t bofq Every community has a different take on feedback. I started, like Nutty, in a newsgroup/list environment, and as a result I tend to think that only private email really constitutes feedback. Which is stupid, I know, but there it is. You can rec me to the heavens, but if you don't tell ME what you liked and didn't like about the story, it's not feedback.
(Once or twice I've come across someone who says publicly that they love my writing, that one of my stories is their absolute favorite, or some such business -- which is very nice. Except invariably I don't have any feedback from that person in my saved folders. Which just seems odd to me, as if Buffy spent all her time telling Willow she loved Angel but never informed Angel of her feelings. ::shrugs::)
Yes, this is insane troll logic, I am aware. But I don't like having to trolling for feedback by surfing the boards and FFN and so forth: I like having it arrive in my inbox where I can save it and pull it out on bad days to remind myself I don't actually suck after all.
I send fb when a story touches me, generally. But I'm not consistent. I'm better about feeding people I know (I'm better about reading people I know), and giving them honest criticism of what worked and what didn't. Occasionally I kick my own ass and send a bunch of feedback to strangers/newbies, since I know how hard it is to be new in a fandom, trying to get anyone to acknowledge your existence. But I'm very very demanding, and if I can't finish a story because it has spelling errors, infelicitous syntax, or no story at all (i.e., pure navel-gazing dressed up with over-pretty prose), then I'm highly unlikely to feed the writer. ::shrugs::
t /bofq