cap_ironman | Poll: Community Events

In order to keep events running smoothly from year to year, we are currently assembling a set of guidelines for the event mod teams to refer to when setting up and running their events. Most of the guidelines are background logistics-related stuff, but we would also like to take this opportunity to seek input from the community regarding some of the options mods have in implementing these events. Please take a few minutes to fill in the polls below, and add any additional thoughts you have in the comments of this post. The most important question is the very first, and relates to the order in which events occur throughout the year; if you participate in community events, we strongly encourage you to give your input in this matter.

The results of these polls will not be applied to the Reverse Bang 2015 that is currently running. The poll results will be strongly weighted when the guidelines for the event mod teams are written, but they will not be considered concrete; the guidelines will be considered a living document and will probably be modified in the future as the community continues to grow and change, or as logistics demands.

For ease of organization, the questions have been divided into four separate polls. To avoid losing your answers and having to tick them again, please hit 'submit' at the bottom of each poll before moving on to the next. If you have any technical difficulties, please comment to this post.

[Poll #2002051][Poll #2002051]

[Poll #2002052][Poll #2002052]

[Poll #2002053][Poll #2002053]

[Poll #2002054][Poll #2002054]

The sign-up format for the 2013 Exchange is described here.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On the Exchange: I think the minimum word count is partly dependent on how much time we have. This year, doing a lot more than 1k would have been difficult for some people because the time was short, so if it's three weeks again in the future, I'd suggest keeping it shorter, but if the time were longer, I don't think increasing the length a little bit is unreasonable. But, uh, I might not be the best person to ask.

In future we're definitely going to be aiming for something longer than 3 weeks - probably more like 2 months or so. So that should hopefully be less of a concern.

So I had this crazy notion for a type of Mini Reverse Bang/Art Prompt Fest.

The idea is that you would have artists submit a completed art sketch or drawing by a certain deadline. The artwork has to be complete enough to inspire a prompt. The artwork would then be posted to the comm or tumblr where the authors would then in turn submit at least a 100-500 word drabble, or if they are feeling really ambitious a 5k+ fic.

A new art piece would be posted every week/couple of days to keep things moving. I don't believe there would be any formal sign-ups for authors, but having a few pinch writers would be a good idea so that way at least every art post has something.

The Challenge would be to see if authors can post something for each art post...or as many as they can. I'm hoping having the smaller word count would be enough to entice people to participate without feeling overwhelmed.

This would take a LOT of time commitment from whoever was running it-- I've run events like this in the past for a Harry Potter community-- but it would be fun to do it both ways-- to do art to go with stories as well-- if someone wanted to take it on.

Could be fun either way! Do you have a link to where it was done that we could look at?

I know I spoke to you about this on the IRC, but I just wanted to say this sounds like a fun idea! More low-key than either of our longer bangs. We'll stick it in the hat. (Do you think you'd like to run it? Because if you wanted to run it with

zia_narratora, ~~below~~ above... :D /lazymod)

Edit: because I forgot how threading works

Edited 2015-03-06 04:42 (UTC)

As for events, I like the current schedule, because BB is during holidays. But I think there could me some mini-exchange during this time as well - right now people not writing the BB have nothing to do then. It's just three months of writers writing.

Yeah, the BB gap is one of the things we're looking at. One solution got proposed above by

angel_inoshi; up to now we've mostly been discussing moving Rec Week to the middle of the BB, or doing something with the bingo. But we definitely want to do something then.

I mentioned this in chat, but I'll say it here too. I'd love a low pressure challenge for any orphaned works (BB and RBB art left without story, BB and RBB stories left without art).

For example it could be handled somewhat like this: mod posts an entry where authors and artists alike 'sign up' and submitting their orphaned works, that are fics or fanarts where the companion story or art were never posted. Ten days or two weeks later a mod posts a 'claim' post, all the works are listed and people can 'claim' them and write a short fic (minimum 500 words, or 1K, something like that) or a sequence of drabbles or one or two quick sketches, a cover or other kind of graphics. Something like that. And it could be done either or both through the community as a new entry, or posted below the claim post as a comment, like with a meme. It would be somewhat alike to a pornfest where prompts are old fics or art, instead of words.

Another way to handle it could be: mod posts one entry where participants post or link to one orphaned work of theirs per comment. People wanting to claim reply on the same thread of the work they want to write/draw for and comment with a fill, that is a short fic or art etc.

Sorry, I hope what I'm trying to say is clear. What do you think about it?

About the gift exchange (I voted for 1 and 2, winter or holiday exchange BTW), since you're handling the sign ups on AO3, is it possible to add the option of requesting for art or fic separately, like on other exchanges? We are so many, I don't think there would be a matching problem if people gets the option of requesting only art or fic instead of it being random.

Also, I can offer to mod or co-mod the gift exchange if you need an helping hand. I've already modded a few shippy gift exchanges in the past.

On a different note, this isn't about the poll but I thought I'd mentioned it to you. There are some mod posts I don't get email notifications for, so I have no way to know they are posted. This one with the polls is one of them: Salmastryon told me about it in chat, that's why I'm here. But, like me there could be many people tracking the comm whom aren't getting email notifications when a mod entry is posted. I think it happens whenever you write the entry, then submit it to the community as 'private' and later unlock it as a public entry, is that so? If I'm right, is there any way to fix this somehow? It troubles me quite a lot that I could be not getting notifications for important news from the comm. :/

What to do about orphaned challenge works is something the mods need to discuss in more detail, so I shan't say more here; but it has been put into the 'stuff to do' document we've got.

Regarding the option for the gift exchange - possibly. In the past I know that the exchange has required a lot of hand-matching even when run on AO3, and there were concerns about using AO3 last year (regarding yet-to-be revealed works not getting bumped up on the feeds when they were revealed), which is one of the reasons for that question about request formats. Exactly how the exchange is run will probably come down a lot to the individual event mods. So... if you've an idea, volunteering is a good way to get to see it in practice, yep! If you're still free in a couple months then we'll be coming back to you.

For the last point - D: We'll figure out a way to avoid doing that in future, if it's causing problems. I'll post a follow-up reminder about this post in a couple days. Thanks for letting us know!

Poll: Community Events

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Prompt Art Fest/Mini RBB?

Re: Prompt Art Fest/Mini RBB?

Re: Prompt Art Fest/Mini RBB?

Re: Prompt Art Fest/Mini RBB?

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