Survey #3: Results Re Feedback And Viewing Habits:
I should like to thank all the people who took some time to answer the survey. In all 29 different respondents were willing to share their thoughts and provide some insight into their reading habits and hopes and aspirations as an author. For those of you who would like to go back and read the individual responses, the survey thread
is here. I have included all of questions from the original survey below so you don’t have to go back and look at them…
As I said in the thread itself, and in the original overview ass to the purpose of the surveys in general, I will not be posting quantitative results but rather an “English” evaluation of them since I don’t think anyone gives a rat’s *ss what the standard deviations are or anything like that.
Below, please find the results for each individual question, as well as some general comments that were made which I’ve summarised at the end. I would like to suggest that this is only a starting point for a possible ongoing discussion which I’d encourage you to continue in this thread, so please feel free to make your own comments below (as I will be doing shortly…)
Without further ado, here are your responses:
SURVEY #3: RESULTS RE FEEDBACK AND VIEWING HABITS:
1. As a writer, do you want lots of replies, occasional replies, or no replies to your work?
The overwhelming response from authors is that they want – nay,
CRAVE – replies to their work. Many expressed a distinct preference for “quality commentary” as opposed to “atta boy” posts, but authors still liked the latter. Only two authors only wanted a few, and another two said they didn’t really care if they got replies or not.
No one expressed a direct dislike for them.
There were a few concerns that big threads that are likely to get a lot of replies should have separate “OOC” threads linked to them. As examples, Ariel’s thread was begun with a “text only” thread and an OOC thread. In the Denmark thread I later went back and created a text-only thread due to popular demand.
2. As a writer, how important are the replies, or is a reasonable number of views sufficient to let you know that you're being read? (Maybe that's just paraphrasing question #1)
I discovered that I hadn’t really posed the question very well as a number of people agreed that I
was just paraphrasing myself. What I was wondering is if authors pay attention at all to their view-to-reply ratio. From what I read in your responses, some of you do pay attention to it, though it isn’t of any particular or prime importance. It’s getting any replies at all that seems to count.
3. As a writer, how annoyed are you if some of the feedback slips into the realms of OT - however briefly (as it often does...)?
Virtually all authors stated that
limited off-topic discussion doesn’t bother them in the slightest as long as it doesn’t hijack the thread. Only one auther said they’d be p*ssed off.
4. As a reader, do you feel reluctant to post to the thread for fear of "cluttering" it up?
Here we discover a degree of schizophrenia in the forum.
The community is split about evenly between people who have no qualms about replying and people who sometimes feel a reluctance to reply. Three people generally don’t (though one will PM the author instead).
Of the comments relating to this question, the reluctance seems to exist primarily when the reader doesn’t have anything specific or constructive to say that hasn’t already been said. A few people also mentioned that if the thread has been going on for a while then they’re a little nervous about suddenly “appearing” out of the blue mid-thread.
5. As a reader, do you find that a lot of feedback or other commentary detracts from your enjoyment of the thread?
A resounding no. Only two people didn’t like replies, and most either didn’t care (felt they could just skim through them to get to the next instalment) or actually felt quite the reverse and liked to read them since they often provided interesting insight into the AAR or additional information that they feel is of value.
There were a number of comments, however, that a lot of replies between “AAR posts” could be annoying – and that includes coming from people who otherwise like to see them.
6. As a reader, are you more likely to go and read a thread that you haven't been following if there are a lot of views logged for the thread?
A strong no-vote to this one. A large majority of readers pay either no attention at all to the view count on a thread, or only very limited attention.
7. As a reader, are you more likely to go and read a thread that you haven't been following if there are a lot of replies logged for the thread?
Here we see a different result with the respondents roughly split on the issue. About 40% pay no attention at all to the number of replies while another 60% do pay attention and will be more likely to have a look. There were a significant number of people (~20%) who indicated that if a thread they’ve never read has a large number of replies already then they’re less likely to try to pick it up, but that they will read it if it has some.
8. As a reader, do you bother to pay attention to the views or replies to a thread? (This is really Q6 & Q7 rolled together)
Yeah, it was a stupid question and should have been phrased differently. I wanted to look at view-to-reply ratio again and botched the way I asked it. By inference I could suggest that either you don’t care, or that you really only pay some attention to the replies…
9. As a reader, what impact on your initial willingness to have a look at it does the name of the author have?
Overwhelmingly, the name of the author has a big impact on whether someone will read an AAR. This suggests that if you’ve be around a while and built up a “loyal following” or a “reputation” then you’re more likely to be read. I’ll come back to this later, but there were also a number of people who indicated that they had a limited amount of time to read people’s work and that they would gravitate to the “known authors” first, choosing this above all else.
Needless to say, this is pretty rough on new authors who will find themselves on the short end of the stick. Only a couple people said that they ignore the author’s name when selecting something to read, and one person stated that he actively looks at “unknown” authors just to check them out - though I would expect that this is true of several others who didn’t state it (myself included) and was partially alluded to by a couple others.
10. As a reader, what impact on your initial willingness to have a look at it does the title have?
We’re pretty much across the board on this one. Some people don’t care, some care strongly, some only a little. In general, about 85% of the respondents would read an AAR regardless of title but it might take some time before they got around to it. Only a few people would be completely turned off.
11. As a reader, what impact on your initial willingness to have a look at it is there when a thread doesn't clearly identify the country that it's about?
Again we seem to have a divided opinion on this, but the general trend of the response seems to suggest that most people will have a look at the AAR but that failing to identify the country in the title might result in a few people not looking at it and some other people being a little slow to get around to it.
12. As a reader, what impact on your initial willingness to have a look at it is there when you do see the country it's about?
Overwhelmingly the response was that having the country identified in the title would have an impact on whether they read the AAR. In some cases the geography of the country will then determine whether the reader will have a look (some people are more/less interested in certain areas, with a noted preference for Europe). There were also a number of people who indicated that if the country has been done recently or frequently that they might not be in a hurry to read
yet another AAR on it. Another comment or two tied the country in to either a country that the reader has played or is thinking about playing.
Interesting Comments/Observations
From the authors…
Platitudes (“atta boy”) are nice to get, and appreciated to a fair degree; but if you can think of something a little more detailed to say (be it “I liked that”, “I’m confused by that”, or whatever) and could take a few moments to do so, they’d be eternally grateful.
“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” seems to also be an underlying trend. Several authors felt more inclined to go and look at someone else’s thread if they’d taken the time to read and comment on their own.
From the readers…
It might be an idea for authors to indicate somewhere (early) in the AAR that they’d like replies/feedback as this will reduce some readers’ reluctance to respond…essentially, solicit ‘em if you want ‘em is the theme from the people who earlier stated that they felt some reluctance to “clutter up” a thread.
Turnabout’s fair play here too. If a reader spends a few moments to reply or comment in an author’s thread, they feel that it would be courteous of the author to acknowledge their effort in some way.
MANY readers indicated a limited amount of time available to read AARs and a resulting selectiveness in what they read, often based on who the author is, or whether it seems to be a well-read and active thread.
An active thread gathers no moss.
Frequent updates/posts make a thread more appealing than one that lies dormant for long periods of time between updates.
Screenshots are important – note: I will be conducting a separate survey based on this topic.
There were many other interesting or illuminating comments, and I’d encourage everyone to spend a few minutes having a look at the replies…
Having read the results, you are now invited to comment to your heart’s content.
