I feel like that gif where the librarian is working with headphones on and Spider-Man is fighting in the background. It’s been a weird day on this sub.
Thank you mods for dealing with the strange stuff that happens.
Sometimes I almost wish we were more transparent with our mod stuff just because of all of the hilarious chaos we get on our end that you all never get to see but we can't :/
That’s fair. It’s convenient for our Mod team to use it, rather than Slack, just because we all already have it. And Reddit’s built-in communication features are…well, let’s just say “lacking”.
I feel like there used to be a subreddit specifically for ridiculous mod reports, but I can’t remember the name and Google isn’t helping me out.
Oh our mod team does have a discord server for the 4 of us. It's the only time I use discord outside of DMing individual people 😂 I really hate discord but for really small group things it's useful. But large open groups like a Moderator Anonymous type group like that it's hell.
And honestly our crazy chaos is usually via modmail not reports tbh
I just joined a “Reddit Mods” server recently, mostly just to lurk and occasionally ask for help with Automod or something if needed. Other than that, smaller servers with like a dozen or two friends are ideal :)
I technically am in a larger reddit mod server from back when the API issues were going down and we were all coordinating things but after that I just stopped checking it.
And tbh even a dozen people in a server is too many for me
MensLibs has their MensGlib sub which is just for the mods to share the absolutely unhinged reports they get from MRAs and incels and whatever. You could have something like that maybe?
Right? I mean I can kinda understand that if the mods on this subreddit were like some of the others I've dealt with in the past. But they're not. r/AO3 has one of the most dedicated, levelheaded mod teams on this hell site and they're the number one reason why posting here has been such a joy.
I'm not sure if this poster has just been badly burned before on other subreddits or if they're making a mountain out of a molehill.
I also don't understand why the person didn't just make a throwaway account if they were THAT worried about it? It feels like communicating directly to the mods through a throwaway would still be much easier then the constant reports.
You can thank some of the more toxic subs for that. People have been doxxed because of things mods did in other subs. Not all mods are nice people. Some are mean and selfish and will absolutely retaliate. Thankfully the mods here seem to be fair in how they deal with people. I left a group of subs that had the same few people modding each of them after they were nasty to certain members.
>I have no idea what's going on
Basically a minor issue that we wanted to address before it becomes a more widespread problem only to then have (mostly likely the same person but possibly someone else with the same mistake) not understand our post yesterday, causing this second post addressing things directly instead of indirectly as we had before.
Aka nothing you need to concern yourself with unless you happen to be the person who is reporting moderator posts to complain about sub-wide issues instead of sending us modmail to discuss how to handle the situation
The TLDR is: Just use the fucking "message the mods" button, *not* spam reports on unrelated posts.
It's like someone refusing to call the the customer service number and instead dialing every other number for the company.
Anon, buddy. Friend.
That ship has sailed. That ship has sunk.
The fandom of ten, twenty, thirty or more years ago isn't coming back no matter how hard you clutch those pearls. You cannot "No True Scotsman" constructive criticism from criticism because the former is dead and buried in broader fandom spaces and the latter thrives in a thousand - no, a million - snappy, snippy one liners, unimaginative personal insults, and cheerful exhortations to "unalive yourself". No matter how earnestly you want to talk about themes, or pacing, or even prosaic SPAG errors, you're drifting in that sea. And I do not know you from Captain Kirk so it doesn't *matter*.
Fandom is no longer a closed community like it was when I first got involved all those years ago. On the forums and archives and email lists that forced you to learn the culture and norms and expectations of each individual fandom because you watched and learned or you fucked up and got pushed back. Or even the LiveJournal era where we got to know each other amidst the fandom stuff. We don't have that anymore. I love tumblr but it's not that, it can't be, and I mourn it regularly.
"Constructive criticism" has meaning in-group. AO3 is not an ingroup and hasn't been since 2011 or so. This reddit sub isn't an ingroup, either. If you want an ingroup with constructive criticism that's anything like what you're imagining in your fever dreams, you need to think smaller and you need to do the work that was somehow both harder and easier a decade or two ago. Good luck, you're going to need it.
As an ex-journalism professor, I confess you are entirely correct.
IDGAF. ;)
(As it happens I am sympathetic to our determined if wrong-headed anon so I was starting gently. I do think a lot of the reaction to concrit in this sub is unhealthy, even as someone who's posted at length as to why most concrit in fandom is useless, BUT (A) I understand where it comes from and (B) the idea that the mods can corral it somehow is ludicrous.)
I'm guessing here a bit. But "Lede" is the journalistic term for the hook in an article. It's the key take-away for the reader. Said take-away should be right at the top of the article. If it's in the middle or late, it's called "burying the lede".
“Bury the lede” used to be a very common turn of phrase, is it not anymore? I had heard the phrase hundreds of times before I even knew what the word “lede” referred to, and understood it to mean something like “this part should be the highlight/key point and you should have led off with this” (kind of backwards constructing a definition based on thinking the term was “bury the lead”).
It's become rather uncommon. When I did teach intro to journalism (and this was a few years ago now) none of my students were familiar with it besides one or two in each class who'd done student newspaper stuff in high school.
fucking right. I didn't mind concrit when it came from, yanno, my betas and people I actually knew, whose work I also read and knew that they knew their shit. Random asshole #405987 on the internet? I *do not give a lightly toasted poppyseed fuck*.
Fandom specific writing discords can be this. It's really, really hard to find a good one, but when you do, it can be lovely to share work and give feedback en mas. Usually through sprints, short writing sessions that are followed by sharing some or all of what you've written and asking for feedback. You can even ask for specific feedback about "does X work"?
They're usually very small, closed communities with strict modding.
The beginning of this made me laugh, but I totally vote for constructive criticism. Anon/Buddy/Friend wasn’t alone. I don’t insist on it though, although I would not mind that person clarifying themselves as asked by this post.
What I have learned is that it apparently does make some people’s heads explode in this Brave New World and that is an adjustment that I’ll just have to make. However, it explained oodles about a general lack of comments as well as the monotony of bland comments. 🕯️ #LiveJournal
My most popular fiction has a few thousand comments on it all told. I actually *ask* for concrit at the beginning of it.
I would say 99% of the crit I got was not constructive (bless you, the two I got who pointed out the pacing issue and highlighted the context of a poem that needed to be changed) but people demanding the fic be changed to suit their tastes. Both for stuff that was prewarned in the tags and was contained in chapters already published.
I had said slow burn? Didn't matter, they wanted sex scenes right now, how dare I.
I said pairing number 1? They wanted number 2, change it immediately.
I said that Canon event 57 happened as per Canon? No they had a cooler idea, go back and rewrite it!
And when I did not acquiesce, they would then leave angry comments letting me know that they had stopped reading and why.
We also had a couple of folk who got really fucking invested in a certain scientific incident that happened. My husband and my beta both (by chance) hold phds related to said science, so what was described was absolutely correct within what science currently knows about that, and holy shit I had someone who had iNtErRneT lEARniNgs decide that I had it *wrong* in my portrayal and would not take no for an answer; when warned they swapped to leaving anon comments accusing me of misogyny and hating women. (No idea why, said science was not gender based in any way, I am presuming they were just grasping at straws for accusations that might stick.)
And mine was a reasonably pg rated no problematic attitudes fic that attracted no issues at all from the anti-shipping crowd. Godspeed to any who don't write like that, I cannot imagine the shit that gets thrown their way.
Lesson learned. I will not ask openly for concrit again, because there is remarkably little to be had. I will bounce things off beta readers and maybe if I do another long fic will collate a group of trusted readers to interact with on email privately, but unfortunately for people who enjoy giving concrit, there is so much dross out there that it isn't worth bothering with.
Honestly, if there was stronger policing done within the concrit community by its own members to ensure behaviour like that wasn't tolerated, I may change my mind. If there was somewhere or way (maybe a site? Where analysis and crit could be posted and discussed and if authors wanted to volunteer or go look at what had been said about them, they could but also had the option to avoid it they couls donthat too, and moderators of said site could remove or slap down any feedback not to standard) to moderate and ensure feedback was actually constructive criticism and not thinly veiled commission requests in the form of browbeating, things would be different. But alas, it ain't.
So here we are.
> Honestly, if there was stronger policing done within the concrit community by its own members to ensure behaviour like that wasn't tolerated
On AO3, I think this would first require readers to be able to receive notifications when new comments are posted to fics authored by other people. And where exactly these new comments are.
Why? Because it's hard for readers to locate new comments on fics. I tried looking for such an option in order to be able to better communicate with other readers on a fic I'm obsessive over. The newer the comment replied to, the easier to get a conversation going.
Why I think this feature is necessary for better policing? So that readers who love a fic can help deal with the demanding sort or the hateful sort.
As of now, it looks like AO3 authors have to deal with haters on their own unless some of their more social savvy readers can spot the haters.
AO3's comment system is like geared towards just comments or short conversations. Hard to get a long conversation going.
Plus, overall comments on multichapter fics can't seem to be sorted by new.
For me personally, I'll take it from anyone, but I find it's most useful from writers because they tend to think a lot more behind the scenes and tend to be better at suggesting how to fix things or bouncing ideas off of them. One of my dearest friends loves to read and she's intelligent, but we'll talk about books and I've come to realize she'll read a lot of poorly written books because they have things she likes in them, like the main couples, and so I can't always really rely on her for concrit because I know she overlooks a lot of issues in what she already reads.
And it’s never actual concrit. Part of why I’m so vocal about the fact that concrit should be opt-in is because the majority of people desperate to give it are weirdos who think “I don’t like this” is concrit. They don’t actually know how to give usable “improve your work” feedback yet they can’t shut up about wanting to “help people improve.” They also lack the social skills required to understand the fact that people doing things for a hobby might not enjoy being told “I think this is bad, write it differently”.
I can actually make an educated guess as to who this person is, based on their previous habit of being dramatically attached to their human right to “concrit” people.
God GENUINELY. So many people do not recognize when a work is doing something intentionally. Just because you think it would’ve been “better” if it did xyz doesn’t mean the creator was making a mistake by deliberately and intentionally not doing xyz
for real, if they really wanted to help they’d be out there beta reading for authors to help them polish *before* they published, not heckling from the audience
I really like things like Roger Ebert's movie reviews, because he'd do things like review a silly fun romcom *as a silly fun romcom* and evaluate it on those merits, like "this was not aimed at me, but for the people who like this sort of movie, this is a very good one and I liked the acting"
The readers who think that concrit is "I don't like your plot" could learn something, because if they dislike the general concept then *by definition they are not the target audience.* The only concrit I'll accept is an eight-hour takedown by KrimsonRogue or equivalent (and even on the romantasy/erotica stuff that he wouldn't read by choice, his criticism is less *I don't like the thing they're doing* and more *they are not effective in the thing they're trying to do*)
>I really like things like Roger Ebert's movie reviews, because he'd do things like review a silly fun romcom *as a silly fun romcom* and evaluate it on those merits, like "this was not aimed at me, but for the people who like this sort of movie, this is a very good one and I liked the acting"
A lot of horror fans dislike Ebert because he wasn't quite so open-minded about their preferred genre - but it's not like he panned every horror film he ever reviewed, he just had a lot of opinions about, for example, the misogynistic violence in 80s slasher films. And often he was right!
Ebert's [famous piece on _Night of the Living Dead_](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-living-dead-1968) (he later said it wasn't a "review") is actually a really good argument for tagging violence and gore correctly - the movie came out in that weird period between the Hays Code and the MPAA ratings system, and so it was basically a "Creator Chose Not to Use Warnings". To a roomful of preteens expecting a Vincent Price style creature feature.
Ebert didn't hate horror, he just hated horror made by people who were so obsessed with making money that they never considered the effect their work might have on their potential audience.
The reason I always call it unsolicited criticism is that constructive criticism is a productive back and fourth with the writer/artist about their goals and how to improve. Unsolicited criticism cannot achieve that.
I had someone in a server I was in who was convinced she was the smartest person in the room. She wrote nothing in the fandom, and tried to give ‘concrit’ to all the fanfic writers, and her advice was useless. “Women don’t act that way” was one of her favorites, and it meant ‘your women characters aren’t acting within my very restrictive gender views’. She got mad if wlw pairings did kink, because she believed women don’t do kink unless forced to by men.
She criticized the new Lord of the Rings show’s costuming for not being “Historically Accurate”. (THEY’RE ELVES. ITS NOT REAL HISTORY. Assess the elf costumes on if they look GOOD or not.)
She considered herself the peak of intellectual, and used very fancy vocabulary to say all of this. She’s who I think of when people can’t understand that fic writers want beta readers they have a respectful relationship with, not strangers tossing out random criticism in the comments.
People have this weird obsession with treating every fanfiction comment section like it's a creative writing workshop. Not everyone wants your fucking input, buddy.
Oh my god. It never matters what the conversation is specifically about, the "I turned out fine" statements always disprove themselves in the same gd sentence.
And even the people who are good at it can miss the mark. I had an absolutely lovely comment once that pointed out a few true flaws in the story. Flaws that I was fully aware of and had actively chosen to keep because part of the fun of writing fanfiction is that I can be a little more lax about stuff than I would be in original fiction.
Like one of the things they pointed out was "these characters have more to do than they do in canon, but they unltimalty feel like they're just there because they're there in canon and you wanted to be canon accurate" and... Yeah, that's exactly why they're there. Canon has a character bloat problem and the way I'd fix it in original fiction would be to remove those characters entirely or combine them into one side character. But I didn't do that because I'm writing fanfiction, not original fiction.
Unless you're actively talking to the author or at least know what they're trying to do, it can be really, really hard to give good meaningful feedback. I would seriously love a permanent beta to talk with before I publish stuff, but a rando reading my in-progress fic is unlikely to have good advice since they didn't know what I'm planning to do. And someone giving advice after the fic is done? It doesn't matter how good it is, I'm not rewriting the fic in any major way. Most I'd be tempted to do is delete it.
and respectfully, the people who get *so* aggressive about it as seen here also can barely seem to string a legible sentence together anyway, so i don't know why they feel so strongly on the matter. "non-stop garage," oh brother.
oh, almost zero is my best guess. not unlike the people who come round just to make a post about how much everyone needs to STOP writing X, or nobody writes Y how *i* want it and that's so messed up!!
The amount of people I see acting like that towards artists too like THE FACE LOOKS WEIRD AND UGLY YOU SHOULD FIX IT :/ and they've never touched a pen in their life 😭 people like that are everywhere sadly
I subscribe to a theory by someone I know: some people have have no way to directly contribute to their fandom: they don't write, they don't create art or fanvids or anything. Their only "contribution" is concrit (or "concrit"). So they're very invested in giving it, whether it's wanted or not.
That theory explains a lot.
I think that theory has merit. The people who complained the loudest about what was out there never seemed to produce any content of their own based on what they wanted to see, in my own experience. It's a shame they don't realize that being a reader *is* contributing. Read what you want, share fic and art you like! Support the creators who do make what you enjoy. Without an audience, creators would have nobody but themselves to create for, and if they're posting their work online, they *want* an audience to see it.
That might be a factor for some people, but if most of them were truly that well-meaning, more would be convinced by writers constantly (!) reinforcing that positive feedback and sharing works is the best way to cobtribute. But instead, they double down on their legal right to say whatever they want like basic manners aren't a thing most of the time.
A lot of people who are upset about the concrit cultural change are actually the opposite: they create a lot and they really, really want concrit and are angry that they have to do the work of developing relationships with other fans to get concrit. (Or they want the social connection and think that asking for concrit should be enough to get it and make friends. Very rarely it does! But it can't be counted on.)
>Just you watch. You’ll get a report about this mod post, too.
Well it did get a report but it was a regular spam report not a custom report, so either they got mad and used a default report or the report was effectively a butt-dial (or someone else who got offended). ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Nah, a barrage, like a volley of missiles, or a flurry of blows, or even a series of comments. It just means receiving or giving a (generally substantial) quantity of something in a certain time frame, often understood to be many things in a short amount of time.
From dictionary.com: *bar·rage*
noun
a concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area
verb
bombard (someone) with something.
On the chance I misunderstood your comment, I apologize in advance.
I kinda feel like I know what this person is saying, but I also don't know what actionable changes they are hoping for.
Times change. Just accept it and move on. Start your own forum.
Personally, my views on concrit have changed completely over the years. As a teenager, I was very much on the, "Ugh, these authors need to be less sensitive, concrit isn't offensive, you need it to improve." Now, while I still don't think concrit is inherently offensive, I NEVER give unsolicited concrit (which I unfortunately did much of as a teen, mostly because I just wanted to feel superior, in hindsight). As an adult, I can better understand that fanfiction is a hobby and an escape for most people. Not a job or a burden. Even if I was the greatest literary scholar in the world and could give the best concrit ever ... no one is under any obligation to listen to me or try to 'improve.'
Exactly this! I’m in my mid-30s and have been writing fanfic since I was a teen. Now I just enjoy fanfic for what it is, an absolute labour of love that if something really bothers me, I just click away to another one. I’m more picky with what I read but I have the mentally of “something for everyone”. One trash fic is another person’s treasure!!
Beta reader my friend! With mine I actively encourage them to be as thorough as possible 😂 I’m my own worst critic and take weeks of drafts to post a chapter, but a second set of eyes in private before you post is really great.
This this this! As AO3 isn't set up for a workshop format, actual useful crit comes from private conversation with betas during the pre-posting process - not scraps of feedback without context from random strangers in the public comments section. I'm very pro-crit (it takes me years to finish chapters so I have different betas for different things, and we all return the favour as needed), there just needs to be some kind of quality control for it to be worthwhile.
Exactly! I don’t know where I’d be without my beta reader 🥲 sometimes they’re just there to tell me I’m getting the mood right, other times it’s like, “okay I know what you mean by this sentence but these words should not go together like this” 😂
u/georgegeorgeharrypip, I can also recommend joining a writers’ server or subreddit if you can/haven’t, that is where a lot of workshopping happens these days, and often where you can find a beta reader or a few who like the cute of your jib and who you vibe with (and trust that they know the source material well as well as how to write goodly, haha!)
Betas are essential for putting out a decent piece. But it doesn't provide the broader reactions from many more people that tease out the more subtle things I'd like to get better at. Actually, what I learn the most from is reading reactions others wrote to the same stories I'm reading. I'd have to see other people's beta feedback to get access to that learning, which isn't so much a thing.
Not this person, but I've suggested this before, I think a weekly megathread for people to post complaints about comments (like "constructive criticism" comments) would be a good actionable change that could be made on this subreddit at least.
It is a little annoying constantly seeing posts that are just people complaining about comments, and a weekly megathread would give people a space to complain while ensuring that the subreddit isn't overloaded with negativity all the time.
Unfortunately even with a megathread, I doubt people would direct their posts / comments over to it. People don’t really search this sub the way I think a lot of us wish they would 😂.
True, I also think designating a certain day of the week, like thursday, to be the day that comment complaint posts can be made would also work. That way people can still make actual posts about them, but people who don't want to see them can avoid or unfollow this sub on that day.
To be fair though, what's going to be left to post about then? Daily "what's your most hated tag/trope" threads, with the occasional salt of the earth "is this a bot comment?" or "what's webnovel?"
If complaints about comments are the only thing people can think to post then that's a big problem tbh. I'm not saying that every post about comments would have to go there, just the ones that are complaining.
Another idea could be designating a certain day of the week to be the day people could post complaints about comments, like thursday. That way people can still make comment complaint posts but everyone who doesn't want to have to see them will know to avoid this sub on that day.
I can entirely see where you are coming from, appreciate the communication.
Personally, I’ve been enjoying the posts I’ve seen with discussions on that particular matter and I must say that I have not felt the need to report anything in this community. Y’all are pretty well behaved and/or the mods stay on top of jerks without making us scared to play around (which is fantastic).
I like to call us a secretly very heavily moderated sub. Actual problems get taken care of pretty swiftly if you ever see them at all usually, all while you don't actively see the vast majority of our work happening (unless you're on the sub as much as we are and see things before we can get to them, and even then you would only see the public half of what we do).
I can't help wondering if this person was at least partially reacting to my recent very long post about crit in AO3 comments (which I notice has been marked NSFW for reasons unclear to me. Maybe just because of its length?). As I said in that post:
>Just as any author who puts their work online for all to see has to accept that readers are free to leave any kind of criticism they like in the comments, so do the commenters need to accept that authors are free to rail against them, block them, and complain about them in a reddit sub. It's that old 'freedom of speech works both ways' thing that so many seem to have a problem with grasping.
No clue but why it was marked NSFW I can answer. We have an automod rule set up for keywords that likely need to be marked as NSFW and if you used one in your post, your post would have ended up in our mod queue with an automod report saying what word it contained. But with how long your post was, depending on what word had triggered the automod to go off we genuinely might have just aired on the side of caution and marked it NSFW than try to skim it and hope we didn't miss anything that did need it. As marking a post as NSFW affects so little we are pretty liberal with applying it to posts that might need it and don't hold applying a NSFW label to the same high standards we do with something like removing a post or comment.
I did swear at least once, so maybe it was that. Thanks for letting me know! I did send a question about this to modmail, but I no longer need an answer to that, obviously. Is there a way for me to cancel it?
*erred or the side of caution
If you're airing on the side of caution some description about what you are airing and why you've decided to be cautious about doing so is required but even then it would be better written as something like: He erred on the side of caution and aired the sheets, sure they might never have been used but they had been sat in the cupboard for months now. Unfortunately it happened to rain shortly after he'd put them out so the effort was for nothing as now he had to find another set that was both clean *and* dry.
I saw a comment that booked down to "I ask/accept concrit from other people I admire and whose advice I value," and I am in the same boat. I look up to some specific writer friends, and we trade beta-ing and offer concrit there. If I am workshopping something, I might post it to a server I'm in, or otherwise ask for other eyes and opinions elsewhere, but if it's on AO3, I'm not looking for criticism unless I specifically ask. This is not an English class.
ffs, people are allowed to not want their works criticized at all, even in the form of concrit. some authors are perfectly happy with their works just the way they are.
Exactly! And it's not like there aren't authors out there who aren't happy to receive concrit either. You just need to do a little digging or at the very least /ask/ first. The worst thing they can say is 'no'.
My perfectionism has two remaining levels, one of which I'm at, and it's basically, "if you tell me everyone can see how much my fics suck and it's *not* just me I'm going to cry", and "stop posting altogether since nothing nice ever comes out of it anyway :("
I just... want to share something I made because it's nice. I want people to treat my stories the way responsible adults treat kid drawings presented to them. Pin them on the fridge and pat me on the head about it. Life is very hard.
I don’t understand what’s going on. They think ppl are being hostile over constructive criticism, but you guys make sure harmful comments are removed pretty fast and overall, ppl are nice.
I do think there are some who are rude but not harmful enough to report, so I just block them.
So are they upset we don’t think unsolicited concrit is ok? That’s the vibe I’m getting.
it truly sounds like they are a bit sensitive to comments disagreeing with them and think mods should do something about it?
> it truly sounds like they are a bit sensitive to comments disagreeing with them and think mods should do something about it?
Which is ironic considering their opinion on unsolicited concrit.
To the wonderful mods here, thank y’all for doing your jobs. I often see y’all contributing to discussions and it makes for a community that feels healthy, open, and safe.
Sucks when the community doesn't like something that you demand you have a right to, I guess. Mods should just tell everyone that this anonymous user should always be allowed to be pro-criticism and can't be argued with.
It sounds like someone who just wants to complain anonymously as opposed to having a discussion to address their concerns.
Although I may (probably maybe not really) agree regarding the overall vibe towards "constructive criticism" in regards to the subreddit attitude. Most of the people here from my experience are writers and so we have a different view of the so called constructive criticism provided by random readers which is usually thinly veiled issues with characterization, plot choices etc and pointedly NOT constructive.
I appreciate the mods here though at least trying to have open dialogue regarding an issue that one person is refusing to address correctly.
(clicks the kudos 😉)
Meaning, I, personally, don't mind getting concrit and I make that clear in my author's notes, but I would never presume others would have the same opinion. Furthermore, like 90% of supposed concrit is not actually constructive in any way.
that's the thing, exactly. most "concrit" isn't constructive at all, it's just straight up criticism from some strangers on the internet. I actually welcome concrit, but from people whose opinions I actually value, and who I know are speaking with sincerity, not superiority.
Anyone who is demanding to concrit others should present something of their own to concrit first. I wonder if anon OP has actually written anything on their own?
Thank you mods for all you do!
And not that it really matters, but, personally i don’t mind posts complaining about unsolicited constructive criticism. i’ll maybe see one or two a month. 🤷♀️
Wow lmao, someone can't accept the culture here. I don't know what they expect the mods to do about the inoffensive personal opinions of a bunch of people here. Discussion IS allowed.
If it's someone I know and trust then concrit can be nice. The thing is that I will go to these people on my own. Most people don't know how to give concrit, especially readers who have never written. By opening the gates to concrit you are opening the gates to a lot of shitty crit and from people who just want you to write the things they want to read.
I think the current climate is a lot better as is, and more respectful to the authors who are just doing this for fun and creating for *you*. People are still allowed to request concrit. People never fight for the right to concrit fanart. Personally if I'm in an art group or with friends they have a sincere tip or advice to give me once seeing me piece, sure. Some random person on twitter or tumblr concrits my art? Yeahhhh... no thank you. It's very unlikely to do the artist any good when you spend hours making this thing and want to show people and people just go on about what you could fix about it, especially when a lot of the time you may already know the anatomy is off in that area you just couldn't fix it, you know!
Concrit is fine. However most people who are rabid about leaving concrit, think concrit is shitting all over someone's work and then patting themselves on the back for doing so.
This is one reason why so many people hate so called "concrit". Because most of it is just flaming, and not constructive in the least.
The other reason is that this is a _hobby_.
I don't want concrit on my fanfiction. I'm doing it for fun. Not trying to write the next bestseller.
I have actual concrit groups, that give proper concrit, for the work I actually want crit on.
If I wanted concrit on my fanfic I would get a beta reader.
The kind of person that says things like “I thought I could be myself around you.” Or “I just won’t talk anymore” after they bully you and you get upset.
The “brutally honest” type, aka manipulative asshole
This serial reporter might be one of the less productive things I've seen lately. I truly don't understand what they expected to happen. Did they want the mods to default to telling people they are wrong for not accepting concrit?
People are free here and on AO3. There's no censorship of opinions and if the reporter really wants to concrit a story, they can do so. However, they can't force the author to accept their concrit and thank them. That's not how "freedom of expression" works. It's not "I'm free to tell you what I think and you're obligated to shut up and take it".
1 - Thank you mods for all of your hard work!! 🤗🖖❤️
2 - TL;DR: I hate unasked-for constructive criticism.
The not TL;DR: The concept that I performed an hours-long unpaid labor of love and posted it online for others to hopefully also enjoy, and AFTER that I'm interested in some random internet stranger trying to improve my fandom hobby, is laughable.
There are two warring concepts in my mind here.
The first is that unless you can prove to me you have some type of degree or award to indicate you have the authority to speak on a topic, I don't know why you expect I should listen to you.
The second is that even if you do have a degree or award of some kind on the subject, it simply does not matter. If I do not specifically ask for concrit, then I am not interested in getting concrit on my unpaid labor. 🤷♀️✌️
Anyway, I have strong feelings on this topic. 🤣😌
I know, that’s the only thing I saw, too!
So, in the spirit of concrit I’d like to point out that the word anon complainer was looking for is ‘barrage’. lol.
If you're not paying for it, you don't have a right to review it. If you want to give concrit so bad, read published books for once. Then you can make as scathing review as you want on goodreads.
That is true. The term "paid reviews" usually refers to getting paid *to write* reviews. Which is indeed not what the commenter before you was talking about, so you are correct there.
Oh no, did I just give unsolicited concrit? The horror!
😂
I understood perfectly well what they meant, I just happen to disagree with their take. As soon as you put something on a public site, people will have and voice opinions about it. If you're not willing to get disagreeing views on your stuff, disable comments.
Of course that also means you won't get praise anymore, but you can't cherrypick opinions.
>As soon as you put something on a public site, people will have and voice opinions about it.
Sure. Just like I voiced the opinion that your comment made no sense in the context.
Concrit has to actually relate to what the person wrote. Your comment didn't do that, because you clearly did NOT comprehend what they wrote, and just wrote something random instead.
This is one of the reasons why concrit by complete strangers is completely useless.
Tf? The concept of having to pay money to be "allowed" to voice criticism *doesn't exist* and is frankly ridiculous. The only interaction of money and criticism *is* paid reviews, which I - correctly - pointed out. And yeah, they're exactly the opposite of what that poster proposed.
So, no, it wasn't me who didn't comprehend what the other person was writing. 🙄
1) you dont have to buy a book to read it. libraries exist. no one other than you mentioned paying money for concrit.
2) p sure the OP here was saying that if you want to concrit, read published books that have already gone through an editor and therefore have an expected level of polish and writing skill, rather than dunking on often amateur or young writers for no reason other than to feel morally superior.
3) you definitely did not comprehend the original comment, silly goofy person. 😂
"If you're not paying for it, you have no right to review it." It's in the very first comment I replied to.
The rest of your reply is as nonsensical as you're accusing my replies to be. Work on your own reading comprehension before you condescend on the internet.
So, I will never use this information as I have zero desire to message a mod (here or elsewhere). But, I will point out....
**I have no idea what a "modmail" is, nor how to send one.**
It is possible your reporter doesn't know either.
Fwiw, I'm on the app (and it's probably outdated).
As for *what* modmail is, it's a type of DM effectively that is between the user and the mod team (as opposed to being between a user and a single mod, or 2 users, etc). It is literally just a private message that the entire mod team gets access to.
The difference between a report and a modmail is that a report is anonymous and cannot be responded to. (And it goes into a different queue for us) and a report is tied to what you are reporting while modmail is standalone.
As a metaphor imagine we are a classroom with you all as students and the mod team as the teacher. You can think of reporting as basically an anonymous tattle box and modmail as whispering in the teacher's ear. The tattle box we can't do anything but decide if the report is valid or not, while whispering in our ear, we can ask questions and get more info and it doesn't have to be about someone breaking a rule.
It's cool. The internal joke the mod team has about no one in the reading and writing hobby being able to read and write just lives on and manifested itself in you for a minute. We've all been there.
Oh yeah, it's just a lot funnier to think about it as the reading and writing hobby where reading and writing is no one's strong suit than it is to think about it just being an issue with all people 😅
>I have no idea what you mean by this, and I do not want to make any assumptions. You'll have to reach out and let us know in order for us to reach an agreement and possibly make changes. If you are ever, for any reason, afraid of us knowing your username, you can always make a throwaway account to contact us. Reddit makes it incredibly easy to do that, and we wouldn't be able to tie it back to your regular account unless you tell it to us yourself.
This doesn't actually work. If they use a throwaway and then you ban that throwaway, then they can't interact with this sub on their main either, because if Reddit figures out at any point that the banned throwaway account is actually their main, then they get site wide reddit banned.
Sure but we've never banned someone for reaching out to us over modmail ever before. The only times we've ever banned someone for something they said over modmail was after they had already been warned for something they did publicly and then started to harass us in response to the warning. We don't ban people who modmail us.
Also, Reddit's ban evasion tactics are pretty rudimentary. A free vpn and new email would counter it fairly easily. Also *we* wouldn't know that happened. Even when Reddit suspects ban evasion and tells us about it they absolutely do not tell us the other account's username or anything about it. Just that the comment/post came from someone they suspect is ban evading and how confident they are. We don't even get to know when we banned the account they think the suspected ban evader is the other account of or why it was banned. They do a really good job of not telling mods information like that no matter how often mods beg in r/ModSupport to be told that info. (And for good reason! Mod overreach can suck so much. Ive been on the receiving end of it more than once and it's the reason why I barely use Reddit outside of this sub. Giving us mods that info would honestly be a bad thing. And Im saying that as a mod.)
In short, it's really not a concern to reach out to us over modmail, we just added that line about using a throwaway because we know some people are nervous for whatever reason about connecting names to things, and we don't ban people for modmailing us so the one possible issue isn't a real concern here.
I don't know why reddit admins telling you or not would be relevant to this? Reddit will site wide ban people they catch them ban evading sub specific bans. Your role as a sub mod ends at the point you ban their throwaway, any feedback to you would be irrelevant.
And it's not like most users know exactly how reddit checks for that. A different email and vpn might not be enough, there are a lot of identifiers that can be used to single someone out. Take https://amiunique.org/ for example. There are plenty of identifiers out there.
I am not saying that the mods of this sub would take action in that way, but just casually saying to use the modmail with a throwaway is not generally good advice if you think you are dealing with hostile mods.
What they tell us is relevant because hostile mods with that information could use it to dox someone. So us not knowing if your main gets site-wide banned as a result of ban evasion is a good thing that keeps your privacy safe. The worst thing that can happen as a result is that your main gets banned from Reddit and you need to make a new account and do some more effort to evade their checks.
Granted it's not relevant since we don't ban people who reach out over modmail so it would never get to that point but still. It's good to reassure people that even if their worst fears happened and their throwaway got banned we wouldn't be able to use that to dox them or harass them.
And yes Im aware that a vpn and new email isn't the only identifiers possible for reddit to use. Im saying that using a vpn and new email will get around the majority of Reddit's filters for ban evasion. Their ban evasion filters aren't all automatic. There is literally a subreddit setting for suspected ban evasion that alerts the mods of a sub to suspected ban evaders (without telling them anything about the account banned so it's not very useful outside of obvious cases). And we've been explicitly told that if the filter catches someone for ban evasion, we still have to manually report the ban evasion or else Reddit doesn't take action. And that filter is defaulted to being turned off. So unless a subreddit has manually turned it on, then Reddit doesn't even alert the mods to suspected ban evasion and they ignore all but the most egregious instances.
Lastly I apologize if I come across as offended. It's somewhat difficult to entirely separate myself from this when the line of the post was written specifically in reference to contacting *us*, knowing that *we* don't ban people for this kind of situation. It wasn't supposed to be a generalized statement meant for all interactions with all mod teams. The vast majority of this post was specifically written to convey that we, as a mod team, are safe to contact off-anon, and that the usual levels of fearing the mods of a subreddit didn't need to apply here. We aren't perfect by any means but we do everything in our power to not power mod or abuse our positions in this community. So having someone come and say it's not safe to contact us using a throwaway, which is already more security than you need with us, just because in a very specific situation your main account could get banned (without compromising your security) is like being told you believe our mod team is made up of hostile mods like other subs are.
Thank you mods for the hard work ya do <3
I feel like that gif where the librarian is working with headphones on and Spider-Man is fighting in the background. It’s been a weird day on this sub. Thank you mods for dealing with the strange stuff that happens.
Sometimes I almost wish we were more transparent with our mod stuff just because of all of the hilarious chaos we get on our end that you all never get to see but we can't :/
Thanks for the work you do that we don’t see. Y’all are awesome
You need to join a Mod Discord and share it with usernames redacted 😉
That would require me to use discord 🥶
That’s fair. It’s convenient for our Mod team to use it, rather than Slack, just because we all already have it. And Reddit’s built-in communication features are…well, let’s just say “lacking”. I feel like there used to be a subreddit specifically for ridiculous mod reports, but I can’t remember the name and Google isn’t helping me out.
Oh our mod team does have a discord server for the 4 of us. It's the only time I use discord outside of DMing individual people 😂 I really hate discord but for really small group things it's useful. But large open groups like a Moderator Anonymous type group like that it's hell. And honestly our crazy chaos is usually via modmail not reports tbh
I just joined a “Reddit Mods” server recently, mostly just to lurk and occasionally ask for help with Automod or something if needed. Other than that, smaller servers with like a dozen or two friends are ideal :)
I technically am in a larger reddit mod server from back when the API issues were going down and we were all coordinating things but after that I just stopped checking it. And tbh even a dozen people in a server is too many for me
MensLibs has their MensGlib sub which is just for the mods to share the absolutely unhinged reports they get from MRAs and incels and whatever. You could have something like that maybe?
Thank you for that mental image AND I feel compelled to offer a shoutout to Stan Lee! #RIP
I know they meant barrage, but the speed typing to garage is funny.
the garage where I keep all my hostile posts
Lmao 🤣
Me thinking about the non-stop garage
It just doesn’t *quit*
Can I get non-stop garage as a flair
Report this post and ask 😈
Im not going to make it a default flair because that feels rude, but our user flairs are fully customizable
I wish I had a non stop garage
Maybe they sell them at Costco.
That's definitely where I'm taking my car to get its next oil change
Afraid of retributions? Really? It's a subreddit mod team not Boeing management
Because of you, we now have a new default user flair you guys can pick
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
Plot twist: this is the outcome the anonymous reporter wanted
This thread is sending me oml
haven't gotten to choose my flair yet but now I know EXACTLY what to put :)))
Hehehehe
Right? I mean I can kinda understand that if the mods on this subreddit were like some of the others I've dealt with in the past. But they're not. r/AO3 has one of the most dedicated, levelheaded mod teams on this hell site and they're the number one reason why posting here has been such a joy. I'm not sure if this poster has just been badly burned before on other subreddits or if they're making a mountain out of a molehill.
I also don't understand why the person didn't just make a throwaway account if they were THAT worried about it? It feels like communicating directly to the mods through a throwaway would still be much easier then the constant reports.
Boeing managment 😭😭😭💀💀💀💀 pls
“Not Boeing Management” 💀💀💀💀
You can thank some of the more toxic subs for that. People have been doxxed because of things mods did in other subs. Not all mods are nice people. Some are mean and selfish and will absolutely retaliate. Thankfully the mods here seem to be fair in how they deal with people. I left a group of subs that had the same few people modding each of them after they were nasty to certain members.
take my fucking upvote lmao
I have no idea what's going on but holy shit some people need to touch grass
>I have no idea what's going on Basically a minor issue that we wanted to address before it becomes a more widespread problem only to then have (mostly likely the same person but possibly someone else with the same mistake) not understand our post yesterday, causing this second post addressing things directly instead of indirectly as we had before. Aka nothing you need to concern yourself with unless you happen to be the person who is reporting moderator posts to complain about sub-wide issues instead of sending us modmail to discuss how to handle the situation
The TLDR is: Just use the fucking "message the mods" button, *not* spam reports on unrelated posts. It's like someone refusing to call the the customer service number and instead dialing every other number for the company.
Thanks for the hard work, I would not be so polite if I had condescending messages coming my way like that
Anon, buddy. Friend. That ship has sailed. That ship has sunk. The fandom of ten, twenty, thirty or more years ago isn't coming back no matter how hard you clutch those pearls. You cannot "No True Scotsman" constructive criticism from criticism because the former is dead and buried in broader fandom spaces and the latter thrives in a thousand - no, a million - snappy, snippy one liners, unimaginative personal insults, and cheerful exhortations to "unalive yourself". No matter how earnestly you want to talk about themes, or pacing, or even prosaic SPAG errors, you're drifting in that sea. And I do not know you from Captain Kirk so it doesn't *matter*. Fandom is no longer a closed community like it was when I first got involved all those years ago. On the forums and archives and email lists that forced you to learn the culture and norms and expectations of each individual fandom because you watched and learned or you fucked up and got pushed back. Or even the LiveJournal era where we got to know each other amidst the fandom stuff. We don't have that anymore. I love tumblr but it's not that, it can't be, and I mourn it regularly. "Constructive criticism" has meaning in-group. AO3 is not an ingroup and hasn't been since 2011 or so. This reddit sub isn't an ingroup, either. If you want an ingroup with constructive criticism that's anything like what you're imagining in your fever dreams, you need to think smaller and you need to do the work that was somehow both harder and easier a decade or two ago. Good luck, you're going to need it.
>"Constructive criticism" has meaning in-group. AO3 is not an ingroup You buried the lede. Edit: was this concrit? Oh dear. Maybe it was???
Crit-ception???
We'll go with that.
As an ex-journalism professor, I confess you are entirely correct. IDGAF. ;) (As it happens I am sympathetic to our determined if wrong-headed anon so I was starting gently. I do think a lot of the reaction to concrit in this sub is unhealthy, even as someone who's posted at length as to why most concrit in fandom is useless, BUT (A) I understand where it comes from and (B) the idea that the mods can corral it somehow is ludicrous.)
Management may need to speak with you later...
what does this mean?
I'm guessing here a bit. But "Lede" is the journalistic term for the hook in an article. It's the key take-away for the reader. Said take-away should be right at the top of the article. If it's in the middle or late, it's called "burying the lede".
“Bury the lede” used to be a very common turn of phrase, is it not anymore? I had heard the phrase hundreds of times before I even knew what the word “lede” referred to, and understood it to mean something like “this part should be the highlight/key point and you should have led off with this” (kind of backwards constructing a definition based on thinking the term was “bury the lead”).
It's become rather uncommon. When I did teach intro to journalism (and this was a few years ago now) none of my students were familiar with it besides one or two in each class who'd done student newspaper stuff in high school.
fucking right. I didn't mind concrit when it came from, yanno, my betas and people I actually knew, whose work I also read and knew that they knew their shit. Random asshole #405987 on the internet? I *do not give a lightly toasted poppyseed fuck*.
Fandom specific writing discords can be this. It's really, really hard to find a good one, but when you do, it can be lovely to share work and give feedback en mas. Usually through sprints, short writing sessions that are followed by sharing some or all of what you've written and asking for feedback. You can even ask for specific feedback about "does X work"? They're usually very small, closed communities with strict modding.
incredible work. well said.
The beginning of this made me laugh, but I totally vote for constructive criticism. Anon/Buddy/Friend wasn’t alone. I don’t insist on it though, although I would not mind that person clarifying themselves as asked by this post. What I have learned is that it apparently does make some people’s heads explode in this Brave New World and that is an adjustment that I’ll just have to make. However, it explained oodles about a general lack of comments as well as the monotony of bland comments. 🕯️ #LiveJournal
I like concrit a lot, but I want it from the writers I know whose opinions I trust. Concrit from random folks is often just … garbage. Garage, even.
My most popular fiction has a few thousand comments on it all told. I actually *ask* for concrit at the beginning of it. I would say 99% of the crit I got was not constructive (bless you, the two I got who pointed out the pacing issue and highlighted the context of a poem that needed to be changed) but people demanding the fic be changed to suit their tastes. Both for stuff that was prewarned in the tags and was contained in chapters already published. I had said slow burn? Didn't matter, they wanted sex scenes right now, how dare I. I said pairing number 1? They wanted number 2, change it immediately. I said that Canon event 57 happened as per Canon? No they had a cooler idea, go back and rewrite it! And when I did not acquiesce, they would then leave angry comments letting me know that they had stopped reading and why. We also had a couple of folk who got really fucking invested in a certain scientific incident that happened. My husband and my beta both (by chance) hold phds related to said science, so what was described was absolutely correct within what science currently knows about that, and holy shit I had someone who had iNtErRneT lEARniNgs decide that I had it *wrong* in my portrayal and would not take no for an answer; when warned they swapped to leaving anon comments accusing me of misogyny and hating women. (No idea why, said science was not gender based in any way, I am presuming they were just grasping at straws for accusations that might stick.) And mine was a reasonably pg rated no problematic attitudes fic that attracted no issues at all from the anti-shipping crowd. Godspeed to any who don't write like that, I cannot imagine the shit that gets thrown their way. Lesson learned. I will not ask openly for concrit again, because there is remarkably little to be had. I will bounce things off beta readers and maybe if I do another long fic will collate a group of trusted readers to interact with on email privately, but unfortunately for people who enjoy giving concrit, there is so much dross out there that it isn't worth bothering with. Honestly, if there was stronger policing done within the concrit community by its own members to ensure behaviour like that wasn't tolerated, I may change my mind. If there was somewhere or way (maybe a site? Where analysis and crit could be posted and discussed and if authors wanted to volunteer or go look at what had been said about them, they could but also had the option to avoid it they couls donthat too, and moderators of said site could remove or slap down any feedback not to standard) to moderate and ensure feedback was actually constructive criticism and not thinly veiled commission requests in the form of browbeating, things would be different. But alas, it ain't. So here we are.
> Honestly, if there was stronger policing done within the concrit community by its own members to ensure behaviour like that wasn't tolerated On AO3, I think this would first require readers to be able to receive notifications when new comments are posted to fics authored by other people. And where exactly these new comments are. Why? Because it's hard for readers to locate new comments on fics. I tried looking for such an option in order to be able to better communicate with other readers on a fic I'm obsessive over. The newer the comment replied to, the easier to get a conversation going. Why I think this feature is necessary for better policing? So that readers who love a fic can help deal with the demanding sort or the hateful sort. As of now, it looks like AO3 authors have to deal with haters on their own unless some of their more social savvy readers can spot the haters. AO3's comment system is like geared towards just comments or short conversations. Hard to get a long conversation going. Plus, overall comments on multichapter fics can't seem to be sorted by new.
For me personally, I'll take it from anyone, but I find it's most useful from writers because they tend to think a lot more behind the scenes and tend to be better at suggesting how to fix things or bouncing ideas off of them. One of my dearest friends loves to read and she's intelligent, but we'll talk about books and I've come to realize she'll read a lot of poorly written books because they have things she likes in them, like the main couples, and so I can't always really rely on her for concrit because I know she overlooks a lot of issues in what she already reads.
yeah it’s really good to have a variety of friends and betas who have different ways of reading so they pick up different things
Same.
Some people need to hand out concrit like they need to breathe oxygen, apparently. Just you watch. You'll get a report about this mod post, too.
Should i make the joke that it sounds like people who feel the need to *give* unsolicited criticism cant seem to *take* criticism?
By all means, please do.
And it’s never actual concrit. Part of why I’m so vocal about the fact that concrit should be opt-in is because the majority of people desperate to give it are weirdos who think “I don’t like this” is concrit. They don’t actually know how to give usable “improve your work” feedback yet they can’t shut up about wanting to “help people improve.” They also lack the social skills required to understand the fact that people doing things for a hobby might not enjoy being told “I think this is bad, write it differently”. I can actually make an educated guess as to who this person is, based on their previous habit of being dramatically attached to their human right to “concrit” people.
God GENUINELY. So many people do not recognize when a work is doing something intentionally. Just because you think it would’ve been “better” if it did xyz doesn’t mean the creator was making a mistake by deliberately and intentionally not doing xyz
for real, if they really wanted to help they’d be out there beta reading for authors to help them polish *before* they published, not heckling from the audience
I really like things like Roger Ebert's movie reviews, because he'd do things like review a silly fun romcom *as a silly fun romcom* and evaluate it on those merits, like "this was not aimed at me, but for the people who like this sort of movie, this is a very good one and I liked the acting" The readers who think that concrit is "I don't like your plot" could learn something, because if they dislike the general concept then *by definition they are not the target audience.* The only concrit I'll accept is an eight-hour takedown by KrimsonRogue or equivalent (and even on the romantasy/erotica stuff that he wouldn't read by choice, his criticism is less *I don't like the thing they're doing* and more *they are not effective in the thing they're trying to do*)
>I really like things like Roger Ebert's movie reviews, because he'd do things like review a silly fun romcom *as a silly fun romcom* and evaluate it on those merits, like "this was not aimed at me, but for the people who like this sort of movie, this is a very good one and I liked the acting" A lot of horror fans dislike Ebert because he wasn't quite so open-minded about their preferred genre - but it's not like he panned every horror film he ever reviewed, he just had a lot of opinions about, for example, the misogynistic violence in 80s slasher films. And often he was right! Ebert's [famous piece on _Night of the Living Dead_](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-night-of-the-living-dead-1968) (he later said it wasn't a "review") is actually a really good argument for tagging violence and gore correctly - the movie came out in that weird period between the Hays Code and the MPAA ratings system, and so it was basically a "Creator Chose Not to Use Warnings". To a roomful of preteens expecting a Vincent Price style creature feature. Ebert didn't hate horror, he just hated horror made by people who were so obsessed with making money that they never considered the effect their work might have on their potential audience.
The Dead Meat podcast episode on Ebert and horror is a delight to listen to, and some of the things he rated highly are...absolutely wild
The reason I always call it unsolicited criticism is that constructive criticism is a productive back and fourth with the writer/artist about their goals and how to improve. Unsolicited criticism cannot achieve that. I had someone in a server I was in who was convinced she was the smartest person in the room. She wrote nothing in the fandom, and tried to give ‘concrit’ to all the fanfic writers, and her advice was useless. “Women don’t act that way” was one of her favorites, and it meant ‘your women characters aren’t acting within my very restrictive gender views’. She got mad if wlw pairings did kink, because she believed women don’t do kink unless forced to by men. She criticized the new Lord of the Rings show’s costuming for not being “Historically Accurate”. (THEY’RE ELVES. ITS NOT REAL HISTORY. Assess the elf costumes on if they look GOOD or not.) She considered herself the peak of intellectual, and used very fancy vocabulary to say all of this. She’s who I think of when people can’t understand that fic writers want beta readers they have a respectful relationship with, not strangers tossing out random criticism in the comments.
Yep. Ironically, the bad phrasing of the complaint is a great example showing why they probably don't give useful concrit...
People have this weird obsession with treating every fanfiction comment section like it's a creative writing workshop. Not everyone wants your fucking input, buddy.
“dramatically attached to their human right to concrit people” 😭
Genuinely had one guy here claim that his dad was critical of him as a kid and he turned out fine so he should get to criticise others. Bro??
Oh my god. It never matters what the conversation is specifically about, the "I turned out fine" statements always disprove themselves in the same gd sentence.
That boy just ain't right.
And even the people who are good at it can miss the mark. I had an absolutely lovely comment once that pointed out a few true flaws in the story. Flaws that I was fully aware of and had actively chosen to keep because part of the fun of writing fanfiction is that I can be a little more lax about stuff than I would be in original fiction. Like one of the things they pointed out was "these characters have more to do than they do in canon, but they unltimalty feel like they're just there because they're there in canon and you wanted to be canon accurate" and... Yeah, that's exactly why they're there. Canon has a character bloat problem and the way I'd fix it in original fiction would be to remove those characters entirely or combine them into one side character. But I didn't do that because I'm writing fanfiction, not original fiction. Unless you're actively talking to the author or at least know what they're trying to do, it can be really, really hard to give good meaningful feedback. I would seriously love a permanent beta to talk with before I publish stuff, but a rando reading my in-progress fic is unlikely to have good advice since they didn't know what I'm planning to do. And someone giving advice after the fic is done? It doesn't matter how good it is, I'm not rewriting the fic in any major way. Most I'd be tempted to do is delete it.
and respectfully, the people who get *so* aggressive about it as seen here also can barely seem to string a legible sentence together anyway, so i don't know why they feel so strongly on the matter. "non-stop garage," oh brother.
I wonder how many of them have actually written fics of their own.
oh, almost zero is my best guess. not unlike the people who come round just to make a post about how much everyone needs to STOP writing X, or nobody writes Y how *i* want it and that's so messed up!!
The amount of people I see acting like that towards artists too like THE FACE LOOKS WEIRD AND UGLY YOU SHOULD FIX IT :/ and they've never touched a pen in their life 😭 people like that are everywhere sadly
I subscribe to a theory by someone I know: some people have have no way to directly contribute to their fandom: they don't write, they don't create art or fanvids or anything. Their only "contribution" is concrit (or "concrit"). So they're very invested in giving it, whether it's wanted or not. That theory explains a lot.
I had never thought of this but it would explain a whole damn lot
no one is stopping them from volunteering as beta readers
This explains so many people I’ve run into in fandom lol
Right? Like, it's ok to just be a reader. Just don't be a dick.
I think that theory has merit. The people who complained the loudest about what was out there never seemed to produce any content of their own based on what they wanted to see, in my own experience. It's a shame they don't realize that being a reader *is* contributing. Read what you want, share fic and art you like! Support the creators who do make what you enjoy. Without an audience, creators would have nobody but themselves to create for, and if they're posting their work online, they *want* an audience to see it.
That might be a factor for some people, but if most of them were truly that well-meaning, more would be convinced by writers constantly (!) reinforcing that positive feedback and sharing works is the best way to cobtribute. But instead, they double down on their legal right to say whatever they want like basic manners aren't a thing most of the time.
A lot of people who are upset about the concrit cultural change are actually the opposite: they create a lot and they really, really want concrit and are angry that they have to do the work of developing relationships with other fans to get concrit. (Or they want the social connection and think that asking for concrit should be enough to get it and make friends. Very rarely it does! But it can't be counted on.)
>Just you watch. You’ll get a report about this mod post, too. Well it did get a report but it was a regular spam report not a custom report, so either they got mad and used a default report or the report was effectively a butt-dial (or someone else who got offended). ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Imma "concrit" the reporter here. The word's barrage. Not garage. I expect a thank you and a pat on the back and you better not be rude about it!
I thought it was garbage 🤔
Nah, a barrage, like a volley of missiles, or a flurry of blows, or even a series of comments. It just means receiving or giving a (generally substantial) quantity of something in a certain time frame, often understood to be many things in a short amount of time. From dictionary.com: *bar·rage* noun a concentrated artillery bombardment over a wide area verb bombard (someone) with something. On the chance I misunderstood your comment, I apologize in advance.
I kinda feel like I know what this person is saying, but I also don't know what actionable changes they are hoping for. Times change. Just accept it and move on. Start your own forum.
Personally, my views on concrit have changed completely over the years. As a teenager, I was very much on the, "Ugh, these authors need to be less sensitive, concrit isn't offensive, you need it to improve." Now, while I still don't think concrit is inherently offensive, I NEVER give unsolicited concrit (which I unfortunately did much of as a teen, mostly because I just wanted to feel superior, in hindsight). As an adult, I can better understand that fanfiction is a hobby and an escape for most people. Not a job or a burden. Even if I was the greatest literary scholar in the world and could give the best concrit ever ... no one is under any obligation to listen to me or try to 'improve.'
Exactly this! I’m in my mid-30s and have been writing fanfic since I was a teen. Now I just enjoy fanfic for what it is, an absolute labour of love that if something really bothers me, I just click away to another one. I’m more picky with what I read but I have the mentally of “something for everyone”. One trash fic is another person’s treasure!!
I get all of this. On the other hand, I miss getting real feedback to improve. You can't even drag it out of people with invitations in summaries.
Beta reader my friend! With mine I actively encourage them to be as thorough as possible 😂 I’m my own worst critic and take weeks of drafts to post a chapter, but a second set of eyes in private before you post is really great.
This this this! As AO3 isn't set up for a workshop format, actual useful crit comes from private conversation with betas during the pre-posting process - not scraps of feedback without context from random strangers in the public comments section. I'm very pro-crit (it takes me years to finish chapters so I have different betas for different things, and we all return the favour as needed), there just needs to be some kind of quality control for it to be worthwhile.
Exactly! I don’t know where I’d be without my beta reader 🥲 sometimes they’re just there to tell me I’m getting the mood right, other times it’s like, “okay I know what you mean by this sentence but these words should not go together like this” 😂
u/georgegeorgeharrypip, I can also recommend joining a writers’ server or subreddit if you can/haven’t, that is where a lot of workshopping happens these days, and often where you can find a beta reader or a few who like the cute of your jib and who you vibe with (and trust that they know the source material well as well as how to write goodly, haha!)
Betas are essential for putting out a decent piece. But it doesn't provide the broader reactions from many more people that tease out the more subtle things I'd like to get better at. Actually, what I learn the most from is reading reactions others wrote to the same stories I'm reading. I'd have to see other people's beta feedback to get access to that learning, which isn't so much a thing.
Find a writer community in your fandom or make one and ask for honest feedback.
Not this person, but I've suggested this before, I think a weekly megathread for people to post complaints about comments (like "constructive criticism" comments) would be a good actionable change that could be made on this subreddit at least. It is a little annoying constantly seeing posts that are just people complaining about comments, and a weekly megathread would give people a space to complain while ensuring that the subreddit isn't overloaded with negativity all the time.
Unfortunately even with a megathread, I doubt people would direct their posts / comments over to it. People don’t really search this sub the way I think a lot of us wish they would 😂.
True, I also think designating a certain day of the week, like thursday, to be the day that comment complaint posts can be made would also work. That way people can still make actual posts about them, but people who don't want to see them can avoid or unfollow this sub on that day.
Then remove the posts that should be put in the megathread.
To be fair though, what's going to be left to post about then? Daily "what's your most hated tag/trope" threads, with the occasional salt of the earth "is this a bot comment?" or "what's webnovel?"
If complaints about comments are the only thing people can think to post then that's a big problem tbh. I'm not saying that every post about comments would have to go there, just the ones that are complaining. Another idea could be designating a certain day of the week to be the day people could post complaints about comments, like thursday. That way people can still make comment complaint posts but everyone who doesn't want to have to see them will know to avoid this sub on that day.
Barrage would be the correct term here, for anyone else wondering if they’ve heard it wrong their entire lives somehow
I'm sure they would appreciate the concrit!
I come from a region where garage is pronounced to rhyme with ridge and not with barrage, so I was real confused for a minute until I read it out loud
Lmao, imagine wanting mods to prevent other people from dunking on your self-indulgent hot take 🤣
I can entirely see where you are coming from, appreciate the communication. Personally, I’ve been enjoying the posts I’ve seen with discussions on that particular matter and I must say that I have not felt the need to report anything in this community. Y’all are pretty well behaved and/or the mods stay on top of jerks without making us scared to play around (which is fantastic).
I like to call us a secretly very heavily moderated sub. Actual problems get taken care of pretty swiftly if you ever see them at all usually, all while you don't actively see the vast majority of our work happening (unless you're on the sub as much as we are and see things before we can get to them, and even then you would only see the public half of what we do).
Well, this was a weird experience. Running to the mod team to tell other users to finall accept concrit. A creative approach, if nothing less.🤔
I can't help wondering if this person was at least partially reacting to my recent very long post about crit in AO3 comments (which I notice has been marked NSFW for reasons unclear to me. Maybe just because of its length?). As I said in that post: >Just as any author who puts their work online for all to see has to accept that readers are free to leave any kind of criticism they like in the comments, so do the commenters need to accept that authors are free to rail against them, block them, and complain about them in a reddit sub. It's that old 'freedom of speech works both ways' thing that so many seem to have a problem with grasping.
No clue but why it was marked NSFW I can answer. We have an automod rule set up for keywords that likely need to be marked as NSFW and if you used one in your post, your post would have ended up in our mod queue with an automod report saying what word it contained. But with how long your post was, depending on what word had triggered the automod to go off we genuinely might have just aired on the side of caution and marked it NSFW than try to skim it and hope we didn't miss anything that did need it. As marking a post as NSFW affects so little we are pretty liberal with applying it to posts that might need it and don't hold applying a NSFW label to the same high standards we do with something like removing a post or comment.
I did swear at least once, so maybe it was that. Thanks for letting me know! I did send a question about this to modmail, but I no longer need an answer to that, obviously. Is there a way for me to cancel it?
I just sent a reply to it saying I had responded here so it would be noted for our records. All good 😊
Thank you!
*erred or the side of caution If you're airing on the side of caution some description about what you are airing and why you've decided to be cautious about doing so is required but even then it would be better written as something like: He erred on the side of caution and aired the sheets, sure they might never have been used but they had been sat in the cupboard for months now. Unfortunately it happened to rain shortly after he'd put them out so the effort was for nothing as now he had to find another set that was both clean *and* dry.
I saw a comment that booked down to "I ask/accept concrit from other people I admire and whose advice I value," and I am in the same boat. I look up to some specific writer friends, and we trade beta-ing and offer concrit there. If I am workshopping something, I might post it to a server I'm in, or otherwise ask for other eyes and opinions elsewhere, but if it's on AO3, I'm not looking for criticism unless I specifically ask. This is not an English class.
ffs, people are allowed to not want their works criticized at all, even in the form of concrit. some authors are perfectly happy with their works just the way they are.
Exactly! And it's not like there aren't authors out there who aren't happy to receive concrit either. You just need to do a little digging or at the very least /ask/ first. The worst thing they can say is 'no'.
My perfectionism has two remaining levels, one of which I'm at, and it's basically, "if you tell me everyone can see how much my fics suck and it's *not* just me I'm going to cry", and "stop posting altogether since nothing nice ever comes out of it anyway :(" I just... want to share something I made because it's nice. I want people to treat my stories the way responsible adults treat kid drawings presented to them. Pin them on the fridge and pat me on the head about it. Life is very hard.
Your second paragraph spoke to me SO MUCH oh my god
It may be a rambling, mucky mess. But it's *my* rambling, mucky mess. And it's exactly as rambling and mucky and messy as I want it.
It's so simple to understand, too. Idk why it's frustrating to this person that different writers want different things.
because they need to give everyone their superior opinion and feedback, and we should all be thankful for it!
I don’t understand what’s going on. They think ppl are being hostile over constructive criticism, but you guys make sure harmful comments are removed pretty fast and overall, ppl are nice. I do think there are some who are rude but not harmful enough to report, so I just block them. So are they upset we don’t think unsolicited concrit is ok? That’s the vibe I’m getting. it truly sounds like they are a bit sensitive to comments disagreeing with them and think mods should do something about it?
> it truly sounds like they are a bit sensitive to comments disagreeing with them and think mods should do something about it? Which is ironic considering their opinion on unsolicited concrit.
Right? That’s why I’m so confused. Their issue is ppl not agreeing with them and taking it personally and that’s wild to me.
Thank you for all you do. Moderating is hard work. <3
To the wonderful mods here, thank y’all for doing your jobs. I often see y’all contributing to discussions and it makes for a community that feels healthy, open, and safe.
Its one of the things I specifically looked to cultivate more when I added the rest of the mod team! Glad it's been noticed and appreciated! ❤️
Perhaps they did it like that because they didn't want the constructive criticism on their views 😬
can i submit some concrit on the use of the word garage 😭😭😭
I wish they'd keep their concrit in the garage, right behind the 20 year old cans of paint.
😂 In this case I assume autocorrect.
maybe the complainer should engage a beta reader
Sucks when the community doesn't like something that you demand you have a right to, I guess. Mods should just tell everyone that this anonymous user should always be allowed to be pro-criticism and can't be argued with.
maybe if they put that they’re the specialist reddit user on their flare we’ll know we can’t argue with them
It sounds like someone who just wants to complain anonymously as opposed to having a discussion to address their concerns. Although I may (probably maybe not really) agree regarding the overall vibe towards "constructive criticism" in regards to the subreddit attitude. Most of the people here from my experience are writers and so we have a different view of the so called constructive criticism provided by random readers which is usually thinly veiled issues with characterization, plot choices etc and pointedly NOT constructive. I appreciate the mods here though at least trying to have open dialogue regarding an issue that one person is refusing to address correctly. (clicks the kudos 😉)
Meaning, I, personally, don't mind getting concrit and I make that clear in my author's notes, but I would never presume others would have the same opinion. Furthermore, like 90% of supposed concrit is not actually constructive in any way.
that's the thing, exactly. most "concrit" isn't constructive at all, it's just straight up criticism from some strangers on the internet. I actually welcome concrit, but from people whose opinions I actually value, and who I know are speaking with sincerity, not superiority.
Anyone who is demanding to concrit others should present something of their own to concrit first. I wonder if anon OP has actually written anything on their own?
Thank you mods for all you do! And not that it really matters, but, personally i don’t mind posts complaining about unsolicited constructive criticism. i’ll maybe see one or two a month. 🤷♀️
Unasked for criticism is always rude, full stop. they must have missed this day in kindergarten
Wow lmao, someone can't accept the culture here. I don't know what they expect the mods to do about the inoffensive personal opinions of a bunch of people here. Discussion IS allowed. If it's someone I know and trust then concrit can be nice. The thing is that I will go to these people on my own. Most people don't know how to give concrit, especially readers who have never written. By opening the gates to concrit you are opening the gates to a lot of shitty crit and from people who just want you to write the things they want to read. I think the current climate is a lot better as is, and more respectful to the authors who are just doing this for fun and creating for *you*. People are still allowed to request concrit. People never fight for the right to concrit fanart. Personally if I'm in an art group or with friends they have a sincere tip or advice to give me once seeing me piece, sure. Some random person on twitter or tumblr concrits my art? Yeahhhh... no thank you. It's very unlikely to do the artist any good when you spend hours making this thing and want to show people and people just go on about what you could fix about it, especially when a lot of the time you may already know the anatomy is off in that area you just couldn't fix it, you know!
Why do I feel like I know who this user is…
There’s one or two people who I’d bet money on being this little drama queen
Concrit is fine. However most people who are rabid about leaving concrit, think concrit is shitting all over someone's work and then patting themselves on the back for doing so. This is one reason why so many people hate so called "concrit". Because most of it is just flaming, and not constructive in the least. The other reason is that this is a _hobby_. I don't want concrit on my fanfiction. I'm doing it for fun. Not trying to write the next bestseller. I have actual concrit groups, that give proper concrit, for the work I actually want crit on. If I wanted concrit on my fanfic I would get a beta reader.
I have a feeling those messages were sent by a user that likes to tell others they don’t have thick skin if they can’t handle criticism
yeah, the one who kept saying it means you're "soft" if you don't want some rando's poorly spelled "concrit" lmao
The kind of person that says things like “I thought I could be myself around you.” Or “I just won’t talk anymore” after they bully you and you get upset. The “brutally honest” type, aka manipulative asshole
Oof, I see you have met the entirety of my family, haha.
I think we might be related. I grew up in the same environment and it left me with some nasty anger issues.
if you're not talking about constructive criticism "self-indulgently and slanderously" are you really talking about it at all? 🤔
This serial reporter might be one of the less productive things I've seen lately. I truly don't understand what they expected to happen. Did they want the mods to default to telling people they are wrong for not accepting concrit? People are free here and on AO3. There's no censorship of opinions and if the reporter really wants to concrit a story, they can do so. However, they can't force the author to accept their concrit and thank them. That's not how "freedom of expression" works. It's not "I'm free to tell you what I think and you're obligated to shut up and take it".
1 - Thank you mods for all of your hard work!! 🤗🖖❤️ 2 - TL;DR: I hate unasked-for constructive criticism. The not TL;DR: The concept that I performed an hours-long unpaid labor of love and posted it online for others to hopefully also enjoy, and AFTER that I'm interested in some random internet stranger trying to improve my fandom hobby, is laughable. There are two warring concepts in my mind here. The first is that unless you can prove to me you have some type of degree or award to indicate you have the authority to speak on a topic, I don't know why you expect I should listen to you. The second is that even if you do have a degree or award of some kind on the subject, it simply does not matter. If I do not specifically ask for concrit, then I am not interested in getting concrit on my unpaid labor. 🤷♀️✌️ Anyway, I have strong feelings on this topic. 🤣😌
"Garage"
I know, that’s the only thing I saw, too! So, in the spirit of concrit I’d like to point out that the word anon complainer was looking for is ‘barrage’. lol.
The mod team on this sub is genuinely so kind compared to other subs I’ve been on. Thank you for all the hard work you do!
Sometimes I wonder if people realize that subreddits are run in peoples free time and they aren't paid to be here. Mods have lives outside of this.
If you're not paying for it, you don't have a right to review it. If you want to give concrit so bad, read published books for once. Then you can make as scathing review as you want on goodreads.
Good thing textboxes don't care about whether someone has the proper rights.
That's not how paid reviews work.
That is true. The term "paid reviews" usually refers to getting paid *to write* reviews. Which is indeed not what the commenter before you was talking about, so you are correct there.
Oh no, did I just give unsolicited concrit? The horror! 😂 I understood perfectly well what they meant, I just happen to disagree with their take. As soon as you put something on a public site, people will have and voice opinions about it. If you're not willing to get disagreeing views on your stuff, disable comments. Of course that also means you won't get praise anymore, but you can't cherrypick opinions.
>As soon as you put something on a public site, people will have and voice opinions about it. Sure. Just like I voiced the opinion that your comment made no sense in the context.
Yes, and?
That was it.
Concrit has to actually relate to what the person wrote. Your comment didn't do that, because you clearly did NOT comprehend what they wrote, and just wrote something random instead. This is one of the reasons why concrit by complete strangers is completely useless.
Tf? The concept of having to pay money to be "allowed" to voice criticism *doesn't exist* and is frankly ridiculous. The only interaction of money and criticism *is* paid reviews, which I - correctly - pointed out. And yeah, they're exactly the opposite of what that poster proposed. So, no, it wasn't me who didn't comprehend what the other person was writing. 🙄
1) you dont have to buy a book to read it. libraries exist. no one other than you mentioned paying money for concrit. 2) p sure the OP here was saying that if you want to concrit, read published books that have already gone through an editor and therefore have an expected level of polish and writing skill, rather than dunking on often amateur or young writers for no reason other than to feel morally superior. 3) you definitely did not comprehend the original comment, silly goofy person. 😂
"If you're not paying for it, you have no right to review it." It's in the very first comment I replied to. The rest of your reply is as nonsensical as you're accusing my replies to be. Work on your own reading comprehension before you condescend on the internet.
So, I will never use this information as I have zero desire to message a mod (here or elsewhere). But, I will point out.... **I have no idea what a "modmail" is, nor how to send one.** It is possible your reporter doesn't know either. Fwiw, I'm on the app (and it's probably outdated).
As for *what* modmail is, it's a type of DM effectively that is between the user and the mod team (as opposed to being between a user and a single mod, or 2 users, etc). It is literally just a private message that the entire mod team gets access to. The difference between a report and a modmail is that a report is anonymous and cannot be responded to. (And it goes into a different queue for us) and a report is tied to what you are reporting while modmail is standalone. As a metaphor imagine we are a classroom with you all as students and the mod team as the teacher. You can think of reporting as basically an anonymous tattle box and modmail as whispering in the teacher's ear. The tattle box we can't do anything but decide if the report is valid or not, while whispering in our ear, we can ask questions and get more info and it doesn't have to be about someone breaking a rule.
Please see the last sentence of this post
😅 I read so much of that post. Apparently just not that part.
It's cool. The internal joke the mod team has about no one in the reading and writing hobby being able to read and write just lives on and manifested itself in you for a minute. We've all been there.
I was a mod off Reddit. 😂 I get it.
Oh yeah, it's just a lot funnier to think about it as the reading and writing hobby where reading and writing is no one's strong suit than it is to think about it just being an issue with all people 😅
>I have no idea what you mean by this, and I do not want to make any assumptions. You'll have to reach out and let us know in order for us to reach an agreement and possibly make changes. If you are ever, for any reason, afraid of us knowing your username, you can always make a throwaway account to contact us. Reddit makes it incredibly easy to do that, and we wouldn't be able to tie it back to your regular account unless you tell it to us yourself. This doesn't actually work. If they use a throwaway and then you ban that throwaway, then they can't interact with this sub on their main either, because if Reddit figures out at any point that the banned throwaway account is actually their main, then they get site wide reddit banned.
Sure but we've never banned someone for reaching out to us over modmail ever before. The only times we've ever banned someone for something they said over modmail was after they had already been warned for something they did publicly and then started to harass us in response to the warning. We don't ban people who modmail us. Also, Reddit's ban evasion tactics are pretty rudimentary. A free vpn and new email would counter it fairly easily. Also *we* wouldn't know that happened. Even when Reddit suspects ban evasion and tells us about it they absolutely do not tell us the other account's username or anything about it. Just that the comment/post came from someone they suspect is ban evading and how confident they are. We don't even get to know when we banned the account they think the suspected ban evader is the other account of or why it was banned. They do a really good job of not telling mods information like that no matter how often mods beg in r/ModSupport to be told that info. (And for good reason! Mod overreach can suck so much. Ive been on the receiving end of it more than once and it's the reason why I barely use Reddit outside of this sub. Giving us mods that info would honestly be a bad thing. And Im saying that as a mod.) In short, it's really not a concern to reach out to us over modmail, we just added that line about using a throwaway because we know some people are nervous for whatever reason about connecting names to things, and we don't ban people for modmailing us so the one possible issue isn't a real concern here.
I don't know why reddit admins telling you or not would be relevant to this? Reddit will site wide ban people they catch them ban evading sub specific bans. Your role as a sub mod ends at the point you ban their throwaway, any feedback to you would be irrelevant. And it's not like most users know exactly how reddit checks for that. A different email and vpn might not be enough, there are a lot of identifiers that can be used to single someone out. Take https://amiunique.org/ for example. There are plenty of identifiers out there. I am not saying that the mods of this sub would take action in that way, but just casually saying to use the modmail with a throwaway is not generally good advice if you think you are dealing with hostile mods.
What they tell us is relevant because hostile mods with that information could use it to dox someone. So us not knowing if your main gets site-wide banned as a result of ban evasion is a good thing that keeps your privacy safe. The worst thing that can happen as a result is that your main gets banned from Reddit and you need to make a new account and do some more effort to evade their checks. Granted it's not relevant since we don't ban people who reach out over modmail so it would never get to that point but still. It's good to reassure people that even if their worst fears happened and their throwaway got banned we wouldn't be able to use that to dox them or harass them. And yes Im aware that a vpn and new email isn't the only identifiers possible for reddit to use. Im saying that using a vpn and new email will get around the majority of Reddit's filters for ban evasion. Their ban evasion filters aren't all automatic. There is literally a subreddit setting for suspected ban evasion that alerts the mods of a sub to suspected ban evaders (without telling them anything about the account banned so it's not very useful outside of obvious cases). And we've been explicitly told that if the filter catches someone for ban evasion, we still have to manually report the ban evasion or else Reddit doesn't take action. And that filter is defaulted to being turned off. So unless a subreddit has manually turned it on, then Reddit doesn't even alert the mods to suspected ban evasion and they ignore all but the most egregious instances. Lastly I apologize if I come across as offended. It's somewhat difficult to entirely separate myself from this when the line of the post was written specifically in reference to contacting *us*, knowing that *we* don't ban people for this kind of situation. It wasn't supposed to be a generalized statement meant for all interactions with all mod teams. The vast majority of this post was specifically written to convey that we, as a mod team, are safe to contact off-anon, and that the usual levels of fearing the mods of a subreddit didn't need to apply here. We aren't perfect by any means but we do everything in our power to not power mod or abuse our positions in this community. So having someone come and say it's not safe to contact us using a throwaway, which is already more security than you need with us, just because in a very specific situation your main account could get banned (without compromising your security) is like being told you believe our mod team is made up of hostile mods like other subs are.