Schedule & Eligibility 2018
Welcome back to Yuletide! The FAQ has been updated on AO3.
2018 Schedule
Nominations: 12th to 21st September
Sign-ups: 10th to 21st October
Assignments go out: Between 22nd and 25th October
Madness opens and prompts are visible: After assignments
Posting deadline: 18th December at 9am UTC - may be the 17th in your time zone
Story reveal: 25th December
Author reveal: 1st January
ELIGIBILITY
Yuletide is a small fandoms exchange. As well as making sure the fandoms are rare enough, it is important to us to make sure the fandoms don't overlap and are organized in a way that helps match requests and offers.
Main Principle
Fandoms will be approved if their total number of stories on archiveofourown.org and fanfiction.net, added together, is less than 1,000. A story must be in English, complete, and at least 1,000 words long to be considered in that total. Crossovers are included in the total.
You can use a bookmarklet tool to help you quickly determine if a fandom is over or under this limit.
Related Fandoms
Related fandoms include fandoms that are adaptations, part of a franchise, or otherwise linked to a larger canon.
If the fandom you want is closely related to an ineligible fandom, you will need to explain why it should be considered as a fandom in its own right (see the evidence section). This includes cases where the fandom is merged into a larger fandom on fanfiction.net or AO3.
Some specific types of fandom are covered in the guidelines below.
Where an overall series or world and a subset of that series are nominated at the same time, we will not approve both. Instead, we will decide which is the most appropriate to send through on a case by case basis, according to how much the characters and plots overlap, taking into account what participants prefer. We encourage everyone to discuss nominations with others in order to get fandoms nominated in a way that will cover what you want and help with matching.
Unreleased Fandoms
If only the promotional material for a fandom is, or will be, available at the close of sign-ups (21st October in 2018), that fandom is not eligible to be nominated. For example, a TV show that has aired one episode before the cut-off date is fine; a movie that comes out after then is not. Promotional material includes but is not limited to advance reader copies of books and other limited releases (such as being screened at ComicCon) as well as trailers for fandoms that have not yet been released/started their run. Standalone trailers for non-existent fandoms will be considered on a case by case basis.
Too-Broad Fandoms
These fandoms are considered too broad and will not be accepted regardless of numbers:
Guidelines by Category
Real Person Fiction
Character nominations are required. Any person tagged in over 1,000 works on AO3 is ineligible.
In addition to fandoms that are disallowed for being too broad (Actor RPF, Ancient History RPF, [country] Actor RPF, Literary RPF, Music RPF, Sports RPF, and History RPF), some RPF fandoms, such as Hockey RPF, are not rare enough. Sports teams are acceptable fandoms when the sport as a whole has too many fics.
When deciding how to nominate your fandom, please coordinate with other RPF fans on the Yuletide community and keep in mind that a person who is tagged in over 1,000 works on AO3 is not eligible in any RPF category.
Please err on the side of narrower rather than broader labels for an RPF category to avoid large character lists (for example, nominate by groups of connected people, rather than just by century or profession). The wider or vaguer the fandom name, the more likely it is to be rejected. The fandom name must be a clear and accurate description of the group nominated. The more tenuous the connection between the characters and the fandom, the less likely the fandom or all the characters are to be accepted (for example, we will sometimes allow partners of characters nominated in a RPF fandom; but we would not generally allow their friends. Similarly, for a sports team we'd allow players, surrounding staff etc, but not rivals). In order to be allowed, RPF characters must be famous in their own right, regardless of whether or not they have a relationship with a famous person.
If there are multiple nominated RPF fandoms with closely overlapping lists, the fandoms may be merged.
Comics
Please nominate comics fandoms by individual titles rather than by universe. We are aware that this does not fit all fandoms perfectly, so if your fandom is an odd case, please explain it on the Evidence Post. For example:
Commercials
Please nominate these by set or by individual commercial. Commercials need to have some recurring element, like a character, if they are to be nominated as a single fandom - just having a company in common is not enough. For example, the Allstate Insurance Commercials, with Mayhem, are a good set; but the New Era [baseball cap] commercials, between 2011 and 2012, are quite different, so New Era Commercials would be too broad. Thematic groups of commercials in the same industry may be allowed on a case by case basis, such as Insurance Commercial Spokespeople.
Anthropomorfic
Please nominate your group of items or concepts under a clear name. Character nominations are required. Some examples from previous tag sets:
TV Shows
Single episodes of TV shows cannot be nominated separately. Single seasons may be allowed in cases where the cast is different from season to season (for example, reality shows). Crossover episodes and backdoor pilots will not be considered when establishing whether a character will be accepted in a specific fandom. Webseries spin-offs may be allowed. Please explain on the Evidence Post why a spin-off or a single season should be considered a distinct fandom. See Evidence section for details.
Fanworks
The canons that are nominated as Yuletide fandoms may be both professional and amateur works. However, for transformative fanworks - works like fanvids and fanfiction that derive from another canon, are often posted to a fandom-specific space, and are not (generally) published for profit - a set of special conditions apply. Most transformative fanworks will not be eligible for Yuletide.
To argue for the inclusion of a specific fanwork, you must comment on the evidence post. See the section on evidence (below) for what we need you to put in your comment.
Original Works
Yuletide does not include an original works category.
Character nominations such as "Original Male Character" will not be approved.
Nominations of short or ephemeral concept fandoms such as single headlines, some tumblr posts, and what-if scenarios will be considered on a case by case basis.
The mods reserve the right to reject fandoms or characters for reasons beyond those specified here.
EVIDENCE REQUIRED
The Evidence Post
The Evidence Post will go up just before nominations. If you have nominated something that may be complicated to deal with, because it’s a fanwork, or it’s similar to another canon, or it’s borderline on numbers, we suggest you tell us about it on the post before your nomination is reviewed. We are far more likely to accept a fandom based on evidence on the Evidence Post than we are to restore a rejected fandom in the tag set checking phase.
When commenting to the Evidence Post, please be as clear and specific as possible - the tagmods cannot know all of Yuletide’s fandoms, and if we have to research them ourselves, we may make mistakes. If we can’t understand the case you’re trying to make, we may not approve your fandom.
Everyone is welcome to add evidence for or against the fandoms nominated.
Fandoms over 1000 works total on AO3 and ff.net
If you think your fandom is over the limit only due to crossposting between ff.net and AO3, or because its categorization on either AO3 or ff.net is misleading, or because one person in your fandom has written most of the fic, or because loosely-related crossovers make up a significant majority of the works, you can make a comment to the Evidence Post to argue for its inclusion. Please organize your data clearly, with links and lists. We will not consider any evidence for fandoms that have 1100 or more works after the correct filters are applied.
Closely-related fandoms
If you are nominating a canon that is very closely linked to another canon - say, a set of spin-off comics or a comics crossover event, or a particular, unique, staging of a play, or an authorized sequel by a new author - please make a comment to the Evidence Post to show why it should be included separately. These guidelines also apply if you wish to nominate a subset or arc of an existing fandom. Please consider:
You do not need to answer “yes” to every one of these questions. But they are factors we will keep in mind when approving or rejecting your fandom. If you cannot make a case that your fandom meets many of these criteria, it will be rejected.
Fanworks
When you nominate a fanwork, you must make a comment to the Evidence Post before nominations close, to show why it should be included. Include a link to the fanwork, and consider the following criteria:
You do not need to answer “yes” to every one of these questions. But if you can only answer “yes” to one or two, and you don’t explain your reasoning, then you may be wasting your nomination.
Fandoms that include multiple media
We realise that there are many fandoms where anime & manga, or anime & games, or similar media, are considered part of the same canon. (for example, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Accel World). If you have a fandom like this, we suggest you describe it on the Evidence Post. It must be on the evidence post if you are nominating it with the words ‘All Media Types’ in its title.
Fandoms the tagmods will find hard to identify
If the fandom you are nominating follows an existing AO3 tag, it will not cause a problem here. Otherwise, if it is very obscure or has a generic name, please describe it on the Evidence Post, with links. As a guideline: if we googled your fandom and characters, would we turn up anything useful? If the answer is “yes”, we don’t need an evidence post for your obscure canon. But if not, please give us some pointers.
If all the resources about a fandom are in a language other than English, it is better to comment.
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Community LJ | Community DW
This post on DW
2018 Schedule
Nominations: 12th to 21st September
Sign-ups: 10th to 21st October
Assignments go out: Between 22nd and 25th October
Madness opens and prompts are visible: After assignments
Posting deadline: 18th December at 9am UTC - may be the 17th in your time zone
Story reveal: 25th December
Author reveal: 1st January
ELIGIBILITY
Yuletide is a small fandoms exchange. As well as making sure the fandoms are rare enough, it is important to us to make sure the fandoms don't overlap and are organized in a way that helps match requests and offers.
Main Principle
Fandoms will be approved if their total number of stories on archiveofourown.org and fanfiction.net, added together, is less than 1,000. A story must be in English, complete, and at least 1,000 words long to be considered in that total. Crossovers are included in the total.
You can use a bookmarklet tool to help you quickly determine if a fandom is over or under this limit.
Related Fandoms
Related fandoms include fandoms that are adaptations, part of a franchise, or otherwise linked to a larger canon.
If the fandom you want is closely related to an ineligible fandom, you will need to explain why it should be considered as a fandom in its own right (see the evidence section). This includes cases where the fandom is merged into a larger fandom on fanfiction.net or AO3.
Some specific types of fandom are covered in the guidelines below.
Where an overall series or world and a subset of that series are nominated at the same time, we will not approve both. Instead, we will decide which is the most appropriate to send through on a case by case basis, according to how much the characters and plots overlap, taking into account what participants prefer. We encourage everyone to discuss nominations with others in order to get fandoms nominated in a way that will cover what you want and help with matching.
Unreleased Fandoms
If only the promotional material for a fandom is, or will be, available at the close of sign-ups (21st October in 2018), that fandom is not eligible to be nominated. For example, a TV show that has aired one episode before the cut-off date is fine; a movie that comes out after then is not. Promotional material includes but is not limited to advance reader copies of books and other limited releases (such as being screened at ComicCon) as well as trailers for fandoms that have not yet been released/started their run. Standalone trailers for non-existent fandoms will be considered on a case by case basis.
Too-Broad Fandoms
These fandoms are considered too broad and will not be accepted regardless of numbers:
- Actor RPF, Ancient History RPF, [country] Actor RPF, Literary RPF, Music RPF, Sports RPF, History RPF.
- Fandom tags that include the words "- All Media Types", "& Related Fandoms", or "- Ambiguous Fandom", because we want to avoid confusion about what canons are included.
- We realise that there are many fandoms where anime & manga, or anime & games, or similar media, are considered part of the same canon. Some of these already exist on AO3 under a single fandom name, which is fine (for example, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Accel World). If you have a fandom like this, please describe it on the Evidence Post and we will discuss whether it is suitable. If you nominate a fandom with the label "All Media Types" without explaining on the Evidence Post why you think it should be accepted, we will reject it.
- Comic universes as a whole (for example the Marvel 616 universe).
- Most official crossovers between canons (either between canons within a larger continuity or franchise, or between unrelated canons).
- Book series where there is very little overlap in characters or setting (for example, the Dear America series or the Hainish series).
- Anthology series where specific named sub-series exist and the sub-series do not share characters, plot, or settings. These will be generally be accepted only under their sub-series names.
Guidelines by Category
Real Person Fiction
Character nominations are required. Any person tagged in over 1,000 works on AO3 is ineligible.
In addition to fandoms that are disallowed for being too broad (Actor RPF, Ancient History RPF, [country] Actor RPF, Literary RPF, Music RPF, Sports RPF, and History RPF), some RPF fandoms, such as Hockey RPF, are not rare enough. Sports teams are acceptable fandoms when the sport as a whole has too many fics.
When deciding how to nominate your fandom, please coordinate with other RPF fans on the Yuletide community and keep in mind that a person who is tagged in over 1,000 works on AO3 is not eligible in any RPF category.
Please err on the side of narrower rather than broader labels for an RPF category to avoid large character lists (for example, nominate by groups of connected people, rather than just by century or profession). The wider or vaguer the fandom name, the more likely it is to be rejected. The fandom name must be a clear and accurate description of the group nominated. The more tenuous the connection between the characters and the fandom, the less likely the fandom or all the characters are to be accepted (for example, we will sometimes allow partners of characters nominated in a RPF fandom; but we would not generally allow their friends. Similarly, for a sports team we'd allow players, surrounding staff etc, but not rivals). In order to be allowed, RPF characters must be famous in their own right, regardless of whether or not they have a relationship with a famous person.
If there are multiple nominated RPF fandoms with closely overlapping lists, the fandoms may be merged.
Comics
Please nominate comics fandoms by individual titles rather than by universe. We are aware that this does not fit all fandoms perfectly, so if your fandom is an odd case, please explain it on the Evidence Post. For example:
- We will allow arc/creator runs in exceptional cases where these are clearly distinct from the wider fandom. These will be evaluated on a case by case basis and require evidence that the arc is a distinct entity (See Evidence section for details). Eligibility will be determined by the title fandom, not the specific arc (For example: Marv Wolfman’s run on Teen Titans vs the modern team, Ultimate Spider-Man (Peter Parker) vs Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Miles Morales).
- Back-ups (e.g. Coven of Three) - please nominate these under the back-up’s title, not the title it was published in (also applicable to the cartoon shorts run during commercial breaks for DC and Marvel cartoons, e.g., Super Best Friends Forever).
- Crossover events and their short-run titles will be considered on a case by case basis and may be accepted with evidence. Please see the evidence requirements for Related Fandoms.
Commercials
Please nominate these by set or by individual commercial. Commercials need to have some recurring element, like a character, if they are to be nominated as a single fandom - just having a company in common is not enough. For example, the Allstate Insurance Commercials, with Mayhem, are a good set; but the New Era [baseball cap] commercials, between 2011 and 2012, are quite different, so New Era Commercials would be too broad. Thematic groups of commercials in the same industry may be allowed on a case by case basis, such as Insurance Commercial Spokespeople.
Anthropomorfic
Please nominate your group of items or concepts under a clear name. Character nominations are required. Some examples from previous tag sets:
- Music Festivals (Anthropomorfic), with characters Burning Man (Festival), Coachella (Music Festival), Electric Daisy Carnival (Music Festival), Shambhala (Music Festival).
- Wines (Anthropomorfic), with characters Bordeaux (Wine), Burgundy (Wine), Chevre (Wine), Green Apple (Wine), Orange Blossom Honey (Wine), Pouilly Fuissé (Wine), Pouilly Fumé (Wine), Sauvignon Blanc (Wine).
TV Shows
Single episodes of TV shows cannot be nominated separately. Single seasons may be allowed in cases where the cast is different from season to season (for example, reality shows). Crossover episodes and backdoor pilots will not be considered when establishing whether a character will be accepted in a specific fandom. Webseries spin-offs may be allowed. Please explain on the Evidence Post why a spin-off or a single season should be considered a distinct fandom. See Evidence section for details.
Fanworks
The canons that are nominated as Yuletide fandoms may be both professional and amateur works. However, for transformative fanworks - works like fanvids and fanfiction that derive from another canon, are often posted to a fandom-specific space, and are not (generally) published for profit - a set of special conditions apply. Most transformative fanworks will not be eligible for Yuletide.
- A fanwork that includes a request NOT to transform it should not be nominated.
- The fanwork must be publicly available - don’t nominate something that’s locked to members of an archive. When you describe the fanwork on the Evidence Post, please provide a link.
- The fanwork has to be distinct from its source fandom.
To argue for the inclusion of a specific fanwork, you must comment on the evidence post. See the section on evidence (below) for what we need you to put in your comment.
Original Works
Yuletide does not include an original works category.
Character nominations such as "Original Male Character" will not be approved.
Nominations of short or ephemeral concept fandoms such as single headlines, some tumblr posts, and what-if scenarios will be considered on a case by case basis.
The mods reserve the right to reject fandoms or characters for reasons beyond those specified here.
EVIDENCE REQUIRED
The Evidence Post
The Evidence Post will go up just before nominations. If you have nominated something that may be complicated to deal with, because it’s a fanwork, or it’s similar to another canon, or it’s borderline on numbers, we suggest you tell us about it on the post before your nomination is reviewed. We are far more likely to accept a fandom based on evidence on the Evidence Post than we are to restore a rejected fandom in the tag set checking phase.
When commenting to the Evidence Post, please be as clear and specific as possible - the tagmods cannot know all of Yuletide’s fandoms, and if we have to research them ourselves, we may make mistakes. If we can’t understand the case you’re trying to make, we may not approve your fandom.
Everyone is welcome to add evidence for or against the fandoms nominated.
Fandoms over 1000 works total on AO3 and ff.net
If you think your fandom is over the limit only due to crossposting between ff.net and AO3, or because its categorization on either AO3 or ff.net is misleading, or because one person in your fandom has written most of the fic, or because loosely-related crossovers make up a significant majority of the works, you can make a comment to the Evidence Post to argue for its inclusion. Please organize your data clearly, with links and lists. We will not consider any evidence for fandoms that have 1100 or more works after the correct filters are applied.
Closely-related fandoms
If you are nominating a canon that is very closely linked to another canon - say, a set of spin-off comics or a comics crossover event, or a particular, unique, staging of a play, or an authorized sequel by a new author - please make a comment to the Evidence Post to show why it should be included separately. These guidelines also apply if you wish to nominate a subset or arc of an existing fandom. Please consider:
- Would it make sense even if you didn’t know anything about the other canons?
- Is it published in a different medium?
- Does it have a different author or publisher?
- Is it marketed as a separate series or distinct sub-series?
- Does it focus on different characters, or characters with only minor roles in other canons?
- Does it have a very different setting or time period?
- Does it feature an alternate universe to the other canons, or significantly divergent events?
- Is it designed to create a different continuity or characterizations from its related canon(s)?
You do not need to answer “yes” to every one of these questions. But they are factors we will keep in mind when approving or rejecting your fandom. If you cannot make a case that your fandom meets many of these criteria, it will be rejected.
Fanworks
When you nominate a fanwork, you must make a comment to the Evidence Post before nominations close, to show why it should be included. Include a link to the fanwork, and consider the following criteria:
- Does it focus on original characters, or characters with minor roles in the larger canon?
- Does it have a very different setting or time period?
- Does it feature an alternate universe to the original canon, or significantly divergent events?
- Does it make sense even if you don't know much about the original canon?
- Would prompts for this fanwork be clearly different from prompts that could be made for the original canon?
You do not need to answer “yes” to every one of these questions. But if you can only answer “yes” to one or two, and you don’t explain your reasoning, then you may be wasting your nomination.
Fandoms that include multiple media
We realise that there are many fandoms where anime & manga, or anime & games, or similar media, are considered part of the same canon. (for example, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Accel World). If you have a fandom like this, we suggest you describe it on the Evidence Post. It must be on the evidence post if you are nominating it with the words ‘All Media Types’ in its title.
Fandoms the tagmods will find hard to identify
If the fandom you are nominating follows an existing AO3 tag, it will not cause a problem here. Otherwise, if it is very obscure or has a generic name, please describe it on the Evidence Post, with links. As a guideline: if we googled your fandom and characters, would we turn up anything useful? If the answer is “yes”, we don’t need an evidence post for your obscure canon. But if not, please give us some pointers.
If all the resources about a fandom are in a language other than English, it is better to comment.
Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Community LJ | Community DW
This post on DW