thuviaptarth | (no subject)

Entry tags:

festivids,
yuletide

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So I was reading my flist and there was a post lamenting the lack of fic for a festivids pairing and two posts mourning over post-VVC vid block, and of course there is also my post whining about how it is SO HARD to do festivids and Yuletide at the same time, and anyway this is my MAD GENIUS PROPOSAL which I suspect will go over way better with people who vid and fic than with people who just vid:

So this is my proposal: In 2010, we should start Festivids RIGHT AFTER VVC. Or maybe a little after. Like, September nominations and signup and November delivery. This way people can break the post-VVC block because PRESENTS! IN TINY FANDOMS! WITH A ONE-MINUTE MINIMUM! And this way also when you are requesting fiction for your teeny-tiny fandom for Yuletide, you can point to an illustration of just how awesome your teeny-tiny fandom source is. People who have not previously encountered your teeny-tiny fandom source may be inspired to try it out and/or sign up for it. (That was the year I finally got a Revengers Tragedy story for Yuletide. It's worked at least once! That is totally scientific proof.)

More vids, more fic, widely separate deadlines. It's the best of all possible worlds.

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\o/!

I approve this post! I was thinking the same sort of thing, that festivids should go first and maybe have a deadline of December 1st/reveal January 1st or something, but your idea is even better.

Sounds like an excellent idea to me :)

I think this is a great idea.

I for one would be rather sad about this, both personally (because it would categorically eliminate any possibility of my signing up for Festivids) and more generally (because from my point of view much of the point of Festivids was to give vidders something to be excited about and working on while writers were excited about and working on Yuletide).

Then again, I didn't do Festivids this year, so I don't know how much weight that opinion carries.

I am sort of preferring an earlier signup date (not possible this year, but possible next year if all goes well) but with a similar golive date as this year, so that people basically have more time to vid. But my perspective is admittedly cockeyed on this by virtue of (a) running the thing and (b) being both a writer and a vidder (if more of the former).

I can see how an earlier sign-up date would be useful for some people, and one hopes that it would make your life easier as well! What really matters to me is the due date, because I can't count on having time to vid until Dec. 22 or thereabouts (when grades are due), and so I can't in good conscience sign up for anything with a deadline prior to January 1: the probability of having to default is simply too high.

I definitely think we should start a week or two after VVC. However as a vidder who doesn't read much fic, I had hoped we would simply have the deadline be longer until December so the vids would come out when the Yuletide fic does so I could have something to be super excited about too. I mean I get the whole getting people to write fic...but as I probably wouldn't read it except for a couple fandoms, it doesn't bother me much.

I don't know, it's a hard situation. Maybe do a every other year kind of thing for each option?

You wouldn't be super-excited about receiving vids in November?

The decision is ultimately up to Yoon, of course.

I'd be excited and happy sure but it wouldn't be the same as getting them on the 25th. My thing is I just feel left out when all the Yuletide fic hits and all the fic people are super excited and can make recs, etc and I think it'd be nice to have the vids come out that day as well. I had just hoped Festivids would be the vid equalizer there.

I'm hesitant to make the golive date Dec. 25 for two reasons. The first and more important one is that it automatically ties the thing to Christmas, which I hesitate to do to non-Christian festividders. (I am a Christian, but I feel that if I were non-Christian, the date would just...yeah.)

The second reason is that typically for Christmas I am at my in-laws' in New York, staying at their house. The ergonomic situation here for my workspace is, ah, less than ideal, and I am vulnerable to being swooped away for pre-Christmas activities with my in-laws and family. Additionally, this is a little selfish, but I do Yuletide, and I do not want to have to give up doing Yuletide to administer Festivids. Either way, I am deeply unthrilled by the prospect of having to wrangle family time, Yuletide time, and Festivids admin stuff in the same time period. The mid-January date is good for me because I'll be back home by then. And I see

sweetestdrain has pointed out the academic calendar, which I hadn't taken into consideration (it's been a few years since college, I"ve forgotten the rhythms).

My current inclination is to start a couple weeks after VVC to give people a head start, but keep the January golive date. But I am open to further discussion.

I totally understand this. I just really hoped there'd be at least one year where I wouldn't feel left out because I'm a vidder. Maybe one year we could do a one year anon reveal on the 25th? I'd even volunteer to help in any way I could and maybe you could find others as well. I've just always wanted to experience a rare vids Christmas but I'm open to changing it to other dates for other holidays or in January or whatever.

Yeah, I'm concerned about a golive date that would be prior to Yuletide purely as a practical matter. I think asking people to create vids between Sept and November is difficult - having the holidays ensures that people will have more free time.

Belated comment is belated.

Edited 2010-01-04 01:11 (UTC)

September to November is actually about as much time as we had this year, but I'm not opposed to a later golive date. The student calendar and typical Western work schedule are compelling concerns.

I hate the idea of December 25 launch date for the same reason I hated the name "yulevid," but that doesn't seem to be likely.

Not in terms of absolute time - I mean what's happening in that time. Having the period between December 23 and January 3 is good because there's little work stuff (or, I gather, school stuff). People can focus on vids.

I can promise you that we are not going to have a December 25 (or other specific major religious holiday [1]) golive date. Full stop.

I like the idea of starting the challenge sooner, but as someone whose life is dictated by the academic calendar, having Festivids due in November would make me cry. Between classes and assistant teaching, there's not enough free time during an average semester for me to sit down and vid, and I'm sure it's probably similar for a lot of other vidders involved in academia. This year's deadline has been working nicely for me -- there's plenty of vidding time post-finals and a couple of weeks post-Yuletide to do some last-minute timeline finagling.

We'll see what happens next time around, I suppose!

Yes, the November delivery would be hard on me as well. But I'd like signing up in September and posting in January!

Right now my entirely unscientific survey indicates people are pro earlier signup and later delivery. This means we will have to wait on the seduction of fic writers to our rare fandoms, but I am okay with that. I can exercise patience and cunning if I try.

I'm planning on polling on this, but at some point after the reveals. Which reminds me, if I can get this !@#$@%^(# short story done, I need to crack open the PHP book so that there will be a shiny new website for signups next year. :-) (The signup page is 50% functional, no lie!)

I'm not sure you'll need to crack open the PHP? It sounds like the AO3 challenge-running code will be live by then, and even if they can't host vids, there's nothing to stop people from creating "stories" that are streaming vid URLs.

I hadn't even thought about that! But I'm nervous about committing to future code controlled by someone else whose functionality I don't yet know, and also if I run it through PHP/mySQL, I will be able to mass-generate assignment emails through the server, etc. (Although I imagine that's also functionality they have planned for AO3.) In any case, I've already got a useful chunk of it working, and it can't hurt for me to work out the code. Even if we end up going through AO3 instead, I've been wanting to learn PHP/mySQL for my own reasons, so the time won't have been a waste. (I learn better when I'm trying to do a project anyway. :-D)

I don't have an academic conflict (though I would be really sad to knock out those vidders who do from being able to participate).

But, I don't know if I'd enjoy participating on that timeline. That close to VVC is not just block, but burn out...which would really curtail the excitement and ability to participate for me.

Also, one of the things about festivids that I love so much, that has really got me going this year is that it finally gives vidders a chance to participate in the holiday season exchange madness like Yuletide. Take that away and...I'd really rather we didn't.

An earlier sign up/start date would definitely be awesome, but I like the current (or similar) deadline, reveals.

I hope a poll gets done for this because I agree with everything you said.

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