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gotexchange_modLike I said two days ago, I am planning to run the exchange again, but I also want to change a few things about the set-up. I think I figured out something that should work, but I would very much appreciate feedback. After all, an exchange needs to work for the people participating in it, not just for the mod.
This is a bit long, but please bear with me.
1) Exchange set-up
In the past, the exchange was entirely run on Livejournal, including the posting of everyone's fics. I don't want to keep doing it that way because it has several downsides - some people get their gift much earlier than others, you can't edit your work anymore because I'm the one who posted it, and it requires me to be online every day to post the day's fic (and often to keep fixing the layout because some people are impressively bad at HTML ;)). It's not ideal and I don't really have the time to do that anymore. If everyone insists on keeping it that way, I would absolutely need a reliable co-mod to help me out.
I would much prefer to move the posting part of the exchange to AO3. That way you control your work, you can post and edit it, everything can go into one collection that goes live on the same day. Basically the way most other exchanges do it these days (although there most likely wouldn't be an anon period because got-exchange has never had one and I don't really see why we should start now).
However, putting signups on AO3 seems like a hassle for this exchange. I don't want to bother with a tag set and nominations when you can request and offer whatever you like, the signup form isn't really ideal for all the information I need for decent hand-matching, and the AO3 interface for exchanges is a pain in the ass for hand-matching (I've hand-matched smaller single-fandom exchanges on AO3 in the past year, but even for 10-15 participants that was annoying - got-exchange has rarely had under 30 participants, sometimes up to 50, and I do not want to deal with that on AO3).
My suggestion would be as follows: we do signups here on Dreamwidth the way we used to do them on Livejournal (but with anon comments allowed), you receive an email with your assignment and an explanation of how to post your fic/art on AO3. This would require everyone to actually follow those instructions to make sure they post their fic to the collection (so it's revealed on the right date) rather than just randomly posting their fic on AO3. There are some exchanges that do this (the Tolkien Slashy Santa and its related exchanges come to mind) and it seems to work out fine.
The alternative: we do signups here on Dreamwidth AND on AO3 - you put all the details of what you can and can't write here on DW, put basically an empty signup on AO3, and that way when I've hand-matched I can directly assign participants their recipient on AO3. That would make the signup process somewhat more complicated, but it would ensure that people (hopefully) don't mess up posting their fic/art.
I lean towards the first option because it's simpler and I'm reluctant to make people sign up on two sites, but I'm open to feedback and suggestions. I know neither option is ideal, but I think they're both still better than either staying completely on DW or moving completely to AO3.
2) Schedule
Once we've figured out how exactly we'll be doing things, I'd like to get the next round started asap so it won't overlap more with Yuletide than necessary. I'm thinking signups in September with a signup deadline mid-September, 6 weeks writing time until the deadline, which would be late October or early November, another week until author reveals during which pinch-hitters can work their magic, reveals some time in the first two weeks of November.
Sounds good?
Like I said, please let me know what you think. Anon comments are turned on, so you can comment even if you don't have a DW account.
This is a bit long, but please bear with me.
1) Exchange set-up
In the past, the exchange was entirely run on Livejournal, including the posting of everyone's fics. I don't want to keep doing it that way because it has several downsides - some people get their gift much earlier than others, you can't edit your work anymore because I'm the one who posted it, and it requires me to be online every day to post the day's fic (and often to keep fixing the layout because some people are impressively bad at HTML ;)). It's not ideal and I don't really have the time to do that anymore. If everyone insists on keeping it that way, I would absolutely need a reliable co-mod to help me out.
I would much prefer to move the posting part of the exchange to AO3. That way you control your work, you can post and edit it, everything can go into one collection that goes live on the same day. Basically the way most other exchanges do it these days (although there most likely wouldn't be an anon period because got-exchange has never had one and I don't really see why we should start now).
However, putting signups on AO3 seems like a hassle for this exchange. I don't want to bother with a tag set and nominations when you can request and offer whatever you like, the signup form isn't really ideal for all the information I need for decent hand-matching, and the AO3 interface for exchanges is a pain in the ass for hand-matching (I've hand-matched smaller single-fandom exchanges on AO3 in the past year, but even for 10-15 participants that was annoying - got-exchange has rarely had under 30 participants, sometimes up to 50, and I do not want to deal with that on AO3).
My suggestion would be as follows: we do signups here on Dreamwidth the way we used to do them on Livejournal (but with anon comments allowed), you receive an email with your assignment and an explanation of how to post your fic/art on AO3. This would require everyone to actually follow those instructions to make sure they post their fic to the collection (so it's revealed on the right date) rather than just randomly posting their fic on AO3. There are some exchanges that do this (the Tolkien Slashy Santa and its related exchanges come to mind) and it seems to work out fine.
The alternative: we do signups here on Dreamwidth AND on AO3 - you put all the details of what you can and can't write here on DW, put basically an empty signup on AO3, and that way when I've hand-matched I can directly assign participants their recipient on AO3. That would make the signup process somewhat more complicated, but it would ensure that people (hopefully) don't mess up posting their fic/art.
I lean towards the first option because it's simpler and I'm reluctant to make people sign up on two sites, but I'm open to feedback and suggestions. I know neither option is ideal, but I think they're both still better than either staying completely on DW or moving completely to AO3.
2) Schedule
Once we've figured out how exactly we'll be doing things, I'd like to get the next round started asap so it won't overlap more with Yuletide than necessary. I'm thinking signups in September with a signup deadline mid-September, 6 weeks writing time until the deadline, which would be late October or early November, another week until author reveals during which pinch-hitters can work their magic, reveals some time in the first two weeks of November.
Sounds good?
Like I said, please let me know what you think. Anon comments are turned on, so you can comment even if you don't have a DW account.
