When it comes to fandom topics that provoke big emotions, there are few as fraught as commenting and feedback. From creators' perspectives, feedback can feel like a just reward for the blood, sweat, and tears that go into making a fanwork. In a community where there is little opportunity for rewards or prestige for our work—we cannot be paid or traditionally published, and many of us can't even have our work tied to our names—even a few words from our readers and viewers saying that they like what we did can mean a lot. Why most people who click on our fanworks don't bother with "even a few words" can provoke discouragement and even anger from creators.

On the other hand, readers and viewers of fanworks often express that commenting isn't as easy as it may seem. Various barriers—whether language, skill with comment writing, or mental health—can stand in the way of letting a creator know how much their work means to a reader or viewer. Furthermore, social norms around commenting can feel opaque and even perilous to the fan of a fanwork who desperately wants to avoid pissing off a favorite author or artist.

I've been writing the Cultus Dispatches column about Tolkien fandom studies for more than two years now and have yet to wade into the fraught waters of the history and culture around commenting and feedback on fanworks. But over the next few months, I plan to do just that! To start, I am collecting responses for a Fandom Voices article on commenting and feedback. Fandom Voices is an ongoing project that collects and publishes responses from fans on a variety of fandom-related questions and topics. Whether you create fanworks or read/view them, if you'd like to share your views and experiences with commenting and feedback, Fandom Voices is seeking responses about commenting and feedback from anyone who engages with Tolkien-based fanworks in any way and wants to share their perspective. You can contribute a response to our current Fandom Voices collection on commenting and feedback here.

The SWG is an archive built for a community, and we have always encouraged our members to comment on each other's work. To find more about commenting on our archive:

• Logged-in members can find all of the comments on their work here (as well as the five most recent on the homepage).
• But no one wants to physically go to and check a website, right? It's 2024!! If you'd like to get email notifications of new comments (on your work or someone else's), learn how here.
• Site hack: You can always find the comments on a fanwork (including the comment form, if you're logged in) by navigating to the work and typing "/comment" after the web address, e.g. silmarillionwritersguild.org/node/##/comment.
• Likewise, if you're logged in, you can find the number of comments (and views and favorites) on any of your fanworks on My Fanworks, with a direct link to all of your comments on that work.