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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.

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.

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.

SC

Shit that looked like a lot less in the comment box.

FTR, coalie, that wasn't on you. "Enough of the DNW that the writer felt the need to tag for it doesn't count" is not a definition that anybody reasonable has.

dc

That's a case by case basis. For example, someone who has a DNW of unrequested relationships contacts a mod because Bob's parents are tagged as a ship, and the mod reads through to see Bob's parents are mentioned as being in another room existing and the writer literally tags everyone and every ship ever mentioned in their fic. That's not a violation of the DNW, that's a writer who needs to learn how to tag. Coalie's problem was probably something very different but this is the kind of situation mods often have to deal with. I agree with the general sentiment that something major enough to warrant a tag counts as having "enough" to be a DNW violation, but I have also seen too many people who tag like they get paid per added tag.

C Cyrt rt

Yeah there are cases I can think of where it could have ended a lot more happily!

I did hope the tag was added by mistake. My DNW was an action; think something more like DNW: recreational drug use, and the fic was tagged with recreational drug use. Unfortunately not by mistake, but because it contained some lines describing a character’s recreational drug use.

DC

and the writer literally tags everyone and every ship ever mentioned in their fic.

Tangent but I loathe this approach to tagging with the fury of a thousand suns, especially in large fandoms.

Cyrt

I appreciate you saying so, coalie. I still want to kick myself over how I handled that whole thing because I know I would do it differently now. At the time I just felt like a bother.

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

The irony of you posting this on coal.

Where's the irony?

dc

It's ironic like rain on your wedding day. I don't think coalie knows what irony means.

Oh, like ~ironic racism. Lovely.

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