One Wank After Another

[coalcube]

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

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)

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Reading the FFA talk now, it's genuinely wild that the FIAB mods are such hardliners when it comes to opt-in mediums but refuse to moderate basic gift quality.

You can't gift someone an unrequested medium because they requested a dozen experimental mediums but not this specific one, oh no, what if they don't want it... but they'll allow badart fills

It's their exchange and they can do what they want but it's just such a weird way to set priorities

[(Anonymous)]

Not really? Those seem like two pretty much completely unrelated things to me. Getting a shitty version of something you asked for is obviously a different situation from getting something you didn't ask for at all, and there's no reason for the rules on one to have any bearing on the rules for the other. Might as well say, "Why do they allow people to give me bad Star Trek gifts when I ask for Star Trek gifts and yet giving people Harry Potter works when they ask for Star Trek is against the rules?" I don't really see the connection.

[(Anonymous)]

NCYRT but I think the idea is that definitely no one wants art this bad, but there's a chance they might have wanted the odd medium, especially if it was as a treat and not as part of their assignment.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, but OTOH, I feel like with unrequested mediums there's a chance of gifting somebody something that's a complete no-go. Like, a shitty piece of art is still a better gift for me that I stand more chance of getting something out of than the most brilliant podfic in the universe, because I can't and won't ever listen to the podfic at all. So as a distinction it still makes sense to me.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd refuse them both, but the art would disappoint me infinitely more if it took up part of the 10k I was owed.

[(Anonymous)]

Another coalie mentioned this but you're not even allowed to give unrequested mediums as treats. I really don't know what the point of that rule is.

[(Anonymous)]

In a way, I get it. I'm glad not to have to DNW or awkwardly reject podfic, crosstitch patterns, recipes, and whatever. But I think if people opt in to treats in any medium, the mods shouldn't say that people can't give those treats, since they're obviously deep-reading signups anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

+10000

[(Anonymous)]

I would much rather prefer having to awkwardly reject a cross-stitch pattern treat once in a while if it meant people were allowed to get a bit more experimental with their treat mediums.

Or FIAB could do a ToT and add a 'You can ignore my medium opt-ins for treats' feature.

[(Anonymous)]

Some people are deaf and obviously can't listen to podfic.It would be really shitty to gift a deaf person a podfic they didn't want and can't hear.

[(Anonymous)]

I can see how it's pointless, but I don't see how it's shitty, because it doesn't take away any of their actual tailored gifts, nor would they necessarily be "expected" to comment on it. Some exchanges, like Bulletproof, have a more "Reject a gift that doesn't work for you at your own leisure" system and do fine.

[(Anonymous)]

They already deal with an entire world that assumes they can hear and has inadequate accommodations for anyone who can't. It'd be nice if their purported gifts didn't make those exact same assumptions.

[(Anonymous)]

DC

In practice it's more like... I wasn't allowed to gift my recip a medium (that was in the tagset, but not in their request) that represented a blend of two other mediums that they did request. Not only will the mods say that's not allowed, they will refuse to ask the recip.

[(Anonymous)]

You could put it in the late treat fest, I guess?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm still okay with that, TBH. If it's in the tagset, then they had the option to request it but didn't, for whatever reason. Maaaybe it was an oversight but surely default assumption should be that they intentionally chose not to request it because they actively do not want it, even if it does seem to have aspects in common with other mediums they did request.

[(Anonymous)]

DC

Frankly, I can't make sense of a lot of the opt-in mediums. I'm sure there are a bunch I'd love to receive, but I look at the tag set, and more than half of it isn't self explanatory, so I'm ending up barely requesting any.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

I do a fine-toothed comb of the tagset and have slightly different opt-in lists for each fandom (because I hate having medium opt-ins that feel completely wrong for the fandom, and I also have major FOMO). It's an OCD thing and my preferred way to do FIAB but it's so exhausting that I can pretty safely assume most people aren't doing that. They're picking a few mediums that stick out to them and maybe picking an Any X Medium or two if they're feeling adventurous. They probably won't be doing research on the difference between "A Softer World Style Art" and "A Softer World Style Panels", especially when that info isn't on the Dreamwidth.

[(Anonymous)]

CYRT

I think that would hold water if the tagset were 1% of its size. But in practice it looks like this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dHzQ2QSNywKZ__5PK37CQ8KgKvfcPF9d_8NIPLFJHYQ/edit?gid=0#gid=0

The two times I had this happen with recips I was friendly enough with to ask (because I was taken with the idea and wanted to know if they'd be okay with that kind of treat outside of the collection), it was oversight - not even noticing that thing was in the tagset.

[(Anonymous)]

DC

I think you might be assuming it's something like "Someone requested art but not podfic, so it's probably not an oversight that they don't want podfic". In reality it's a lot more granular and the medium freeforms clash with requested ships in weird ways. If someone requests Alien fanart with WB: The Nostromo, they'd probably enjoy art of a ship schematic, right? But ship schematic is its own medium separate from fanart, so you can't gift them that if they didn't opt into that specific art tag.

[(Anonymous)]

No, I'm also assuming that just because someone wants, say, worldbuilding fanart of a spaceship does not necessarily mean they're also going to want a ship schematic, which is a different kind of thing that they didn't opt into. (Good example, actually, because while I can see how you would get there I would also argue that, say, an atmospheric painting of a ship's engine room scratches a very different itch than a set of blueprints and there's still no reason to assume it's an oversight that someone might want one but not opt into the other.)

[(Anonymous)]

The umbrella breakout could be something like: fic mediums, visual mediums, audible mediums, audio-visual mediums, and special mediums (sewing patterns, recipes). You can DNW any umbrella(s) except fic since that's already the rule and you can DNW specific kinds of things under the umbrella. Optional medium tags within those umbrellas are optional. You might opt in to various forms of fanart while DNWing anything audible or audio-visual or vice-versa, and your tags are suggestions of but not binding contracts for the things you'd like to have.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

This system would be so much better. And you could actually match on the umbrella medium.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm actually kind of wistful over how much less frustrating that would be to create for.

[(Anonymous)]

Not just to create for, but also to request!

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

Someone who's opted into fifty different mediums and talks in their letter about how much they love weird formats is much more likely to enjoy another weird medium that they didn't cover with their request than basically any recip is likely to enjoy art like this.