The one thing that continues to annoy me about FIMFiction · 4:46pm May 30th, 2012
I wake up today, my first free day of the summer, planning to get some good writing done. I check my stories real quick, and what do I see? A Pimp Named Spikeback has received yet another thumbs down. And once again, whoever gave it a thumbs down did not leave feedback about WHY they did.
......
I'd be under exaggerating if I told you it annoys me how people on this site that are negative to things almost never leave their feedback as to why they dislike something. The positive people on this site are very vocal, and don't get me wrong, I love getting positive feedback, but I'd welcome the criticisms of someone who disliked my story. It helps me know what I did wrong, and helps me become a better writer. But no, they don't leave a comment, so I have to look at those 5 thumbs down and wonder why those 5 people gave it a thumbs down.
Was it because I made Spike out of character for the story to work?
Was it because it's a crossover with The Boondocks, and that's just something those people didn't want to see crossed over with ponies?
Perhaps someone read the story, and then saw my username and picture, and gave me a thumbs down just because they're an avid hater of the PONY.MOV series.
Maybe its from someone who's jimmies I rustled somewhere on the site, and wanted to give my story a thumbs down for revenge.
Or maybe they really found flaws with the story and felt like it needed to be improved.
I really want to think it's the last on that list, but why would it be? If they actually found flaws with the story, why not tell me about it so I can make it better? I also get the feeling that there are trolls on this site that see stories without thumbs down and decide to give it one just so they can be the first to do so. This may also be applied to the thumbs down for This Can't Be Happening. But even if that's the case, that still leaves me with 4 unknown thumbs down.
I just wish people would be more vocal about why they dislike a story when leaving a thumbs down. If they really did do it for something like it being a story where Spike is a pimp, then I understand. I just wish they'd let me know instead of clicking the thumbs down and moving on.
*cough*trolls*cough*
Who doesn't hate this? For me, half the pre-reading community of EqD plus one zealous critic hates me and thus have already admitted to down-bombing each of my stories, but then again, I could give two shits less. And now that one of my stories has made it to EqD, I would imagine that anything they do from here on out would just be out of jealous hatred.
All I can say is that you should, double down and try to make your work the best it can be on your own.
Buck the haterz.
i.imgur.com/FQ9Cg.jpg
You will almost never get any feedback on a thumbs down. Not a single person that has ever thumbs downed a story of mine has said why they hate it. I blame it on just they don't like the concept and leave it at that. No sense in worrying about about someone's opinion that won't even give you more than the click of a mouse.
Although, I jokingly said when I released the first chapter of Thunderstruck and got a thumbs down, that it must have been an art major cause of the joke I had about one in the first few paragraphs...
I'm assuming it's just some trolls having a laugh. Whenever I leave a thumbs-down, I tend to say why I did, usually in lengthy and exact detail. I remember doing that for the fanfic "Here's to You, Pinkamena Pie", a slashfic starring Pinkie Pie and Spike. I complained about the complications and controversies surrounding an adult dating a child and that Spike's aging process makes the whole thing even sketchier never being brought up once in the story; that the relationship itself, the dynamic of Pinkie Pie (an adult who refuses to grow up) dating Spike (a child who's growing up alarmingly fast), debatably the most interesting part of the story, was ignored in favor of clop scenes.
The author's response?
A PM telling me, basically, that because her stories get thousands of pageviews while mine only have a hundred or so, I should shut my mouth. I'm assuming she never even read my shit.
The moral of this story, StayOuttaMyShed, is that everyone has their opinions, and not everyone has a good opinion. Those with good reasons why they hate your stuff will tell you why they hate it, because they know their reasons for hating it are justified. If somebrony leaves a thumbs-down and doesn't explain why, just ignore them. They aren't worth worrying about if they don't intend to criticize your work in a constructive fashion.
I agree about how much I dislike drive-by raters that ding a story without commenting why.
But I guess that, past a certain point, things start to become like white noise. You just keep writing and keep having fans comment, and then things mentally sort of change.
I do still dislike that stuff a lot.