Update

[worldbuildingmod]

No one has objected to the proposed schedule so I will use that; I will update the sticky post, set things up on AO3* and post an announcement on tumblr shortly (ETA: tumblr announcement will be delayed, as I am having trouble logging in). Tag set nominations will open tomorrow.

On the other changes I suggested:

• Tags: I will alter "Worldbuilding:" to "WB:" and "No Characters" to "Any or No Characters" (however, this isn't quite the same sense as the "Any" tickbox that AO3 allows).
  
• Defaulting: I have decided not to institute a default penalty at this stage. There will still be a default deadline in the sense of "please think carefully about whether you will finish, because if not it would be good to give a pinch hitter longer", as was the case last year. (I reserve the right to deal with any participants who repeatedly fail across multiple rounds to submit their work, and don't default in a timely fashion without good reason, under the "good faith" section of the rules.)
  
• Freeforms: I'm going to stick to Fanfiction, Fanart and Meta, but rename Meta to "In-universe meta" for clarity. (I have been persuaded that the distinction between fic and meta is worth preserving, as a way of signalling how much or how little plot is OK.) I will make a separate opt-in post at the same time as the letter post where people can express their openness to other formats, including podcasts, vids, IF and any other good suggestions people make between now and then.

*The AO3 collection will be moderated this round, to try to guard against the bug where some works randomly pop up revealed when first posted to the collection.

Exchange Information, Guidelines, Rules, etc. - Round 2

[worldbuildingmod]

( The Basics )

( Nominations )

( Sign ups )

( Assignments )

( General )

Nominations information

[worldbuildingmod]

The tag set is now open for nominations (slightly ahead of schedule).

You have 5 fandom slots and for each fandom, 7 character slots and 5 "relationship" slots, used for worldbuilding elements.

Please read the following information carefully before you begin nominating; I would be very grateful if everyone can format their nominations in line with these guidelines, to minimise the amount of clean up I need to do later. I am hoping not to encounter the issues reported by other exchanges recently with the approval and editing interface, but I would rather make things as straightforward as possible on the back-end in case there are problems.

Please ignore the instruction on the nominations page to choose the canonical tag if available. This is hard-coded in the AO3 interface and I cannot change it, but in most cases canonical tags will not be the correct ones for our purposes. (They are more likely to wander than others, for one thing.)

Fandoms

• Almost all fandoms are eligible, as are Original Works. There are no notability requirements.
  
• RPF is not eligible -- see here.
  
• Crossovers between different canons are not eligible, unless the crossover took place within canon. In these cases, a separate fandom nomination should be made of the crossed over canons. It may be helpful to contact the mod with evidence of the existence of the crossover if it is not easily google-able.
  
• Please nominate fandoms in a way that makes clear the scope of the canon material that is fair game for the creator to draw on. It is fine if this means that fandoms overlap with one another, and if fandoms end up in "Uncategorized Fandoms" because we're using non-AO3-canonical names.
  
• Please check already approved tags to see if someone has already nominated the fandom you want with a slightly different naming format.
  

Characters

• Please include "Any or No Characters" and "Original Character(s)" as character tags for any fandom you nominate, unless they are already in the tag set. (Being able to include these is the reason for the two extra character slots compared with the other categories.)
  
• "Any or No Characters" replaces last year's "No Characters" and is used in sign ups to express willingness to receive/create works where worldbuilding is the primary focus. (If you choose this tag in your offer, you will be able to DNW the appearance of certain characters in your sign up.)
  
• Canon characters, characters implied to exist by canon but not directly depicted, and specific original characters in the setting are all OK.
  
• Please disambiguate all nominated tags (including "Any or No Characters" and "Original Character(s)" with the name of the fandom in brackets afterwards, e.g. "Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)". You may use abbreviations in the disambiguation, so long as they are clear. If you are nominating in an already-approved fandom, please try to use the same disambiguation as the already-approved tags.
  

Worldbuilding elements

• Worldbuilding elements are nominated in the "Relationship" field, with the prefix "WB: " (this is a change from last year's "Worldbuilding: "), e.g. "WB: Goblin rebellions (Harry Potter - all media)".
  
• Please do not nominate actual relationships in the format A/B or A&B. The name "Relationship" is hard-coded in AO3, but we are using that field for worldbuilding elements.
  
• Worldbuilding elements should be things that it would be reasonable for a creator to extrapolate about from existing information in canon. Note that most types of AU are not covered by this, so please do not nominate ideas for mundane, magical realism, etc. AUs as worldbuilding tags. (auexchange is probably what you're looking for for this sort of thing.) Canon-divergent AUs that exist within canon (e.g. Star Trek's mirrorverse) are fair game. It is also fine to request canon-divergent AUs in your optional details.
  
• Please disambiguate all nominated tags with the name of the fandom in brackets afterwards, as for characters.
  

Browsing last year's tag set may or may not make some of these points clearer.

Please note that fandoms that are nominated with significant problems (e.g. actual relationships nominated instead of worldbuilding tags) may have to be rejected so that other approvals can proceed. I will give at least 48 hours' notice before doing this so that nominators have a chance to adjust their nominations.

Any questions, do ask, either by commenting here or emailing worldbuildingmod@gmx.com

Potentially complex fandoms brainstorming post

[worldbuildingmod]

Some AO3 fandom tags are unfortunately not particularly useful for our purposes, in terms of making the scope of the material to be considered clear.

Tags for one of the prime examples of this have in fact already been nominated, in the shape of Harry Potter.

The canonical "Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling" tag is not, to my way of thinking, clear enough, as there are many sources of information that might be extrapolated from, including:

• The original seven Harry Potter books
  
• The eight films adapted from them
  
• Information from the Pottermore website
  
• The Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them film
  
• The Cursed Child play/script
  

Last year, we had three categories: "Harry Potter - Books Only", being the first bullet point above and only the first; "Harry Potter - Wizarding World", meaning all possible sources; and also "Harry Potter - Wizarding Schools Around The World", which was based on a specific extra piece which people may or may not still be interested in. It does seem to me that both Fantastic Beasts and Cursed Child have gained much wider currency in fandom since the last round, so it may be worth having a different set of subdivisions.

Please use the comments of this post to discuss how Harry Potter should be split up, and then make/adjust nominations as necessary.

ETA: Thanks for the Harry Potter replies so far. I'm still thinking about the best way to deal with this particular fandom.

(Please note that I have approved "Middle Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien", taking this, as last year, to be construed as broadly as possible - i.e. all Tolkien's various works set in Middle Earth. I am in the process of adjusting these tags so that they can be distinguished from film-based ones if we end up with "Middle Earth - Peter Jackson Movies" as well, as we did last year. I am also open to the idea of more restricted Tolkien tags running alongside the broad Middle Earth one, if people want them.)