CLAIM-A-THON IS TOTALLY GO

[seventhe]

WELL HEY THEN

So I compiled everybody's claim-a-thon picks and ran the code this morning. It's done! It was, uh, not flawless. HOWEVER, I have it worked out so that everyone gets an assignment and everyone gets a gift. There are going to be a couple double-ups and a couple covers, but hey, you knew that going into this, lol.


The one thing the code can't really, uh, fix is: what people claim. I mean, the entire point of claim-a-thon code is that people "pick" their assignments. That's what I wrote the code for - kind of a stop-gap/fuck-you to the constant refrain of "I didn't like my exchange assignment" (not just in Doink - you see it everywhere). That's the whole goal.

However, that means I'm limited. For example: in this first round I had two people who were only claimed once... and it was by the same person. Thus, I either gave that someone two assignments, or one of those people just went unclaimed. Period. There were no other options.

I don't think it's that anyone's prompts were "bad", either -- I think it's just the nature of the thing, especially with my journal being the "crossroads" -- certain fandoms are rare here and certain fandoms aren't, and some people are free right now and some aren't. I had thought that with a big enough pool of people and prompts, -- well, I had hoped that the crossover would cover itself, that the random noise would balance itself out, that there would be enough people that maybe luck would work out for me. And it didn't entirely do so, but then again, the solution didn't take too much time to work out either.

For the next time I run this, though, I want to make one major change: everybody leaves 3 prompts but has to claim 4. And people who are willing to write backups / write more than one can leave that in their comment too, in case I have to call on multiples again. I think that if everybody claims 4, maybe we'd have more overlap.

I also need to update the code a little.

So. I'll be sending out emails today with everybody's claim! I have to send them from my phone because job blocks Gmail, so they will all be simple and boring. Please forgive. If you haven't gotten anything by tonight, check your spam folder, and then email me if there's still nothing.

I would like to do the posting on AO3. I am pretty sure everybody here has an AO3 account, and I actually think it will be more fun because: We can do a partial reveal. Look, my journal/FL/Circle is like a big incestuous clusterfuck already, so I think it might be fun to do a two-step reveal? Gifts would go live whenever they were posted, but they'd be anonymous, and then when everybody's was up we could reveal authors and have an author party? IS EVERYBODY OKAY WITH THIS?

Cause I set up a collection here that you can post to. Whenever you're ready. Right now it's all locked up / unrevealed, but if everybody is okay with the double reveal, I'll open it up so that it will show gifts but not authors right now. :D

EDIT -- Okay, so everyone has gotten an "assignment" claim, in email, but! If you are really into any of the other prompts and you want to write them anyway, email me and I'll send on that person's information so that you can write a surprise gift too!

I told you this was a super casual thing. XD

Comments

[ser_pounce_alot]

lol i'm guaranteeing some of our dumb-shit prompts were so specific and localized that it was like oh. right. who is going to claim that.

[seventhe]

LOL I know haha. And stuff like, FFXIII is a big fandom but in THIS circle it's small because I haven't beat it yet XD

[thene]

i am secretly assuming that no one claimed any of my prompts. No one. ;_;

[seventhe]

I can actually say that every person got claimed! Not every prompt, of course, but every person on the list had at least one of their prompts claimed. Most had two. The problem ended up being that... Being the spread, basically. The same few people ended up picking a lot of the "rarer" claims and I didn't have enough to go around.

Hence, why next round (next round she says not realizing there should be stabbing) I am hoping everybody can claim 4, and then maybe leave a list of back ups.

[madisuzy]

I'm all cool with the two step reveal.

[thene]

I still remember the first time I was hand-matching the annual MGS exchange (in which only one prompt was submitted per person, at that time) and I got down to the last four prompts and realised that the way people's fill criteria fell, I would have to assign [A] to write their own prompt. fail, cry, start over!

I am enjoying my prompt so much, thank you <3 It does seem like more claims than prompts would be a good idea; I also wonder if there could be some kind of ranking criteria, because especially if you're selecting four or five prompts you'd like to write, there's probably some you'd like much more than others. But that would be a whole other layer of complicated.

[seventhe]

I had this thought, too. I probably wouldn't want to rank everything just to save my brain, but I am thinking two tiers -- your first 3-4 choices, unranked, and then maybe a list of second tier stuff that isn't your fave but that you would hit if needed. I could probably code around that, like: check the top tier first, go with second tier only if first doesn't pass.