Thanks to those who informed me about this post. Please CC any
followups on this to me.

Sean, Sean, Sean... if you're going to take snipes at me, at least
have the decency to do it to my face, hm?

Are you saying that the incident with Petes-kun and Lurker is
commonplace?  I really can't say that I've seen too many incidents
like this.  In fact, in my experience, destructive C&C is far more
common.  (Have we all forgotten about Gubby? :)

It may be uncommon, but throwing a tantrum because someone gave you a
negative C&C is something that shouldn't be tolerated at all. (Are you
listening, Petey?) Whether such things actually deter C&Cers, I dunno,
but C&C is (to me, anyway) a valuable enough thing that I wouldn't
want to take the chance.

Actually, I sense a bit of rationalization here.  Authors aren't 
getting C&C, so they naturally look for a reason why.  Suddenly,
along comes this _isolated_ incident, and all of the sudden, people
aren't getting C&C because the C&Cers aren't posting C&C, because 
they're afraid of getting mailbombed by some puerile author.

Well, I suppose it's easier on the author's ego than admitting that
his writing is so uninspired that nobody's interested in it.

Gee, a blanket insult. How nice.

I think it's obvious that the reason people aren't getting C&C is that
the majority of authors don't bother to DO C&C -- or only do it within
their little cliques. A story doesn't have to "inspire" someone to
comment on it -- if it doesn't inspire you, figure out why that is and
you have something to comment on.

- C&C should be _constructive_.  If it isn't, what's the point? Lurker's
MST did have some constructive criticism, but it also had some destructive
criticism.  I therefore have less sympathy for him than I would have if
it had been totally constructive.  However, mailbombing isn't an appropriate
response to even the most noxious destructive C&C.

C&C *should* be constructive -- but its not always possible for it to
be so. Personally, I'll take honest destructive C&C over silence any
day.

-  C&C is meant to improve the story.  If you use it to push your own
agenda, you're misusing it.  I've seen this cause plenty of acrimony
in the past.

One man's improvement is another man's agenda. ALL C&C is pushing an
agenda of some sort -- even if it's just the desire to see fanfics
free of grammatical and spelling errors. Now, if I suggest something
that I think will improve a fic, and you happen to disagree, you have
a perfect right to say so. But if me being allowed to have my say
causes you "acrimony," that's your problem.

- Last, but not least, if you are a writer yourself, set a good example.
If you criticise something in somebody else's writing, don't turn around
and do the same thing in yours.  Some of you will undoubtedly remember
a rather bitter catfight back in August about this very issue. :)

Nope, that was never the real issue. I never said, "I criticize
others' characterizations, but I'm going to let people be OOC in MY
fics! Nyyaaah!" Nope. I refused to change my fic because I wasn't
convinced that my characters WERE OOC. Judging from the responses I
got, most people seemed to agree with me.


Gary