Well, what I actually saw was that it was updated many times over at most a couple of days and then nothing for about a week. I hadn’t, at that point, looked at the times of the earliest postings and noticed that they were months earlier.
So what I saw at that point—and what I thought others might likewise see—was a flurry of activity followed by a gap. And that seemed like possible evidence of dead-ness, which is why I checked further and decided it wasn’t.
Your last paragraph seems to be reading things into what I wrote that I’m pretty sure I never put there. I completely agree that if a reader prefers to avoid reading things that get abandoned in the middle, it’s their responsibility to look. That’s what I did. I found (1) reason for initial suspicion that this might be such a work and then (2) excellent reason to drop that suspicion, so I said so. Neither did I push for updates nor suggest that anyone else should. (In case anyone else took what I said as some sort of encouragement to do that: Do not do that! It’s rude!)
Fair enough! Insofar as I read something into your original comment that wasn’t there, I think it was due to my interpretation of the language? When I hear something described as “dead” or “abandoned”, that sounds like assigning blame to the author, as if they didn’t fulfill a responsibility or duty; but I understand that this interpretation was not intended.
To be clear, I would still bet at 2:1 odds that the story won’t get finished, simply based on base rates for web fiction (possibly the base rate for unfinished Glowfics is even higher?). All the while stressing that I don’t mean that as blame, and that it’s entirely fine for anyone to decide that a free fiction project is no longer worth their opportunity cost.
Well, what I actually saw was that it was updated many times over at most a couple of days and then nothing for about a week. I hadn’t, at that point, looked at the times of the earliest postings and noticed that they were months earlier.
So what I saw at that point—and what I thought others might likewise see—was a flurry of activity followed by a gap. And that seemed like possible evidence of dead-ness, which is why I checked further and decided it wasn’t.
Your last paragraph seems to be reading things into what I wrote that I’m pretty sure I never put there. I completely agree that if a reader prefers to avoid reading things that get abandoned in the middle, it’s their responsibility to look. That’s what I did. I found (1) reason for initial suspicion that this might be such a work and then (2) excellent reason to drop that suspicion, so I said so. Neither did I push for updates nor suggest that anyone else should. (In case anyone else took what I said as some sort of encouragement to do that: Do not do that! It’s rude!)
Fair enough! Insofar as I read something into your original comment that wasn’t there, I think it was due to my interpretation of the language? When I hear something described as “dead” or “abandoned”, that sounds like assigning blame to the author, as if they didn’t fulfill a responsibility or duty; but I understand that this interpretation was not intended.
To be clear, I would still bet at 2:1 odds that the story won’t get finished, simply based on base rates for web fiction (possibly the base rate for unfinished Glowfics is even higher?). All the while stressing that I don’t mean that as blame, and that it’s entirely fine for anyone to decide that a free fiction project is no longer worth their opportunity cost.