worldbuildingex | Nominations Queries Post 2

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nominations

Nominations Queries Post 2

Tag set | REVISED countdown to close of noms

Again, I haven't managed to clear through all tags but I have a sufficiently large number of queries to make this worthwhile. As previously, there may be tags I have not yet seen which I should also be querying - please continue to watch the comm, but if you think that your tags may be affected by an issue raised here, even if they aren't listed, do feel free to ask.

Change to closing time for nominations

An event which I have to attend, and that I had scheduled around, has been brought forward to this Wednesday, with the effect that I now won't be online to close noms at 1655 UTC. As a result, I've put back the time I'm going to do this to 2055 UTC on Wednesday, so you have an extra four hours to nominate - please note that times for other phases of the exchange are not affected, and will continue to be 1655 UTC.

Fandom scope

I have approved both of the following but just want to check that my understanding of the scope matches that of the nominators:

Doctor Who & Related Fandoms - this is potentially very broad in scope given the number of spin-offs in various media (and spin-offs of spin-offs) which there have been over the years.
Men in Black Movies - the nominated tags for this all seem to relate to the Will Smith films, but I would take the tag to include Men in Black: International as well.

No need to comment if you don't want changes, but the tags can be moved to more specific fandom tags if you would prefer - let me know.

I have not approved "Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling", and (barring a sudden outbreak of consensus in HP fandom about the status of later works) am unlikely to do so as I do think different people have different perceptions of the scope of the tag. Please could the nominator let me know what the intended scope is, so that we can find an appropriate tag to use? (For what it's worth, the nominated tags are Original Black Family Character(s), Original Lovegood Character(s), Original Patil Character(s), Original Potter Family Character(s), WB: Grindelwald's War, WB: Spells Research and Development, WB: Wizarding Family Histories, WB: Wizarding Higher Education.)

I have begun approving Original Work nominations. Following the discussion in previous posts, I will not be approving the umbrella "Original Work" tag; please adjust your nominations to put them into specific genres (eg so far we have "Original Work - Omegaverse", "Original Work - Urban Fantasy", etc.). Any tags that remain in "Original Work" at the end of noms will be assigned to a subfandom at my discretion.

I am also still holding off on "Original Work - Low Fantasy" as, following some further research, I have become convinced that the term has quite distinct meanings in different fannish subcultures, and therefore there is quite a high risk of a mismatch between requests and offers.

Group/"Any [X]" nominations

Beyond the "default" tags, nominations should be for specific canon characters, or types of original characters. Very rarely a group that is always a group in canon may be allowed where appropriate in context (e.g. where a hive mind occupies multiple bodies). In general, though, groups or ships involving differentiated characters (e.g. "The Avengers", "Steve Rogers/Tony Stark") and "Any [type of character that could be canon or original]" nominations are not accepted; however, I can definitely see how confusion may have arisen here, so apologies for that. (I do not intend to make any changes for this round, but I have already made a note for when I ask for feedback at the end of the exchange about whether people would like to use the Character field more expansively in future; it seems that some participants may well want to do so.)

The following tags will not be approved, please amend them:

Animal Crossing - Villager Character of Your Choice (Animal Crossing)
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Mirkwood Elves, Thorin's Company (I could just possibly be persuaded on "Mirkwood Elves"?)
Infinity Train - Any Reflection(s)
Star Wars - New EU - I amended Naboo Handmaiden(s) to Original Naboo Handmaiden(s); if you want canon handmaidens such as Cordé and Sabé please nominate them separately

Specifc queries

Hidden Legacy Series - Ilona Andrews - the worldbuilding tags for this fandom are all disambiguated "(Hive Mind)" - I assume this is just a typo and I can amend it to "(Hidden Legacy)"?
Killjoys (TV) - The Greenspace (Killjoys (TV)) - is this a character or worldbuilding tag? If the latter please add "WB: " at the beginning.

Fandoms which need tags adding

The following seem to be missing one or both of "Any or No Characters" and "Original Character(s)":

Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Mass Effect Trilogy
Silicon Valley (TV)
Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy
Stargate: Atlantis, SG-1, and Universe
Veep (TV)
The Worst Witch (TV 2017)

(NB I am also concerned that the worldbuilding tags for Veep and Silicon Valley seem to be AU prompts rather than elements of canon worldbuilding. Please clarify.)

The Sixth World - Rebecca Roanhorse has the default character tags, but no worldbuilding tags - please add at least one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hidden Legacy nominator here -- yes, sorry, that was a mistake! Just went in and they're now fixed on my end.

Not the nominator -- for Killjoys (TV), The Green (which is how the characters refer to it, but I could see why it'd be called The Greenspace) is a location and should probably be a worldbuilding tag.

Thanks; judging by where it comes in the list, I think it most likely is in a Relationship slot, but unfortunately AO3 doesn't show me unambiguously.

Nominator here! You're right it could/should just be the Green. For some reason, my brain is still stuck on the one time Khlyen called it the Greenspace back when it was first introduced. Thanks for stepping in. :)

I'll add this to my list for cleanup once the tag set's closed. Thanks!

Great, thank you!

I nominated Low Fantasy but I think Magical Realism could work too? I hesitate at Urban Fanatsy because I may request modern or historic farm settings or other rural/outdoor/ocean settings and those are decidedly not Urban.

I think in the previous discussion at least some of the other "Low Fantasy" nominators felt that Magical Realism was too narrow for what they intended. If you want to change your own tags to that, though, feel free.

Men in Black (Movies) nominator - yes, I did intend to only request and offer the Will Smith movies, and not MIB: International. If there are potential participants who wouldn't consider that too restricting, I'd welcome a disambiguation.

Would "Men in Black Trilogy" work?

(On your broader point: if other participants want a less restrictive tag, they can nominate it themselves. My concern would be you requesting it and receiving unwanted MIB:I elements in your gift.)

Men in Black (Original Trilogy), maybe? Thank you <3

That seems nicely unambiguous. I'll change it later; it's a little bit of an involved process!

Thank you very much <3

Hi, Worst Witch nominator here. I made a typo in my sign up & put "Any or No Characters (Doctor Who)" instead of "Any or No Characters (The Worst Witch)" and as it's an approved tag I can't edit it (that'll teach me to copy and paste!). Is there any way you're able to edit that? I can screenshot the issue if it helps!

Thanks for explaining! I can fix that on the back end; I'll approve the rest and put adding the other tag onto my clean-up list for after noms close.

Thank you & sorry to add to your pile of work!

Not sure if this is the place to mention it - and not sure if there is anything you are able to do regardless - but the following all appear in Uncategorized Fandoms when they ought to appear in Books & Literature:

Cat's Paw - LA Taylor
Heart of Gold series - Sharon Shinn
Swallows in Spring - Rosemary Sutcliff

Yeah, that's an AO3 tag wrangling thing - if someone creates a work on AO3 for them, for worldbuildingex or for any other reason, they'll (eventually) get a canonical AO3 fandom tag that will be categorized into the right place. But until then they're stuck in the Uncategorized section.

I'm one of the nominators for Sanctuary (TV). I nominated WB: Underground Sanctuary. I see that the tagset has both that and WB: The New Underground Sanctuary. I think - although I could be wrong - that there's no need for both tags. IIRC, there was only ever one underground Sanctuary. Feel free to remove my tag, if that's easiest.

OK, I'll add that to my list for cleanup once the tag set's closed. Thank you!

To clarify, for original works, should we also specify the subgenre for characters? For example, should it be: "Original Alien Character (Original Work - Sci-fi)"?

Yes please! Also, please make sure you've included "Any or No ..." and "Original ..." - there are a few OW noms currently awaiting them. (AO3 can't do anything as clever as have them inherit those tags from the umbrella fandom, or similar, unfortunately.)

I really like the idea of this exchange and I've been trying for a week to figure out how to get involved, but all the instructions are *too* specific and cover the concerns of people who already know what they're doing. There are so many assumptions about how this works that are baked in and I can't access them and I don't know what to do?

What does the existing tag set mean? It can't be 'tags you're allowed to use' because it's organized by fandom and the point of nominations is suggesting a fandom to do a thing in, I think? Or is the tag set meant to be the menu we can choose from while making requests? Where's the part where we specify what we're prepared to write for? Will that appear after I submit nominations, which I'm not sure how to do, or do I need to dig up a different link for that?

I've been running myself around all these links to more information that is not the information I need, giving up, and coming back again since shortly after nominations opened and I just realized Dreamwidth allows comments without an account so I don't necessarily have to figure out an entire user interface, so here I am asking for help less than a day before the deadline, like a chump.

What does the existing tag set mean?

The tag set is a list of tags that have been nominated by participants. This happens at the start of an exchange. The idea is to build up a set of common, agreed-upon tags that everyone can look through to choose what to request and offer (see below for more on that).

The tagset is organized by fandom -- you can think of each fandom as a sort of umbrella that covers both Character tags and Worldbuilding tags. (Note that for this exchange, the Worldbuilding tags will be entered into the Relationship slot because that's how AO3 will let people set things up.)

Or is the tag set meant to be the menu we can choose from while making requests?

Exactly. The tagset is your menu for both your requests and offers.

Where's the part where we specify what we're prepared to write for?

That will come with "Signups" which hasn't started yet. The tagset has to be finalized before you start signups, or things can get complicated.

Will that appear after I submit nominations, which I'm not sure how to do, or do I need to dig up a different link for that?

The signups will start in a few days, after the nominations close and the mod finishes up the tagset.

The Yuletide FAQ may be one place to look through for links to resources about AO3 exchanges and how they run: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2019/profile

Note that some details, like fandom eligibility, how many fandoms you offer/request, etc. will be different in Worldbuildingex from Yuletide. However, the FAQ links to a lot of good tutorials about how to sign up etc.

Hi,

I have to admit that I'm a little confused as to whether you're asking basic "how exchanges run this way on AO3 work" questions, or specific ones related to worldbuildingex (which, I will freely admit, is a particularly complicated example). I'm going to assume the former, but apologies if I'm wrong about that.

You have it exactly right that the tag set "the menu we can choose from while making requests" - the nominations stage currently ongoing is where people can add things to the tag set so that the things they want to request or offer are available to them.

The "sign ups" stage, during which you make your requests and offer the fandoms you want to offer, comes later (in this case, starting on Friday and running until Monday 27th). When that begins, this link (which currently won't work) will take you to the sign up form where you can provide all that detail.

If there are fandoms you'd like to request/offer that aren't yet in the tag set, then you do still have the chance to get them in by going here and entering them. But if there are plenty of fandoms you like the look of already there, getting involved in the nominations stage is entirely optional; I know that I didn't get involved in the tag set stage for my first several exchanges, just used the one that was created by other participants. (That said, please note that you will need at least three fandoms to request and four to offer; the sign up form won't let you sign up with fewer than that.)

The main "guidelines" post for this round is here and may answer at least some of your questions, but it mostly does start from a "you've done an AO3 exchange before" level. You're definitely right that the posts I'm currently putting up are very much geared towards the nitty gritty of sorting out the tag set; do feel free to email me at worldbuildingmod@gmx.com if you want to get into more detail about anything at all.

tl;dr: you haven't missed your chance to sign up, and unless all your fandoms are very niche you're probably fine to ignore all of what's currently going on if you want and come back on Friday when sign ups open.

ETA: I see anon above me has beaten me to replying; they're right about everything (and considerably more concise)

ETA2: it occurs to me to check that you do have an AO3 account! You won't be able to participate without one; requesting one through the queue should get to you in plenty of time before the close of sign ups, but I do have a few invitations lying around if you need one.

Edited 2020-01-14 21:28 (UTC)

Original anon here! Thank both of you!

Turns out what my fundamental issue was was that I was failing entirely to grok the distinction between signups and nominations (because the only exchanges I've managed to figure out how to join before were smaller and only had one phase) and thought nominations were the same as requests, and thus was trying to apply all the rules and guidelines for the exchange as a whole to the nominations form, and of course failing to figure out how to make that work and getting entirely mixed messages about what I was meant to be doing with the tags.

So: nominations are for *adding to* the tagset, and signups involve *selecting from* it? Okay. Okay, I think I see. I now understand some things.

So: nominations are for *adding to* the tagset, and signups involve *selecting from* it?

Exactly right!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nominations Queries Post 2

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