[admin] Rules for the August round
Okay, I know we're still in the thick of this round -- and keep those posts coming! You're all awesome (and I'm starting to hope that everyone is going to wind up covered, without us needing any pinch hitters *fingers crossed*) -- but I also want to keep the momentum going. So here's what you have to look forward to from het_challenge in the next season:
Rules for the August round:
- This will be a reversathon, basically like the last round -- i.e., participants will fill out "ad" profiles to let others know what they are interested in writing or drawing, and will receive requests from other participants based on the information they provide. (If you've never participated in a reversathon before, or haven't been satisfied with how they've gone for you in the past, I have tried to write up some advice for reversathon participants that I hope will be helpful.)
This exchange, however, will be run differently from the past version. The major difference: fanworks NEED NOT be posted anonymously.
To accomplish this and still keep the process free of favoritism, some of the other rules will need to change a bit. So here's what we're going to do:
- You'll create your ad almost the same way as the last round, except that you will not need to provide a pseudonym.
- I'll post the ads, just like last time, but identified only by numbers.
- You'll make your requests -- in a screened post, again -- to the numbered ads.
- You'll receive the requests made to you without any details about the requester.
- You will post your works under your own name. Please post directly into the community, and not with a fake cut or link. You are welcome to pimp or crosspost anywhere you like, as long as there is a copy in the het_challenge community itself.
- One of the things you'll be asked to provide in the headers when you post your fic/art is the request that you are answering.
- Recipients may identify themselves when works are posted, or they will be revealed at the end of the round when the master list goes up.
- To make this work, please don't discuss the details of requests, whether you gave or received them. (Talking to your beta or your close friends is okay; posting about it publicly is not.)
The other important difference in this round is that there will be a CLAIMING LIMIT, of three requests at a time. This means that if you receive two requests, or three requests, you may choose to accept them all; if you receive seven, or twelve, you must choose your top three.
...If you have a lot of time and/or masochism on your hands, you are welcome to claim more on a rolling basis: you may start posting at any time, and once you post your first piece, you may claim a fourth, and so on.
(This change is mostly for my sake; it's intended to give me a better idea, earlier in the process, if there are participants whose requests are in danger of going unclaimed and who might benefit from pinch-hitting. When somebody has six requests outstanding and hasn't posted any of them, with three days to go until the deadline, that's very stressful for a mod.)
There will still be an offer of unclaimed prompts going up for grabs; however, this won't happen until fairly late in the round, so that people who are likely to finish some early and pick up extras have time to do so before their leftover prompts are handed off to the general populace. ^^
Since claiming will be limited, I will also be TAGGING ADS when they prove to be extremely popular. Last round we had a few ads that garnered only one or two requests, and a few ads that garnered over a dozen. With claiming limited to three prompts, your odds of getting your request picked up are lowered when someone has a large number to choose from, so I will mark those ads that have seven or more requests (i.e., more than twice as many as the participant may accept). You may still request from a high-volume ad -- just know that you have a lot of competition for that participant's time.
...I hope that doing this will reduce the number of people at either extreme of the requesting pool -- that we'll have more people with four or five requests, and fewer people with either one or fifteen.
Please note that when you accept a request, you are agreeing to fulfill that request to the best of your ability -- please try to produce what the request actually asks for, and not something you already planned on doing that's sort of related. The requested character/pairing should be the primary focus of the work, and requested themes or details should be included as much as possible.
If you defaulted in a previous round, i.e., if you failed to complete your assignment(s) and did not contact me before the deadline, you are not eligible to sign up for this round. If you would like to be eligible for future rounds, you will need to sign up to take at least one unclaimed prompt, and fulfill that assignment by its deadline, before you may participate again.
Timeline/deadlines for this round:
April 29-May 12: sign-ups
May 13: ads posted
May 13-19: request period
May 20: requests mailed
May 23: deadline to accept requests
July 15 (?): unclaimed prompts offered to interested parties
August 15: deadline
This does give us a pretty long round -- nearly three months to work on your pieces! The timing is staggered deliberately, so that we don't conflict with the deadlines for yuri_challenge (June 30) or springkink's summer round (posting throughout July).
Questions? Comments?
Rules for the August round:
- This will be a reversathon, basically like the last round -- i.e., participants will fill out "ad" profiles to let others know what they are interested in writing or drawing, and will receive requests from other participants based on the information they provide. (If you've never participated in a reversathon before, or haven't been satisfied with how they've gone for you in the past, I have tried to write up some advice for reversathon participants that I hope will be helpful.)
This exchange, however, will be run differently from the past version. The major difference: fanworks NEED NOT be posted anonymously.
To accomplish this and still keep the process free of favoritism, some of the other rules will need to change a bit. So here's what we're going to do:
- You'll create your ad almost the same way as the last round, except that you will not need to provide a pseudonym.
- I'll post the ads, just like last time, but identified only by numbers.
- You'll make your requests -- in a screened post, again -- to the numbered ads.
- You'll receive the requests made to you without any details about the requester.
- You will post your works under your own name. Please post directly into the community, and not with a fake cut or link. You are welcome to pimp or crosspost anywhere you like, as long as there is a copy in the het_challenge community itself.
- One of the things you'll be asked to provide in the headers when you post your fic/art is the request that you are answering.
- Recipients may identify themselves when works are posted, or they will be revealed at the end of the round when the master list goes up.
- To make this work, please don't discuss the details of requests, whether you gave or received them. (Talking to your beta or your close friends is okay; posting about it publicly is not.)
The other important difference in this round is that there will be a CLAIMING LIMIT, of three requests at a time. This means that if you receive two requests, or three requests, you may choose to accept them all; if you receive seven, or twelve, you must choose your top three.
...If you have a lot of time and/or masochism on your hands, you are welcome to claim more on a rolling basis: you may start posting at any time, and once you post your first piece, you may claim a fourth, and so on.
(This change is mostly for my sake; it's intended to give me a better idea, earlier in the process, if there are participants whose requests are in danger of going unclaimed and who might benefit from pinch-hitting. When somebody has six requests outstanding and hasn't posted any of them, with three days to go until the deadline, that's very stressful for a mod.)
There will still be an offer of unclaimed prompts going up for grabs; however, this won't happen until fairly late in the round, so that people who are likely to finish some early and pick up extras have time to do so before their leftover prompts are handed off to the general populace. ^^
Since claiming will be limited, I will also be TAGGING ADS when they prove to be extremely popular. Last round we had a few ads that garnered only one or two requests, and a few ads that garnered over a dozen. With claiming limited to three prompts, your odds of getting your request picked up are lowered when someone has a large number to choose from, so I will mark those ads that have seven or more requests (i.e., more than twice as many as the participant may accept). You may still request from a high-volume ad -- just know that you have a lot of competition for that participant's time.
...I hope that doing this will reduce the number of people at either extreme of the requesting pool -- that we'll have more people with four or five requests, and fewer people with either one or fifteen.
Please note that when you accept a request, you are agreeing to fulfill that request to the best of your ability -- please try to produce what the request actually asks for, and not something you already planned on doing that's sort of related. The requested character/pairing should be the primary focus of the work, and requested themes or details should be included as much as possible.
If you defaulted in a previous round, i.e., if you failed to complete your assignment(s) and did not contact me before the deadline, you are not eligible to sign up for this round. If you would like to be eligible for future rounds, you will need to sign up to take at least one unclaimed prompt, and fulfill that assignment by its deadline, before you may participate again.
Timeline/deadlines for this round:
April 29-May 12: sign-ups
May 13: ads posted
May 13-19: request period
May 20: requests mailed
May 23: deadline to accept requests
July 15 (?): unclaimed prompts offered to interested parties
August 15: deadline
This does give us a pretty long round -- nearly three months to work on your pieces! The timing is staggered deliberately, so that we don't conflict with the deadlines for yuri_challenge (June 30) or springkink's summer round (posting throughout July).
Questions? Comments?