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How to give useful replies to someone's field report

5 min read

A useful reply to someone's field report does three small things: it names one specific thing that worked, asks one question about what happened, and offers one suggestion to try next time. Keep it to the approach they described, not the person who wrote it. A common rule of thumb is that three honest sentences help more than a list of ten fixes.

People post field reports to learn faster. Most replies they get are either "nice, keep going" or a pile of corrections. Both leave them where they started.

What a field report looks like in Run Game

In the forum, Field reports is one of the topics. When you write one, the box starts from a short template: Where, What happened, What worked, and What I'd do differently. So you can read a report quickly and see what the writer already thinks. That matters for your reply. If they've already written what they'd change, you don't need to repeat it.

The reply bar sits at the bottom of the post. Type in the box that says Reply, up to 2,000 characters, and tap Reply. To answer one person's reply instead of the post, tap Reply under theirs. The app adds their @name for you. Guests who haven't signed up see "Sign up to reply" instead.

You can also upvote a reply, react with an emoji, and sort replies by Top or Oldest. A reaction is quick, but it doesn't tell the writer what to change. A sentence does.

The three-part reply

1. One thing that worked. Be specific. "Good opener" gives them nothing. "You asked about the book she was holding before you said anything about yourself, and she answered with a full sentence" tells them what to repeat.

2. One question. Questions tend to land better than verdicts, because you only know what the report says. Ask something whose answer would change your advice: "What did she do right before you said you had to go?" or "How long were you talking before you asked?"

3. One suggestion. Offer it as something to try, with a reason. "Next time you could ask for her number after the second laugh, since that's where the energy seemed highest." Then stop. One suggestion is something a person can actually do on their next night out.

An example

Say the report reads: "Where: bookstore. What happened: asked her about the book, talked about 5 minutes, she said she had to meet a friend. What worked: the question. What I'd do differently: be more confident."

A weak reply: "Just be more confident bro, you got this."

A useful one: "The book question worked because it was about something in front of both of you. Five minutes is a real conversation. What did you say right before she mentioned her friend? If it was a pause, a follow-up question about the book might keep it going."

That reply is under 50 words and gives three things the writer can use.

What research says about feedback, and its limits

The best-known review of feedback is Kluger and DeNisi's 1996 meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin, covering 607 effect sizes from 23,663 observations. On average, feedback improved performance (d = .41), but more than a third of the feedback interventions made performance worse. The authors proposed that feedback works less well as it moves attention away from the task and toward the self. Only the abstract was read, not the full paper. The studies were mostly about performance on tasks, not dating or online forums, so treat it as a reason for a rule of thumb, not as proof. The rule: talk about what happened, not about what the person is like.

What to leave out

If a report describes continuing after someone said no, a reply can say plainly that a no means stop, then move on to the next point. One sentence is enough. If a post or reply is abusive, the More menu (three dots) on a reply has Report, and a post has its own Report in its header. Reasons include "Harassment or bullying" and "Inappropriate or explicit".

When it's your report getting replies

Read for patterns, not for each comment. Two people asking the same question probably points at a gap in your write-up. Answer questions in a reply so the thread keeps going. Not every suggestion will fit you, and you can leave one alone. After a rough night, how to handle rejection covers the part the replies can't. The app doesn't offer a way to edit or delete a post or reply once it's sent, so leave out names and details you wouldn't want attached to you.

What to do next

  1. Open Field reports in the forum and read three posts before replying to any.
  2. Pick one report that has no replies yet and write the three-part reply: worked, question, suggestion.
  3. Keep it under 60 words. Read it once as the writer would.
  4. Run the leave-out list before you tap Reply: nothing about looks, nothing about the other person.
  5. Come back the next day and see if the writer answered your question.
  6. Write your own report with the template, using how to write a field report, and see what replies teach you. Tracking your approaches shows how to pair the writing with numbers.

Run Game puts the template in the post box so a report takes a few minutes. Replying well to other people's is the same skill, used on someone else's night.

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