[anchor=I6]
Comment Atonomy[/anchor]
by phargle
As we approach - or, depending on when you read this article, experience - the new year, it seems altogether appropriate and correct that we forumites set aside time for a little introspection. Frequently throughout the past dozen or so months, our collective critical eye has been focused on others as we plowed from AAR to AAR leaving comments hither and yon. That's why I say we take just a little moment to really give some solid consideration to the thing that really matters on the forums; the one thing that without which we would find our AARs empty, lacking, and truly without purpose. The single most important thing, my friends: me. Yes, me.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You see, I'm not the juices that make the AARs around here flow, and that's because I'm not the bulk of commenters and fans who read the AARs we write. That crowd - and it's quite a crowd - provides the most critical pillar propping up the entire concept of AARland. With their constant presence of kind, generous, and uncritical (but not unconditional!) support, an environment in which AAR fiction can not just exist but prosper has emerged and, against all Internet reason, been sustained. That's why I say without reservation that the commenters are the most important thing in AARland. Also, I wanted to see if that little vein in my editor's forehead would bulge out if I didn't say it was him.
Commenters come in all shapes and sizes, and detailing the ways in which they make their presence felt is a pretty cunning plot to pump up my word count. Before I begin, let me say that my assessment of the anatomy of commenters is analysis, not critique. I've been every one of these guys, and every one of them has left comments in my own AARs, for which I am very, very grateful. They've all got value - and that value comes in lots of different flavors. Without further ado, let's get pumping!
First of all, we've got our
Lurkers. These fellahs - and I use that term as a gender-neutral word to cover both men and women, and also because we actually are all fellahs, even frogbeastegg who is actually a trucker father of four living in Newark - these fellahs are precious commodities. They're the folks who stick with an AAR for weeks, months, or years before finally popping in and saying, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know I've been reading this for weeks, months, or years before finally popping in." By breaking their silence just to let us know that they are a reader and a fan, they bring home the notion that there are several readers for every commenter we get. Cool, huh? A variation of these guys are the
Hey, I Just Found This AAR Guys who have to speak up to let you know they started reading your awesome AAR. It's even more awesome when they have a post count of ten, because then you know you're the welcoming wagon for the forums. No pressure!
Among the more regular commenters, we've got a plethora of posters. The
I Just Read The Last Line Guy will dash off to an AAR and, upon finding themselves at a loss for what they should say, just comment on the last sentence. Maybe they read the whole thing and aren't sure how to make small talk. Maybe they just skimmed. Maybe both! The possibilities are endless, or at least three. Like cool and mysterious kids in school who the teachers are never quite sure are paying attention, they always have an worthwhile comment or two about the last thing you said. And they're typically pretty reliable, which makes them extra-valuable. I sometimes find myself being this guy when I'm doing something else at work while reading AARs - I know I saw a bunch of words, but they're clogged up in my head along with TPS reports, so a quick comment about the final twist in your AAR may be all you get from me. Since this is often the cliffhanger or resolution, this kind of comment can often be astute and appropriate, too.
Then there's
I Just Saw The Pictures Guy. This commenter probably reads a bunch of AARs, and he picked yours because it has a lot of screenshots or pictures. Skimming through the text quickly, he keeps up by paying attention to the graphics more than the text. That doesn't stop him from posting a comment, making him at least as reliable as I Just Read The Last Line Guy. With many AARs, they truly are after-action reports and the screenshots rather than the words are what tell the story. And in non-gameplay AARs, the pictures serve the purpose of attracting the eye, making the blocks of text around the picture more likely to be read. Many writers will plop a picture in a particular significant part of the story, or use them to break up the text into more digestible chunks. And others will use really stunning graphics to draw
and keep the reader's eye, giving a better chance that the entire text will be read. Because of their reliability and their numbers, these kinds of commenters are valuable too. I often find myself being one of these guys when maps are on the line - even if I don't have the time or interest to read a particular AAR, I'll always make time to let someone know when their map is top shelf.
Rounding out the quick comment crowd are
I Probably Didn't Read The AAR Guy,
I Really Try To Read This AAR Guy, and
I Am Using This Thread As A Chat Room Guy. The first fellah is typically a pretty reliable poster, and will toss out a comment any time you toss out an update, but it's never clear whether or not he's actually read your AAR. Oh, sure he
probably is actually reading it, but it's hard to tell sometimes because the comments are vague and quick. That's not to say that this kind of comment lacks value; it actually has a lot of value because even a small handful of "Yay! An update!" posts go a
long way towards making a writer feel appreciated. . . but, that said, I try to go just the little extra mile when posting comments. When I find myself being the Yay guy and start leaving comments that would make sense no matter what AAR I posted 'em in, I try to go back and edit them to be specific and complimentary.
I Really Try To Read This AAR Guy is a variant of that, in which you're pretty sure he's reading, but you're also pretty sure he's having trouble keeping up because of real life concerns. This commenter likes your AAR and posts to say so, but that's about all they have time to do. Pretty valuable because it says that, among all the AARs in all the forums in the world, they walk into yours. When work or life comes up and konks me over the head, this is the kind of poster I become.
And that Chat guy? He's hanging out in your thread like it's a club and you're the bartender, and he's cool enough to not spend all his time chatting with the bartender. He posts his comments in response to
other comments. This is valuable too, because it takes your AAR and turns it into an environment. Instead of a story, it becomes a place where people hang out and talk about your AAR. That's can be pretty cool. This isn't the kind of commenter I tend to be, and I find that my chat-room posts are seldom really appropriate to the AAR itself. . . so I try to bank up some goodwill by being a good commenter as well. It's kind of like an exchange of goods and services: I'll say something in response to your AAR, and in return I get to goof off in your thread. Everybody wins! Especially me.
All of these short-post variants can have the modifier
Complimentary, in which whatever the poster says is preceded or followed by some sort of compliment on the AAR. For example:
No matter what I am saying about the AAR, I try to make sure my comment has some sort of compliment in it - and I try to explain my compliment. 'I love X because Y' is a great formula for success in leaving comments, but that sort of commenting behavior is a class of its own: the
Provides A Little More Detail Guy. The Provides A Little More Detail Guy provides a little more detail in his comments. Really, this commenter is two kinds:
Speculates A Little Guy and
Praises Specifically Guy, and both of these types. The first kind is pretty common in story-oriented AARs. Because of the serialized nature of AAR updating, the environment in which we write lends itself well to cliffhangers or mysteries, meaning there's typically a lot of stuff to keep readers guessing - and Speculates A Little Guy happily guesses. This is a valuable guy to have around, because you know someone is paying enough attention to the specifics of your story to invest some imagination into it. The Praises Specifically Guy is also valuable as a commenter. A comment that tells you what is working for a particular reader can be worth its weight in gold, especially since our supportive culture in AARland generally renders criticism uncouth or forbidden. As said earlier in this paragraph, that's the mode I try to rest in when I comment, as I find it works for me both as a reader and as a writer. Nothing is cooler than a commenter quoting a specific passage in your AAR to tell you what they liked about it.
The big mojo commenter at the top of this pyramid is
Really Paying Attention Guy. Sometimes a blend of other commenter types, sometimes on his own, this fellah is so taken by your story that all of his comments are specific, astute, insightful, and rich. In a land of one-liners, a paragraph or two of kind critical analysis stands out like a gemstone, offering praise and thoughts in appropriate measures. In time, this commenter evolves into
. . .And Skilled Enough To Offer Critique Guy, because a paragraph of honest, fair, and kind critique among three paragraphs of praise and insights is the perfect recipe for a delicious comment. These commenters are highly valuable because they provide the kind of support and assistance you'd get from a writing circle - and, because AARland is a place where we go where we want and read what we want, your crowd of commenters only includes your fans, making the critique that much easier to process. In time, and especially for my favorite AARs, this is the kind of poster I try to become, leaving comments that are valuable both to me and to the writer. Good writing gets me excited, and I want my comments to show it.
Ultimately, this thought experiment came about because I started reading a lot of AARs, which led to me posting in 'em, which led to me thinking seriously about the kinds of comments I was leaving. Wanting my comments to be good and useful meant not only reading what other commenters were saying, but also really reading what
I was saying. Ultimately, this resulted in a personal commitment to establish a commitment to make it my duty as a good citizen of AARland to maintain a reading list that was varied and diverse - and to leave comments that were varied and diverse enough to do those AARs justice. I think
all comments have value, as do all readers, and hope that any fan of AARs who's read this can find ways to make their contributions to AARland even richer than they were before.
If my ISP mends its Internet issue before my editor explodes in fury at me missing a deadline, I hope you all have a delicious and delightful New Year full of happiness and serenity. And if I'm to spend the next 24-72 hours offline while network issues are resolved, I hope canonized doesn't use the belt. . . and I hope my comments in your AARs are missed. Goodness knows that I will be missing yours - each and every one.
phargle is the author of Thrones
Morsky won Comedy with his unfortunately-abortive 
