Announcing the 2016 Merlin Holidays Exchange!

[merlin-hols.livejournal.com]

We are happy to announce that sign-ups for the 2016 Merlin Holidays Exchange Fest will open TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW:

Monday, September 5, at 10 a.m. EDT/2 p.m. GMT/3 p.m. BST.

Sign-ups will close at 10 a.m. EDT/2 p.m. GMT/3 p.m. BST on Tuesday, September 13.

This is an anonymous exchange fest for Merlin fandom. All pairings and ratings are welcome! Below you will find community rules and the schedule. This is not a sign-up post. This is an information post so you can decide if this fest is for you!

NEW FOR THIS YEAR -- YES, YOU MUST READ THIS

• This is optional, but please consider including your twitter and tumblr usernames with your sign-up. This is so we can tag you when your gift is posted!


• There will be no cap on sign-ups this year. So relax, take some time to really perfect your sign-up. You won’t get shut out.


• Anyone who defaults ONE WEEK PRIOR TO THE DEADLINE OR LATER will not be able to participate next year. If you ask for an extension and then default or disappear, you will not participate next year. We feel super mean and sad to have to be so strict, but honestly guys, last year was really brutal with the extensions and the nagging and the frantic search for pinch hitters. We will explain this a little more in the next post.


• The tagging requirements are changing slightly this year in the hopes of making the matching process a little easier. We will not require genre tags (i.e., angst, fluff, etc) as we found that they didn’t really help with matching in the past. Instead, we recommend that you use as many specific tags for the tropes, kinks, or other story/art elements that you want to receive or create.

( Full 2016 Rules and Schedule )

A Word on Commitment

[merlin-hols.livejournal.com]

Dear, lovely Hols participants,

We love you all a lot, but we can’t lie–last year was a bit of a trial for us!

We love modding this community and we have a great time doing it: watching you guys create all these amazing gifts for someone else, seeing this fest bring so much fun every year. We love this fest and we’ve always wanted to keep it inclusive and fun for everyone, which means giving people the best opportunities to finish their works and keeping things as low-stress as possible for everyone involved.

This means that we have been quite lenient on certain things like extensions, promises to finish within a certain date, almost-finished fics, waiting for answers from participants on the verge of dropping out, etc. Unfortunately, this didn’t pan out very well for us last year and there were certain days we struggled to put together a posting schedule. There might have been a little bit of frazzled atmosphere behind the scenes even as we were knocking back cocoa and singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas very loudly with feeling.

This year, we feel the need to make a couple of changes. Not just for us (although it’s definitely partly for our well-being), but also to make sure that no one is stuck without a gift at the end of December, that you guys aren’t sitting around regretting that you signed up, and that our pinch-hitters aren’t being saddled with impossibly tight deadlines.

“But will they ever get to the point?” we hear you whispering in the distance, and yes, yes, here are a few things we would like to say for this coming round:

• No writer cap: we’ve removed the 40 writers cap this year as a trial. Please take plenty of time to consider whether you want to do this or not, there is no rush in the sign up process.




• Defaulting: Emergencies happen, we understand! But think of dropping out as your last option as our pool of pinch-hitters is not unlimited. If you do have to drop out, do so as early as possible. Please do not string us along with multiple extension requests, etc. This year we ask you to default/drop out one week before the original deadline at the latest (emergencies are obviously exempt from this)




• Results: If you default later than one week before the original deadline, you can’t sign up for the fest next year (emergencies exempt - it’s not our wish to be unreasonable). The same applies for: if you stop answering our attempts to contact you, or you ask for an extension and then disappear/default.




• Communication: We feel super strict for applying the rule above, but what we’re really asking for is communication. It’s an extremely important factor in making this fest go ‘round. Please talk to us! If you’re having problems and you feel like you might want to drop out, maybe we can help you instead – we might be able to beta for you, cheerlead, help brainstorm, maybe put you in contact with others who are also having writer’s block. Don’t be afraid to let us know if your internet died/your cat ate your fic/you acutely lost all faith in your abilities/your boss has conspired to remove all free time from your life. Even if it feels like a stupid problem/issue, it’s much better to bring it to us than to disappear.

AND LAST WE HAVE TO SAY:

WE’RE SO PUMPED! We’re so looking forward to seeing what you all come up with, to get the wheels a-turnin’ again even if we had to put our serious hats on for a moment here.

Serious hats (Sirius hats? Harr harr) officially off – LET THE BALLS BELLS JINGLE.