Gauging Interest in a D/Hr Fic Exchange on AO3

[boundbooks]

I'm seriously thinking about running a fic exchange for Dramione this year from January - March 2012. I know that's the old dmhgficexchange slot, but it's really a great slot because it's right after Yuletide and other RL holiday ridiculousness, and most of the 'random fun' fests/exchanges (dramione_duet, deflower_draco, samhain_smut, kink_bingo, etc) seem to happen from late spring - early fall.

I don't want to look like I'm corpse-camping dmhgficexchange, but on the other hand I totally want there to be another fic exchange that fills the same set of criteria that it did. Namely, a fic exchange that's a few months long, with potential matches between all participants, and with no limit on wordcount. dmhgficexchange was so great that I don't want to see that kind of event vanish from D/Hr fandom.

I'd totally volunteer to run this thing, but I would only run it on AO3. Quite frankly, the level of work that AO3's infrastructure takes off of mods' backs is staggering. AO3 takes care of formatting issues, hand-posting work, excel-style tracking, does rudimentary matching, has a button set up to default with, and quite frankly automates a ton of the work.

Mostly, I'm kind of worried that people might be all 'what right do you have to take over the calendar slot for dmhgficexchange' or otherwise be upset that someone's doing this. I have only been around the Dramione fandom for a few months, and I don't want to step on anyone's toes.

What do people think?

Poll #7923 Running a D/Hr Fic Exchange on AO3

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

What do you think about an AO3 D/Hr Fic Exchange?

View Answers

I'd totally participate!
3 (60.0%)

I think people would be interested.
3 (60.0%)

I am neutral.
0 (0.0%)

I don't think people want another fic exchange.
0 (0.0%)

I have some other opinion I will explain in the comments.
0 (0.0%)

edit - Didn't realize anonymous commenting and OpenIDs were disabled for this comm, so I'm going to mirror this post over at dramione. Sorry for spamming dramione, musyc! D:

Cross-posted to dramione: Gauging Interest in a D/Hr Fic Exchange on AO3

Comments

[boundbooks]

I think the important bit on that basis would be to be very careful about this being a new exchange, a different exchange, NOT a replacement.

Treat a new exchange as fully new, entirely separate, and there'd be some difference.

I think those are great points! Probably the most important points, actually. There's totally no way anyone can replace the culture surrounding dmhgficexchange, nor the exchange's history.

If there isn't any community-wide objection to the idea of a new fic exchange, I'd probably rip the entire community guidelines from Yuletide (I don't know if anyone else here has done Yuletide?).

Anyhow, the parts from Yuletide that are much more characteristic of an AO3-hosted exchange are a single reveal date, and then usually some kind of ten-fifteen day-long 'free for all' prompt fest afterward, where people can see everyone else's prompts and just pick any they like and write fills for 'em. Kind of like running two fests back to back. Oh, hurhgm. Idea.

So, for my hypothetical Draco/Hermione exchange, I'd run two fests. One giant fic exchange, and then one tiny little free-for-all prompt-fill fest right afterward. (Basically Yuletide and Yuletide Madness, for anyone who's done Yuletide in the past. :) ) The long one would have 1000 words minimum, the little one would be just kind of a 'whatever, ficlet, drabble, have fun' thing, with a 1000 word maximum.

We've got two characters, so I could name the first one, say Otter and Ferret and the second one Otter and Ferret Mini-Fest. Or something.

THINKING CAP, ACTIVATE!

[musyc]

I really like the idea of a single reveal date. I know some people hate it, but I honestly prefer that if there's more than two or three weeks worth of posting. In my experience, by the end, commenting drops way WAY down, and the fics that get posted last inevitably get shafted on readers.

I think the idea of a prompt pick-up mini-fest is excellent. I know I've seen a lot of people grumbling in the past that they don't want to write for exchanges because they feel like it's expected that they write a multi-chapter million word epic and if they don't, their contributions get ignored. Putting a mini-fest up for people who aren't epic writers (and making a point to encourage and support short-fic writers for the main fest) would be very welcoming.

Don't forget art, too. There's never been much art presented for the exchange in the past, which I've always felt is a shame. We can't host it on AO3/DW yet, but there are options for that. I definitely feel that artists of all sorts should be encouraged to participate as well - Tumblr has some AMAZING graphic artists (as I'm sure you've seen following my Dramione blog XD ), and there are some excellent people on dA who do more traditional forms of art. Reaching out to them should be very important, as well.

[boundbooks]

Big fan of the single reveal date myself. I understand why some people prefer the other way (it's all personal choice!), but I got into fests on the Yuletide pattern, so I like the 'piles of fic, can't see own feet, send help food and reading light.'

Mmm, mini-fest. The more I think about it, the more I like it! Plus, the whole 'zomg, more mini-fic fun' is totally addictive. There's so much damn anticipation built up at the end of a fest that you could cut your teeth on it. I'd probably have it run between the time when fics are due and when fics are revealed. So, it would tap into that whole 'holy cow, fics are in' and the whole 'I can't wait for reveals to go up,' as well as let people who are done or didn't want to do sign-ups participate in another thing about the fest.

Example timeline:

Fics are due on the 10th. Mini-fest stars on the 12th. All reveals of the exchange and mini-fest go up on the 20th. Authors are revealed on the 27th.

I'd love to do art, but unless there's an AO3 option, it won't happen in the 2011 fest. I super hard-core <3 the tumblr and DA fanart crowd, but unless it's built into the AO3 system, it would totally bork the AO3 matching process and requesting process, because I couldn't do posting for visual artists through the AO3 code, since hosting would have to be on a completely separate site. It would require a separate set of moddly duties to start dealing with things like paying for hosting and who has control/access to that other site, which is really something I don't want to touch. D:

I really love the idea, but unless AO3 has it in code by January, it would probably be closer to running two major parallel exchanges rather than one, and I think I would probably die if I attempted to do that. XD

I did go check the AO3 art FAQ, which is from April 2010, but the OTW news feed seems to suggest that fan-art is totally on the back-burner because fanart is not mentioned as an 'in the works' or 'ready for reveal' item. :(

I definitely hear you on short-fic being something to promote! I love a good short fic. I also admit to loving how AO3 makes you feel all proprietary over gifts, since gifts you get show up on your profile. I think it makes stuff like that mini-fest even more fun, because it's like hand-delivered presents that you can't unwrap until the mods say so. XD

[boundbooks]

NEW IDEA. ALSO STOLEN FROM YULETIDE.

I could just go for broke and make three sets of subcollections per year.

So, there'd be:

Otter and Ferret 2011 (Main fic exchange)

Otter and Ferret Mini-Fest 2011 (Mini-fest awesomeness!)

Otter and Ferret Forever 2011 (Open subcollection which takes anything written in response to an Otter and Ferret 2011 prompt, written months (or years) after the fact)

:D :D :D :D :D

Thoughts?

[bunney]

Otter and Ferret...that is AWESOME! I approve :)

[boundbooks]

I totally pulled 'Otter and Ferret' out of thin air, but the more I type it, the more I like it. XD

[bunney]

I think it sounds sweet and lighthearted :)