I have questions, like: if this is your rules for yourself, why do you have so many rules about socking and why do you claim you often break them?? What exactly is excessive socking, to you? NovaMist levels??
What does it mean to act like a hoarding dragon about your gifts?!
5. If you're socking, at least give your socks some AO3 bookmarks and a profile with some kind of mini bio, even if it's like "I'm a dentist and one of my patients suggested I try this exchange this year!" so your writer isn't left floundering with no idea if you're a fourteen-year-old who doesn't anything know about fandom or secretly their mother.
This one is weird to me, though to be fair I'm not sure I care about the feelings of someone who's going to freak out by seeing an empty ao3 account. Besides, your prompts and DNWs should cover that aspect. Basically this just sounds more like it would benefit you by making you look like not a sock. When you are a sock.
Nah the socking ones are just me wanting to know if I matched on a sock or not. It's not that I freak out about getting an empty AO3 account, it's just that it would be nice to know if I'm writing for a newbie 14-year-old or the sock of someone I know and might otherwise talk about my fic with. (Especially in fandoms where an empty AO3 account is probably one or the other of those.) Plus there was at least once when I assumed the empty account *was* a sock and it turned out to be a teenage newbie, and I would have done my tags and stuff very differently if I'd known. Also saying "I'm a dentist" is not hiding the fact that you're a sock.
Like, again, these are not requirements, but if you're socking up I don't think it's wrong to say people will like it better if you put a little, teeny tiny, bit of effort into your sock.
Anyway I never sock up because I have a weird hangup about not breaking explicitly stated rules, but I've given up on anyone thinking socking is actually bad etiquette. The ones here I usually don't manage are the ones about doing things on time and leaving good comments ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plus there was at least once when I assumed the empty account *was* a sock and it turned out to be a teenage newbie, and I would have done my tags and stuff very differently if I'd known
I feel like this is a you problem, especially since one of your other tenets is assuming good faith.
...how is "I don't want to use fandom jargon to a newbie" or "I don't want to handhold too much for an experienced recip" or "I would interpret these dnws differently depending on how familiar this person is with fandom culture" not acting in good faith
like the problem with an empty account isn't that any of the options are bad, it's that it could equally be a signifier of either a super experienced exchange person who's really blase about socking, or it could be a brand new person who doesn't know anything about exchange etiquette, and figuring out what kind of thing they expect to get could really depend on which it is. In some exchanges you can probably safely assume it's the first one, but in some you can't.
But, like, again, I'm not saying you're a horrible person if you sock with an empty account. The newbie with the empty account isn't a horrible person either. And getting the empty account isn't ruining anyone's yuletide. But putting a tiny bit of effort in makes the experience better for everyone.
The only times I've ever looked at my recips fics/bookmarks was when I matched on CCOF and wanted to write something in a genre they liked. If I match on an actual ship why would look? I know what they want, I'll just do that.
On thinking about it I agree with you a bit more. For me, looking at an empty account and assuming it's a sock would be bad faith, but that's because I'm kind of sick of socks from the ones I've had to deal with. If you don't feel that way then it's more neutral.
If I see a blank account, I default to assuming it's a newbie.
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Re: what makes a good egg to you
(Anonymous) 2024-02-08 08:10 pm (UTC)(link)What does it mean to act like a hoarding dragon about your gifts?!
5. If you're socking, at least give your socks some AO3 bookmarks and a profile with some kind of mini bio, even if it's like "I'm a dentist and one of my patients suggested I try this exchange this year!" so your writer isn't left floundering with no idea if you're a fourteen-year-old who doesn't anything know about fandom or secretly their mother.
This one is weird to me, though to be fair I'm not sure I care about the feelings of someone who's going to freak out by seeing an empty ao3 account. Besides, your prompts and DNWs should cover that aspect. Basically this just sounds more like it would benefit you by making you look like not a sock. When you are a sock.
Re: what makes a good egg to you
(Anonymous) 2024-02-08 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)Like, again, these are not requirements, but if you're socking up I don't think it's wrong to say people will like it better if you put a little, teeny tiny, bit of effort into your sock.
Anyway I never sock up because I have a weird hangup about not breaking explicitly stated rules, but I've given up on anyone thinking socking is actually bad etiquette. The ones here I usually don't manage are the ones about doing things on time and leaving good comments ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: what makes a good egg to you
(Anonymous) 2024-02-08 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)I feel like this is a you problem, especially since one of your other tenets is assuming good faith.
Re: what makes a good egg to you
(Anonymous) 2024-02-08 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)like the problem with an empty account isn't that any of the options are bad, it's that it could equally be a signifier of either a super experienced exchange person who's really blase about socking, or it could be a brand new person who doesn't know anything about exchange etiquette, and figuring out what kind of thing they expect to get could really depend on which it is. In some exchanges you can probably safely assume it's the first one, but in some you can't.
But, like, again, I'm not saying you're a horrible person if you sock with an empty account. The newbie with the empty account isn't a horrible person either. And getting the empty account isn't ruining anyone's yuletide. But putting a tiny bit of effort in makes the experience better for everyone.
Re: what makes a good egg to you
(Anonymous) 2024-02-08 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)Re: what makes a good egg to you
(Anonymous) 2024-02-10 10:49 am (UTC)(link)On thinking about it I agree with you a bit more. For me, looking at an empty account and assuming it's a sock would be bad faith, but that's because I'm kind of sick of socks from the ones I've had to deal with. If you don't feel that way then it's more neutral.
If I see a blank account, I default to assuming it's a newbie.