longlivefeedback:

ao3commentoftheday:

BIG, HUGE thanks to @rollychan for crunching the numbers and making the charts. This data is based on 4,639 respondents to the kudos poll.

What do kudos mean?

Respondents were able to select all meanings that apply to them.

According to people who self-identify as readers:

1872 mean “This fic was awesome! I loved it!”

966 mean “I recommend this story!”

1494 mean “Thank you so much for sharing your story!”

1238 mean “Good job”

103 mean “It was okay, but not good enough for me to comment”

571 mean “I finished the entire story”

According to people who self-identify as writers:

12 mean “This fic was awesome! I loved it!”

8 mean “I recommend this story!”

13 mean “Thank you so much for sharing your story!”

17 mean “Good job”

11 mean “It was okay, but not good enough for me to comment”

10 mean “I finished the entire story”

According to people who self-identify as both readers and writers:

922 mean “This fic was awesome! I loved it!”

496 mean “I recommend this story!”

790 mean “Thank you so much for sharing your story!”

724 mean “Good job”

155 mean “It was okay, but not good enough for me to comment”

324 mean “I finished the entire story”

The poll currently has 10,160 respondents. I am going to stop accepting responses at this point and link these results. I hope you find this as interesting as I do! I learned a thing!

These results are very interesting, and so I decided to run a couple of tests to determine whether these differences are statistically significant – that is, what is the probability that these numbers look like they’re indicating differences between readers and authors, but it’s actually due to random chance?

To do this, I used the socsstatistics’ Chi Square calculator to perform a test for independence. Because there were so few people who identified themselves as only writers, I only looked at the “Readers” and the “Reader-Writers” numbers.

For each option (this fic is awesome, good job, I finished the story, etc), I reformatted the answers into yes/no questions using the total number for each category, provided by @rollychan.

As an example: These figures include a total of 4,369 respondents, and 2,073 people identified themselves as only readers. Out of these, 1,872 people selected “This fic was awesome, I loved it!” as an answer, and 201 did not. Thus, we have 1,872 “yes” responses and 201 “no” responses to the question “Do you use the kudos option to mean ‘this fic was awesome, I loved it’?”

Because we have a large sample size, I’m setting the alpha threshold at p < 0.05. That is, there has to be less than a 5% probability that these results happened due to chance, and a 95% probability that these results mean there is an actual difference between the answer from Readers (2073 total) and Reader-Writers (2514 total).

Results

“This fic is awesome, I loved it!” – there is a difference (p < 0.01)

“I recommend this story” – there is a difference (p < 0.01)

“Thank you for sharing your story” – there is a difference (p < 0.01)

“Good job” – there is a difference (p < 0.01)

“It was okay, but not good enough for me to comment” – these data do not show a significant difference (p = 0.08)

“I finished this story” – there is a difference (p < 0.01)

So, interesting! There has been some discussion as to whether authors attribute less positive meanings to kudos than people who are only readers, and the answer to that appears to be a firm yes.

However, a lot of focus has been put on the “it was okay, but not good enough for me to comment” meaning on kudos (which, I would like to point out that only around 5% of Readers and 6% of Reader-Writers selected “yes” as a response). Is there a significant difference in the responses of these two sets of kudos-givers? With these data, we find that the answer is no. The p value is quite close to the threshold, but nowhere near the results for the other questions. So, while it may be indicating a trend, it would be interesting to see if repeating this test with the full set of 10k+ answers would give us something different!

– Rose

I love me some stats. And I love even more people who do the stats work for me 🙂 This is FANTASTIC. Thank you so much!

Source: ao3commentoftheday

ao3commentoftheday:

There is no one meaning behind hitting that kudos button, but we all think we know what it means. I’ve created a poll to see how people view kudos, and whether those opinions vary between readers and writers.

If you have a minute, please click here and answer the two questions. I’ll share any results that I get.

This poll does not track email addresses or ask for any personal information. It is set to allow you to see the responses of others.

I keep seeing posts from writers saying they don’t like kudos and they only want comments. I thought kudos were a good thing?

ao3commentoftheday:

unforth-ninawaters:

flyingcatstiel:

ao3commentoftheday:

Kudos are a good thing.

I get excited by my AO3 “You’ve got kudos!” just like I do for comments, and I know other writers do too. I think the issue stems from a difference in perspective between writers and their audiences.

Writers see giving kudos as meaning, “This fic meets my minimum requirements for liking a thing. It’s not great, but it’s not that bad. I can give it a thumbs up, sure. Why not?”

On the other hand, readers often mean, “This was great! I really liked it! Good job, Author! Thumbs up for you!”

Because authors know how important feedback is to us, we tend to write comments for the good stories and kudos for the “okay” ones. If we don’t like it at all, we pretend we never read it by doing neither.

Unfortunately, we assume readers approach things the same way. That’s why we can sometimes be dismissive of kudos. We’re looking at it from our perspective rather than from the reader’s.

This is also why we get discouraged if we have 1000 hits and 20 kudos. To us, that means that 980 people didn’t feel like our story met the bare minimum requirement to be considered “okay.”

This is such a fascinating discussion. As a redear/fic reccer I have never ever imagined that authors treat kudos as
“This fic meets my minimum requirements for liking a thing. It’s not great, but it’s not that bad. I can give it a thumbs up, sure. Why not?” This thought is an eye opener and a little bit of a bummer, tbh.

I personally give kudo when I liked/ loved the fic and want to support the author. Maybe I’m spoiled because my OTP has too many fics on AO3 and I can easily ignore fics that meet my minimum requirement? Also, as a reader, I see kudos as a bat-signal to other readers – come here, read this fic! A good amount of kudos tells that this fic is appreciated by many readers. I’m not saying that a lot of into kudos = good fic (or even the fic I will like), that is not the case. Still, a lot of readers pay attention to the amount of kudos, not comments, when deciding to read a fic. So, for me it boils down to comments are personal and emotional (and then the discussion about how authors respond to comments is important) and kudos is my thank you to the author + me giving boost to the fic to get more readers.

I’ve read some discussions on anon meme about kudo vs comments practices.. And yes, some readers will leave kudo if they simply managed to finish the fic, others treat kudos as a thumbs up, good job! button only when they liked the fic. And some folks said that they leave kudos if the fic was adequate and comment if they really loved the fic, but they don’t give kudos when they comment (since kudo is impersonal). I wonder how writers feel about getting a lovely comment but not kudo from the same reader?

Nearly every writer I know, myself included, has said to me at one or another that we ourselves kudos as a “this fic meets minimum standards.” Basically any fic I finish, I kudos. I now try to comment also, and if it’s a friend I comment as much as I can (often every chapter).

Honestly I’ve never once checked to see if someone who left a comment also left kudos. A comment is enough for me, even if that happened I don’t think I’d mind. (But it’s impossible to tell especially if the comment is anon, they might have left guest kudos…)

But basically: as a writer the original reply completely reflects how I feel about it. Kudos are awesome, I do love them, but it’s not the same…

Thanks for your additions, and for answering the person above.

dollypopup:

kellifer-k:

peoriarhetoriapeoria:

ionaonie:

solarcat:

pheuthe:

thebestpersonherelovesbucky:

brendaonao3:

ferlocke:

thesecondsealwrites:

siawrites:

anglofile:

hedwig-dordt:

tygermama:

bewaretheides315:

xcziel:

et-in-arkadia:

those ao3 “kudos” emails where someone has gone through and read pretty much all of your stories, one after the other: blessings upon you and your household

don’t authors find that weird though? i don’t do that, just because i always figured it might seem stalkery, going story by story through people’s older work (which of course i do ~all the time~ because awesome fic is addictive)

if people are happy to have the kudos, i will totally start leaving them as i read

I mean, I can only speak for myself here, but no, I don’t find it creepy. Someone I’ve never met going through my old instagram selfies and systematically liking them – creepy. Someone I’ve never met obsessively reading my old fics and liking them – my favorite person of the day. Just MHO.

seeing the same person’s name on a string of kudos for your fics because they’ve obviously read through your back catalogue is one of life’s great joys

xcziel, there’s nothing I like more as a writer than someone who is obviously reading everything.

Well, maybe comments. Yes, on old fic too.

I once (back on lj) had someone comment on every single chapter of a fic I wrote in one evening. It was the most thrilling night of my fanfic career. I didn’t feel creepy in the least.

COMMENT. I don’t care how old it is or how many chapters a reader comments on.

The only thing that might possibly be more flattering is the “I stayed up all night because I couldn’t stop reading” comment.

Yes, please.

YES ALL OF THIS

all of this

Reblogging because readers somehow still have this idea that too many comments/kudos are seen as creepy or stalkery.
IT’S NOT.
Seriously. Every comment, all of the kudos, they’re greatly, GREATLY appreciated. And knowing that someone liked your work enough to click on your name and go through your other fics and liked those too, even the old stuff you’re kind of self-conscious about, is the greatest feeling a writer can have. So if you like a fic, say something/leave kudos, no matter if it’s the first or fifth fanfic you’ve read in one night from that author.

I LOVE when I get an email where it’s the same name, like a dozen or more times because they went through and read like, /everything I ever wrote/ apparently. It makes me so happy! 😀

Multiple kudos and/or lots of comments are the best thing ever

Not at all creepy. It’s like, they are reading, get to the end, said they liked it, and Prove they liked it because they read another and liked that…

And yes, it’s just as fun to see this with old stories. Maybe even more?

The other thing that is super nice? When someone comments and says, hey, I tried to kudos but I had already kudos’d so I’m commenting to kudos again because I do that ALL THE TIME. I either forgot I’d read this lovely thing and want to kudos again, or I’m doing a re-read of something and I *want* to kudos again. When it happens to me it’s seriously lovely – someone enjoying your stuff enough that they re-read.

I LOVE EVERY LAST PERSON WHO INTERACTS WITH MY FICS

everything-a-wolf-could-want:

paintedrecs:

calpatine:

avoresmith:

genufa:

hannibalsbattlebot:

shellbacker:

saucywenchwritingblog:

I’ve seen five different authors take down, or prepare to take down, their posted works on Ao3 this week. At the same time, I’ve seen several people wishing there was more new content to read. I’ve also seen countless posts by authors begging for people to leave comments and kudos.

People tell me I am a big name fan in my chosen fandom. I don’t quite get that but for the purposes of this post, let’s roll with it. On my latest one shot, less than 18% of the people who read it bothered to hit the kudos button. Sure, okay, maybe that one sort of sucked. Let’s look at the one shot posted before that – less than 16% left kudos. Before that – 10%, and then 16%. I’m not even going to get into the comments. Let’s just say the numbers drop a lot. I’m just looking at one shots here so we don’t have to worry about multiple hits from multiple chapters, people reading previous chapters over, etc. And if I am a BNF, that means other people are getting significantly less kudos and comments.

Fandom is withering away because it feels like people don’t care about the works that are posted. Why should I go to the trouble of posting my stories if no one reads them, and of the people who do read them, less than a fifth like them? Even if you are not a huge fan of the story, if it kept your attention long enough for you to get to the bottom, go ahead and mash that kudos button. It’s a drop of encouragement in a big desert.

TL;DR: Passively devouring content is killing fandom.

Reblogging again

So much this

You know, kudos and comments are much beloved by all esp. yrs truly, but I have to say: I’ve been posting fic for 20 years, and I have never in my entire life had a story stay above a 1:9 kudos to hits ratio (or comments to hits, back when kudo wasn’t an option). Usually they don’t stay above 1:10, once they’ve been around for a few weeks.

I also have a working background in online marketing. In social media 1:10 is what you would call a solid engagement score, when people actually care about your product (as opposed to “liking” your Facebook page so they could join a contest or whatever). If BNFs are getting 1:5 – and I do sometimes see it – that is sky-high engagement. Take any celebrity; take Harry Styles, who has just under 30M followers and doesn’t tweet all that often. He regularly gets 3-400K likes, 1-200K retweets. I’ve seen him get up to just under 1M likes on a tweet. That’s a 1:30 engagement ratio, for Harry Styles, and though some of you guys enjoy my fics and have said so, I don’t think you have as lasting a relationship with my stories as Harry Styles’s fans do with him. XD;

Again, this is not to say we, as readers, should all go home and not bother to kudo or comment or engage with fic writers. That definitely is a recipe for discouraging what you want to see in future. But this is not the first post I’ve seen that suggests a 20% kudo ratio is the equivalent of yelling into the void, and I’m worried that we as writers are discouraging ourselves because our expectations are out of whack.

I think about this a lot, because it’s important to know what a realistic goal to expect from an audience is, even though I admit it definitely is kind of depressing when you look at the numbers. I was doing reading on what sort of money you can expect to make from a successful webcomic, and the general rule of thumb seems to be that if your merchandising is meshing well with your audience, about 1% will give you merch. I imagine ‘subscribe to patreon’ also falls in this general range.

Stuff that is ONLY available for dollars are obviously going to have a different way of measuring this, but when it comes to ‘If people can consume something without engaging back in any fashion (hitting a like button, buying something, leaving a comment)’ the vast majority will.

And as a creator that is frustrating but as a consumer it’s pretty easy to see how it happens. I have gotten steadily worse at even liking posts, much less leaving comments on ones I enjoy, since I started using tumblr. It’s very difficult to engage consistently. I always kudo on any fanfic I read and comment on the vast majority, but then again I don’t read a lot of fanfic, if you are someone who browses AO3 constantly/regularly for months or years, I could see how it’s easy to stop engaging. I don’t remember to like every YT video or tumblr fanart I see, much less comment on them.

When we are constantly consuming free content it’s hard to remember to engage with it or what that engagement means to the creators. And lol, honestly that sucks. Certainly as consumers we should be better about it. But also like, as a creator be kinder to yourself by setting a realistic bar of what you can achieve.

And IMO, if numbers matter to you (kudos, comments, etc) be honest about the fact that you CAN improve those things by marketing yourself better. The ‘I just produced my art and put it out there and got insanely popular because it was just so brilliant’ is less than a one a million chance. Lots of amazing content is overlooked every day because there is a lot of good content and a metric fuckton of mediocre to bad content. You can only SORT of judge the quality of your work based on the audience it generates, but if what you WANT is an audience there is way, way, WAY more you can be doing than simply producing whatever you immediately feel like. Marketing yourself is a skill and if you want the benefits of it you have to practice it.

I have a professional background in internet marketing as my day job and a moderate hobby business. My definition for “moderate” is “it pays for itself, keeps me in product, and occasionally buys groceries.”

In the day job, which is for an extremely large global company, there are entire teams of people whose entire purpose of employment is to ensure a 3% conversion rate. That’s it. That is for a Fortune 100 company: the success metric is for 3% of all visitors to a marketing web site to click the “send me more info” link.

My moderate business that pays for itself has a 0.94% conversion rate of views to orders. Less than 1%, and it’s still worth its time – and this is without me bothering to do any marketing beyond instagram and tumblr posts with new product.

I know it feels like no one is paying attention to you and you’re wasting your time if you don’t get everyone clicking kudos or commenting but I promise, I PROMISE, you are doing fantastically, amazingly well with your 10% rate. You probably aren’t going to go viral AND THAT’S FINE. You’re only hurting yourself if you’re expecting a greater return – don’t call yourself a failure, because you’re NOT. You’re just looking at it the wrong way. I promise, you’re lovely just the way you are.

This entire thing is fascinating to me. Truth is, I don’t even look at the ratio of hits to kudos on my fics. That number’s kinda meaningless to me, because as a reader, I’ve probably been responsible for AT LEAST dozens of hits on each of my favorite fics – for which AO3 only allowed me to leave a single kudos.

I also open fics on multiple devices to read/reread them. I open tabs for fics I intend to look at later and then revisit them (often multiple times) before I get a chance to actually sit down and read them. These things add up.

Hits without equivalent kudos don’t mean people aren’t enjoying a fic. It might be the exact opposite. It might mean you have people who love your fic so much they’ve read it ten times this month – on their laptops, phones, tablets, etc…and ten times the month before.

Kudos and comments mean A LOT. I know this as a writer who gets overwhelmed and excited by every single new comment, bookmark with notes, tumblr tag, and kudos email. But fixating too much on the numbers is a frustrating and futile process. I know it’s hard to not get caught up in that, but it really shouldn’t be something that you let discourage you from continuing to share your work.

The math behind this is really interesting and encouraging. That having been said…

Click the kudos button. Leave comments.
Engage, please. Just because some of us authors/artists will never take our work down, no matter what, doesn’t mean others won’t get discouraged and peace out of fandom if they feel like no one likes their work. When I first joined fandom, like, 15 years ago, pretty much everyone left comments.There was no “kudos” system (though at least one archive I used had a 5-star rating system) so you got way more comments because it was the only feedback option, really. But also, because fandom tended to be more engaged as a whole with its content creators.

Let me put it to you this way: if you can take the time to bitch about how the content you want to see is rare/scarce/you’ve read everything…you can take the time to thank the content creators whose work you’ve consumed. Side benefit? You’re likely to get more content because the creator will be happy and motivated. Think about how much time/effort the creators put into the fics you read and the fanart/comics you view. Then tell me again why you can’t spare a few moments to leave kudos/a comment.

Also…you reread and can’t leave a second kudos? Leave a comment saying “more kudos”. I legit just got one saying – “You have already left kudos here.” I know, AO3! – and I was thrilled. Because this person reread and wanted to leave me more kudos. And it was literally a super-short comment that just…gave me an extra kudos. It’s not that hard to engage with the content creators in your fandom.
So please, just…do the thing.