Changes for 2021!

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

New changes

This is a deceptively long post, but don't worry, it's mostly details and organizational changes!

The tl;dr important points are:

• Offers are 1 fandom minimum
• Requests are the same official minimum as last year (3 fandoms with distinct lore to guarantee a gift) but you can initially sign up with one fandom. After the due date if you're out for PH we'll send you a friendly email giving the option to add fandoms to guarantee your gift.
• The relationship nomination method has changed slightly. You can still nominate relationships on AO3 if you follow the guidelines (which are the same as last year with some additional worldbuilding options), but we'll be directing people towards a google form as the main nomination method. You can also transfer in fandoms from last year.
• Medium nominations will be on a dw post to facilitate discussion of new mediums, with almost all of last year's mediums preloaded into the tagset.
• Mediums have been sorted to be clearer and have shiny new rulesets. Almost all of them are exactly the same rules as they had last year, just better organized. Any changes are listed.
• Assignment swaps will be the first week after assignments go out
• Fills for PHer requests count for minimum
• You're able to swap part of your assignment (up to 2k) for donating a template with instructions to the collection for use during the exchange.
• Defaulters will go out for PH up until the due date (unless otherwise requested by the defaulter)

We've already started on the tagset and Fandom Transfer is open now ahead of official nominations opening.

• 2021 Tagset: https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/7471
• Fandom Transfer Post: https://ficinabox.dreamwidth.org/13914.html

If you'd like to see a sorted list of the mediums, check these tables:

• Separated by ruleset in this spreadsheet (note that this is sheet where the mod is organizing things, so from time to time during nominations this may have some odd looking columns unhidden)
• Ordered by tag in this spreadsheet (ditto above)

Relationship nominations!

Worldbuilding Tags

Two things will be changing about these this year!

1. We will be adding Worldbuilding tag in the form of "WB: Any (Fandom)" to each fandom in the tagset after nominations close. This means that this tag does not need to be nominated for any fandom.
2. More specific worldbuilding tags like "WB: Jedi (SWPT)" or "WB: Kirkwall (Dragon Age)" will be accepted this year! These should be reasonably broad but otherwise can be anything that wouldn't be nominated as a medium/relationship/character. "Reasonably" and "broad" will both probably mean different things from fandom to fandom, so we'll be feeling out where the line is and how to define it more concretely during nominations this year.

Relationships Nomination Method 1: Fandom Transfer

We had a ton of relationships nominated last year (over 8000!) so there's a good chance that many of those will be nominated again this year! Since the format of relationship nominations are not changing, we'll be transferring fandoms from last year's tagset to this year's tagset upon request. This should be a very quick and easy process for us since we already have the batch loads generated from last year's tagset.

This starts now at the Fandom Transfer Request post and will continue until the end of nominations.

Relationships Nomination Method 2: Google Form

We're going to be moving the bulk of nominations off of AO3 this year and onto a google form! This is for several reasons but the most important are the following two:

1. A lot of nomination issues come from the lack of guidelines in the nomination interface (or incorrect guidelines that we can't change, in the case of Crossovers). Doing things this way will let us include guidelines as you nominate, including fandom specific guidelines in those sections, which should make exactly what we want from you much more clear.
2. On the mod end, using this method will let us automate disambiguation, easily edit nominations, and generate comma separated lists/batch load lists which we can then input into our preferred section of the tagset mod interface. We've tested this method on a smaller exchange, so we're super optimistic about how this will work!

Nominations that are done this way will be edited by the mods for issues we can fix and queried in dw posts for issues we need input on. Since this method means pending nominations don't block other nominations from being processed, you'll have until the end of the nomination period to respond to any queries.

Relationships Nomination Method 3: AO3

AO3 nominations will still be open as normal, with the guidelines for nominating that way posted on DW (at this point we don't anticipate any changes from last year's guidelines other than the additional worldbuild options and possibly new fandom guidelines). AO3 nominations will be queried in DW posts if there's an issue not covered in the guidelines, but otherwise must follow the guidelines or they will be rejected.

Medium nominations!

Mediums last year spiraled past what we were expecting, but this year we are both ready for new nominations and have a much more organized format!

Physical Mediums

We will be cautiously considering physical medium nominations this time, with the understanding that if you request this you will be receiving a picture of these physical creations and not the creation itself. Any nominations for this will be discussed so that we can make a clear ruleset and try to figure out an equivalent that is fair on both the creator and recipient side of things, if that's possible.

Rulesets

Most of the mediums will be organized into basic "rulesets", with some mediums that didn't fit into those boxes getting unique rules. These rulesets will be prefixes on the tags so that it's very clear to everyone what they're requesting or offering! If a medium can fall into multiple rulesets then it will have multiple tags including at minimum a tag for each ruleset. You can see how the tags will look at the tagset.

Several rulesets include exceptions to the anon rules. These exceptions are for mediums where it would be unreasonably complicated to edit them after the fact to include the normal identification for that medium (e.g. Audio and Video mediums) or because of the frequency of stolen works in that medium when identification isn't present (e.g. Art). For these exceptions everyone should politely ignore the identification and pretend like you don't know who created the work until after creator reveals, even if their name is right there.

To see the rulesets, head over to this post.

Mediums Nomination Method

Most of the mediums from last year have already been preloaded into the tagset! Additional nominations will be done via DW this year, on a post which will be put up and linked to when nominations start. This is to make discussions about the mediums with the nominator easier!

To see nominations, go to this post.

Mediums that were changed

• Theatre Script - Musical: Now falls under poetry rules (15 lines minimum) instead of writing rules.
• Theatre Script - Shakespearean-style: Now falls under poetry rules (15 lines minimum) instead of writing rules.
• Conspiracy Board: Original version excluded, but a simplified version following art rules was added
• In-Universe Social Media: Original version excluded, but a simplified version following art rules was added
• Twine: Now will have an automatic base of 500 added for works of 5k or less and 1000 added for works of 5k or more.

Mediums that were nominated last year and weren't automatically included this year

These were excluded due either being unique rules mediums that were not posted last year or being potentially out of scope. All of them are open to renomination or discussion for this year.

• Animatics
• Board game
• The Bookshelf Limbo style book preview
• Card Game
• Conspiracy Board (Simpler art rules version left in!)
• fate/Stay Night (visual novel) style Heroic Spirit status screen
• In-Universe Social Media (Simpler art rules version left in!)
• Shopping List
• Tabletop Campaign
• Translation notes
• Translation notes: In-Universe translation notes
• Typeface Design
• Untitled Goose Style To-Do List
• In-Universe Wedding Reception Menu

Requests and Offers!

Requests

The official minimum is still 3 fandoms with distinct lore in order to be guaranteed a gift, but we will allow you to initially sign up with a minimum of three requests with non-identical matching criteria* with the caveat that we will not guarantee your gift unless you add fandoms to meet the official minimum requirements.

Everyone who falls under these rules will get a friendly email letting them know after signups close, and otherwise won't be contacted about it again unless they need to go to PH after October 10th.

*(This just means that the tagset-fandom/relationship combo can't be the same for each request. So you could request only one fandom with different ships/characters/worldbuilding tags or different tagset fandoms with the same ships/character/worldbuilding tags because at least one of the matching criteria would be distinct for each request.)

Offers

The minimum number of offers will be 1 offer with 1 fandom and 1 relationship/character/worldbuilding tag.

Defaults, Earn-backs, and Assignment Swap Week!

Defaults

If you default you'll still be able to go to PH for the full 10k up until the due date (October 10th) this year. After October 10th the normal default rules will apply. This is both because we have a lot of ways for people to earn back their minimum and to make people feel more secure in partially defaulting earlier on in the exchange.

Earn-backs

All of the ways you could earn back minimum (picking up a PH, filling your original assignment, ect) last year still apply, but in addition to those this year there are two new ways you'll be able to earn back minimum

1. Posting a fill for a PHer request.
2. Submitting an AO3 workskin template with tutorial to the collection. Each of these will be worth 1k and you can earn up to 2k wordcount credit. These will be revealed immediately, so that other participants can use them during the exchange!

Assignment Swap Week

After signups we'll have an assignment swap week, with swaps being finalized over Labor Day weekend (August 31st to September 2nd). (You can also, at any time during the exchange, swap all or part of your assignment for a posted PH. This was the case last year but we'll be making it more clear this year.)

Swaps will be 1:1, which means that no additional PHs will be generated by swaps unless someone swaps to a PH (which will be either IPHs or defaults during the first week). This also means that if nobody is offering to pick up your assignment you won't be able to swap other than to a PH. Participants who are double assigned in initial matching will only be able to be picked up as a swap if they would otherwise dip below 10k assigned for them.

When you sign up for assignment swaps you'll give us the following information:

• The maximum amount you'd like to swap in increments of 1k
• The names of the participants you'd like to swap to
• The maximum number of recipients you'd like to swap to (Keep in mind you may keep part of your original assignment!)
• We might also allow you to specify things like only wanting to trade your whole assignment or maximum amounts per participant, but those aren't for sure yet.

We will then essentially run handmatching to swap people, aiming for as many swaps as possible to happen. This will be a little bit complicated on our end given the slightly puzzle nature of it, but from the participant side expect a weekend of silence while we work it out and then an email letting you know if you were able to swap, how much, to who, and your new assignment details.

PHers can volunteer to pick up swaps, but assigned participants will receive priority.