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grrrr, dropouts
Feb. 9th, 2012 09:14 amI didn't do no_tags this year, pretty much because any creativity I had to begin with has been sapped by this parasite within. I swear, I don't want to read anything, write anything, watching anything, I barely even play my video games right now. I hope it'll pass after the baby is born, because it does leave me awfully bored/boring and humourless D:
But, seeing the post about droputs just really pisses me off. I'm sure that not everyone goes into these sorts of challenges with bad intentions. I'm sure for a lot of people, they certainly think they can and will finish the fic they claim within the allotted time. Then life steps in, in any variety of forms, from sickness, to work, to family business, whatever. And especially in a challenge of this short length, that doesn't leave any wiggle room to finish things up. (also, in this particular instance, where claims are picked instead of assigned to people with interests in the same band, some unlucky few will come along when there are only a few prompts left, and have all of them be of bands they don't know/don't like, and maybe despite their best efforts, they just can't write anything for it.)
Still, it rubs me the wrong way to think that there are, without doubt, at least one or two people who look at this sort of challenge and think "hey! I can request the fic I really want, and I KNOW it will be filled, regardless of whether or not I write anything! Perfect deal." In this sort of situation, it's impossible to deny the dropouts their fic, because of the double-blind nature of the challenge. You don't know which fic was requested by the person who failed to turn in their fic. The stuffsit challenge did a bit better, by stating that the fic being posted was written for a dropout--but that dropout still gets the fic they wanted. And we can't expect the person who spent the time and effort on the fic NOT to post it.
I don't know exactly what the solution to be. One thing is, if the mods at least kept track of the names of the requestees and dropouts, then they could let a writer know if they'd written something for the dropout, and then the writer could just hold on to that fic for a few weeks. The dropout wouldn't know who was writing their fic, so they wouldn't think to check that person out when it was posted.
Maybe I'm thinking about this WAY too much. And I haven't even ever been screwed over--I've always gotten fic written for me, or art/mixes, things like that. But it's seriously unfair to the people who are ripped off--yeah, they get their fic eventually, but they get it knowing the asshole who was supposed to write it got a free fic out of the whole deal. Grrr.
If this seems overly crazy, feel free to blame it on pregnancy brain...
But, seeing the post about droputs just really pisses me off. I'm sure that not everyone goes into these sorts of challenges with bad intentions. I'm sure for a lot of people, they certainly think they can and will finish the fic they claim within the allotted time. Then life steps in, in any variety of forms, from sickness, to work, to family business, whatever. And especially in a challenge of this short length, that doesn't leave any wiggle room to finish things up. (also, in this particular instance, where claims are picked instead of assigned to people with interests in the same band, some unlucky few will come along when there are only a few prompts left, and have all of them be of bands they don't know/don't like, and maybe despite their best efforts, they just can't write anything for it.)
Still, it rubs me the wrong way to think that there are, without doubt, at least one or two people who look at this sort of challenge and think "hey! I can request the fic I really want, and I KNOW it will be filled, regardless of whether or not I write anything! Perfect deal." In this sort of situation, it's impossible to deny the dropouts their fic, because of the double-blind nature of the challenge. You don't know which fic was requested by the person who failed to turn in their fic. The stuffsit challenge did a bit better, by stating that the fic being posted was written for a dropout--but that dropout still gets the fic they wanted. And we can't expect the person who spent the time and effort on the fic NOT to post it.
I don't know exactly what the solution to be. One thing is, if the mods at least kept track of the names of the requestees and dropouts, then they could let a writer know if they'd written something for the dropout, and then the writer could just hold on to that fic for a few weeks. The dropout wouldn't know who was writing their fic, so they wouldn't think to check that person out when it was posted.
Maybe I'm thinking about this WAY too much. And I haven't even ever been screwed over--I've always gotten fic written for me, or art/mixes, things like that. But it's seriously unfair to the people who are ripped off--yeah, they get their fic eventually, but they get it knowing the asshole who was supposed to write it got a free fic out of the whole deal. Grrr.
If this seems overly crazy, feel free to blame it on pregnancy brain...
