User blog comment:AB1997/Behaviors That You Dislike That Aren't Against the Rules/@comment-4849011-20151124000358

I haven't read all the comments, but I know this has been touched on already- criticizing something that's simply not there. Recently I was talking with Doom Vroom about some negative but respectful feedback for one of my pastas, and I noted, "At least you were commenting on things that actually did happen in the story." I said that because one time someone criticized something that didn't happen in one of my stories. I had a story and at one point I described the murderess taking out a bouquet of flowers and smelling them. Someone left a lengthy criticism which included a rebuke that to create a memorable killer I had to have something other than the gimmick of them leaving flowers at the crime scene. However, this never happened. Like I said, the killer merely sniffed a bouquet of flowers. There was absolutely nothing in the story to give the slightest support to the notion that she had left the flowers anywhere. The reader just jumped to a conclusion. I explained this nicely, but the critic never replied to admit she or he misinterpreted that part (Well, out-and-out invented an interpretation is more like it). Have I misinterpreted things myself? Sure! We all have! I'll admit to doing that on this site and elsewhere. However, I believe that if you misinterpret something (because you were tired, or didn't read it right, or whatever) and you either realize it later or have it pointed out to you, you should have the courtesy to reply, "Oh, my mistake!" Sometimes people do, but when they don't it's frustrating because that's really showing they don't care.