coaltide | C.R.E.A.M

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2021

C.R.E.A.M

Coal ruins exchanges around me - spitey spitey fic y'all.

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It's only 50 fewer people than signed up in 2019.

Is it more newbies and less regulars this year?

/Is a newbie and has no clue

Seems like it. Lots more newbies from Tumblr.

YT should just remove that "Any" choice because nobody really knows how to use it, especially newbies.

I genuinely meant "I love everybody nominated for this fandom, I will be happy with any of them" and followed it up with a bunch of prompts. It could use more explanation, definitely, but it's a useful option.

Same. I use it every year because for yt I genuinely want anything in my tiny fandom.

The only time it's gone wrong was the year I got OC badfic in a different, but related, fandom, but that was a treat anyway.

"any" should only be for offers, not requests

I think don't think it's fewer signups, but iirc there were more noms even though there were fewer signups. Which means more people than usual either nommed and didn't sign up, or socked up for noms only. That would've messed up the noms/offers ratio and made matching harder.

I do know people who nommed and didn't sign up. A bunch of them did it so friends could use their slots.

Yeah if that keeps increasing I wouldn't be surprised if they have to *heavily discourage* it somehow, the point is supposed to be you have to offer at least some things you didn't nom. (Still wouldn't fix the person with only czech-language requests, but would probably reduce iphs overall.)

CYRT I agree. I don't think it's a big problem as of yet, but it's definitely getting there.

How would *offering* at least one thing you didn't nominate help with IPHs? In the most extreme case, you just end up with everyone adding a five minute fandom and still have as many pinch hits as before.

Well, like I said, it wouldn't help with the ones like all-yugoslavia or giant-pile-of-hard-games person. But the full round of IPHs included a lot of stuff that wasn't actually super obscure, and was reasonably likely to have been the kind of stuff someone might have thrown in if they'd had to, like Snowpiercer or Transmetropolitan or Sharpe (or Murderbot.) But if there's a bunch of noms sitting around that nobody's planning to request, they soak up a bunch of offers that the stuff people actually want then don't get. Plus, of course, if people are nomming 6+ things themselves and only request those, they're less likely to add something that somebody else nommed that would make them more matchable.

No sock noms wouldn't magically solve it, but real participants offering and requesting other real participants' offers and requests are what makes the wheels turn, and the more fake noms you get the creakier it is.

You're already not supposed to nom with socks, and mods have absolutely no way to enforce that. What exactly do you propose?

DC

First stupid idea to come to mind is "nominating pledges you to sign up with the AO3 account you used to nominate". Runs into problems as soon as anybody has good reasons not to sign up, e.g. unexpected RL issues that mean you can't dedicate time to writing a gift, but it's a thought.

It's actually not a bad idea - might reduce possible socks / sock armies!

It would be a nightmare to enforce, because mods don't see who nominates.

And I, for one, would have zero qualms having socks "pledge" to sign up and then have a RL emergency.

I think the only way to enforce would be a) for mods to be able to see who nominates and b) nominating but not signing up puts you on the NYR list for *next* yuletide and/or disqualifies you for getting pinch hits this year. And they would also have to put in serious effort to hunt down socks, of course.

I think well before they did that though they would either reduce max noms per person/increase min offers per person, or they would completely change the way noms are done.

People like you, coalie, who just want to see the world burn, would figure out a way get in no matter what, but if we cleared out most of the people who are just nomming as a favor for a friend or who are nomming on spec but don't really think they'll sign up this year or are nomming because they want to treat but not sign up, it would probably reduce the level to where it wasn't causing problems. And honestly a polite request or two would likely work for that.

I think the only way to enforce would be a) for mods to be able to see who nominates

But that's not how AO3 works. This isn't a Yuletide thing, it's a AO3 thing. AO3 have to rework the entire nomination process for all exchanges. And while they've changed things to give Yuletide specific functionality before, I really doubt that this would be worth it.

And I don't want to see the world burn. I just want to nominate a variety of things so that when sign-ups come around, I have fandoms I really want to request. Narrowing them down before nominations doesn't work for me.

I don't think it would solve anything, anyway. The assumption that there are unmatchables because there are too many nominations is faulty from the start.

Re: Four IPHs left

(Anonymous) - 2021-10-27 17:22 (UTC) - Expand

If it is a problem they could start by saying it's become a problem and just asking people not to next year? Most of the people doing it don't actually want to hurt yt.

And a couple time previously they've had to change the noms, offers, or requests max/min numbers, I suspect a minor rumbling about that possibility would also be motivational.

People would wank furiously either way, of course, it would have to be causing worse problems than a few lingering iphs, but if it trends up it might.

If they let me nominate more than three things, I wouldn't have to nominate with a sock... Honestly, I think increasing the limit from three to, let's say, five or six would significantly decrease the number of people who nom with socks.

But the point is to get you to offer more than you can nominate. If nominations go to 5 or 6, are you comfortable offering 6 or 7?

As someone who never offers anything she nominates, it didn't even occur to me that this was the thinking. I nominate things I want to request. I will typically only request things I've nominated. I will also typically have more than 3 requests. Ergo, I need more than 3 nom slots.

SA

And on the subject of request matchability, all it really takes is some promo and keeping an eye on the requests summary as the exchange progresses. I've never been a Yuletide IPH or unmatchable despite only requesting self-nommed fandoms. OTOH I could easily make myself entirely unmatchable by only requesting fandoms nommed by other people but asking for very complicated or obscure stuff.

Re: Four IPHs left

(Anonymous) - 2021-10-27 17:01 (UTC) - Expand

The thinking isn't that you're supposed to offer what you nominate (I usually don't either) but that people need to be offering and/or requesting other people's noms. If you could nom six, offer six, and request six, you'd end up with a situation where a lot of people would nom, offer, and request the same six, and nobody's signups would overlap enough to be matchable.

By making it that you have to offer at least one thing you didn't nominate, and you have to request at least as many as you nominated, in theory nearly everybody is matchable (and if you changed it even more - so that you have to offer twice as many as you nominated, or you have to request more than you nominated - people would overlap even more and be even more matchable.)

But if there's a bunch of extra nominations, that throws the numbers off.

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