Worldbuilding Exchange

We seem to be on course for the highest number of sign ups in any round to date; there's still time to add yours if you haven't had a chance to do so yet.

Sign up form here.

Check out requests via the AO3 summary or (easier!) the app, which also provides a searchable/bookmarkable/etc. version of the tag set.

Countdown here - just as a warning, I have to be elsewhere online at 0800 UTC on Monday so sign ups will close when this hits zero.

raininshadows has once again kindly offered to co-ordinate a spreadsheet collating information from participants who are open to receiving works in different formats to those covered by the freeform tags used for matching. In particular: podfics, vids and interactive fiction (IF).

Please use the template below to indicate that you are such a participant, deleting sections if they're not needed.

<b>AO3 username:</b> <b>Letter link:</b> <b>Fandoms (one per line):</b> <b>Open to podfic?</b> <b>Podfic likes:</b> <b>Open to vids?</b> <b>Vid likes:</b> <b>Open to IF?</b> <b>IF likes:</b>

Sign ups are now open!

Here is the tag set on AO3 and, for the first time this year thanks to the amazing karanguni, on a searchable, bookmarkable, etc. app.

Don't forget that because of the way fandoms are defined for this exchange, many are classified under "Uncategorized Fandoms" on the AO3 tag set interface, including some very popular ones.

I have made a very slight tweak to the sign up form this round, in that I have enabled the "Description" box for Offers as well as Requests, and relabelled it "Matching Notes". I have always been happy for people to make requests privately in relation to matching (though do note that there is no way I can control who gives treats); however, I thought there might be some advantage to being clear about this and having an obvious place for such requests to go. This is very much an experiment that I intend to review at the end of this round to see whether it was worthwhile. This method of communication is just as private as sending an email - the contents of offers on AO3 can only be seen by the individual participant and the collection owner - though you are of course welcome to communicate in other ways if you feel more comfortable doing so. Of course, you do not have to fill in the "Matching Notes" box at all - simply leave it blank if it's not relevant to you. (The box will appear for all fandoms in your offers, but if you do want to use it, you only need to fill it in once.)

Other than that, some key points about signing up:

• Requests: 3-10 You can use more than one slot for the same fandom, but there must be at least three different ones overall. (In terms of fandom tags in the tag set. It's OK if they're different versions of the same canon.)
  
• Offers: 4-10 As for requests, you can use more than one slot for the same fandom, as long as there are four different fandoms overall.
  
• For each request and offer, you have 8 character slots and 8 worldbuilding slots (in the "Relationship" section), and you can request/offer one, two or all three of the "Fanfiction", "Fanart" and "In-Universe Meta" freeforms.
  
• The "Any" tickbox is disabled for requests (but remember that you can use multiple slots for the same fandom), but it is enabled for offers. Please make sure you are confident about creating for any tag in the tag set for that fandom if you are using it. (Please note that this is not quite the same as a "bucket offer" as found in Yuletide and some other exchanges, in that you can't add additional tags to represent further fandoms you are happy to offer Any for.)
  
• OR Matching You are only guaranteed to match on one character and one worldbuilding tag, in one fandom. Your requests should not rely on the idea that people have signed up to create for all your requested tags. Your offers should all be for things that you would be happy to create for even if that's the only tag you matched on.
  
• "Any or No Characters" is used to indicate a willingness to receive/create works where the focus is on the worldbuilding to the point that which, if any characters appear is secondary. This is not the same meaning of "Any" as the AO3 tickbox (where it means "any tag in the tag set"). Requesting the tag means you are open to receiving any canon character, any character implied to exist by canon, any original character dreamt up by your creator, or no characters at all. (It is OK to DNW characters you don't want to appear if using this tag.)
  
• Requests will be visible throughout sign ups.
  
• DNWs Do Not Wants (DNWs) will only be enforced if they are in the Optional Details box on the AO3 sign up form. As a creator, you should avoid including your recipient's DNWs in the work you create for them. However, please do not use your DNWs in an overly restrictive way to box your creator into a corner.
  
• ODAO With the exception of DNWs, the principle of ODAO - Optional Details Are Optional - applies. This means both that you do not have to provide them at all if you don't want to, but also that your creator is not obligated to follow any that you do provide.
  
• Some tags may not autocomplete as you enter them, but they will still work if you cut and paste them from the tag set. This is a known AO3 bug of long standing.

If you have any concerns or queries that the above list doesn't help with, or encounter any difficulties in the sign up process, please do ask, either by commenting here, or if you prefer to do it privately via email to worldbuildingmod@gmx.com or using the DW messaging system.

The letters post and an opt-in post for other media (podfic/vids/IF) will follow very shortly.

The tag set is on course to be the largest we've ever had.

Adjustments to tags

I have had to adjust the phrasing of a handful of worldbuilding tags that turned out to have been nominated as characters, not relationships, because AO3 won't allow the exact same tag in more than one category. Hopefully none of them have inadvertently changed the original intent - please do let me know if you think you spot a problem.

Also, in The Goblin Emperor, Any was nominated as a character tag (which AO3 wanted to syn to "Other(s)"!) - I have folded this into the existing "Any or No Characters (The Goblin Emperor)" tag, but if there is actually a character called "Any" in this canon please do let me know.

Remaining queries

I have a relatively small number of queries, either remaining unanswered from previous posts, or related to tags submitted within the last two days. Since this is the last queries post, I will outline what I intend to do in each case if I do not receive a response within 24 hours, at which point I will proceed to general tag set clean up.

• Doctor Who & Related Fandoms and Star Trek (all media types) - I queried about the scope of these on the last post. Unless I hear back from the nominator that they want a more specific fandom name, I will approve these, with the caveat that I will interpret them in the broadest possible sense. (I will also tweak the Alcubierre drive tag that has been bothering me for what I admit are idiosyncratic reasons.)
  
• Harry Potter (Books Only) - WB: dragons understand parseltongue - is there canon evidence for this? as phrased, it seems a little AU-ish. If I don't hear anything on this, I will tweak to phrase it as a question "Can dragons understand parseltongue?"
  
• Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan - Onumitsa - I still can't find any evidence for a character with this name. If I don't hear back, I will assume it's just a very obscure one and approve it, but ideally I would like some reassurance that it's not a misspelling.
  
• Star Wars Sequel Trilogy - WB: Arkanis Academy - This doesn't seem to appear or be mentioned in the three sequel films. Unless someone provides evidence that it is, I'll reject it from this fandom and move it to "Star Wars - New EU"
  
• The Silmarillion - WB: Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth - as far as I can tell this is the title of "the fourth book of Morgoth's Ring"; I'm not really clear how it should be construed as a worldbuilding tag; from what I can tell it is full of ideas relating to Elves and Men but in quite a broad-ranging way. If I don't hear back, I will make my best guess at what the intent is and rephrase, but I would strongly prefer to hear from the nominator (or, failing that, other Tolkien fans).
  

The tag set closes to nominations at 0755 UTC, a little under one hour from the time of this post. Countdown here - my overall schedule for today is such that I will need to close the tag set as soon as this reaches zero, so please make sure you give yourself enough time to submit.

Incomplete nominations

If your fandom is not listed in any of the more specific categories below, and has been waiting for some time to be approved, then it almost certainly is missing at least one of the following required tags:

• "Original Character(s)"
  
• "Any or No Characters"
  
• at least one worldbuilding tag (in the Relationship fields - please note these are not used for actual / or & relationships in worldbuildingex)
  

Please see here for a detailed explanation of how to nominate for worldbuildingex. Fandoms that still don't have the minimum set of tags when nominations close will be rejected.

(ETA: I've moved the "incomplete nominations" section to the top as a large number of fandoms (far more than in previous years) are still affected by this, and I want it to be front and centre for people who are clicking through from the link on the tag set description. The rest of the queries post as it originally was on Sunday night is below.)

There are currently 252 fandoms in the tag set. Nominations will close at 0755 UTC on Tuesday, approximately 36 hours from the time of this post. (Countdown.)

At the time of writing, all fandoms that I don't have queries about have been approved. Therefore, if you have tags still outstanding you should be able to find the reason below - if you can't (and you didn't submit them just before this post went up), please do ask!


Any [X]

There are a few tags which I have adjusted from a format that seemed to be a group nom to the new "Any" type; if in doing so, I have misinterpreted things, please do let me know and I can change them back. (My original intention was to query first, as I did with Labyrinth (1986)*, but including all of them would have made this post even more unwieldy.)

*I have in fact proceeded with making this change with Labyrinth as well, as the nominator has not responded.

Similar tags in the same fandom

• Killjoys (TV) - WB: Scarback Religion and WB: Scarback religious beliefs and practices are both nominated and seem to indicate broadly the same things. I will fold them into "Scarback religion, beliefs and practices" unless either of the nominators objects before the close of noms.
  
• The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien - the willow man and Old Man Willow are both nominated. Are these the same character?
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation - WB: El-Aurian culture and WB: El-Aurian culture only Guinan remembers were both nominated but have both been removed by the nominator(s?) before I had the chance to query. I am happy to approve both of these separately if the distinction is important - please do let me know.
  

Fandom scope queries

There are a few fandoms where the overall scope of the canon material intended to be available for extrapolating worldbuilding from is not clear to me, or seems potentially very broad. I am happy to approve these as they are, if the nominators confirm that they believe they are the most appropriate tags.

• Doctor Who & Related Fandoms - is the intention here only to include official spinoff material, or would it also include the many and varied things over the years that have used elements from Doctor Who without having the official licence? All of the nominated tags seem to relate to the 2005 series and its direct TV spinoffs, so I'm wondering if a slightly more specific fandom tag might help.
  
• Homestuck - does this include Hiveswap?
  
• Star Trek (all media types) - while not quite as potentially expansive as Doctor Who above, this still seems to cover a very large amount of possible material once all the different novel lines, comics, etc. are taken into account. On the other hand, the nominated tags do seem to be about core parts of Trek's worldbuilding that could be explored in any of those. (FWIW, though, I'm a little dubious about the worldbuilding tag that brings in the idea that the warp drive is definitely an Alcubierre drive, since Alcubierre was inspired by Trek rather than the other way around ...)
  

AUs(?)

AUs in general are outside the scope of worldbuildingex, unless the AU in question exists within the canon (Xena's Uberverse, Star Trek's Mirror Universe, etc.).

• Puella Magi Madoka Magika - WB: Magical Girls Are No Longer Secret seems to be phrased as though it might be an AU, though I don't know enough to be sure - from a bit of Wiki-diving, it looks like it might describe the end state of the series? Please clarify.
  
• Song for a Dark Queen - Rosemary Sutcliff - WB: Boudicca Wins AU - is this an AU which somehow exists within the story?
  

Other queries

• Something Dark and Holy Series - Emily A. Duncan - Onumitsa I have approved the other tags for this fandom as there is plenty of evidence online for them; however, this name seems to get no results at all. Please confirm that it is correctly spelt.
  
• Kamen Rider Decade - WB: Hikari Eijiro’s Everything - I'm not quite sure what is meant here? I wondered if an "Everything" was a name for an in-universe device or similar but it appears not. Is the intention something along the lines of "anything/everything about Hikari Eijiro"?
  

Nominations are coming in thick and fast, which is very encouraging; it's great to see the range of different ideas out there. I have a busy couple of days coming up IRL; I'll be approving as and when I can but the pace will probably be a little slower than it has been so far. Before that happens, though, I did want to put up the first queries post.

General issues with nominations

A significant minority of fandoms currently awaiting approval do not yet have all of the required tags, and are in danger of being rejected when the nominations period ends if this is not amended. The minimum needed for a fandom to be approved is:

• "Any or No Characters (Name of Fandom)" as one of the Character fields
  
• "Original Character(s) (Name of Fandom)" as another of the Character fields
  
• At least one worldbuilding tag ("WB: [some worldbuilding idea] (Name of Fandom)") in the Relationship fields

Of fandoms already in the tag set, "Tron (Movies)" is a good example of a fandom with a minimal set of tags.

There are also a number of fandoms where disambiguations (the "(Name of Fandom)" bits) are missing from some or all of the tags for the fandom. I ask for these disambiguations for two reasons: to try to prevent "migration" of tags within the tag set, but also to allow me to reunite tags that AO3 fails to associate automatically with their fandom (the tag set remembers where they came from for 99%+ of tags, even when they're not canonicals, but the remaining few can be difficult to deal with if it's not clear within the tag itself).

For what it's worth, a fairly large number of fandoms I can see on the approval screen have the characters disambiguated, but not the worldbuilding tags. Please also make sure that if you are nominating a subdivision of a fandom that your disambiguations are specific to that subdivision. (e.g. A disambiguation like "(Star Wars)" does not help me work out which fandom the tag belongs to, should it get lost, when there are many different versions of Star Wars nominated.)

Specific queries

• Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling - there are a couple of nominations so far for this fandom. In previous rounds, we have avoided using this as it does not necessarily make clear the scope of canon material under consideration. I am happy to approve it if the nominators confirm that they are happy for it to be the most expansive definition, including Pottermore, Cursed Child, etc. However, it may be that other fandom tags are more appropriate ("Harry Potter - Books Only" has already been approved this year and in previous years we've also had things like "Harry Potter - Wizarding World" alongside "Harry Potter - Wizarding World No Pottermore")
  
• In the Flesh - WB: Amy + Kieren + Simon hadn't died. What would their lives be like? (In The Flesh) and WB: Amy if she had lived/become human (In the Flesh) seem like tags for AU prompts, which are outside the scope of worldbuildingex. However, I don't know this fandom so if there is a reason why they ought to be considered on topic, please do let me know.
  
• Labyrinth (1986) - Both a character tag "Jareth's family", and a worldbuilding tag "WB: Jareth's family", are nominated - please could the nominator explain the distinction here? (I think perhaps this is somewhere where the new "Any" character tags might help - would "Any member(s) of Jareth's family" work for the character tag which could then be requested/offered in conjunction with the worldbuilding tag?)

AO3 seem to be experiencing some significant issues at present, and it looks unlikely they'll be resolved in time for me to be able to open the tag set for nominations as scheduled.

Assuming things don't get fixed within the next couple of hours, the earliest I'll be able to get online to try again is around 1400 UTC.

Whatever happens, I'm going to extend the nominations period by a day, so it will now finish at 0755 UTC on Tuesday 12th Jan.

Edit: I've managed to get in to open nominations, but in all honesty I wouldn't recommend investing lots of time in entering them until AO3 announce that things are stable again.

This is mostly the same as previous rounds, but there is a fairly major change in terms of nominations: following feedback last round, more specific "Any" tags are now allowed in the Character field.

( The Basics )

( Nominations )

( Sign ups )

( Assignments )

( General )

The collection is no longer anonymous, and is also closed for posting of new works.

Huge thanks to everyone who has helped make this round such a success; I am absolutely thrilled by the fact that (with the addition of a few late treats) we have hit the 100 works mark.

As in previous years, do feel free to leave any and all feedback you may have about the exchange here. This round I do have a few specific areas, mostly related to the tag set, that I'd be particularly keen to hear participants' thoughts on:

( Splitting up Original Works )

( Allowing Group/Any nominations )

( Tag set efficiency )