Journal CmdrTaco's Journal: Angry Reader Mail Analyzed 4
Users hate this, and it's understandable. A lot of users just half-ass a submission, a link and maybe a badly spelled rant about how evil some corporate monster is. But others really put in a lot of effort. They clearly spent 5-10 minutes crafting a solid submission, finding and linking related articles around the net, and linking previous stories on Slashdot. Very cool. So when their submission gets rejected, they take that as a slap.
It doesn't help that a story rejection on Slashdot essentially amounts to "Rejected". No explanation. No reason. No justification. Users invent all sorts of reasons, ranging from the likely (they didn't care much for the story) to the conspiratorial (I've submitted 5 stories and they've all been rejected, clearly you hate me and all that I stand for). This morning I found this priceless little gem (reprinted with permission, but name witheld to prevent ego stroking) which really typifies the response I get. I get 3-5 complaints a day, but this one was special.
Subj: Question: Who do you have to fuck to get posted in "Ask Slashdot"?
I'm 0 for 5 now and that's BULLSHIT!!! You bastards don't even have the courtesy to acknowledge the care and thought that goes into a submission? Shame!
For me the illusion is broken. "Community resource?" My Ass!
I will now break down what he said, what he means, and try to respond to it. I shall do so in asshole form becauase it's early and I haven't yet finished my first cup of coffee, and because I'm not clever enough to respond Strongbad style.
- I am angry enough to use impolite language with a total stranger. This is always an issue for me. I like to help readers. I like to answer questions. I'll even answer very controversial and difficult questions if I can. But to start off a message like this... this guy knows for a fact that no good will come of his message. Everything about it. This is purely flame. What does he really expect to come of this message? I actually laughed out loud when I read this one. It was early, and this message was SO stereotypical, it prompted me to share. Now don't get me wrong, I'm no prude. I'll cuss and swear (as anyone who knows me will attest to) but you don't cuss and swear when you are trying to promote change from a stranger. It's just bizarre.
- There is a mysterious "Secret" to getting a story selected. He implies that this is sexual. As if by boning me, he'll get a story posted, even tho I'm pretty sure that even my wife has never managed to get a story posted. Already, there is denial here... he believes that there is a secret to getting a story posted, and it won't matter what I tell him. The truth is less interesting...
- Since he has submitted 5 stories, he is entitled to get one posted This one actually used to bother me. As I mentioned above, we reject 25 submissions for every one we accept. So he is already off by a factor of 5. But it never ceases to amaze me that people think that volume of submissions is a factor in selection. What they don't understand is that we don't even look at the name of the submittor. I deleted hundreds of story submissions yesterday and probably didn't read a single byline. I double check them to make sure they are syntactically correct and not dirty words before I save a final story, but it doesn't even enter in to the story selection process. Each submission is a stand alone event...
- He is entitled to some level of praise and honor for writing a submission This is a fair request, and it has always been an issue on Slashdot that a submission that is not accepted is marked as 'Rejected' and returned to the submittor. Some users take this very personally. From the big picture perspective, we're providing no feedback, so there is no chance for the submittor to improve. From a practical perspective, its just not possible to give a reason... there's simple not enough time. Remember that we're talking about 500 rejections a day. Even if it takes just 10 seconds to decide upon a reason, and select it from a list, we just added 83 minutes to our work day, or 9.6 hours to our work week. We don't have 9.6 extra hours next week. Or the week after that. It's just not possible. The other fact is that the more feedback a user is given, the more dialog they want. We learned this with the moderation system and the user account system. Every piece of data we reveal creates a new discussion. New dialog. New questions. New answers. And more email. Right now 3-5 users email me a day to question a rejected submission. I reply with a form letter. If we provided a reason, I'd bet that number would increase 5 to 10 fold. I don't have time to write 50 more emails a day apologizing and explaining and justifying.
- I should be ashamed because I didn't give him praise As you probably noticed from this journal entry, I'm not really feeling shame.
- His view of Slashdot is diminished as, for him, it is not a community resource. This is the one that really gets me giggling, because he already has said he was submitting 'Ask Slashdot' stories. In other words, he is pissed that we won't answer his question. This isn't about serving the community. This is about serving him. And because Slashdot won't do that, we are failing them. Again, this is very typical of some submittors. The sense of entitlement is strange. The individual always likes to call out the needs of the 500,000 daily Slashdot readers when they don't get their way. Wheras I like to think that the reason that we have those 500,000 daily readers in the first place is that we're doing a pretty good job of selecting stories that do serve the community.
- My Ass! this one confuses me too, but i have a theory: he already demonstrated in his subject line that he considers sex a means to get what he wants. Perhaps this statement is an exclamatory related to that. It's unclear to me if he is offering something, or complaining about previous results. But again, it's a little to much to put into an email to a stranger
So anyway, good morning! I have probably 200 more people to reject before I get to go home today, imagine what my inbox will look like by 5!
Feature idea (Score:2)
Re:Feature idea (Score:2)
Overflow area? (Score:2)
I'm still surprised that
My experience... (Score:2)
I normally do not take the rejections too personally. About the only time they ever bother me is when I see the same piece of news be published by Slashdot, from another submitter, that (in my opinion) is of worse quality than the one I tried to submit.
I am one of the people that tries to write a good submission, taking 5-10 minutes to get a couple of links (and identify them correctly) and an informative summary to post.
I realize it is