The short version is that a miscommunication appears to have occurred between the mods, a pinch hitter, and a participant with a hard DNW for the MCU character Vision. The pinch hitter tagged a crossover drabble about MCU Wanda with the WandaVision (TV) fandom tag; the participant and/or one or more mods perceived this as a DNW violation, despite Vision neither appearing nor being mentioned in the actual drabble. The pinch hitter was asked to remove the tag, and did so, but apparently didn't realize why they'd been asked to do so.
When the mods made a post which said, among other things, that participants could add whatever fandom tags they liked to their works now that the exchange was over, the pinch hitter re-added the tag - one or more mods perceived this not as a good-faith reaction to their own admin post about adding fandom tags to works, but as a bad-faith attempt to re-violate the DNW. The participant deleted the positive comment they'd originally left on their gift, and rejected it; the pinch hitter was banned from the exchange. Wank ensued in which these details gradually came out one at a time and fed the discussion further, until people began making statements in namespace/posting logged-in critical comments on MFD admin posts, and, well, see above re: cancellation of the exchange and scribblemyname stepping down as mod.
ToT was much more of a storm in a teacup by comparison. The basics are that that exchange has always stuck to character matching ("OR" to Yuletide's "AND"), and the original ToT mod was very blunt about refusing to consider switching to or adding ship matching as a possibility. People who wanted ship matching were repeatedly advised to do other ship-matching exchanges, and/or make their own exchange, and that led to the creation of Shipoween, which ran at the same time as ToT, revealed on Halloween also, and took a slightly different tack with its themes (ToT does "tricks" or "treats", i.e. you can specify that you'd like spooky/creepy/scary fics, fluffy/sweet fics, or both, while Shipoween did "Seasonal", "Spooky", and "No Theme" matching).
Cut to this year. A new mod took over ToT, and announced just a day or two before noms opened that they would be adding ship matching as a possibility, and also that they'd be ditching the "eternal tagset" ToT had previously been reusing. Some people were annoyed because they'd been counting on the eternal tagset including their previous noms, some people were annoyed that the complaints of ship-matching enthusiasts had "won", &c &c.
Then, after maybe twelve hours, the Shipoween mod made an announcement post saying Shipoween wouldn't be running this year - the ToT mod had communicated with them behind the scenes about adding ship-matching to ToT, and the Shipoween mod had enough going on that they were happy to take a step back and not have to run Shipoween right now.
Debate raged over the exact order of events, whether ToT had killed Shipoween or not, and whether people who like character matching or people who like ship matching were being more annoying about all of this. But it didn't have half the staying power of the MFD wank, and ToT has made it through noms and signups without either a particularly significant drop or a particularly significant increase in participants, despite a little mediocre trolling on subsequent posts.
The wank behind-the-scenes Easter egg here is that the original ToT mod who was so blunt about sticking to character matching only and the MFD participant with the Vision DNW? Are the same person.
no subject
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/504689.html?thread=3044870001#cmt3044870001
and continued for thousands of comments on several more posts
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/505278.html?thread=3047348158#cmt3047348158
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/505474.html?thread=3049111426#cmt3049111426
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/505635.html?thread=3050859555#cmt3050859555
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/505900.html?thread=3052453676#cmt3052453676
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/506150.html?thread=3054168102#cmt3054168102
before ending in MFD's apparent cancellation for the foreseeable future:
https://multifandomdrabble.dreamwidth.org/48850.html
It has already been replaced by
The short version is that a miscommunication appears to have occurred between the mods, a pinch hitter, and a participant with a hard DNW for the MCU character Vision. The pinch hitter tagged a crossover drabble about MCU Wanda with the WandaVision (TV) fandom tag; the participant and/or one or more mods perceived this as a DNW violation, despite Vision neither appearing nor being mentioned in the actual drabble. The pinch hitter was asked to remove the tag, and did so, but apparently didn't realize why they'd been asked to do so.
When the mods made a post which said, among other things, that participants could add whatever fandom tags they liked to their works now that the exchange was over, the pinch hitter re-added the tag - one or more mods perceived this not as a good-faith reaction to their own admin post about adding fandom tags to works, but as a bad-faith attempt to re-violate the DNW. The participant deleted the positive comment they'd originally left on their gift, and rejected it; the pinch hitter was banned from the exchange. Wank ensued in which these details gradually came out one at a time and fed the discussion further, until people began making statements in namespace/posting logged-in critical comments on MFD admin posts, and, well, see above re: cancellation of the exchange and scribblemyname stepping down as mod.
ToT was much more of a storm in a teacup by comparison. The basics are that that exchange has always stuck to character matching ("OR" to Yuletide's "AND"), and the original ToT mod was very blunt about refusing to consider switching to or adding ship matching as a possibility. People who wanted ship matching were repeatedly advised to do other ship-matching exchanges, and/or make their own exchange, and that led to the creation of Shipoween, which ran at the same time as ToT, revealed on Halloween also, and took a slightly different tack with its themes (ToT does "tricks" or "treats", i.e. you can specify that you'd like spooky/creepy/scary fics, fluffy/sweet fics, or both, while Shipoween did "Seasonal", "Spooky", and "No Theme" matching).
Cut to this year. A new mod took over ToT, and announced just a day or two before noms opened that they would be adding ship matching as a possibility, and also that they'd be ditching the "eternal tagset" ToT had previously been reusing. Some people were annoyed because they'd been counting on the eternal tagset including their previous noms, some people were annoyed that the complaints of ship-matching enthusiasts had "won", &c &c.
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/507280.html?thread=3061681552#cmt3061681552
Then, after maybe twelve hours, the Shipoween mod made an announcement post saying Shipoween wouldn't be running this year - the ToT mod had communicated with them behind the scenes about adding ship-matching to ToT, and the Shipoween mod had enough going on that they were happy to take a step back and not have to run Shipoween right now.
https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/507280.html?thread=3062247824#cmt3062247824
Debate raged over the exact order of events, whether ToT had killed Shipoween or not, and whether people who like character matching or people who like ship matching were being more annoying about all of this. But it didn't have half the staying power of the MFD wank, and ToT has made it through noms and signups without either a particularly significant drop or a particularly significant increase in participants, despite a little mediocre trolling on subsequent posts.
The wank behind-the-scenes Easter egg here is that the original ToT mod who was so blunt about sticking to character matching only and the MFD participant with the Vision DNW? Are the same person.