Comments and Reviews: What’s the Difference?
Written on December 16th, 2008 by MMKStory Details
- Status : Complete
- Category: Announcements
- Author: MMK
- Word Count: 526
- Read 250 times
Note: This a repost of an old announcement… it seems like you guys need reminding again.
To all the readers of the archive:
Actually, that’s not true. This isn’t directed everyone. If you’ve never had a comment deleted, or never noticed a little italicized note at the bottom of one of your comments, then good job, and this is probably not directed at you. But if you have, please read on, because this is important.
Here’s the basic announcement:
You are not allowed to make “comments”. That is what the forum is for. You may review stories, and that’s it. NOTHING ELSE.
Anything and everything else will get deleted as soon as an editor sees it. Don’t try to repost it. We’ll just delete it again, and we’ll be even more annoyed at you. We could even suspend or ban you from the archive. Now, we haven’t done that to anyone yet, because we’re a lot more patient than you might realize, but our patience is wearing thin.
In case some of you aren’t sure what we’re referring to, here are some examples:
Acceptable reviews (taken from the ‘Help and How Tos’, which you might want to read):
“I enjoyed your story very much. The writing style was intriguing, and Artemis was very in character, which is rare in a romance fic.”
” I did not like your story. I feel that Minerva would not act like that. The writing was sloppy and hard to follow. Your grammar and spelling could also use some work.”
Unacceptable comments (these are the type of things we routinely delete):
“UPDATE! I’VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER! UPDATE! UPDATE!”
“Eoin Colfer said he might write a seventh book! OMG!”
“I updated!!! Please comment!!!!!!!!”
“Thank you 
“
“Yay! You commented! Where have you been? What did you do over the holiday?”
You may not realize that these are against archive policy, but they are. When you write a comment, just ask yourself if it reviews the story. If it does, click submit. If not… then change what you’ve written.
Anything that stretches the page is a bad comment. Anything that’s in Caps lock (the internet equivalent of shouting) is a bad comment. Anything that doesn’t directly relate to the story is a bad comment. Anything that is less than a full sentance is a bad comment.
Also, don’t double comment. You are allowed to comment only ONCE per update- even if it’s your own story! So don’t respond to every comment on your story, or just respond by adding a note to the story itself. If you comment more than once on any own story per update, it might get deleted.
We think it’s great that some of you have formed friendships here, but the place to talk with each other not the archive, it’s the FanGathering forums (forum.fangathering.com). There are plenty of people there who would love to talk with you about anything under the sun, because that’s what the forum is for. The archive, however, is for fanfiction only.
Thanks,
The Editors
November 25th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Er, so it seems that ALL my comments are bad, or partly bad?
November 26th, 2008 at 2:16 am
I know we are supposed to comment on the forum, but consider this: I made an account o the forum, and I never got the !@#$%^& activation email! I had re-sent it millions of times, and checked the spam and trash inboxes billions of times, and the *&^&^$^&% thing never showed up!
Can anyone help?
November 26th, 2008 at 4:06 am
Hey,
Yeah, I can help you there.
For some reason the activation emails don’t send some time.
Is your username just Julissa Holly Fowl? If it is, I’ll find you.
If anyone else has this problem, just post about it in the shoutbox.
-BlackOpal
November 26th, 2008 at 4:24 am
I’ve never got a little note on the bottom of my messages, but is it ok, if we want to discuss ideas that we got from the story with each other?
November 26th, 2008 at 4:58 am
It really depends on the circumstances. If it’s strictly on topic… and you only comment ONCE per update (or at least very infrequently), then it might be OK. But it depends on the story. Obviously “send in the mail!” stories end up having the sort of comments that we wouldn’t allow on regular fics, for example.
Also, just reminding you: comment under one identity, please.
November 26th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Comments under one identity? What’s that mean? Does that mean, like artymon changing his username regularly, or two or more accounts?
November 27th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Ya, I am pretty sure it does. You know it might get annoying sometimes, but really, I think we owe the editors an apology. I mean we put up goofy comments and when they are deleted we freak! (or at least I do) So srry for the off topic comments, I promise to try and do better!
December 12th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I never got a note before, just had deleted comments. Or maybe they were in the SPAM.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Well, I have had comments tht were deleted that were random AND that wern’t. This site is odd.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Well, Maybe your only alowed to comment once PER UPDATE! tho, no one, including me, really follows that rule.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:33 am
All in favour of K12, say “aye”
AYE!!!!!!!!!
December 17th, 2008 at 1:42 am
All in favor of what?
December 17th, 2008 at 1:43 am
Ummm, IDK, maybe being alowed to comment mutiple times. I think if we DIDNT have the ‘top tens’ we could, but since we do have it, ugh.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:46 am
Give up the name, Zachariah! we all know your artymon!!!
July 15th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Aye, and I call’em “revments” for review/comment. But, what about when it turns into a debate?