McShep Match 2012 Rules and FAQ
What is McShep Match?
McShep Match is a bit of friendly competition between two teams of writers, artists and vidders. Each team takes on the same set of prompts and creates their entries to fit their selected prompt. Our teams for 2012 are Time and Space -- these are team names only, and need not affect in any way the entries created by the members of the teams, who will be determined randomly.
Entries are posted anonymously and readers vote on how well the entries fit the prompt used and how much they enjoyed it. Please note that the wording is deliberate - we want to know how much you actually enjoyed it, not how good you think it objectively is. Once voting is over the average score for each entry is added to the overall team score and the team with the highest total is awarded the win. All individual results are viewable only by the mods and only the final team results are ever announced or viewed by anyone else.
What type of prompts will they be? How will they be assigned?
You can see prompts used in previous fests here (2007), here (2008), here (2009), here (2010) and here (2011). Prompts will be of a similar type again this year. Prompts will be claimed at sign-up by listing the top 5 in order of preference, then assigned in order of claiming until all have been assigned.
What are the rules?
1000 words minimum per participant for writers.
No crossovers except for SG-1. Fusions are allowed but must not require any knowledge of the other source material outside of Stargate: Atlantis and SG-1. Even with SG-1, do bear in mind that not all fans will have watched it.
All participants must join their team community and at least watch the main McShep Match community.
Extension time is very limited, so if you’re not finished by the deadline or fail to respond to deadline reminders you risk being replaced by a backup at the discretion of your team moderator.
Final acceptance of all entries is at the discretion of the mods.
What is your policy on warnings?
All participants must warn for the following if they appear in their entry:
Character death, non-con, underage (below 18), bestiality, necrophilia.
If an entry may be interpreted as containing the above the mods may ask for a modified version of the warning to be included (e.g. hint of / references to / non-explicit any of the above).
'Squick' is not an acceptable warning - please be more specific. The mods can give guidance on this if needed at any stage, as with any of the above.
Warnings may be whited out but must appear in the header and not linked or at the end of the text. The mods reserve the right to ask participants to include additional warnings if they feel it is necessary.
I have a problem with one of the entries posted, what do I do?
If you have a problem with any entry please do not comment on the post itself with your concerns. Entries are posted anonymously and it is difficult for our authors and artists to respond and defend themselves if you take issue with something, and they are not able to help with any technical issues such as posting errors. Please contact the mods directly at the address given below and they will take any necessary action as quickly as possible.
If you think the entry does not meet our warning standards (above) or you think extra warnings should have been included then please contact the mods at mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com.
If you have a concern about plagiarism or similar matters then please contact the mods at mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com.
Please note that if adequate warnings were given and you ignored them the mods (and everyone else) are unlikely to have much sympathy.
I've dropped out of the fest before, can I still sign up?
That depends. You are eligible to take part unless any of the following apply to you:
If you're not sure where you stand on this, email the mods at mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com and we'll let you know right away. Please make sure you tell us if you've been signed up under another journal name in the past.
We're sorry to have to do this, but dropouts have increased dramatically in the last couple of years - not just for us or this fandom - and we have to do what we can to reduce them.
When can I sign up?
Friday 8th June, from 10pm GMT. (When is that?) We will also post a warning one hour before sign ups start so we recommend tracking the McShep Match community if you think you might forget.
How do I sign up?
To sign up, post a comment to the sign up post with ALL the following information:
LJ name
Email address (not your default LJ address please)
Top 5 prompts from the list in order of preference
Comments will be screened. We will reply by email to confirm we've received your prompt selection and to invite you to your team community, or (if all your prompts have already been taken) to ask for another set of choices. Please do your best to check the list of prompts for ones no longer available before posting your comment.
We will be reminding everyone of this on the sign-up post, but because it can't be said too many times: please remember you will be assigned your team at random. In John Sheppard's honour, we'll be literally tossing coins. :D
I won't have access to LJ at that time!
Then you can have someone else sign up for you. They follow the same instructions above with only a few simple rules:
Two of us want to sign up to co-write, how do we do that?
As long as you have co-written fics together before (any fandom) then you can sign up to co-write for this fest. Please be aware that the 1000 word minimum is per writer, so if there are two of you co-writing your minimum will be 2000 words.
Just one of you should sign up, and list the LJ names and email addresses for both participants. Please also include a link to a posted fic you have co-written together if you haven’t co-written for McShep Match before.
What happens after I've signed up?
Please keep an eye out for an email, which will contain your prompt and an invitation to join your team community. We will edit the post if we have to go offline for a while or if the teams are full, but if sign-ups go over capacity somehow despite that we will email you to let you know.
There are a limited number of places available on each team, though anyone who misses out on sign-ups will be able to volunteer as an alternate/backup participant.
I want to participate as an artist/a vidder, what will I be expected to create?
You will need to provide a minimum of one piece of art/one vid, though you can create more than one if you wish. If you want to do something wildly different from the usual type of entry please do ask and we will do our best to accomodate you.
For non-video artwork we will need you to provide a preview image along with your entry. This can be either a smaller version of your whole work or just a part of it. If your work consists of several parts we will probably need a preview for each but just ask the mods (mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com) if you're not sure. Details of size for preview images will be given in the submission guidelines but please contact the mods if you need the information before then.
Vidders do not need to provide preview images.
When are entries due? When will they be posted?
The schedule for the fest is below.
Sign-ups open: Friday 8thJune, 10pm GMT
Teams finalised and on communities by: Monday 18th June
Deadline: Monday 23rd July and Wednesday 25th July
Posting starts: Wednesday 1st August
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!
McShep Match is a bit of friendly competition between two teams of writers, artists and vidders. Each team takes on the same set of prompts and creates their entries to fit their selected prompt. Our teams for 2012 are Time and Space -- these are team names only, and need not affect in any way the entries created by the members of the teams, who will be determined randomly.
Entries are posted anonymously and readers vote on how well the entries fit the prompt used and how much they enjoyed it. Please note that the wording is deliberate - we want to know how much you actually enjoyed it, not how good you think it objectively is. Once voting is over the average score for each entry is added to the overall team score and the team with the highest total is awarded the win. All individual results are viewable only by the mods and only the final team results are ever announced or viewed by anyone else.
What type of prompts will they be? How will they be assigned?
You can see prompts used in previous fests here (2007), here (2008), here (2009), here (2010) and here (2011). Prompts will be of a similar type again this year. Prompts will be claimed at sign-up by listing the top 5 in order of preference, then assigned in order of claiming until all have been assigned.
What are the rules?
1000 words minimum per participant for writers.
No crossovers except for SG-1. Fusions are allowed but must not require any knowledge of the other source material outside of Stargate: Atlantis and SG-1. Even with SG-1, do bear in mind that not all fans will have watched it.
All participants must join their team community and at least watch the main McShep Match community.
Extension time is very limited, so if you’re not finished by the deadline or fail to respond to deadline reminders you risk being replaced by a backup at the discretion of your team moderator.
Final acceptance of all entries is at the discretion of the mods.
What is your policy on warnings?
All participants must warn for the following if they appear in their entry:
Character death, non-con, underage (below 18), bestiality, necrophilia.
If an entry may be interpreted as containing the above the mods may ask for a modified version of the warning to be included (e.g. hint of / references to / non-explicit any of the above).
'Squick' is not an acceptable warning - please be more specific. The mods can give guidance on this if needed at any stage, as with any of the above.
Warnings may be whited out but must appear in the header and not linked or at the end of the text. The mods reserve the right to ask participants to include additional warnings if they feel it is necessary.
I have a problem with one of the entries posted, what do I do?
If you have a problem with any entry please do not comment on the post itself with your concerns. Entries are posted anonymously and it is difficult for our authors and artists to respond and defend themselves if you take issue with something, and they are not able to help with any technical issues such as posting errors. Please contact the mods directly at the address given below and they will take any necessary action as quickly as possible.
If you think the entry does not meet our warning standards (above) or you think extra warnings should have been included then please contact the mods at mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com.
If you have a concern about plagiarism or similar matters then please contact the mods at mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com.
Please note that if adequate warnings were given and you ignored them the mods (and everyone else) are unlikely to have much sympathy.
I've dropped out of the fest before, can I still sign up?
That depends. You are eligible to take part unless any of the following apply to you:
- We have told you directly that you have been banned.
- You didn't just drop out but vanished on or after the deadline last year.
- You have dropped out on or after the deadline more than once in the past.
If you're not sure where you stand on this, email the mods at mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com and we'll let you know right away. Please make sure you tell us if you've been signed up under another journal name in the past.
We're sorry to have to do this, but dropouts have increased dramatically in the last couple of years - not just for us or this fandom - and we have to do what we can to reduce them.
When can I sign up?
Friday 8th June, from 10pm GMT. (When is that?) We will also post a warning one hour before sign ups start so we recommend tracking the McShep Match community if you think you might forget.
How do I sign up?
To sign up, post a comment to the sign up post with ALL the following information:
LJ name
Email address (not your default LJ address please)
Top 5 prompts from the list in order of preference
Comments will be screened. We will reply by email to confirm we've received your prompt selection and to invite you to your team community, or (if all your prompts have already been taken) to ask for another set of choices. Please do your best to check the list of prompts for ones no longer available before posting your comment.
We will be reminding everyone of this on the sign-up post, but because it can't be said too many times: please remember you will be assigned your team at random. In John Sheppard's honour, we'll be literally tossing coins. :D
I won't have access to LJ at that time!
Then you can have someone else sign up for you. They follow the same instructions above with only a few simple rules:
- Each comment can only contain one sign-up.
- They can only sign up one person who isn't themselves (whether they are signing up for the fest themselves or not).
- They will be picking prompts for you, so please make sure they know your preferences well. There will be an opportunity to swap prompts between team members after sign-ups, but there is no guarantee you will be able to change your prompt.
- They will need to include a contact email address for themselves as well as the person they are signing up. This is in case we need to contact them immediately about selecting further prompts (see above under 'How do I sign up?').
Two of us want to sign up to co-write, how do we do that?
As long as you have co-written fics together before (any fandom) then you can sign up to co-write for this fest. Please be aware that the 1000 word minimum is per writer, so if there are two of you co-writing your minimum will be 2000 words.
Just one of you should sign up, and list the LJ names and email addresses for both participants. Please also include a link to a posted fic you have co-written together if you haven’t co-written for McShep Match before.
What happens after I've signed up?
Please keep an eye out for an email, which will contain your prompt and an invitation to join your team community. We will edit the post if we have to go offline for a while or if the teams are full, but if sign-ups go over capacity somehow despite that we will email you to let you know.
There are a limited number of places available on each team, though anyone who misses out on sign-ups will be able to volunteer as an alternate/backup participant.
I want to participate as an artist/a vidder, what will I be expected to create?
You will need to provide a minimum of one piece of art/one vid, though you can create more than one if you wish. If you want to do something wildly different from the usual type of entry please do ask and we will do our best to accomodate you.
For non-video artwork we will need you to provide a preview image along with your entry. This can be either a smaller version of your whole work or just a part of it. If your work consists of several parts we will probably need a preview for each but just ask the mods (mcshep_match@refugeeblues.com) if you're not sure. Details of size for preview images will be given in the submission guidelines but please contact the mods if you need the information before then.
Vidders do not need to provide preview images.
When are entries due? When will they be posted?
The schedule for the fest is below.
Sign-ups open: Friday 8thJune, 10pm GMT
Teams finalised and on communities by: Monday 18th June
Deadline: Monday 23rd July and Wednesday 25th July
Posting starts: Wednesday 1st August
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!