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]

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