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Challenges Design v1.0

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MaiaBobrowicz edited this page Feb 27, 2012 · 2 revisions

NB: Haven't moved images over yet

Table of Contents

Challenges:

Basic Structure

Because different kinds of challenges run in such very different ways, it does not really make sense to have a single class handling all the different types -- this is too inflexible. Instead, the Collections code is basically set up to allow different kinds of Challenge classes (eg, GiftExchange, Flashfic, etc) to hook into the Collections interface. The main things you have to set up for a new Challenge type are:

  • the model
    • lives under models/challenge
    • belongs_to :collection and has_one :collection, :as => :challenge
  • the controller
    • lives under controllers/challenge
    • inherits from ChallengesController
    • requires new/create/edit/update/show/destroy actions
  • the views
    • live under views/challenge/[challenge]
    • requires new/edit/show views
    • requires several partial views which get checked for and automatically included into the collection views:
      • _challenge_main.html.erb
      • _challenge_meta.html.erb
      • _challenge_navigation_maintainer.html.erb
      • _challenge_navigation_user.html.erb
      • _challenge_sidebar.html.erb
      • (optional) _challenge_signups.html.erb
  • hooking the new Challenge in to the Collection model
    • note that Collection just has belongs_to :challenge, :polymorphic => true, so all the different challenge types do not need to be included in the collection model.
    • the new Challenge type just needs to be added to the CHALLENGE_TYPE_OPTIONS array.
  • challenge classes can make use of various different helper classes such as Prompt (and Offer/Request), PromptRestriction, ChallengeSignup, ChallengeAssignment, or others created for that particular challenge type.

Controller Actions and Views

The following actions and views are needed for each challenge type:

  • new/create/edit/update/show/destroy

    • As you might expect, these basic pages are needed to set up a new challenge of this type and collect all the settings necessary for this particular type of challenge, and display the settings to the challenge mod. For instance, for a gift exchange challenge, we need to find out how many prompts a person can submit, how many offers they can make, etc.

      The key here is that the "create/update" action of the collections controller will automatically redirect to the "new/edit" action of the appropriate challenge controller once the mod selects that challenge type on the collections creation form. This is already set up for you and you don't need to do anything special to make it happen other than adding the new challenge type to the CHALLENGE_TYPE_OPTIONS array.

My Assignments Page

The current Assignments Page on a user's profile can get unwieldy, because fulfilled Assignments share a table with unfulfilled ones. AD&T decided in AD&T Meeting 2011 07 24 that active and completed Assignments should be separated out into a two tabs display.

Tabs

  • Tabs are a mixture of our current h3 styling and our main navigation tabs.
  • Active tab has the white font on black background
  • Inactive tab has the black font on the button gradient, with a gray outline

Active 

 [[Image:AO3 challenge assignments-active.png|thumb|center|Challenge Assignments: Active Tab]]
  • Sorting: Unfulfilled assignments first, descending by date
  • Current format: "In [challenge] for [user]"
    • Is that clear?
    • Is there a better way to phrase that, without having to do "Challenge: [challenge], Writing for: [user]" each time?
  • What options are visible when someone has already posted a work to fulfill the assignment, but the deadline is not over yet?
    • Edit, I reckoned.
      • Yes for gift exchanges, but prompt memes still need post to fulfill as well, as they do currently. Cesy 14:20, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
    • But can you still default when you have posted already? Are there other options that need to be added?
  • Could we come up with a shorter Date format? To make it easier to parse and save space.

Completed

Challenge Assignments: Completed Tab

  • Sorting: Descending by date
  • Is the due date important for completed works? Or would people like to know when they posted the work? Otherwise I would vote for leaving the date out entirely in the Completed tab.
    • I'd say keep the date but hide the time from it for completed - it's likely to be older ones where you don't care what time of day it was. Cesy 14:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

DEPRECATED

Everything below here may still be useful for creating new challenge types, so am leaving it here!

Feature Listing

Challenge Moderation:

  • Publish a challenges manifesto; i.e. a call for submissions.
  • Should be able to have a specified goal---for example, 50 prompts and 50 sign-ups.
  • Challenge moderators may need to manually accept user sign-ups to their challenge, based on submissions of assorted kinds.
  • Challenge moderators wish to make sure they have valid emails assigned to (possible) challenge participants.
  • Challenge moderators want to be able to automatically lock their challenge to new sign-ups (i.e. allow sign-ups from a certain start date to a certain end date).
  • Challenge moderators may want to randomly assign prompts to prompt submitters.
  • Challenge moderators would like the ability to hold a remix challenge: instead of submitting prompts, participants can submit fics they would like to see remixed, i.e. the `prompt' is not a fixed type of object.
    • Challenge moderators may need to intervene in the random assignments, however; they do not, for example, want to be remixing (in a remix challenge) a co-mod's fic.
      • They also may need to intervene (find pinch hitters or juggle the assignments) if, for example, the participants get sick/hate their assigned fic/are distracted by the shiny new Merlin fandom and pull out of the challenge.
  • Challenge moderators want to be able to set a limit on the number of prompts/works from a certain user, or in general.
  • Challenge moderators wish to be able to act in a modly fashion; changing prompts or works, removing prompts or works, assigning prompts or works, and re-assigning prompts on request.
    • Challenge moderators would like to be able to prohibit certain types of prompts or works from being part of the challenge.
      • Some challenge mods may still allow the submitter the option of submitting a valid prompt or work, while other moderators may want to disqualify people who do it wrong.
      • If the challenge is a remix challenge, challengers want to be able to do the same for the potential remix fic submissions.
      • Challenger moderators may want to create a distinct thread/page/work within the challenge for each prompt (`teaser').
      • Challenge moderators then want to be able to allow the challenge participants to write their response in each of the threads.
      • It would therefore be helpful for a mod to have to the ability to give multiple participants (authors) access to add story chapters (new chapter for each segment), with options to make these submissions anonymous and un-anonymous.
        • A tracker, to see what each contributor has written is also desired.
    • Challenge moderators, when handed works/prompts to control, want to be able to mass-allow/deny certain types of commenting---i.e. OpenID, anonymous, and user-signed comments.
    • Moderators may want to put flags on flaky participants in certain types of challenges (visible only to themselves).
  • Prompts should be able to have their readability status altered; so in some challenges prompts are visible to everybody, in others, only to challenge participants.
    • Moderators also want to be able to make prompts anonymous.
  • Challenge moderators should be able to be set a due date for challenge submissions, and then be able to lock the challenge to new submissions at the specified date (automatically).
  • Challenge moderators want to be able to publish that the challenge is closed to new submissions (either prompts or works).
  • Challenge moderators wish to be able to write messages in general to participants---i.e. reminding people of the deadline, announcements.
  • Challenge moderators wish to be able to automatically render new additions to the challenge visible at a due date, as well as render their authors visible at a due date. These should be separate functions.
    • In a remix challenge, challenge moderators want to be able to hide the original author's name (showing the remixing author's name) in an initial reveal, and then publish the original author's name in a separate reveal.
      • Moderators may want to have reveals done in numbered batches.

Participants:

  • The moderator may want to be the one posting the prompts/teasers/etc.
  • Challenge participants wish to be identified in some way as `members' or `sign ups' for the challenges, and want an interface to allow sign ups to individual challenges.
    • Participants may need to submit links/works/miscellanea to be approved for the challenge.
  • Participants may need to hand over control over their work to the challenger moderator.
  • Participants may not be actively posting users; instead, they may be on board as pinch hitters, betas and in other assistive roles.

Viewers:

  • Users would like an interface to search challenges by fandom, challenge name, format, requirement, pairings, and ratings.

Feature Wishlist:

These use cases have been collected from the OTW-Website, Livejournal and Dreamwidth.

Samvara

Before Samvara gets all diseased she also decides to run a wingfic writing challenge and publishes a manifesto encouraging all writers to consider this magnificent idea, submit story ideas (prompts) and sign up to write. The prompts are visible to everyone and some have to be removed because they didn't understand it was a SPN wingfic writing challenge and keep trying to insert Legolas - this spurs some heated emails and several other wingfic challenges get launched. Eventually Samvara reaches her goal of 50 prompts and 50 sign-ups and randomly allocates the prompts to writers. The due date for the stories is in 3 months and she writes the odd encouraging message reminding people of the deadline. She also has to change some of the prompts and match them up with new writers who didn't like their initial prompt or were unable to continue writing.

People start posting their stories about a month in and Samvara gloats over them lovingly until the due date is reached (which she had to extend by 10 days) and then she makes the new additions to the Collection visible but keeps the authors anonymous for another 14 days.

Julieann

Julieann loves to see what kinds of things writers can come up with. She recruits many writers who give her prompts about what kinds of stories they would like to read. Then she mixes up the prompts and gives them back out to these same writers. The writers then write like crazy and post said stories anonymously (their author name do not show).

The idea is to then guess who the writers are and also guess from whom the prompt came from. These guesses are posted in the comment sections of the stories. At the end of a pre-designated time-frame, the authors are revealed (this includes having the name appear in the archive).

Scribblesinink

Scribbler also runs (when she's in the mood) a Fan Fiction Tumble Game, a variation of the Round Robin. With the FanFicTumble, there's not one story making the rounds, but as many as there are participants. Every participant starts out with the same teaser, and every writer writes a part for each story, resulting in widely varying, co-written stories that started with the same scene. Preferably, each participant adds their part(s)/chapter anonymously, before Scribbler reassigns the stories to a new participant. Once stories are finished, authors will be revealed and stories made public. Ideally, participants would only see their currently assigned story and not have access to stories that others are working on, so as to keep the suspense going.

Fan Fiction Tumble – how it works

I've run Tumbles in two ways. The first is fully manual: e-mailing stories back and forth, with the Tumble mod coding and uploading HTML pages for each story. The second was through LJ, where each story got its own post, with every new segment added as a comment.

To preserve anonimity while the Tumble lasted, LJ comments were screened and then c&p'ed as a new comment by the Tumble mod. Later, these 'doubles' got deleted when the stories/authors were revealed (yes, it was a bit awkward :)).

Anyway, this is the idea (I'm using the LJ variant):

Tumble mod writes a short Teaser scene (~ 600 words) that ends in a cliffhanger, and creates as many threads/pages. She assigns the Teaser to the Tumble participants. Each participant writes another short segment (again, ~ 600 words works best). Participants post their segment in the appropriate thread. Tumble mom reassigns work to another Tumble participant. They write another segment. Etc. etc. until every participant has written a segment for every story (ideally). The Tumble mod lets the Tumble participants know when it's time to stop adding new twists and start winding down and tying off plot threads (usually about two segments from the expected end of Tumble run). The end result are sometimes weird, sometimes very touching stories, participants who had fun and sometimes really got challenged in their writing.

Schematic:

Tumble Teaser scene

Author 1

Segment 1

Author 2

Segment 1

Author 3

Segment 1

Author 4

Segment 1

Author 5

Segment 1

Author 6

Segment 1

Author 6

Segment 2

Author 5

Segment 2

Author 4

Segment 2

Author 3

Segment 2

Author 2

Segment 2

Author 1

Segment 2

Author 5

Segment 3

Author 6

Segment 3

Author 1

Segment 3

Author 2

Segment 3

Author 3

Segment 3

Author 4

Segment 3

Etc....






What would be incredibly cool and helpful in a Challenges module in the archive is the ability for a mod to give multiple participants (authors) access to add story chapters (new chapter for each segment). Preferably in such a way that at first author names are withheld, until the mod decides to reveal them at the end.

Even better if assigning stories could be handled through the system as well, instead of having to e-mail each participant separately. And a tracker that would keep track of what participant has written for which story would just be awesome!

AmyML

Mika is suffering some hellish writer's block. To get back into the swing of things, she wants to participate in a challenge. She has a list of fandoms that she will write in, and a list of pairings/ratings she will write for each one. She'd really like a way to search all challenges currently accepting writers for her selected fandoms/pairings/ratings. Ideally, she would get a results page kind of like this:

Fandom - Challenge Name Format / Requirements Ratings / Pairings

Dr Who - Bigger on the Inside Over 5000 words No rating reqs / The Doctor/Companion

SGA - Summer in the City 5 Things, Summer related G - PG-13 / No pairing reqs

Fast and Furious - No Challenge Name No format reqs No rating reqs / Dom/Brian, Dom/Letty

...an impossible dream? =)

Zooey_glass04

DJ Moses wants to run a remix challenge in the Supernatural fandom.

  • She asks her best buddy DJ Isaac to co-mod with her.
  • She issues a message to Supernatural fandom folks telling them about her awesome challenge.
  • Lots of lovely SPN fans come and sign up to the challenge.
  • Everyone in the challenge nominates one story of theirs they'd like to see remixed.
  • Fics featuring underage incest are not eligible for the challenge. Several people nominate weecest anyway and DJ Moses wants to reject their sign-ups but give them the option to nominate an eligible fic.
  • DJ Moses assigns each participant with a story to remix. She'd like to do this mostly automatically but needs some discretion because she wants to be sure she does not wind up remixing her co-mod's fic.
  • All the participants go away and write their fics. They have to be posted to the archive by a certain date. Fics can be posted before that but they will not be revealed until the mods give the okay.
  • Several people get sick / hate their assigned fic / are distracted by the shiny new Merlin fandom and pull out of the challenge early on. DJ Moses has to find pinchhitters or juggle the assignments.
  • Several people get sick / hate their assigned fic / are distracted by the shiny new Merlin fandom and pull out of the challenge at the last minute. DJ Moses has to find pinchhitters or juggle the assignments. To be fair on the people whose fics are no longer being remixed, she decides to delay the reveal of the fics and posts a message on the challenge homepage to that effect.
  • The great reveal! Fics show up with the name of the author redacted. They are also tagged with the name of the original author and have a link to the fic being remixed.
  • The great unmasking! Two weeks after the fics are posted, the redacted author names are revealed.
  • DJ Moses posts another message on the challenge homepage thanking DJ Isaac, the participants, the Archive for hosting and her pet rock.
For a detailed FAQ on a remix challenge which covers a lot of scenarios, see here.

Ces

challenge: flashfiction! Ces wants to run sga_flashfic out of the AO3. She needs a way to distribute prompts and a way to tag the collection/have people claim a tag for the collection, and a way to disqualify people who do it wrong. She then needs to publicly close the challenge. She also would like to have a place where people could volunteer prompts, though possibly emailing the mod would also be acceptable.

Macey_muse

Challenge: blind guess-the-author challenge!

Mod sets up the [info]blind_go challenge for the small Hikaru no Go fandom; requires each sign-ee to apply with a link to a representative sample of their writings for future use by guessers, along with a valid e-mail. Mod also posts a selection of optional prompts, at the same time as sign-ups, and a mandatory theme, such as 'AUs'. Notifications of the challenge are posted to relevant fandom boards, although word-of-mouth does a lot of the work. Sign-ups close; Mod launches an anonymous forum for writers to flail and support each other on, and e-mails out pseudonyms to all participants. Deadline approaches; submissions start trickling in, under the pseudonyms; mod checks that they fit the minimum word-count & other rules, pesters those who don't, formats to post. Half the submissions arrive, inevitably, ten minutes before cut-off. Mod posts all fics with pseudonyms, locks down the anonymous flail-board to prevent clues, puts up a post to collect guesses invisibly, and unveils all fics simultaneously. Fandom flails, goes mad with spreadsheets, and post guesses to the Mod, often in several different comments, sometimes cancelling previous guesses. Authors start sending in edits needed for their fics, Mod corrects. Guessing period closes; Mod links all fics to their actual authors in grand unveil, also awarding prizes to top guessers.

Or at least, that's how it's done on LJ. With an archive, I imagine it would be easier to design it so the authors can post the stories themselves, perhaps under temporarily dissociative pseuds? Or, failing that, could post the stories then hand over complete control to the Mod? Would also need to somehow force all stories to allow anon comments, since that's kinda the point - perhaps handing over temporary control of the stories to the Mod for the duration of the guessing, which would also help prevent extensive editing mid-challenge.

rustler

Challenge: Oz Magi is an annual holiday gift exchange for the small Oz fandom, based on a "wish tree" format that allows even people who can't write to have a wish fulfilled. Stories go live starting on New Year's Day (it's a significant date in Oz fandom, and allows us to not compete with all the other holiday challenges.) It works like this:

  • Mod does a general call for participants to make sure there's enough interest to run the challenge.
  • If enough people are interested, Mod calls for Wishes.
  • Oz fans come from far and wide to submit a Wish which included 2 options they'd like to have fulfilled (A and B options, only one of which will actually get fulfilled.) Slash, het, gen all allowed. All characters and pairings allowed. Crossovers with other fandoms allowed. (We're very inclusive!) Only the mod may see these Wish requests.
  • After a week or so, the list of Wishes is posted anonymously. Writers have about a week to send the mod their top 3 choices for Wishes they'd like to fulfill (listed by Wish #) Writers are matched up with Wishes and the assigned Wishes are marked as "claimed." Priority is given to the Wishes of people who are also writing, so they get claimed first. Any leftover Wishes are still available for claiming by pinch hitters. Story length minimum is 250 words.
  • Stories get posted in batches, depending on how many total stories there are (usually 20-25 posted over 3-4 days starting Jan 1, by Wish #) with authors anonymous, but Wish requesters revealed - so writers learn for the first time who they have written for. Commenting commences.
  • Jan 15, authors are revealed and Wish requesters get to thank their authors.

quinara

Ms. X wants to set up a seasonal ficathon, so that every day over the summer she has a new piece of Spike/Buffy fic to read. So she works out various windows that people can choose to have their date in and asks people to sign up saying when they'd prefer to post (and if they have any days they definitely can't do). She spends a long time with the information and eventually sorts out a schedule, which she then posts in full (so people can refer to it) and emails everyone with their days. The ficathon starts about a month later and it all goes swimmingly, with people posting on their day. There is a slight problem where someone suddenly realises they're going to be away from their computer on their day (even though their story is finished). Unfortunately there isn't a way of delaying posting, but Ms. X is happy to swap her own day, even though it's a week later and this means she has to fix that bit in Part III extra soon. Another problem comes when someone seems to think the ficathon is a general fanfic collection, and tries to post their own stuff, hogging someone's day. Ms. X deletes their fic and sends them a just-about-polite email explaining their mistake. The author replies that they really want to get involved with the community (in other words, it has a lot of readers), and Ms. X realises that she doesn't want to turn the author completely away, because what she read of the posted fic was actually relevant and good. She's also just had an email from someone who posted the first few parts of a WIP on their day and was wondering if/when they could post the rest of it - so she decides she wants to tack a weekend free-for-all on the end of the ficathon, and lets everyone know with a quick FYI. At the end of the ficathon, Ms. X or a nice volunteer writes a round-up of all the fic and the whole lot becomes a closed collection.

enigel

November wants to start a Dollhouse slash ficathon, of the "match people and prompts" kind:

- this is an yearly event - she collects signups from September 1st to September 15th - signups contain: -- what every participant would like to see in the story she receives: pairings, prompts, scenarios - she'd prefer to limit these to 5 things or 300 words, so people don't start detailing something that could stifle the writer -- three to 5 things that the participant would really prefer NOT to see in her received story: squicks, pairings, scenarios etc.; also limited to 300 words -- willingness to serve as a beta for fellow participants -- willingness to act as backup writer (pinch hitter) if someone drops out - assignments should go out on September 17th - fics are due on November 1st and meant to be posted as anonymous for two weeks

- when matching people November runs into the problem of no people offering to write Topher/Alpha fluff; she panics, and then realises she has to match them by stuff they said they would *not* write - i.e. if someone didn't specifically say that she wouldn't write Topher/Alpha and/or fluff, she might get this assignment

- assignments go out, and Whiskey hates her assignment, says she couldn't possibly have foreseen that someone would request *that*, and she'd very much like a reassignment or else. November contacts Charlie, the requester of Topher/Alpha, asks if she wouldn't mind broadening the spectrum of pairings. Charlie offers two more pairings she could accept, and Whiskey says it's ok, she can do one of those. All is well!

- except Tango writes that she's not pleased with her assignment either, reassign her or else. November, wibbling again, contacts Foxtrot, who remains adamant that she must receive her Adelle/Caroline story.

- November now has to shuffle the assignments around with minimum reassignment

- eventually bliss is achieved, and final assignments can be considered as having gone out September 20th. This means the posting date has to be pushed to November 3rd, and the author reveal date to November 17th.

- Bravo has to drop out two weeks before deadline. November quietly contacts the participants who offered to pinch hit and finds a replacement.

- Delta never emails to announce she dropped out, but by November 3nd she hasn't been heard of yet. Many people have written privately to request extensions anyway, so November sighs and pushes the dates with 4 more days, then makes a call for a pinch hitter inside the house. No one responds, so she makes a public call. Eventually someone outside the challenge participants offers to pinch hit, and she has to be added to the participants list even though she won't get a story.

- come November 7th, a story still hasn't come in, but the author swears she'll get it, it's just that it's become an EPIC. People are impatient, so November releases the stories-minus-one as anonymous.

- The epic does eventually come in after the author reveal date, and is therefore never anonymous.

- The challenge is closed until next year, and November vows to make stricter rules; she also puts secret (visible only to her) flags on people who've been flaky participants.

enigel

ithurtsmybrain-like challenges:

1. From Day 1 to Day 15 prompts are gathered from any and all contributors.

- Prompts consist of 10 (or 12, or 20) characters from different fandoms (or no more than two from the same fandom; or five must be female and 5 male; the point is that they conform to rules that can change with every iteration of the challenge).

- More people can nominate the same character, and the nominations add up: if Jack Harkness has been nominated five times, five times shall he be used during step 2.

- The mod rejects prompts that ignore the rules and goes to step 2.

2. Nominated characters are randomly matched up among themselves in pairings and sometimes (rarely and also randomly) trios, the only rule being that they must not be from the same fandom.

- At the end, if Jack Harkness was nominated five times, he would appear in five different pairings or groupings. If Elmo was nominated only once, he would appear in one pairing only.

- However, no character must remain unpaired - if this happens the solitary character is either randomly assigned to a trio, or another character is introduced, either at moderator's discretion or by randomly doubling an existing character, or by random selection from the characters database of previous challenges.

3. The List is released to the public and claiming begins.

- People can comment on the brain-hurtiness of the resulting pairings - this is half the fun!

- People can also claim pairings for the writing. Depending to moderator whim, pairings can be claimed only once, on a first-come first-serve basis, or multiple (given number) times, or an unlimited number of times.

- People can claim a maximum of three pairings; they can claim more pairings only after they've posted works for their previous claims.

4. There is a posting deadline, but it is rather loose - posting is allowed after the deadline, but if the original claimant hasn't posted by the deadline, the pairing is fair game for anyone else.

sineala

Challenges:

Anonymous Kink Meme (popular in many fandoms; these are usually single-fandom challenges):

Participants anonymously submit prompts/pairings that are viewable to all. Requests that do not list a prompt or pairing are rejected. The same participants anonymously try to fill the prompts as they are being submitted. There is no assignment process; anyone can fill anything at any time. More than one participant may write a story for a prompt, and participants may write multiple stories. There is no due date for stories and no cutoff for prompt submission -- this is ongoing.

After a certain period of time after a story is posted, authors who have consented to be revealed will have their names revealed; the rest will stay anonymous.

Collections: If I've already posted, say, a fic from a challenge to AOOO, and later on someone creates a collection for that challenge, I'd like to easily be able to add mine.

zvi_likes_tv

SuperMod! runs a challenge where stories are required to be proofread before submission. HatesCommas turns in a story which is good enough as a story, but features really poor mechanics. In years past, when SuperMod! was coding stuff by hand, she would have just changed the commas to semi-colons and the exclamation points to periods and put double quotes around everything. What does she do on AO3? Is she restricted to just rejection? Can she send a note with detailed fixes? Can she get added as co-author and make the frakking changes?

---

LazyMod runs and has run a medium-sized multi-fandom exchange. It's got a Big List that stays mostly the same from year to year, and she'd like to put the initial list in on AO3 and then modify it next year. She's also banned some people from participating and is happy to see tht the Archive supports an automatic ban list, and that the ban list is maintained per user, not per pseud.

LazyMod decides to run another challenge, because she figures her TinyFandomofAdorableness may grow if there's a fun challenge. When she sets it up, the archive asks her if she wants to sync the banlist from her medium-sized multi-fandom exchange to the one for her brand new teeny fandom exchange. She says yes, because those people have caused her nothing but heartache.

Then LazyMod falls in love with YeOldeDefaulter. YeOldeDefaulter seduces LazyMod into removing the ban on the TinyFandomofAdorableness challenge. LazyMod wants the flexibility to keep the ban going on the medium-sized multi-fandom exchange at the same time.

parenthetical

ChallengeMod decides to run a challenge where participants are required to submit a work with a minimum wordcount of 1000 words. She initially sets it so the Archive automatically rejects submissions of less than 1000 words, then decides this is too harsh, and chooses to approve or reject all works herself.

cupidsbow

lover-of-strings decides she wants to run a puzzle challenge, in which people have to find bits of fanart or a fanvid by following clues to stories by various authors in various fandoms. And then piece the bits together.

Sadly, I have never run such a puzzle fest, or had one run in a fandom I follow, so I have no idea how it would be done. But it would be awesome if you could build stuff so it would work -- making it easy to link/embed those kinds of external applications, and having some kind of invisible modding tag maybe -- so a gumby like me could do it, because then I totally would.

fairestcat

ObscureHetPairingFan decides to run an exchange for a rare pairing within a large fandom. Concerned about getting enough participants, she decides to make it a thing-a-thon, allowing both writers and artists to participate. The art can't be posted on the Archive, but OPF would like the fanartists to be able to announce their art within the challenge community, so their recipients can see it and/or to be able to include external links to the art contributions within her challenge master list.

Fanlet runs a run of the mill exchange in a medium sized fandom, and announces/solicits for participants on lj. Since the exchange is being run out of the AO3, participants are told in advance that they will need to post their fic there. BNFMarySue comments to say she would love to participant in the challenge, but she never posts her fic in archives, she only posts to her own site. BNFMarySue is the biggest writer in the fandom, her participation will increase the cachet of the challenge immensely. Fanlet negotiates with BNFMarySue and BNFMS agrees to post her fic on her website but allow Fanlet to link to it from the Archive so her recipient can find it.

norah

Norah wants to run a challenge based on fanfiction based only on sources that are in the public domain. She does it pretty much like Samvara does, but because she is working with EENSY WEENSY FANDOMS she has to have triple the number of prompts and allow people to pick from among them (or at least indicate what fandoms they can write.)

...I think authors are almost always kept anonymous for an EXCHANGE, not a challenge. I'd love to be able to run an exchange off the archive, but I imagine that's several magnitudes more complex.

awils1

Amy really, really likes to be inspired by imagery. To her, images can be a prompt! She'd like to run a challenge in which a weekly image is posted, and people write their responses in a period of a week. Even though Amy finds certain things icky, she'd allow het, gen, slash and all things in between to be written in response, tagged accordingly, with the AOOO's filtering powers being used to dig through the responses. She'd also like the ability to lock the prompt to new submissions (but still leave it visible) after the given week (automatically at a set time). People are still allowed to say they were inspired by prompt x but couldn't respond for whatever reason, and they can link to the prompt.

velocitygrass

These are my original implementation notes that cover several types of challenges. I have additional handwritten notes that go further into how to possibly implement more specific prompt/sign-up requirements (mostly based on Yuletide).

Characteristics:

  • Recurrence: regular, infrequent (annually e.g), one-shot
  • Access: prior sign up, open
  • Posting Schedule: final deadline (all stories due by but can be posted anytime before then), open-ended until manually closed, due date(s) + reveal date(s)
  • Prompt specifier(s): moderator, users
  • Prompt claiming: moderator assigns, N-writers-claim-per-prompt (possibly with all stories requiring at least N-1 so eg, once every prompt is claimed, people can claim a second one?), free-for-all
  • Story has recipient: yes or no
  • Authors are anonymous until manually revealed: yes or no
  • Prompt restrictions: prompts have to fit into certain categories (fandoms, characters, pairings)
  • Response restrictions: length
  • All challenges include some number of prompts (can just be a single prompt), provided either by the moderator, all users, or signed-up users. Challenges may require sign-up or not. Sign-ups have a deadline.

Internal Representation:

Challenges will be represented by the following class:

Challenge

id
name
creator: pseud
official challenge: tag—unique?
collection: id
description: text
Challenges can also have any number of moderators specified by the creator:

ChallengeModerator

challenge: id
moderator: pseud
Challenges will have a bunch of settings/restrictions, described in detail in the sections below:

ChallengeSettings

challenge: id
signup_required: true/false
signup_deadline: date
who_can_prompt: MODERATOR, PARTICIPANT, USER
Note: "PARTICIPANT" is only meaningful if prior signup is required.
number_prompts_allowed_per_user: an integer or 0 for unlimited
number_prompts_required_per_user: an integer or 0 for not required
allowed_tag_set: set of allowed tags selected by the moderator
who_can_assign: MODERATOR, PARTICIPANT, USER
number_assignments_allowed_per_user: an integer or 0 for unlimited
number_assignments_required_per_user: an integer or 0 for not required
posting_deadline: date
posted_is_visible: true/false
author_is_visible: true/false
Prompts (and sign-ups) will make use of a set of tags specified by a user which we want to be able to compare easily:

TagSet

has many tags
pseud
operations: match_exactly?(TagSet), match_subset?(TagSet), match_in_category?(TagSet, TagCategory)
ChallengeSignup
challenge: id
freeform text ("I write fluffy things only")
set of tags willing to write (Merlin, het, gen)
pseud
ChallengePrompt
challenge: id
freeform text ("zomg write something with a bunny")
set of tags desired in result (supernatural, slash, sam/dean)
pseud
Assignments from moderators to users are defined as:

ChallengeAssignment

pseud of assigned writer
prompt: id
defaulted
completed

Internal Settings Design:

Prompts

  • who_can_prompt: MODERATOR, PARTICIPANT, USER
  • number_prompts_allowed_per_user: an integer or 0 for unlimited
  • number_prompts_required_per_user: an integer or 0 for not required
  • This set of preferences allows for the following combinations and many more:
    • sga_flashfic: MODERATOR, 1, 1 (moderator makes a single prompt for everyone)
    • yuletide: PARTICIPANT, 4, 3 (person signing up can make up to 4, must make 3 prompts)
    • open-floor prompting: USER, 0, 0 (anyone who wants can toss in however many prompts they want)

Tag Sets:

  • allowed_tag_set: TagSet object containing a set of allowed tags selected by the moderator. All prompts and sign-ups would be checked against this allowed tag set for matching a subset. e.g., for Yuletide, allowed fandom tags would include all the approved rare fandoms—any prompt would then be checked to make sure its tags were a subset of approved ones, so no one could request an unapproved fandom.

Assignments:

  • who_can_assign: MODERATOR, PARTICIPANT, USER
  • number_assignments_allowed_per_user: an integer or 0 for unlimited
  • number_assignments_required_per_user: an integer or 0 for not required
  • number_assignments_allowed_per_prompt: an integer or 0 for unlimited
  • This set of preferences allows for:
    • sga_flashfic (people don't need assignments): USER, 0, 0, 0
    • yuletide (people are assigned one on one): MODERATOR, 1, 1, 1
    • anyone can claim one prompt, only one person per prompt: USER, 1, 1, 1

Challenge Dating:

  • posting_deadline: date
  • posted_is_visible: true/false
  • author_is_visible: true/false
  • These should all be manually set by a moderator. If the posting deadline is past, posting stories to the challenge will not be allowed.
  • While posted_is_visible is set to false, stories will be kept hidden except from the author(s) and the moderator(s) (and archive admins). This allows a moderator to reveal stories all at once. This does NOT allow for piecemeal reveals, however.
  • If anyone is welcome to post any time before the deadline, posted_is_visible can just be set to true for the entire challenge.
  • While author_is_visible is set to false, story authors will be displayed as Anonymous and not linked.
  • At any time, an author can make their story or their name visible by choosing to make their story no longer an entry for the challenge—so e.g., if a moderator vanishes halfway through, authors don't have to delete and repost.

Requested Features:

  • Should be able to have a specified goal–for example, 50 prompts and 50 sign-ups.
    • Right now number of prompts/sign-ups is user-specific, not Challenge specific. The moderator is theoretically able to manually close after 50 prompts/sign-ups.
  • Fanfiction Tumble/Round Robin
    • This is making my head swim a little. I think this is possible? It is awkward however and the participants would all be co-authors, there would be no indication who added which chapter. They could do that with chapter notes though.
  • Option to disqualify users who entered wrong prompts
    • The possibility to enter wrong prompts is hindered by the TagSet check. It's obviously still possible to sneak something past...
  • Challenge moderators, when handed works/prompts to control, want to be able to mass-allow/deny certain types of commenting---i.e. OpenID, anonymous, and user-signed comments.
  • Moderators may want to put flags on flaky participants in certain types of challenges (visible only to themselves).
  • Moderators want to be able to make prompts anonymous.
  • Challenge moderators wish to be able to write messages in general to participants---i.e. reminding people of the deadline, announcements.
  • Challenge moderators wish to be able to automatically render new additions to the challenge visible at a due date, as well as render their authors visible at a due date. These should be separate functions. + Moderators may want to have reveals done in numbered batches.
    • Only possible to make all/non visible
  • In a remix challenge, challenge moderators want to be able to hide the original author's name (showing the remixing author's name) in an initial reveal, and then publish the original author's name in a separate reveal.
  • Participants may need to submit links/works/miscellanea to be approved for the challenge.
  • Participants may not be actively posting users; instead, they may be on board as pinch hitters, betas and in other assistive roles.
  • Does every Challenge only have one moderator? Or are several moderators possible?
  • Moderators want the option that entered prompts are only visible to them.
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