Thinking on the '18 FKFicFest pre-game poll

[brightknightie]

My thanks to the 5 people (plus me) who answered this year's FKFicFest pre-game poll! I'm pondering the results. I hope to post the game announcement next weekend.

This year, for the first time, we went 50/50 on exchange-style vs. challenge-style (but that's including my own vote; without me, y'all still prefer exchanges). We asked some new questions this year, and it's interesting to learn that players prefer a close match to a new match, and, when we can't have both, a great prompt to write over a great story to read.

With perhaps only these 6 players, close matches in an exchange could be more difficult than ever. (Previously, we'd set 9 as the minimum participation for exchanges.) We can match the 2 UFers to each other, right off; yet the remaining 4 of us haven't historically shared many preferences. The survey should perhaps also have asked: "Do you prefer exchange-style over challenge-style even when the available matches are weaker?" or "If it's just us, should we try to craft prompts for the available writers?"

Comments

[pj1228]

I'm happy with whatever you decide. If you worry that 6 players are too few to match, let's play challenge-style for a change. Or we could decide that when we know how many players we are eventually. There may yet be more than participated in the poll. If fewer than 9 sign up, we could do challenge, and if there're 9 or more, we could do exchange. We already had this option a few years ago.

[brightknightie]

Yes, let's go ahead with exchange-style, which most players prefer! Yet let's quietly reserve the possibility of re-visiting the game's style if fewer than 9 people want to play. (I'm afraid the alternative confused people before, so we won't emphasize it, just mention it.)

People who play year after year sometimes refine their preferences to reflect experiences in previous years. This is sensible for them! But it can make their preferences harder to match each year, in a limited pool of players.

[nicholas_lucien]

I can understand the problem. You have said in the past that with even 8 or 9 players, matching can be difficult as you try to align the various preferences between writer and prompter as closely as possible. Of course, I will welcome whichever decision you have for the next FicFest, but it might be interesting to see everyone's take and interpretation on one shared prompt.

[brightknightie]

I think I'd enjoy challenge-style more, myself, but I don't want to rock the boat against the prevailing sentiment if we don't have to.

We'll request that no one recycle prompts this time. That's another thing that makes matches exceedingly difficult -- when people submit the same prompts multiple times. Prompts and preferences that were hard to match the first time don't get easier subsequent times, when it's the same small group of us every year.

Poll

[waltd]

Hi,
Sorry I missed the poll. I would plan on participating again, exchange or challenge (although I've come to find the exchange to be pretty good. A couple of times I've had to deal with a topic I knew nothing about and I had to learn something, so it was worth it).

Re: Poll

[brightknightie]

Thanks, Walt. We'll likely go ahead with exchange-style, with a caveat that we'll re-survey participants if 9 or fewer players sign up in the end.