Ask any questions here - 2018

[ladybrooke]

Rules/FAQ post will be up tomorrow or Saturday, as soon as I finish writing it up.

In the meantime, here's a post anyone can use to ask questions about the exchange itself. Anon comments are allowed, and comments are not screened.

If there is a question you'd prefer everyone not see, feel free to PM me at any point.

Comments

[exchangebench]

*raises hand* Could I ask for clarification on what group type nominations entail?

Nominate groups as Group: Eliza & Claire, with as many characters as you like.

I'm assuming that means that all characters in the group are required to show up in the gift? (And that, despite the & symbol, the characters in question can be shipped if the requester and gifter are both down for that?)

Thank you!

[ladybrooke]

Exactly, all characters in a group are required to show up.

And yes, the characters can be shipped if both people are down for that - it just isn't required, so if you request shippy fic but the gifter only wants to write non-relationship, they wouldn't have to.

I'll edit the above into the rules now, thanks for pointing that confusion out. :)

[silverr]

I see that the characters I nominated for Isola (Comics) -- Rook and Queen Olwyn - wound up in Uncategorized. Do I need to do anything to fix that, or is that a modly thing?

[ladybrooke]

It was a modly thing and they should be in the right category now!

If you want to know what happened, there's a part in Ao3's tagset approval where if the tag isn't an already canonical tag used exactly the same way, it's a two step approval process - I have to approve it as a nomination, then go to a separate part to associate it with the fandom. Your tags got through the first and then it took me a bit to get to the second.

[wendelah1]

Hi. Thank you for taking on this exchange. I know from personal experience how time-consuming and stressful it can be.

I saved one of the old banners. My graphics skills are basic but I could make some simple ones if you like, and post to the usual communities: fandomcalendar, fandom_on_dw, the single fandom and multiple fandom communities with members who might be interested, even tumblr, I suppose.

[ladybrooke]

Hi! You're welcome for that part.

That would be wonderful! I tried to make banners (and made one not so good one), but well, my laptop is 8 years old and tries to shut down if I even run paint, so banner making doesn't go well. I could even do the actual posting to comms if you wanted to send me the banner, I'd hate to give someone else that much work to do. But I would really appreciate anything!

Banners

[wendelah1]

My desktop is exactly that old. I found an online photo-editing site that let me crop and add text. Since that is the extent of my skills anyway, it worked out okay.

I made five banners. They're already hosted here. Click the thumbnail to see the bigger size. I think they meet the criteria. None is wider than 500 px.



You can save whichever one you like to your own server or just hotlink to mine.

As it happens four of the five are fandoms I am probably going to nominate, though I might swap out The Americans if I'm not too gutted by the series finale on Wednesday night. When do noms close again?

If there is a cap you want me to shrink and add text to use instead of one of these, send it to my user name at gmail etc.

EDIT: I answered my own question--duh it's in the FAQ.

Re: Banners

[ladybrooke]

Sorry for the late reply! Things got a bit hectic for me.

Those banners are great! Thank you so much for making them, especially since your computer is as old as mine is. And thank you for letting me hotlink to them.

I hope the season finale tomorrow goes well, and you're not gutted for The Americans.

MCU

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, I was wondering under which fandom to nominate Wanda and Natasha. Wanda only appears in Avengers movies, Natasha in Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man movies.

As of Infinity War, Okoye (Black Panther), Gamora and Nebula (Guardians of the Galaxy) were also in Avengers movies.

So can they all be nominated under the fandom: the Avengers movies?

Re: MCU

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah, and what about Carol Danvers? We know she's coming into the Avengers Movies thanks to the ending of Infinity War but she hasn't made an appearance yet in the MCU

Re: MCU

[ladybrooke]

Ohhh, that's a tricky one. I'd say yes, go ahead and put her in the Avengers Movies fandom if you want her there since she's implied in an end credits scene and confirmed for the 4th movie. I'd also accept her under Captain Marvel (movie) if someone wanted that, but since it doesn't come out until next year I'm not sure anyone will nom that way.

Re: MCU

[ladybrooke]

Hi! Sorry for the late response.

For the most part, I'm leaving it up to participants about how they want to nom, as long as the character has actually appeared in the movie/book/whatever for megafandoms. So yes, they can all be nominated under the fandom: the Avengers movies, if you want it that way.

Re: MCU

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you very much for your replies! I'm excited! :D

Re: MCU

[ladybrooke]

You're very welcome! I'm glad you're excited! :D

[wendelah1]

Hi. I just submitted my nominations and as per usual, AO3 has defaulted my nomination, "Deviations: The X-Files (comic)" to "The X-Files." It has already been approved, therefore I cannot edit to change it. They are not the same thing. Deviations has different characters because they are a canon AU. Deviations: The X-Files (comic) has been approved two years running by the Yuletide moderators; however, the tags police refuse to give the fandom its own fandom tag. (Yes, I have asked.) "Exchanges are irrelevant." In order for me to offer and request this fandom, you will need to go in and manually change it somehow. I am sorry to be so much trouble.

[ladybrooke]

Hi!

So I have some good news and bad news. I have managed to manually add Deviations: The X-Files comic to the tagset separate from The X-Files. Bad news? It's stuck in the tv category, and I can't change the category part (if I could, I would have forcibly removed The Silmarillion from the movie category prior to this, and added other nominators' fandoms to their correct home).

But if you can accept it being stuck in that weird place and give me a list of the characters you want nommed under it, I can go and manually add them in under Deviations.

And no need to be sorry! It's not your fault.

[wendelah1]

It got stuck in the TV category in Yuletide and Purimgifts, too. No worries. I've still been given two fics in the fandom.

The only Deviations characters appropriate for this exchange are Samantha Mulder (Deviations: The X-Files) and Dana Scully (Deviations: The X-Files).

Thank you. You are very kind.

[ladybrooke]

I'm glad you've still gotten two fics in the fandom!

Those two are in the tagset under Deviations now - if they disappear before requests, let me know, the tagset is being weird tonight.

You're very welcome. :D

[doranwen]

I just wanted to confirm that this is an OR exchange, correct? As far as I know, the only exchange that does AND is Yuletide, but I wanted to be sure, and the Signups section was sparse enough that I couldn't see any details about that whatsoever.

Edit: Just realized the Signups & Offers section also doesn't say how many characters can be requested, just the fandoms - would love to know that, if possible. Thanks! :)

Edit again: And clever me managed to leave off the S at the end of Crossover Groups. So it rejected the entire fandom and the tags with it (am guessing you'd already rejected Crossover Group at some point). What do I do?

[ladybrooke]

This is OR, yeah! I'll add it to the signup info. I'll admit it slipped my mind to phrase it like that (mostly because I've set it up, and I still have to check Ao3's terminology to remember which refers to which matching style).

I was still debating that, actually. Looking at the tagset now, I'll set it at 20 characters per fandom - I don't expect many people will request that many, but that's about half the tags in the larger fandoms which seems fair to me. People have to make some choices if they're there, but aren't forced to basically choose their own noms and nothing else.

PM me the noms you had for Crossover Groups, if you remember them! I'll add them manually to the tagset for you.

[zdenka]

Are we allowed to repeat fandoms in our signup, if we have more than three fandoms overall? (That is, requesting Fandom 1 more than once with different characters or media types.)

[ladybrooke]

Right! As long as there's more than three fandoms overall, fandoms can be repeated for different characters/media types. :D

[zdenka]

Awesome, thanks!

[ladybrooke]

Welcome!

[septmars]

Hi, I'm having trouble with the signups. In the tagset for the Queen's Thief, there are five nominated characters, but when I try to request or offer the Queen's Thief fandom, one character (Helen|Eddis) is missing from the dropdown menu and I can't select her. Am I doing something wrong, or is this an issue with AO3?

[septmars]

Also, this issue crops up in the Greek & Roman mythology tagset too. There are 12 characters in the tagset, but when I tried to offer, some characters (like Clytemnestra and Hecate) are missing.

[ladybrooke]

It's a known bug with Ao3, I'm afraid! I edited the signup post about it, but it's cropping up so much now I'll make a post later this afternoon just about it.

The way to get around it is to copy and paste the character's name directly from the tagset (make sure you get anything in parenthesis, alternate names, etc) into the appropriate request/offer boxes on the signup form. It'll still go through and won't give you the 'character not in tagset' error message, it just takes a bit more time and effort. If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll try to figure out a new workaround.

[septmars]

Okay, I'll try copy pasting the name then. Thank you!

[ladybrooke]

You're welcome! I hope it worked. :)

[(Anonymous)]

So Assignments are out, and There are still Placeholder Letters that are linked in Assignments. (I doubt I am the only one who has this issue.) s it possible to put a reminder out that people, like, I dunno, update their letters?

[ladybrooke]

No problem! Reminder is up now, hopefully it helps.

[(Anonymous)]

May we submit treats that are under the collection's word count at any time or should we wait until it's closer to reveals to do anything?

[ladybrooke]

You can submit treats under the word count at any time!

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much!! I'll label mine as everywoman treats so there won't be confusion in case of defaults.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey! I just wanted to ask, will the collection stay open for posting treats in the week leading up to reveals?

[ladybrooke]

It will stay open! It'll likely be open for treats for a bit after reveals too - I might close it when I start grad school in August (just in case any issues cropping up I wouldn't be around to deal with), but everyone will have ample warning time to get any last minute treats in if I decide to.