Duplicates in signups

[chocolateboxmod]

It's been brought to my attention that the form allows you to request multiples of a fandom. Please do not do this, as matching will be difficult in this exchange as it is given the number of variables involved and it is against the rules of the exchange.

If you have duplicated or triplicated a fandom in your signup, please ensure that all fandoms are unique for your requests, and all fandoms are unique for your offers. If you have not done this by the time signups close, you will be contacted and given 12 hours to make the necessary changes. If you fail to do so in that time, your signup will be deleted.

I apologize for the inconvenience!

Comments

[adustyspectacle]

Just to clarify... I separated the ships i nominated in the crossover fandom into two different requests (basically one was for a game and one's for comics). Does that mean they have to be merged then?

[chocolateboxmod]

That's right! Matching is OR, so your gifter will match on one tag and does not need to offer all of the tags to match to you.

[gelsey]

Unrelated but... I keep getting an error that I need one or more freeform tags in my sign up and I can't see where I'm going wrong here... Help?

[chocolateboxmod]

If it is what I think it is, you need to pick fanfic or fanart, or pick both, for each request and offer.

[gelsey]

Ooooh that makes sense. I'm sorry. I blame the early hour here. Thank you for not Gibbs Slapping me haha.

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a rule against sockpuppets in this exchange? Because there are a bunch of oddly-similar requests for Animorphs: all requesting some combination of the same three ships, all with no optional details, all linking directly to some random Tumblr or DW account with no Chocolate Box letter.

[chocolateboxmod]

There is no express rule against sockpuppets yet, though it is implied. I'll be doing a review of the rules while the exchange is running and let everyone know at the end what the rule changes will be for next year.

[(Anonymous)]

Make sure you're braced for more than your fair share of defaults then, because this person is signed up at least ten times, and there's no maybe about it.

[(Anonymous)]

New anon here... To expand on what the other said, this person is known for signing up with double-digit sock accounts, then defaulting, thus being written for without writing much or any fic themselves. They were busted in Yuletide 2014, and basically spent Yuletides 2015 and 2016 making themselves as difficult as possible, continuing to default and the like.

Several of the fandoms that I'm hoping to write for are filled with 'accounts' that are just links to empty tumblrs, with AO3 accounts that receive gifts without writing them, or write the very occasional fic for each other. It's really disheartening to be trying to figure out my treats only to find request after request is from a sock account of someone who isn't working in the spirit of the exchange. :/

I apologize but I am very confused

[(Anonymous)]

I interpreted "please don't duplicate a fandom" to mean "please don't request or offer 2 different relationships in the same fandom." However, the rules say we may request 1-20 character combinations, and we must offer 2-20 character combinations.

Am I correct in thinking that you mean, you can't duplicate the fandom in both Request 1 and Request 2 (or Offer 1 and Offer 2) on the form?

Re: I apologize but I am very confused

[chocolateboxmod]

That's right!

[(Anonymous)]

If I request 3+ unique fandoms, why would it be a problem if I made two separate requests for some of them? E.g.,

1. Fandom1 (art): pairing1, pairing2, pairing3
2. Fandom2 (art): pairing1, pairing2
3. Fandom3 (art): pairing1, pairing2, pairing3

That signup meets the minimum requirements. Why would it make it harder (rather than easier) to match if I additionally made a fourth request:

4. Fandom3 (fic): pairing4, pairing5, pairing6, pairing7

I nominated with the assumption that I'd be able to request fic for some relationships in one fandom and art for other relationships in the same fandom, which I've been able to do in other AO3 exchanges. I've never run an exchange on AO3, so it's not immediately obvious to me how it makes matching harder.

[chocolateboxmod]

It's a problem because I would have to check every signup to make sure that it satisfies the minimum requirements, contact every participant whose signup does not match the requirements, wait for them to respond, edit/delete their signups as necessary, and then rerun matching. This is a lot of work,and while it is achievable in smaller exchanges, Chocolate Box is one of the larger exchanges (last year we had 400 people, for example). Forcing signups to be unique is one of the things I have to do in order to make this exchange able to be run at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, OK. I thought it was a matching problem, and couldn't figure out what that would be.

It would be nice if AO3 could check that signups meet minimum requirements, but from the rest of their exchange interface I guess I'm not too surprised that they don't. :(