We're Done!

[h_itoshi]

Hey everyone!

Thanks for joining this year's exchange, I hope you had fun!

I'm going to honestly say that for me, this was a lot more work than it was fun. A lot of you have been angels to talk to, and you really made this worth it all. Like, really, thank you.

However, a few of you have been disappointed with me, a few very angry and a few have been

Comments

[ladyc2]

First off, thank you so much for running this exchange this year. And thank you to te_chan01 for my fic - I loved it.

I voted in the poll on twitter. I think moving the exchange over to AO3 might be a good idea to try (lots of different fandom exchanges run over there these days and j&a fandom is really one of the last holdouts still doing them primarily on lj/dw).

In terms of commenting, I know for me I don't really read fics from the groups I don't follow/know (I tried to comment on the stuff I did know)- this is fine when the exchange has a lot of participants (as it has in the past because you still get lots of people commenting on each group) but when it's a much smaller pool of writers, as in the last couple of years, then it stands out more - A03 would potentially fix this situation because when reveals go up they are immediately on the fandom pages and everyone can see them, not just the people in the exchange or following this comm.

As for getting more people - I feel like a lot of writers have left the fandom in the last few years, or stopped writing for whatever reason. Most people have moved to either twitter/tumblr and only really keep their lj/dw accounts for downloading vids/subs from comms and neither of those platforms is really suited to fic, so it just dropped by the wayside a bit). I think promoting on twitter/tumblr and potentially discord (I know there is an arashi and a general j&a discord - probably there are some other group-centric ones as well).

Maybe some sort of lowkey drabble/ficlet-fest (make a prompt list - or nominate prompts - and let people pick their own pairings) half-way through the year (set up a collection on A03 that people can just post straight into) with links to the je-united exchange, so people who wouldn't normally see it, become aware of it before regular sign-ups begin and maybe get in the writing mood. Obviously this would depend on how much extra work you as a mod wanted to put in - I'd be happy to help out, though I've never really modded anything before.

I think it would be a shame to let the exchange die out, so many have gone by the wayside, but if that's how it ends up panning out, then thank you for running it this year and the contribution to the fandom. I'll miss it.

[h_itoshi]

Hi! Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback!

I also think that ao3 might be the best option. I’ve participated in exchanges over there and the amount of feedback is massive compared to lj, and feedback makes everyone happy after all. Lj is so secluded right now and there’s no fun writing where nobody will read it, and no new writers are going to make accounts in order to join :(

For this year, we tried to promote as much as possible on different platforms, but I personally feel like we mainly reached those who’d already written the exchange before, with a few exceptions. So I guess we’ll somehow have to try and find the newer writers or those who don’t usually do exchanges next time? Discord is a good tip, I didn’t know about those!

The mid-season ficlet idea is actually very good I think. We’ll see if it’s something that’s manageable this year if we decide to actually move, but it’s definitely a great idea to consider for the future!