Super General Advice (the thread for advice without making a thread)

Spoiler: diet/weight talk

I don't know how to tell how much weight I can safely lose or how big I'll be by the end of it. I'm scared that I won't be able to get much smaller than I am now, because if I rest my hands on my hips I can feel bone. Most of my weight is in my gut and butt but my hips are still really broad and I feel like I'm still going to have trouble finding clothes and so on even if I lose all the weight I safely can.

 

Idk if this is relevant to where you're driving, but I remember new driving routes by building off of old ones that I already know. Like "my new hairdresser starts off like the route to school, but I take a right instead of a left on Main Street"

 

what level of notifications should I be at for defaulters in a swap? because when I go around and message people directly about a potential default via the blog or DMs or emails, people are (sometimes, it depends on the person) like YEAH I KNOW
but when I post on the blog (repeatedly, in various levels of all caps, bolding, highlighting, headings, etc.), some people will act as if I haven't done enough

the schedules for deadlines are always posted in easily accessible places (servers, on the tumblr itself, in reblogs or reposts that we do EVERY time the schedule slips off the front page [and for a proper-sized swap, on its own schedule page])
I'll be honest I do not want to go back to messaging people directly unless it's absolutely necessary?
and even then I'll probably be doing it via the blog, because if I let people use my DMs they start acting like I owe them access to me 24/7 and lmfao nah.

 

@keltka what kind of notification are you talking about? Telling the recipients that their sender may have defaulted? Telling senders that they're in danger of missing the deadline? (I have opinions on modding lol, but I want to make sure I'm talking about the right thing)

 

we don't tell people about being defaulted on! pinch hitters are allowed to say they've picked up a pinch hit but yeah that's generally the limit
so yeah it would be telling a sender they're in danger of missing the deadline

(some other info: either we have to use AO3 to get the email address that they used in their signup if we want to contact them (without knowing if they still use it), look for their tumblr blog (and hope they use the same username everywhere), or try to message them in the discord server (that they may or may not be in))

 

Ok, that's what I was thinking! I don't think there's any need to message people individually and tell them that they're in danger of defaulting. People are always going to complain that you as a mod aren't doing enough (at least in my experience of modding haha) but posting deadlines publicly and posting reminders on the exchange's blogs is a reasonable amount of effort and at a certain point it's up to the participants to make sure they're staying on top of deadlines

 

baller that's helpful
I've been doing this for a couple years and we try out newish things p much every year but I'm constantly in a state of "AM I DOING THIS RIGHT YET" so this is VERY very very helpful to hear I wish there was a way to bookmark this as a reminder of "no it's okay stop freaking out"

thank you

 

Any time! Feel free to PM me if you want to talk modding too, I'm not suuuper experienced but I've run a few exchanges

 

could you do opt-in email list reminders? like, in the sign-up for the exchange have a choice between "I want to receive emails to remind me about the deadline, and my email is ___" and "I do not want to receive reminder emails and I accept that I will not receive additional help keeping track of the deadline."

Not doing email reminders is also a completely reasonable choice, but if you want to be able to say, "see, I'm doing this" without making a lot of extra work for yourself, this could be an option.

 

That would be handy...downside is for swaps we don't have a formal way to ask them to submit their emails to us that wouldn't be via the blog...hrmmmm.
(I've also tried putting stuff in the emails that get sent out automatically w assignments. does not work.)

Like I'd be down for it maybe? bbbbbut yeah

side note: we post fairly regular reminders in the discord + post at Big Moments on the blog

 

Does anyone know how to make an ao3 bookmark of a work that’s hosted elsewhere?

 

Go to your Bookmarks page and click the "Bookmark External Work" button near the top of the page. It'll give you fields to enter the link, title, author, etc.

 

Unrelatedly: Does anyone know of any good fanfiction, writing, or general fandom discords for someone who wants to discuss writing with other writers? I have a friend who's been writing a lot of fic recently and really wants people to talk craft with, but nearly all the servers she's found in her fandom are populated by teenage tumblr antis. I thought non-fandom-specific servers might be a better bet, but I'm not familiar enough with any to help.

 

I only know this 1 homestuck and an OC writers jamming discords (I'm not an active participant so idk how they're doing rn) and It's got a lot of specific rooms for nsfw and nsfw extreme writing chat and ppl generally warning what their stuff is about so i think it wouldnt be a realm of antis

 

@GlassesBlu @keltena if they're the ones triadic linked, I'm in the homestuck one and it's pretty cool!! the OC one I don't know about...

 

Oh, do you have a link to the OC writers discord? The friend in question has been writing OC fic, so if they talk about fanfic as well as original fic there maybe it would be a good fit :o (She isn't in Homestuck fandom at all, so that one unfortunately wouldn't work, but thanks for the suggestion!)

 

Here it is https://discord.gg/bbh69Vj

Hope it helps!

 

@keltka i know this is like a week late and you already had your question answered, but for what it's worth, in pretty much every exchange i've been in, it's explicitly on the participant to stick to the deadline, not on mods to remind people individually. people default -- it happens -- but the only thing mods are generally expected to do is find a pinch hitter for the assignment.

(& i've defaulted a few times, and honestly i would feel worse if a mod came by to poke me, like i already feel bad enough without someone else acknowledging my failure. that said i've always manually hit the Default button, so it's not like any mods would think i didn't know, lol.)

@keltena if your friend ever participates in any fanfic exchanges (or is interested in doing so!) she could check out the Yuletide and Fandom Exchanges discord. mostly focused on writing for fanfic exchanges (Yuletide's the big one, but a bunch of others are represented as well) but also has some channels that are just general writing.

 

thank you that does help!! we have a lot of people who don't even bother or don't even "notice" the deadline's coming up
(our system actually works like this:

• if you default before the deadline, you're in the clear, but we make a note of it in case someone's a serial defaulted [this has happened more than once]
• if you default after the deadline you're not allowed to participate next year UNLESS you A. pick up a pinch hit or B. do a treat
  • A: completely in the clear
  • B: you can participate, but you're not allowed an extension for that year

so really people have like......an incentive to talk to us about defaulting, and what they can do about it)

 

that’s a good system! honestly the people who forget/don’t notice the deadline baffle me a little, tho i guess some of that may be because for polyswap and such you may get some fans who are new to exchanges...

and of course i’m very deadline-driven, so i come from the perspective of trying to meet that deadline at the last minute and thus being aware of when the deadline is in my time zone down to the minute. i suppose others may not share that tendency :p