MORE THINGS I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT

[brigdh]

It is in the thirties and people are sitting outside at tables to eat! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I do not understand.

Also (while I'm being childish), it is in the thirties! I thought the whole deal with me coming here was that the winter was not going to be as extreme as in NYC? Where it is probably also in the thirties, I know, shut up. Because weather is clearly way more important than, you know, my studies.

So, what is bothering you all today?

Comments

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I'm getting ready to turn my attention to the flailing squee of deciding what I want to request, but I've pondered writing up a post (not to be posted to any Yuletide-associated comm, just in my own space) which details both what I know of the Yuletide matching algorithm, and some of the things we've been asked to look at in past years when going over the nominations list for possible eliminations (hint: glancing at numbers on a few active fannish forums and Googling the fandom to see how many hits you get doesn't cut it).

I know part of what's bugging me is the sheer illogic of the arguments presented; just because Fandom A is not available, that doesn't mean more people are likely to sign up for Fandoms B or C (especially in a challenge primarily based on rareness/obscurity, it's best to assume people aren't signing up for a given fandom because they don't know it). The bulk of Yuletide participants offer fewer than a dozen fandoms. Yes, there are those of us who routinely offer more than twenty, and we are valuable to the process, but we are not the norm. The norm is people offering as close to the minimum number of required fandoms as possible, because the vast majority of fans are consumers of both source and fanworks in a lot more fandoms than they are producers; thus, if there are fewer qualifying fandoms, there are more people likely not to sign up at all, because they do not feel competent to produce in enough fandoms to be able to sign up. Thus, sure, one less possible story for Fandom A, but also one less possible story for Fandoms D, E, & F, because the algorithm matches on rarer fandom first (as I understand it, determined by number of people offering/requesting, since that's the data which is both accessible and ethical for Yuletide to use), but it can't match on what's not offered/requested. So even if your attitude toward Yuletide is that it's some kind of zero sum game (an absolutely ridiculous mindset, but moving on), it's still in your interests to support the inclusion of a few more active, more known fandoms, because the odds are in favor of those luring in more people, who will also sign up for more obscure fandoms, and those are the ones on which they're most likely to be matched.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I know I'd love to see that post you're not writing. It would be constructive, and interesting! As opposed to the post I'm not writing, which would be titled something like "Thirty-Six Views of Yuletide Wank."

The thing I've finally figured out, and am still sort of reeling from, is that a whole strain of objection to accidental inclusion of already-popular fandoms is coming from people who turn out to think of Yuletide as an excellent venue for self-promotion. More people will read stories in better-known fandoms, they say -- accurately enough -- and that means that those stories will get more comments and hits and recs. No fair! Not when Yuletide is your big opportunity to get more readers and visibility! Plus, they say, because we all allegedly know this is a competition for readers and prestige, the inclusion of well-known fandoms really will siphon off stories for smaller or more obscure fandoms: everyone will offer to write in those better-known fandoms so that they can get the hits and recs and win at self-promotion, while tiny fandoms go begging.

It would be a logical enough argument, if it were true of everyone. I'm just glad it isn't. As it is, I wish I knew precisely who really was in it for the self-promotion opportunities, so I could avoid them all forever.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I know I'd love to see that post you're not writing.

It might yet get written. Probably not until after December, though, because my writing time is booked for the next two months. Certainly, I wouldn't post it until after Yuletide was over for this year, both so the mods could more easily follow it, if they wished, and so that any contentiousness that arose as a result would at least not spill over into the active challenge itself.

More people will read stories in better-known fandoms, they say -- accurately enough -- and that means that those stories will get more comments and hits and recs.

I have to say, that doesn't match my experience with Yuletide in any year, which is one reason I think it's such ridiculous reasoning. The most-read, most-recced, most-commented stories tend to be for sources that a lot of people know, but that usually have no fandom outside of Yuletide. I've written for both moderately ficced-about sources and for sources with no fanworks (or fanworks in the single digits) and no fandom to their name. The ones that showed up in the most recs lists, and garnered me the most comments, have been the ones that qualified in that second category. Granted, they've also been ones for easily-available, quickly-consumed sources, which is the elephant in the room none of the self-promoters are willing to acknowledge: if the fandom you're writing in features a source that is extensive, difficult to acquire, and/or complex to consume, it doesn't matter if you work to eliminate all these other fandoms, there are still going to be those in the exchange that draw more readers because the source is more accessible. Unless you're willing to really game the system, signing up for Yuletide as a means of self-promotion is just setting yourself up for failure, and that's a hell of a thing to do to yourself for the midwinter holiday season.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Ah! That makes sense, and I'm more relieved than not to be told that not only is the analysis distasteful, it's incorrect as a matter of real world experience. My own experience with Yuletide is far more limited, and tells me only that sure, it's more likely that I'll read a story for a source I'm familiar with than for one I don't know. Unless somebody's told me that I don't need to know the source, which does happen for at least a few stories every year.

At any rate, now that the corrected list is out and most or all of the controversial sources are gone, maybe people will chill out for a while, leaving us to study what's available and stalk the signup reports in peace. And leaving me to try to decide whether my new cunning plan to avoid my annual Yuletide angst -- namely, to ask my friends if they by any chance have more requests they want to make than they have request slots to put them in -- is pure disaster in the making or whether it might really work.