It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

 

 

Christmas? 

Ok, no, no it's not really. (BUT HOW RIDICULOUS IS THAT DOGGY SWEATSHIRT/DOG COMBO? AND THEIR HAIR!)

STILL, We have many fine holidays yet to celebrate this autumn before Christmas rolls around, but a little advance planning never hurt.
So, I want to know if you guys are interested in participating in a


 

The way I understand it works from other comms (since I'm not above copying from them!) is that either here in a comment thread or in a separate comm, we have signups for involvement where we list what we're able to give (if you're great at icons, but can't vid to save your life, if you can beta read/edit, but don't write fic, etc.)  and then we post Christmas wishlists (Maybe they pertain strictly to pilots, maybe just to bsg, maybe to any fandom) of things we'd like: icons, vids, fics, picspams, graphics, fanmixes, poems, songs, etc. Once all the wishlists are in/posted, the mods will assign secret santas, and you have the month of December to create your goodies. Posting happens from Dec 24 through Jan 5. 

That's one option. Another might be to run signups now and assign the matches soonish, then have people post their goodies all through the month of December, maybe small gifts, like an icon or a drabble, leading up to a larger  big gift, like a sizeable fic or a whole vid or a bunch of graphics at once that Christmas/Post-Christmas week.

What do you think? Should we do it? Here or in a separate comm? I'm not going to do a poll since it would only have the one "are you in" question, but please respond in the comments if you would be interested and also if you have suggestions for how the exchange should be run/timeline, etc.  OH and if anyone would like to mod (or co-mod with me) that's cool too! :)

Comments

[nazkey.livejournal.com]

I'm in! Sounds fun. Whichever way we choose is fine with me.

Oh and that picture had me LOL'ing. Loving Goofy!Lee (yes, he totally looks goofier than Kara. I can just hear her talking him into wearing that sweater to pay him back for coming up with the idea of them having a personalized holiday card. *g*)

[amidala-thrace.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that would be awesome! I'd definitely be up for participating (probably with fic, as I am hopeless at most other fandom-related stuff). I do one of these for Star Wars every year, and they're really fun. :)

Also, if you did need help co-modding - or a mod - I could lend a hand. The holidays aren't usually as busy for me as some other times of the year (like now, for instance, UGH) and I may be looking for ways to kill time during my two weeks off work. ;)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Awesome. How does the Star Wars one usually work if you don't mind sharing?

[amidala-thrace.livejournal.com]

No problem. :) The Star Wars one is called jedi_mistletoe, and while the comm itself is somewhat small, the particular method used seems to work well. Usually in late September-early October the moderator will put up a post asking how many folks are interested participation-wise - much as you've done here - followed by a separate sign-up post later in October. All comments to the sign-up post are screened, and commenters are asked to include some basic information (name, email address, which pairings they'd prefer to write for and receive - obviously not an issue here - and one or two prompts as well as kinks they don't want to write or receive in their gift fic). The mod then matches up participants based on common preferences and emails them their assignments. A due date is stated, and participants are asked to confirm receipt of the assignment email by replying to it.

Depending on how many people have signed up, the deadline can be anywhere from early December to mid-December, with a grace period of about a week for extensions and the like. Participants submit their assignments via email with HTML code already inserted so all the mod basically has to do is give the fic a final read-over and post it. Fics are posted under a general moderator's account (as are all reminders and notices to the comm), usually in the days leading up to Christmas, though sometimes after the holiday as well. A master/reveal list with names of participants and links to fics, so giftees and gifters can thank each other, goes up around New Year's.

Obviously the above would have to be adapted/discarded according to the needs of a ship-specific Secret Santa, but it has seemed to work quite well over the years - not too many hiccups along the way. :)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Cool. Seems pretty straightforward like a regular fic exchange. Since we might have graphics and icons and different elements all in one post, ours would be slightly different I guess. And I guess there wouldn't really be a need for secrecy if you were to just make the one post with all gifts in it. But if we were to do it as an ongoing thing, then secrecy would be fun for a final big gift-related reveal at the end.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I'd like to participate too :) Any timeline sounds fine to me, but I guess maybe I'd prefer the slow-build through December, just because having a little something new every day is often more fun than having a ton of new stuff that you tear through in a couple of days.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I agree, but do worry about people's time limitations throughout December in the leadup to the main holidays. Starting early may help with that though.

Maybe we'll put it to a poll later in the week.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Good point. Maybe we could make it a Pilots New Year month of January thing?

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I'm in. I'll work on building my fannish skill set to be more versatile! :) I agree that a slow release through December would be better, but I can make just about any timeline work with enough warning.

[shah-of-blah.livejournal.com]

I'd do it. As for the timeline, I wouldn't be opposed to starting sooner but I think having a whole month might be enough. Although, on the school front, the first half of December is finals for us college students. So, you know, that's a consideration. Maybe running signups now would be a good idea.

[coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com]

Love this! (AND THAT GRAPHIC, LOL.)

When is Yuletide, again? I know people are usually bugging out about that during the holiday season, so we might want to take that into account, if we've got peeps who are doing it (I might, this year)!

ETA: Oh, and I totally forgot to say, but I'd totally help you co-mod if you wanted. :D I love Christmas! I love Pilots! It's perfect!

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

This sounds fun. I am totally timeline flexible.

This is also a great reminder that I need to work on how to get myself out of the photo X-mas card. ;)

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

What a fantastic idea! I love it and am deffo in. I'm also happy to help with modding as needed. You've already got two lovely volunteers above so just let me know if I can help, but no worries if you guys have it covered.

[thrace-adama.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I love this idea. Pilots at the holidays = <3. First idea for timeline sounded best to me, but I'd be fine with whatever.

I wish I could offer to co-mod, but with a bunch of divorced family members, I bounce all around the state from November to January. You know where to find me if I can help in any way, though, which I'd be glad to do.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of sign up post, then a wishlist post, then secret(?) assignments by mod(s). I do agree with Rachel's comment about getting a lot at one time (just that last week), so what if we ask "gifters" to specify a week in december that is best for them to deliver the gifts. Then maybe the deliveries can be spread out a little. I'm also happy to co-mod.

Yay for kara and lee holiday happy!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'm folllowing the time line suggestion. So if I pick a week, Dec 5-12 say, when I'm going to deliver my gifts...it's sort of the same as getting them all Dec 24-Jan 5, no? Except earlier? Because the gifts are personal and it's only a one-on-one exchange.

Although I guess looking at/admiring other people's gifties all in the same week could be time-consuming. I'll have to look into options some more. I really only looked at one comm that did it the first way, but thought the idea of randomly gifting throughout the month of Dec might be more fun.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you've got my idea. It is similar to receiving duing the last week, but I guess I assumed that even though the gifts are "personal" they would be posted on people's ljs and linked via no_takebacks? Spreading them out would still be fun. Is there some anonymity portion that I missed? Are gifts posted to no-takebacks anon? Sorry. Missed that part.

Eta: you could make the signup comments screened then people can't guess as easily who their secret santa is... dunno, just thinking out loud-ish. :)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Yeah signups would be screened and then gifts would be posted here anon probably with a subject header like "Gift for Sci_Fi_Shipper" or something like that. Which may make a separate comm for this a better idea. Could get messy if we have a lot of people, plus the normal DPPs and the like. Although we have no DPP signups for most of December.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I agree about second comm if there are a lot of signups. And I will be taking a week in dec, but haven't figured out which week works for me yet. I guess you could see if there are enough people able to deliver in earlier weeks to warrant spreading it out. Otherwise, then maybe just that last week.

"Gift for sci-fi-shipper" already has me happy! Lol.

It also occurs to me that a separate comm allowing anon posters would make it less annoying to post long fics... some fics just can't fit in thecomments!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Hmm maybe if you were posting a long fic, that would be your final gift and you would reveal identity on that post. Or potentially, you could post it using something like docstoc or scribd with a vague account name and then just post a link here.

So many things to consider!

[coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com]

I've seen other secret santa comms where the signups are done by a "wishlist" post, then the mods match people up and send assignments separately, rather than people picking other particular people, and then gifts are due by a certain point to the mods, so the mods (acting as Santa!) dole out the gifts in one big Reveal Post. So there's that kind of idea, too!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Yes I think that was the first model above (though I wasn't clear on how "distribution" worked, heh). Were the wishlist posts screened or unscreened in those comms?

It would definitely be the mods pairing one person with another, not a "choose your own" kind of thing.

If we go with the "small gifts throughout month" idea, then people can anon post on their own schedule. Or we could maybe do a staggered schedule: 5 people get their gifts first week of december, 5 the second week, 5 the third, etc. Or just one big dump the week of Christmas-New Year.

[coffeesuperhero.livejournal.com]

The wishlist posts are usually unscreened, and everybody who's participating just answers a questionnaire that the mods come up with (username, email, what kind of present they like/wouldn't like, what kind of present they're willing to make, what kind of present they are not willing to make), then the mods roll their magic dice and match people up and email the assignments out.

I guess I tend to like the mass post idea better because everybody gets their gifts at the same time, so nobody ever feels left out? And if gifts are due to the mods by a certain date, the mods are able to know for sure that everybody who's playing will get a gift, since they can ask for pinch-hitters in case somebody has like, a catastrophic life emergency and can't finish in time. But I will play no matter what! Let me know if you need help.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Yeah I wondered about requirements, like everyone submits a list of 3 or more items and can expect 3 items in return or some such? Potentially we could do 4 items, one for each week leading up to Christmas. Definitely need to make sure we have everyone matched and some pinch hitters lined up too.

Thanks, I think we'll def. want to have at least 2 or 3 mods since it's such a busy time of year. Gotta get the thinking caps on..

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

I wonder if doing that many (3 or 4) would be too much? I guess I was thinking that people publish their wishlists and mods assign based on what the gifters offer. If I offer icons and fic, then I could be given two people. If I offer fic only, then just one person. The wishlist would be about having options for the gifter to choose from, not necessarily that they would receive that. Each receiver gets one item, but a gifter could give more if that's what they sign up for. Make any sense?

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well I'm not sure how that would work exactly, to have one giver and multiple recipients. It could get very messy and tough to keep it fair if we're trying to assign things on anything other than a one-to-one basis.

The thing about this too, especially since it's going to be shipper focused and we all like the pilots (it's not like a BSG exchange where the person who loves Boomer gets paired with the person who makes Boomer icons, you know?) is that people's requests are probably going to have to be really specific to be successful.

Maybe rather than trying to have people specify in the signup period any wants or dislikes, that bit is unnecessary. We all love the pilots so maybe we just have people signup with their names and we do a random matchup and each person posts a wishlist (like people do for yuletide or festivids) and their assignee just goes to work.

We should think of it as an office exchange possibly. You fish a co-worker, er, co-shipper's name out of the virtual hat, you check their wishlist letter and you set out to make or obtain fun gifties for them for a month or so, then submit to the mods and we do the reveal.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Maybe rather than trying to have people specify in the signup period any wants or dislikes, that bit is unnecessary. We all love the pilots so maybe we just have people signup with their names and we do a random matchup and each person posts a wishlist (like people do for yuletide or festivids) and their assignee just goes to work.

We should think of it as an office exchange possibly. You fish a co-worker, er, co-shipper's name out of the virtual hat, you check their wishlist letter and you set out to make or obtain fun gifties for them for a month or so, then submit to the mods and we do the reveal.

This sounds excellent and simple. Does that mean maybe we should limit to icons and fic? If I get someone who wants vids, they'd be outta luck. Or make sure the wishlist contains at least a fic or an icon request. Instead of two separate sign-ups and wishlists, why not just sign up with a wishlist. Then mods can match people or do it randomly. It would be implied that if you make a wishlist you will have to give something in return.

Now let me make it more complicated... ;)
And for fangirls who don't know what they'd offer? I'd be willing to make extra "from Santa" fic/icons. Just so everyone can be included. (If that would even solve the problem.) Maybe those who feel like they have nothing to offer can request Santa's Help? Hee. There could even be an Elves Workshop of icons or extra fic that fangirls can choose from? (Yes, like Lee, I am overthinking it!)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Actually I was thinking along the same lines. That you could "obtain" icons or vid or fic from someone else possibly to regift. Although that would be up to the people to work out between themselves, out of the goodness of the writer/vidder/iconer's hearts I suppose.

I don't think we should limit it. Definitely not to icons and fic because if someone wants icons, I'm not very good, but I can easily do a mini-vid. :) We're all going to have different talents. And even people who don't write or icon can upload songs for a fanmix or maybe create a recipe for a drink/food item named after our pilots (to keep Fat Lees company!) or, I don't know, write a piece of meta/thoughts about their person's favorite episode? Anyone can go to faceinhole and make silly manips like I did above. There are things you can come up with probably. Like if your person loves baby fic but you don't write, you could make them a really super comprehensive baby fic rec list? You could go through archives of icon comms and gather links to icons they might like (with credit, even if you didn't create them). You could write silly haikus or limericks, or make a jigsaw puzzle by uploading a pilots picture to jigsaw.com.

Maybe for the signups, the questions that you answer are:

What can you offer?
icons, fic, wallpaper, games and puzzles, meta

What would you like to receive?
vids, banners, layouts,recipes

What are your top 3 favorite K/L scenes?
The you're dreaming it scene from Home, the EOJ makeout, Under the Wing in Maelstrom

Do you have any particular preferences for storylines?
I love the Aurora statuette! I go nuts for Mythology references to Apollo and Artemis! Pre-mini stuff is my favorite! Pilots flying together, Reincarnation fics are awesome, etc.

Anything you really hate?
I'm not a fan of hate!sex or excessive angst where they're trying to hurt each other. I hate the Poof and don't like post-finale set stuff. etc.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Yes, that all sounds excellent and I think your questions cover everything. Maybe also a resource post with websites for making fun fannish things. And a list of all of the things one could wish for - cause I'd never would have thought of recipes or fic rec lists. Very cool, Tara. I like it a lot.

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

I agree with posting the wishlist and then having mods match people up. I like the idea that the mod(s) mass post the gifts especially since it allows mods to make sure everyone gets a gift with pinch hitters as necessary.

If we want to do a gift a week, then perhaps we could have four mods (one for each week) to do the gift postings and one overall mod. That would also match up with the mod volunteers so far (amidala_thrace, coffeesuperhero, sci_fi_shipper, me, and taragel) and no one would be stuck with a huge burden. As SFS mentioned, I was also thinking of doing a December DPP week, so maybe we could arrange it so whoever is the mod making the gift post(s) for the week could also do the DPP to avoid quite as much craziness from multiple postings.

I'm getting all super excited about this idea now. Love the idea of being a Christmas elf!! Also love matching people that I think would enjoy each other so would deffo be glad to help.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

wait, are they gifts like icons and stories and such...because i seriously don't have a single talent. Can i just donate a kid or something like that? i have a pet or two as well ... oh, and a husband ... he's pretty excellent!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Hehe. I tried to think of something other than icons, stories, vids but what would you give that's free online relating to pilots that isn't graphics or text based? Not sure.

[olaf47.livejournal.com]

Want want want want. I'd be happy to co-mod with you, too!

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

well, as long as it doesn't involve apparel like the above, i'm in!

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Well now we know what YOUR GIFT should be. Lol.

[koolaidmom11.livejournal.com]

NO CLOTHING FOR ME!!!!

[damao2010.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a fun idea. I didn't understand very well how it's supposed to happen, but whatever is decided is Ok by me.

[stripes13.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an awesome idea. I'm up for helping on the mod front though it seems like you have more than enough volunteers.

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

I'm in!

I like the idea of signups soonish to give everyone as much time as possible (I take so long to write anything!) but I think I prefer the one big reveal rather than an early reveal and a series of gifts. Or making that optional?

In either case, it would be nice if the santas stayed secret until Christmas.

[thegreenkitty.livejournal.com]

Hey bb,

My understanding is that we're definitely leaning toward keeping the santas secret until the end. Even if we did posts with smaller gifts (an icon or drabble or whatever) each week, I agree w/ you that the big reveal should come with the main goodies at the end. Whatever we choose, it's making me get excited about Christmas. Pilots for Christmas is a grand, glorious idea. :D

Hope all is going well on your side of the world!

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

Things are kind of snafu, but that's okay I'm used to it!

I can't seem to be concise though so I don't think I could do several small items - I'd be writing a fic and I average 2000-ish words for a one shot. More than one between now and Christmas would be insanity for me.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

I'd love to participate - I like the idea of very specific suggestions/prompts assigned in a sort of lottery system and then secret-santa-ish stuff after that. So count me in!

[ddt73.livejournal.com]

I don't like to think about Christmas this soon, it's not even Halloween yet! Call it a pet peeve.

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

I hear you, but, well, everyone has a lot of constraints on their time leading up to the holidays, so planning for these things sooner instead of later seems a good idea. (There's Yuletide and Festivids already hosting signups now too.)

[ddt73.livejournal.com]

I understand. It might sound crazy but I like the crazy bustle of the holidays then start planning for it in October.

Can't get into the spirit of it if I do it so early. I know I'm in the minority, but hey that's me. :)

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

This is a fantastic idea, so count me in! :D

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

I so totally approve! Let's have some shipper holiday spirit

[angelicalangie.livejournal.com]

I'll join in!

[bonita-chica71.livejournal.com]

I really like this idea Tara.:) Is it too late for me to get involved?