If you comment on some fanfics and not others, pick an answer that applies most commonly to when you don't comment.

Results are in!

Thank you for taking this poll. The responses here and in the notes were really interesting and have inspired my next project for the LongLiveFeedback blog. So, announcing:

Commenting 101

This is a six-step action plan that is geared towards taking you from "I never know what to say in a comment" to "I always leave a comment." In short, if you are in the 62% and want to move into the 10% of superheroes that always leave a comment to fanfic authors, I've devised the following lesson plan:

Because commenting is a learned skill, these "lessons" will be tips on How To Comment and are designed to help you practice commenting and build up your commenting muscle until it's second nature to you. I'll post a lesson each weekend and your job is to commit to writing comments from that lesson during the week.

Participation is voluntary and you get to grade yourself at the end of the course, but I will be soliciting feedback at the end of each lesson-week.

So if this sounds good to you, let's have some fun experimenting and finding a commenting style that works for you!

Without further ado, here's Lesson 1: Find your catchphrase.

@Fanfic writers:

My friend send me this link, is a series on a profile on Ao3 (tumblr) that has different tutorials to insert things to fanfics via html code, I thought I would share bc it’s really cool

Lists of tutorials:

This is a tutorial/live example on how to make large images fit on mobile browsers but remain normal size on desktop browsers.

This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic the look of letters, fliers, and stationery (as well as other forms of written media) without using images. For all your epistolary fic needs.

This is a tutorial/live example on how to create a "Choose Your Own Adventure" fic. While this has been explained before (see here), this particular tutorial shows you how to use a work skin to hide the next parts from the reader until they click through to get to them.

This is a live example of how an author can create linked footnotes in their work with only a little bit of HTML and no workskins required. This is best viewed by clicking "Entire Work". While I've included the actual coding in bold and italic once you click "Hide Creator's Style", there's a more detailed explanation here.

This a tutorial/live example on how to have text change or appear once a cursor is hovering over it. Helpful for pop-up spoilers, language translations, quick author's notes, etc.

Anonymous on tumblr: do you have a skin that would mimic the author’s notes and review/kudos buttons section from the end of a fic? the desired effect being that the fic could go on after the “end” of the fic, so after the author’s notes and review/kudos buttons

Here's a tutorial/live example to do just that, with some of the buttons actually functioning. I'll explain more inside!

This is a tutorial/live example on how to align images to the left or right of the screen and have text wrap around them.

This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic email windows on AO3 without the need to use images.

This is a tutorial/live example on how to mimic iOS text messages on AO3 without the need to use images. There's also a chapter on how to have emojis displayed on AO3 as well.

Bored with the default page dividers? This is a tutorial/live example on how customize your page dividers with no images needed (though I do show you how you could use images if you wanted to do such a thing).

This is a live example how to make invisible text that can only be seen by highlighting the text. Tutorial is included in text, and you can always leave comments about questions you may have.

MOBILE USERS: Sadly, this probably won't work for you, since highlighting in a mobile browser is different than web. I've tried correcting this, but have yet to find a solution.

Original coding and design is from layouttest. I make no claims for it, just tweaked it so it will work on AO3.

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of lined notebook paper in their work. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of sticky notes (aka Post-Its) in their fic. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of Deadpool's thinking boxes in their fic. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

This is a live example of my AO3 skin that allows the author to recreate the look of a newspaper article in their work. To learn more about it, you can find the tutorial here.

This is really useful and I'll always reblog it.

In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.

HERE'S THAT BITCH IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR

This refers to writing posted on tumblr!

"None of the above" here means "I'd rather not get a comment at all than any of the options listed"

Reblog for sample size please I am but a little writeblr

We're having a weekend-long event to listen to and comment on Pod-Together 2023 projects! Yesterday went really well, and it will be fun to see how high our stats can get by the end of the day. As of this post, we've had: 18 people participating 44 hours, 56 minutes, and 26 seconds of podfic listened to 122 comments left And we've gone from 37 Pod-Together 2023 projects awaiting their first comment down to 6! If anybody would like to participate, you can join the pod-together Discord or just listen and comment on your own and then add a row to the tracking spreadsheet with your minutes listened to/comments left!

shoutout to the slow artists. the artists with hardly any time for art. the artists who reach the end of the day with no energy for art. you got this i believe in you and you are no less valued than anyone else

to be clear. when i say artist i mean every kind of art. drawing writing music sculpting embroidery idc this post was for you and i am sending my love your way

you ever read a fanfic and just sit back and think…someone wrote something THIS good… and then just….published it on the internet….for free…..

I love you, fanfic authors

If you comment on some fanfics and not others, pick an answer that applies most commonly to when you don't comment.

Results are in!

Thank you for taking this poll. The responses here and in the notes were really interesting and have inspired my next project for the LongLiveFeedback blog. So, announcing:

Commenting 101

This is a six-step action plan that is geared towards taking you from "I never know what to say in a comment" to "I always leave a comment." In short, if you are in the 62% and want to move into the 10% of superheroes that always leave a comment to fanfic authors, I've devised the following lesson plan:

Because commenting is a learned skill, these "lessons" will be tips on How To Comment and are designed to help you practice commenting and build up your commenting muscle until it's second nature to you. I'll post a lesson each weekend and your job is to commit to writing comments from that lesson during the week.

Participation is voluntary and you get to grade yourself at the end of the course, but I will be soliciting feedback at the end of each lesson-week.

So if this sounds good to you, let's have some fun experimenting and finding a commenting style that works for you!

Without further ado, here's Lesson 1: Find your catchphrase.

Quote from your blog: Because commenting is a learned skill, these "lessons" will be tips on How To Comment and are designed to help you practice commenting and build up your commenting muscle until it's second nature to you.

No thank you. Reading fanfic is my hobby and commenting means sharing the joy I felt while reading with the author.

It is not an exercise, it is not something I need to learn to do right. It's not a skill.

This turned me off of the whole project immediately. I comment when I feel like sharing with the author how I felt or to encourage them.

And I'm not going to follow some weird exercise template. This is not homework, it's not a work assignment, and most certainly you aren't my teacher who gives me assignments and grades me on my commenting skills.

That's fine! No one is forcing you to do anything. You're clearly not the target audience for this, so feel free to just ignore this.

Have a wonderful day!

Or maybe you could incorporate this perspective to make your campaign more inclusive, instead of passive-aggressively blowing them off. As someone who is an author, I dislike these kind of form comments and feel they just put additional stress on commenters, so I do not in fact appreciate you spreading this idea as if it's objectively the best way to learn how to comment. Maybe viewing comments like a form letter works for some people, but it clearly doesn't work for everyone.

Everyone wants comments until they actually get them, it seems.

@afriendlyirin you know you can always just block this blog, right? Why have you not already done so when you take everything we do on this blog in bad faith?

My response to xxsksxxx was sincere and not intended to be a jibe at them. If you're reading it as a passive aggressive response, I can chalk it down to the lack of visual/non verbal cues this time, and we all know that going off written communication alone can lead to misunderstandings. But, you've clearly taken issue with what or how things are said on this blog numerous times as you have reblogged our stuff with added commentary quite a few times and always with a backhanded criticism of what we've written included. Based on this past history of your behaviour, I cannot help but conclude that you're negatively biased against us, and anything we do or say will be taken in bad faith and seen as wrong. Unless you're actively trying to pick a fight with this blog, please block this blog for both our sakes.

Next, I've never tried to present anything on this blog as objectively the best thing ever and "spreading this idea as if it's objectively the best way to learn how to comment." I'm well aware that viewing comments as a form letter doesn't work for everyone. It'd be kind of sad and weird if it did. But are you saying that we should stop giving these suggestions because they don't work for everyone? Must it be a 100% success rate for something like this? We don't track success rate or anything like that, but for people who have been kind enough to respond in tags and the like, it seems like the advice we give on this blog has been helpful to at least some people, so why shouldn't we continue?

I thought it would be obvious and understood that the content on this blog is mostly advice, and that advice can be taken or left at the discretion of the person receiving it. Sorry if I didn't put a big disclaimer at the top of every post saying how everything is the personal opinion of one of the mods of the blog, please take it or leave, and use your own judgement, etc. My bad. I should have known that anything said on this blog would be akin to shoving tHe BeSt WaY tO cOmMeNt EvEr down afriendlyirin's throat.

And yes, in case you couldn't tell, I'm being super rude and passive aggressive to you right now 💅💋

Lastly, if you don't like people giving you comments because the comments they leave are too generic and form-like, unless they've told you "longlivefeedback told me to comment like this and I am incapable of learning any other way to comment," I fail to see how it's my problem. Maybe you should just talk to them instead of this blog. $10 says that at least 80% of them have never even heard of us.

But maybe you can't get them to talk back to you because here's some feedback for you: You're really unpleasant to talk to.

Please block us.

If you comment on some fanfics and not others, pick an answer that applies most commonly to when you don't comment.

Results are in!

Thank you for taking this poll. The responses here and in the notes were really interesting and have inspired my next project for the LongLiveFeedback blog. So, announcing:

Commenting 101

This is a six-step action plan that is geared towards taking you from "I never know what to say in a comment" to "I always leave a comment." In short, if you are in the 62% and want to move into the 10% of superheroes that always leave a comment to fanfic authors, I've devised the following lesson plan:

Because commenting is a learned skill, these "lessons" will be tips on How To Comment and are designed to help you practice commenting and build up your commenting muscle until it's second nature to you. I'll post a lesson each weekend and your job is to commit to writing comments from that lesson during the week.

Participation is voluntary and you get to grade yourself at the end of the course, but I will be soliciting feedback at the end of each lesson-week.

So if this sounds good to you, let's have some fun experimenting and finding a commenting style that works for you!

Without further ado, here's Lesson 1: Find your catchphrase.

Quote from your blog: Because commenting is a learned skill, these "lessons" will be tips on How To Comment and are designed to help you practice commenting and build up your commenting muscle until it's second nature to you.

No thank you. Reading fanfic is my hobby and commenting means sharing the joy I felt while reading with the author.

It is not an exercise, it is not something I need to learn to do right. It's not a skill.

This turned me off of the whole project immediately. I comment when I feel like sharing with the author how I felt or to encourage them.

And I'm not going to follow some weird exercise template. This is not homework, it's not a work assignment, and most certainly you aren't my teacher who gives me assignments and grades me on my commenting skills.

That's fine! No one is forcing you to do anything. You're clearly not the target audience for this, so feel free to just ignore this.

Have a wonderful day!

You have one more day to submit works regardless of how many comments they have and without having to comment on something else first.

Get submitting!

Today is your last chance to submit your works regardless of how many comments it has and without having to comment on something first!

TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY OF COMMENT FEST! AND IT'S TIME TO TRY SOMETHING NEW! WEATHER THAT'S A FANDOM YOU HAVEN'T READ FOR, A SHIP YOU WANTED TO CHECK OUT BUT NEVER GOT AROUND TO, TODAY IS THE DAY TO TAKE THAT PLUNGE AND LEAVE THOSE COMMENTS!

FINAL TALLY DAY IS TOMORROW!!!

Have you ever wanted to find your old Ao3 comments? Easily keep track of which (and how many) fics you've commented on? Rediscover a fic that you left a time capsule of a gushing essay on?

Well, you can! And it's simple! (* Note: it only works for comments written after you turn this on.)

Go to your Preferences:

There's a checkbox labelled "Turn off copies of your own comments". This is selected by default. If you deselect it (and save your preferences) then you receive an email for every comment you leave.

But I don't want to get my inbox flooded by Ao3!

Understandable! Luckily, most email clients allow you to set up rules for incoming mail depending on their sender and contents. For instance (using Gmail), I've made it so that these emails skip the inbox, are marked as read, and moved to a label I call my "Comment Collection".

The result? A complete, organised and fully-searchable repository of any comments you leave from this point onwards! Search by fic name, author, date, that one sentence you vividly remember leaving!

I've set up other rules, too, like starring emails that are replies to my comments - I'm always excited to receive them!

I love this system, and I think it's motivated me to leave more comments. I hope that others find it useful too. Happy commenting!

Original preferences trick from this Reddit thread. Tagging @justleaveacommentfest, which motivated me to write this post!

ITS DAY 3 OF COMMENT FEST AND YOU KNOW THAT MEANS A NEW THEME!!! TODAY IS RAREPAIR AND PLATONIC DAY!!! SEEK OUT THOSE RAREPAIRS AND GEN FICS THAT ARE PERFECTLY WRITTEN AND HAVENT GOTTEN THE ATTENTION THEY DESERVE AND #JUSTLEAVEACOMMENT!!!

HOPE EVERYONE GOT A GOOD SLEEP IN AND RESTED THEIR FINGERS BECAUSE ITS TIME FOR ANOTHER DAY OF COMMENTING!

TODAYS THEM IS AU'S: MODERN AUS MAGIC AUS SCIFI AUS REGENCY AUS MEDIEVAL AUS AND ANY OTHER AUS YOU CAN FIND! READ THOSE FICS AND GET TO COMMENTING FOR #JUSTLEAVEACOMMENT FEST!

THE ENERGY Y'ALL HAVE TODAY MAKES THIS SKELLY SO PROUD