coaltide | This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

Entry tags:

2020

This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

I am the sock with the tear-away face

Low-effort with your gift and gone without a trace

I am the "who" when you call, "Who does an exchange without acknowledging their gift?"
I am the wanker blowing through your fics comments
I am the coalie dragging your letter at night
Filling your exchange to the brim with fright!

This is Coaltide!

Nominations: Tuesday 22 September to Thursday 1 October

Sign-ups: Friday 16 October to Monday 26 October

Assignments out: between 26 & 28 October

Default deadline: Friday 11 December

Assignment Deadline: Friday 18 December

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs. F_F wiki for history.

NYR Info | 2020 NYR Collection |

yuletide_admin |

yuletide

Flat / Recent | Top-Level (Last) | Search

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

...okay, what is the reasoning for THAT bullshit??

cyrt

I agree, not ideal, but from a reader side it's better than nothing. I do always go check out the Undisclosed Fandom tag if a collection has one.

So it's probably not worth explaining, but the reason why Yuletide fandoms get commented on as Yuletide fandoms? It's so the bunch of volunteer wranglers can canonise or otherwise sort them as soon as possible after the collection opens. This happens with a lot of collections, including things like Jukebox and other fandoms where mods go out of their way to read the guidelines and approve fandom names that are as close to canonisable as possible.

And the reason why unrevealed fandoms don't get canonised in advance? Would you want to go to an Archive (or a library) and find it has a listing for a specific thing you wanted to find, only to discover the listing is totally empty? No.

Fandoms also don't get canonised on works in draft. Until the work is live, there's no real guarantee it'll ever be live and need an index point for people to navigate to. Shroedinger's fandom.

I think they mean the cases where there is an unrevealed fic (in this case a drabble) that hh/the mod wranglers clearly see exists, thus making the fandom tag eligible to be made canon, yet they choose to comment “Don’t touch until Yuletide reveals” and leave it all unwrangled.

Title. I've done Yuletide for only a couple of years, so I might have missed something.

Off the top of my head answers that have been given in the past:

1. She fucks up a lot but usually gets a pass. People who have fucked up similarly are (understandably?) bitter about this. Fuck ups: Anonfailing on coal multiple times while pretending to be a bystander (paraphrasing but anonfailing on comments like “i think the OP post changed? are you sure thats what it said?” on threads about her own post that she clearly just changed), nearly deleting all assignments, being seen as handholding problematic participants, she shows up in the comments of a few wanky fics defending the in the wrong author (I think gaybashing dragon is one), etc.

2. Butts in a lot like a busybody. Multiple people have said they’ve been on IRC/discord/etc talking about something and then morbane comes in to chastise/give unsolicited advice or gotten ??? DMs from her. The ones I remember most are people having said they were talking about a treat to someone else and then morbane goes “it’s ok to default!” which...obviously has nothing to do with a treat and really isn’t something you should be encouraging anyway if you aren’t really following the conversation.

3. Lame duck. When we had nonstop DNW fics, nazis, dewclaws, etc. a lot of people were annoyed with morbane for not doing more. Obviously she is only one person, but when we KNOW she is seemingly aware of coal, ffa, etc. then it’s hard to give her the benefit of the doubt that she’s unaware of fucked up shit going on. She may be doing things in the background but when bad things keep happening and we all wank about it for hours with no changes, it’s hard for some people to forgive, especially if they’re also someone who she has done #2 to. If she’s telling good faith participants to throw in the towel while doing nothing/not discouraging obvious wankers that are ruining the exchange for multiple people, it leaves a bad taste.

4. Universally liked. Morbane is usually the face for the rest of the YT mods because she is so well liked and when she does stuff that would get other mods dragged or at least generate pushback, morbane is given the benefit of the doubt (which a lot of people thing is unfair) or any valid criticism is lumped into being a morbane anti. Some people also are just contrary and don’t like people that are seen as flawless/universally liked.

Until the work is live (that means "revealed"), there's no guarantee it'll ever be live and need an index point for people to navigate to.

Again, you aren’t understanding.

October 1: I write and post a fic for Ghost Blue outside of any exchange. My work is on the archive that anyone can read right now. The Ghost Blue tag is unwrangled.

Nov 5: Yuletide author posts their unrevealed gift for Ghost Blue. There are now 2 works on the tag, my revealed fic and their unrevealed one.

Nov 15: Comment on the Ghost Blue tag by hh saying that no wrangler should touch the GB tag until Yuletide reveals.

This makes no sense under Ao3 rules. The minute hh saw that there was a public fic on the tag while they were doing their Yuletide rounds, they should have canonized it (as one of the few wranglers with the authorization to do so) like they would any other fandom that was waiting to be wrangled, and then another wrangler could have cleaned up the rest of the tags/claimed it as their own.

Deciding to leave it unwrangled AND using their head mod powers so that no other advanced wrangler can touch it without getting in trouble is what the OP was saying is stupid.

This is different from a fandom with 0 (unrevealed) fic, which is what you are talking about.

What the actual fuck @ hh doing that.

Wouldn't it just be less work to canonize the tag on the drabble than notate it and leave it alone, only to come back to it later? Like, it's still bullshit policy if the note is there before the drabble is posted, but at least that way, the note is already there, you're not doing anything extra.

It absolutely is made up. Back when this policy first came into action, a completely different reason was given for it. Then, when people started complaining, it was suddenly done to protect server because there was a huge bug that they somehow couldn't fix.

It's all about hhertzof and the other asshole wranglers wanting to have a higher position of power, even though they don't do any work. I've waited for a fandom tag to be made canonical for three fucking months now, a tag that's perfectly formatted and needs no changes made whatsoever. Any wrangler could've canonized it in a matter of minutes, but nooo.

You're a special kind of idiot for defending this when you clearly don't even know what's being talked about.

There's also no guarantee that a work will stay live. An author could just delete the only fic for a fandom and that would have the same effect.

The logical conclusion would be to only display an "index point" to the users once there's a revealed work posted for it. Is that really so difficult to code?

If only you spent half as much time reading what was actually said as you did with your passive-aggressive HTML tags.

"Would you want to go to an Archive (or a library) and find it has a listing for a specific thing you wanted to find, only to discover the listing is totally empty? No."

Yes, actually. I'd much rather take that, and be happy knowing there will be a work that becomes visible soon, than having tons of hidden fics that I will never even know exists.

+1

Normal libraries often have pre-orders searchable and you can place holds on them.

I don't like the wrangling policy either. But I think a YuleBeFirst challenge would be helpful to those new fandoms even so - and maybe even more so because of that obstacle. Collecting new fandom names together in one place, making more people aware of them, making them more likely to click on them in the colleciton or even to search the revealed collection for them.

That's a good round-up. There's also just a longevity effect. With even the best mod, failures can get magnified and successes hidden. The best wank is headed off at the pass and handled quietly - which means mods don't get credit for it. If someone goes to the mods privately and their problem is solved, they're not likely to come to anon memes to bear witness to this. They're just going to go about their day. However, if someone goes to the mods and they don't like how the mods handle the issue, they often complain about in places like here. For that to happen, it doesn't matter if the person with the problem was stirring shit and the mods were right not to give them the time of day, or if the person with the problem had a legitimate issue and the mods were rude as fuck towards them. Either way, the person will be unhappy and will frame things according to their dissatisfaction.

Same. I mean, I'm here talking about Yuletide weeks before nominations, so obviously I still get pretty excited about it. But it's not the same. :(

And the reason why unrevealed fandoms don't get canonised in advance? Would you want to go to an Archive (or a library) and find it has a listing for a specific thing you wanted to find, only to discover the listing is totally empty? No.

Fandoms also don't get canonised on works in draft. Until the work is live, there's no real guarantee it'll ever be live and need an index point for people to navigate to. Shroedinger's fandom.

It's much more probable that the fic will go live than otherwise, though. Someone's hypothetical disappointment seems kinda like a silly reason for the actual disappointment many YT participants feel over this non-canonising business...?

But it's AO3 and I rarely get AO3 logic.

Collecting new fandom names together in one place, making more people aware of them, making them more likely to click on them in the colleciton

The whole point is that they won't see them in the collection at all (at least not on the fandoms page, which I think is how most people browse the Yuletide collection) until they're wrangled.

However, if someone was also willing to find those fics individually and post them in a public YuleBeFirst post on the YT comm, that could be really helpful, I agree.

cyrt

LOL what. This doesn't answer my question at all, which was: why aren't fandoms canonicized when there's already a drabble posted in that fandom, revealed and outside any exchanges?

if someone was also willing to find those fics individually and post them in a public YuleBeFirst post on the YT comm, that could be really helpful, I agree.

A Yuleporn style opt-in or MTYG comprehensive list would achieve both of these. If you care about Fandoms of 1, you could use either as a jumping off spot to see if those recips got fics in those fandoms.

Morbane & co are supposed to compile a list of first time unwrangled fandoms but I think it’s usually late or wrong. This always baffles me because they have the entire writing period to create this list. As a mod you can see every fic. I understand things slipping through the cracks, but their modding team is big enough that every fic could be clicked on before Dec 25 and the names of unwrangled fandoms copied into a Google Doc.

Good egg anonfails either selfreccing, self dragging, or dragging someone else.

This always baffles me because they have the entire writing period to create this list.

How do you figure? They can't compile a list of fandoms of fics that haven't been posted yet, and the vast majority of the collection gets posted in the last week before reveals. By then mods are busy doing shit like looking for picklefic.

And like, all else aside, they shouldn't HAVE to make a list. AO3 used to have a reasonable policy that did not require this extra work from mods. I appreciate that they make one, even if it's incomplete, because it's better than not having a list, but what I really want is AO3's stupid policy getting reversed.

+1

Literally 1,000 works get posted on deadline day.

Also IIRC the new fandoms list was posted in the first 24 hours in the last two years. Of course, that's the first day of a seven-day event, which is a big delay proportionally, so ymmv on lateness.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 4 of 97

This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Why do people hate Morbane?

Re: Why do people hate Morbane?

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Why do people hate Morbane?

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Wank Prediction

Re: Mini-Challenges

Re: Mini-Challenges