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]

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. ^^;