Round 2 kicks off!
Alrighty, folks! It's time to dig in and kickstart Round 2. Sorry it's taken me all day to get this up :-)
But first I want to give some very deserved gratitude to two folks who literally saved this project. Much as we love SSF (which is A LOT), real life has dumped a metric ton of crap and busyness on both sdwolfpup and myself in the last few weeks, and the chances of us pulling Round 2 together on time were next to nil. Not wanting to disappoint our loyal followers, I emailed chickwithmonkey in a dramatic moment of panic, and she and elflore stepped in and did the dirty work of selecting which fandoms to use for Round 2. SDW and I had plenty of good stuff leftover from Round 1, but some real time needed to put into narrowing the list down. They did a fantastic job, and because of their help, Round 2 wasn't postponed to January. I'm back in the driver's seat, but they went and picked up the car.
So please join me in raising my soda can to them, for they are the reason we're going to have fun these next four weeks. Or, if you hate the fandom choices, you know who's to blame ;-D
I want to give you guys a quick recap of what came out of the Round 1 feedback:
- You guys are split 50/50 on the anonymity rule (keep it vs make it optional) so we're going to keep it the way it is for now and check back in after Round 2.
- Most everyone seems to like the mix of serious and funny synopses, so we're still equally encourating both.
- Most everyone enjoyed the mix of fandoms we used, so we're going to going to keep our strategy. We are, however, going to limit anime fandoms to 2 (of 12) most of the time. Whenever we use anime vids from the AMV.org site (which requires sign-up to download), we will note that in the Stranger sign-up polls in case that would dissuade you from choosing that fandom.
The one big change we're making is regarding Grokkers. ( What's a Grokker?) The concept is staying the same, as is the help we ask from them, but we're changing the sign-up process. In Round 1, we didn't really know how cumbersome a Grokker assignment would be on top of Stranger assignments. We also didn't know who the Grokkers would be until we handed out Stranger assignments, so some people worried about being burdened with too much. Feedback fell strongly into the camp of "let the participants decide for themselves how many Stranger assignments they want on top of Grokking." So, we're going to do just that.
For Round 2, we're going to have the Grokker sign-up poll first. Everyone will have two days to decide if they want to be a Grokker. As always, Grokking is completely optional; it's extra credit. It's help :-) We will look at the sign-up poll and send out Grokker assignments before posting the Stranger sign-ups. That way everyone will know for sure how many Grokker assignments you have (if any) so you can take that into consideration when signing up to be a Stranger. Grokker synopses will be due one week before Stranger synopses are due.
Grokker sign-ups will be posted here and now, and the poll will close Wednesday night (10/17). I will send out assignments then. The Stranger sign-up poll will be posted Thursday (10/18) and run until Sunday (10/21). The rest of the Round 2 schedule remains unchanged. If anything I've said thusfar reads like stereo instructions, please drop me a comment and I'll clarify :-)
ETA: GROKKER SIGN-UPS ARE CLOSED!
If you are new to SSF, I highly encourage you to read our FAQ and look at past entries to familiarize yourself with our process.
If you would like to be a Grokker for Round 2, please sign-up below! Please remember this is not required to participate in SSF! We love our Stranger-onlys and lurkers just as much. Please also remember: to be a Grokker you must know the fandom too well to be a Stranger. Please do not sign-up here if you don't know the fandom. Grokking a particular fandom doesn't mean you miss out on being a Stranger for it, since you can't technically do both. It actually gets you involved in a fandom you're otherwise too qualified to participate in!
You can Grok for as many fandoms as you like, but we only assign one Grokker per fandom, so please be willing to follow-through if you're chosen. When a Grokker flakes out on us, we're left scrambling and it really sets us back.
Please read through both the poll and the fandom list thoroughly before submitting your responses. If you need to change anything to your submissions before the poll closes on Wednesday night, simply click the poll's name and choose "fill out poll" at the top. You are welcome to change your mind as much as you'd like between now and then. You can also look at the poll results and see what we still need a Grokker for if you're on the fence about signing up. Grokker assignments are not set in stone until I email assignments to you.
Thank you all in advance for signing up to help out!
Poll Round 2 Grokker Sign-ups!
We're bouncing in our chairs over here to get this going again. Welcome to all the newbies and welcome back to the familiar faces. Let's make Round 2 even better than Round 1!
But first I want to give some very deserved gratitude to two folks who literally saved this project. Much as we love SSF (which is A LOT), real life has dumped a metric ton of crap and busyness on both sdwolfpup and myself in the last few weeks, and the chances of us pulling Round 2 together on time were next to nil. Not wanting to disappoint our loyal followers, I emailed chickwithmonkey in a dramatic moment of panic, and she and elflore stepped in and did the dirty work of selecting which fandoms to use for Round 2. SDW and I had plenty of good stuff leftover from Round 1, but some real time needed to put into narrowing the list down. They did a fantastic job, and because of their help, Round 2 wasn't postponed to January. I'm back in the driver's seat, but they went and picked up the car.
So please join me in raising my soda can to them, for they are the reason we're going to have fun these next four weeks. Or, if you hate the fandom choices, you know who's to blame ;-D
I want to give you guys a quick recap of what came out of the Round 1 feedback:
- You guys are split 50/50 on the anonymity rule (keep it vs make it optional) so we're going to keep it the way it is for now and check back in after Round 2.
- Most everyone seems to like the mix of serious and funny synopses, so we're still equally encourating both.
- Most everyone enjoyed the mix of fandoms we used, so we're going to going to keep our strategy. We are, however, going to limit anime fandoms to 2 (of 12) most of the time. Whenever we use anime vids from the AMV.org site (which requires sign-up to download), we will note that in the Stranger sign-up polls in case that would dissuade you from choosing that fandom.
The one big change we're making is regarding Grokkers. ( What's a Grokker?) The concept is staying the same, as is the help we ask from them, but we're changing the sign-up process. In Round 1, we didn't really know how cumbersome a Grokker assignment would be on top of Stranger assignments. We also didn't know who the Grokkers would be until we handed out Stranger assignments, so some people worried about being burdened with too much. Feedback fell strongly into the camp of "let the participants decide for themselves how many Stranger assignments they want on top of Grokking." So, we're going to do just that.
For Round 2, we're going to have the Grokker sign-up poll first. Everyone will have two days to decide if they want to be a Grokker. As always, Grokking is completely optional; it's extra credit. It's help :-) We will look at the sign-up poll and send out Grokker assignments before posting the Stranger sign-ups. That way everyone will know for sure how many Grokker assignments you have (if any) so you can take that into consideration when signing up to be a Stranger. Grokker synopses will be due one week before Stranger synopses are due.
Grokker sign-ups will be posted here and now, and the poll will close Wednesday night (10/17). I will send out assignments then. The Stranger sign-up poll will be posted Thursday (10/18) and run until Sunday (10/21). The rest of the Round 2 schedule remains unchanged. If anything I've said thusfar reads like stereo instructions, please drop me a comment and I'll clarify :-)
ETA: GROKKER SIGN-UPS ARE CLOSED!
If you are new to SSF, I highly encourage you to read our FAQ and look at past entries to familiarize yourself with our process.
If you would like to be a Grokker for Round 2, please sign-up below! Please remember this is not required to participate in SSF! We love our Stranger-onlys and lurkers just as much. Please also remember: to be a Grokker you must know the fandom too well to be a Stranger. Please do not sign-up here if you don't know the fandom. Grokking a particular fandom doesn't mean you miss out on being a Stranger for it, since you can't technically do both. It actually gets you involved in a fandom you're otherwise too qualified to participate in!
You can Grok for as many fandoms as you like, but we only assign one Grokker per fandom, so please be willing to follow-through if you're chosen. When a Grokker flakes out on us, we're left scrambling and it really sets us back.
Please read through both the poll and the fandom list thoroughly before submitting your responses. If you need to change anything to your submissions before the poll closes on Wednesday night, simply click the poll's name and choose "fill out poll" at the top. You are welcome to change your mind as much as you'd like between now and then. You can also look at the poll results and see what we still need a Grokker for if you're on the fence about signing up. Grokker assignments are not set in stone until I email assignments to you.
Thank you all in advance for signing up to help out!
Poll Round 2 Grokker Sign-ups!
We're bouncing in our chairs over here to get this going again. Welcome to all the newbies and welcome back to the familiar faces. Let's make Round 2 even better than Round 1!