Worldbuilding Exchange

Sign ups are on course to open on time at 2155 UTC (or possibly somewhat earlier, depending on whether the "flexibility" in my work day today ends up working in my favour or that of my employer).

Tag set

The tag set is now in what I hope is very close to its final form. Thanks to everyone who has helped with spotting issues; if there any further corrections, please do let me know, but I will not be making further amendments to the tag set once sign ups are open.

Please note that because of the way worldbuildingex uses fandom names to specify the scope of the canon under consideration, a significant number of popular fandoms are hiding in the "Uncategorized Fandoms" section (e.g. all three variations on Harry Potter).

I have now made a spreadsheet of all the tags, sorted alphabetically by fandom name and separated into character and worldbuilding tags. I hope that this will be a little easier to navigate than the AO3 tag set interface itself; in particular, I have subdivided the nominations for Original Work (by some margin the largest section) using the different genres suggested by some of the tags. However, in the event of any discrepancies between the spreadsheet and the AO3 version, AO3 takes priority, as it is the AO3 tag set proper that sign ups and matching will work on.

Rules amendment

When I expanded the list of examples of "bad faith" exchange participation before the start of this round, I included for the first time not abiding by the widely held (but often unwritten) expectation that participants will comment on their gifts, as an example of a relatively low level issue (relative to deleting gifts before reveals, etc.).

I have decided that it would be better to have clarity on this, so I have amended the rules post for this round. The line "When works are revealed, please do comment on your gift(s) to thank the creator." has been replaced with:

• You should acknowledge the gift(s) you have received. Ideally, this will be via commenting to thank the creator for their efforts. However, contacting the mod to raise an issue, or using AO3's built in "Refuse Gift" functionality, will also be considered as acknowledgement of your gift. Failure to acknowledge your gift(s) by one of these methods will result in a ban from participating in subsequent rounds of the exchange.

Please note that I will not be applying this rule retrospectively - i.e., everyone is free to sign up for this round, whatever their previous commenting history. However, failure to acknowledge your gift(s) this round may impact on your ability to participate in subsequent rounds. (Having said that I won't apply it retrospectively, I might, at my discretion, decide to take into account a good commenting history from Rounds 1 and 2 as a mitigating factor, depending on the circumstances.)

While we're on rules, and since someone on FFA was asking: well-behaved sockpuppet accounts are fine. However, I would note that in 90%+ of cases, "well-behaved" would probably amount to "undetectable".

The opening of sign ups is still several days away, but thanks to some good discussions here and elsewhere, I am considering making a few tweaks to the way they will work compared to what's currently described in the information post. If you have any strong views about the topics below, please discuss them in the comments of this post.

Decisions I am almost certain will not change

• The exchange will run on "OR" matching
  
• Number of fandom slots for requests: 3-10
  
• Number of fandom slots for offers: 4-10
  
• Minimum number of character tags per offer/request: 1*
  
• Minimum number of worldbuilding tags per offer/request: 1
  

*I would very much rather handle the situation of people wanting to request/offer the type of worldbuilding that doesn't have characters using the "No Characters" mechanism than set the minimum number of character tags to 0, as the AO3 matching algorithm would treat that as being matchable to anybody. (As an example of why this helps: if you request zero characters, you could be matched to anyone offering any character nominated. If there is even one character you dislike in the tag set for that fandom, you can't sign up to receive zero characters without a risk of becoming the recipient of someone who has only offered that character.)

Decisions that I'm comfortable with as-is, but open to persuasion on

• Maximum number of character tags per offer/request: 8
  
• Maximum number of worldbuilding tags per offer/request: 8
  

Changes I am considering making

• Allowing repeated fandoms in requests and offers: Currently, the rules say that each fandom slot should be unique. However, relaxing this would enable people to sign up to receive/create different combinations of character and worldbuilding tags for different media, or different combinations of worldbuilding tags with the same characters and media, etc. Where I can see this might be particularly helpful is in allowing people to sign up to request both fic and in-universe meta with different slots, rather than having a very wide range of prompts all in one slot. You would still need to have at least three different fandoms across all your slots for requests, and four for offers. (As an example of what this would mean in practice: if this change were made, it would be valid to sign up to request fic, art and meta separately for three different fandoms, using nine of your ten, and make seven different offers for a single fandom with different combinations of tags, followed by three offers for three distinct other fandoms. Or any other variation that fitted the overall requirements.)
  
• Allowing "Meta" without "No Characters": In the current rules, you are required to include the "No Characters" tag for a fandom if you are signing up to receive/offer meta for it. This was done out of a desire to ensure matchability, but if repeated fandoms are allowed this would be much less of an issue. Someone on FFA gave some good examples of "meta" which would be character-based (e.g. an in-universe organisation's files on a particular character).
  
• The meaning of "No Characters": at the moment, "No Characters" is meant to be a signal that you are happy to receive/create fanworks without any specific characters in, not a limitation that no characters should appear. However, since the exchange will run on OR matching, a stronger meaning of "No Characters" could be used, with people who are happy with receiving/creating either no or some characters indicating that by signing up for other tags in addition to "No Characters". This would leave people who very definitely want "No Characters" type of worldbuilding able to request/offer only that tag. I am nowhere near as strongly convinced of the utility of this change as the other two I am proposing. (In particular, the current meaning is closer to what people are used to zero characters meaning in Yuletide, and I'm not all that convinced there are any people out there who do have a strong preference for zero characters to appear; if you do have such a preference, please speak up!)