#but i've been working on a reclist recently and am running up against the problem of:

[friendshipgun]

y'all really gotta stop being so disingenuous with this shit. the only way you can see bookmark comments is if you actively go looking for them, it's not "someone having a conversation with someone else at a party where you are" it's someone having a conversation in another room entirely, who is under the assumption that you're not at the party, and then you barge in and go "HEY WHAT ARE YOU SAYING ABOUT ME."

reminding people about privating bookmarks is one thing, bc there are plenty of ppl who do not know that it is an option, but stop talking about this like you could just """happen""" to come across someone being blunt about your fic in THEIR bookmarks.

the bottom line is that bookmarks are for readers. saying this as a fic author: that is not a space for you; that's why you can't get bookmark notifications like you can for kudos/comments. you are going out of your way to look at what people have put in a system that is designed for their personal use and for the use of other readers.

"you don't need their rating system" EXACTLY. it's not for you. bookmark comments are not for you. yeah it sucks that people are being nasty but it's being put in a place that is meant for them and which you, as a writer, have to intentionally seek out.

and when it comes down to it, if people are being nasty on purpose you trying to guilt them into stopping it ain't gonna work. all it's going to do is make other people afraid to use the bookmark system exactly as it was intended to be used: to keep track of fic. saw this exact discussion on twitter and it was mostly ppl using it to keep track of what chapter they were on now afraid to use bookmarks at all in case the chapter numbers were accidentally read as some kind of rating system, so great fucking job!

if you see someone being nasty block/mute them. or, if seeing a comment on a bookmark that's not gushing praise is going to bother you, stop looking at bookmarks.

as a reader i would much prefer ppl being blunt with their bookmarks than click on a fic to read and find out it's slightly ooc, which would immediately make me stop reading. but if someone left a bookmark that said "slightly ooc, but the relationships are so well-written, and the ending is so fucking good" or even the reverse: "the plot is contrived but the characterization is so spot on omg" i am most likely going to keep reading the fic! even something like "passable" would make me more likely to try a fic bc the person clearly enjoyed it enough to bookmark it so they could come back to it.

bookmarks are there for readers: for the individual who made the bookmark foremost and for other readers looking for fic after that.

i think what people actually need to learn is that others may enjoy your fic even if they didn't enjoy every single thing about it. that they may want to recommend it to people even if they didn't think it was perfect, and the fact that they are putting this in their bookmarks and not a fic comment already indicates that it is not directed at you as the author. sure it's public, but it's effectively a reclist, and some people prefer putting caveats on fics on reclists. that's all it is. it's not an attack on you, it's being put in a space where the person likely didn't even intend you to see it.

this has been a sticking point for me for a while now bc i'd really like to see fic reclists make a comeback, but this attitude of "saying anything not 100% positive about my fic is pure maliciousness and shouldn't be allowed" has really gotta stop for that to ever happen.

tl;dr: the system is actually being used as intended, you're just trying to warp it into an extended comments section.

Hey guys? Stop doing this please and thanks. There’s no need to put your rating system in a public bookmark where the author can see it. I don’t care if it’s a good or a bad rating just stop it and keep that shit to yourself.