wallwalker

First of all, this isn't just about reviewing pieces of writing, be they original or derivative. This is about any sort of creative endeavor that can be done and posted in public places. Writing is the one that immediately comes to my mind. Maybe for others it's art, or photography, or knitting. It doesn't matter; if someone posts a thing online, in a place where other people can see it, it's a fair bet that they want some kind of feedback.

Sure, most of us create for the sheer personal joy of it and would probably do so even if they didn't get feedback. (Fact: over ten years ago I had written tens of thousands of words of what would have been a novel-length fanfic if I'd finished it, and all before I even knew of the concept of fanfiction, or that there were sites that hosted it. I don't remember exactly how I found out about these things anymore, but it was quite a revelation when I did.) But having someone tell us that they enjoyed what we did is a great feeling, and there's nothing quite like it. We all love it, and we all want more of it. (Flames are a different beast entirely, of course. Not really touching on that here.)

So, we all love to get feedback. But why is it so hard for so many of us, myself definitely included, to give feedback? Why is it that when we look at a thing we enjoyed, we smile over it, but then keep on going without leaving as much as a "This is really cool!" behind? Or, at best, we click the handy thumbs-up button that the website/archive provides, and then move on without anything more specific than that. (Don't get me wrong - I like getting likes/kudos, as much as the next guy. But the proportion of likes/kudos that I get to actual reviews is a bit lopsided, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. And I'm curious about just why that is.)

Part of it is a sort of performance anxiety. We're afraid that the review that we leave will not be good enough, or worse, will actually offend the author enough that the author will actually complain about our reviews. I've seen it many times, on various rant communities and personal journals. People like to complain about reviews almost as much as they like to complain about written sex scenes, and their complaints are as varied as complaints about written sex scenes. Some complain about reviews being too short, others too long. Some complain about reviews being too critical and detailed; others complain about reviews being too generic, too smiley and artificial. And so on, and so forth... after a while, once you've read too many of those, it's not that odd to start thinking something like this: Wait, no matter what kind of review I leave, it might just make this person angry. Maybe I should just lurk. At least that way I won't specifically be responsible for bothering anyone.

Part of it is just... well, we're human beings. It's just easier to click the thumbs-up button than it is to post the sort of review for whatever we're looking at that we think will accomplish our purpose (which for me is twofold: one, tell the creator that I enjoyed it, and two, let the creator know that yes, I actually paid attention to this thing that I'm saying that I enjoyed. And yes, that's a more of a consideration than you might think.) At least the thumbs-up button tells the creator that we DID enjoy it, even if it doesn't really have that personal touch. It really can't be mistaken. But words can be, so they're more frightening.

It's a problem that I've thought about tackling several times before. I have previously tried to do a review a day on some archive or another, usually one that was just starting out and didn't get a whole lot of reviews. I want to start something like that again, but it always ends the same way - I'll stick with it for a week or so, then start missing days, and once I've missed enough days I'll throw up my hands and quit, because what's the point if I've missed so many days? I've proven that I can't really keep up with it, so why bother?*

Part of the reason that I usually quit? Well, honestly, it's tough. Even the basic one- or two-sentence reviews that don't say much more than "I liked it, I really enjoyed this aspect of it, thank you for creating it" are tough for me. And that's partially because it's so monotonous. When all of your feedback follows the same basic format, well, after a while you get so tired of that format that it becomes boring, and you just don't want to do it anymore. But that format is safe; it's probably not going to offend anyone, and hopefully it'll avoid the problem of seeming too generic - or appearing to be feedback left solely in the hopes that the creator will click back to the reviewer and check out their stuff.** Leaving it behind in favor of something that might be more interesting, therefore, is a bit scary.

Also there's the same problem that I've always had with sticking to long-term projects. It's the reason why I've yet to run a successful community on my own. It's why I've resisted the urge to make a review_a_day or reviewathon community, because as much as I'd love to try to get other people in on this in the hopes that it'll inspire me to keep going, I know it'll happen in exactly the same way it always happens when I try to do something like this. There would be a few weeks of interest and activity, then I'll slip, and eventually just disappoint everyone else who joined thinking that I was actually going to be able to be a good long-term moderator.

(Seriously, if anyone reading this has had a better track record with these things than I have, or if you think you know of a more organized group who might be interested in some kind of reviewathon, and if anyone ever actually starts up a project that encourages and perhaps rewards people for committing to post a piece of feedback per day over a span of time and then actually doing it, please let me know. Maybe if I wasn't alone, I could feel a little more comfortable about it.)

Anyway. Until we can figure out some way around all of this - and if we could figure out a way around human nature we'd all be much better off by now - I'm going to at least try to be more proactive. Not just about leaving reviews - which I've been terrible at - but at thanking people for leaving reviews. Maybe people will leave more feedback if they feel like what they have left is more appreciated. Feedback is almost as hard for me as actually creating things. It needs to be rewarded too.

Once I wake up, I definitely have some catching up to do on that score. ^^;

* This probably explains why I'm having trouble with my health, since I end up approaching a lot of things this way. But that's another rant.
**...Not that it isn't going to be in the back of most reviewer's minds, but it's terribly bad form to be overt about it, isn't it?