Hello!

Thank you again for joining me for the inaugural round of Casefic Exchange (and thanks to the nonnies who expressed interest in an exchange like this earlier this year—it encouraged me to finally get this one on the exchange scene)!

I have a few things I'd appreciate hearing specifically about, but I'm also keen to hear about other aspects of the exchange. Please keep in mind that I'll be incorporating feedback that works for me as a moderator, as I need to manage this exchange within my schedule and limits.

I will do my best to reply to feedback, but please don't think anything of me saying "Thanks for your feedback!", as I will only ask further questions regarding feedback I'd like more information on.

More?

Perhaps the most important question of them all: 1. Are you interested in another round?

Schedule

2. I liked the time of year that we held the exchange, and I'd like to do so again, although I would like to shift the schedule to begin earlier in the year. I made the schedule based on my personal and exchange commitments (and will do so again), and if we have another round next year, I will keep the schedule in the first half of the year.

I'm considering starting nominations in January or February next year (I originally wanted to open in March this year, but wanted more time with the exchange before going live). If we open nominations in January, that means nominations/sign-ups are in January and the creation period falls in February/March/April, leaving May/June as the pinch hit/(hopefully) reveals period — would this be ideal? I understand we will always clash with other exchanges, especially those with higher minimums, but early in the year works perfectly for me as a moderator.

I prefer to avoid July entirely as I participate in Battleship Exchange, and I know a handful of you do, too.

3. Did Friday deadlines work? I chose Friday because the deadline conversion would be Saturday early afternoon for me (I am in AEST/AEDT). The alternative is to shift this to Sunday EST/EDT, so it falls on my Monday AEST/AEDT. (Saturday EDT/EST is not an option I will be considering.)

Regardless of the day we settle on, I would ask for leniency, as a mid-afternoon deadline for me may clash with plans that arise over the year. The 11:59pm EDT/EST deadline works for me, and I will keep this moving forward.

I'm not overly concerned about not being online when deadlines hit as long as participants make a good faith effort to meet them and are not stressed out by the fact I may not post until hours later that X deadline has come. (I always intend to post if something crops up offline that will prevent me from executing a phase.) I intentionally waited at least half an hour to an hour after the deadlines before taking any action to give people extra time in case they miscalculated the time conversion.

So: Friday or Sunday EDT/EST? It makes no difference to me, so please let me know!

As someone who exists entirely in the future, my exchange experiences with deadlines have always consisted of me adding a +1, which will most likely be different from the majority of participants, so I'd appreciate feedback on this.

Exchange mechanics

4. Did the minimum requirements work for everyone? Is 3k and its equivalents too small? I have no interest in decreasing this minimum. I'd appreciate hearing from all types of creators—fic, artists, and podficcers.

5. Freeforms were not something I was interested in adding during the first round as I wanted to try to make the exchange run as smoothly as possible so everyone (especially myself) could get a feel of how it'd run without that additional complication. (Full transparency: Freeforms, outside of the medium freeforms, are new for me as a moderator!)

I will investigate how to add freeforms to the exchange for the next round, as I think this would work well for prompts, i.e. you can select "heist", "murder mystery", etc. so your creator(s) know what kind of genre/theme of casefic you're interested in.

I would build into the schedule a week for crowdsourcing generic freeforms, such as "murder mystery", "heist", "stolen item", etc., as I will undoubtedly miss one if I leave it to myself, and make that final list available for you to select when signing up. These freeforms will not be "X con artist steals flower vase from museum" kind of freeforms. It'd be more in line with how fandom5k has genre freeforms. I think this will assist when participants forget or choose not to provide casefic-theme prompts.

Given how small the exchange is, I'm hesitant to make these matchable, as we already are niche given we're a themed exchange.

Creation Period

6. How did you find the creation period? Was it too long? Just right? Did you want longer? I chose three months based on feedback from anons and because I broke it down as 1k = 1 month.

Please be mindful that I'm not interested in shifting the creation period based on other exchange commitments. We will always clash with other exchanges.

Check-in period

7. Did you want a check-in period? Given our long creation period, I wasn't sure if this was desired. I made the default deadline to be an unofficial check-in, but it didn't work as intended. Would you like a mandatory check-in period, similar to fffx?

Default deadline and extension deadline

8. Did you find the default deadline motivating? The default deadline didn't exactly work as I had intended, as we ended up with more extensions than I had anticipated. I'm considering removing the default deadline from the schedule, but since it didn't work as I wanted from a moderator's perspective, did it work from a participant's perspective?

If it didn't work from either perspective, I'll remove it for the next round.

9. As I didn't anticipate so many extensions (there is nothing wrong with this!), I will be building two extension deadlines into the schedule that you can choose from (similar to how ficinabox does this), as this will help me manage pinch hits. I learned from this year that having a deadline option available worked better than choosing the next Friday as an extension deadline.

I would prefer participants to email me for an extension, as I find that having this record is useful for me if I need to follow up. I was considering creating a Google form, but I would want emails to be logged/a record of your extension request sent to you so you have a record and reminder that you asked for it. I'd like to hear your preferences, as I have only ever used a Google form to request an extension as a participant and not as a moderator!

Trialling: Request specific assignment

10. Given the niche nature of the exchange, I'm hesitant to add swaps; however, I am considering allowing participants to request a specific assignment, with the caveat that you are not guaranteed your request being successful.

I saw some commentary about participants taking a more conservative approach to their offers for this exchange, given the minimum requirements, so I wanted to gauge interest in trialling this approach. (Please note this is not something I have ever offered before in any of my exchanges, so there would be a learning curve on the mod end on how to manage this.)

If there is an interest in swapping, I will investigate further how to run this as smoothly as possible.

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Please let me know if there was anything else you'd like to be considered for round two! I tried to run round one as flexibly and simply as possible, while being open to ideas as I got my bearings with such an exchange (my experience is with a "/" exchange) and didn't wish to overcomplicate matters. I'm happy to add some more complexity to the exchange if that will improve the experience.

I'd appreciate any feedback, but please be aware that I will only implement what works for me as a moderator and makes the moderator side of the exchange as smooth as possible. I wish I could cater to everyone, but I can't.

You can comment here or email me at gumshoeagency@gmail.com.

Thank you again! It's been a lot of fun. :)