[ADMIN] Rules & FAQ

[darjeeling]

COMMUNITY RULES • Please read this whole FAQ before joining! If you have any questions, please address them here. • Challenges are posted on Wednesday and participants submit their entries through the week. Each week's challenge closes on Monday night at 9:00PM EST (or as close as the mod can make it, life allowing) and a voting post is made. The voting takes place through Tuesday and Wednesday until 9PM EST, with winners announced Wednesday night or Thursday morning when the new challenge goes up. • The maximum word count for each entry is 1000 words. You can use this site or any number of programs to stay inside this limit. (We do allow for very minor variances due to programs differentiating by a word or two.) There is no minimum word count. • Any fictional fandom is acceptable, including original universes. Crossovers between fandoms are fine. • Please note that we do NOT accept Real Person fiction in any format. Any historical figure who has a fandom interpretation is completely fine for writing about in the context of that canon, so Henry VIII from The Tudors (2007) is acceptable, but writing about the actual Henry VIII straight out of real history would not be. Likewise, fiction about celebrities, musicians, sports figures, etc are not acceptable. • Don't showcase your submissions anywhere, including your personal journal or fanfic communities, Fanfiction.net, or AO3, before voting closes and the announcement of the winners is made. If you're found to be previewing your entries elsewhere, your entry will be disqualified. Once the winner's post goes up for that week, you can post your entry anywhere you like, and if you have an AO3 account, we encourage you to submit it to our collection there! • If posting more than one entry per challenge, use the same journal to post both. Anyone found circumventing this rule will be banned. • You cannot use a previously published piece of your fiction, even if the theme fits. All entries must be written new, during the challenge week. • Ratings from G through R are allowed, there are to be no NC-17 entries. Keep it tasteful. Label your entries appropriately with any warnings for content. When relevant, please be courteous and indicate spoiler warnings for newer fandoms. • Please do your best to eliminate any grammatical and spelling errors in your entries before posting them. • Stay on topic! Do not post memes, advertisements, random spam posts, or anything of that nature in this community. If you do, you will have your posting access revoked. If you are interested in promoting fandomweekly in your own journals, we have some codes available HERE. • No flaming or bashing of any author will be tolerated, and will result in the offender being banned from the community. • If you want to affiliate with this community, please leave a comment here. Challenge or fandom communities only; no personal journals. • Be creative and have fun! THEMES AND BONUS GOALS • Every challenge will have a central theme that should reflect in the fic. These themes are open to interpretation, but the general idea of them should come through. • Each challenge will also have a Bonus Goal to incorporate into the fic. This could be a given line of dialogue to include, a specific type of place that the story has to be set in, or other types of specific limitations. These bonus goals are NOT required to be part of the entry, but including them will earn a reward (see below). • For Bonus Goals, while they will sometimes include a specific phrase, we do allow for very minor alterations in the wording where it's needed to fit the fandom. For example, if the phrase was, "Give me all the coffee" but you were writing for Star Trek: Deep Space 9, it could be "Give me all the raktajino" and that would be fine. Likewise if a phrase like "It's something you'll enjoy doing" can be written as "It is something you will enjoy doing" if you have a character that doesn't use contractions. ENTRY SUBMISSION • You can submit up to 2 entries per challenge. If submitting two works for a challenge, please post each completed theme as a separate entry, for tagging and voting reasons. • All works must use the posting format on the community profile. • All entries, whether for challenge or amnesty rounds, must be made public and not locked to the community. • Do not link your submissions to another journal/community (no fake cuts!), they must be posted to this community. • TITLE your posts with the following format: [#000] Story Title (Fandom) EX: [#007] Long Way Home (Marvel's Agent Carter) • TAG your posts with the correct challenge tag, which will be in the tags list: EX: 007 - traveling VOTING & POINTS • Voting takes place over Tuesday and Wednesday of each week. Votes are submitted as screened comments to the voting post, which has a list of links to all submissions for that week. • You cannot vote for your own work. Voting cannot be made anonymously. You must entirely fill out your voting card for your vote to count; you can't vote for just a single entry and no others. You must vote for 3 separate entries, you can't cast votes for the same entry for multiple places. • Votes are cast for people's first, second, and third place choices. A first place vote is worth 3 points, a second worth 2 points, and a third worth 1 point. The entry with the most votes will win first, second etc etc. • Completing the Bonus Goal for that week earns an extra 1 point on that entry. • If there are more than five (5) entries per challenge, there will be first, second, and third place winners selected. If there are less than five (5) entries per challenge, there will only be a first place winner and a runner-up selected. • Winners are posted in the main community after the voting has closed.

Comments

[iluvroadrunner6]

Question!

Are crossovers kosher? Or would you prefer to stick to single-fandom entries?

[darjeeling]

Crossovers are fine! Nothing in the setup limits this by fandom, so there's no reason not to allow it.

[impala-chick.livejournal.com]

Can we participate using openID?

[darjeeling]

Unfortunately, we do require a Dreamwidth account to participate, as one of the community's goals is to help strengthen the fandom base here on DW.

[sexploitation]

Out of curiosity: Will winners get prizes of any kind or is it for kicks?

[darjeeling]

At the moment, there's no reward for winning beyond bragging rights. On similar comms back on LJ, I know it was popular to have banners made for each winner, but a) I don't even know if that's a thing people are still interested in on DW and b) to be honest, I can't commit to that time-wise on a weekly basis by myself. If we got a few volunteers who'd be interested in making winner's banners on rotating weeks (so four volunteers, for example, would mean each person would only be responsible for banners once a month) then I'd absolutely be down for that.

[fickle_obsessed]

Are original characters within a fandom allowed?

[darjeeling]

Certainly!

[ozqueen]

Damn, this looks interesting but I am going to have no time for writing through the week (12 hour work days). Is there any wriggle room for allowing a Saturday or a Sunday for writing time, and have the voting on a Friday/Saturday or Sunday/Monday schedule instead, or is this current schedule pretty much set in stone?

[darjeeling]

Unfortunately, this is the schedule were going with, as it works for the mods. But hopefully you'll find some time once in a while, we'd love to have you participate.

[novel_machinist]

When you say original universe, do you mean that we can post side works from our own fiction?

[darjeeling]

Right :)

[flair]

Since I figure most of us might be roleplayers, would be it kosher if we wrote about stuff that'd take place in a game's setting, or is that discouraged?

[darjeeling]

That's fine by me!

[badass_tiger]

Is there going to be an ao3 collection for submissions? :) I know we can't post our works before the week's winner's post, but I'm sure most people would post their works on ao3 afterwards.

[darjeeling]

I didn't even think of that, what an excellent idea! I went ahead and made a collection for us :)

http://archiveofourown.org/collections/FandomWeekly

(I'll make a proper new post in the community shortly, so everyone can see this.)

Thanks!

[badass_tiger]

Would you consider holding an amnesty period on occasion? I'm sure there are people out there who couldn't finish something for a theme on time, and it would help people who normally can't take part because they're too busy during weekdays. I don't think you'd have to have voting for amnesty either, since I know most of my motivation in taking part in this challenge is the fun of it, but it would be up to you to decide how you do it, if you wanted to do it, of course ^_^

Even if you're not interested in it, could we post late submissions to the ao3 collection anyway?

[darjeeling]

I've never run a community with an amnesty thing before, so just to make sure I've got it: that's where every so often, we collect works that didn't make it into the challenge weeks? I don't mind that, if it's the case, although I don't know about doing voting on them. I'll have to check the AO3 collection and see about making a sub collection for amnesty entries too. Maybe every other month or every third month?

[misura]

Quick question: is it OK to include submissions in newsletters?

For fandom_of_one, I compile a weekly list of fanworks created for small fandoms. I'm a bit uncertain as to whether or not this would/could/might be considered 'showcasing' - I don't want to accidentally disqualify someone.

[darjeeling]

Hi! Thanks for checking.

If the submission is part of an ongoing challenge, that is, one where voting hasn't closed yet, then having it in the newsletter would disqualify it from voting. If it's part of a challenge that's already closed, so one where the results post has been posted, then having it in a newsletter or anywhere else is fine.

[iluvroadrunner6]

Question! What is your policy on spoilers?

[darjeeling]

So long as they're clearly marked in the header formatting above the cut, they're fine!

[ladybrooke]

Hi! I'm new here, and I as wondering if we go back and write things based on past challenges, is it okay to post them on Ao3 and such? Obviously they wouldn't count for anything here, but I like some of the past ones and would like to use them.

[darjeeling]

Sure, that's not a problem at all :)

[badly_knitted]

Here you go!

Affiliation request: Community name is drabble_zone. It's a multi-fandom community with a weekly challenge, for people who love writing 100-word drabbles.

[darjeeling]

Added to our profile! :)

[icedark_elf]

Would you be interested in affiliating with story_arc? It's a multi-fandom comm focused on using prompt words to make a series of scenes/chapters/stories.

[darjeeling]

Absolutely! I'll add you to our affiliates list on the profile.

[gunpowderandlove]

Would you ever consider changing the policy on RPF and NC-17 fic? I'm pretty much only into fandoms right now that are heavily at least one of those things, so I'm finding it difficult to come up with inspiration that fits within the rules.

If not, I totally understand, and I will just continue to do graphics instead of write (unless I happen to think of something that fits the rules), but I thought I would ask.

[darjeeling]

Thank you for your question! Unfortunately we are not looking to change either one of those rules at this time. The no NC-17 rule is because we don't want to exclude our younger members, and the RPF rule because it falls into a grey area of what's considered fiction.

I'm sorry you are having trouble with our prompts so far! I hope one will come up soon that will work for you.

[incurablepeppermint]

Do the works submitted need to be a one-shot or can they be a chapter of an ongoing or unstarted multi-chapter fiction?

[fanweeklymod]

They can be part of a chaptered work, whether ongoing or unstarted!

[smallredboy]

Question!

Can our submissions also work for other challenges? Like, they fit a square in a bingo card or etc?

[fanweeklymod]

As long as it's written during the challenge week, and isn't posted elsewhere until the voting closes, it's good!

[skyblue_reverie]

Just found this comm and submitted my first entry. Can I pimp the comm on my journal? Or would that be too much like showcasing my entry here?

Thanks!

[fanweeklymod]

Hi there! You can absolutely pimp the comm on your journal, as long as you link to the comm as a whole rather than just to your entry. As long as the link goes to fandomweekly in general (and not to a specific post), all the fics will get the same amount of advertising from the post, so it's fine by me.

And welcome! Thanks for joining us!

[topaz_eyes]

I completed a fic for a past challenge, but it greatly exceeds the 1000 word limit. (Also, it's late.) Can I post it outside the challenge with credit to the comm?

[fanweeklymod]

Of course, that'd be just fine! I've done the same with a couple prompt-inspired ideas that didn't quite fit into the 1000-word limit.

[polarissruler]

Hi! Are we allowed to write poetry for the challenges?

[fanweeklymod]

As long as it meets the guidelines, sure, that's fine with me!

New, Here, With One Question

[nondenomifan]

Hi, I just want to be sure I understand for sure the policy on posting to the AO3 collection because I have Asperger syndrome: Do you mean to say we are not to post to the collection until post-voting results for the prompt + bonus round in question (i.e., posting to the community's AO3 collection before the given round of voting closes will disqualify our submission as if we posted far and wide to a bunch of fic communities)?

Thank you for any and all clarification, as even the slightest glimmer left to interpretation equals vacillation for my brain! *safe hugs*

Re: New, Here, With One Question

[fanweeklymod]

Hi there, thanks for asking, and welcome to the community! Your interpretation is correct; for any voting round, prompt fills should not be posted anywhere else, including the community's AO3 collection, until the voting results have been posted. The reason is basically to keep the voting fair for everyone; a fic that's posted/previewed on AO3, fic communities, or in fandom newsletters will end up with a lot more votes than one that doesn't have that kind of reach.

This does not apply to Amnesty rounds, where there's no voting period, just a roundup at the end.

I hope that clears it up! Let me know if you have any more questions and I'll do my best to help!

[octahedrite]

Hi! I'm new here and I just want to clarify the "showcasing" rule. If I submit an entry here, can I link to that entry's post on my personal journal? Or do I have to link to the comm as a whole? Or should I hold off on linking anything till the voting period ends? Thanks.

[autobotscoutriella]

Hi, and welcome to the community! For regular voting rounds, please link to the comm as a a whole rather than to your entry's post. Essentially, we want to make sure that the voting stays fair, and promoting just one fic elsewhere can skew the votes. You're welcome to post a link to the community with "I wrote a fic for this, come check it out!" but linking directly to your fic or crossposting it elsewhere should wait until after the voting period ends.

For Amnesty rounds, where there's no voting period at the end, you can promote and cross-post your fics whenever you like.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any more questions!

[dimiyuri]

hi, i'm pretty new to prompt communities and to dw itself. would it be possible for me to opt out of having my works voted for?