Meaning of Kudos

[littlemousling]

Poll #10088 Meaning of Kudos

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 369

When I click the Kudos button, it most often means (one or more of) the following:

View Answers

Good job!
261 (70.7%)

I liked this!
339 (91.9%)

I finished this and didn't hate it!
60 (16.3%)

I ADORED this!
204 (55.3%)

I like clicking buttons and assign no meaning!
4 (1.1%)

None of these options apply
6 (1.6%)

This is a sort of follow-up to bethbethbeth's great Kudos/Comments poll here. There are a number of comments there discussing the various reasons people click the Kudos button, some of which may be more common reasons than others.

Feel free to expand on your answer!

Comments

[greedy_dancer]

I admit I used to believe uploading my fic to AO3 would lead to NO MORE COMMENTS EVER, because sometimes I use kudos as "the easy way out". The fact is that I think I'm a pretty good feedbacker, generally, and I tend to comment on most things I read on LJ/DW, even if to say "Hey I liked this, thanks for writing," or "this was hot, well done!" But those are the comments that I replace with kudos on AO3. When a fic blows my mind or really hits a kink/trope/button for me, I will leave a comment, no matter if it's on AO3 or on journals.

I still upload my fic to journals FIRST though, to get that first flush of comments. Then I upload to AO3, and it's true that fics on AO3 get many more kudos than comments. But that might be a self-fulfilling thing, since people most likely to comment - my friends and people who know me - might have read the fic already.

It's really interesting to read this poll because I had no idea how differently people interpret their Kudos. To me, as an author, they were always taken as "thanks for writing" / "I liked this but didn't love it". I can understand why this uncertainty as regards the "intensity" of feedback intended in Kudos might make some people dislike them. I wouldn't interpret Kudos as "heyyy clicky" or "I hated this" or whatever, and there's a consensus from the poll that Kudos express something positive. But there's no way of knowing HOW positive it is. Depending on the person it could be "I read this, thanks!" or "I liked this" or "I adored this" and you have no way of knowing.

Then it becomes a matter of knowing whether you as an author prefer knowing people have generally (but vague) positive feelings towards your story, or if you'd rather hear nothing from people who read but don't want to/can't comment for whatever reason.

[greedy_dancer]

Hmm, I keep thinking about this and now I'm wondering if the people who say "kudos = my story wasn't even worth a comment??" are people who usually have the time/spoons to leave "I liked this" comments. And might just not be aware of how many people are simply not able to do that, thus transcribing "I don't have the spoons but I liked this" to "I don't even like your story enough to comment 'properly'".

It really comes down to realizing that yeah, 5 of the kudos might replace "yay, read this" comments you would have otherwise gotten, but they add a greater number of "I read this and probably liked it at least a little" from people you wouldn't have heard of anyway. So there IS a loss, somewhere in there. To me, the gain is greater though. (And yet I'm willing to go without those "yay" reactions from spoonless people when I first post to journal without crossposting to AO3. Comments still feel like a greater reward to me, something that I think is inscribed in our fannish culture right now. I never said I was coherent in my feelings on the subject >.>)