Writers love constructive criticism, but these five methods of communication don’t exactly get much of a point across.
As a writer on this site, I have developed some theories on how to comment on articles. Here are the top 5 don’ts of leaving feedback on-line…
The Four Letter Word Montage
“You are crap and so is your work”
Ouch. Not only does this kind of criticism make comment-leavers sound like an angsty eleventh grader, they are rude and completely nonconstructive. How is a writer supposed to improve his work only on the basis that “his list sucks” because a faceless person left him an nonconstructive comment. Constructive criticism is always appreciated by an author.
A Comment that is Longer than the Article Itself
I’ll spare you the example here.
Nobody wants to read a comment that is longer than the article itself. No matter what you have to say, there is always some way to consolidate it into a tolerable length.
“Trolling”
“Dude, you’re dumb.. you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.”
Much like the first example, this pretty much accomplishes nothing. It starts an argument. It is comparable to starting a fight among third graders over whose pencil topper is nicer, persistently. Respecting opinions is crucial in cyber space (to an extent). Writers can’t read your mind. A key to Internet communication can be agreeing to disagree. And noone like those who do the egging on.
“Spamming” or Irrelevant Linking
” [random link to something you don't care about]“
Bottom line here, no one really cares. Posting garbage on someone else’s work just deters readers. Look what happened to myspace…
Talking in Code
“GTFO” “PtE”
I might be able to decipher what these mean (as immature and or unnecessary as they may be), but not everyone will. If you want to leave feedback, please take the extra .05 seconds to type out an entire word. it saves a lot of confusion and miscommunication.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Great! I’ve noticed a lot of these types of comment springing up when people want to leave a link to their page, but don’t want put any effort at all into leaving it there. But your description of troling isn’t really right. Trolling isn’t putting someone down, trolling is saying something, anything at all, in order to spark an argument and an internet “flame war” if you will. Then the troll sits backs laughing it up while everyone else is at each other’s throats for the stupidest reasons. Besides that one mistake, very well written, and a worthwhile read.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Great article. I wish everyone who read my articles would read this article. I don’t mind negative criticism, but it needs to be presented contructively!