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Creator names are now revealing at the FFFX 2024 collection. You're welcome to share what you drew or wrote widely. Congratulations, everyone who took part!
I especially want to thank the co-mods who helped me sort tags and check letters at the start of the round - there would not have been a round 5 without their help. Then there are so many other people who deserve thanks: pinch hitters, beta readers, treat creators, commenters, prompters, nominators, and anyone who said anything cheerful anywhere about this exchange. (Or pointed out an error.)
Thank you, all of you!!
I hope to run another round on a similar schedule, and will again reach out for help with tag sorting.
General feedback; letter completion; check-in period
Before next round, I will review the rules for recursive fandoms (ie, what can be nominated, is it okay for recursive fandoms to be your whole sign-up). These questions arose last round and while a case-by-case approach has worked okay so far, clarity is useful.
I will also put up a franchise post for discussing how we split/merge some fandoms where this is often a question (Marvel TV/cinema, DCU, etc).
Letter completion
FFFX has a rule that if you link an external document ("letter") to supplement your prompts, that letter MUST be available and complete by a set date after sign-ups close. The idea is to make sure creators can get started with confidence and are not wondering indefinitely if a letter will appear or gain content.
While I think the overall principle is sound, implementation is a problem. I have been really grateful for help checking letter completion in the past, but it's a lot of work and can be hard to get right. Then there's the question of what to do if a letter misses the deadline. I can remove the link - but that feels more like a punishment than a constructive result, and I'm not sure it actually helps a creator. Sure, your recipient didn't complete their letter, but now if you want to refer to their half-finished thoughts or check for previous letters, you have to do a lot more work.
Because of that, I have two proposals:
1. Requiring FFFX participants to put either a date at the top of their letter to say when it was completed, OR a statement that this is a general likes list. This would make letter checking much easier, but might be burdensome for participants. What do you think?
2. FFFX allows creators to swap their assignments nearly-at-will for a short period after assignments go out, and then at any later time before the deadline as long as you're swapping to a pinch hit. Instead of checking letters and imposing a penalty, maybe I should offer creators an option: you can swap to another assignment of your choice all throughout the creator period if your recipient's letter is incomplete. This seems like it might give creators more flexibility (if an incomplete letter is causing difficulty) and be more constructive overall. What do you think?
Check-in period
FFFX has a very long creation period, and so creators are required to check in roughly halfway in, during a week-long period that is set at the start of the exchange. This helps me seek pinch hitters "early" for recipients whose creators withdraw at that time or appear not to be involved at the exchange. It's fun for me to see (voluntary! optional) snippets from people who share those at the time. But you aren't required to give a progress update - this is the equivalent of me saying Marco and you saying Polo.
However, every year there are people who forget that this was a thing, and turn up months later, which is nice (extra gift!) but awkward - it can mean I recruited a pinch hitter when one wasn't necessary, and technically, the first person defaulted, but they may not realize they aren't getting a gift. Additionally, some people are unavoidably away from the period during check-in week, so checking in is burdensome - and not being able to check in in November doesn't mean you're unable to post a work in January.
I don't feel as strongly about changing the check-in period because I think it does work for many people. But I'd be interested to know how you feel about it. Maybe I should make the check-in completely optional, send an email at the same time, and keep the default deadline, so instead of "if you don't check in, you're defaulted", it becomes "here are several warnings, but I assume you're still participating unless you default".
Thanks for your thoughts! If you have feedback on other topics, that's welcome too! You don't have to be logged in to comment.
I especially want to thank the co-mods who helped me sort tags and check letters at the start of the round - there would not have been a round 5 without their help. Then there are so many other people who deserve thanks: pinch hitters, beta readers, treat creators, commenters, prompters, nominators, and anyone who said anything cheerful anywhere about this exchange. (Or pointed out an error.)
Thank you, all of you!!
I hope to run another round on a similar schedule, and will again reach out for help with tag sorting.
General feedback; letter completion; check-in period
Before next round, I will review the rules for recursive fandoms (ie, what can be nominated, is it okay for recursive fandoms to be your whole sign-up). These questions arose last round and while a case-by-case approach has worked okay so far, clarity is useful.
I will also put up a franchise post for discussing how we split/merge some fandoms where this is often a question (Marvel TV/cinema, DCU, etc).
Letter completion
FFFX has a rule that if you link an external document ("letter") to supplement your prompts, that letter MUST be available and complete by a set date after sign-ups close. The idea is to make sure creators can get started with confidence and are not wondering indefinitely if a letter will appear or gain content.
While I think the overall principle is sound, implementation is a problem. I have been really grateful for help checking letter completion in the past, but it's a lot of work and can be hard to get right. Then there's the question of what to do if a letter misses the deadline. I can remove the link - but that feels more like a punishment than a constructive result, and I'm not sure it actually helps a creator. Sure, your recipient didn't complete their letter, but now if you want to refer to their half-finished thoughts or check for previous letters, you have to do a lot more work.
Because of that, I have two proposals:
1. Requiring FFFX participants to put either a date at the top of their letter to say when it was completed, OR a statement that this is a general likes list. This would make letter checking much easier, but might be burdensome for participants. What do you think?
2. FFFX allows creators to swap their assignments nearly-at-will for a short period after assignments go out, and then at any later time before the deadline as long as you're swapping to a pinch hit. Instead of checking letters and imposing a penalty, maybe I should offer creators an option: you can swap to another assignment of your choice all throughout the creator period if your recipient's letter is incomplete. This seems like it might give creators more flexibility (if an incomplete letter is causing difficulty) and be more constructive overall. What do you think?
Check-in period
FFFX has a very long creation period, and so creators are required to check in roughly halfway in, during a week-long period that is set at the start of the exchange. This helps me seek pinch hitters "early" for recipients whose creators withdraw at that time or appear not to be involved at the exchange. It's fun for me to see (voluntary! optional) snippets from people who share those at the time. But you aren't required to give a progress update - this is the equivalent of me saying Marco and you saying Polo.
However, every year there are people who forget that this was a thing, and turn up months later, which is nice (extra gift!) but awkward - it can mean I recruited a pinch hitter when one wasn't necessary, and technically, the first person defaulted, but they may not realize they aren't getting a gift. Additionally, some people are unavoidably away from the period during check-in week, so checking in is burdensome - and not being able to check in in November doesn't mean you're unable to post a work in January.
I don't feel as strongly about changing the check-in period because I think it does work for many people. But I'd be interested to know how you feel about it. Maybe I should make the check-in completely optional, send an email at the same time, and keep the default deadline, so instead of "if you don't check in, you're defaulted", it becomes "here are several warnings, but I assume you're still participating unless you default".
Thanks for your thoughts! If you have feedback on other topics, that's welcome too! You don't have to be logged in to comment.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-08 10:19 pm (UTC)wrt to letters: I think having a letter completion deadline in the past has really helped me personally make sure I've finished the letter, before I consider my signup complete, but overall I don't think I've ever had an issue with a recip having an incomplete letter in FFFX so I'm not sure exactly if it would be more or less trouble to delete incomplete letters.
wrt to the check in deadline: I think since FFFX has such a long creation period (and it's easy to forget how quickly the deadline comes up!) it would be nice to keep it, at least just as a reminder of "yes we're closing in on deadline"
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-08 11:14 pm (UTC)re: letters -
1. I would find "Completed [x date]" helpful on letters that are unfinished when we're signing up. I'm someone who likes having a general likes list as a minimum to go off, so I would be assuming participants are popping those into their optional detail boxes and the letter is an additional list of prompts/info that's nice to have, anyway.
2. I don't think I've ever swapped an assignment during FFFX before (and I haven't wanted to so far!), so I can't comment on the swapping preferences. Perhaps it's worth trialling this to see how it goes on both the mod and participant side.
re: check-in - I like the check-in period because it reminds me the deadline is very soon, and I like knowing that you're still alive lol. It's in the schedule, so I think it'd be easy for participants to pop the date into a calendar and reach out if they're unavailable during that period to confirm that they still intend to post a work. If it works for you, then I think we should keep it.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-08 11:48 pm (UTC)For letters, I think both suggestions sound good. I don't have strong feelings on it though.
With how long the creation period is, I really liked the ~halfway check in. I lean towards it's better to have a few extra surprise gifts than extra pinch hits turning up in the last month.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 01:14 am (UTC)Proposal #2 interests me. If I were a participant in a situation where my recipient provided an unfinished letter, I would greatly appreciate the chance to switch to someone who has a complete letter/more interesting prompts I'm confident I can write!
Check-in period: I have never missed one of these, which in some ways surprises me but tbh I think the discord server has helped a lot in that regard since afaik there's always been a reminder to check in. I like the idea of making the check-in optional for the reasons you mentioned. I know personally it's always been exciting to get to share a sneak peek of what I'm working on (esp since lately it's included some sort of art), so I think it would miss it if it went away entirely. I especially like your proposal since it avoids the unnecessary PH as you mentioned!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 03:10 am (UTC)Letters: As someone else said, I love this deadline because it helps me make sure I finish my letter, so I like proposal 2. It still gives a deadline, but saves you from checking and it's nice to have the option to switch assignments if your person didn't leave you much to go on.
Check-in: I also like the check-in period a lot. On the years when I was behind and hadn't started, it was a good 'Oh, shoot, maybe I need an idea!' moment and when I actually did have words written, it was fun to share that. I do like the idea of maybe sending an email to everyone once check-in opens (and maybe right before it closes) to further emphasis that people need to check in or be defaulted. If it's in the info and an email goes out to people who don't regularly check DW, I think it's fair that after that it's up to the participant to be aware of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 04:36 am (UTC)I don't have strong feelings about letter completion, but proposal #2 sounds very workable to me!
I'm in favor of keeping the check-in period - it's useful for reminding me that yes, I do need to be working on this and that if I'm panicking or don't have an idea by then, I need to default (which I haven't had to do yet, but in case!). And I like being able to share a sneak peek snippet!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 07:14 am (UTC)On letters: I don't mind proposal #1, I've matched to "this is a list of general likes" and "this letter will be completed by [date]" across a lot of exchanges and it works for me.
I also like proposal #2! Both options are preferable to deleting the letter link. Your requirement to have some likes in the signup (which I forgot this time around and you had to remind me... sorry) reduces the need for a letter anyway.
On check-ins: I think you should keep it, and I also really appreciate that sharing snippets is optional. :) An email would probably help, too!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 12:14 pm (UTC)Re letter completion, I don't have a strong opinion either way. Deleting letter links if the letter is not complete does seem unnecessarily punitive, however.
I think the check-in in November is definitely necessary. At that point I had my concept and a chapter outline, but not a single actual word written; the check-in period served to light a fire under me to get started!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 12:52 pm (UTC)I love seeing recursive fandoms in exchanges, and I also appreciate umbrella fandom posts that clarify how they should be split up, so I'm looking forward to seeing those posts this coming year! (Star Wars hasn't been a huge issue, but it'd be nice to have it codified anyway.)
Letters:
I think that ether of those options is better than deleting letter links. I personally prefer option 2, simply because I think that option 1 will result in you needing to email people like "hey is your letter complete/a general likes list?", because no other exchange I can think of has that requirement and people will forget to make that note even if their letter is complete!
Check-ins:
I have no real feelings about the check-in period, but I think it being "here's a reminder that this event is happening! if you don't feel confident in your ability to finish, please default now to allow PHers more time!" is likely going to be easier on people than needing to remember to post a check-in on dw, a site that not every participant even has an account on/would have an rss feed from, and therefore might not get a reminder about the check-in week existing.
(big bangs and other events like that get around "will everyone look at the place where the check-in is?" by having email as a primary contact method and/or requiring all participants to be on a discord server where they can get pinged, and therefore are able to directly contact all participants and remind them about it. I do not think fffx should do that! but I think it's part of why a mandatory check-in period for an exchange might not work as well as with other events that take place over such a long time.)
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 05:55 pm (UTC)As far as letter completion, it made me approach my letter differently as sort of a supercut WHILE I was building my signup. I think removing the letter link would be unfair (I'd rather have partially complete letters available) and might be open to the swap.
Check-in was fine. Maybe contact anyone who misses by their AO3 email?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-09 06:10 pm (UTC)Re: Letters - I think them useful, and they definitely should remain a thing here, especially with more ideas/prompts per entry, the space ao3 provides might not suffice. That being said, swapping doesn't sound like a bad idea, or messaging the owner of the letter? Although with so many participants, it might be too much hassle.
Re: Check-in period - definitely a good idea! It gave me a boost in motivation to have a deadline to work towards, something to remind myself I should have something planned for the exchange. Especially because the event is so long. Maybe extend the check-in? Or move the check-in to e-mail with a link to DW? I don't know how it would work logistically. Having said that, though, if the default changes to "if no default, then still participating", it could create a situation where a participant would've defaulted but were unable to, and the pinch hit can go up after the deadline instead of months before. Both have some pros and cons, I think.
Thanks again for making the exchange happen!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-10 04:38 am (UTC)I have no strong feelings regarding letters, although any option that isn't deleting the letter is better probably, as long as it's not too much extra work for you. Regarding the second item, I personally really appreciate the check-in period.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-03-11 07:53 am (UTC)Letters: I think a completion date at the top is simple and easy.
Check-in: I liked it as it was run this year. One factor to consider: how common are check-in false alarms? If they're rare relative to the usefulness of the date of the check-in, I'd keep it as is.
Thank you again for the wonderful event.