coaltide | Morbane's coal

Morbane's coal

In quantum wankchanics, Morbane's coal is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, of quantum wankerposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical gift may be considered simultaneously both the fic of your dreams (TFOYD) and coal, while it is unread state, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur.

The Coaltide interpretation implies that, after a while, the gift is simultaneously TFOYD and coal. Yet, when a coalie clicks on their gift, the coalie sees the gift either TFOYD or coal, not both TFOYD and coal. This poses the question of when exactly quantum wankerposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other.

Madness Opens: Tuesday 26 December
Author Reveals: Monday 1 January

Yuletide Discord for Hippos & Exchanges After Dark Discords for Namespace ~~drama~~ 18+ discussion. Google Group for PHs.

yuletide |

yuletide_admin | App
2023 Collection | Tagset

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

They don't, actually, because most people aren't persistent trolls who dislike every gift they receive but keep doing exchanges anyway because they get their jollies off of harassing people.

...what does that have to do with what I said?

If an exchange has 500 participants, and 1% of gifts are rejected (this is based on nonny rejecting 3-5 gifts out of a "mid three figure" number) then you'll have 5 rejections and pinch hits (if the exchange does that) each round. Can you not see how that becomes unwieldy with time?

Who gives pinch hits based on rejections? I've never seen any exchange do that. Can you quit making shit up and go back to FFA so you can get frozen?

No, you're right, I was thinking of Yuletide rejections for rule breaking. Still, though, you're looking at a sizeable number of people with DNMs, explicit (if the exchange allows) or implicit (by way of tagset gaming). The issues this kind of behavior create are literally why exchange etiquette has historically encouraged people to be gracious and move on, and I don't find the arguments that rejection is clearer than either communicating the issue or sucking it up and leaving a nice comment persuasive.

Being gracious and lying about your gift is going to cause more DNMs, not fewer, for reasons that have already been explained to you.

That is just not true. Nonnies have confidently stated that actually rejecting is the best way to do it because then the gifter will match with someone else. That implicitly assumes the gifter is gaming away from the giftee. In either scenario, two people are incompatible. The main change is that the giftee is able to dodge ever having to articulate their preference, which as I've said is silly and mostly a demonstration that they aren't suited for exchanges.

Rejection is a pretty clear articulation that you didn't want something.

No, it's not, because AO3's rejection functionality doesn't actually articulate anything.

Do you not look at your own works ever? Because AO3 very much does show you when something is no longer gifted to someone else.

Not often, no, and if I were to look at them, I don't know that I'd remember a fic had been gifted if it no longer said "for [x]". I know this is the case for other friends as well (for an awkward reason: we all had a falling-out with the same mutual, who rejected all our stuff. None of us realized right away despite some of the fics being on the first page of our profiles, lol).

Maybe you're doing too many exchanges if you can't remember what you wrote in them.

Or maybe my memory just functions differently! But I think the ambiguity here is pretty obvious.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 20:35 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 20:39 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 20:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 23:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 23:17 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 23:17 (UTC) - Expand

You're not wrong... I leave anemic comments on gifts I hate and then DNM the authors in the future because I don't want memes looking for the DNW it came too close to or playing guessing games over why I didn't want it.

rejection is clearer than either communicating the issue

No one said this. Of course actually telling people "I really hated this, please never write for me again" would be *clearer*. But the clearest approach is not always the most feasible and I don't blame people for not being willing to be that openly confrontational in namespace.

Right, which is...why it's far more common to just write a bare minimum "hey, thanks!" comment and then move on.

And you believe that communicates your feelings clearly?

Nope! Clarity isn't the goal here, extricating us both from the situation is, and a rejection doesn't do that because it's passive and unclear (because of how the feature works). If clarity was my goal I'd talk to the mod or the writer. I've never been in a situation where a fic moved me so negatively that I felt the need for clarity where I also wasn't willing to talk to a mod or the writer about it.

I might feel differently if AO3's rejection feature actually notified the author, but it doesn't, so I think it would be really rude to use for an objectively fine (rule-following) fic I just didn't like.

It's not passive or unclear. I'm sorry you want a singing telegram to tell you that someone hated your gift instead of just having to, you know, notice that their name is no longer on the thing at the top of your dashboard, but that's how it goes.

Nonny, you're exaggerating what I'm saying to justify dismissing it, but I think you know the difference between an email - the same sort of transactional notification you'd get when your fic is added to a collection, kudos, or commented on - and "having to notice" something. I would have zero confidence that someone "just noticed" a rejection. It really seems like the most passive and confusing way possible to navigate the situation, which again, is why I think it's rude.

I think it's equally as rude not to remember that you wrote something as a gift. If you can't even place it, why do you care that someone doesn't want it?

Well, for starters, because I write gifts for people more often than I write gifts for people as part of an exchange, but this is an attempt to shift the goalposts so you don't have to engage with the reality that many people don't use the site exactly how you do. Which is quite literally the kind of problem etiquette helps people navigate. We don't all have the same experiences or outlooks, so we agree on basic politeness to let us move around each other in peace. I disagree that gift rejection, particularly how it's implemented on AO3, is a workable aspect of that etiquette. You clearly feel differently. We can leave it at that, there's no need to go off on insinuatory tangents.

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 20:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 20:46 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 21:29 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-27 20:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Potentially Fresh Wank?

(Anonymous) - 2023-12-28 11:15 (UTC) - Expand

I'm pretty sure more than 1% of gifts get rejected overall.

I was lowballing the number because the higher the number, the bigger a PITA for exchange mods, which supports my argument but feels dishonest given the rejection rate (for their own gifts over the years) nonny reported.

Rejected gifts don't matter at all to the mods though. I mod things, I literally could not tell you if or how many gifts are rejected after the fact because it doesn't matter.

Every single person in one of my exchanges could reject their gift and as long as none of them were eligible for an EPH I might not even notice until FFA started wanking about it.

I would laugh so hard.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All