What Worked and What Didn't

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

Navigation: Rules/General Info | AO3 Collection | Collaboration Post | Posting Guidelines | Medium Guidelines | Screened Contact Post | Mod Contact: ficinaboxmod@gmail.com

This exchange went amazing well, which is really a testament to everyone participating <3 That said, there's things I know we can improve on for next year, and I'm sure there's plenty of things that I'm not even aware of which need improved on!

We don't plan on making any big changes (the format is staying the same, the billion mediums are staying, matching will stay the same, ect) but if there are any little changes you want, or anything here you want to give input on, now is the time!

Things we will definitely be changing

The Medium Page

• The mediums page needs to be a lot easier for people to digest and understand! What we're planning to do is come up with very basic guidelines which most of the mediums will follow (we don't need every art form listed separately if most of them have the same minimum of 1 finished drawn image), and then we'll have a page where we go into specifics for things like Logic Puzzles which really need their own specific breakdown.
• We're also hoping to have a page set up with details about each and examples and stuff (not on DW), but we'll see how that actually shakes out. We are looking at it though!

Mediums/Medium Equivalents

The following equivalents will definitely be changing:

• The Theater mediums will be specified as scripts in the tag
• Audio Not!fic will be separated into Oral Not!fic and Audio of a Not!fic
• Shakespearean style script: This will be by poetry rules
• Board/Card game: These need to be split into reskins and new games

Non-Fic Matching

• In order to get around the lack of medium matching, we offered to hand match artists/podifccers/vidders/puzzle makers/ect. so that they could be guaranteed to get a recipient who wanted the medium they wanted to work in!
• We're going to have a google form that people can use to request this next time, just to make it a little more comfortable than having to email us! Emailing will still be an option if you prefer that to google forms.

Pinch Hitter Requests

• Next year a treat for these will count towards your assignment minimum

Requests Search

• I meant to have a fancy search sheet (in addition to the requests sheets we did have) but with everything going on I didn't have time to make it! I want to get this done for next year.

Nominations

• Everyone will be required to submit their nominations in the correct format or they will be rejected. Up until the last day of nominations we'll give you 24hrs to correct them, but we will not ever correct them for you.
• The main method of nominating will be a google form so that we can display instructions on the actual nominations page (unless we find an even nicer way before then; then it'll be whatever that is.) If your reaction to that was a horrified recoil, don't worry, you'll still be able to nominate normally on AO3.

Things we want input on but will be changing unless there's good arguments against it

Defaulting before the Deadline

• I want to change the rules slightly so that defaulting before the initial deadline (e.g. October 18th this round) won't prevent you from going out for PH. My general thinking for this is that it will hopefully spread some of the post-deadline PHs out a bit, because people will know there aren't any consequences for lightening their load a bit before the date that their 10k would have been due anyways.

Mediums/Medium Equivalents

• Some complicated mediums which were on the edge of 'not in the scope of the exchange' and not created this time will be removed (Animatics, Translation notes, ect). This doesn't mean they cannot be nominated and discussed again next year! They just won't be part of the initial tagset.

Things we need input on or we probably won't be changing

Mediums/Medium Equivalents

• If there are any mediums that are confusing, too broad to be useful, not actually reflective of what the medium is, ect, we need to know about it!
• If there were any medium equivalents which were way too low, we also need to know about those! Please keep in mind that equivalents must be set so that they work with the average effort versions of that medium without being too far out of range of the most simplistic. The equivalents also need to be both objective and very quick and easy to equate. We cannot and will not even try to judge for quality or effort, so the equivalents need to be things like word count, seconds, number of images, ect.
• If there were any medium equivalents which you looked at and went "The person who set this clearly isn't familiar with this medium", chances are I set it and you're right. Please let me know how to fix it!
• In-Universe Documents: We're thinking this one needs to have a way to give credit for people who use complicated CSS. The easiest way to do this would be to give a flat wordcount credit (probably 500) if a creator lets us know in the author's note that they custom made the CSS for the document. No credit would be given otherwise since there are so many existing workskins.
• Board or Card Game: My instinct is that new games (and possibly reskins) need to be a higher base equivalent, but I'm not familiar with either of these enough to know how (or if) they need to be changed. New games should probably stay at 2k to take into account very simplistic sets of rules, but we could maybe adjust it into tiers
• For the mediums that can be completed multiple ways, did they work how they did (with one tag and multiple equivalents options) or would it be better to split them with an umbrella tag and specific options under that umbrella tag? E.g. Bestiary is currently one tag which can be written, drawn, or a mix.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I am commenting anonymously since reveals haven't happened yet.

I think in universe documents should have multiple equivalents depending on how they are done.

-If it's just written and posted like a normal fic then it should be straight word count
-Written in AO3 but CSS is wordcount with either a flat bonus or a multiplier
-In universe documents where a person creates an image of how it actually looks in universe being treated the same as artwork and a flat 1000 words similar to blueprints

Custom CSS does take a lot of work and should be acknowledged, however so does doing the full layout of a page for print.

I am the creator of Important Papers.
https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Fic_In_A_Box_2020/works/27081496
The poster I did didn't take much time at all. What took the longest was waiting for the paper to dry after I stained it with coffee. That is worth 1000 words in the current rules.

Meanwhile the enlistment papers and marriage certificate I made are worth less than 500 words combined. They are worth the same amount as a fic in a flash exchange. Getting the layout for the enlistment papers took longer than anything else I worked on for the exchange.

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

Thank you! I want to avoid setting mediums based on other very specific mediums because that will get far too complicated and potentially recursive, but otherwise those are a lot of good points!

My biggest hangup with documents is that I know there are templates for everything under the sun and my instinct is to avoid giving art credit for those, but I also don't want to discourage someone from using a real world template for a fill when it's appropriate (like if a pairing lives in a certain state, pulling the actual form might enhance a work) which the wordcount equivalent definitely did this year. It might be best to split it:
-Wordcount for written only
-Wordcount + [maybe 500] for templates (with subsequent uses of the same type of template counting as wordcount)
-1 document set equivalent to [maybe 1k] for documents the author reports as custom CSS/formatting (with subsequent uses of the same CSS/formatting counting as wordcount)

That all probably needs some adjusting for custom formatted documents that are over 1k as well :/ This is one of those that I'm going to have to think on a lot before deciding how to deal with it, but I'll definitely keep all of this in mind <3

If anyone else has any ideas on this please chime in too! Both for if you created/wanted to create In-Universe documents and if you requested In-Universe documents.

(As a slight note on blueprints and posters, those were set as they were because I was thinking of those as an entirely drawn medium and then didn't specify that in the equivalents--which was entirely my fault!--so that's why those are so comparatively high. The same goes for anything that was specified as "1 thing" without being very clear what medium type it was. Next year the initial tags for those will fix that and other versions will be discussed as they're nominated.)

[(Anonymous)]

I know I caused Troubles for mods with the illustrated Twine wordcount equivalents (sorry!); I admit I still don't wholly know how best to count that considering they wouldn't have stood as a comic alone. I would have been happy to count that as +500? or +1k if they were more able to standalone than what I went with, possibly? Unsure if that confuses things too much
Though if anyone else interested disagrees I'm very flexible!

[primeideal]

First of all, huge thanks to the mods for modding and PHers for PHing, this was a blast!!

Big caveat that this is just a personal opinion, but I'm worried that making it even easier to default without consequence would produce an even bigger strain on the PH pool? There were a large number of large-scale PHs (both initial and otherwise), and I'm worried that it might be hard to find fillers if there are tens and hundreds of thousands of word-equivalents needed. I know that being able to complete partial fills makes it more accessible to claim a PH in some ways versus other exchanges. But for me, if I claim a PH that's "minimum 1k" in another exchange, I can say "well, this might be 1001 words or it might be 5001 words, I don't know, but I don't care, fic is fic!" Here, having to estimate "oh gosh can I claim 2k of this outstanding 10k, or will this plot bunny I haven't started writing for take 7k? What if I grab it and then overshoot and I 'waste' another PHer's effort because she also claimed 6k?"

I'd be curious from a stats perspective how many "owed words/equivalents" were unnecessary because of a double default, but again, this is just my perspective as an anxious PH-listee :P

[(Anonymous)]

I feel the "Comics: 1 comic page not on lined paper" should count for more than 1k. 1 comic page is usually a lot more work than 1k fic or one drawing. Can the relation value raised to 2 or 3k instead?

(Thank you! I really enjoyed this exchange and I can't wait to the next round already.)

longer anon period next time?

[lemniskath]

I wrote this in discord and was asked to copy it here! I think that's a great idea and I wonder what others here think about this suggestion?

I'm extremely excited for author reveals too.

but in related yet separate thoughts, it might be a good idea next year to have a longer anon period. Because there's a whole lot of words to go through and comment, the people who need longer to write comments aren't all having enough time to get their comments done for their gifts before reveals, and maybe it'd be nice to allow ten days or even two weeks because of the sheer volume of reading that has to be done by recipients

Re: longer anon period next time?

[(Anonymous)]

Just to second the request for longer commenting time before reveals :)

Re: longer anon period next time?

[(Anonymous)]

I'll third that. My gifts alone took several days to get through (I am NOT complaining about that! :D ) but I only managed to read and comment on a few other stories, and I regret I can't get to anymore of them before author reveals. A long anon period would have been great (even though I can't wait to see who my authors are).

[lemniskath]

Maybe comics should be by panel rather than by page?

But in the FFFX and Heart Attack, comics pages count as less than 1k, so maybe 1k is the best option? some comics are quite simple as pictures. It really depends a lot on the artist and the style.

[lemniskath]

I think it will be okay, because after the deadline, pinch hits can go by how much the person has still remaining? And if works get turned in by partial pinch hitters who went over their commitment, then any defaulted pinch hits might not need to be reposted (this seems to have happened multiple times).

And different users seem to draw pinch hitters from different parts of the pinch hit pool (because different fandoms and requests) so I think overall it'll work out. But I agree about guesstimating how big your pinch hit fill will be (I took 2k for mine and it ended up 3.5k story).

Re: longer anon period next time?

[(Anonymous)]

Fourthing. I barely made a dent in the delicious Original Works section because there was so much other great stuff, and I really regret it. I think it'd go a long way for more non-recip comments, too.

[somethingdarker]

I've been trying to think about tarot readings as a medium and why I wasn't entirely happy with the equivalencies. Mostly, it comes down to my feeling that the stories I wrote based on the readings were separate works from the readings themselves. A tarot reading is more improv theater (with the deck as the other actor) than it is anything written; applying word count to it is like trying to apply a word count to a sandwich (not the recipe for the sandwich but the sandwich itself).

If I had done the readings properly, it would have been an audio track with the photos. No script and thus no word count, only a card count and a time count. I didn't try that because I have no idea how to do it. Using a story to explain the reading was my compromise.

As far as I can tell, I'm the only one who did tarot readings (as opposed to tarot card art) for FiaB, so I'm not sure how much this is worth fussing over. I can do the same thing again without too much trouble. A one card reading would probably yield a drabble's worth of story.

How would a recorded performance of a tarot reading count, though? There wouldn't be a script or transcript for word count. Would one with video of the cards count for more than one with just audio?

For that matter, how would a recorded in-character improv be counted? I don't think that was among the options, but I think it could be fun to do.

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

I totally forgot to add it to the list of definite changes, but I talked for awhile with someone who actually runs podfic and audio exchanges and they said that they would equate 10 minutes of spoken audio to a podfic of a 1k fic. Would that (10 minutes = 1k) work for tarot readings?

(I'd like to avoid getting too much into spoken video formats at least partially because that opens up the door to a lot of privacy/anon rules I'd need to figure out and enforce. With fanvids that's not an issue I needed to worry about.)

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

That was an interesting one to figure out how to combine! I think your idea of having background illustrations as a flat addition is a good one. I'm not sure if we should do it in the same way with treating it as a combined medium (if they requested those) or if I should add "Illustrated Twine" as a specific opt in. Probably the second would be the most clear to everyone.

Re: longer anon period next time?

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

Thank you for posting this over here! <3 We're definitely going to do this next year.

It might mean adjusting the schedule a little bit, but since I also want to extend the editing mode by a week that gives us a little more wiggle room depending on when HA falls next year.

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

I've been thinking it over, and my answer for this one is a little complicated.

So, at the base I want to keep the page by page at 1k = 1 page. This is mostly so that someone can input a comic page that's just one big image and it'll count the same as art. It's also to keep consistent with FFFX and HA.

However, the other exchanges had panel equivalents as well! Which means we can definitely drop that equivalent so that multi-panel comics end up counting for more. How the other two did that this year was:

FFFX: 5 pages/20 panels = 5k (1 page/4 panels = 1k)
HA: 10 pages/25 panels = 10k (1 page/2.5 panels = 1k)

So the 1 page part is staying, but what about also setting a panel equivalent so it becomes "1 page or 3 panels = 1k"?

(<3)

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

Keep in mind that because of how this exchange worked--with assignments being fillable by PHs--we had what I would assume was a much larger PHer pool than normal. 95 people picked up PHs, many of whom were trading out parts of their assignments! :) We had one case where someone defaulted 10k early, then someone else asked if they could trade their 10k assignment for that 10k PH, then a third person traded their 10k assignment for the second 10k PH, and then the first defaulter picked up 5k of the third PH and 5k of another PH. That's a lot of PHs, but the end result is that those three people all created the 10k that they signed up to write.

I'm hoping that moving a lot of inevitable PHs into September will lighten the load in mid-October. We really didn't have any issue with getting PHs filled this year (We honestly mostly delayed because of current events.) so I'm not too worried.

The potential for PH overage definitely happened, but it wasn't a huge percentage and also prevented some returning PHs. According to my spreadsheet 30 out of 163 PH chunks (18% of claimed PHs) wrote more than 1k over what they claimed. Those covered for 7 PH defaults meaning that a maximum of 23 PH chunks (14%) had over 1k extra written without that preventing a new PH. That's not a negligible number, but also shows that over 85% of claimed PHs were around what was needed with 82% of those being submitted as within 1k of what they claimed initially (though collectively with 300 here and 500 here they definitely added up!)

I did the math and only 37k of PHs (out of 513k claimed and filled, so 7%) went to recipients who later defaulted on that amount.

[kryptontease]

Thinking about board games, when I was working on a board game reskin (that I had to abandon due to it being more work than I could fit into the runtime of the event), I had a thought that games could be evaluated based on multiple criteria. Your suggestion of tiers feels like a good one! But also when you are designing a game, someone may or may not the same "components" as another game.


Games are often made up of the following components:

Rules / rulebook
Board (either as a single piece or tiles that you put together)
Component Cards/Card Deck
Currency
Pawns or Character Tokens
Game Tokens
Score Pads

If we're going to keep this simple, maybe a two tier system might work. These tiers might apply to new games as well as reskins... but I'm unsure about that, since creating a new game has a lot of game design work that a reskin won't necessarily have.

Tier 1: games that are mainly written
The creator writes up a ruleset, or a set of instructions about how to play the game / acquire the components to play the game. 2k seems like an okay base equivalent, but you may consider doing something like:
2k (base amount for the effort of the game design)
+ any extra words if the ruleset is very involved (e.g. the ruleset and/or instructions on how to assemble the game is longer than 2k).

Tier 2: Games that have some/all newly designed components
The creator has written up a ruleset, but also created/designed some (or all of the) components for the game, such as the board that's used for the game, or the card decks or character tokens or currency.
2k (base amount for the game design)
+ extra words if the ruleset is longer than 2k
+ 1k for every 3 small spot illustrations (think like small component illustrations like a treasure chest, or a small illustration of a weapon, etc)
+ 1k for a single illustration that accompanies the game (like a character portrait on a character card that would count for 1k in other contexts in the exchange)
+ 2k for a large illustration/design (such as: box design, packaging design, playing board illustration/design)

[(Anonymous)]

It would work for me. I considered to signup a make a comic for this exchange, but since I mostly consider 1 page = 5~9 panels, it translated to me as 50~90 panels of comic, that was just crazy, especially in such a short creation time. So I've decided to gift fanarts instead this time around. But the set up of 1 page OR 3 panels = 1k would totally work for me, thank you!