End of Round

[pumpkinkingmod]

I am sorry for this post being late.  One of the things that I’m going to talk about concerns that.

 

 

Cats

269 cats

Credits: Rosencrantz, yhlee, sunspot, fenellaevangela, lionessvalenti, BonesOfBirdWings, theladyscribe, mlraven

If I missed your pics or the name you wanted to be credited under then just send me a message.  Not everybody included names that they wanted to be credited under.

I also would like to apologize to people that felt that they got subpar gifts because of the cats.  I just thought this would be a fun and silly prize to work toward.

Originally I was going to do them on a AO3 post, but I ended up changing my mind.

 

Staffing

The short version is that Trick or Treat is just too big for me.  We aren’t the biggest exchange by participants.  We aren’t even the second or third.  But we have an amazingly high ratio of gifts to participants.  My schedule is just going to get more busy in the upcoming years.  Trick or Treat simply can’t continue without additional staff members.  I’m not sure how to go about training staff or how to start divvying up responsibilities, but it is something that needs to happen if Trick or Treat is to continue. I also have amazingly bad luck when running exchanges.  The reason for the radio silence was for medical reasons (don’t worry I’m fine now).  

 

If you are interested in staffing then email me at halloweenmod@gmail.com with your AO3 name, what experience you have either moderating an exchange or participating in them, what fandoms you are knowledgeable in, and what you think you can bring to Trick or Treat in a staff capacity.  You must title your email “Trick or Treat - Staff”

 

Requirements are that you must be at least 18, must have participated in at least four AO3 based exchanges, be willing to learn, and be willing to have a thematically appropriate mod icon for when you post to the com as an exchange mod to make it clear when you are speaking as a mod versus speaking as a participant.  

 

Livejournal

I will not be using the LJ community anymore.  I will post one notice for nominations starting and one for sign-ups, but that is it.

 

Community Challenge

It seems like the community challenge was well received this year.  Would you rather have another round of bingo next year or something new?  This is not a vote.  I am still deciding what I want to do next year and I just want community feedback and input.  If I do bingo again it would be a mix of new and old squares with any old squares being harder than they were this round. 

Closing

I hope you had fun this year.  If you are participating in Yuletide then good luck on your assignments/treats.  If you like Trick or Treat then check out our friends over at chocobox for a relationship themed exchange with reveals on Valentine’s Day.

 

Comments

[rosefox]

Thank you for a FANTASTIC exchange.

[elwinfortuna]

It was a genuinely awesome exchange, I loved the bingo and the fun of writing lots of treats for people. Looking forward to next year!

[independence1776]

Thank you for running this. I had a great time this year.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for running this, glad to hear you are well. I hope you get a good number of staff volunteers!

[rachelmanija]

It was super fun. Thanks for running it!

[yuuago]

I had a fantastic time with this exchange. Thank you so much for running it.

Glad to hear that you're fine now (re: the personal stuff). I can understand wanting to take on more staff for such a huge exchange, and I appreciate that you're making plans to do that.

I LOVED the bingo card; it was a really fun challenge. So, I hope you do that again next year, or something similar.

Thanks again. <3

[vass]

Thank you very much for running this, and I'm sorry for your health problems and glad you're better now.

[echoslammin]

Thank you so much for running this exchange! It was my first time participating, and I had such a great experience. My amazing main gift and the wonderful extra treats were a huge surprise to me, being a newb with virtually no fandom presence.

Love the cats!

[cyren2132]

WHAT. ADORABLE. KITTIES!
(And I should totally have checked the comm more, because I absolutely have some good ones of this big baby in my icon)

Glad you're feeling better now.

As for challenges, personally...I'm not that invested in them. Sure, cats are cute, Bingo's fun, but are they really worth it if they contribute to making the exchange unmanageable? If they continue, I'd definitely suggest more obscure/specific Bingo spots rather than higher fic counts on spots. And maybe a challenge that is more timeliness based than fic number based. Like, "Cats if everyone has a gift (or treat) by X date!"

Thanks for all you do, PK. Trick or Treat is by far my favorite exchange.

[spoke]

Thank you so much for running this! It was my first time as well, and it was really fun. Glad to hear you're feeling better. <3

[samuraiter]

All I did was lurk this time, but thank you for continuing to run this, nonetheless. :-)

[blueteak]

Thank you so much for another awesome year and I'm glad you're doing better!

[sholio]

This was my first time participating and I loved it. Thank you for running it; it was a very fun, well-modded exchange, and I'm glad you're feeling better.

[fawatson]

Thank you so much for running this exchange. It was really enjoyable. I liked the bingo idea and I think changing the bingo squares next year is good (one suggestion for next year - how about ghosts?)

I do hope this exchange is offered again next year. I wish I could offer to help mod but I think my lack of computer skills would defeat any help I might offer, so sorry....

[diaphenia]

Thank you so much for all your hard work! I can't imagine how difficult it is to mod this thing, and you did a wonderful job communicating with us and providing us cats.* I loved all three of my fics and I had a blast writing my two fics, and I love how the low word count/art count (?) encourages people to write/draw stuff they might not normally. I also subscribed to a bunch of new people after reading and loving their fic. I do personally enjoy the extra challenges, although I bet they are a lot of work, but it was so fun to see people push themselves to write treats and make sure everyone had two gifts. And the cats were lovely, and a real treat. Thanks to everyone who submitted their own cats! I can't wait for next year.


*the people who are complaining about subpar fic and blaming the cats are being silly, sometimes in fic exchanges there is subpar fic because fic is written by people and sometimes they overestimate their abilities, run out of time, or accidentally stumble into a type of fic the receiver didn't think to DNW. It's always a shake of the die, and all you can do is leave a nice comment anyway and then go read one of the 800 other things in the exchange.

[(Anonymous)]

Some of us got DNW or Treats instead of Tricks as our second "gift", so no, not all of us are being silly and need to leave a nice comment on stuff that wasn't really written for us.

Bingo squares that don't artificially increase the fic account, as suggested by someone else above, would be much appreciated.

[diaphenia]

If someone gave you fic with a DNW, I'm sorry to hear that, but that happens in other exchanges too, ones without extra challenges. People post drawer fic or don't read closely or go ODAO, and I don't know how to fix that. Mandatory approved betas? Artifically small exchanges? A dozen mods who know more fandoms to read each fic carefully before the exchange goes live? If you have some ideas, let's talk about them.

[anaraine]

Aw, so many cute kitties and friends!

Thank you for hosting this exchange again. I love how it fits in with my own Halloween celebrations; it would be so hard to go back to a Halloween without it!

I thought the bingo was an interesting community challenge, but you've also come up with the most interesting (and escalating) challenges over the years, so I'm actually leaning towards whatever else you've got up your sleeves. (But for the record, I'm not opposed to bigger and better bingos either.)

I'm glad to hear that you're feeling better, and hope that your health continues to improve!