Kaleidoscope 2012 Frequently Asked Questions

[dark_administrator]

Index

• What is Dark Agenda
  
• What does chromatic mean?
  
• Why is Dark Agenda running Kaleidoscope?
  
• What is Kaleidoscope?
  
• How will Kaleidoscope work?
  
• Who can participate in Kaleidoscope?
  
• What fandoms will be considered eligible for Kaleidoscope?
  
• How will rarity be determined?
  
• What type of fanworks will be allowed?
  
• What are the requirements for fanworks?
  
• What are the deadlines?
  
• How do I nominate a fandom?
  
• How do I dispute a fandom's eligibility for Kaleidoscope?
  
• How do I sign-up?
  
• How will I submit my assignment?
  
• How do I find someone to beta my fanwork?
  
• How do I drop out from Kaleidoscope?
  
• How do I volunteer to be a pinch-hitter for Kaleidoscope?
  
• What are Kaleidoscope treats?
  
• When will the challenge go live?
  
• I'm really excited about Kaleidoscope! What can I do to help?

Kaleidoscope 2012 Frequently Asked Questions

What is dark_agenda?

dark_agenda was founded as a place to offer resources in order to increase representation of international, non-English language and non-Western sources in multifandom fanwork challenges as well as to promote the responsible portrayal of chromatic characters.

dark_agenda seeks to provide a space where fans, especially chromatic fans, can and are encouraged to critically produce, consume and discuss fanworks centered around chromatic cultures and characters.

What does chromatic mean?

We use the term “chromatic” as an umbrella definition for "person of color", "non-white", "multiracial", "indigenous", "sourcelander", "hyphenate", "diasporian", etc.; while we acknowledge that it has shortcomings. Similarly, we accept that there is a certain flattening in our “white/Western/other” terminology.

Why is dark_agenda running Kaleidoscope?

There are several reasons dark_agenda is running Kaleidoscope: one among them is to promote chromatic sources and characters and another is because we want an exchange challenge dedicated to chromatic fandoms.

What is Kaleidoscope?

Kaleidoscope is a multimedia fanwork exchange for rare fandoms containing chromatic characters or people and produced by chromatic creators.

How will Kaleidoscope work?

Each participant has an opportunity to nominate up to five (5) fandoms and from each fandom, up to ten (10) characters or people to be included in Kaleidoscope. From a list of fandoms, characters and people nominated, the participant must request five (5) distinct fandoms and specify whether they are willing to receive artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories and/or vids.

The participant must also offer at least five (5) or more distinct fandoms for which they are willing to create a fanwork and specify whether they are willing to create artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories and/or vids. Then the participant is matched to someone who requested at least one (1) fandom and one (1) fanwork type, i.e. artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories or vids, that they, the participant, did.

Once the participant has received an assignment, they must create a fanwork a) from one of the three fandoms and b) in one of the media, i.e. artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories or vids, their assigned recipient requested. The fanwork must also c) be centered around at least one (1) chromatic character or person and d) be a minimum of 1,000 words for stories, 3:00 minutes for podfics, 30 seconds for vids, 8 tracks for mixes, completed pieces for artworks as well as digital collage, photo manipulation and user-interface graphics (e.g. not initial brainstorming or preliminary sketches), 30 images for picspams, 20 icons, 5 banners or other equivalently sized graphics for web graphics.

Who can participate in Kaleidoscope?

Anyone who is interested can participate in Kaleidoscope.

What fandoms will be considered eligible for Kaleidoscope?

For this challenge, we are only allowing rare fandoms whose source has both (a) at least one chromatic character in a major role and (b) at least one chromatic person who is credited as an creator. In cases where there are no clear creators listed, directors, writers, developers, etc. may be submitted as creators, e.g. Ang Lee, Wang Hui-Ling, James Schamus and Tsai Kuo Jung would be considered creators of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while for Final Fantasy, only Sakaguchi Hironobu would be considered as the source's creator.

For fandoms involving real people, the chromatic creator criterion does not apply. For fandoms in which there are no characters or people, the source should have some connections and references to chromatic cultures.

Our post on source eligibility provides some clarification on our eligibility criteria for reference, and for future challenges, we may extend our scope to include rare fandoms with chromatic characters or people, but not by chromatic creators.

How will rarity be determined?

A fandom will be considered rare for this challenge if it meets the following criteria:

• It has less than 1,500 English-language stories on major multifandom archives;
  
• It has less than 15,000 artworks, 100 podfics and 350 vids (in any languages) on major multifandom archives;
  
• It does not have a dedicated fandom-specific challenge that has run annually for more than two years in a row;
  
• and it does also not have a dedicated fandom-specific archive or community that has more than 1,500 fanworks.

Our rarity criteria is based on the consumption and production of source materials and their trends in English-language fandom.

What type of fanworks will be allowed?

Kaleidoscope welcomes artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories and vids. For the purposes of this current challenge, we are limiting artworks to traditional art & craft and digital painting & drawing as outlined in this guide to fanart terminology, but we are willing to consider opening the challenge to other mediums and/or fanwork types.

Graphics, on the other hand, will encompass digital collage, photo manipulation, picspams, user-interface graphics (e.g. desktop wallpapers, program skins, etc.) and web graphics (e.g. icons, banners, etc.). In addition, under AO3's guidelines, picspams must be transformed in some ways, either by containing some kind of commentaries and/or contexts or be visually manipulated (e.g. images are colored or digitally edited).

Mixes may include FSTs and fanmixes while vids may be AMVs, compilations, fanvids, songvids, video mixes or fan-made MVs, but excluding slide shows -- or simply a series of photographs set to music. Mixed-media vids that include some still images or vids that manipulated and animated them would be welcome.

What are the requirements for fanworks?

Fanworks must be centered around at least one (1) chromatic character or person and it must be a minimum of:

• 1,000 words for stories
  
• 3:00 minutes for podfics
  
• 30 seconds for vids
  
• 30 images for picspams
  
• 20 icons, 5 banners or other equivalently sized graphics for web graphics
  
• 8 tracks for mixes
  
• completed pieces (e.g. not initial brainstorming or preliminary sketches) for artworks and digital collage, photo manipulation and user-interface graphics

In addition, participants must obtain permission from creators to record podfic of their works unless participants are recording from their own body of works.

What are the deadlines?

All time will be in Pacific Time (U.S.A.), but our schedule will be:

• Nominations will be open for two weeks and will close at 9 p.m. on 2012 August 23.
  
• Sign-ups will also be open for two weeks and will close at 9 p.m. on 2012 September 15.
  
• Assignments will be due at 9 p.m., 2012 October 20.
  
• For assignments that only include artwork, graphic, mixes, podfics and vid requests, the last day to default without penalty will be 9 p.m., 2012 October 5; for assignments that include story requests, 9 p.m., 2012 October 12.
  
• Pinch-hit assignments made before defaulting deadlines will be due at 9 p.m., 2012 October 20, and assignments made after the defaulting deadlines will be due at 9 p.m., 2012 October 26.
  
• Treats will be due at 9 p.m., 2012 October 26.

How do I nominate a fandom?

Nominations may be made through Kaleidoscope 2012 Nominations starting 2012 August 9. Up to five (5) fandoms and for each fandom, up to 10 characters or persons may be nominated. The fandom must be from a source that (a) contains chromatic characters or people, (b) is produced by chromatic creators and (c) meets our rarity policy. For characters and people, they must, obviously, identify or be coded in cases of fictional characters as chromatic.

How do I dispute a fandom's eligibility for Kaleidoscope?

Inclusion of a specific nominated fandom, character or person in Kaleidoscope may be disputed if they do not meet the challenge's criteria of eligible fandom through our nominations dispute form:

• fandom source was not produced by chromatic creators
  
• fandom source does not contain chromatic characters or people
  
• fandom source does not meet our rarity policy
  
• a character or person does not identify -- or in the case of fictional characters, not coded -- as a chromatic.

Verifiable evidence must be cited (e.g. links to Anime Music Videos .Org, AsianFanfics, audiofic, deviantArt, FanFiction.Net, pixiv, YouTube, etc. searches and so on) for issues concerning rarity.

How do I sign-up?

Participants may sign-up for Kaleidoscope through Sign Up For Kaleidoscope Fanwork Exchange 2012.

Participants must request five (5) distinct fandoms from the final list of nominated fandoms and specify under the Freeforms field for each requested fandom whether they are willing to receive artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories and/or vids. They must also offer at least five (5) or more distinct fandoms from the final list of nominated fandoms for which they are willing to create a fanwork and specify under the Freeforms field for each requested fandom whether they are willing to create artwork, graphics, mixes, podfics, stories and/or vids.

How will I submit my assignment?

Fanworks for Kaleidoscope are submitted to our AO3 collection. The deadline is 9 p.m., 2012 October 20.

AO3 has written a tutorial for posting stories to a challenge, and we provided a How to Post Various Fanworks for Kaleidscope on Archive of Our Own tutorial last year which we'll update accordingly this year as well.

For artworks, graphics, mixes, podfics and vids, participants may either create a fake unidentifiable account or an account we've set up for Kaleidoscope participants, upload their fanwork there and embed it in a post to be submitted to the Kaleidoscope AO3 collection. AO3 currently supports embedding from 4shared, blip.tv, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Viddler, vimeo and YouTube. They also support embedding of media players hosted on personal web servers.

An unsigned version -- or one with a Kaleidoscope watermark -- must be used for the period between go-live and reveals to maintain anonymity (only after creators are revealed may a signed version replaced it).

How do I find someone to beta my fanwork?

Participants may find or request beta services through our beta resources post that we'll make for Kaleidoscope or through our Chromatic Beta mailing list.

How do I drop out from Kaleidoscope?

Participants may drop out from Kaleidoscope by selecting the Default button under their Kaleidoscope assignment page.

Defaulting must be done by 2012 October 5, 9 p.m. Pacific Time (U.S.A.) for assignments that include only artwork, graphic, mix, podfic and vid requests to avoid incurring a penalty. For assignments that include story requests, it must be done by October 12.

If you default after defaulting deadlines or do not let us know that you did not complete your assignment by the submission deadline, we may request that you complete your previous assignments before you can participate in Kaleidoscope again or ban you from future challenges.

How do I volunteer to be a pinch-hitter for Kaleidoscope?

Pinch hits will be sent through our pinch hit mailing list, which anyone can join.

Claims are first come first served -- the first person to respond to an email detailing a pinch hit will be assigned to it -- and there are no limits to how many pinch-hits one may claim. Pinch-hit assignments made before defaulting deadlines will be due on 9 p.m., 2012 October 20, and pinch-hit assignments made after defaulting deadlines will be due October 12. The fanwork requirements are the same as for the initial assignments: a minimum of 1,000 words for stories, 3:00 minutes for podfics, 30 seconds for vids, 8 tracks for mixes, completed pieces for artwork as well as digital collage, photo manipulation and user-interface graphics (e.g. not initial brainstorming or preliminary sketches), 30 images for picspams, 20 icons, 5 banners or other equivalently sized graphics for web graphics.

What are Kaleidoscope treats?

Kaleidoscope treats are "extra" fanworks (not a replacement for assigned fanworks) someone has decided to make based on a participant's requests from their Dear Doer of Darkness letter or a list of Kaleidoscope prompts (to be made public on 2012 October 5).

Anyone may create treats. There are no minimum fanwork requirements for them, and you can simply submit your fanworks to Kaleidoscope Treats 2012 AO3 Collection. The collection will close on 2012 October 26, 9 p.m. Pacific Time (U.S.A.).

When will the challenge go live?

Kaleidoscope will go live anonymously sometime on 2012 October 26. Creators will be revealed on November 2.

I'm really excited about Kaleidoscope! What can I do to help?

The simplest way to help is to promote our challenge! We ask your help in actively promoting our challenge and increasing its visibility in various existing and emerging fannish communities of which you may be part.

We have a selection of banners submitted by our generous and awesome members for Kaleidoscope promotions.

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