At 12:17 PM 8/20/97 -0400, you wrote:

[Changing the topic line to keep it accurate...]

On Thu, 21 Aug 1997, Mark Doherty wrote:

Ahem. I just zoomed back and checked the last chapter she posted.
It said send all comments. All. If she does not want to hear negative
comments, it is well within her rights to request that she not be sent
them. She did not, and so people voiced their problems.

[snip]

It boils down to this: negative C&C can hurt, especially when you're
a new author. But often, one cannot grow, develop without it. If I
want to say something negative about a story, I will. Just as if I want
to say something positive, I will. And no little guilt-trip like this one 
is going to change that.

Yes, but there's a difference between useful C&C ("I think it rings a
little out of character for Ranma to be taking this action in this scene; 
there's not enough motivation for him to do this yet.  Was this
intentional (e.g. departure from canon)?") and mindless rants ("Heretic!
Ranma would never do that!  Ranma and Akane are destined for each other!
Down with Ukyou!  Down with everyone else!  Blah blah blah...")

The first is called constructive criticism and is useful.  The second is
called being an annoyance, and is not.

My impression from Christina-san's post is that what she was receiving
fell into the second category; not the first.  I, for one, do not count
the second category as C&C, because the author gets no useful information

>from it other than that the person sending that note is annoying and not

very open minded.

It'd be like someone sending Caroline Seawright (sorry for using you for
the example, Kun-chan, but you also posted in this conversation) a note
that "[Ranma character x] would never do something that hentai!  You
pervert!  How could you violate the vision of the most Holy
Takahashi-sama?  etc..." - does Kun-chan get any useful feedback from that
note?  Not really.  Maybe canonically the character wouldn't do something
like that.  But Kunoichi chose to make 'em do so for the point of one of
her numerous lemon fics.  And if all she gets - or the majority of it -
are comments like that, she'd probably be rather annoyed.  If she were an
author new to the scene, she might even feel that it wasn't worth posting
her fic.

Just my $0.02 + sales tax where applicable.

----[Loki]-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is why I haven't bothered posting any of the fanfics I have bothered
to write.  What's the point when 9 out of 10 C & C you're going to get are
from people who are so anally retentive about things they can't accept what
you're writing cos you're not the series original creator.  Either that or
they're going to say "this sucks" just cos they feel like it.

M.A. Mokona Page (Its notta....  its notta....)