a reader doesn't care about your story enough to give you a well-written review. But critiques are not flames and after having my head bitten off by many an author, I've learned the best way to deliver them is with a bit of compliment about what worked and to word things that didn't very diplomatically. Now I'm told this isn't even acceptable. That's basically telling people to either rave or be silent, something I think is detrimental to the writer.

I wrote some fics way back when and I remember how it used to be. It hurt when someone says something bad about your fic but you either take it and use it to move on or you reject it as being baseless and move on. Do they not want to improve? I know I want better written stories but I guess now it's more of a crapshoot because effectively, readers are now taken out of the equation of the writing process.

For me, I think I'm going to refrain from comment as much unless the author specifically states they welcome critiques. Far be it for me to offer advice when it's no longer wanted or needed. I thought I was being helpful and showing my support of the author (I wouldn't even take the time to review a bad story that I didn't think had promise) but I guess it isn't when they didn't want the help in the first place.