beta offer spreadsheet
Hello, Yuletide community! I come bearing an unofficial form and spreadsheet for offering beta services and finding people.
Edit: feel free to use this post to say "gosh, I could really use a beta in X, Y, and Z!" This really can work, and it's no trouble at all.
Here's the sign-up form. Here's the beta offer spreadsheet. You can sign up to beta SPAG, languages other than English, areas of expertise (such as locations, professions, hobbies, or particular genres of story), and specific fandoms. You don't have to be participating in Yuletide or even an AO3 user (I don't write fic at all, let alone for Yuletide); the form only asks for AO3 names in case you are participating, so that someone doesn't ask you to beta your own story.
The spreadsheet is, of course, fully searchable; I'll also generate manual indexes of the four categories of beta offer (SPAG, language, area of expertise, fandom).
You can also edit your signups if you save the link; I'll get notified if you change it and will update the manual indexes accordingly. Or you can comment here or email knepveu@steelypips.org if you need to fix something.
This year, the form uses ticky-boxes or radio buttons for two areas, to address issues that came up last year. First, you can tick boxes for categories of story (gen, m/m, f/f, and so on) that you're willing to beta. This should make it easier for people to find, for instance, betas willing to read femslash. (There's also a radio button for highest rating you're willing to beta.) Second, you can say whether or not you have certain content you can't beta, whether for triggers or other reasons; you can then specify the general categories of content, and whether people should contact you to discuss or whether it's a hard no. Together with the relationship/rating section, this should make it simpler for people to specify the things they're willing to beta and to find appropriate betas. It also avoids a big list of "no X kink," where X kink is vanishingly rare in Yuletide fics but the list might be distressing to read for people with X kink.
This is, of course, optional and unofficial, but I hope it's useful. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
PS: the signup summary seems to be broken at the moment; should I report this or is it already known?
Edit: feel free to use this post to say "gosh, I could really use a beta in X, Y, and Z!" This really can work, and it's no trouble at all.
Here's the sign-up form. Here's the beta offer spreadsheet. You can sign up to beta SPAG, languages other than English, areas of expertise (such as locations, professions, hobbies, or particular genres of story), and specific fandoms. You don't have to be participating in Yuletide or even an AO3 user (I don't write fic at all, let alone for Yuletide); the form only asks for AO3 names in case you are participating, so that someone doesn't ask you to beta your own story.
The spreadsheet is, of course, fully searchable; I'll also generate manual indexes of the four categories of beta offer (SPAG, language, area of expertise, fandom).
You can also edit your signups if you save the link; I'll get notified if you change it and will update the manual indexes accordingly. Or you can comment here or email knepveu@steelypips.org if you need to fix something.
This year, the form uses ticky-boxes or radio buttons for two areas, to address issues that came up last year. First, you can tick boxes for categories of story (gen, m/m, f/f, and so on) that you're willing to beta. This should make it easier for people to find, for instance, betas willing to read femslash. (There's also a radio button for highest rating you're willing to beta.) Second, you can say whether or not you have certain content you can't beta, whether for triggers or other reasons; you can then specify the general categories of content, and whether people should contact you to discuss or whether it's a hard no. Together with the relationship/rating section, this should make it simpler for people to specify the things they're willing to beta and to find appropriate betas. It also avoids a big list of "no X kink," where X kink is vanishingly rare in Yuletide fics but the list might be distressing to read for people with X kink.
This is, of course, optional and unofficial, but I hope it's useful. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
PS: the signup summary seems to be broken at the moment; should I report this or is it already known?