Wrapup

[fic_in_a_box_mod]

This year is going to be a short wrapup from the mod end!

Please let us know if you have any feedback or requests! This post is the best place to discuss things you feel might need adjusted (or things you absolutely want to stay the same) since it's where we check for feedback. There are a few things I asked for specific feedback about, but please feel free to post about anything!

Schedule Changes

• Next year the editing period will be 4 weeks again.
• Initial Pinch Hits won't be going out until after swaps are done next year (just to make swaps slightly easier on us!)

Medium Changes

• The Template ruleset (the one where you make a blank template of a thing and give it to someone as a specific gift to them) is going to be going away. While it has been requested, it's not one that gets filled and mostly just causes confusion with the two template related things that do get done (works in the writing ruleset that get credit if you make a template for them, and community templates!)
• Adding a typographic design ruleset: We had some questions about typographic art, e.g. for propaganda posters that are graphically designed but don't contain drawings. This will be a separate ruleset from art but otherwise should have basically the same rules. There will be a ruleset from the start but mediums that you want to create or request in this style will need to be nominated. If none are nominated then we'll remove the ruleset.
• "In-Universe Ship Manifesto (the transit kind)" will be corrected to say "manifest" instead of "manifesto".
• Length and Medium tags will be adjusted so they have the same opt in/opt-in hyphenation.

Medium Changes - Feedback Needed

• Cross Stitch and Knitting Patterns:
  • Counting stitches: I'm going to make y'all do this next year
  • Background colors: I'm going to make it a rule that background colors (e.g. the colors that would usually be white canvas for cross stitch) won't count towards credit. I will need to phrase it in such a way that it does not exclude for example the main color of emblems, so if anyone has an idea of a clear way to phrase that please let me know! If what I mean isn't clear I will try to explain better!
  • The other alternative to the above is to add a wordcount cap per piece. If that would work better for you guys, let me know!
  • Otherwise, how did the 5 words per stitch wordcount work for everyone?

Comments

[sheron]

Great exchange! One of my favourites for sure.

I really appreciated a hard deadline for "no extensions past this", since it made my brain kick into gear. Thank you for running FIAB!

[flowersforgraves]

As one of the people who made knitting patterns, I think phrasing it as "backing color" might work?

Wordcount cap per piece seems liable to run into some issues, I think. I felt fine with 5 words per stitch.

As always, thank you so much for modding!

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much for running this, mods!

I had a blast and loved it!

[morbane]

Thanks for modding! This is an amazing exchange.

[greerwatson]

Thank you for modding the exchange! This was my first year; and I had a great time.

[fishdip]

Thank you for modding! I loved it.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for modding! Would it be possible to put up an AFK post next round in advance of reveals? I saw a lot of people stressing on social media about not being able to consume and comment on their gifts in (what they considered to be) a timely fashion. I think it would be helpful especially since the anon period typically includes a US holiday, and having a designated post could help soothe some anxieties.

[svgurl]

Thanks for all your hard work in running this! I had a great time. :D

[jonphaedrus]

this is absolutely my favorite exchange now, thank you so much for running it, i had a blast and cannot wait to do it again next year!

for cross stitch, i'm concerned about backing color not counting as a part of the design just for the sake of the math of the thing? so if i did a 100x100 cross stitch pattern and each stitch counted for one word, but the pattern had 28 backing stitches, the math is going to get complex quickly. the 28 backing color squares is -140 words, but that leaves the pattern at 860 words, which is under the 1k baseline minimum. since cross stitch can end up including backstitch, would that count as backing color since it doesn't technically fill a square? or what about patterns that take hand-dyed aida/fabric into account? i feel like this could get (mathematically) hairy really fast.

for cross stitch, at least imo, i think having a defined "minimum" of what = 1000 words might work better? i'm thinking too of cross-stitching sprites where you could do the entire background in white, black, what have you depending on your aida colors, but using the three-dimensionality of the piece (and saving thread/time) can be a part of the finished product. a pattern, for example, of say the pokémon yellow start screen Could have the entire backing color done in white, but that feels like it's adding stitches to the word count unfairly, when someone might want to leave that space blank or choose to fill it in regardless of the pattern, since it's white space.

i don't know the best way to handle that. that said, the 5 words per stitch worked great!

in a similar vein, i'd like to raise the question about art word count minimums. right now each "finished image" counts as 1k, but that's a flat 1k across sketches, paintings, linearts, flats, etc, and those are all really different in terms of time commitment.

i'm thinking of both the industry (i.e., personal commissions standard) and smut4smut here. for smut4smut, "clean, finished line art" is considered the 1k equivalent. could fiab do something similar? it doesn't feel right to me, as an author, to see artists putting out sketched, lined, colored, shaded pieces that are still = 1k. that feels just... unfair?

following the industry standard of breakdowns, smut4smut minimum, and the way that artfight tries to assign points (i.e., multiple figures, lines, flat colors, shading, backgrounds) one potential adjustment could be:

- clean, finished sketch/line/figural pixel art = 1000 words (+500 for each additional character)
- colors (additional pixel shading, etc) = 1000 words
- complete background = 1000 words

or something along those lines. i'd really like to know what the visual artists think, or what they would feel was equivalent or felt more fair since i don't want to speak on their behalf.

i got so much visual art for fiab this year and i'm still absolutely blown away, but also, knowing how much time each of those took to sketch/line/color/etc, it feels like there must be some level of meeting in the middle that is more equitable to visual artists.

tl;dr: artists shouldn't have to do 10 different pieces to equal one 10k assignment.

[silveredeye]

I had a great time. Thank you for running this.

I think the wordcount equivalent for sestina is a little low right now. I didn't manage to finish mine in time for FiaB, but I have written them before, and sestinas take me twice as long on average as sonnets or villanelles. They're also twice as long words-wise (39 lines to a sonnet's 14 and villanelle's 19). So it seems like a sestina should be worth more equivalent wordcount than a sonnet.

But I totally get it if you don't want to make that one (1) poem worth 2k where all the other poems are worth 1k. :)

[cypher]

Hi mods! I would like to bring up a possible medium change for the basic fanart category, as right now 1 picture = 1k flat, no matter what size or complexity. This is contrast to some other visual mediums like emojis, gifsets, and dress-up games, where the more content the creator includes, the more it's worth. Currently drawing 4 emojis from the same base is worth more wordcount than painting an illustration with 4 figures and a background, which honestly completely de-incentivizes complex art.

My suggestion would be to adapt a measure of complexity/difficulty that I've seen many artists use for pricing commissions (i.e., as a measure of how much work they expect the piece to be): 1k for up to two characters, +500 words per additional character, +500 words for a representational background (i.e., an actual drawn scene rather than just a gradient or abstract shape). I believe this would be an objectively countable way to determine when a piece of fanart has been a larger, more difficult undertaking, making it worthwhile for artists to attempt more ambitious pieces (as writers are already incentivized to do).