Final Fantasy fans -- Opinions on FF Exchange idea, please!
So, I have an idea for a project in Final Fantasy fandom, and I'd like to ask people more familiar with that fandom about it before I go charging off into the sunset on my white horse in another doomed fandom crusade. The idea is of a year-round exchange every two or three months where people submit requests, are matched up with someone else's requests, make fanworks, and then post them all together with everyone else in a great big outpouring of fandom warmfuzzies. If this sounds like something that could perk your interest, that you'd like to help with, or that makes you want to shake your finger at me and tell me to get a life cause it will never work -- if you have any opinion at all -- then step right in behind that lj-cut an read on.
Okay guys. Odds are you're here because you wound up on my friends list somehow or bottle_of_shine sent you. In either case, I'd love some opinions on his idea from people who are more involved and/or familiar with FF fandom than I am.
Full disclosure: this idea was inspired by One Piece fandom's fantastic op_exchange, run by kotszok, whose permission I asked and got to adap the idea. One Piece is the first fandom I was actively involved in, and honestly? It's completely spoiled me. People use headers without even thinking about it, wank pretty much never happens outside of f-lock, people generally treat each other decently and don't kick each other in the face when they try to do nice things for each other (like give presents). From what I've seen and heard (granted my data is skewed since I don't get out in fandom proper much and mostly hear about it when bad things happen), Final Fantasy fandom can sometimes be pretty much the opposite. Seeing as a scenario in which people request to recieve their heart-of-hearts no-one-else-loves-this OTP/scenario and then either never get it, get it in a way they didn't expect/like, or get it in a way they didn't expect/like and then attack their gift-giver (ass!) has a lot of potential for hurt feelings, I thought it made sense to proceed with a little caution here and test the waters first.
So, let me explain the general procedure first, the pros and cons as I see them, and then get into some specifics and details.
Exchanges would go roughly like this: for some amount of time, say the last two weeks of a month, people sign up and give their requests and what media/fandoms they're willing to do in return, along with any things they absolutely don't wish to give/receive. Signups close. Then for a given period, say a month, people work on their gifts. At the end of that period, for a given amount of time (like the first week of the next month) people will post their gifts all at once in a big orgy of wank and warmfuzzies. Then we have some time period (like a week) to rest, recover, archive everything, beat on the delinquents to finish their gifts, and wait for backup artist/writers to produce their gifts in lieu of the delinquents. Then it's the last two weeks of the month again and so we rinse and repeat.
Now here are some problems with exchanges like this, and some that are particular to FF fandom.
In general, exchanges face the dangers of too few people participating, too many people participating, problems matching requests/dislikes/preferences up, people not liking the gifts they get, people not trying on the gifts they give, and people not doing their gifts at all. The traditional defenses are, respectively, nothing, participation limits, guilt, guilt, and guilt/backup artist/writers. Setting the first two problems aside as unsolvable and easily solved, respectively, a little more on the last three. People who don't like their gifts have the options of being gracious or being big wanky asses over it. I'll come back to this one since apparently this is more likely to happen with FF than I thought from my experience with OP. People not trying on their presents can pretty much only be addressed by much finger-waving when people sign up and possibly discreet follow-up notes from mods after the exchange to encourage them to try a little harder next time. The standard solution to bums who don't follow through is to punish them by temporary or permanent banning and to have backups lined up. Over at op_exchange this is handled by having people sign up to be backup artists/writers at the same time as they sign up for everything else, and kotszok getting seriously modly on people's asses about it. People will fail to come through, and a system of failsafes and punishments is probably the best one could do to deal with it.
Now to more FF-specific problems. Again, forgive me -- I'm used to the ridiculously fun and friendly and cooperative OP fandom culture, and I keep assuming that FF fandom is the same. Then bottle_of_shine shakes her head at me and goes, "Nuh-uh, honey."
So as a fandom, FF faces the challenges of multiple canons, people being fanatically particular about characterizations in their OTPs, and a fandom culture that doesn't seem to encourage friendly, forgiving, and prolific feedback habits. The multiple canon thing I'll address in the particulars, and also try to explain how that's actually part of the point. As far as particulars of characterization go -- some people will always be asses about it, but this may be alleviated somewhat by he exchange being multimedia, and people are generally less picky about art. From what I've seen, op_exchange is 70%-80% art. Finally, the feedback culture, which allows people to not comment on each other's work or to lash out at people even if it's a gift. There's not much to be done here in terms of preventive measures other than strongly encouraging people to thank each other nicely for their presents and to punish people if they're dicks about it. However, my personal hope is that maybe an exchange like this might actually encourage people to give feedback more regularly, and possibly be a small part of the solution.
Now, multiple canons. There are several ways they could be handled. The most risky, idiotic, and dear-to-my-heart way we could do this would be to not restrict it to any fandoms but make it all-inclusive, so that people could submit which fandoms they're willing to make gifts for and then ask for their fandom/request. This might, might, might have the potential to really get the FF fandoms to interact with each other more! On the exchange, people would bump into other fans of other fandoms, or see that fans they know from one fandom are in another. It would be a little like ff_press, but not documentary -- interactive. Fun. Warm and fuzzy. People wouldn't just see fandoms sitting next to each other, but actually wade around in it, see what people request, and when people submit their stuff, maybe get interested. This is why I really want to try this with FF fandom (instead of Avatar, the other option Iw as considering) -- it presents such a unique opportunity, and possibly the chance to make a difference.
So, that's my pitch. Here are the specifics of how an exchange would work. Many forms, explanations, and procedures were ganked wholesale from op_exchange and modified for our purposes. I'll be outlining the scenario for a once-every-two-months exchange, but kotszok tells me that the way she does it op_exchange (two months with optional themes people vote on) might not be the best or sanest route. bleach_exchange, the original place she got the idea from seems to do exchanges a few times a year, usually on holidays. For now, though, I'm going to stick with a two month schedule. If you have other ideas, do tell.
So, the community is initially open to posting only for mods. At the beginning of the last two weeks of a month, there will be a signup post at the community. For two weeks, people will comment on that post to sign up using a form similar to this one:
GIVE
NAME: Your name
E-MAIL: Contact info!
FANDOMS YOU'RE WILLING TO MAKE GIFTS FOR: List fandoms you can write/draw/whatever for
MEDIA (FANART/FANFIC, etc)/SPECIALTIES (WHAT YOU CAN WRITE/DRAW/create phlegm figures/ETC WELL):
ANYTHING YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY NOT WILLING TO WRITE/DRAW/ETC:
ARE YOU WILLING TO BE A BACK-UP WRITER/ARTIST?: Meaning if someone is sucky enough to back out at the last moment due to laziness or being a tard (death, sickness, tragedies, super pile-up of real-life related work, etc do not count as being a tard), WILL YOU MAKE AN EXTRA GIFT FOR THE PERSON/S WHO IS/ARE LEFT WITHOUT ONE?! \
TAKE
FANDOM/REQUEST 1: There are three requests in case someone's not comfortable with one but is willing to do the other. They'll go something like: FFX, Auron, Jecht, Braska, and Chocobo racing!
FANDOM/REQUEST 2: FFVIII, Rinoa/Quall fluff
FANDOM/REQUEST 3: FFIX, Steiner/Beatrix anything
GIFT MEDIA PREFERENCE: This is only for us. If we see that it's possible to distribute requests fairly, we might try to go by this. If not, it's gonna be a draw... or whatever. I'm not fooling around with hats.
MAX. RATING AND ANYTHING YOU REALLY DON' WANT TO RECEIVE: Include the maximum rating for the gift you would like to receive. If you are desperate for NC-17, please indicate so. List your squicks here, too.
ANYTHING ELSE:In case we forgot to cover something here.
At the end of the month (or when the signup limit is reached, if we have one), the signup post is closed. We spend a frantic day or two trying to work with everyone's squicks and preferences to match people up. Then we email out everyone's assignment to them. You only get to know who you're gifting to, not who'll be doing you, and generally this operates Secret Santa-style. People can pick one request to fill, or try to combine all three, or make separate fanworks for each. Whatever works!
Then people have a month to whack away at their gifts, punctuated with finger-wagging mod posts from us reminding them of deadlines. On the first of the next month, the community is opened to general posting for a week. The actual deadline to finish and submit work is the end of that week (so actually people have a month plus a week), but people can start posting as soon as the comm opens. People then post their gifts with a forms similar to this:
TITLE:
MADE FOR: Your assigned giftee
REQUEST: Which request(s) you filled
RATING/WARNING(S):
ARTIST'S NOTES:
There is a week-long outpouring of love and tears (both good and bad, I'm guessing), and then posting is closed. At the end of the week, the mods are sent out to rough up the delinquents and if it's no go, contact backup artists/writers to fill requests so no one's left giftless. If someone reassures us that they'll do their gift and don't need backup, THEY SWAR, they can't sign p for another exchange until they finish that one. Possibly they're suspended from the next exchange. In any case, some kind of finger-wagging and punishing is involved.
We then have a week to archive everything, tag it, add it to memories, maybe make a big fat post archiving all the gifts, givers, and giftees. Also, this gives the poor ff_press a break from having to deal with us (trust me guys, it'll be a little like ass-rape! I know this from dealing with op_exchange posting week at grand_line_vine ._.).
After a little over a week, it'll be the last two weeks of the month again, and time to put up another signup post. Then we take the plunge again.
ETA: After talking to bottle_of_shine (who, for the record, is not against this project, she's just the one with a head of sense on her shoulders, as opposed to me), I wanted to bring up a couple more issues.
The first is a little more quality assurance. We want the gifts to be the best they can be, and in that vein it seems to make sense to offer beta services. There are two main challenges there: actually having good betas that can address all/most fandoms; and the whole thing about who's gifting whom and what the gift is being a Big Seekrit. So far the only solution I've thought of is to either have a separate comm or a post in the exchange comm itself with screened comments. Then mods, who already know everyone's business, and betas, who would either be mods, people outisde the challenge, or self-elected from the signups like backup artists/writers, can give crit. This includes art crit, by the way. So if anyone has any suggestions on how to manage this and where to find betas (volunteers inside the challenge? outside the challenge? what about editing skills?), please do tell. Also whether beta services would be a good and sensible addition.
The other issue is about fic length (and art/other medium complexity, I guess, but that's harder to nail down). With fic lengths, we're trying to ensure that (a) people aren't disappointed with the amount of effort put into their presents and (b) people don't put it off to the late minute cause it's so short and they could "do it any time". I tentatively suggested a lower limit of 500 words based on what I've seen around op_exchange, but bottle_of_shine said that would probably not satisfy either of our goals and suggested 1,000 words. Other challenge and exchange communities seem to have numbers around that area. Any suggestions?
For other mediums it's a lot harder to pin down. Let me be a hobag and copy what kotszok wrote for op_exchange:Fics don't have to be 10000 pages long, but don't make it 1 or 2 paragraphs (unless that paragraph will BLOW ME OUT OF MY CHAIR.)
Fanarts don't have to be masterpieces worthy of Rembrandt, but please remember this: if you feel satisfied with just a pencil drawing, at least try to add shading (yes, I have to bold it because some people obviously didn't read this rule last time). Stick figures don't count as fanart. If you feel your gift isn't sufficient and you KNOW you will feel embarassed, please don't post it. Be a couple days late for the deadline but for the love of God, don't post just for the sake of posting.
Be objective. Take a look at your gift. Ask yourself: "Would I really be thankful if I received this?" If you don't think so, that's proof right there that you need to do something about your fic/art/sculpture/whatever.
That's all for extra details for now.
So, that's how it would work. Please do give feedback on anything, from the specifics of the forms to general approval/disapproval of the idea =D
Okay guys. Odds are you're here because you wound up on my friends list somehow or bottle_of_shine sent you. In either case, I'd love some opinions on his idea from people who are more involved and/or familiar with FF fandom than I am.
Full disclosure: this idea was inspired by One Piece fandom's fantastic op_exchange, run by kotszok, whose permission I asked and got to adap the idea. One Piece is the first fandom I was actively involved in, and honestly? It's completely spoiled me. People use headers without even thinking about it, wank pretty much never happens outside of f-lock, people generally treat each other decently and don't kick each other in the face when they try to do nice things for each other (like give presents). From what I've seen and heard (granted my data is skewed since I don't get out in fandom proper much and mostly hear about it when bad things happen), Final Fantasy fandom can sometimes be pretty much the opposite. Seeing as a scenario in which people request to recieve their heart-of-hearts no-one-else-loves-this OTP/scenario and then either never get it, get it in a way they didn't expect/like, or get it in a way they didn't expect/like and then attack their gift-giver (ass!) has a lot of potential for hurt feelings, I thought it made sense to proceed with a little caution here and test the waters first.
So, let me explain the general procedure first, the pros and cons as I see them, and then get into some specifics and details.
Exchanges would go roughly like this: for some amount of time, say the last two weeks of a month, people sign up and give their requests and what media/fandoms they're willing to do in return, along with any things they absolutely don't wish to give/receive. Signups close. Then for a given period, say a month, people work on their gifts. At the end of that period, for a given amount of time (like the first week of the next month) people will post their gifts all at once in a big orgy of wank and warmfuzzies. Then we have some time period (like a week) to rest, recover, archive everything, beat on the delinquents to finish their gifts, and wait for backup artist/writers to produce their gifts in lieu of the delinquents. Then it's the last two weeks of the month again and so we rinse and repeat.
Now here are some problems with exchanges like this, and some that are particular to FF fandom.
In general, exchanges face the dangers of too few people participating, too many people participating, problems matching requests/dislikes/preferences up, people not liking the gifts they get, people not trying on the gifts they give, and people not doing their gifts at all. The traditional defenses are, respectively, nothing, participation limits, guilt, guilt, and guilt/backup artist/writers. Setting the first two problems aside as unsolvable and easily solved, respectively, a little more on the last three. People who don't like their gifts have the options of being gracious or being big wanky asses over it. I'll come back to this one since apparently this is more likely to happen with FF than I thought from my experience with OP. People not trying on their presents can pretty much only be addressed by much finger-waving when people sign up and possibly discreet follow-up notes from mods after the exchange to encourage them to try a little harder next time. The standard solution to bums who don't follow through is to punish them by temporary or permanent banning and to have backups lined up. Over at op_exchange this is handled by having people sign up to be backup artists/writers at the same time as they sign up for everything else, and kotszok getting seriously modly on people's asses about it. People will fail to come through, and a system of failsafes and punishments is probably the best one could do to deal with it.
Now to more FF-specific problems. Again, forgive me -- I'm used to the ridiculously fun and friendly and cooperative OP fandom culture, and I keep assuming that FF fandom is the same. Then bottle_of_shine shakes her head at me and goes, "Nuh-uh, honey."
So as a fandom, FF faces the challenges of multiple canons, people being fanatically particular about characterizations in their OTPs, and a fandom culture that doesn't seem to encourage friendly, forgiving, and prolific feedback habits. The multiple canon thing I'll address in the particulars, and also try to explain how that's actually part of the point. As far as particulars of characterization go -- some people will always be asses about it, but this may be alleviated somewhat by he exchange being multimedia, and people are generally less picky about art. From what I've seen, op_exchange is 70%-80% art. Finally, the feedback culture, which allows people to not comment on each other's work or to lash out at people even if it's a gift. There's not much to be done here in terms of preventive measures other than strongly encouraging people to thank each other nicely for their presents and to punish people if they're dicks about it. However, my personal hope is that maybe an exchange like this might actually encourage people to give feedback more regularly, and possibly be a small part of the solution.
Now, multiple canons. There are several ways they could be handled. The most risky, idiotic, and dear-to-my-heart way we could do this would be to not restrict it to any fandoms but make it all-inclusive, so that people could submit which fandoms they're willing to make gifts for and then ask for their fandom/request. This might, might, might have the potential to really get the FF fandoms to interact with each other more! On the exchange, people would bump into other fans of other fandoms, or see that fans they know from one fandom are in another. It would be a little like ff_press, but not documentary -- interactive. Fun. Warm and fuzzy. People wouldn't just see fandoms sitting next to each other, but actually wade around in it, see what people request, and when people submit their stuff, maybe get interested. This is why I really want to try this with FF fandom (instead of Avatar, the other option Iw as considering) -- it presents such a unique opportunity, and possibly the chance to make a difference.
So, that's my pitch. Here are the specifics of how an exchange would work. Many forms, explanations, and procedures were ganked wholesale from op_exchange and modified for our purposes. I'll be outlining the scenario for a once-every-two-months exchange, but kotszok tells me that the way she does it op_exchange (two months with optional themes people vote on) might not be the best or sanest route. bleach_exchange, the original place she got the idea from seems to do exchanges a few times a year, usually on holidays. For now, though, I'm going to stick with a two month schedule. If you have other ideas, do tell.
So, the community is initially open to posting only for mods. At the beginning of the last two weeks of a month, there will be a signup post at the community. For two weeks, people will comment on that post to sign up using a form similar to this one:
GIVE
NAME: Your name
E-MAIL: Contact info!
FANDOMS YOU'RE WILLING TO MAKE GIFTS FOR: List fandoms you can write/draw/whatever for
MEDIA (FANART/FANFIC, etc)/SPECIALTIES (WHAT YOU CAN WRITE/DRAW/create phlegm figures/ETC WELL):
ANYTHING YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY NOT WILLING TO WRITE/DRAW/ETC:
ARE YOU WILLING TO BE A BACK-UP WRITER/ARTIST?: Meaning if someone is sucky enough to back out at the last moment due to laziness or being a tard (death, sickness, tragedies, super pile-up of real-life related work, etc do not count as being a tard), WILL YOU MAKE AN EXTRA GIFT FOR THE PERSON/S WHO IS/ARE LEFT WITHOUT ONE?! \
TAKE
FANDOM/REQUEST 1: There are three requests in case someone's not comfortable with one but is willing to do the other. They'll go something like: FFX, Auron, Jecht, Braska, and Chocobo racing!
FANDOM/REQUEST 2: FFVIII, Rinoa/Quall fluff
FANDOM/REQUEST 3: FFIX, Steiner/Beatrix anything
GIFT MEDIA PREFERENCE: This is only for us. If we see that it's possible to distribute requests fairly, we might try to go by this. If not, it's gonna be a draw... or whatever. I'm not fooling around with hats.
MAX. RATING AND ANYTHING YOU REALLY DON' WANT TO RECEIVE: Include the maximum rating for the gift you would like to receive. If you are desperate for NC-17, please indicate so. List your squicks here, too.
ANYTHING ELSE:In case we forgot to cover something here.
At the end of the month (or when the signup limit is reached, if we have one), the signup post is closed. We spend a frantic day or two trying to work with everyone's squicks and preferences to match people up. Then we email out everyone's assignment to them. You only get to know who you're gifting to, not who'll be doing you, and generally this operates Secret Santa-style. People can pick one request to fill, or try to combine all three, or make separate fanworks for each. Whatever works!
Then people have a month to whack away at their gifts, punctuated with finger-wagging mod posts from us reminding them of deadlines. On the first of the next month, the community is opened to general posting for a week. The actual deadline to finish and submit work is the end of that week (so actually people have a month plus a week), but people can start posting as soon as the comm opens. People then post their gifts with a forms similar to this:
TITLE:
MADE FOR: Your assigned giftee
REQUEST: Which request(s) you filled
RATING/WARNING(S):
ARTIST'S NOTES:
There is a week-long outpouring of love and tears (both good and bad, I'm guessing), and then posting is closed. At the end of the week, the mods are sent out to rough up the delinquents and if it's no go, contact backup artists/writers to fill requests so no one's left giftless. If someone reassures us that they'll do their gift and don't need backup, THEY SWAR, they can't sign p for another exchange until they finish that one. Possibly they're suspended from the next exchange. In any case, some kind of finger-wagging and punishing is involved.
We then have a week to archive everything, tag it, add it to memories, maybe make a big fat post archiving all the gifts, givers, and giftees. Also, this gives the poor ff_press a break from having to deal with us (trust me guys, it'll be a little like ass-rape! I know this from dealing with op_exchange posting week at grand_line_vine ._.).
After a little over a week, it'll be the last two weeks of the month again, and time to put up another signup post. Then we take the plunge again.
ETA: After talking to bottle_of_shine (who, for the record, is not against this project, she's just the one with a head of sense on her shoulders, as opposed to me), I wanted to bring up a couple more issues.
The first is a little more quality assurance. We want the gifts to be the best they can be, and in that vein it seems to make sense to offer beta services. There are two main challenges there: actually having good betas that can address all/most fandoms; and the whole thing about who's gifting whom and what the gift is being a Big Seekrit. So far the only solution I've thought of is to either have a separate comm or a post in the exchange comm itself with screened comments. Then mods, who already know everyone's business, and betas, who would either be mods, people outisde the challenge, or self-elected from the signups like backup artists/writers, can give crit. This includes art crit, by the way. So if anyone has any suggestions on how to manage this and where to find betas (volunteers inside the challenge? outside the challenge? what about editing skills?), please do tell. Also whether beta services would be a good and sensible addition.
The other issue is about fic length (and art/other medium complexity, I guess, but that's harder to nail down). With fic lengths, we're trying to ensure that (a) people aren't disappointed with the amount of effort put into their presents and (b) people don't put it off to the late minute cause it's so short and they could "do it any time". I tentatively suggested a lower limit of 500 words based on what I've seen around op_exchange, but bottle_of_shine said that would probably not satisfy either of our goals and suggested 1,000 words. Other challenge and exchange communities seem to have numbers around that area. Any suggestions?
For other mediums it's a lot harder to pin down. Let me be a hobag and copy what kotszok wrote for op_exchange:Fics don't have to be 10000 pages long, but don't make it 1 or 2 paragraphs (unless that paragraph will BLOW ME OUT OF MY CHAIR.)
Fanarts don't have to be masterpieces worthy of Rembrandt, but please remember this: if you feel satisfied with just a pencil drawing, at least try to add shading (yes, I have to bold it because some people obviously didn't read this rule last time). Stick figures don't count as fanart. If you feel your gift isn't sufficient and you KNOW you will feel embarassed, please don't post it. Be a couple days late for the deadline but for the love of God, don't post just for the sake of posting.
Be objective. Take a look at your gift. Ask yourself: "Would I really be thankful if I received this?" If you don't think so, that's proof right there that you need to do something about your fic/art/sculpture/whatever.
That's all for extra details for now.
So, that's how it would work. Please do give feedback on anything, from the specifics of the forms to general approval/disapproval of the idea =D