At 04:48 PM 5/28/2004, Peter Ahlstrom wrote:

Am I the only one who is flabbergasted by the vitriol being thrown
around in this thread?

I think a lot of us are simply inured to it, Peter. This has happened 
before - more than once - when either Kenko or myself post new work.  It 
seems that we rather firmly polarize the list and subsequent responses.

I don't get it. What's the big deal? Was
physical harm just threatened above? It seems to me that Thermopyle and
some others are raising perceived issues about the fic, and the author
and the author's cronies are blasting away with much harsher criticism
than was ever directed toward the fic in the first place--at least in
response to this chapter. Perhaps there is resentment holding over from
previous feedback?

With Thermy, it's prior history, pure and simple. As far as the "blasting" 
goes, I count 4 of my own replies which could even remotely be considered a 
blast.  Two of them were in response to obvious trolling, the other two as 
aftermath of said trolling.

I certainly didn't blast Lurker when he called me an ass for responding to 
the first troll - in fact I agreed with him publicly. As far as my 
pre-readers go?  What and how they post is their own decision - I'm not 
their father, after all.

I don't think it's fair that you're holding Thermopyle accountable for
information that you have access to and he doesn't. But aside from
that, it seems you're mostly insulting the critics instead of trying to
address the issues they raise. Mark did respond later to one poster's
questions by pointing out some earlier evidence given in the fic, and
that's a good thing, but it would have been better to do it before
someone else mentioned that he'd failed to do so, and it certainly
could have been done without lambasting him in a previous post.

Personally I've been enjoying this fic but I'm almost afraid to say
whether I agree with the perceived issues or not simply because of the
way the author and the author's prereaders (except for Becerra) are
reacting to any criticism. Is it worth it either way, to be seen as
associated with either side of the issue? This has gone way too far.

Peter

As far as the "too far" point is concerned - agreed, but it seems to be 
rather common on the FFML in general over the last year plus. As far as the 
way *I* react to criticism? I always acknowledge and address valid points 
concerning the story in a rational manner. I do, however, expect to be 
presented with some form of evidence to back up a reader's contention. "I 
don't like it" is opinion, "your writing sucks" is trolling, and "where's 
the beef" is personal preference. Telling me you don't like it is one 
thing. Telling me I'm *wrong* over those points in explicit or equivalent 
words - hell, telling ANY author that - will usually get a reaction that 
has nothing to do with the story itself, since the comment is no longer 
about the story, it's about the reader's and author's personal preferences.

Now, grammar errors, spelling errors, and pointing out *internal* 
contradictions inside of the story's plot, logic, and characterizations 
will get nice polite responses from me EVERY time. Requests for missing 
information - the "I don't understand this" question - may or not get 
informative responses, since that "missing" information may contain 
spoilers to future chapters, but again the responses are always polite - 
provided that the information is not *painfully* obvious in the story itself.

However, when a reader effectively tells *any* author "your writing sucks 
and you're an idiot for not writing it *my* way", neither the reader - nor 
anyone else for that matter - should be the least little bit surprised if 
the author responds and tells that reader he is full of little green worms.

I hope this exposition has helped allay any concerns you might have on 
publicly commenting on the issues in question.

============================================================
Mark Shurtleff
   email: gaijin@sfcmd.com
   irc alias: Gaijin -or- togashi_gaijin
   fanfiction homepage: http://www.sfcmd.com/fanfic
============================================================ 


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