I'm suspicious that nearly everyone really hates them, and they're simply a silent majority...
LOL, while I may be personally paranoid, I don't actually think that's the case. I mean, we consistently go through a round of rants and wanks on the subject of feedback in fandom, with readers getting berated and guilt tripped. That is, if fandom isn't on a tear about how everyone needs to be more honest and how the cult of nice destroys the artistic integrity of our porn. Something as simple as a poll, eliminating the majority of that baggage... I think it's nice, and I think a lot of other people probably genuinely do as well.
I tend to check out the comments first to see what sort of response the fic has already gotten as a way of gauging whether or not I might like it
I'm sort of the opposite, since I tend to find that others' opinions make me unpleasantly reactionary, but just having the poll up for people to see if they aren't logged in is a pretty good idea. It also feels more honest than awards which... yeah, I used to use (back in the 90s) as reliable ways to find the best of the best, and now I really mostly ignore.
I would love to see what sort of comparisons we could get by doing this in other fandoms.
I could always ask my roommate to test the waters of the idea over in HP.
BTW, I'm sort of curious on how you are doing polls for multi-part fics. I sort of break some fics up arbitrarily when posting them, rather than by constructed chapters, so while it would seem odd to only put a poll at the end (then you get little measure of the people who felt it was unbearable to read to the end), but also to put polls in the middle chapters when they weren't intended as such. I was thinking that, should I go back and do it, that maybe something simple like "I like it so far"/"I scrolled down just to tell you it sucked" might work there.
no subject
LOL, while I may be personally paranoid, I don't actually think that's the case. I mean, we consistently go through a round of rants and wanks on the subject of feedback in fandom, with readers getting berated and guilt tripped. That is, if fandom isn't on a tear about how everyone needs to be more honest and how the cult of nice destroys the artistic integrity of our porn. Something as simple as a poll, eliminating the majority of that baggage... I think it's nice, and I think a lot of other people probably genuinely do as well.
I tend to check out the comments first to see what sort of response the fic has already gotten as a way of gauging whether or not I might like it
I'm sort of the opposite, since I tend to find that others' opinions make me unpleasantly reactionary, but just having the poll up for people to see if they aren't logged in is a pretty good idea. It also feels more honest than awards which... yeah, I used to use (back in the 90s) as reliable ways to find the best of the best, and now I really mostly ignore.
I would love to see what sort of comparisons we could get by doing this in other fandoms.
I could always ask my roommate to test the waters of the idea over in HP.
BTW, I'm sort of curious on how you are doing polls for multi-part fics. I sort of break some fics up arbitrarily when posting them, rather than by constructed chapters, so while it would seem odd to only put a poll at the end (then you get little measure of the people who felt it was unbearable to read to the end), but also to put polls in the middle chapters when they weren't intended as such. I was thinking that, should I go back and do it, that maybe something simple like "I like it so far"/"I scrolled down just to tell you it sucked" might work there.