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Default deadline: December 11 (9am UTC)  

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

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Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

Compared to other exchanges (where, for the most part, you can get away with requesting rare fandoms too), I find myself disliking the Yuletide culture.

I don't mean the hippos or whatever. I mean some of the regulars who seem to treat the exchange like an afterthought, misuse the tags, participate with blank sign-ups, and leave you a 1-sentence thank you when all is said and done after you went through the trouble of consuming their rare canon to pick up their PH. These people exist in other exchanges but at least there you can game away from them. I wish Yuletide would at least lay out rules for what a minimum viable sign-up should look like, and delete empty the ones that are literally just empty.

I'm easily bugged when things are wildly inconsistent. If someone else is gushing about their amazing assignment and how much of an ID overlap they have with their recip, and I'm staring at a blank sign-up and figuring out if I should default or just write something for the sake of writing, then that sucks for me.

It's treated simultaneously as this big deal, a huge annual event of an exchange, and as something so uber casual that people can basically just sign up with whatever. Don't like that.

(I actually didn't match to a blank sign-up this YT but I very easily could have.)

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

For an exchange that has been around for so long, and also at some point basically served as a model for other exchanges, and provides A LOT of guidance for participants from the side of the mods and various seasoned participants, it's definitely noticeable how many people still manage to disregard rules/guidelines/etiquette.

And many of them are not newcomers but people who have done it for many times. But I guess if this has worked for them for so long, and they don't participate in other exchanges, and are not on meme, they probably just don't see much of a reason to change anything, or don't even consider that they could.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

Right because the dumb shit you make up "on meme" isn't actual etiquette.

Sneering at people who disregard "guidelines and etiquette" (shit you and your buddies invented) is part of why Yuletide isn't growing. People want to do an exchange, not join a cult.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

you are so damaged lmfao

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

I think a lot of the other exchanges have shared participants and a lot of mod overlap, and have over time developed a kind of general exchange culture which relies on people either being on ffa or the bfe discord to pick up all those unwritten rules. But I don't think Yuletide is necessarily a part of that specific exchange culture and it's irritating when people try to impose those norms onto yuletide.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

Lol what. Proper use of "any" and "DNWs" is not something people on meme invented, it's literally part of the official Yuletide rules and the mods talk about it at great length every year ... and yet plenty of Yuletide regulars still can't figure out how to write DNWs that don't contradict their requests.

If you are one of those people, then yes, my comment was directed specifically at you.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, Yuletide does provide guidelines for minimum viable signup, it's request at least three nominated fandoms, offer at least four, and have an AO3 account. Regulars who do that are regulars who do yuletide because they like yuletide's laid-back minimums.

I wish people would stop doing Yuletide and complaining that it's Yuletide and not some other exchange.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I don't find dealing with blank or minimal sign-up details laid-back on the writer side.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

DC

Okay, but that's a you issue. Plenty of other people are perfectly happy to write for blank or minimal signups or even prefer them, and Yuletide has always run on the baked-in expectation that optional details are optional for both the recipient to provide and the writer to follow.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

DC

Yeah, I think the reason it is such a big deal huge annual event of an exchange is because it's so casual that people can basically just sign up with whatever. A no-characters blank signup is completely within the letter and spirit of the rules, and so is filling a request with anything you feel like writing that includes the nominated characters and respects DNWs. It's always been geared more as a "generate more fic for these fandoms and characters that have so little people will hopefully be delighted to see almost anything" event than a "produce fic very closely tailored to the recipient's desired ship dynamics and preferred tropes" event.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

It's always been geared more as a "generate more fic for these fandoms and characters that have so little people will hopefully be delighted to see almost anything" event than a "produce fic very closely tailored to the recipient's desired ship dynamics and preferred tropes" event.

I don't think this has been any kind of consensus in a while. People can and do get their rare fandom fic outside of Yuletide, and in turn this means some of them are a lot pickier in Yuletide.

For instance, meme just had a massive wank about whether fic featuring two requested characters but not much interaction between them would be a bad gift.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

This. I participate in Yuletide precisely because a literally empty sign-up is an acceptable sign-up. I like writing for empty sign-ups. I like being able to throw together a sign-up in thirty minutes or less.

In contrast, I find the very concept of having to sort through freeform tags to sign up to an exchange exhausting, so I don't even look at any exchanges that use them. I'm glad they're out there for people who like them, but they are very Not For Me.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

The freeform exchanges are exhausting to me as well. I've done some but I find them kind of stressful and often I have found that the freeform tags are not as helpful for creating a "perfect match" as it may seem.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

I get that the freeform tags makes it easier to match people versus having to look through signups and letters, but I really haven’t enjoyed it in the single fandom exchanges I’ve done recently. However, I also like exchanges with 30-40 participants best, where doing some hand matching isn’t a big deal.

I do think people expecting a perfect match in Yuletide is leading to a lot of discontent. I always remember my first time, 20 years ago, when I offered every canon I knew thinking it was helpful, and got matched on a book I didn’t care about at all with a no details, non-canon pairing request I’d never even thought of. I ended up with something I liked and that still gets kudos today, and the challenge of writing it set how I think about Yuletide (ie I’ve never had anything that hard that I was so disconnected from again, but I do embrace the challenge of it being something unfamiliar, unless I happen to be really into a small fandom that year).

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I am also not a fan of freeform exchanges.

I would not mind empty sign-ups if I actually knew for sure that an empty sign-up meant the recipient was cool with whatever, rather than them having implicit assumptions about what kind of gift someone might write to them and then (potentially) being bitterly surprised. Like for example, I love writing whump, but I wouldn't write graphic whump for an empty or minimal sign-up, especially one that sounds like they've lowkey forgotten whump or darkfic exists.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

You don't seriously wish that, then there'd be no coal!

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

lol insane and entitled.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah I like Yuletide because it's culturally resistant to the profoundly offputting neurotic exchange culture you're evangelizing in this comment.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

DC

And a lot of people enjoy that exchange culture. Which is part of why Yuletide isn't growing.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

Dc I really don't think that's why yuletide's not growing though. The other exchanges who do have a bunch more stuff mandated are all much smaller and not exactly wildly expanding either, except when one ends and all its participants go to another one. It kind of feels like all the people who want that kind of exchange have already found them. Limited growth potential.

I suspect there *is* a larger number of people who'd do a super low effort holiday exchange but they aren't finding yuletide anymore because of all the culture around it of other stuff.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe Yuletide isn't growing because too many Yuletide regulars are assholes like you

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

oh no a one sentence thank you! the horror! the suffering! lol get a fucking grip.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Yes, long comments can be nice. A short comment is still an acknowledgment! Someone who leaves a single-sentence thank you is okay, actually.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

Have you heard of the rule Optional Details are Optional?

I agree with some of your other points, but it is wild to me that you think someone with a blank sign-up is doing Yuletide wrong.

Re: Why isn't Yuletide growing?

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

Sorry, are you genuinely suggesting that people should just write whatever the hell they feel like (as long as it fulfills the request) for a blank sign-up?

Obviously I could do that and just write for myself within the constraints of the request, but depending on some my own likes that I incorporate it, odds are high I'd include something that would make it unreadable for the recipient. And I don't want that? Because it's a gift? And I don't want to Ruin Christmas(TM)?