Reveal of Contributors' Names & Wrap-Up

[morbane]

I have made creators' names visible on the archive. Feel free to promote your work under your own name.

Thank you to everyone, especially to Measured_Words for tag wrangling, to silverr, Flamebyrd, fleurlb, Zdenka, seekingferret, Merfilly, merryghoul, and IShouldBeWriting for pinch hitting, and to seekingferret and Measured_Words for discussing rules with me before the start of this round. Thanks also goes to paraka, chestnut_filly, originally, and akamine_chan for discussing podfic with me, and hm_f for discussing art.

As usual, I really enjoyed running this exchange and I'm glad about everyone who participated. However, everything can be improved, and if the exchange didn't work for you in some way, I'm interested in hearing about that too. Feel free to comment on this post - anonymous comments are enabled, if you prefer.


So - there's a bit of a difference between running this while working more than full-time, and running this while working part-time, who'd have thought? :) I was sad I didn't write any treats or pick up any pinch hits, despite saying I intended to be the last-resort pinch hitter. Next year I should have a little more time. Don't worry, though I intend to keep commenting on this year's works.

(I should also confess that when I said "it seems like one pinch hit has been held up," that was due to a miscommunication. My fault, not the pinch hitter's.)

I think next year I will make the period between deadline and reveal a full week. That is easier on pinch hitters, and allows for more treating.

I know anon periods don't work for everyone. At present, I would like to keep one in this exchange, because I enjoy them a lot and they help me comment swiftly. But if there is a clear preference from participants that this should change, I will listen to you. And for those of you who dislike anon periods, if there's something else I can do that would make them less annoying, please suggest it.

This year, I included art and podfic. Do you have any thoughts on how that worked out?

Any general thoughts are welcome.

ETA

Please remember that if you defaulted and you do not comment on the gift(s) you received, you may not sign up to Jukebox again. To reverse that ban, comment on your gift. If there are extenuating circumstances, like unexpected triggers, please talk to me.

I expect to run this exchange at about the same time next year, though I may start one or even two weeks earlier.

Another general question: what kind of preferences do people have for the times of day, or time of week, that deadlines happen or collections are revealed? If you could name the perfect time for a deadline or reveal for you, what would it be? (Please state the region, of course.)

Don't forget to check out any thoughts people may have posted on the parallel journal, jukebox-fest.livejournal.com.

Comments

[hagar_972]

Thank you for running this! And another thanks to Measured_Words for the wrangling.

I like the anon period, myself. As others already noted, there's a value to not knowing who created what. I find it heightens the gift-exchange feel, and contributes to the social aspect. I do agree the anon period should be kept to 1-3da - long enough to give people a fair chance to go through the works, but no longer than that (as that's liable to make people antsy and fidgety).

I like the mixed media thing. I'm fond of that sort of work in general, and it seems it really enriched things for this exchange in particular. The podfic option may needs a bit of reworking, though. I wonder if it would be possible to work a pod_together-style option, i.e., a writer and a podficcer signing up together. This might significantly up the number of podfics created for this exchange. (On the AO3 end - possibly have only one member of the team submit a signup form, with the other member confirming on PM or email?) I know that if such an option was available this year, I'd absolutely volunteer for it.

[morbane]

Thanks for this feedback! And you're welcome.

Huh. Would you like to expand on your preference for a 1-3-day anon period? To me, 1 or 2 days is not at all a fair chance to go through the works, and doesn't feel like much of a buffer if one wants to gauge a work's reception before potentially putting it in an anonymous collection, which is one use I have seen people cite for the anon period.

(Though to be honest, I am unlikely to make it that short anyway.)

I can see some upsides and downsides for a pod-together version. It would be preferable to offer podfic artists a way to participate that matched existing podfic challenges more closely. But I am not sure how I feel about some people in an exchange getting a written fic, and some people getting both a written and a recorded fic - that feels unequal. It would seem seem to mean that some participants had less time for their assignment than others, and that certain people's assignments would depend on two people fulfilling their part of the work, while others just one... Hm. I don't know. It sounds like running podfic as a mini-challenge within the challenge, which may be what I'm doing anyway, but I am wary of the idea.

The podfic option may need a bit of reworking, though. Yeah, quite probably... Could you suggest where the largest obstacles or discouragements lie, in this year's set-up?

[hagar_972]

I suspect there's a bias inherent in me being a fast reader who usually gets through the collection relatively quickly, hence the "three days is enough". The specific number is not something I feel particularly strongly about; I do think a week is way too long given people do get terribly anxious, but given what you said on other threads this can be set aside.

I think the primary issue with integrating podfics into this exchange is that there's a terribly small pool to work with. I hang out with podficcers enough to have an appreciation for how much of a block that would be. This would be why I thought about a PT-style signup, as this way the podficcer won't be restricted to existing works. (There shouldn't be an issue with the writer-podficcer team receiving one gift.) You are right that the issue would then become that some people would receive text-only, some podfic-only, and some both. One way to approach this would be to set a lower minimum for team-signups, e.g. 500 words/5min of audio instead of 1000 words/10min of audio. Another would be simply to raise the issue explicitly, and ask teams to take that into consideration.

A third way would be to consider whether this is even a problem and if so, why. Some gifts will always be fancier than others. Someone may create multiple gifts for their recipients, or gifts of multiple media (as we already have fic and graphics) or someone may write something way longer. The one way in which PT-style teams would be different is that they're built-in - when you assign a PT team to someone, you know that person is going to get a gift in two media. On the other hand, this is likely to facilitate podfficer participance outside of podfic-specific spaces, which I personally am invested in. (I considered integrating podfic into the last Purimgifts, but eventually decided that's not for my first year modding. Purimgifts rules are also different in ways that affect podfic integration, so. But "How to integrate podfic into not-podfic-specific exchange" is something I've been thinking about a while.) This brings me back to: raise the point with the teams, and ask them to keep it in mind. I've been doing PT and PT-L for a few years now, and my experience is that the sort of people drawn to that kind of work are likely to be good about something like this.

[raspberryhunter]

Yeah, I personally would see nothing wrong with someone getting fic+pod for their gift and I just getting fic (for instance). I mean, some people get treats, some don't; some get really great stories and some don't, so it's never going to be equal anyway.

But then I am a fan of the Yuletide model, which prioritizes a variety and number of works over equality of gifts. (Somewhere seekingferret wrote a post on this, but I'm too lazy to find it.)

I do like your idea for lowering the limit to 500 words for a writer-podfic team, as I think it would also lower the bar for that kind of partnership, which sounds really cool to me.

[hagar_972]

But then I am a fan of the Yuletide model, which prioritizes a variety and number of works over equality of gifts.

I never did feel comfortable in the Yuletide atmosphere; my "home" exchange is Purimgifts, where there's an actual maximum word limit and an atmosphere that tries to make it not an extravaganza. On the other hand, that doesn't mean people aren't trying to do their best or "win" at some standard, just that this drive gets channeled in different ways. (And, well, the upper word limit is... loosely enforced.)

There seems to be a huge ovelap between Purimgifts and Jukebox participants: I recognized about a third of this round's participants from last Purimgifts.

The thing that makes a lot of things okay at Purimgifts is that there's no expectation of certain things, and frequent reminders of that. For example, (at least) three pieces of some sort of art are mandatory; you can do more or you can make them fancy, but clip-art is absolutely okay and bad photoshopping is practically a celebrated tradition. So "bad" art is not a bad gift, but rather part of the Purim-play.

Which makes me think integrating podfic into Jukebox may be a lot about how it's framed - and that might be part of why I reached for the PT model, because something that gets emphasized at PT over and over again is that co-created text and podfic are a single work in more than one media, and not two works (with one adapted off the other into a different medium). This may sound like hair-splitting but, having participated in PT and PT-L a bunch of times, I can say that when the PT process works right it really is like that - there's a synergy in the process.

*checks* The creation period this year was 7 weeks. The creation period on PT-L is 3 weeks, and the minimum is 100 words (this is exceeded almost always). The creation period on PT is 9 weeks this year, and the minimum is 1000 words/10min of audio (and again often exceeded, though not quite as drastically). So, having the Jukebox standard for a PT-style collab be somewhere in between these measures should be right on the mark. (And it makes sense for it to be lower, since two people need time enough, not just the one. And podfic editing can get crazy work-intense.)

[morbane]

Conversely, I tried Purimgifts twice before deciding it stressed me out too much... (Which, I will emphasise, had nothing to do with the attitude of either mods or other participants, who were encouraging and communicated clearly.)

But your point about the overlap between Jukebox and Purimgifts is interesting, because it makes me wonder if people see Jukebox as more Purimgifts-like than I do, in some interesting way.

[hagar_972]

It's possible that the mixed media option is part the reason for the high overlap, but I'll need to look at previous years' signup data to know. There's also a social circle effect - both are smallish exchanges, and all it takes is one person doing both and having fun, and two years later you get this sort of an overlap through word-of-mouth.

(Also, somewhat off-topping: I'm modding purimgifts as of this year. If you want to, you're absolutely welcome - encouraged, even - to contact me however is good for you [PM, the purimgifts mod email] and explain what was stressful to you about purimgifts. There's one factor I know was a problem - the last-minute-y schedule - and addressing that issue is one of the key reasons I was added to the team. But if there's anything more, I really do want to know.)

[morbane]

I'm happy to say publicly what I found stressful about Purimgifts, because I don't think it reflects poorly on anyone. I personally found it stressful to create art as well as write, and on top of that I have little knowledge of Jewish culture, and felt nervous about the possibility of saying or showing something dumb. That's too much stress at once.

You can tell someone "Bad art is okay" as clearly and cheerfully as you like, but if their idea of having fun in an exchange does not include making bad art, being told it's okay doesn't help. And although there are free image editing software programs with good tutorials available, sufficient to make bad art, my lack of experience was still a barrier because I wasn't used to thinking up art ideas. That gave extra time pressure. It felt like I was doing several assignments at once: coming up with one (or more) story ideas that felt worth producing as an idea; coming up with one or more art ideas; learning my way around the image manipulation or hosting requirements of my art ideas (filters? Creative Commons? eep); trying to figure out the balance between having, say, no Jewish culture content, which at least was permissible, and between trying to use my participation in the fest to learn something more about Judaism & Jewish culture and incorporate it in a thoughtful way. Oh, and possibly canon review. For possibly several different canons.

Were some of those stresses self-imposed and to too high standards? Absolutely.

The schedule isn't a problem; all the factors I mention existing in parallel is. So, I don't think I'll take part in future years, but I don't think anything about the exchange ought to change. And in fact, having fewer exchanges to tempt me, personally, is no bad thing. ^^;

[raspberryhunter]

*nods* A lot of this seems familiar from seekingferret's post (which morbane did in fact link below). I have never done Purimgifts, partially because I'm much more comfortable in the Yuletide paradigm.

To me Jukebox falls in a sort of a sweet spot -- it is optimized for producing lots of songfic, like Yuletide, rather than for being an optimal gift exchange, like Purimgifts (as seekingferret would say) -- but because of the small size and the (Purimgifts-heavy? :) ) particular set of participants (many of which I either know or have started to recognize at this point), there also isn't the kind of drama that can consume Yuletide.

Re the overlap between Purimgifts and Jukebox participants: I do think there's a fairly heavy social-circle effect. But I also wonder if the same kinds of people are drawn to these smaller-sized, small-canon-friendly kinds of challenges.

[morbane]

I remember that post too - I think it's this one? http://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/58108.html

[raspberryhunter]

Yes!

[morbane]

I was nodding along while reading this (well, with a few caveats) - and then pulled up a little short at your comment: (There shouldn't be an issue with the writer-podficcer team receiving one gift.) Really? You don't think someone who signed up with their writer friend, or their podficcing friend, would mind that someone was trying to tailor a gift to one or the other of them? Or, somehow, both of them?

I think that a 500-word minimum for a combined new-fic-and-podfic would allay both my doubts about some gifts being larger than others, and about some participants doing more work, or to a shorter timeframe, than others. I can already see how I would adjust matching. (I'm still a bit unclear on what my mod requirements would be for organising teams of people - I assume that, mostly, people who signed up to do this would already be used to working in teams and have a partner in mind? Or plan to do both parts themselves, of course.)

On the other hand, this is likely to facilitate podfficer participance outside of podfic-specific spaces, which I personally am invested in.

Indeed - and if Jukebox's current set-up is unfriendly or unappealing to podficcers, there's not much point in me saying that podfic is included.


We will definitely agree to disagree about 3 days being sufficient to get through the collection. :) I aim to comment heavily. Further, there was only one long-ish work this year; past years have had multiple long works.

[hagar_972]

Yes, I really think there shouldn't be a problem. I'm thinking of this very last purimgifts, where I had a team of two writers sign up as one, with the understanding they'll receive only one gift (per purimgifts definitions of "one"), without this being anywhere stated in the rules. People who're willing to sign up as a team to a mixed-mode exchange know what they're getting into, and the willingness to do that exists.

What I was thinking, with team signups, is that teams need to signup as already formed - i.e. writer and podficcer finding each other, then only one of them filling the form on AO3, noting that they're a team; the other part of the team would then need to verify via PM or email. This way matching can run precisely as it did before from a mod-perspective.

If you do want to also have team-matching, the people to talk to would be the retiring mods on PT-L; they made a mention of having a software they use to match participants (it'll be passed on to the inheriting mod team). I have no idea whether that'll be possible to integrate into the existing Jukebox structure, but they'll be your best resource to talk to.

That said, the nominations period can also be used for writers and podficcers interested in teamwork to find each other, possibly with a comm post designated for this ("If you'd like to do a writer/podficcer collab on Jukebox, comment here!").

And talk to Paraka again; she seriously knows what she's doing, and possibly she'd be willing to extend a question on your behalf to the PT comm or direct them here to talk about it. (PT is now beginning, so it's an excellent time to ask.)