An Open Letter To Writers Who Don’t Reply to Comments
Wtf, 1124 notifications?
Dear Writer,
I used to think a stupid thing.
I mean, I’ve thought a lot of stupid things. That’s pretty human. The people who never see their own stupidities, those are the truly scary folk.
Anyway. Point is, I’m here to say sorry.
See, I used to think when writers didn’t reply to their comments, they were being kind of rude. You know? And now I kind of choke even saying it.
The thought process used to go something like this…
When people come read your posts and leave a comment, the least you could do is, you know… freaking respond. Because, I read, I clapped, I commented… and then? Crickets. No response from you. How rude.
Right?
Hahahah.
Ain’t that the sign of a newb.
So, then this happened…
Wtf, a thousand notifications?
That’s not the worst. It’s been double that.
When I was bombed with work I barely came here for a couple of weeks. And the notifications were over 2K. But you know — a couple of weeks. Of course notifications will be nuts if you’re away a couple of weeks.
This wasn’t a couple of weeks. It was a couple of days. Days!
Over a thousand notifications. In a couple of days. What the…
It dawned on me there’s 5 reasons writers don’t respond to comments.
1. You can’t. Not humanly possible. Not enough time.
Maybe there’s just too many. When you’re new and only get a few comments, and only have a few stories published, it’s easy to keep up. But after a while, it gets harder and harder.
When you start showing up and seeing hundreds of notifications every day, it gets hard. There’s only so many hours in the day. I have people commenting on new stuff, and comments on posts from a year or two ago.
If I have 2 hours a day at Medium, I have to decide how to divide that up. Writing? Editing? Reading other people’s posts and commenting there? Responding to comments on their own posts?
Some people might be able to spend all day here. Maybe they don’t have a job, or Medium is a full time income. That’s not most of us.
You have to be smart about what you can do. Or you burn out.
2. The comments are so toxic you can’t bear to look
If you’ve ever written a feminist post, you can relate. I’m just going to put it out there — if you write feminist posts, don’t read your comments. The vitriol is toxic. It gets to you. Eats your brain.
I’ve had random men hunt down my website and email me the nasty comment I muted on my posts. It’s ugly. And that’s being polite. My Mom would roll over in her grave if she knew what random men said to her child. Cripes.
If you know your comments are going to be mostly crap, why read them? No one needs to read 9 nasties for every good comment. It gets to you.
And you know what? I don’t need you to read the comments. If you write on a loaded topic and I like what you have to say, I’ll keep on reading. You keep on ignoring the comments. We’re good.
3. You are commenting. On other writers’ stories, not yours.
That’s a big one. Let’s pretend you read one of my posts and left a comment. Plus, you wrote a story or two of your own. You and 10 other people I follow.
Would you rather I spend an hour reading and responding to the comments on my own stories (including your comment) — or would you rather I come over and read your story? Right?
Here’s the thing. If you go to that “rude” writer’s profile and click on responses, you’ll usually find a ton of them. Just not on their own stories.
Which means they’ve decided that when they’re not writing, they’re reading other people’s stories instead of responding to their own comments.
Can’t hardly find fault with that. Isn’t that kind of what we hope people will do? Because back to rule #1. Only so many hours in the day.
4. You turned notifications off because there’s too many
If a writer is also a publication editor they’d get hundreds of notifications a day. Plus comment notifications. And publication newsletters. And Medium newsletters. It gets too much, so sometimes they just turn them all off.
If a writer has notifications turned off, they have no idea when someone comments on a story.
When I like a writer’s writing, I’d much rather they spend their time writing something new instead of checking their old posts to see if there’s comments that need responding to. How silly is that?
5. Blunt honesty — comments aren’t how writers get paid.
Medium has always said comments and stories are the same thing in the system. But they’re not really. Because writers can put their stories behind the pay wall and get paid for their read time. Not so for comments.
According to the Medium June newsletter, 63.1% of writers here earned “some” money. 5.7% earned over $100.
If a writer is here to make an income or even supplement their income, who are we to get our faces in a knot that they spend their time writing instead of responding to comments they don’t get paid for?
So anyway. You keep writing. I’ll keep reading…
There’s a little line in the sand and called overwhelm. There’s only so many hours in a day. We’ve all been there and it’s a place to visit, but not camp out.
When push comes to shove, the measure of a worthy writer is not whether or not you respond to comments on the internet.
It’s whether you write things I want to keep reading. And you do. So you keep writing. I’ll keep reading. Deal?
xo Linda