Re-Opening for Business!

[fgemods]

Hey everyone!

After a rocky start, this exchange is re-opening under new moderation. We've got a great crew of new moderators galfridian nonnie_sock scribblemyname & whuffle and all are looking forward to doing a bang up job of running this.

Our new schedule

Nominations close: August 7th at 11:55 PM UTC
Sign-ups open: August 10th at 11:55 PM UTC
Sign-ups close: August 23rd at 11:55 PM UTC
Assignments sent: August 29th at 11:55 PM UTC
Assignments due: October 31st at 11:55 PM UTC
Works revealed: November 6th at  [TO BE DECIDED]
Authors revealed: November 11th at 11:55 PM UTC

(To find out what these times are for you, use this converter. Use Coordinated Universal Time - Reykjavik to compare to your time zone.)

FAQ + RULES + TAGSET + PAGE-A-MOD

Nominations have been temporarily closed while we get organised, but before we re-open, we'd like to ask you - the potential participants - how you'd like one particular issue to be handled.

The existing nominations.

Nominations submitted before the exchange was postponed are somewhat problematic and messy. The mods have agreed that we're willing to do our best to fix the existing nominations with the help of the nominees. That said, it would probably be easier for us, and you, if we wiped the tagset entirely and started from a clean slate.

If we create a new tagset, we can use the correct, canonical tags for the fandoms and pairings where associations have caused problems. The tags without issues will be imported into the new tagset and won't need to be re-nominated.

So what do you say, participants, work with us and fix the nominations or get a fresh start with your new mods?

We're open to hearing what you have to say before we move forward.

Comments

[debirlfan]

I know it's probably going to be a pain in the neck, but I think you need to fix what you've got - otherwise someone who doesn't get the word and comes back to sign up only to find that their nominations are gone won't be happy.

[fgemods]

Approved nominations would migrate to the new tagset. Those without formatting issues would be migrated as they are. Those with issues would be corrected.

[fgemods]

Just tried this with a relationship that doesn't qualify. No issue re-adding. The guide must have been outdated!

[chala]

There is no way to see what has been rejected, but you can manually add back previously rejected fandoms/pairings. The issue is that if someone wants to nominate something under a rejected fandom it will automatically be marked as rejected, so they would have to ask you to manually add what they wanted to nominate.

[fgemods]

Some fandoms were rejected (or their correct tags were) where we know we'll need to do this! It'll take some work, but we'll get this sorted.

[zdenka]

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly: does that mean that any new nominations in the affected fandoms would have to be added manually by the mods? If so, I vote for creating a new tagset, since adding dozens or potentially hundreds of new nominations manually sounds like it would be a pain for everyone, mods and nominators alike. I believe there was also a significant amount of migration in the Tolkien fandoms, so starting over might be easier than sorting out what goes where. But I'm okay with whatever the final decision is. Thank you for taking this on and for seeking community input.

[fgemods]

That is correct. Thank you for your input! We're taking it all into account.

[wildandfreehearts]

Male Inquisitor/Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford (DA:I) is in the tag set twice. :)

[fgemods]

Thanks!

[sirvalkyrie]

I'd personally prefer a whole blank new slate with none of the old migrating over.

[fgemods]

We've voted not to do that because of those who will not know they need to re-nominate. It's important to us that everyone who has already participated and not been involved in the issues that caused the reboot still be able to participate.

[themisto]

Oh...I had no idea new posts were up on the community. A suggestion for when further posts are going to be created (in particular for important stuff like opening sign ups or searching for pinch hits etc) is to not post them as screened/private and later make them public, because Dreamwidth wouldn't send the notification emails to tracking users, so part of the people following this community wouldn't get to know there are new posts on the comm, unless they decide to visit it (just the way it happened to me).

Mods, is it possible to sign up by proxy? Or to delay the closing of signups of a couple of days? With the new schedule there's no way I can sign up because I'll be away during the whole signup period, I was really looking forward to participate!

About the current problem with the old nominations, I'm sorry I've no suggestion. I'll support either decision you'll eventually make.

[fgemods]

That's good to know! We will probably put a bump post up tomorrow.

I'm not certain if it's possible to sign up by proxy on AO3, but we would be happy to allow it.

Thank you. :)

[debirlfan]

I know that for Yuletide, sometimes people who are going to be away during signups will give a friend their ao3 login info and the details of what they want to sign up for - so if you have someone you trust you can do it that way.

[themisto]

Thanks for the suggestion, I could try that. That is if I'll be able to check the tag set and finalize my requests before my departure.

[evilmuffins]

If you change your mind and won't be migrating old nominations, please post about it so we can save our old ones somewhere. I know I'll never remember mine lol

None of my fandoms were affected by the misplaced associations issue so I feel like shouldn't say anything either way about how to best fix things.

[themisto]

Oh, right, seconding this comment.

[fgemods]

Your noms are safe. We will migrate if we opt for a new tagset.

[fgemods]

If we use a new tagset, we will migrate old nominations. Your noms are safe with us!

[wallwalker]

Hurrah! I'm looking forward to making more nominations when they open up again!

[starry-wolf.livejournal.com]

I'm a tad confused as to what you mean by associations and such sorry (I'm one of those people who bookmarked the AO3 page with a note in my calendar to come back for the sign-ups on Aug 1, got confused by the change in dates, and came her to see what's going on).

I'm just a little concerned because every single one of my nominations are not canonical tags - since I kept nominating fandoms with like 20 fics in total. I think it's been said that none of the accepted nominations will be affected, but I was just wondering what happened?

Looking forward to the new reveal of the tagset, and thank you so much for your hard work!

[fgemods]

Associations is a term AO3 uses to refer to related tags. In exchanges, it's important that characters and/or relationships are associated with the fandom they belong to.

Fortunately, we have the ability to add (or remove) associations as necessary, so no worries! We've migrated all relationships to the new tagset, except for those we have questions about.

All these changes and delays have been the result of a change in mod leadership.

[talullahred]

Hi!

I just found out about this exchange. I went to the AO3 but I don't see a link to a nominations page. Also, I'm rarely on Dreamwidth. Would it be possible to set up an RSS feed at LJ?

Thanks.

[fgemods]

We just finished revising our tagset. It will be available shortly.

We'll look into setting up RSS feed for LJ.

[talullahred]

Thank you.

[zdenka]

A RSS feed for LJ is something I would also appreciate, if it's possible.

Livejournal RSS

[fgemods]

http://fandomgrowth.livejournal.com/

I haven't set one up before, but I think I did it correctly.

Re: Livejournal RSS

[zdenka]

It looks right to me! Thank you very much. I hope you'll put the link in the next announcement so people can know that option is there. :)