05 November 2016 @ 08:43 am
2016 Wrap Up Discussion  
Wow, so another year done. I hope everyone's had a chance to read through their fandoms. I know I'm still working on a few.

Huge thanks, as always, to all the pinch hitters who made this whole thing work.

Despite the dramatic finale, I think things mostly went pretty well this year. I do, however, want to talk about a couple changes.

1. Timing: When we were working out the timing for this year, I totally forgot about [community profile] trickortreatex (which is funny, as I participated last year), and we ran smack into it. I know a lot of people were stressed with both being due basically the same time, and had to split their attention between archives. Next year, Femslash Exchange will move two weeks forward, to get clear of Halloween.

2. Next year requests will be revealed right after assignments go out.

3. Placeholders. We want to more clearly equate putting up a placeholde with failing to hand in. That is, if you put up an obviously unfinished fic, or a section of a different fic entirely, or a random chunk of Jane Austen's Emma, and it's still up at the deadline, your recip will go to pinch hit, and you will be asked not to participate next year. I know that a certain amount of editing and fleshing out scenes happens post-deadline, and that's fine, but your fic should be ready to go live, even if it's not the best, in case you get the flu or something before reveals.

4. Defaulting multiple times: We're considering asking people who have defaulted two years in a row to not participate again, either sitting out a year, or having to write/draw a make up gift. It would be starting with people who defaulted this year. As always, failing to hand in, or causing me to generate a pinch hit post due date = sitting out a year.

5. Art. It feels like we got more artist this year, but I'm still looking for ways to improve. Suggestions welcome.

6. Vids. I love vids and would love more f/f vids, and we're thinking of adding them next year, but I'm not familiar with the medium. What's considered a 1000-word equivalent? 1.5 minutes? As with artists, we'd probably let people sign vids, as I know they get passed around sans credit.

7. How do people feel about raising the minimum word count to 2k? I liked it when [community profile] fandomgrowthexchange did it. It does seem to lead to longer fic in general, not just around the minimum point, and I think many of us like longer fic. However it also would make the timing a bit different, as we'd need a longer pinch-hit period. I'm not sure what the art version would be? 2 pictures?

8. We'll try to actually get treats for pinch hitters going again next year.

9. Free space!

Anon commenting on. All feedback welcome.
 
 
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(Anonymous) on November 6th, 2016 11:02 am (UTC)
+1 to the bit about newbie participants. I know it would be extra work, but I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to do a bit more with the tumblr presence? A simple crosspost of the "hey, we're open now" text post from here on DW probably gets lost on a lot of people's dashes. It would be spammy as hell to share each and every story from AO3, but if some kind artist could make some custom art for announcing some of the key dates, it might help get more attention.
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Muccamukk: Marvel: Sittin' in a Tree[personal profile] muccamukk on November 6th, 2016 04:00 pm (UTC)
Aiffe did a lovely banner last year that we used for all kinds of things on tumblr, but it didn't seem to raise participation there, so I gave up and set up the IFTTT crossposts.

Hmmmm. What I could do is let the auto crossposting go for most of the time, and then sign ups, archive opening and creator reveals or something, like you said, make an individual post with one of the banners from the banner post.

One of the problems is that I'm the mod with the tumblr, and I don't... actually use mine? It takes up too much bandwidth. We could maybe get a tumblr mod?
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