coaltide | This is Yuletide, everybody make a scene

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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

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Fuck that, but also how does she even know? Do they just not wrangle new fandoms for drabbles now?

It's literally hhertzorf wanting to delay drabble wrangling until after yuletide reveals.

I'm tempted to start tagging new fandoms with "I am not a yuletide participant, please ignore instruction from hhertzorf to delay wrangling" and see what it yields.

God knows I have enough socks.

I like this idea. I'd create a sock to join an effort.

What happens if you know you intend to nom and request an un-wrangled book or show, so you post a drabble in the fandom way back in August before Yuletide starts up? Will HH still stomp on it?

Everything you touch as a wrangler is tracked. If you disregarded her note you would get a passive aggressive comment/email/Slack DM letting you know only certain wranglers can canonize fandoms and also this fandom was noted not to be touched. If you did it too many times you would probably be put on probation/“fired” tbh.

Does HH get an email every time something is wrangled? Anything something with their note on it is wrangled? With so many fandoms unwrangled, who is actually tracking each change besides a changelog? It seems like there is more important work to do than manually track each change.

And once it's canonized, will they actually undo it?

I guess what I don't understand is why she's allowed to do this. Her position as a yuletide mod should have no bearing on her work as head wrangler per the archives official rules. Yuletide is an independent challenge, and while not wrangling unrevealed fics is annoying; deliberately not wrangling revealed works just because she wants it that way is not fair at all on writers posting new non yuletide fic. Just because some people are drabbling in an attempt to get yuletide fandoms wrangled doesn't mean all new short fics posted during that period are part of that. Has anyone ever contacted support or made official complaints over her violating the standard protocols this way? And has the archive ever made official comnents on her essentially rewriting policy and negatively impacting writers just because she assumes anyone posting new fandoms during yuletide are doing so to try and circumvent the rules over not wrangling unrevealed fics? There's plenty of users who've never heard of yuletide so would probably be very pissed off that their works were being left uncanonised just because hh thinks they're only posting to try and cheat past the challenge rules.

I'm a bit leery of the picture being built up here. I bet some of what people say here "as staff" is legit, but it's not like we can verify.

However, agree: if there's an actual technical reason for not wrangling new fandoms in this situation (is there a bug when a fandom is wrangled and there are both revealed and unrevealed works in that fandom?) then they should be transparent about it, and if they can't be, wtf.

Isn't it the other way around? She was a tag wrangler before she was a Yuletide mod. Astolat, elynross, and tzikeh handed Yuletide over to hhertzof and Morbane in 2013, but hhertzof was part of the AO3 volunteer staff since AO3 began. I have no idea how long hhertzof and qem have been head wranglers.

You're right she was a wrangler first, but that's irrelevant to the point. She's going against standard AO3 policies because of her mod role in yuletide. The two roles should be entirely separate as yuletide is not an official part of AO3; and if she's making wrangling decisions that negatively affect general users because of her mod role then that's not okay. I mean technically astolat and elynross are still in charge, they handed off the running, but kept ownership of yuletide and are still listed as maintainers. The separation or lack thereof of yuketide and AO3 has caused issues since the switch from the old archive -mass emergency wrangling the first year, the skin/tag set debacle, etc. a lot of people have issues with general resources being diverted to prioritise yuletide over everything else while it's not an official project. Hh's wrangling issues are just the latest iteration of that.

This seems a bit jumbled to me. We have no idea what elynross's or astolat's actual positions are - for all you know that's a courtesy thing. The mods told astolat no on one of her evidence posts a few years ago. That doesn't look like she's still in charge to me.

Also I don't get your argument that she's going against AO3 policies because of her mod role in Yuletide. If anything she's making Yuletide more complicated because of her opinions on wrangling policies. IF any of her alleged behavior is true and not misrepresented.

The separation or lack thereof of yuletide and AO3 has caused issues since the switch from the old archive -mass emergency wrangling the first year, the skin/tag set debacle, etc. a lot of people have issues with general resources being diverted to prioritise yuletide over everything else while it's not an official project. Hh's wrangling issues are just the latest iteration of that.

How does any of this relate to any other part of it?

Official yuletide policy is to wrangle and canonise all new public works as soon as wranglers have time

Unrevealed works are not supposed to be canonised until reveals

Hh has told wranglers to not canonise new public fandoms while yuletide is in progress as they think yuletide posters are trying to cheat the don't wrangle unrevealed works rule

This penalises non yuletide participants who post new canons during this period, as hh is deliberately preventing their fandoms from being canonised based on their belief that it is yuletide related

That is abusing their head mod position in favour of yuletide.

The older wrangling and skins issues were brought up because there's a history of diverting AO3 resources to help out yuletide, an issue that has always been contentious as people don't understand why a single unofficial challenge should get prioritised over issues that affect the whole archive. Many people hoped that would change when astoat handed over the general runnjng as there would no longer be a conflict of interest,, but hh seems to be perpetuating that policy. Non yuletide users shouldn't have to wait til yuletide is over to get their fandk s canonised, yuletide should not be a factor in any of hh's decisions as head wrangler, as their wrangling decisions should be based on what's best for them whole archive and all users, not made based on the small subset of users doing the challenge she mods

CYRT

Thank you, that is clearer to me - I think I get what you mean now.

Hh has told wranglers to not canonise new public fandoms while yuletide is in progress as they think yuletide posters are trying to cheat the don't wrangle unrevealed works rule

So this is the crux of the issue, right?

If Yuletide is obstructing normal wrangling policy, it would be good to know what the reasoning is.

Just a small correction - elynross handed yuletide over to hhertzof and jenn_calaelen back in the day. They were both meant to be the new 'face' of yuletide moddery, but there was massive wank that year about their handling of certain issues. Hhertzof couldn't take the heat and quickly took a back seat role, just focusing on behind the scenes/technical modding. Jenn (of 'noted.' fame) was the main mod for a few years. At that time, Morbane wasn't an official mod at all, but she did increasingly act as assistant mod, taking on more and more responsibility until officially taking the reins a few years ago.

That's not correct either. Elynross and astolat handed it over to Jenn_Calaelen, BridgetMcKennitt, and hhertzof. BridgetMcKennitt quit shortly after the new mods raised the idea of having people second nominations (wasn't that astolat's idea though?) Astolat stayed on in an advisory capacity, and Jenn and hhertzof continued. I don't know where you're getting the hhertzof couldn't take the heat idea, since she's posted and replied to comments frequently since, although I think you're right about Morbane's developing role.

Oh no, you're right, I was confusing Bridget who had to step back because of all the wank, and Hh. Although HH has almost always done more of the behind the scenes stuff which is likely why I thought that.

I wonder if, originally, the idea had been that Jenn and hh would do more back-end stuff, and BridgetMK would do communications. Either way, I have sympathy for Jenn and her 'Noted'. A lot of the time in a role like that you're explaining someone else's decision.

What is the "Noted." issue?

People flipped the fuck out about how it seemed dismissive.

Re: Mini-Challenges

(Anonymous) - 2020-09-29 23:53 (UTC) - Expand

Again, this is like if a cop beats/rapes/robs/etc you. Who are you going to tell? She is in charge of everything and everything she isn’t in charge of is managed by her friends.

Yikes, nonny. yes, this is just like that.

What about the board, they aren't beholden to her, and if she's abusing her position isn't there a process to report that?

In an ideal world, maybe? But fandom spaces have taught me that people defer to ‘expertise’ aka power, and if they think she knows what she’s doing/deserves the power then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The thing that bugs me is that this isn't actually about "posting to try and cheat past the challenge rules." It's literally just people writing fic for tiny fandoms! There is no reason their fandoms shouldn't be canonized right away.

+10000

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