Hey all, I hope you've all be en enjoying the art and stories. I know I still have a bunch left to read and comment on, but that's why we have weekends!

Sorry about the subscription alert bug that we again had this year. I have talked to the good folks at AO3, and they not only sorted it out, but told me how to prevent it next year.

I feel like after last year's rocky start things went pretty well this year. However, that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement. So, under the cut, a few points that we'd like input on, a general check in, and a call out for suggestions. Anon comments, as always, are allowed and encouraged.

1. Timing (macro)
From our perspective, mid-August to late-October worked pretty well, (though I did go on vacation in the middle of it and dump a bunch of the nomination period on samuraiter). We kept clear of yuletide and nano, at least, and seemed to have enough time between phases to set everything up. If it's amenable, we'd probably tend to run it again over the same period. How about you all?

2. Timing (micro)
Does ending the writing period on Saturday evening/Sunday afternoon and having the archive open on Friday evening/Saturday afternoon (depending on time zone) work for everyone? The 5pm (PDT) thing was admittedly mostly for my convenience, as I don't do midnight. However, perhaps the timezones could be made clearer? There seemed to be a lot of confusion on that issue.

3. Anon Period
We didn't have one this year or last year, and many like it that way. However, I am of the understanding that many people prefer to have an anon period, and even hesitate to sign up for a fest without. It's no bother to the mods either way.

4. Artists
We had some lovely art, and we're certainly going to include artists next year. However, not very many artists signed up, which is too bad. This mostly falls on me for not advertising to artists spaces very well, and to forgetting to change some of the wording to make clear it wasn't just a fic exchange. I hope to do better with that next year. Though lots of people requested art (yay!), a lot didn't remember to include art-friendly prompts (oops!); which I made a couple of mod notes about, but obviously could have made more clear. Also, since many artists are new to AO3, I'll put up a post or link to a how-to for them, including image hosting ideas. Any and all suggestions for how to make the fest more attractive and welcoming to artists would be appreciated.

5. Other Media
We had someone ask about including vids. More media types would make matching more difficult, but I'm not fundamentally opposed to vids. Feelings about this? I do think that playlists and icons are probably better suited to fandom_stocking.

6. RPF
We've added a note excluding people who are not public figures in their own right, but there has been a request to raise the age of nominations from 16 to 18. RPF isn't really my fandom, so I had just gone with age of consent where I live, but I'm happy to go either way on that.

7. Requesting "Any"
A couple people commented that they found that requests that included "Any pairing" tended to be unhelpful. I know that some people wrote out prompts for every single pairing in the tag set when they did that, but several also just said "any" and then added no comment, which left baffled authors and artists without even a paring to go on. Since you can request up to six pairings per fandom, most fandoms don't have that many nominated pairings, and in the end you only get one gift, it fells like disallowing "any pairing" in requests (while still allowing it under offers) wouldn't hurt either matchings or people's letters that much. However, I would like input on that.

8. No Penalty Default Date
I'm not sure this does anything at all? Granted, we had three or four people default on the date, but we also had two or three times that either default after or flat out fail to hand in. In fact, I feel like if you don't default on the NPDD, you tend to leave it as late as possible thinking that you can make it for sure, no really, because you have the thread of bannation hanging over you. Which just pushes the handing out of pinch hits later and later and makes the mods lives generally more stressful. Also, since it's so easy to make a sock on AO3, banning people doesn't do a lot. An alternative would be to abolish penalties for defaulting, except failure to hand in. Or to move it to a different date, or do something else suggested in comments.

9. Number of Nominations/Requests/Offers
With up to 5x5 nominations, 4x1 to 6x6 Requests, 4x1 to 10x10 offers, and two choices of media, matching went really well. I'm pretty inclined to leave it where it is in future years. How does everyone else feel?

10. Pinch Hitters
All you all are fabulous! Sorry about all the check in e-mails, but working with them this year led to less tears and delays of archive openings than not checking in last year, so that'll probably stay.

We had a suggestion that there be a space for pinch hitters to put up requests, as happens in yuletide. Since the archive is open until next year, that's possible. However, since we don't have a NYR-like system, and last year had precisely zero people adding stories after opening, I'm not sure that would get anyone anywhere, and might end up being a False Promise of Sadness. Feelings on this?

11. Other Issues
I'm pretty sure I forgot to list something here, and probably there's things I just didn't think of, so #11 is a space for other comments.

ETA: Am going to let a bunch of people comment before starting discussion.