Signups update
Oct. 8th, 2015 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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holly_polyOK, so I'm going to try to do the exchange entirely on the AO3 this year, but there are frankly a lot of things about the signup form that just don't work that well for me and I don't really trust it, so when we get to the actual signup stage, I highly recommend saving all your requests and offers in case the whole thing explodes.
Changes that will have to be made to the exchange in order to cram it into AO3's form below the cut. Massive wall of text ahead!
* No more unlimited requests or offers. The max on AO3 is 10; so now the max for the challenge will be a firm 8, without the option to be matched a second time for another 8 prompts.
* Any field filled by tags (characters, relationships, etc) also have a limit, of 20 (Yes, I know there's any, but there's no way to nominate, say, every MCU main character except Thor).
*Fandoms: in order to make sure everyone is requesting at least 3 unique fandoms to maximize chances of matching, you can't create more than one request for a fandom. So no more being able to request Hermione/Luna/Cho and Hermione/Harry/Ron but exclude Harry/Ron/Luna without excluding a character entirely. I don't think I can do that with this setup. ETA: Never mind, this has been clarified and is no longer an issue. So you WILL be able to make multiple requests for a fandom - you still have to request at least 3 different fandoms, but this will allow people to create multiple requests and should make it possible to either fit in all the relationship tags by increasing the number over the 20-tag limit on a request, or by separating out the characters to keep unwanted pairings from becoming a possibility.
* Because matching is done based on tags, you have to use exact language, which doesn't leave room for saying 'This 5-person group or any subset.' And with big poly groups, you can't put all the permutations in because there won't be room (and you probably wouldn't want to, you'd be there all day!). I am going to attempt to get around this by treating this sort of like how signups have worked in the past: you offer/request a list of characters that you would like to see any combination of three or more. Then in the 'optional tags' section, you can put a specific relationship tag (I am not sure if these are limited to tagset only tags?), so that if you list 8 characters, but really like one specific group of four, you can request it, but if no one else offered all four of those characters, you'll still match with the person who offered three of them. Does that make sense? Large numbers and all permutations is one of the big iffy things about the AO3 matching system.
* Crossovers - I'm not sure the best way to do them in this format, and I don't think that many people asked for them, so I might simplify by cutting this entirely. Or I can also allow fandoms in the 'optional tags' field as a potential but not required match.
* Tagsets - if we do it on AO3 we would have to also make room for a nominations period, which would cut down on either signup time or creating time. Right now the schedule is for sign-ups to go from Oct 10 - Nov 1, with assignments due Jan 6. I know the biggest conflict for a lot of people is obviously going to be Yuletide, which is why we have that nice two weeks afterwards before things are due. So the most obvious place to cut into the schedule is the sign-up period. If nominations run Oct 10-25, and signups still close Nov 1, will that work? Or I can push signups closing to Nov 8, and assignments going out a week as well, but I don't want to cut into writing time too much. Thoughts?
* Tagsets also mean establishing a policy of what megafandoms get grouped together versus what are separate. I would say, for ease of tagset creation, that people nominate megafandoms only, and then characters from any subfandom get assigned to that megafandom. So you nominate Doctor Who for fandom, and for characters you nominate Jack Harkness, the Eighth Doctor, and Andy Davidson. If anyone is planning on offering or requesting any fandoms where separate canons would make this not work, please let me know, and we'll see if we can make specific rules for specific fandoms instead, but I'd like to keep this as broad as possible, since it's already quite complicated.
* Requests: There's an option to make requests visible from the get-go. Do people want this option turned on? It theoretically helps for people who want to do madness-style treats near the end, but that didn't exactly pan out last year.
I think that's everything, but those are, I think, the biggest things.
ETA: Please read the ETA inside the cut. Also, generally, as far as relationship vs characters go, I will probably ask that people nominate both and request both, if at all possible. Because based on the experience of the past two years, I am not expecting the AO3 form to work, and I would like to have the characters to fall back on if everything has to be done manually.
Changes that will have to be made to the exchange in order to cram it into AO3's form below the cut. Massive wall of text ahead!
* No more unlimited requests or offers. The max on AO3 is 10; so now the max for the challenge will be a firm 8, without the option to be matched a second time for another 8 prompts.
* Any field filled by tags (characters, relationships, etc) also have a limit, of 20 (Yes, I know there's any, but there's no way to nominate, say, every MCU main character except Thor).
*
* Because matching is done based on tags, you have to use exact language, which doesn't leave room for saying 'This 5-person group or any subset.' And with big poly groups, you can't put all the permutations in because there won't be room (and you probably wouldn't want to, you'd be there all day!). I am going to attempt to get around this by treating this sort of like how signups have worked in the past: you offer/request a list of characters that you would like to see any combination of three or more. Then in the 'optional tags' section, you can put a specific relationship tag (I am not sure if these are limited to tagset only tags?), so that if you list 8 characters, but really like one specific group of four, you can request it, but if no one else offered all four of those characters, you'll still match with the person who offered three of them. Does that make sense? Large numbers and all permutations is one of the big iffy things about the AO3 matching system.
* Crossovers - I'm not sure the best way to do them in this format, and I don't think that many people asked for them, so I might simplify by cutting this entirely. Or I can also allow fandoms in the 'optional tags' field as a potential but not required match.
* Tagsets - if we do it on AO3 we would have to also make room for a nominations period, which would cut down on either signup time or creating time. Right now the schedule is for sign-ups to go from Oct 10 - Nov 1, with assignments due Jan 6. I know the biggest conflict for a lot of people is obviously going to be Yuletide, which is why we have that nice two weeks afterwards before things are due. So the most obvious place to cut into the schedule is the sign-up period. If nominations run Oct 10-25, and signups still close Nov 1, will that work? Or I can push signups closing to Nov 8, and assignments going out a week as well, but I don't want to cut into writing time too much. Thoughts?
* Tagsets also mean establishing a policy of what megafandoms get grouped together versus what are separate. I would say, for ease of tagset creation, that people nominate megafandoms only, and then characters from any subfandom get assigned to that megafandom. So you nominate Doctor Who for fandom, and for characters you nominate Jack Harkness, the Eighth Doctor, and Andy Davidson. If anyone is planning on offering or requesting any fandoms where separate canons would make this not work, please let me know, and we'll see if we can make specific rules for specific fandoms instead, but I'd like to keep this as broad as possible, since it's already quite complicated.
* Requests: There's an option to make requests visible from the get-go. Do people want this option turned on? It theoretically helps for people who want to do madness-style treats near the end, but that didn't exactly pan out last year.
I think that's everything, but those are, I think, the biggest things.
ETA: Please read the ETA inside the cut. Also, generally, as far as relationship vs characters go, I will probably ask that people nominate both and request both, if at all possible. Because based on the experience of the past two years, I am not expecting the AO3 form to work, and I would like to have the characters to fall back on if everything has to be done manually.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-09 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-09 08:09 pm (UTC)