I find it absolutely astonishing that even after so many years, the issue of silent readers and notorious spammers is still a problem amongst the authors on AFF that brings grief to them and prompts them to either make their stories exclusive to a hand-picked group of people or delete/make them private all together. 

AFF has always been infamous because of this and although every fanfiction site out there faces the same problem, it is much more present and dire on here due to the karma system and the featured section. You would think, however, that after such a long time, authors would have stopped being so peeved by this. Now, let me make thigs a little bit clearer--wanting comments isn't a selfish thing as it is normal to desire validation and appreciation. What is unhealthy and unrealistic, however, is wishing for them despite being aware of the situation and letting the lack of them affect your creative process. You are entitled to your feelings and not getting any recognition can be really disheartening, but remember--there is always going to be an audience for your writing.

Your progress should never be defined or dependent on the feed-back you receive. You should make sure before you start writing or drawing or doing anything, really, that your motives are independent from other people. There's nothing wrong with wanting to write just for the appreciation and fame you will receive, but when things won't go your way and the reaction you end up receiving isn't the one you were expecting, you will be the only one suffering and on the losing team. My suggestion is you find a friend or a group of people who are willing to read your stories and are close with so you can receive constant feed-back no matter the case, without getting your hopes up for nothing. Having a handul of people reading your story and giving you constructive criticism each time you update is so much better and more motivational than waiting, often times in vain, for it. You will be able to find yourself loyal readers who care about you and your work and you will be so much more confident in your skills as time passes.

 I have been on the receiving end of being an author and a reader who comments and I have found that part of the blame lies within the writers as well as with the readers, but people seem to not be keen on admitting that. I didn't leave generic comments either, but the long in-depth ones that I had to divide in almost three different ones due to the word limit. The response of the authors on whose stories I had shared my opinion on, was often lackluster and disappointing and left me wanting to no longer comment. The author either gave really short cold replies or didn't reply at all. As an author, you have to establish a relationship between you and your readers and encourage them to keep on giving you feedback--just like you want validation, so do the readers who put thought into the comments they leave; they want to be recognized by the author and appreciated for the effort and time they put into sharing their opinions on your work.

I know that some authors feel entitled to receiving feedback (and really, all authors do at some point in time whether it is a temporary feeling or not) and consider it to be a normal polite thing to do, but things don't work that way and not a lot of people have that mentality and if they do, they leave short ones out of courtesy that we find unsatisfying, especially when people often do it out of the desire to get more karma. Remember, though, that even those who leave comments have taken some time out of their day to do so and the amount of comments you receive help make your story more popular. 

My solution to this problem would be to make use of the interest people seem to show in the features the site have and upvote the comments you find satisfying or those that are long and clearly show the interest the reader has in your story. It requires literally nothing but a second and you have got nothing to lose. Another tip is to reply to all of these messages, show that you want to hear more from them and set an example for the silent readers, that this is the way relationships are established between authors and readers and that it goes both way, that there are advantages to getting involved in the story. One more thing I suggest doing is to maybe do a shout-out for those readers who have left long comments, stimulate and encourage them to do so. Put your ego away for a second and reach out to your readers as you only have to gain from this.

Remeber--stay healthy and don't let the matters on this site affect you too much in your personal life, outside of the internet. You are important and loved and should always be your first priority.