fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2444 ]

[ SECRET POST #2444 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2444 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #349.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't know almost anything about Yuletide and all, but.. why that 2+ nomination rule would be an issue?
If there aren't at least two people offering/requesting for each fandom, how would they run the exchange? Am I missing something here?

da

I don't get it either. I mean, I can understand why they didn't ask first, though, since I doubt it would pass popular vote, but it seems it would cut through a lot of work and make sure people actually get signups for what they ask.

Nominations are separate from signups, and IIRC you can sign up for a lerger number of fandoms than you can nominate.

SA

But if a fandom is nominated and only the person who nominated it knows it they won't be able to get anything of that fandom even if they request it in the signs ups.

And if the worst case scenario were to happen and someone requested all the fandoms they nominated but nothing else and no one else offers those fandoms, what would happen then?

The only thing I know about Yuletide is that it's an exchange of small fandoms and by the things I have seen, some of these fandoms are really obscure so finding a match for that would be hard.
That's why, unless I'm missing something here, I really don't get why rules that ensure they'll be able to match everyone and reduce the work load would be an issue.

It does happen that you nominate a fandom that's super obscure and you just kind of hope that someone will see it and offer to write for it. Doesn't always happen, obviously. That's why you nominate more than 1 fandom, and that's also why you're required to offer to write for a minimum number of different fandoms.

If someone doesn't get matched on fandoms (which is happening with an increasing frequency) they go out for 'pinch hit' - which means they're sent out on a mailing list and anyone who wants to 'grab' their request (which will include all of their requests) can go ahead and write for them. This guarantees everyone will get a fic in one of their selected fandoms. Pinch hitting is actually very popular. If you're on the mailing list and see a pinch hit you wanna grab... you've gotta get it quickly (sometimes within minutes of it going out) or someone else is likely to have snagged it.

The reason that people don't like this 2 people to nominate rule is that it really would've limited the number of fandoms. Say you have 100 people who each get 4 different fandoms to nominate. That's 400 different fandoms (not saying their wouldn't be duplicates, but participants in Yuletide tend to organize pretty heavily ahead of time with regards to what fandoms they're going to nominate) - if 2 people have to nominate, that pretty much cuts the fandom field in half. To a lot of people who participate in Yuletide that felt like going against the spirit of the whole thing...

Yuletide is its own rather crazy fandom, tbh.

SA

Thanks for the explanation.

TBH, that all sounds like a mod's nightmare, specially if the not-match thing is increasing. Pinch hitting being popular doesn't make it better, because then, doesn't that makes Yuletide closer to a (very active and focused on small fandoms) annual request meme instead of an actual exchange?

AYRT - I'm just a participant so I can't really speak to the difficulty for the mods (though I'd agree that's it's gotta be ridiculously time-consuming).

And, again, I can't speak to actual numbers (though I'm sure they can be found somewhere) but the large majority of participants DO get matched. The Pinch Hits for the # of unmatched people last year was apparently around 50 people (I don't know how many participants there were total - but over a thousand). So it's really not that many who fall into that category.

Where Pinch Hitting really gets popular is as the process moves along and participants start to drop off for various reasons (there's a date you can default by) - their recipients will get sent out for Pinch Hitting.

DA

...Not gonna lie, if that's how it's set up and [from what you've said] there are a butt load of fandoms -ante including a ton that don't get matched [whatever you say, 50 people is still a lot to not be matched and do extra legwork to get a match for] I honestly feel way more sympathy for the mods than the OP.

Granted all the "BUT!" complaining comments didn't hurt in that since...really. It sounds like the mods do a buttload of work for something they receive little benefit from, and people are complaining because they may want to cut down their workload a little? That's...just not cool.

AYRT

Oh - I agree. It's got to be a HUGE time-sink for the mods. And considering that people can be pretty vicious towards them for not being able to make upwards of 2000 people happy... It seems a pretty thankless job at times as well. I may not like all the changes or decisions all the time, but I also understand that there's no making everyone happy - someone's always gonna end up feeling left-out or persecuted or what have you - and I sure as hell wouldn't want to do it myself, so I'm pretty damn appreciative that these people CARE enough to spend their time on this.

For me the 2 nomination issue was that I never request the same things I offer. Traditionally you've been able to nominate 3-4 things, request 3-4 things and offer 8-10 (used to be a LOT more but that got messy). For someone like myself, it's already a sure thing that I'm going to hope there's enough nominated outside of what I nominated. But then to introduce the twice nominated thing? Well now I've got to either hope someone else nominates the things I nominate or organize with others to cover my fandoms. Even if I offered and requested the same things, I'd still run the risk of none of my nominations making it through if no one else seconds any of my four.

I'm quite glad they rescinded the rule, though I understand the nominations list is ridiculous every year.

Also, nominate no longer looks like a real word.

AYRT - You know, I really hadn't given the whole 2 nominations idea too much thought because by the time I saw that post the idea had already been scrapped. I'm sort of in the middle of the road on what I offer vs. what I nominate. Sometimes there's overlap, but sometimes those lists are wildly different. So yeah, I can definitely see your point about why the 2 noms rule would've been hugely problematic. I also get a little anxious about the whole 'coordinating' my fandoms with people ahead of time, so the thought of having to do that was a bit... uncomfortable.

LOL - yeah, my brain keeps making me spell nominate wrong. I think because it doesn't recognize it any more...

So, it's not exactly about making sure that 2 people nominate the same fandom. It's more that you make your nominations (which do NOT have to match your requests) and you hope that someone will see a fandom you nominated and offer to write for it. The issue with this 'need 2 people to nominate' is that it would've meant that a lot of fandoms wouldn't have been included. There are always fandoms that are nominated that never have stories written for them. Does that make sense?

I can understand the reason for the idea - because every year it seems that people are reaching further and further for the most obscure fandoms that they can and because of people organizing beforehand regarding what fandoms they're going to nominate - the field of fandoms is getting huge and unwieldy and that makes matching even more difficult (for example if Person A knows that Person B is going to nominate fandoms X, Y & Z they won't 'waste' their nominations on those and will instead nominate D, E & F). I'm glad they decided against doing this though. I like the idea of increasing the amount of fandoms you can offer to write much better.

SA

Thanks for the explanation, between this and the one the other anon gave me I'm starting to get it.

Even so, wouldn't increasing the number of nominations per person and keeping a list of nominated fandoms take care of that issue?

After all, someone who would offer something for a fandom if they see it probably would nominate it too if they see it needs another vote and would both make matching easier and allow many fandoms at the same time.

AYRT (who is the same as above Anon)

So... this is where I get fuzzy on things. I think the issue is that people are really um... possessive (not exactly the right word) of their nominations and while I'm sure there would be cross-over to some extent, some people really want those super obscure fandoms that it would be really difficult to get a 2nd nomination for. And since people kind of look to Yuletide as their only chance to get gifted fic in some of these really rare fandoms, they don't want to be limited. That's why people felt this 'need 2 nominations' rule went against the spirit of the event.

The actual list of nominated and accepted fandoms doesn't get released until after nominations are closed. Although participants do create spreadsheets and stuff to keep it as organized as they can so people don't 'waste' their nominations (ie: nominate a fandom that someone else has already nominated).

Again... I'm not the best to explain this. I don't necessarily have my head wrapped around it all. LOL There's wank every year surrounding the rules of Yuletide and the nominations process and fandoms that are allowed/aren't allowed... It's just kind of part and parcel of Yuletide. In the end though, Yuletide is generally pretty successful.

I think part of the problem with the 2 rule was that an individual can only nominate 4 fandoms. ~

Let's say. for simplicity, that you're only nominating things you either want to offer or request. If you're the only person who nominated 3 of the 4, not only have you "wasted" 3 nomination spots, but you've increased the chance that you'll be the only one asking for/offering those 3.

A post from today noted that last year almost 3000 fandoms were nominated, but only 1600 of those actually wound up generating fics.

ARYT

Yes - that's another very good point about it. Thanks for breaking that down further for me. :D It's one of those things that I 'get' but was having trouble putting into words.

You're welcome.

(Actually, another way to avoid the "fandoms get offered but not requested" would be to replace the two phases of "Nominations" and "Requests/Offers" with a "Request Phase" and an "Offers Phase," meaning that EVERYTHING in the fandom pool had a request behind it. However, that's got a downside as well, as sometimes you don't know you want something until you see it offered :p

Yuletide: good cause, logistical nightmare.

Sounds like more than a *logistical* nightmare for the mods - particularly when there's only two of them.

It's not just two, though. There are two modding the comm, it's true, but I think there are least two more who'll help do the manual matching, and there is at least one talented programmer doing the back end on Ao3.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2444 ]

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DA

Re: DA

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