Glad for the feedback

Newb Can Haz Question? by ThatThatShan'tBeNamed on 2014-02-08 05:03:00 UTC Reply

First:

I have read and agree to the Constitution and FAQ (how the heck do you manage to agree with an FAQ?! There's nothing to agree to! :P), although the former was common sense anyways, and even if I didn't agree, it's in my nature to do that stuff anyways. XP

Fandoms? Well, I'd say, but I'm undercover at the moment. I told my fandoms I had things to do when the truth was that I simply didn't feel like socializing anymore (and frankly, I still don't, but I felt the question was important enough to me to break my internet silence to ask). I'm a terribly paranoid person, and also one that tries not to hurt anyone's feelings (well, until they do something incredibly stupid or tries to hurt someone else- then you meet my rude side. XD).

TVTropes Has Directed Me Here. :3

What else I do for fun? Not much. Fandoming is pretty much all I do, either physically or in my mind. It's just sometimes I get tired of dealing with the fans- it's not them, it really is ME. I have some kind of disorder, so I socialize for a while, then get really paranoid and retreat. I'm in the latter, but this question has been bugging me for nearly a decade.

Gender pronoun: Have fun- I'm genderfrak, so nyeh. *pllt*

What I wanted to ask was this. Why do I want to ask you guys? Because you're professional badfic sporkers, and I wanted your take on this:

I was involved in a small uproar about 8 years ago on fanficition dot net wherein an author (thankfully not me, as I wasn't posting to the site at the time) posted ONE badfic out of misjudgment. Normally, he was a good author, but for some reason, his brain shut down on this one. Needless to say, he was sporked. It wasn't the sporking, but one single comment that set him off: basically, one sporker in particular treated him as a child, saying that she was glad he wanted to write for a particular fandom. I agreed that the comment was out of line, because I mean, WTH? What purpose did it serve?

Anyways, he goes off, that attracts ants (in retrospect, that was a reference and not an insult; just wanted to put that out there before I got MYSELF sporked :3) that tell him he just wants mindless good reviews, when I know him and know that's not the case- there were others that sporked him before that that he didn't retaliate against. He would have just admitted that it was a badfic, and maybe taken it down if she hadn't made that comment. What made me want to ask was he did indeed use the "It's fanFICTION!" argument, to which I burst out laughing for reasons I can't exactly explain.

So, I was wondering: How you do guys feel about sporking authors (and authoresses- I don't care for political correctness, but technical term correctness, I'm a stickler about) that are otherwise good but make one slip-up?

Although let me disclaim in advance: Upon rereading his most prolific work, that... yeah. That one turned out to be major suckage as well, but all his one shots were of quality, at least. That one appeared to be another error in judgment, one that scarily continued on for about 2 years... I have no idea what happened to that man's sanity for that work. Yee. Unless the point was to with hold sanity, that sounds like something he'd do... but the badfic in question was serious, and an actually honest lapse in judgment.

TL;DR: What about when good authors go bad? How do you feel about sporking then? And my bigger concern was with the senseless comment: I've done my share of sporking as well, and I can get very... uh... "condescending" when I need to, but even I felt that "I'm glad you want to write for such-and-such" was just way too far. I don't know what it is, but... what do you guys think of that?

Salutations! by RinaAndRanda (Rina) on 2014-02-20 02:01:00 UTC Reply

I don't have anything to say about your question that hasn't been answered by everyone else, so I'm just going to say hi! Here are your presents:

1) A fluffy white bunny (I suggest you never take it off its chain leash; it has great big teeth.)
2) One can of urple spray paint
And 3) A giant donut with chocolate sprinkles

Welcome to the Board!
Salutations! by RinaAndRanda (Rina) on 2014-02-20 02:00:00 UTC Reply

I don't have anything to say about your question that hasn't been answered by everyone else, so I'm just going to say hi! Here are your presents:

1) A fluffy white bunny (I suggest you never take it off its chain leash; it has great big teeth.)
2) One can of urple spray paint
And 3) A giant donut with chocolate sprinkles

Welcome to the Board!

Oh geez by RinaAndRanda (Rina) on 2014-02-20 02:04:00 UTC Reply

I have no idea how I managed to post like ten of the same message... Stupid phone. Next time, I'm waiting until I have computer access to post. Ugh. Sorry.

The mobile devices are rising up against us! by Outhra on 2014-02-20 21:02:00 UTC Reply

One attack is an error. Two attacks is a coincidence. If there are three or more...

It's a plan.

As the first two victims of the attempts by the mobile devices to overrun the Board with duplicate posts, we must be ever vigilant. Should our watch slip, an innocent newbie posting a new thread could inadvertently push every other thread off of the front page, replacing every thread with the same post, repeated over and over and over. Forever.

Hi newbie! by Sevenswans on 2014-02-08 21:30:00 UTC Reply

Because newbie is completely neutral. :D

First, your stuffs! You can have a muffin tin (slightly less melee damage than a frying pan,) one massive bag of almond bark, and a nifty space pen. (Guaranteed to look exactly like a regular pen except that you use it on things like Star Trek PADDs.)

As for your question, I'm going to throw in my two cents despite the fact that I don't actually have permission here. (Combination of school and the fact that I have trouble doing any fanfic longer than about a thousand words...)

Here's the thing: people aren't the best judges of their own work, mostly because their brains autocorrect a lot of their stuff to what they meant to say. When you find an author who does decent shorts, it's possible that the ideas that they had just didn't sustain a multi-chapter fic, that they grew too attached to an idea that didn't fully make sense, or simply that they don't have a good sense of timing yet and don't know when to end their stuff. On the other hand, they may have been trying too hard to drive up readership with a multi-chapter fic, or had a beta for the short ones... the list goes on and on. I can't quite make a judgement not having seen the actual fic.

My advice for dealing with that is to do what you appear to be suggesting: leave constructive criticism like "I liked x fic better than this one, I feel you kept character Y in character very well there. In this fic they were kind of OOC."

If the fic really sucks, feel free to spork it elsewhere, like here, so that those of us who are interested can learn where things went wrong, but don't tell them or link back: that cuts down on drama. :D
Good question. by SeaTurtle on 2014-02-08 20:15:00 UTC Reply

Personally, I think that when we select badfics to spork, we should consider the general quality of the author's work. If they appear to have produced multiple good works and a single spork-worthy story, giving the author constructive criticism should be our first response.

It could be the lack of beta-readers, it could just be how the idea somehow didn't translate too well on paper (word processor?), or it could just be a really off day for them. Regardless, telling the author-- any author in fact-- what we enjoyed about the story and what we feel could have been better executed should be the first course of action.

On the other hand, if said author continues to churn out some ridiculous and unintentionally silly fics and actively ignores polite constructive criticism, then I believe it is permissible to spork a story.

Just like Kittythekatty said below me, we're not here to bully authors into giving up writing, nor are we the fandom police. We're here to make light out of the very best of the very worst.

Oh, and welcome to the Board! We hope you enjoy your stay here.
Hello by Kittythekatty on 2014-02-08 14:53:00 UTC Reply

Nice to meet you. To answer your prompt, I would have to say we all make mistakes. We all, at one point post a badfic. Good or Bad author, we should n't be rude to them.
I guess, at the PPC we deal with the fic, we don't bully the author.
I admit, I do get frustrated when tryinv to deal with someone who is unreasonable. But I guess, you treat the author as you would want to be treated.

Glad for the feedback by ThatThatShantBeNamed on 2014-02-08 22:10:00 UTC Reply

See, all you guys said everything I was thinking. It didn't make sense to me that he posts just one bad story (and actually, the one I was referring to was a short- the terrible multichap in question went unsporked :P)/. And naturally, the person's friends all came to save her when he called her out on the comment. *eyeroll* Well, I found the validation I was looking for, so yay. I'd never questioned anyone about it, and I'm not sure why it just never left my mind. I guess because I don't take kindly to such comments myself, especially since reviews are supposed to be for the story, not the author.

Actually, the longer badfic (I was thinking of "magnum opus" before when I said "most prolific") wasn't really bad, just... manic. It seemed like he was a 4 year old on an experimental playground with no safety protocol. That's part of the reason why I don't think that one was serious- it wasn't his usual style. The writing wasn't the problem- the execution was fine. It was the fast, dangerous, aggressive plot. The thing was literally insane. During that time, his shorts were of usual style and quality, another thing that leads me to believe that one was just "hey, let's see what I'm capable of with no restraints". And hey, it was acclaimed, so I guess he still did something right.

But the one in question was clearly a slip up, which was what irked me- all that over the one single piece of suck he accidentally posted? I could have understood "this story is bad; here's what's wrong with it" but being talked to like a misbehaved tot for no reason? Urgh. I'll do it to someone already acting like a child (whinging, throwing a tantrum, etc), but I never do it without proper provocation.

And thanks for the welcome. :3

Re: Glad for the feedback by Antigone68104 on 2014-02-09 02:15:00 UTC Reply

That sounds like he was experimenting with a different writing style.

And welcome, have some fudge!