I just wish authors would say exactly what they mean when they put "I want feedback" messages on their sites

Yes! I usually try to leave a reason why I liked something, or at least say what I liked the most, and have still managed to offend someone (it turned out, the aspect of a story I liked was not an "important" aspect of the story). On the other hand, some authors feel that minimal feedback is meaningless, and that's certainly the kind of thing I would like to know about ahead of time; I mean, if I know that the reaction to an "I liked this" will be "you shouldn't have bothered", then I'll know not to bother, y'know?

I wholeheartedly agree with pauraque's opinion that this sort of thing ruins it for the rest of us.