Mid-Nominations Queries & Rules Updates

[morbane]

Thanks for your nominations so far! Nominations will end at 11:59pm EDT, Monday 12 June.

Nominations queries

Please help me out with clarifications if you nominated any of the following fandoms:

Any Requested Fandom - I'm not sure how this is meant to work. Could the nominator please expand on what you had in mind? Creator's Choice of Fandom is in the tag set.

Creepypasta - Fandom - This is very broad and I foresee different points of view about what counts (especially if picking creepypasta characters to fuse into another canon). Nominator, could you please clarify what you were thinking? If something like 'Creator's Choice of Creepypasta', what do you consider part of the canon?

Get Smart - All Media Types - Just checking the All Media Types label is preferred? Last year just the 1965 TV series was nominated. This label includes all the spinoffs including the 2008 movie. All good if that's what you want.

Historical RPF - As this is fairly broad, could I please check what you had in mind? Thanks!

Original Work - Crossworks is an exchange for combining specific canons with each other, so I'm not sure how this will work. Please either let me know your thoughts or change this nomination.

Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game) Imperial Agent Storyline Level 1-50 and Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game) Sith Inquisitor Storyline Level 1-50 - I appreciate the care taken in labelling these! Could I please get more information about how these work as stand-alone canons?

XCOM (2012 Reboot) - I have already approved XCOM (2012 Reboot Series). Did you want something different or does the first label cover what you were looking for?

Rules updates

Treat settings - last year, AO3 gave users a new feature to block gifts other than those given through an exchange assignment or prompt claim. New accounts are set up with extra gifts disabled by default. This is an anti-harassment feature for users who have previously received unwanted and unpleasant "gifts"-that-aren't, or for users who are concerned they might get them in future.

Extra gifts are a familiar part of exchanges, but this feature makes it hard to know if someone would like treats or has treating turned off. Because of this, please say in your requests if you are happy to receive treats, and if you therefore have extra gifts enabled in your settings. (That is, in your AO3 preferences, the box next to "Allow anyone to gift me works." is ticked.) That helps to give treat creators confidence when browsing prompts.

Similarly, if you choose not to enable extra gifts, please say in your requests that you are not open to treats. It is okay to either disable or enable extra gifts, but more information helps everyone.

Blocking feature - even more recently, AO3 has also implemented a blocking feature - see news posts here, here, and here. This does not affect challenge matching. Please do what you can to avoid matching to someone who has blocked you or whom you have blocked. If you are in this situation with another participant, please use your offers and requests, the Notes to Mod field, emailing me, or some combination to help me help you avoid undesired interactions.

Work must be original - no AI - Artificial writing and art creation has developed in interesting ways in the last year. However, Crossworks is a challenge where creators exchange original works that they have made themselves. Please do not submit art or fic created with the help of AI tools, or start with an existing story or image not your own & edit it to give as a gift.

Lastly, comments are not mandatory in this exchange but they are strongly encouraged. If you default and receive a gift, you must comment on the gift (or discuss it with me) before signing up again. This is an existing rule but I've tried to make it clearer on the profile.

Comments

[argentum_ls]

I'm the nominater of Any Requested Fandom.

What I mean by it is that it can be used for any fandom I included in any of my requests.

Creator's Choice is too broad because it opens up the real possibility of getting a fic with a fandom I've never heard of or have no familiarity with.

Any Requested would limit the wildcard to ones that I know, but would allow the creator to exercise flexibility if they had an idea that my requests didn't accommodate.

[morbane]

Thanks for expanding! To check I understand you, do you mean something like Any Other Fandom I'm Requesting In This Round, and requests set up in the following way:

Request 1: Psych, The Listener, Leverage

Request 2: Young Wizards, Thursday Next

Request 3: Highlander, Any Requested Fandom

where Request 3 is effectively five separate requests, in this case:

Highlander x Psych
Highlander x The Listener
Highlander x Leverage
Highlander x Young Wizards
Highlander x Thursday Next?

I'm not sure how well that would work for matching, since I think it would be difficult to offer 'Any Requested Fandom' with confidence, but might work for treats or pinch hits. Though I'd be interested to hear from anyone who thinks they would be happy to offer that!

[argentum_ls]

Yes, exactly like that.

It could also allow for an Any Requested/Any Requested (where the resulting crossover meets the parameters of the exchange).

I'm not sure how it would work for matching either, and it probably shouldn't. My interest is for after matching so that people have options.

In the past, I've included a general statement in my signup saying that fandoms can be mixed-and-matched, but I know that can cause consternation because it's hard to assess sincerity or limits.

[morbane]

Okay, thanks. Let's give it a go. I think, to help request-browsers, I should ask anyone who selects Any Other Fandom I'm Requesting In This Round to also list out what those fandoms are in the relevant request.

With regards to Any Requested/Any Requested, I see how that could be a fun wildcard option. In order to set the form up to allow it, I'd need to put two different Any Other Fandom tags into the tag set, because you can't put two identical text strings into the fandom slot and have it count as two fandoms. Ie technical limitations prevent selecting "Any Other Fandom I'm Requesting In This Round" x "Any Other Fandom I'm Requesting In This Round" in one request. I'll ponder how we might do that in the most intuitive way.

Any Other Fandom I'm Requesting In This Round
Any Other Fandom I'm Requesting In This Round (Select Exclusively In Combo With AOF Tag)
?

[argentum_ls]

When you say "list out," do you mean in the Optional Details box or in the request itself?

I'll ponder how we might do that in the most intuitive way.

What about:

Any Other Fandom Requested 2023

and

Any Other Fandom Requested 2023 (Select Only in Combo with AOF Tag)

?

It's slightly fewer words, so might be easier to parse.

Once you decide, do you want me to nominate the tags or are you going to add them?

[morbane]

I can add them, thanks.

I think it would have to be something like:

Any Other Fandom Requested in CW2023

because the use of "Any Fandom I've Previously Requested" in other exchanges could lead to confusion that this means "fandoms requested in other exchanges in 2023".


And I mean list out in the optional details box, thanks!

[argentum_ls]

Thanks!

I'm eager to put this all into action now.

[gelliaclodiana]

I really like this option -- I choose fandoms because I like them and am interested in seeing the characters interact with people from other canons, and if a writer wants to pick one from request 1 and one from request 3, that's great from my perspective.

I don't think it's something I'd offer, but I'd be tempted to request or write it.

[morbane]

Thanks for adding your feedback!

[(Anonymous)]

Star Wars Legends:

The way the game works, there are originally four classes per side (Empire and Republic)

Each class gets its own storyline, fully voiced. This continues up to level 50.

At level 50, it changes to one storyline for everyone (though a bit different for each side).

[dragonessgirl]

How do the rules work with something like Dimension 20, an actual play role-playing series where each series is completely standalone from all the others (with a few exceptions like Fantasy High which has run for two seasons and a side quest, or The Ravening War which is a prequel to a Crown of Candy - however, Fantasy High and a Crown of Candy are completely separate, with one being "John Hughes meets D&D" and the other being "Game of Thrones but they're all foodstuffs") with new settings, lore, and characters each season - the only overlap is in the players. Would it be possible to request crossovers between different unconnected seasons (like Fantasy High and A Crown of Candy) or are the considered one canon for the purposes of this exchange?

[morbane]

Sure - crossovers between standalone series are fine. I'd need a bit more detail if you want to put Ravening War and Crown of Candy in the same request, but asking for a crossover between Fantasy High and A Crown of Candy sounds perfectly fine!

[dragonessgirl]

I actually think I want A Crown of Candy crossed with A Court of Fey and Flowers (Regency romance and politics in the Feywild) - unfortunately it synned Dimension 20: A Court of Fey and Flowers with just Dimension 20 when I nommed, so I put it through again with D20 instead of Dimension 20 as the prefix and left off the (Web series) - in case you're wondering why that's formatted differently to the other Dimension 20 subseries. I nominated both Crown of Candy and the Ravening War, but I don't intend to request both - I just want to be able to offer both.

[morbane]

That sounds fine! Thanks.

[miramira]

Ravening War and Crown of Candy have a similar relationship to the Star Wars prequels and the original trilogy, or Avatar: the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra: they're set a generation apart, so there's a different cast of protagonists, and a new political situation, and new enemies and challenges.

Speaking of Star Wars, it's not my nomination, but for Legends: the Old Republic, you do have a totally different storyline and supporting cast depending on which class you choose for your character.

[morbane]

Thanks for the information!

The Master (no, not that one, see below)

[graycardinal]

A heads-up:

I have just nominated "The Master (TV)", which is an AO3 canonical tag, and by which I mean the short-lived TV series from 1984 starring Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten. This in itself is not or should not be a problem...

...except that there are some instances on AO3 in which that tag has been conflated with the Doctor Who character (specifically, there's a tag for "The Master - Fandom"), and it occurs to me that depending on how the matching algorithm works, there might be a potential for those offering/requesting the 1984 series to be accidentally matched with those offering/requesting a Doctor Who-adjacent fandom.

Yes, this may well be more of an AO3 wrangling issue than one for us, but I prefer to err on the side of caution just in case.

FWIW, I have a vague memory of actually contacting AO3 about this a longish while back and being told in essence "yes, it's clearly wrong, but the author tagged [those works] that way and we can't retroactively override the author even when the author is wrong". I disagree: as far as I can tell, the problem is that "The Master - Fandom" was wrangled incorrectly at some point on the AO3 side (because it should never have been synned to both the Whovian character tag and the TV show fandom tag, as has obviously happened), but evidently either I ran out of steam before making that case to Support, or Support didn't buy that argument.

Re: The Master (no, not that one, see below)

[morbane]

Hm, thanks for the heads-up! Because this exchange doesn't match on characters, I think some potential oddities will be averted, but I'll keep an eye on matching.

[(Anonymous)]

I saw these two tags were added based on the conversation above:

Any Other Fandom I've Requested in CW2023

Any Other Fandom I've Requested in CW2023 (Select Only In Combo With AOF Tag & No Other Fandoms)


What’s the difference between them? How would the second one be used?

[morbane]

Hi! I'll write up instructions in more detail for sign-ups opening (in a few hours) but these sort of work as wildcards.

If you select both Any Other Fandom I've Requested in CW2023 and Any Other Fandom I've Requested in CW2023 (Select Only In Combo With AOF Tag & No Other Fandoms)

it would mean that your creator looks at your other requests and chooses any two fandoms to combine - maybe a fandom from request 4 and a fandom from request 1.


So in a set like:

Request 1: Fandoms A, B, C, D

Request 2: Fandoms B, G, H, I

Request 3: J, Any Other

Request 4: Any Other, Any Other (Combo)

the third request means:
J, A
J, B
J, C
J, D
J, G
J, H
J, I

and the fourth request means:
pick any two fandoms from the overall set of requests - C, G? Sure! A, I? Sure?

[aearis]

I nominated XCOM (2012 Reboot) and I'm happy with the already accepted tag!