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I don't believe in rating systems, so I just give 5 stars to every book I finish. One time I made a very negative comment on Reddit about a fantasy book, and t

I don't believe in rating systems, so I just give 5 stars to every book I finish. One time I made a very negative comment on Reddit about a fantasy book, and the author actually responded to me. When that happened I felt incredibly bad, because I didn't expect the author to actually read what I'd written. But that experience taught me that you can just reach out to people that make stuff you like. You can make people feel good about something that made you feel good, and it's entirely free. Since then I've reached out to various authors just to tell them I really enjoyed their books. One of the best things about reading indie authors and smaller creators in general is the ease with which you can communicate with them. I remember making a comment about a minor detail to an indie author about one of his series, and in the next book he actually incorporated my suggestion. I think once you reach a certain scale or popularity there has to be some kind of filter or process between a creator and their comments.

shrx 3y ago
> One time I made a very negative comment on Reddit about a fantasy book, and the author actually responded to me. When that happened I felt incredibly bad But why? Was your comment dishonest?
- PaulRobinson 3y ago
  There’s a difference between being nice (“wow, how ace!”, when you hated it), being kind (“I think this would have worked better for me if…”), and being plain honest (“I hated it, what a crock…”) Many people forget that the other side of a review is human. Social media, trip advisor, amazon, blogs, and reddit are all channels in which people feel free to be honest, but then are surprised to discover the human who you criticised is popping up and responding with hurt. We all know being rude to a service worker to their face ks the sign of an absolute turd of a human being, but seem to think being “honest” in an indirect channel is just fine. Being kind (empathetic, sympathetic, constructive), is less toxic for both parties, retains authenticity (more valuable than “honesty”), and is therefore socially more acceptable in a situation where you remember the criticism is going to be taken on by the other party. It sounds like the person forgot - because it was Reddit - that human empathy towards a creator is a powerful thing, and that a lack of it is incredibly damaging, beyond what you would do if meeting the individual face to face. Being smart and “honest” (more often than not, actually just rude), are not the primary ways of keeping score when determining if somebody is being a good human. Look up Jeff Bezos’ thoughts on being clever vs being kind: he’s not wrong. It’s easy to forget when you think the person you’re being clever about will never read your words, but that’s actually just really, really dumb.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    > and being plain honest (“I hated it, what a crock…”) I agree with what you wrote here and elsewhere about the kind/nice distinction, but I'm... not sure if the above is what "being honest" means. Or rather, I personally don't consider it being honest - saying "I hated it" is very vague and likely not what I actually felt, and "what a crock" would be me just doing knee-jerk next token prediction, so badly that even GPT-3.5 would do it better. "Being honest" with feedback is what I imagine to look more like "I didn't like the ${aspect of the work}, I feel it was too ${something} / not enough ${something else}". It's free of bullshit, so it's not "nice"; it's also not making a specific effort to be useful/actionable to the receiver, therefore it's not "kind". It's also not "hostile", as it bears no ill intent. It's just being precise and accurate in reporting how I actually felt about the work and why. Under this definition, I always strive to aim for "honest+kind" with any feedback I give. Of course, I still end up being "kind" or even just "nice" with some people - specifically those who tend to interpret any mention of a potential improvement as implying severe deficiency.
makeitdouble 3y ago
I think it's a difficult balance to strike. On one side you usually don't want to hurt a fantasy novel author who put all their soul into their book and actually care about how it's received. On the other side some authors will have a very strong message to convey, and use their work as a platform to expose more people to their ideas, good or bad. Not engaging with the message and/or ignoring it when you see it as either damaging to the readers or an abuse of people's good faith would feel wrong to me. Not that readers have a duty to engage with a book, but if you were ready to pan a horrible propaganda piece on reddit but stopped because it could hurt the author's feelings, I'd have fully encouraged you into speaking your mind in reasonable terms.
- dsign 3y ago
  Why, I just read a book[^1] whose author gave personhood to lifted animals, and made everybody vegetarian. She also made everybody monogamous...even the moose. IMO, she could have written a better story if she hadn't been afraid of over-critical readers that would think her work is propaganda advocating for XYZ. The moose didn't need to act like a politically correct western guy. But it's fun to comment on those details, politics and all; they don't subtract from the work. And yes, there are non-fiction books, like the Bible and "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", but those can also be approached with a dose of lightheartedness. [^1] The Terraformers, By Annalee Newitz. Go, buy it, read it. It has real science in it, nothing else needs to be said.
rvba 3y ago
There are books that are just plain bad. Your 5 star reviews for bad books make people lose money and time.
- TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
  I only finish reading good books.
- astura 3y ago
  Presumably bad books just don't get finished (and thus not reviewed).
PaulRobinson 3y ago
You’re trying to be nice. Try being kind instead. You don’t have to give 5 star reviews to every book (being nice), but you could give it to the ones that deserve it and no ratings at all to the ones you didn’t like, or a 1-star with a constructive review (being kind).
- jraph 3y ago
  As an ESL speaker. Is this distinction between nice and kind standard?
  - astura 3y ago
    No.
  - kjeetgill 3y ago
    I think it's one of those distinction people are trying to impose on the words rather than how they've always been used. I think there's a popular blog post that kicked it off.
    - PaulRobinson 3y ago
      Their etymology and original meanings are completely different. Their merging into synonyms is as daft to me as “literally” now meaning figuratively or metaphorically.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      The distinction between the two concepts is real. The word choice... I don't know. I haven't heard of the blog post. I'm ESL speaker, and yet when 'PaulRobinson made the distinction, I immediately knew what they're talking about, and I even though "nice" vs. "kind" is exactly the right word pair to use.
      - glogla 3y ago
        It is funny because I feel the difference, yet can't really explain it easily because my native language has just one word for both concepts.
toadi 3y ago
I agree with you indie creators in general get more slack from me. But for example when I pay triple A prices for video games I'm quite critical :)
ekianjo 3y ago
> don't believe in rating systems, so I just give 5 stars to every book I finish. So you are sabotaging the system not just not believing in it
cmiller1 3y ago
Was it Sanderson?
cutenewt 3y ago
I saw a poll once re: 5-star rating systems: Roughly 50% tolerate or like them The other 50% completely hate them
- ilyt 3y ago
  Rating system for stuff like books needs another dimension. One for how well book's topic or genre gelled with you as a viewer. Another for execution of the concept. Some books are well written but not for me. Some are interesting enough but flawed. One dimensional scale would land both squarely in the middle

shrx 3y ago

> One time I made a very negative comment on Reddit about a fantasy book, and the author actually responded to me. When that happened I felt incredibly bad But why? Was your comment dishonest?

PaulRobinson 3y ago
There’s a difference between being nice (“wow, how ace!”, when you hated it), being kind (“I think this would have worked better for me if…”), and being plain honest (“I hated it, what a crock…”) Many people forget that the other side of a review is human. Social media, trip advisor, amazon, blogs, and reddit are all channels in which people feel free to be honest, but then are surprised to discover the human who you criticised is popping up and responding with hurt. We all know being rude to a service worker to their face ks the sign of an absolute turd of a human being, but seem to think being “honest” in an indirect channel is just fine. Being kind (empathetic, sympathetic, constructive), is less toxic for both parties, retains authenticity (more valuable than “honesty”), and is therefore socially more acceptable in a situation where you remember the criticism is going to be taken on by the other party. It sounds like the person forgot - because it was Reddit - that human empathy towards a creator is a powerful thing, and that a lack of it is incredibly damaging, beyond what you would do if meeting the individual face to face. Being smart and “honest” (more often than not, actually just rude), are not the primary ways of keeping score when determining if somebody is being a good human. Look up Jeff Bezos’ thoughts on being clever vs being kind: he’s not wrong. It’s easy to forget when you think the person you’re being clever about will never read your words, but that’s actually just really, really dumb.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > and being plain honest (“I hated it, what a crock…”) I agree with what you wrote here and elsewhere about the kind/nice distinction, but I'm... not sure if the above is what "being honest" means. Or rather, I personally don't consider it being honest - saying "I hated it" is very vague and likely not what I actually felt, and "what a crock" would be me just doing knee-jerk next token prediction, so badly that even GPT-3.5 would do it better. "Being honest" with feedback is what I imagine to look more like "I didn't like the ${aspect of the work}, I feel it was too ${something} / not enough ${something else}". It's free of bullshit, so it's not "nice"; it's also not making a specific effort to be useful/actionable to the receiver, therefore it's not "kind". It's also not "hostile", as it bears no ill intent. It's just being precise and accurate in reporting how I actually felt about the work and why. Under this definition, I always strive to aim for "honest+kind" with any feedback I give. Of course, I still end up being "kind" or even just "nice" with some people - specifically those who tend to interpret any mention of a potential improvement as implying severe deficiency.

makeitdouble 3y ago

I think it's a difficult balance to strike. On one side you usually don't want to hurt a fantasy novel author who put all their soul into their book and actually care about how it's received. On the other side some authors will have a very strong message to convey, and use their work as a platform to expose more people to their ideas, good or bad. Not engaging with the message and/or ignoring it when you see it as either damaging to the readers or an abuse of people's good faith would feel wrong to me. Not that readers have a duty to engage with a book, but if you were ready to pan a horrible propaganda piece on reddit but stopped because it could hurt the author's feelings, I'd have fully encouraged you into speaking your mind in reasonable terms.

dsign 3y ago
Why, I just read a book[^1] whose author gave personhood to lifted animals, and made everybody vegetarian. She also made everybody monogamous...even the moose. IMO, she could have written a better story if she hadn't been afraid of over-critical readers that would think her work is propaganda advocating for XYZ. The moose didn't need to act like a politically correct western guy. But it's fun to comment on those details, politics and all; they don't subtract from the work. And yes, there are non-fiction books, like the Bible and "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", but those can also be approached with a dose of lightheartedness. [^1] The Terraformers, By Annalee Newitz. Go, buy it, read it. It has real science in it, nothing else needs to be said.

rvba 3y ago

There are books that are just plain bad. Your 5 star reviews for bad books make people lose money and time.

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
I only finish reading good books.
astura 3y ago
Presumably bad books just don't get finished (and thus not reviewed).

PaulRobinson 3y ago

You’re trying to be nice. Try being kind instead. You don’t have to give 5 star reviews to every book (being nice), but you could give it to the ones that deserve it and no ratings at all to the ones you didn’t like, or a 1-star with a constructive review (being kind).

jraph 3y ago
As an ESL speaker. Is this distinction between nice and kind standard?
- astura 3y ago
  No.
- kjeetgill 3y ago
  I think it's one of those distinction people are trying to impose on the words rather than how they've always been used. I think there's a popular blog post that kicked it off.
  - PaulRobinson 3y ago
    Their etymology and original meanings are completely different. Their merging into synonyms is as daft to me as “literally” now meaning figuratively or metaphorically.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    The distinction between the two concepts is real. The word choice... I don't know. I haven't heard of the blog post. I'm ESL speaker, and yet when 'PaulRobinson made the distinction, I immediately knew what they're talking about, and I even though "nice" vs. "kind" is exactly the right word pair to use.
    - glogla 3y ago
      It is funny because I feel the difference, yet can't really explain it easily because my native language has just one word for both concepts.

toadi 3y ago

I agree with you indie creators in general get more slack from me. But for example when I pay triple A prices for video games I'm quite critical :)

ekianjo 3y ago

> don't believe in rating systems, so I just give 5 stars to every book I finish. So you are sabotaging the system not just not believing in it

cmiller1 3y ago

Was it Sanderson?

cutenewt 3y ago

I saw a poll once re: 5-star rating systems: Roughly 50% tolerate or like them The other 50% completely hate them

ilyt 3y ago
Rating system for stuff like books needs another dimension. One for how well book's topic or genre gelled with you as a viewer. Another for execution of the concept. Some books are well written but not for me. Some are interesting enough but flawed. One dimensional scale would land both squarely in the middle