Half the problem is that you're fighting a battle against the idea that it's bad form to have discussions in AO3 comments. I LOVE it when my readers talk to me about their fannish ideas, and I do the same, and we strike up an actual conversation. But there are people who see chit-chat as a way of artificially inflating the comment count, like it's somehow cheating for an author to talk to their readers.
As long as there's the possibility that people might base their decisions on whether or not to read a fic on how many kudos and comments it already has, that bizarre atmosphere is going to linger; that authors are somehow in competition with one another for readers, and you shouldn't make one reader's comment turn into ten by actually answering. It's an argument I've seen go around on tumblr and it's desperately sad.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-06-15 02:35 am (UTC)As long as there's the possibility that people might base their decisions on whether or not to read a fic on how many kudos and comments it already has, that bizarre atmosphere is going to linger; that authors are somehow in competition with one another for readers, and you shouldn't make one reader's comment turn into ten by actually answering. It's an argument I've seen go around on tumblr and it's desperately sad.