pocketlass replied to your post
“I am a person who writes paragraphs of praise in the comments of my...”
i tend to treat my bookmarks like rec posts, so rather than talking directly to the author i'm selling future readers on the fic. of course i comment what i love on the fic itself too
“I am a person who writes paragraphs of praise in the comments of my...”
and for me, since fic comments are like talking directly to the author, my comment tone is more...restrained, i guess? making sure my words make sense and that i don't confuse the author. whereas my bookmark notes are like squawking incoherently in the margins of a notebook and it's more about getting the ~feels~ across rather than stringing together logical sentences
I send incoherent squawks to authors all the time :D. I know that Ao3 has the ‘bookmark as rec’ feature, so it makes sense that this is why you would comment that way as part of the bookmark.
I still agree with @notcaycepollard that people should be completely aware that their bookmark comments are public unless they deliberately make them private, though, as I am sure several people don’t know this.
One time I received a really sweet comment from someone that was incredibly effusive. It was glowingly complimentary and I patted myself on the back for a job well done. Then they bookmarked the fic and wrote “2 out of 5. I didn’t completely buy that the main character would act that way. Some good dialogue but clunky exposition. Enjoyable but not memorable.”
You can imagine that I found myself wondering why they had commented so favorably when that wasn’t how they truly felt.
When it comes to fanworks, I very much fall into the ‘if you can’t find something nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ camp. If it’s only for your eyes, or a private conversation with a close friend, say what you like. Writing things like that where the author can see, but not to them as constructive criticism strikes me as unkind.