I hope you've all been enjoying your GIANT PILE OF FEMSLASH. I know I have. I still have ten tabs open, but hope to have read all of my fandoms over the next couple of days.

If you haven't already done so, I outright beg you to read and comment on stories written for you. Even if you defaulted, your author still wants to hear from you.

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A couple people complained of an odd technical error wherein AO3 didn't show fest fic in your works section or in any of the archive tags. It's discussed here, the short version being that if you re-saved your work, without making any changes, it'd show up.

The long version is that several of us put in support tickets with AO3, and got this as a reply:

The delay you saw was likely due to the fact that we save (cache) work listing pages so they don’t have to be generated from scratch every time someone wants to look at them. This means that changes won’t show up until the cache is refreshed, which may take some time.

Now I've NEVER seen a lag that long on a fest. In interests of gathering more AO3 information, I'd like you to check see if your stories are showing up in fandom, pairing, character or freeform tags, and let me know if they aren't.

Also, did anyone get author alerts on subscriptions they have? You should have gotten one for whoever you had tracked at the time the archive went live. I know someone who had me tracked didn't get one. Anyone else who did?

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So, bit of a bumpy ride this year from our end, though hopefully not too much of that showed up on the side of the participants. We want to take a minute to talk about proposed changes for next year and get your input on them.

Before I start, because it was something of a shake down cruise this year, we're offering amnesty to late defaulters. You will be allowed to participate next year, and we'll mention it again at the time. Call this a pre-series game, if that's more your fandom then nautical references. After that, the default rules stick.

Now, what worked and what didn't (in order that the problem occurred).

Modly Participation: I was the face of the fest this year, which obscured all the work samuraiter did behind the scenes. Next year, you'll probably be seeing a more equal representation of mods.

Timing (within fest): We didn't have enough time for tag wrangling, assignments or last minute pinch hits. Therefore, the time between nominations and sign ups, and between sign ups and assignments going out will be expanded to three full days. The time between assignments being due and the archive opening will be expanded to six days. We'll also try to have the archive open on a Friday, so that people have the chance to read their stories sooner.

Timing (of fest): We felt like six weeks was lots of time to write, and feel like giving more time would still end up with everyone scrambling to get their fic in at the last minute, so wasn't planning to change that. However, time of year is open to negotiation. Did reveals in early November work for you? Would you like it earlier? Sign ups will be earlier regardless, see above about timing.

Tag Wrangling: The time to ask for tags to be wrangled differently is before sign ups open. That said, we did have a few later requests that we'll try to accommodate next year. Tolkein fandom will be broken into Sil, Hobbit and LotR, and we can just figure out who goes where at the time. We'll try to keep on top of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire better next year.

Minimum Requirements for Requests/Offers: The manual modly checking whether people had enough offers and requests to qualify led to some problems. Five people got shut out, and while the numbers were triple checked and I'm absolutely confident they were accurate, it led to some hard feelings. No one likes getting shut out, and we didn't especially enjoy doing it. Constantly checking to make sure everyone had enough to qualify was also a major time sink on our part. Three potential solutions:

1) Go back to the original rules that required a minimum of two pairings in all fandoms, with three fandoms required. Can't say I'm a huge fan of this one, but thought I'd put it out there.

2) Do what we did this year, but allow an extra day after close of sign ups to try track down people who didn't make the minimum and give them a chance to change their offers. This shifts the responsibility from the participants to the mods, re everyone getting their sign ups right, and is even more of a time sink. Plus if people aren't online in that day, they'd still get shut out.

3) Allow a minimum of one pairing across the board, but up the minimum required fandoms to four or five (probably five). This might make matching a little harder, and it would be more difficult for people who are only into a few fandoms.

Mods are leaning pretty hard towards Option 3 right now, but let us know what you think.

Rules for Background Pairings: We will probably add a rule that background parings are allowed, but the focus on the story must be on the requested pairing(s), not on something else, even if it's canon.

Pinch Hitting: Mostly this system worked pretty well. Next year, pinch hitters may expect a few more direct check in e-mails from the mods. Someone blew a couple deadlines this year, and we didn't figure it out until it was far, far too late. Any other pinch hit related feedback?

Anon Period: We didn't have one this year, and we're not convinced we need one, but did anyone really, really miss it?

I think that's it. However, if you have feedback on a topic not mentioned here, we'd like that too. I've turned on anon commenting on the Dreamwidth post, and hope that mostly people will comment there, keeping the discussion in one place. If that doesn't work for you, we'll be checking the mod e-mail for the next week or so, and commenting on all platforms is turned on. Constructive criticism pertaining to any area of the fest is welcome. Slinging abuse or making comments about the mods' personal lives will get deleted.

I huge thank you to everyone who has already offered feedback and advise, and everyone who answered our PMed/e-mailed requests for help.