MOD 2023 State of Fanfic Address

Welcome:

Ladies and gentlemen of the Fanfic community, welcome to our 2023 State of Fanfic address where we will be discussing the overall state of fanfic with memorable highlights of Fanfic in 2022, and exciting plans for Fanfic in 2023 among other important topics. Please give yourselves a round of applause because what is a State of Fanfic address without applause?



Overall State of Fanfic:

The State of Fanfic is strong. (Give yourselves another enthusiastic round of applause.) Currently we are beginning the year in fine form with the second annual Kessel Run Challenge featuring an impressive roster of 16 participants.

Ongoing challenge threads like the OTP Thread, the OC Revolution, Angstmongers Annoymous, and Monday Mush Mania continue to spark great discussion and inspire incredible stories to enrich our corner of the Internet. The 2023 Dear Diary Challenge has also begun, and for those with 2023 New Year’s Resolutions to read and review more fanfic, the 2023 Reading Challenge is a perfect opportunity to do just that!

Clash of Titans:

Our Clash of Titans event with RPF recently drew to a close. As mods, we were excited to offer this event and enjoyed hosting it, but we would love to hear your feedback.

Would you appreciate more such friendly competitions with RPF in the future? If so, would you like them to occur at the same time of year or at a different time of year, or maybe on a rotating basis? Would you change anything about the structure or format of the event? If so, what and how?

If you have any comments or suggestions on the Clash of Titans, please feel free to mention them in this thread or PM a mod.


Mod Challenges in General:

In 2022, we mods had a blast hosting the Something Borrowed, Something New Mod!Challenge that inspired some truly magnificent and creative stories based on a crazy collection of prompts! (Time for another applause break.)

Would there be community interest in another Mod Challenge in 2023? Perhaps a resurrection of the DARE Challenge?

Again, please feel free to let us know in this thread or by PM.

Festival of Favorites and a Volunteer Opportunity:

Last year, a group of wonderful volunteers did a fantastic job of hosting the 2021 Festival of Favorites. Therefore, we mods would once again like to extend the invitation to our users to volunteer to host the 2022-23 Festival of Favorites.

Just like last year, we are looking for around 4 users willing to commit some time every week for the next few months. If you are interested in volunteering, please apply with a PM to any fanfic mod, and we will see if you are a good fit. It’s not our intent to exclude anyone but there is such a thing as too many cooks in the kitchen spoiling the soup!



So, what exactly would the volunteers have to do?

The three broad steps of the volunteer job are:

1. Prep work. This is when rules and announcements posts are drafted, which can usually be copied from previous years. Any changes to the process are also made now. As are schedule and category decisions.
2. Hosting the Festival of Favorites. Once a week, new categories will be announced. Volunteers will also use a sock to collect and announce anonymous submissions.
3. Creating the final index. This entails ensuring that submissions are eligible and creating a thread that can be sticked in Fanfic.

Upcoming Events in 2023:

We have some marvelous events planned for 2023 so mark your calendars now. Looking ahead, we will have the Summer Olympics again in the summer of 2023. In the fall, the One Sentence Challenge, Autumn Bingo, and the NaNoWriMo/November Word Race will make their returns. When the seasons cycle back to winter again, we will end our 2023 Fanfic year with the beloved classic Gift Exchange. So please continue to check Fanfic regularly to see what challenges and events we have running at any given time!

In Conclusion:

Keep being awesome and making Fanfic one of the coolest spots on the Internet to hang out

 

I'm just here for the State of the FanFic because this really is the best forum on the boards.

And if you ever attempt to tell the others I said this I will point out that I posted it in FanFic and it is merely the fictional product of my imaginative writing.

 

I will jot down the first part in my notes for next year's State of Fanfic, and I will conveniently ignore the fine print because it doesn't fit my narrative

 

We make our own canon here in Fanfic.

 

Of course! (That's something we should have included in the OP, in retrospect. ) The Festival of Fanfic Favorites is something that we usually start in February. Last year, we got volunteers in February, they took a few weeks to plan, and then the actual Festival itself lasted six weeks from March into April. There's no exact timeframe we keep to, but it does seem to be about eight weeks of volunteering, give or take, with the brunt of that occurring around March.

We completely understand RL being tricky to plan around, too, so there are absolutely no worries if you can't volunteer! You've always been a gem with helping out with Awards and other forum events in the past. We remember that, and don't forget. Even if you're just here to enjoy the fun, that's awesome, and it's your willingness to help that we appreciate most!


That said, we already have two volunteers to help with the Festival this year. Do we have any further takers?

 

A quick reminder that we mods are still seeking Festival volunteers.

If interested, please reach out to any Fanfic mod by February 1st.

Thank you and as always keep being awesome