2015 Wrap Up Post

[muccamukk]

I think it mostly went pretty well this year, hiccup at the end aside. Bullet points for potential issues:

1. We might institute a pinch hits are due X hours before the archive opens policy, and that number might be six hours. That's built in buffer time for last minute vanishing acts etc.

2. There seemed to be a lot of confusion about what time things were due. I thought that was widely posted, but I'll put it on the comm info as well next year. Any other suggestions for making the time more clear?

3. Otherwise, timing working for people? Longer? Shorter? Different day of the week?

4. Art: So again we got some lovely art, and some really hot porny art, and there was much rejoicing. We did not, again, get very many people signing up for art. I'm not sure how to change this, or if it is changeable. All suggestions very much welcome.

5. Other formats: In that we're still struggling to get art happening, I don't see including anything else at this time.

6. I don't think anyone used the treats for pinch hitters post, and I'm wondering if it's worth the bother next year. It's a fun idea, but I'd save myself the work if no one actually does anything with it.

7. On a similar note, no one used posting via the mod account as an option. However, it doesn't take any work to offer it, so we may keep that.

8. Any other changes that would make things easier? More fun? More welcoming? Less confusing? Did anyone use that "How To" post I did? Was it useful?

Anon commenting on, and all input welcome.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I feel a little bad even commenting considering I defaulted. (On the other hand, my intended recip got a 50k fic and I wasn't planning anything of that length or scope so I almost feel like I did them a favor? I was going to write them an extra fic late as an apology anyway...when the same filler also wrote their other requested ship in a fic of similar length and I thought...you know I think they had a better time on this exchange than they would have if I'd written for them like I was supposed to.)

But out of curiosity with the art, what did it look like in terms of people offering vs. people requesting art? Was there a shortage of art offers, art requests, or both? I've signed up as both artist and writer twice, and always gotten writing-only assignments, though that's just anecdata.

[muccamukk]

Eyeballing it, I'd say 1/3 of requests included art and all included fic, and about 10% offered art, but that's an impression. I haven't actually crunched numbers. I think the requests might be up a bit from last year, but the offers seem pretty similar?

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting! If all requested art, and all or most requested fic, it's probably easier for the system to match on, unless it's prioritized like the rare fandoms are. And if someone who requested art or fic is matched to someone who offered art or fic, assuming no bias at all you'd still only get art 50% of the time, so that might contribute to art fills being less than art signups. 10% of people offering for art minus those who got assigned fic-only requests minus 50% of whatever percentage of the remainder who signed up for fic only, it seems like it'd be a small number.

I'm not entirely sure what could be done to increase that. You're already on tumblr. ....Deviantart? There are some femslash groups on there, if you could get promoed by any of them it might get the word out some. I had the kind of wacky idea that you could do an art-only femslashex fest six months away from the main one, as a way to like...court people intimidated by fic I guess? But if there just aren't people signing up, I don't know that there'd be enough people for there to be a point in it, plus it's literally twice the work.

It seems odd to me, as femslash fandom is kind of famous for being more visual and having a lot of its content in art and vids rather than fic.

Though as a random suggestion, a lot of artists are in anime fandoms (people who draw like looking at drawings) so it might be a little bit useful to add anime-favored femslash tags on tumblr posts, such as "yuri," "girls love," "gl" or "shoujo ai."

[muccamukk]

I don't know how the matching machine works. I expects it matches the people with only one possible match first, and then sorts everyone else out. I've heard that it skews towards matching people on more than one thing if possible, but idk if that's true.

I'll look into deviant art. I don't really know the culture there, but I probably have an account somewhere. I don't think modly energy extends to another fest, though I suppose there could be a tumblr one like the secret santas that are going on now, but I shudder to think of it without the matching engine, and I think it's mostly AO3 that's scaring people off.

Good thought about tagging. I'll try that when I'm advertising next round. Thank you for all your input.

[dirty_diana]

I do agree that the matching system is probably part of it. People who want art often match on folks who only write, and people who want to draw match on requests for for fic only. I am very meta in my signups, so I actually only requested fic in two out of six fandoms, and those were the tiny ones with 0-1 offers. Still got fic. :)

(Not that I didn't want fic, I just like to encourage the things I see less of. My tiny fandom gift was awesome.) But I suspect the matching algorithm is not weighted to come up a variety of media like the way it tries not match everyone on the five juggernaut fandoms. Not much you could do about that part.

[(Anonymous)]

wow typing fail, my second sentence makes no sense. How did I screw it up that badly? Anyway, I was trying to say something about how if everyone requests fic and all or most offer fic then it's easier to match on that than on the art.

[evilmuffins]

I did look over the pinch hitter treats post, but unfortunately, no one was really asking for anything I could write.

The timing was perfect for me, and I felt like I had plenty of time to complete my fic with time to spare.

As someone who wound up on the PH list, I think a 6 hour window before reveals would be nice. Adding onto that, I'm glad to hear from another post that you're banning the total no shows for next time. I think that's smart.

I want to thank you guys for allowing poly ships this year! I really enjoyed that option.

I'd say that I'd like an option to make more nominations than was allowed this year, but people on this group were so friendly about nomination trading, and that actually added to the fun!

I had so much fun, both in writing for my recip and reading the gift I received, not to mention the other gifts in the collection! This was my first Femslash Ex, and it was a wonderful experience! I'll definitely be back for next year.

[muccamukk]

Probably going to do the six-hour window next year. The timing was unfortunate this year for a number of reasons, so hopefully we won't to that next year. It's not good for the mod's stomach lining, if nothing else.

Poly ships! I didn't actually notice if there was much poly fic, but it certainly didn't bog out the tagging, so that'll continue.

Glad to hear you'll be back next year, and that you had a good time. Thanks for the feedback.

[alias_sqbr]

As a fanart treater I had a good time, and went back to the "how to treat" post a few times when I was paranoid I was going to post it wrong.

The one annoyance was people not always being very good at prompting for art, or making it clear if they were open to it, but you guys tried to help with that and hopefully as time goes on people will get more used to art being part of the exchange. And I still found more prompts than I had time to draw.

[muccamukk]

I'm glad you had fun this round, and thanks for treating.

I'm hopping that pure bloody repetition will start changing how people request art. It seemed a little better this year, I think. Hopefully next year will be better again.

[alias_sqbr]

Hopefully :)

[abarero]

Re: #6- I did actually receive an exceptionally lovely Pinch Hitter treat, which as a PH made me feel great. I really hope that others take up the idea as it's a great way to encourage Pinch Hits and thank those people who do multiple works.

[muccamukk]

Oh great! I didn't see that. Well, if you used it, and a couple other people here said they liked it, I'll probably keep it next year. It's not that much extra work, and people seem to enjoy the option.

[(Anonymous)]

I looked at the treats for pinch hitters post and had planned to write a treat, but then RL interfered and I never got to it.

[muccamukk]

Good to know people looked at them anyway. I'm glad all that formatting wasn't for nothing :D

[(Anonymous)]

First of all, thanks sooooo much for all your hard work, I can't imagine the effort it must take to stay on top of everything to do with the exchange, and it's very much appreciated! Overall I was really happy with things like timing and writing period, plus the fic I received was amaaaaaaaaazing and matching worked out great for me. I also had no confusion with the due date.

The only thing I didn't like was the anon period. I didn't really get the point of it, and in reading comments on works in the collection I sometimes got the impression that the presence of the anon period had stunted the number of responses (though it may be something else), and I heard from at least one other person that they would have preferred to be able to comment immediately to an author/artist whose identity they knew.

One other negative point, though I don't really see how this can be avoided, is that having the reveal date a week later than the due date means that works posted on or before the due date are pushed down in the automatic AO3 'date posted' searches. Not so much an issue with rare pairs/fandoms, but for people writing in fandoms like OUAT or Marvel etc. where there's a lot of fic produced daily or weekly, the exchange fics get less attention than regular works, because by the time they're revealed they're already a week old and in some cases at least a page back in the search. Checking out comment/hit count, it seemed to me that attention to the exchange works suffered because of this. There's the opportunity to crosspost after of course, but it stills delays things, and I can't really think how it's avoidable, unless everyone were to automatically adjust their AO3 publication date to 'Oct 24' or something after submission. I just found it a shame, especially when the anon period then disallows promotion of our own fics until a week after the week-long buffer period, by which time 2 weeks have passed and some stories have been buried in the influx of additions to the individual tag.

Idk, maybe I'm overreacting with this or maybe no one else sees it as a problem; I don't mean it as a criticism of you guys, who are incredible, or of AO3 which I generally find an A++ platform. Just wanted to raise it in case anyone else had noticed/felt the same about the anon period maybe worsening the problem of works promotion? (Sorry this is kind of rambly, I hope my point is in there somewhere)!

[evilmuffins]

Just change the date of your fic to the current day after reveals :) I think most people in a popular fandom do that.

[muccamukk]

I'm glad you (mostly) liked the fest and had a good time. I hope to see you again next year, nonnie.

The point of the anon period is that it's levelling, so that people who don't have many friends have as many chances of getting comments as people with hundreds of friends and subscribers, plus there's a small push to read and comment before creator reveals, though I don't know how much of that carries over from yuletide culture. I've also heard that people like commenting without knowing the author, so they go into a work without expectations. One can always promote your stuff after the anon period ends.

(I am personally not as into anon periods as I might be, but quite a few people have said they make fests more enjoyable, and they're really mostly a delay, rather than a change.)

Someone asked me about this on tumblr too, and you can change the publication date yourself on the reveals day so that the work doesn't get buried ten pages back in the tags. I'll put a note about that next year.

[acequeenking.livejournal.com]

Please don't dump the treats for pinch-hitters list! I actually did use that this year to write a gift fic! I'd missed the sign up date due to my own confusion, so it felt nice to be able to participate in some way.

[muccamukk]

As long as people are using it, we'll keep it.