Have you seen the discussion of that post on Tumblr about AO3 stats? It's pretty interesting. There's a really good comment arguing how it's important to support fanfic authors that really gets to the heart of what positive feedback means to authors. I can send you a link if you want, though to be honest I'm still figuring out how Tumblr works so I don't know how to link to the specific comment.
I like getting kudos. As a writer, kudos from signed in users is better than kudos from guests because I can then go and creep on their author pages and find new writers to talk to if I like what I find.
Hit counts I try to ignore because, for me, getting frustrated about the disparity between hits and kudos is where madness lies. I rationalise it that a high number of hit counts has nothing to do with my writing - it probably just means that a lot of people like the title/summary/tags/pairing and a lot of people will hit the back button after one sentence anyway. I wrote a piece of unadulterated fluff partly because I was interested to see what the difference would be between that and the angsty story I posted earlier. Result - more hits on the angsty (longer) story, more kudos on the short and sweet fluffy story. Go figure.
I'm a relative newbie to AO3 and Tumblr after a break from writing fic for a few years and my view right now is that if there isn't a review culture at AO3 it's up to me to try to do something about it. Be the change I want to see in the world and all that.
Reviews are love, obviously. Short ones or long ones. I don't post concrit on stories on AO3. If it's an author I want to encourage, I leave kudos. If I hated the story, I say nothing. If it's a story I think is awesome and I'm fangirling, I post a positive review and try to be specific about what I liked. I think concrit is only for your inner circle of reciprocal writing buddies - i.e. people you've invited to criticise your work because they are also writers in the same group/fandom. It needs to be clearly recognised/acknowledged that everyone is "working" on their practice and wants to hear about specific places/rough spots where they can make their writing better.
Thanks for your email by the way - still thinking about it!
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I like getting kudos. As a writer, kudos from signed in users is better than kudos from guests because I can then go and creep on their author pages and find new writers to talk to if I like what I find.
Hit counts I try to ignore because, for me, getting frustrated about the disparity between hits and kudos is where madness lies. I rationalise it that a high number of hit counts has nothing to do with my writing - it probably just means that a lot of people like the title/summary/tags/pairing and a lot of people will hit the back button after one sentence anyway. I wrote a piece of unadulterated fluff partly because I was interested to see what the difference would be between that and the angsty story I posted earlier. Result - more hits on the angsty (longer) story, more kudos on the short and sweet fluffy story. Go figure.
I'm a relative newbie to AO3 and Tumblr after a break from writing fic for a few years and my view right now is that if there isn't a review culture at AO3 it's up to me to try to do something about it. Be the change I want to see in the world and all that.
Reviews are love, obviously. Short ones or long ones. I don't post concrit on stories on AO3. If it's an author I want to encourage, I leave kudos. If I hated the story, I say nothing. If it's a story I think is awesome and I'm fangirling, I post a positive review and try to be specific about what I liked. I think concrit is only for your inner circle of reciprocal writing buddies - i.e. people you've invited to criticise your work because they are also writers in the same group/fandom. It needs to be clearly recognised/acknowledged that everyone is "working" on their practice and wants to hear about specific places/rough spots where they can make their writing better.
Thanks for your email by the way - still thinking about it!