Ao3 Gift Change Announcement

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Ao3 has announced a major change into how gifting will work.

Per This Announcement users will have the ability to turn off receiving works gifted to them other than ones fulfilling an exchange assignment.

How will that affect this exchange? We aren't 100% sure, but as of our best guesses right now -

1. We're going to ask that if you are open to treats and have gifting on, to please indicate this in your signup in Optional Details under all requests! And if this changes after signups close, please let us know so your signup can be edited. Also please do not pick and choose which requests you'd like treats for and which you would not. If you say you are open to treats, you're open treats for any of your requests.

2. If someone does not say they are open to treats in their Optional Details, assume they are not. To potentially get treats you must indicate this signup. We ask that you do not e-mail mods to ask if someone is open to treats.

3. Due to how exchanges go, one participant may have multiple people assigned to make gifts for them. If you have extra gifts turned OFF, but you get multiple gifts, please be aware this is the most likely reason.

4. If there is an issue with generating an assignment or pinch hit for you, you may be contacted via e-mail to let you know the only way to get a gift is to turn on extra gifts. If you are unwilling to turn on extra gifts in this situation, you will forfeit your guarantee of a gift.

We will be paying attention to this situation and will update if there's any changes that may affect your exchange experience.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Since the AO3 option is opting out of gifts, wouldn't it be easier to allow people to also opt out of extra gifts in their signups? Rather than make everyone opt into treats, which are standard for exchanges?

[sandrine]

I think it would be clearest if making some kind of statement re: accepting treats in the sign-up would be mandatory for all, and everyone who signs up had to say that they're either open to treats or not. Less guesswork and assumptions for potential treaters.

(Sorry the way AO3 is handling this is making things unnecessarily complicated, mod! Thank you for being proactive about it.)

[hurtcomfortexmod]

It is entirely possible we will change that rule in future exchanges depending on how things go for us and for other exchanges. However, we decided the odds of a new account with gifts disabled by default who doesn't pay attention to announcements was high and will only get higher as time passes. We would rather err on the side of someone who doesn't read the rules missing out on a potential treat, than on a gift-maker spending time making something unwanted.

[(Anonymous)]

Perhaps it would be helpful to create the equivalent of a 'yuletide fairy' account that accepts any unwanted gifts?

[elsajeni]

Is there a way that "I have gifting on/off" could be added to the signup form as something you HAVE to select, in the same way that selecting fanfic/fanart/both is? If so, that might be more reliable than counting on people to remember to add something in their optional details, and also easier to scan for when looking through requests.

[hurtcomfortexmod]

Unfortunately Ao3 has limited fields that can be matched on, and the only ones we're not already using are not customizable (rating, category, and warning) and giving it its own field would be the only way to make sure someone had to select one and could only select one. It is possible in future rounds it would go in with fanart/fanfic, but there would be no way to make someone select it.

It is very unfortunate that this happened right before this exchange, I am sure in time exchanges will test through trial and error what works and what doesn't, but right now we're doing what we can to try and make this work smoothly for people.

[(Anonymous)]

Could you add a note to the top of the signup page, then? Something like 'If you are open to treats, say so in the Optional Details box?' maybe?

[hurtcomfortexmod]

We will be adding something like that to the signup page and doing everything we can to make people aware.