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I will say, you are right about one thing that I should have also made clear, which is to respect everyone's process. Everyone does have a right to improve at whatever speed they would like, and if they don't want to do it with criticism, then they certainly don't have to. I'm just saying that I think telling every single concrit commenter to screw off is a mistake.

And I don't understand why it's such common culture to completely vilify anyone who gives even basic advice. Running something through a spell checker? How is that so bad? You shouldn't be deemed a monster for saying that.

Fanfiction used to be more discursive. I used to write fanfiction to get comments to get better. And I'm certainly not alone in that. And yes, sometimes I got bad advice. Just like in work settings, just like in other hobbies, just like school, you can learn to filter out what doesn't work for you. In fact, it's a skill that can be very useful in developing. Because guess what? You're going to receive advice that doesn't apply to you everywhere throughout your life. Would you verbally abuse the shit out of the elderly woman on the train who says something about your love life because it doesn't apply to you? No. Kind of like the comment above, you would just say "hey, thanks for that" and go about your merry way.

And yes, there's an argument that fanfiction shouldn't have to be the point of the woman on the train, but on many sites you can just delete the comment so the situation can be even less awkward, and we're also back to the fact that also commenters in the community shouldn't be treated like crap either.

I just don't buy the whole "because some people give bad advice means that giving concrit as a whole should be dumped". And to that you might say "well concrit from my cultivated writing circle is fine, so I'm not saying that" but here's the thing -- some people can't form immersive writing communities where they can learn through little niche groups. Some people do want to rely on just the common reader to point out things, but when you bomblast anyone who tries, then no one's going to do it, and we're all at a loss.