SASO 2016: Talkback

[referees]

This post is closed; thank you for your feedback. If you would like to provide constructive criticism, please contact the mods directly. All further replies to this entry are screened.

The mods still plan to reply to the topics listed at the bottom of the post.

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This is not the final wrap-up results/etc. post—that's coming in a couple of days. But while the mods tabulate final scores and create prize graphics, now's a good time to look back and reflect on your SASO 2016 experience.

Please leave comments giving us feedback on the event this year! What did you like? What did you dislike or find frustrating? What can we improve for next year, and how can we improve it? What was your favorite part of the event? Least favorite? Would you participate next year or not? Why? If you could mention your team when making your comment, we'd appreciate it.

If you would prefer to submit your comments in private, you can e-mail us at anime.espn@gmail.com or send us a Dreamwidth PM. We would prefer it if you'd put "Talkback" in the subject line.

Here's what the mod team plans to improve for next year:

• Voting program reliability. We'd like to apologize again for all of the server dowtnime, and definitely plan to make it much more stable for next year. The voting system in general, though, will remain the same.


• Bonus round program reliability. We think we got most of the kinks out during this year, but want to keep it stable for next year too.


• Dreamwidth capability for NSFW cross-posting. We didn't have time to implement it this year, but next year it should be ready to go.


• Clarifying the rules, especially on what "popular culture media" is acceptable to include in SASO work.

We also wanted to thank you again for being patient with us this year. We had a lot of technical hiccups, and you were all so kind while our heroic codermods worked out the kinks. We really appreciated your support.

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Mod Replies: (updated 12:55PM EDT 8/28/16)

Please note that inclusion of a topic on this list indicates that we're going to address it, not that we've made any decisions on judging/implementing or not implementing it.

Voting:

The preliminary vote system

Triggers in a participant's assigned vote pool

Juried panel (having the mods decide which entries were the best)

Voting mechanics

Bonus Rounds:

Promptless rounds

One day break between bonus rounds

Bonus round prompt and fill tracking/filtering

Recs round work count

Image size limit

Remix round

Remix/rec round timing

Rec round

Quality control (both prompts and fills)

What is allowed as a fill (tags and ratings)

Unscreening bonus rounds

Fairness to small teams

Comment screening

Main Rounds:

The anonymity policy

Professionalism:

Twitter tone

What information gets posted where

Considering a dreamwidth announcement community

Mod participation in the event

Comments

(frozen comment) grandstand!

[elucidatedlucy]

Thank you for this year! I am really glad to have had the chance to participate.

I wanted to say in particular that I'm deeply glad we continued with a 2 week cycle on bonus rounds! There were two where I felt anxious and unsure about how to approach the prompts I wanted to write for, but being able to move onto another round and settle into something new recharged my feelings about creating, and allowed me to jump in when I struggled in other times. I wanted to voice the fact of how helpful the 2 week cycle is for me! I enjoyed all the rounds provided this year, and the mixture of previously used rounds versus new ones - the gift tags one in particular was Very Cool, for what it allowed people to do.

The introduction of an entirely promptless round was, in particular, very cool to me. While remixes are technically "promptless," approaching other people's creations still feels like a strong prompt to me (another event I always look forward to). The myth round was one I hadn't expected, and while I was a bit sad I couldn't make prompts, it was easier to read other's works, as well as create myself. Having the option for a promptless round allows for approaching writing & relationships in a way that prompts otherwise would not allow for. There are many potential relationships and canons that are hard to find prompts for in SASO, due to rarepairs or rare fandoms - and it's hard to really engage yourself, when it's Rare - but having an option for a round where we could create regardless of what other people prompted, and indulge in our own concepts within the lines of the round, was a fantastic opportunity!!! I understand other people's struggles with it, but it was the easiest round for /me/, so I do feel it's good to give potentials like that from round to round.

I do agree though that Myth and Remix back to back was a bit trouble in terms of "no Active Prompts." But I feel like that could be fixed as easily as ordering the rounds differently in the future to make sure "no prompts!" aren't back to back, so people don't feel like they're trailing off the edges, depending on their personal specialities and comforts.

I do believe that the Recs round could have been benefitted (to a degree) with a cap on how many fills get points, but even that is a little difficult to say, because I think that was the case last year and I know that people will often only comment as much as they have to to get the points. But at the same time, I don't want people to have to push to think of something to say for hundreds of fills over more points. That's a difficult issue to balance, and I'll trust what the mods go with, because I understand neither option is necessarily great! The issues that come with events involving tons of people.

I'm grateful for the time extends on voting when there were issues with the system! But I'm also grateful for how voting works. Giving people good reason to explore any given work is a wonderful thing. I do agree that the issue of tags is a bit of a struggle, but I'm not sure how it could be approached without people gaming the system to blacklist out tags just to narrow down what might come up to what they specifically want to vote for. I was still happy with how voting worked though.

With regards to bonus rounds, all I would like to say is that I'd very much appreciate if it was more normalized for people to express any tags or content warnings that they do not want in any fill made on a prompt they make. I saw that a couple of times, but if the faqs or the post for each bonus round mentioned an optional line in the post about "content tags to avoid," or something like that, I'd feel much more confident about approaching people's prompts! I realize that I could approach that by simply asking the prompter, but anxiety and time sort of get in the way of that.

Though by any rights, I feel as though this year went quite well, and better than last year? Or I feel like people came to the table with their best, and people wanted to stay and participate, and that the mod team approached any issue and question to the best of their ability. I know things can always Improve, but I'm grateful to everyone behind this event, and everyone who chose to participate. I very much look forward to next year.