Comments | rarecharacters: Discussion Post

neurotoxia in rarecharacters

Discussion Post

Jul 02, 2014 15:37

We'd like to put things up for discussion we received questions about in the last few days:

1) Do you consider the 250 fics rule (or 5% respectively) a fair way to judge character rarity? Should there be no rule at all and just leave it to the participants to nominate what they consider rare?Our personal thoughts on this matter are that a set ( Read more... )

!mod post

Comments 10

apgeeksout July 2 2014, 15:14:27 UTC

I'm so glad this is running again! ♥

1) A fixed number rule with the ability to make a case for borderline characters seems like a fair compromise. I know Yuletide has had some issues with characters who appear across fandoms of different sizes: Would the fact that, say, the John Constantine of Hellblazer is a different character than the Constantine in the New52 books, who is different still than the Johns of the movie or the TV series, etc. be the sort of thing that could be raised in a challenge for a numerically ineligible character?

2) Since the tagset will be viewable during sign-ups, I'd assume that participants who weren't comfortable giving/receiving that single character could simply not offer/request that fandom. Does it create a matching issue or some other hassle on the mod side to have some unused fandoms?

3) Maybe characters who aren't present in canon would be better placed in Optional Details? A participant who's good with 'any' characters in the fandom might not be up for "Character A's Dog-Walker".

trobadora July 2 2014, 15:24:19 UTC

1) Do you consider the 250 fics rule (or 5% respectively) a fair way to judge character rarity?

I think this is a good rule. Rarity isn't really in the eye of the beholder. (Every year at Yuletide someone claims that the stories in their fandoms shouldn't "count" because they're bad, or on That Website, or something similar. Needless to say, I disagree.)

2) Do you think we should accept fandoms that only have one nominated character at the end of the nomination period?

Yes, I think that would be a great idea - there are fandoms where I'm really only interested in one character, and being able to nominate/request/offer those would be excellent. You wouldn't even have to change the challenge settings - requesters/offerers could just click "any".

3) How should we treat characters like 'XYZ's mother'? Should characters whose existence we can just conclude (like parents) be allowed? How should we treat quasi-OCs or 'fanon chracters'?Personally I feel that a character who has not even an actual mention in canon should not be eligible - ( ... )

csichick_2 July 2 2014, 15:48:38 UTC

1) Do you consider the 250 fics rule (or 5% respectively) a fair way to judge character rarity? Should there be no rule at all and just leave it to the participants to nominate what they consider rare?

I'm fine with the rule. There needs to be some sort of consistent benchmark for rarity even if is isn't perfect because of no way to distinguish between major or minor characters.

2) Do you think we should accept fandoms that only have one nominated character at the end of the nomination period?

Unless it would cause problems with matching, I don't see why not. Just because it's there doesn't mean people have to sign-up with it.

3) How should we treat characters like 'XYZ's mother'? Should characters whose existence we can just conclude (like parents) be allowed? How should we treat quasi-OCs or 'fanon chracters'?

I think only characters who's existence has been confirmed by canon should be allowed.

debirlfan July 2 2014, 16:55:12 UTC

1. I don't really have a problem with the 250 number, but I can certainly understand the argument that some writers on AO3 tag everyone who appears in a fic, no matter how minor their appearance. Short of skimming each fic to see how much the character appears, perhaps some rule could be made regarding main cast/secondary characters and being more lax with those who are secondary? For an example most people would be familiar with - on Big Bang Theory, the boys and Penny would definitely be main, Amy and Bernie would probably be considered main, and everyone else (Lenny, the various mothers, Raj's various girlfriends) would be secondary ( ... )

flipflop_diva July 2 2014, 18:12:51 UTC

1) Do you consider the 250 fics rule (or 5% respectively) a fair way to judge character rarity? Should there be no rule at all and just leave it to the participants to nominate what they consider rare?

Since you allow people to argue their case, I think it's fair. Otherwise, what would stop people from nominating characters who are decidedly not rare and just being like 'Well, I think they are rare!'? There needs to be some guidelines.

2) Do you think we should accept fandoms that only have one nominated character at the end of the nomination period?

Yes. Sometimes you just really love one character. Especially since it needs to be rare characters, there isn't always multitudes you love. If it's an issue in terms of matching, maybe have a requirement that at least 2-3-however many of someone's offers need to be a multi-character nominated fandom.

3) How should we treat characters like 'XYZ's mother'? Should characters whose existence we can just conclude (like parents) be allowed? How should we treat quasi-OCs or 'fanon chracters ( ... )