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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I am LIVING for all this old fandom history/wank

I'm just glad I was around the first time NovaMist signed up with ten socks designed to match to each other and got outed because she lazily linked sock A's letter in sock B's prompts.

What’s the point in signing up with sock accounts that are just going to match to each other?

Strategic defaults. You can make sure all your accounts get a PH and PHers usually default less than main assignments. If you make 9 socks with no intention of writing anything, probably 3 or 4 of them get a fic in the end. With strategic defaults, it’s probably like 6-8 fics for your trouble.

Do over half of assignments really go into default? That math seems off.

Most defaults are at the deadline and most people turn something in, so they get a PH. All these accounts having similar fandoms (smaller writing pool) and failing to turn anything in at the deadline (thus not getting them a PH) would cull off a lot. The point of the tiered defaults was to make sure all the accounts had a PHer early since they weren’t going to have anything at the deadline. Good faith participants don’t have to worry about this because they are gonna turn something in and are pulling in from all corners of the PHer pool.

Right, but if they just... hadn't matched to each other, presumably most of them would have matched to innocent bystanders, and probably 90% wouldn't have gone to pinch hit at all, and they would have ended up with just as much fic? I guess if the point was they wanted to max out their odds of fic for fandoms that didn't get any other offers (like the blumensaat person) it kind of makes sense. Or if the point was they wanted to get as much fic as possible without having to default on any real participants themself, because they would have actually felt guilty about that?

Yeah I’m also still confused on how having sock accounts helps here/what’s the point

NC

9 socks, 8 of which go to PH, means a very high chance of 8 gifts and an okay chance of 9 gifts even if all 9 socks default. You control getting them each to PH by strategic gaming and defaulting to send them out for PH one at a time, with the next one going up for PH after the previous one has been picked up by a PHer.

If you only sign up with one account not only can you not make sure you go to PH, but your likely gift count is 1.

(Basically you game so your accounts are assigned like this, 9 -> 8 -> 7 -> 6 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1. 9 defaults immediately, so 8 goes up for PH with the rest of the immediate defaults. Then when 8 is assigned to a PHer, 8 defaults to send 7 out to PH. 8 won't go out for PH again, but PHers default less so it's got a good chance of getting a gift. And so on and so forth until 1 defaults at the deadline.)

Thanks for the explanation. But damn that seems like a lot of work to get fic.

Some people write multiple thousands of words and only get 1 fic for their “trouble”. I’m sure someone who only cares about their gifts they could leave the same comment.

DC

I feel like you're missing the point, though.

Unless the person really loves writing letters above all else, and coordinating socks, and the other maintenance work innpulling of this scheme, it seems like a lot of work.

Whereas generally speaking the people writing thousands of words of fic (instead of popping out a 1k minimum and done) are doing it because it's fun for them. Speaking as one of them.

I think they preferred getting a gift, yeah. Writing about what you like (and filing off the serials here and there to reuse that info) for maybe a weekend and then keeping an eye on when your gifts are posted/a defaulting schedule sounds like way less work that the 5 digit cumulative wordcount I pull off every Yuletide. It’s more work to me because I like writing and getting a gift equally, but people sign up to PH (doesn’t misura not sign up at all?) and write 30k without getting anything and have a great time. This is the opposite of that but the exact same mindset: putting in effort for what you think is fun and engaging in a way where you don’t have to do anything that isn’t fun, in their case writing to someone else’s prompts or at all.

When you put it like this though, it kind of sounds like sock accounts aren't all that bad, if everyone is having fun doing what they like, either writing fic or writing a bunch of letters/doing that maintenance work I guess

My potentially hot take is that I don't think socks are all that bad. This person is overkill but as someone who likes writing treats to people's id, as long as they have a letter and leave decent comments? I don't mind if they're hacking the system to get a lot of gift if they're allowing authors the chance to create for fandoms they love. I would rather a sock army than a bunch of participants who hate letters/prompts and also don't care about their own gift and only sign up because they need a deadline to finish their own ideas.

I don't remember the details of this sock army but I think they didn't comment (which makes them a trash recip in my book) and that's where I enter the ban them camp. If they had actually been a good egg recip or (and this is what most socks do) turned in gifts for at least half of those accounts, I wouldn't have any judgement for them.

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Whereas generally speaking the people writing thousands of words of fic (instead of popping out a 1k minimum and done) are doing it because it's fun for them.

Generally speaking, maybe, but it doesn't apply to everyone. I don't particularly enjoy writing assignments in exchanges. I do exchanges for the gifts and the gifts only; the writing an assignment in return is a chore. But I also want to do it well and give my recipient a fic they enjoy because I know in turn what it feels like to get a disappointing gift, so I put in work and effort. Is it fun? Not really. But if I want to get good gifts, I feel like it's my duty to give good gifts and it generally works out (both in terms of exchange karma, and in being well liked enough that people write me treats).

Huh, I'm totally the opposite. I'm in it because I like getting prompts/feedback for my writing and I sort of don't care what gifts I get if any. I like reading them and I leave good comments (or I try) but I'm in it for the writing, not the gifts.

Re: Yuletide history

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(Anonymous) - 2021-11-02 18:54 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2021-11-02 19:13 (UTC) - Expand

How do the mods not notice something like this, especially when most of the fandoms of the defaults/PHs end up coinciding?

Well, i mean, they did

They didn't.

Someone on coal realized one of the socks linked to the wrong letter and the wank blew up here. Because the mods go here, they realized they had been duped and then yanked all the PHs and banned the person.

That's kind of simplifying it but the mis-linked letter definitely kicked the investigation off.

From what I hear, the sock army was around for several years so they didn't notice it at first, even though it seems kind of obvious if they're defaulting in succession like that. But I guess hindsight is 20/20

It was 3-4 before 2014, 2014 had ten accounts that slipped up, and apparently after they banned her the first time she went "you can't tell me what to to" and tried to come back with 15+.

Honestly it's really easy to miss this sort of thing as a mod in a normal sized exchange, much less something as big as yuletide. PHs tend to be out of mind as soon as they're claimed, even more so if the recip defaults afterwards.

And that's with one mod who is guaranteed to have all the pieces of the puzzle. If yuletide splits up the duties enough then a single mod might not have enough information to see a pattern in the defaults. The person who recorded the default isn't necessarily the person formatting PHs, which would mean no chance to connect request info with author/recip info.

This. Modding smaller exchanges, I don't look too closely at what people are offering and see if they're gaming unless I have specific reasons to keep a close eye on them, because there are a lot of offers, a lot of defaulters, and a lot of pinch hits. It's just not worth the time. When you're looking at over a thousand participants, oof, there's just no way (unless, again, you know there's something to be concerned about).

And I agree that well-behaved socks aren't a big deal. Behaving well includes actually intending to turn in gifts for each account, though. Agreed with the Al Capone comparison.

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