*Notices Yuletide*

[coalcube]

OwO What's This?

Monday 15 to Friday 26 September: Nominations (end 9pm UTC 26 September) | Evidence Post | RPF Coordination | Promo Post
Tuesday 14 to Friday 24 October: Sign-ups (end 9pm UTC 24 October)
Sunday 26 October: Assignments out (may be earlier)
Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

Mini-Challenges:

Crueltide | Femslash Festivus | Yulebuilding | Three Turtle Doves | Two for One | Yuleporn  
Family Matters | Queering the Tide | Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational | TransTide 
Chromatic Yuletide | Unconventionyule | Wrapping Paper | Babytide | MultiLingYule 

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

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Comments

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

My conclusion from this whole thread is never ask anyone for an EPH because it's just not worth it.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

TBH that was already my conclusion long before this thread.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Ask for one if you think you've got a good reason (DNW violation, doesn't contain requested ship/tag, WIP, etc) or don't, but don't let this thread be the reason you shy away from doing so. I've asked for and gotten an EPH without any fuss and the only discussion about it on boards was a general agreement that I was right to ask for one. Asking for an EPH should be normalized as much as being a lingering pinch hit should also be - people shouldn't be made to feel bad for getting what they signed up for if they've participated in good faith and fulfilled their part of the exchange. I'm not saying you should constantly ask for EPHs if you simply don't like your gift, but if you ask for Alex and Bob and someone writes you Carol running over Bob with a car before hooking up with Alex, for fuck's sake, ask for that EPH.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

You do you, but I'd rather reject a month later and forget it happened than have my shit picked over like this or be insulted behind my back in a secret discord.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

+1

If it's not upsetting or clear spitefic, it doesn't sound worth it. I can just treat it as another disappointing gift.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Omg grow up.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks I did! that's why I choose the route that doesn't cause drama and cattiness.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

I'd rather reject a month later and forget it happened

The question is whether you'll be able to do that.

I once didn't ask for an EPH where I should have, had a shitty experience that ruined one of my favorite exchanges for me forever, and I'm still pissed about it years later.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Can you go into this? As "EPH isn't worth it" coalie above I'm legit wondering how you feel like getting an EPH would have un-ruined the experience in those circumstances if it was really that bad. Is it just not having a gift to look back on? Is it the fact that you didn't say anything and it bothers you that you didn't?

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Oh, it's worse! I did say actually something to the mod, I just foolishly waved off the EPH. What I didn't factor in in that moment is that I do exchanges mainly for the gift, so once the initial 'I'm so done with this' annoyance passed, it felt like I wasted so much time and effort on the exchange, and I got a bag full of shit out of it. Over the years I've received a couple of gifts with DNWs in other exchanges and also didn't ask for EPHs, but I always had treats, so those were not terrible experiences overall.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

I've done it three times over the years and just feel mild annoyance when I remember them.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

+1

I would rather participants ask for an EPH in my exchanges than possibly not participate again in fear of getting another gift that's a violation. This situation was not handled well and it makes me sad it's making potential participants feel uncomfortable asking for an EPH that they have every right to ask for.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect it’s one of those things that is going to disproportionately affect the people who were least likely to speak up in the first place. Admittedly that might be projection in my part, but I did exactly that (stop participating in an exchange because I realized I could not trust the mods to deal with problems in my gift) and while I miss that exchange, I would never feel right about participating in anything run by those mods again. It was hard enough to reach out the first time; there was never going to be a second attempt.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Original coalie

Yeah, you're right. It's certain that my willingness to ask for an EPH stems from the fact that the first time I got one was not because I asked, but because my mod caught a major issue before reveals and preemptively gave me one. My second (and last so far) EPH I've gotten was handled quite smoothly as well - it's clear that others have gotten far more indifferent to hostile receptions to their concerns and this debacle likely just reinforces that they can't trust the people they're supposed to be able to.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Cyrt

Pretty much exactly that. I had a great experience with another mod; similar to your first one. I would feel comfortable reaching out to them again in a heartbeat if I had to. But it also set a high bar for how I thought EPHs were handled, especially since we rarely get to see that process in action to know what’s usual, and are largely limited to our own experience, if any, and threads like these.

For the second experience I asked mods to check if my gift had been tagged with my DNW by mistake. Mod replied that the gift did contain the tagged DNW, but only a few lines of it, so then I felt foolish for bothering them because I hadn’t realized they would only be concerned if the DNW happened on some unspecified larger scale. I wasn’t sure how much DNW would count as enough to be bothered by, but I saw it was probably more than “any at all,” and therefore more than I personally found upsetting.

I then felt a bizarre need to reassure the mod that I could just skip over the DNW, which was the stupidest possible thing I could have done, because lying about how bothered I was in order to reassure them (when they clearly needed no reassurance in the first place) ruined the rest of the exchange for me. I felt gross about everything to do with that year, and when my gift the following year had a different problem, I realized I should never have signed up again because I could no longer trust they would handle any issues with my gift.

I can’t put all the blame on them since I played a big part in shaping how negative that experience was for me. It was just the first time I learned “DNW” meant something very different to some people than I had always taken it to mean in the past, and it was unsettling to realize even some mods didn’t see them as all that important.

It has made me more grateful for mods like the first one, though! And the ones who came through for you. I am sure there are lots like them, and if I hadn’t had the first experience before the second one I might not have wanted to keep signing up at all. Even so, I was already less likely to reach out with problems than I would have been before, and after reading this thread? Less still.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

I complained anon about a mod once and they trash talked me for ages in namespace. Exchange mods are frequently vicious.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

The irony of you posting this on coal.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Well, when I say it's not worth it, I mean that I participate in exchanges because I think it's fun to give and receive gifts. If I didn't like my gift, having someone rush to make me an emergency replacement just for quid pro quo won't make me feel any better about the bad gift. The small amount of pleasure I might get from reading an EPH (which let's face it are usually not works of genius) is not going to overwrite whatever bad feelings I had and is probably not worth the trouble of either the mods or the writer. I'd rather just concentrate on the good fic other people wrote for the exchange and my recip's comment.

Add in that if it's spite fic, the EPH might make whatever beef it was worse, and if it's a honest mistake, I've just made the poor writer's mistake public to the whole exchange, I'm probably going to feel worse about the whole thing if there's an EPH involved than if I just refuse the gift quietly. The possibility the mods will handle it poorly on top of that is just a small dollop of extra Not.

If I get a gift that's clearly in violation of the rules, I will email the mods to let them know about an issue they should be aware of, and explicitly say I don't need an EPH (or apology or anything). That's generally enough that I feel confident the mods will (or won't) try to keep it from happening again; whether I get a replacement fic has nothing to do with whether I'm worried about it happening the next time!

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

This reminds me of an EPH I once received because my gift seemed to play fast and loose with a DNW.

The EPH played fast and loose with a different DNW....

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

oh nooooooooo. what do you even do in that situation? reject a month later?

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

but if you ask for Alex and Bob and someone writes you Carol running over Bob with a car before hooking up with Alex, for fuck's sake, ask for that EPH.

LOL, did that person ever get an EPH for that b_o fic?

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

Sad +1 here. My personal bad experience with this was courtesy of the Yuletide mods, but so I would especially caution against contacting them.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

What happened?

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

I'm definitely glad I never went to a mod about either of the borderline fics I received.

Re: Mod Cabal

[(Anonymous)]

One time I received a gift that didn't fulfill the exchange requirements. I told the exchange mod and the mod got me an EPH... that contained a DNW.