on feedback, ethics, and spongeness

[permetaform]

Ignore for a brief moment that I am a vidder and am nominally sortofa writer:

As a reader I noticed that the more I gave feedback, and the longer the feedback, the more the chance that the writer will write more and will write more what I like best to read.

Also?

As I writer, I noticed I got plotbunnies from little throwaway comments in the reviews, and was given that little buzz of encouragement whenever there was a new review.

The end result:

whenever I review, it's pretty near purely selfish; because I want more fic or vid.

::beats dead horse dead-er::

'cause, really, most things work better with positive reinforcement; everyone wins! Whereas with negative reinforcement, the complainer wins in the short-term and in the long-term everyone loses; the producer gets angsty, the product declines, and there is negative feeling towards the complainer.

In an ethics reading for class there is the concept that all morals and the debate of 'morality' can be reduced to the way a person approaches the issue of increasing the sum total of their happiness. I tend to subscribe to the school of thought where the more people are happy around me, the happier I am. Granted, this is probably because I soak up other people's vibes like a sponge. aheh. (squish me and I produce vids! yay!)

Granted, this also makes be avoid people/spaces that get me down like the plague. On the upside, it's made me a neat freak and hence my roommates let me mooch food 'cause I pick up after them and wash the dishes (the process helps me meditate and brainstorm on essay topics).

Speaking of which, I'm gonna go attempt finish my various essays (it's final season), but it might take me awhile: I'll answer every comment but give me a bit of leeway, eh?

Comments

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

As a reader I noticed that the more I gave feedback, and the longer the feedback, the more the chance that the writer will write more and will write more what I like best to read.

Well...yes and no. As a writer I've found long, detailed reviews to be valuable because they usually hit on so many points. (More points than my beta readers hit on, sometimes. Once someone sent me an enormous 65K piece of mail reviewing ALL FOUR incredibly long Psychic Serpent fics!) That said, however, sometimes my longest reviews are those demanding that I basically change to plot/ships to what the reviewer wants. I'm afraid that I don't do that. I don't even start writing until I have the whole synopsis described for myself in detail, every scene that's going to exist in the fic, with the scenes divided into chapters. (The only thing that sometimes changes is that I will sometimes shift scenes around.) So people shouldn't really get the impression that longer reviews will cause the writer to continue to deliver what you like IF that's something other than what they have planned. You always take you chance that the writer has something up his/her sleeve that will displease you. But if they're doing what you like, it's probably true that getting good, long constructive and complimentary feedback will feed the writer's ego and egg him/her on. I just don't think that readers should have expectations that may or may not come to fruition. In the world of online writing especially it can really be potluck much of the time.

[permetaform]

I just don't think that readers should have expectations that may or may not come to fruition.

ohhh, well, that makes sense. Thing is, I'm sort of a "OMG I'LL READ ANYTHING" sort of reader. I'm easy, not picky at all, and if I find an author I love I'll just follow them through their fandoms and various types of writing...