Netiquette of giving feedback!
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| Title: | Netiquette of giving feedback! |
| Creator: | Anon |
| Date(s): | very early 2000s, perhaps 2002 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| Topic: | feedback, fanfiction |
| External Links: | online here, via Wayback; Webcite |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Netiquette of giving feedback! is an essay posted at Writers University. It is by Anon.
Excerpts
One of the nicest things you can do for an author is to review their work. One of the cruelest things you can do to an author is review their work.
The next thing to consider after determining if you are comfortable in telling an author what you are going to tell them to their face is the place where you are going to give feedback. There are certain archives where the standards for public feedback differ. On ptteens, it is not appropriate to flame or give destructive feedback. Giving constructive feedback is somewhat iffy. Doing so will bring down the wrath of the list moderators and private e-mails from listees. On several beta reading mailing lists, constructive criticism is encouraged and me too or one liners praising a work posts are frowned upon. Some places allow no public feedback so readers have to e-mail the author to send comments, feedback or reviews. Before posting comments publiclyor privately, ask yourself if the your review or feedback is appropriate for the archive you are going to post to. If the forum does not allow or encourage flames or destructive feedback, don't send them. If one liners are frowned upon publicly, consider sending that to the authorprivately. If the forum doesn't allow critiques, don't post them. If the forum encourages critiques, do post them. Failure to observe this unspoken rule may cause you and others a share a lot of mutual angst and frustration.
So far this column has addressed the issues aboutdeciding when and where to give feedback. This column has also addressed some of the things to consider when composing a review. I will leave you with one parting thing to remember in conclusion: When sending feedback or writing a review, remember that you should above all make yourself look good. Flames, spelling errors in your review and calling an authora [sic] nasty name does nothing for the author and just makes you look bad. And of course, most importantly, have fun! Reading a fan fiction is what's most important.