Wrapup Post

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

Wrapup Post

This year went really great and resulted in a ton of great things, with 546 works in the collection! Here are some basic stats of how this year shook out:

As we wrap things up, I wanted to take a look back on things we've changed, things that were new this year, and things we might want to change for next year.

I asked for feedback about some things in particular that I especially want to hear y'alls opinions on, but please feel free to post your thoughts and feedback about everything!

Requests and Offers

• One fandom minimum for offers worked great, so we'll be keeping that!
• The adjustments we made to request minimums (the official minimum was three fandoms with distinct lore to be guaranteed a gift, but you could sign up with less) also worked pretty well! Only a few people were affected by this and none of them were left without their minimum owed gifts! So we'll be keeping this for next year as well.

Nominations

• Relationships: The new relationship nomination method (gsheets with instructions, or AO3 if you were super solid that you could hit all of the guidelines perfectly) worked *great* on our end and will definitely be back next year. Everything went smoothly for us and worked exactly how we were hoping it would!
• Fandom Transfer: This year I only let you transfer things from the 2020 tagset by full fandoms. Next year I'm going to make the batch load lists accessible to y'all and let you do partial fandom transfers, though you'll still be able to just give me the fandom name instead if you'd like the whole thing transferred! This will let OW and Crossover people participate in fandom transfer and shouldn't add any extra work on my end. I'll also be fixing fandom tags that need fixing as we transfer this time, since I ended up doing that with some this year anyways!
• Worldbuilding: This seemed to work really well from a mod perspective, but I'd definitely like feedback on how it worked writing and receiving it and what adjustments you think might be necessary. We definitely had to change up some of our expectations on the fly, but we expected some of that. Next year we'll have a better idea of how broad we want these tags to be and also how to express that in guidelines.

Swaps

• I loved this and we're keeping it.
• Participants will able to offer to take on extra (e.g. over 10k) swaps. This was technically an option this year but it was applied late and we were kind of chaotic about it.
• We'll also be more clear with options for capping out your swaps in various ways (e.g. if you want a maximum of 2 assignments). I'll be messing with the spreadsheet to see how much I can get it to do nicely and that will inform a lot of how much extra details we can take in, but the ideal is to get everyone the swaps they want!
• Please let us know how this worked out for you, things you want changed, and things you don't want changed!

Defaults and Earn-backs

• This year we changed it so that defaulter PHs would still be posted up until the deadline. We were hoping this would make people feel more comfortable defaulting early but in practice it didn't appear to affect anything. It also didn't hurt anything! I'm ambivalent about keeping it so if you have opinions either way please let us know!
• We had a lot of no-shows this year, which I think might be because with swaps a lot more people than last year had assignments that were assigned over email only and thus had no convenient Default button to hit. To fix this, I'm going to make a Default button (probably in google forms) where all you'll have to do is input your AO3 name, your recip, and if you're fully or partially defaulting (and how much if partial).
• We expanded the earn-back options this year to include fills for PHer requests and community templates, and ended up with some of both being posted! So we will most definitely be keeping those earn-back options for next year.

Extensions

• Extensions should work the same way and on the sameish schedule next year!
• For next year we'll be adding a rule that if you no-show on an extension (No contact, no defaulting, nothing submitted for that recip by your deadline) in 2022 then you won't be able to get an extension in 2023. This won't affect anything other than extensions and will only apply to the following year.

Pinch Hit Pre-offers

• I think this worked really great, but it definitely needs some fine tuning! My ideal for these is that people will be able to get dibs on PHs they might want but wouldn't usually be able to get (especially people in different timezones, since I'm always posting PHs around midnight eastern) without feeling any pressure to pick up something just because they had dibs.
• You were able to edit your pre-offer through the exchange, but I didn't make this clear enough. I need to make this more clear for next year and also make it clear people can contact us for a comment link if dreamwidth isn't letting them see their pre-offer.
• There need to be clear options so pre-offerers can set limits on what they want to be sent as a pre-offer, beyond just which recips they want. A short and probably incomplete list of optional fields that definite need to be added: Limits based on both/either assignment number or assigned amount, whether you want to be offered more of a PH you already have part of or not, recip specific exceptions, and if there's a cutoff date after which you don't want to be offered PHs or a date range you don't want to be offered PHs within.
• Pre-offers will still be able to be posted the same as they were this year without any of that, and conversely if someone isn't offered a PH due to their limits but sees the PH on the post and wants it anyways then of course they can still claim it!
• If there is anything that you would have liked to be able to specify in these, please let us know!

Mediums - General

• From the mod end the rulesets (click here) seemed to work really well! We'll definitely be keeping the same basic idea for next year, though some things might be rearranged and fine tuned a bit.
• Nomination of mediums being on dreamwidth seemed to work well this year so we'll be keeping that!
• In general if any mediums didn't quite fit their categorization, were confusing, or were too ambiguous to be useful we definitely want to hear about it!
• I still want to get a big document setup with detailed explanations/examples of all the mediums, but that'll be a next year project. I may post something in 2022 to get some crowdsourced help with this.

Mediums - Specific

• How did the changes to document style writing mediums (allowing a finished css/html or graphical template containing a document to count as 1k + wordcount for the first use of that template) work out this year for people who created them, received/requested them, or want to do either in the future?
• We didn't end up with any physical media nominations this year, so that'll still be a test for next year. The big question for these is how to find a good line between the effort the creator is putting in (often massive amounts!) and what the recip is receiving (a picture or series of pictures of what was made), so if you're thinking about it for next year keep that in mind. While it's possible a creator and recip might privately arrange to mail the gift, we don't want that to be an expectation/requirement.
• While we didn't have any physical media *nominations*, cocktail recipes/recipe's will have a physical media option added next year so that if someone makes their recipe and takes a photo of the finished product it counts the same way that illustrations do in that category. (This was officially not the case this year but unofficially was the case, there were mod spreadsheet shenanigans to keep everything fair to everyone involved and thankfully swaps gave us some wiggle room to do so!)

Reading Lists And Recs

• (I somehow *forgot* about this at first, adding late!)
• I had a lot of fun getting these up! It took me a bit longer than expected to get them set up, but I'll be ready for next year to get started a few days earlier (not too early though, I want to give time for people to read their gifts first!)

Schedule

• The basic changes to the schedule (more time in the editing period, two weeks of anon) should be staying the same!
• We're aware that we cut it pretty close to HA this year. FIAB doesn't have much wiggle room due to real life schedule things, but we will be keeping HA in mind when we schedule for next year. There won't be any solid decisions made on how or when to adjust until we know what HA is looking at for next year.

Comments

[razia]

I got a little confused about the rules for Illustrated Text this year. My main concern is how to judge how much text and how much art you need to call it Illustrated Text 🤔. 50/50, maybe? The idea of having examples for each medium is really cool, I'd really appreciate it, and if you need help with it, hit me up whenever :D

Swaps were really great and I loved being able to switch assignments whenever I got stuck in one.

Thank you for such a wonderful event, you guys rock 💜

[snickfic]

First of all, the careful headers and bullet points of this post are very sexy. :3

Worldbuilding: I'm excited for guidelines on worldbuilding! This may not be a problem FIAB can answer, as worldbuilding is kind of a new type of request for most of us, while we've all had years to fine-tune our understanding of what a ship request is and requires, but I matched on worldbulding and ended up angsting some on exactly how much worldbuilding is needed for a worldbuilding request (especially since I was also writing a ship the recip had opted into). So, yay guidelines!

Defaulting: I liked that defaulters' pinch hits were included up to the deadline! I think that removes an element of stress in decision making, and I'd like to keep it if it's not too much trouble for you guys, even if you don't see a concrete effect.

Swaps and pre-offers: I love all your proposed changes! Being able to express more preferences for swaps make me much more comfortable with swapping. And swaps in general were super fun. I'm a big fan.

Other: I would like to suggest some more guidance for and possibly different treatment of fic-related opt-ins. As an example, let's say I want to write a nonlinear fic for a recip. Nonlinear narratives were a fic opt-in this year; does that mean I'm not allowed to write nonlinear fic unless my recip requested it via the tag in the tagset? What if my recip had likes that suggested they would be into that but didn't specifically click the opt-in (because they found the opt-ins confusing or overwhelming, because they figured they just wanted fic and so didn't need to look at them at all, or for some other reason)? I think some people use the opt-in media as just a way to express excitement for specific kinds of fanwork, but since I know you guys are accepting or rejecting fanworks based on whether recips clicked those opt-in buttons, I think it's important not to make things "opt in" that actually would be fine for any request of that general media category.

IMO some (most?) of the fic-related opt-ins in this year's tagset shouldn't be opt-ins, and instead people who want to request them should be directed to just mention them in their prompts or likes list. The line between fic and other fictional writing (like in-universe documents) isn't always clear, but as a starting place I would suggest that the following not be accepted as opt-in tags: epistolary, diary entry, non-linear narrative, and Rashomon (1950)-style Conflicting Narratives.

And it seems like this question must come up for other media as well? Say, if I requested Medium Opt In: Art - Drawn - Fanart but didn't specifically opt into the stained glass tag and my creator drew me stained glass art, would that work get rejected? I probably would not be happy about that, as a recip, since it would seem to me that it would fill my request. (If this is already covered somewhere in the rules, my apologies!)

I guess I would just like some clarification would be helpful on what exactly it means when a recip requests a broad medium opt-in (such as fic, which everyone opts into by default) but not a specific one that falls under that category (non-linear narratives).

[(Anonymous)]

+10000 to everything under "Other" here; I think the tag that really stuck out to me in the writing section was "Unreliable Narrator." If we're assumed to all be opting into fic, I don't think we should have to separately opt into themes and tropes we could commonly expect to receive in fic.

[sheron]

Agreed -- I specified Unreliable Narrator on 1 of my 3 prompts not because I didn't want it on all of them, but because the thought of that tag appealed more to me for that one request vs the others. I was basically treating opt-ins as "likes". I would have been thrilled to receive Unreliable Narrator in any of my prompts, and didn't realize that by not opting in I was effectively DNW-ing it for anyone assigned to me.

[peaked]

+1 to your "Other" points. I think that's where I was confused as a fic creator. I would think epistolary, non-linear, etc. would be something you tell me in your likes list (and/or prompts if the recip gives them). Some canons really lend themselves to them and I would expect that if you are requesting a canon that has a non-linear narrative as part of their narrative, I'd be able to write you a non-linear story (unless otherwise stated as a DNW).

I think it would still be great to encourage other fictional writing mediums/types for this exchange, but perhaps not as an opt-in tag.

[sheron]

possibly different treatment of fic-related opt-ins

I agree with this! I didn't even realize that I *had* to opt into something in order to get it. Like alternate universe: highschool or something like that -- I didn't realize that I'd have to actually opt into something in the tags to get it if I wanted it. I expect that unless I DNW-ed it, then it is allowed to show up in my fic assignment.

I find opt-ints incredibly overwhelming so I didn't specify any, but that doesn't mean I don't want those gifts. If I don't want something I'd put it into DNW. Obviously *mediums* are different (e.g. I would not expect to receive a fanvid when I requested fanfic). But within a medium, I didn't expect to have to add opt-ins to be "eligible" to receive certain things.

[sholio]

Yes, I just wanted to third the points made about the "other" category. I think some clarification of the rules would be very helpful there! I decided not to request any opt-ins because I found the list overwhelming, but I still would have been totally fine with (for example) unreliable narrators or non-linear narratives, which I would consider narrative tropes rather than mediums. So basically just making the expectations clearer would be good, I think!

[shadaras]

+1 on "I would like to suggest some more guidance for and possibly different treatment of fic-related opt-ins" and everything related here!

One of my gifts this year had an author's note going "You didn't opt into in-universe academic texts, hope this isn't too much of that for you!" and uhhhh I love that kind of stuff but I ran out of spoons for picking what opt-ins I wanted to say "yes!" to (especially since I didn't want to deal with choosing different opt-ins for different fandoms). I'd completely forgotten that I hadn't opted into that because it so clearly fit my likes.

So, yes please! More guidance on this kind of thing!

[pegasus143]

+1 on the "other" section -- I think that did cross my mind once or twice, so I'm glad you brought it up.

[(Anonymous)]

A counterpoint to the "Other" section here - I found it very useful to have the various different narrative style tags available to request, because that meant I could simply not request "Unreliable Narrator" for canons where I did not want it, and not have to worry about DNWing it. I often have unconventional narrative styles listed as a like, but not for every fandom, and the ones I lean towards vary between fandoms. Fandom-specific opt-ins are much easier for me to handle than fandom-specific style DNWs.

The narrative style tag oot-ins work well for Unconventional Fanworks Exchange. I believe Unconventional also has catch-all category tags, including a catch-all "Any Nominated Narrative Style" tag. Maybe a similar catch-all would work for people who'd like to request multiple narrative styles for all their canons?

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed. Of course different media should remain optional, but I don't like the idea that NOT picking a specific tag within a medium means I'm actively opting out of it.

I'm fine with these opt-ins existing so people can specifically request the things they're most excited about ("I love non-linear narratives, so I'll ask for them!"), but I don't think they should be treated in the general exchange sense of being opt-in ("don't write non-linear narratives for anyone who didn't specifically pick that tag") because they're normal things to write for someone who didn't DNW them. The last thing I'd want is for my creator to worry about writing an unrequested medium for me when they want to use a perfectly normal narrative trope or format or include a little snippet from a case file or a letter in their story. I don't think a creator should have to go through all medium tags and then not use any of the nominated things because those are opt-in only.

[peaked]

I had so much fun in this exchange!

Schedule/Reading lists
I did like the amount of time we had scheduled to go through the collection during the anon period. When I felt I had found everything that was of interest to me, I ended up finding something new. The reading lists were super helpful in making the collection easy and less overwhelming—and I found works that I missed in my first run-through. Thank you for those reading lists!

Swaps
The suggestions here sound good to me! I wasn't too sure if I could say I wanted a maximum of two, if there was a limit on how many I could get, etc. so I think outlining the details we can provide you on the post would be excellent.

Pinch hits: Pre-offers
I think adding more detail as to what information we can give for this would be fantastic! I was wondering if I should've signed up saying I could take 2k, all of the assignment leftover (whatever it would be), etc. and if I gave five recips, whether I could say I wanted a maximum of two if all five were available.

Mediums
I definitely think a list with descriptions of what each medium tag is would be fantastic! I admittedly couldn't wrap my head around all of them when I signed up and didn't quite know what they all were until it came to the collection opening.

This has been one of my favourite exchanges to date. Thank you so much for running it! ♥

Feedback

[sheron]

I really loved the Pinch Hit pre-offers...mostly because I benefited from this greatly as a recipient. :3
I could definitely see myself signing up for some pre-offers later. Swaps also seems to have worked out great!

I was not fond of the US-Thanksgiving weekend as a reveals time because it felt like a busy time for many receips. Not having reveals on a major holiday would be nice, although I understand that it can be difficult to schedule something like this within the plethora of other exchanges.

This is a "me" thing, but I also would have appreciated more of a heads-up on which deadlines are "set in stone" because in the EAD discord I fell under the (incorrect) impression that all the deadlines before the work reveals one were really flexible, only to find out that I couldn't get an extension past a certain deadline because THAT deadline was important (the deadline when you decided if someone will be owed a gift based on how much they have submitted). I completely understand having mandatory deadlines! I love deadlines, they make me actually finish things. What I was confused about was the messaging around how all the deadlines are flexible and that the extensions would be super easy to obtain any time before the actual work reveals...only to find a really important deadline that couldn't be worked around. So for me personally, some clarity on "we will not be giving extensions past date X" would be really excellent! Knowing when things are actually due is what makes my brain finally kick into gear, so I really need that external "no, you HAVE to do it by this date" time-limit. Thank you!

Finally, big thanks to the mods for running this exchange!! ♥

[sholio]

I really enjoyed the exchange - having so much variety in how to get your recip to 10K was great, and both swaps and PH pre-offers were a big hit with me! I also really appreciated having the option for the one-fandom minimum; I think the rules on that are very fair, and I really liked having it as an option. Definitely planning to do this exchange next year!

My main suggestion for next year is that maybe the word count equivalent for vids could be made higher. Right now I feel that 1000 words per minute of vid is too low to really be equivalent, because 3000 words of fic is considerably less of a time investment (vastly less, honestly) than a full-length vid, at least in my experience - to the point where it didn't really feel worth it to satisfy my assignment(s) with vids instead. 1500 words/minute or even 2000 words/minute feels fairer to me. Vids generally max out around 3-4 minutes because of typical song length, so it isn't likely that there would be a problem with someone *only* getting a single vid, but if you were worried about that you could put a cap on it, like having the vid word count equivalency max out at 5K-6K, for example. But I feel that the current word count equivalency is putting a heavy penalty on vids compared to the amount of work that goes into them.

[shadaras]

Swaps:
Were fun, generally! I feel like being clearer about how much information we can give would help. I feel like I learned how much detail I could've added to my swap comment well after I made it.

(Part of me thinks that it'd be easier with yet another google form than with comments on a DW post, but uhhhh I'll leave that to you mods to figure out if that'd actually be true. But at least that way I wouldn't worry about if I was giving you the appropriate amount of information!)

Pinch-Hit Pre-offers:
I absolutely didn't understand how they worked during the exchange. Sometime near the end of the writing period you explained it on EAD enough that I got the idea. A better explanation and FAQ would be deeply appreciated. Like, I still don't know how much time you give people to respond to the pre-offer before you put it out to pinch hit from a lack of response? Things like that.

Nominations:
I really liked the nominations set-up! Both for fandoms and for mediums. :)

Mediums:
I think there could be a lot of overlap between mediums, and I personally think it's a headache to need to potentially opt in to the same general thing ("In-World Mission Report" or "Bestiaries", for example) in multiple categories. There are so many mediums, and I don't like picking more than 20 total because adding to the Additional Freeforms slot is more effort than I want to put in. I don't know if there's a good solution for that.

But I like being able to say "logic grid puzzles please" and get them, so, y'know, I really do like all the weird things that are in no way normal exchange gifts. I just kind of wish it felt like I had more room to ask for those without either sacrificing atypical fic styles I adore or opting in to like 50+ tags.

(See also snickfic's comment and the replies; I agree with all of that!)

Reading lists and recs:
I think it'd be nice to be clearer that even just going "Hey I really liked this!" in a comment counts as a rec, because tbh I hadn't realised that when you said you'd be posting all the recs people made that included comments that were like a single line about a single work. (Also, saying "yes it's okay if you just want to hype up your gifts" might be nice? Because I feel weird making rec posts that are just my gifts, even though my gifts are great, but I'd be more okay doing that if you outright say that it's allowed.)

Schedule:
oh god please try and keep it further away from heart attack next year; that was hard.

I liked the editing period! The two weeks of anon was basically useless for me because by the second week my brain was all-in on writing for Heart Attack!

Basically, if it's at all possible to start FIAB a little earlier in the year, I'd love that. <3

[muccamukk]

I had a fairly straight forward time so don't have commentary on the mediums or swaps.

I do like that pictures of the recipe will count towards the min. I got a cocktail recipe, and appreciated having a picture with it.

I REALLY liked the reading lists! Those were fantastic.

I wonder if the rec post could go up a bit later? It seemed like people were still reading a lot as it came out.

I fully support anything that causes more of a gap between this and heart attack. I will ask the HA mod about that as well.

[southerncontinentskies]

Neutral-to-positive feelings on everything here! I had a blast with this exchange, and I particularly loved the swaps and pinch hit pre-offers additions. Since you ask about posting defaulters' pinch hits, I will mention that I am enthusiastically for this, because the more PHs are posted, the more opportunities other defaulters have to earn words back. Speaking as someone for whom 10k is a lot (and who therefore has partially defaulted both years so far...) I really appreciate any additional options to mix-and-match requests!

[yelp]

Thanks so much for running this exchange, it must have been a ton of work on the mod side, but it really paid off for the participants (or at least for this participant - I had so much fun!)

I honestly thought the swaps were going to be too complicated for me, but I wound up loving them! I liked being able to work on little bits of multiple gifts for multiple recips, and I really liked the idea that if for whatever reason I missed the mark, they'd still have other gifts in their box too. 

The reading lists were also amazing. For such a huge collection, it felt way more manageable to have a little to focus on at a time, and I think I found something new to enjoy in them almost every day. I personally thought the 2-week reading period was great, especially broken up by reading lists. 

I found all the mediums intimidating, partially because, with so many mediums, it felt to me like such a remote chance that there would be someone 1) requesting a medium that 2) I wanted to make in 3) a fandom I was offering (and vice versa for my requests). I wonder if it might have been easier to only match on broader categories of mediums, so that sign-ups would feel more manageable. It might also have been interesting to have a medium promo post, similar to a canon promo post, where we can get a sense of what mediums people are enthusiastic about, and maybe get hyped up for them ourselves.

[pegasus143]

Thank you for a great exchange! Here's my feedback:

Nominations via Fandom Transfer: The partial fandom transfer sounds like something that should come with guidance, especially compared with the whole fandom transfer option. For example, if a person only has 1-2 tags in a fandom that they don't care about, is it okay if they just get the whole fandom transferred over, or should they go through and find all the tags in that fandom that they do want transferred?

Swaps: A very neat idea that definitely helped ease some of my worries about participating in a 10k-minimum exchange. Having clearer options laid out for swap conditions sounds like it would definitely be helpful. An additional thing I'd suggest is if a person ends up with two assignments on the same ao3 account before going into swaps (due to swapping part of their initial assignment with an IPH), having the option to "freeze" one if they don't want to swap any of it out (but still want to swap another). Hopefully that makes sense!

Defaults: Having a google form default button sounds like a good idea! I'd suggest that it comes with some guidance for people who do have an official ao3 assignment, because that sounds like a point for confusion.

Pinch Hit Pre-Offers: These were great! I really liked that there wasn't any pressure to take the pinch hit if, when contacted, you realized that you wouldn't be able to do it. I was fine with just listing ao3 names without any special conditions, and like that this option will still be kept.

Mediums: Having a document that clearly outlines what they all are would've definitely helped -- there were some that I didn't realize what they were until after reveals that I definitely could've done.

Overall, I had a fun time, and I'm sad that I won't be able to sign-up next year due to irl commitments! Hopefully I'll have time to do a short pinch hit or two.

[extrapenguin]

Thanks for running this! The swaps setup was great. As for the rest, since reveals were delayed this year, maybe putting the deadline a week earlier so PHers have more time might be a good idea? It'd lessen the HA overlap and not run into US holidays.

[(Anonymous)]

I had an absolutely wonderful time with this exchange this year. Thank you so much for all your hard work running it!

I'm very glad to hear that the one offer/request rule is staying. I didn't use it this year, but there are definitely times when I'm passionate about one Fandom of my Heart and it's good to know that I could offer/request only that and nothing else (provided it doesn't make me unmatchable). I also liked the longer anon period and editing period a lot.

One suggestion that I've seen elsewhere: I would love another reading/rec post maybe a month before the next round starts? I know a lot of people still haven't read everything they wanted, due to HA and Yuletide as well as all those 10k+ fics taking longer to read. I don't know how many people would really make use of it, but it'd be a fun way to get into the mood for next year's FIAB and maybe a good incentive for people to check out the collection again and read the things they missed last time.

[simplecoffee]

Thank you for running this exchange - I had a lovely time!

I did not end up making a gifset this year, but on consideration, I would suggest an upward revision in the word count equivalent for a gifset! When I buckled down to do the pre-work for one recently, I realized it's a lot more effort than I was previously giving gifmakers (including myself) credit for.

(As a benchmark I would suggest doubling the wordcount equivalents for gifsets - so one baseline 10-gif set would be worth 2k rather than 1k)