Below are the most recent 8 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
melannen	6:46p	HOLY GODS. So my friends (niquerio and dreamsquirrel on lj) sent me a package for the holiday, with no note or card or anything: it held a USB external hard drive enclosure with a 250 GB SATA hard drive in it. Which was way, way more than they should have done, considering all they got from me was a box of reject books and a Christmas card with the Grinch on it. But I wasn't going to say no to 250 gigs of storage, considering my tendency to hoard mp3s and butterfly between fandoms, torrents in tow. But then I finally got it hooked up tonight (note to self: make sure actual hard drive is actually connected to enclosure) and it's not a 250 gig spare drive: it's a 250 gig drive with 200 gigs of mp3s on it. And this is the couple who probably have the best taste in music (and know more about it) of everyone I know, so it's all *good* music. Album upon album of early music, folk music of all kinds, geek rock, video games, world fusion, showtunes, 1930s swing ... I don't have enough time left in my *lifespan* to listen to all of this! Holy gods. (um. Proper new-year update coming soon. Just. holy gods.) Current Mood: *thud* (4 Comments |Comment on this)
beccafran	10:09a	two good posts on signups penknife (a first-time smutty_claus participant this year, and a mod of fests herself) has a great discussion of fest signups here. Her discussion centers on what not to say in your signup. I pretty much agree with everything she says, but the one thing that I agree with MORE than anything else is this: Don't bash pairings, characters, or genres -- or, really, anything -- in your request. I am always amazed by how many people do not seem to realize that if they request "X/Y, slash, no kittens" they may wind up matched with a writer who also writes X/Z het kittenfic. Getting a request that reads "X/Y slash of course, no nasty het, and none of those disgusting kittens" isn't a fun way for that writer to start the ficathon. If you don't want to see something in your story, just say so: "Please no het," "Please no kink," "Please don't focus on character Z," "Please don't pair X and Y." If you feel very strongly about an unusual squick, you may want to intensify your request enough so that your writer knows you mean it -- "Please do not include kittens in my story in any way, they are a major squick for me" -- but your request is not the place to go on an anti-kitten crusade. I'd add that if your moderator is a big fan of a particular character -- just for example, let's say Ginny Weasley -- it might not be wise to go ON and ON and ON about how much you hate Ginny and how awful and horrible she is. It might irritate your mod, and she might not be as gracious and accepting and generally wonderful as me. Another useful and interesting post about signups is this one, posted as an instruction to participants in the sshg_exchange on how to request artwork. It looks very useful, and I plan to use it (along with the input that I solicited from some SC artists) to formulate some instructions on requesting artwork for smutty_claus. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
beccafran	12:09p	Everyone on lj is freaking out about this gawker article that says SUP has laid off 20 of 28 livejournal employees, "leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers — which speaks to a website to be left on life support." If anything happens, I'll have my pretty little JF account all waiting for me. *hugs it* And hey, the smutty_claus mirror community will be here, too. Current Mood: okay (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
beccafran	10:22p	comment stats In case participants needed some extra motivation.... Average number of comments Works submitted on time: average 23.0 comments works submitted late: average 14.1 comments works submitted very late: average 7.5 comments "On Time" means on or before the deadline date. "Very Late" means 2 weeks or more after the deadline. These are for 2008 only. This is most likely due to the time of posting. All works submitted on time were posted on or before December 17. Last year's comment statistics showed a relatively even pattern of commenting throughout the month, but this year reviewers seem to have suffered from comment fatigue to a greater degree. ( more comment statistics ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
beccafran	3:15p	reflections Last year I posted a reflection on the things I did well and the ones that needed improvement in the fest. That was helpful, but this year I feel like I did most of the same things as last year, but with some minor tweaks in places. So I'm not so inclined to navel-gazing. But hey, all those things I said I needed to do better? I think I did better on them! Some general ideas for next year's fest... Decrease fest size to 75? edit signup post/form to encourage more art-friendly requests? Remember to promote the fest on erotic_elves, which I forgot to do this year. Prod people to give more details in their request at signups. One change for next year -- I've decided to toss the appearance of fairness out the window. From now on, I'm totally playing favorites with fanartists. We had the most fanart ever (16%) this year, and it just makes me happy. Who doesn't love some good fanart? Plus, artists are (usually) model participants: they're enthusiastic, flexible, and prompt. Seriously, from now on I'm using my modly powers to recruit and pamper fanartists. Also, since I'm about to make the last post, this is a good time to mention that I welcome feedback and suggestions of any kind! Anything you weren't happy with in the fest, or thought could use improvement, or whatever? Send me an email or leave me a comment. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 29th, 2008
beccafran	10:34p	I can see that this will become a problem. I downloaded a trial version of Bento tonight, which is a personal database program. I've been sitting here with my laptop for about 3 hours straight, just messing with the program and experimenting with how to organize the fest data. I'm having entirely too much fun with this. Seriously, it can't be healthy. (Comment on this)
beccafran	9:03a	patience and keeping up The next statistic I should run is probably the number of times I'm thanked for my "patience" or "understanding" in the author's notes, based on day/week of posting. It was never noticeable before, but now that I'm posting more in order of receipt... you can really see a difference, huh? I've been keeping up with the reading and commenting pretty well, but there are still 2 long stories that I haven't had a chance to even start. GAH. But I will get to them. I will read and comment before I post the master list, if I have to call in sick to do it. *grits teeth* (Comment on this)
Friday, December 26th, 2008
beccafran	7:43p	new characters and pairings in 2008 Starting tomorrow, I will be making 2 gift posts a day for the rest of the month. Hopefully this will give readers time to go back and catch up on some of the stories and artwork already posted. As probably most everyone has already noticed, this has been a year for lots of new pairings and characters in the fest. Considering that in the first 4 years we had already featured 121 pairings... finding this many new ones is quite an achievement. 13 characters made their smutty_claus debut this year: Angelina Johnson, Professor Binns, Charity Burbage, Lily Potter II, Lorcan and Lysander Scamander, Michael Corner, Madam Pince, Rose Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy, Teddy Lupin, Theodore Nott and Victoire Weasley Despite her fabulous showing this year, Rita Skeeter has been around the block before -- she was featured with Viktor Krum in 2006's The Interview by anjenue. ... and 23 pairings appeared in smutty_claus for the first time this year: Binns/Pince, Cedric/Angelina, Charlie/Luna, Draco/Rita, Draco/Rose, Lysander/Lily II, Lysander/Lily II/Lorcan, Michael/Hermione, Oliver/Hermione, Ron/Lavender, Ron/Susan, Scorpius/Rose, Seamus/Lavender, Sirius/Rita, Snape/Charity Burbage, Snape/Hermione/Draco, Snape/Hermione/Lucius, Snape/Pansy, Snape/Rita, Teddy/various, Teddy/Victoire, Theo/Pansy and Tom/Minerva Those 23 new pairings account for 25 posts (1 per pairing except Scorpius/Rose, which entered the fest with a bang, at 3 stories), or 30.8% of the fest. (Comment on this)