Housekeeping
Before we give you the final version of the rules (to be posted on approximately 30th August), we have a couple of points to note. These will be added into the FAQ, which is being refurbished and streamlined. :)
Schedule
Nominations: September 22nd - 29th
Tag mods’ nominations review: September 30th - October 10th
Public nominations review: October 11th - 18th
Sign-ups: October 19th - 25th
Assignments out: approximately November 1st
Assignments due: December 20th
Reveal: December 25th
Nominations checking
The tag mods will check, approve, and reject items in the tag set in the 10 days following nominations. We have discussed the possibility of going back to doing it while nominations are ongoing. However, we have decided that checking the nominations afterwards is more practical, for the following reasons:
Placeholders
Last year, many people uploaded half-written fics or placeholder text at the official deadline, and kept writing. Not everyone who did this made it to the end. Cases like these cause a lot of stress for mods. While we appreciate the dedication of our last-minute pinch hitters, we’d rather they had longer to write than the hour before we open the collection.
When you click to “fulfill” your assignment, please mean it! It’s okay to upload a fic that still needs a spell-check, or has a last paragraph that isn’t quite right, if you’re confident you’ll be able to go over it one more time. It’s not okay if only the first half of your story is uploaded at the deadline. This year, when the deadline passes, we will be checking for placeholders, and if we find them, we will ban their authors and send their recipients’ prompts out to pinch hit.
Pinch hits
When you are claiming a pinch hit, you must put your AO3 name in your reply so that we can assign it to you straight away. People who give us their name when claiming a pinch hit will always be considered ahead of people who don’t. This will make the process quicker and easier for the people assigning pinch hits.
Sock accounts
Please don’t sign up or submit nominations to Yuletide with more than one account at once. We can’t prevent you from using socks, dentists, or valets, but if you’re obvious about it, we will ban you.
The exchange is run along the idea that you will write a story, and get a story. Please respect this as a matter of good faith with the organizers. There are also practical problems with multiple sign-ups. We often have trouble contacting participants through their regular accounts; this goes double for people who create a new email address for a new AO3 account, and never check it again. Many people don’t put much effort into their back-up sign-up’s requests or letter - if you are likely to forget to unlock your Dear Author letter, then this, again, goes double for two. And while sometimes Life Happens and causes you to default, if you have two assignments on the go, that causes double the headache for us.
The limits on nominations and signups are there to try and make the challenge work well. Using multiple accounts to get around the limitations causes problems for the mods and other participants.
This has also been posted on Dreamwidth
Schedule
Nominations: September 22nd - 29th
Tag mods’ nominations review: September 30th - October 10th
Public nominations review: October 11th - 18th
Sign-ups: October 19th - 25th
Assignments out: approximately November 1st
Assignments due: December 20th
Reveal: December 25th
Nominations checking
The tag mods will check, approve, and reject items in the tag set in the 10 days following nominations. We have discussed the possibility of going back to doing it while nominations are ongoing. However, we have decided that checking the nominations afterwards is more practical, for the following reasons:
- This allows everyone to edit their nominations until the end of nominations.
- The tag set only shows us a random selection of nominations to approve or reject at any time. Processing nominations as they are made makes it harder for us to ensure that your nominations are accepted in the correct form, or to combine duplicate nominations. Correcting errors is a lengthy and awkward process - therefore trying to minimise them is a priority.
- This also gives you time to present evidence in advance for any fandoms that are borderline or confusing, and gives the tag mods time to consider it. We hope this makes the process more fair, and will also prevent errors.
- Separating out nominations from nominations checking spreads out the load on the archive (there are currently issues with the servers).
Placeholders
Last year, many people uploaded half-written fics or placeholder text at the official deadline, and kept writing. Not everyone who did this made it to the end. Cases like these cause a lot of stress for mods. While we appreciate the dedication of our last-minute pinch hitters, we’d rather they had longer to write than the hour before we open the collection.
When you click to “fulfill” your assignment, please mean it! It’s okay to upload a fic that still needs a spell-check, or has a last paragraph that isn’t quite right, if you’re confident you’ll be able to go over it one more time. It’s not okay if only the first half of your story is uploaded at the deadline. This year, when the deadline passes, we will be checking for placeholders, and if we find them, we will ban their authors and send their recipients’ prompts out to pinch hit.
Pinch hits
When you are claiming a pinch hit, you must put your AO3 name in your reply so that we can assign it to you straight away. People who give us their name when claiming a pinch hit will always be considered ahead of people who don’t. This will make the process quicker and easier for the people assigning pinch hits.
Sock accounts
Please don’t sign up or submit nominations to Yuletide with more than one account at once. We can’t prevent you from using socks, dentists, or valets, but if you’re obvious about it, we will ban you.
The exchange is run along the idea that you will write a story, and get a story. Please respect this as a matter of good faith with the organizers. There are also practical problems with multiple sign-ups. We often have trouble contacting participants through their regular accounts; this goes double for people who create a new email address for a new AO3 account, and never check it again. Many people don’t put much effort into their back-up sign-up’s requests or letter - if you are likely to forget to unlock your Dear Author letter, then this, again, goes double for two. And while sometimes Life Happens and causes you to default, if you have two assignments on the go, that causes double the headache for us.
The limits on nominations and signups are there to try and make the challenge work well. Using multiple accounts to get around the limitations causes problems for the mods and other participants.
This has also been posted on Dreamwidth