Voiceteam Mystery Box 2023 Rules/FAQ
Nov. 25th, 2023 01:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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voiceteamVoiceteam Mystery Box is a two-week mini spinoff of Voiceteam to wrap up the holiday season and start the new year! Starting on 12:01 AM UTC December 27th (7:01 PM EST on December 26th), we will announce two new point-earning challenges per day for five days. All ten challenges will remain open until January 9th. Once all the challenges have closed, the team with the highest score wins!
TIMELINE
Sign-ups: Now – December 22nd
Discord server opens: December 23rd
Challenges post: December 27th – December 31st
Final challenge ends: January 9th
Results & Celebration: January 10th
Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which means that all challenge drops and deadlines are scheduled at 12:01 AM UTC of the relevant day. You can use TimeAndDate to convert to your timezone. Your facilitators—airgiodslv, cathalinaheart, eafay70, forzandopod, klb, and novalinium—are in EST (UTC-5), CST (UTC-6), PST (UTC-8), and CET (UTC+1).
MAJOR CHANGES FROM LAST YEAR
RULES
Code of Conduct for Players
This is a community space, and players are expected to act in ways that take the needs and feelings of other players into account. Specifically, players should not publicly complain about their team, give unsolicited critique of another player’s fanwork, or pressure or exclude team members. Pressuring team members includes, but is not limited to, repeatedly suggesting ways for the team member to earn more points, or repeatedly checking in on a team member's progress, without that team member having agreed to that type of interaction first.
Any player who breaks this code of conduct will be contacted by the mods and asked to stop. If this type of behavior happens repeatedly, they may be asked to leave Voiceteam or asked not to return in future years.
The above code of conduct is not intended to silence calling out or calling in of racism, transphobia, or other behavior harmful to historically marginalized communities. This community will always make space for that kind of feedback, and the mods will always work to support players who speak up about this type of behavior. This includes calling out/calling in of the mods.
Code of Conduct for Mods
Mods will not delete any words by players from our Discord unless those words violate our anti-harassment policy and their deletion is requested by the affected community members. In case of deletion, we will keep screencaps of the unedited conversation for accountability reasons. If necessary, we encourage participants to hold us accountable to our own actions. We aim to mod this event from within the community, not above it. We will always be open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in our anti-oppression work and our work on making Voiceteam a fun and healthy community.
FAQ
I don’t have a pre-made group and don’t like the idea of being matched to a group of total strangers. What can I do?
While Voiceteam is a great place to make new friends, we also know there are lots of reasons someone might not feel comfortable being thrown into a social situation with a group of strangers. To address this, we have the option for “sign-up buddies”! People who sign up in individual sign-ups can choose one sign-up buddy, who will be guaranteed to be on the same team with them. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
What if I have one or more people I’d like to privately request to NOT be on a team with?
If you sign up without a pre-arranged team, there will be a field in the sign-up form where you can tell us who, if anyone, you would like to request to NOT be on a team with. Nobody except the mods will see what you type here.
What if my team is not a good fit for me?
Switching teams is a possibility—please reach out to us if you would like to request a team change and we will let you know about other teams you could switch to! If a player chooses to switch teams after the challenges have begun, we will have an individual discussion with them about their options for how to handle previous points and points going forward, since those options will vary from player to player based on the specifics of their situation. However, one rule of thumb is that when a player switches out of a team, it will never negatively impact the score of that team.
If you want to discuss team switches or any other concerns or feedback, feel free to message mods at any time via Discord or email. We will also invite anyone who wants to do an optional check-in on Airtable before Day 3 challenges are revealed.
What is Discord?/Tell me more about how the Discord server is going to work.
Discord is a text-based chat platform. Every server (like the Voiceteam server) can host multiple text and voice chat channels. Some of the channels will be open to the entire Voiceteam community and some will be visible only to members of your team.
Voiceteam players will be emailed an invitation to the Voiceteam Discord server on December 23rd. You can spend the first days saying hi and getting to know your team—we’ll provide some optional icebreaker questions you can answer for each other—and then the first list of challenges will be posted at 12:01 AM UTC on December 27th.
We hope this event can be an opportunity for participants to get to know each other better and form lasting connections! However, in the interests of facilitating moderation we'd encourage you to keep to the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord for coordinating Voiceteam projects with your team, rather than creating a separate team Discord for yourselves. If you do decide to create a separate Discord for your team, we highly recommend you add one or more of the event moderators so it's easier for us to get caught up in the case of issues - you can always remove us after all of the challenges have closed.
Players will also have the opportunity to assign themselves the roles “DMs Open,” “Ask to DM,” or “DMs Closed.” Please respect the DM preferences that players show through these roles.
Are minors allowed to participate?
Yes, minors (and over-18 folk who prefer to avoid mature content) are welcome to participate in Voiceteam! To accommodate these participants, NSFW content in the Discord server is kept in separate age-restricted channels. The only exception to this is in team-specific channels, and only if all members of that team have expressed comfort with NSFW content not being separated.
How do I keep track of when drops and deadlines will happen each day?
We know this can be confusing! We will have a time zone converter set up in Discord in a prominent location to help players keep track of when the next drop or deadline is coming up.
We're also maintaining a Google Calendar with these dates and deadlines that you can subscribe to. (If you just view it, it will show up in GMT (UTC+0), but if you add it to your own Google Calendar, which you can do by clicking the + in the bottom right corner, it will convert to your local timezone.)
Are there limits or requirements for crossposting creations I make for Voiceteam?
Nope! You may crosspost any works made for Voiceteam whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to not crosspost at all and only share with the mods, or only share within the Voiceteam Discord. One reminder, though, is that since many Voiceteam works are collaborations, all collaborators should discuss and be on the same page about when/where a work will be crossposted.
I observe Shabbat in a way that makes me not able to participate (or have a similar situation that means I’d need to take a certain day each week off from playing), but I still want to compete for points! Is there a way for me to do that?
Absolutely! If you will need to take off a specific day each week but still want to play for points, let us know in advance and we will make your deadline later than everyone else’s to make up for it.
What’s an example of what a challenge might look like?
Here are all of our past Voiceteam challenges.
What if I was already working on something before Voiceteam started? Is there a way to get points for it?
Any creation can earn points for a Voiceteam challenge as long as it is completed during the time that challenge is active. This includes WIPs you were already working on that happen to align with one of the challenges.
What are your content moderation rules and how do they work?
We have put in place two content moderation rules. If someone finds a fanwork that they think may violate one of the rules, they can report it privately (and anonymously if they want) to the mod team.
We have designed our response plan to prevent this system from being used to harass fanwork creators. We will never publicly share information about any reports, and we will only contact the creator about a report if we are sure the fanwork really is against one of these rules. If it’s unclear to us whether the fanwork violates the rule, the mod team will privately consult with one or more members of the marginalized group impacted, or as close as possible to that group, to assess if harm is being caused to the impacted community by the fanwork. If harm is being caused, we will move forward in private conversation with the creator of the fanwork to discuss the situation together and figure out possible next steps.
If the work is in violation of one of the rules and the fanwork’s creator cannot or does not wish to alter it, any points previously earned by the work will be removed and the work will be removed from our Voiceteam AO3 collection.
What plans does Voiceteam have in place to address racism within fandom and our community?
At the start of Voiceteam, players will have the option to opt into a section of channels intended to be a safe space for creators of color. This space is run by a mod of color, and none of the white mods will have access, nor will any white player in Voiceteam. Most importantly, we ask that everyone - whether you're a person of color or not - respect that space.
We will also continue with the universal bonus of +10 points for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters.
We are continuing to reflect as a mod team about our anti-racism practices within fandom, which we recognize to be a space deeply shaped by racism. We remain open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in this area.
How do I sign up?
Head to our sign-up post on Dreamwidth or directly to our sign-up form on Airtable.
What if I want to make a change to my sign-up form after I've submitted it?
Unfortunately, you will not be able to edit your sign-up form directly, but if you contact one of the mods or email voiceteammods@gmail.com, we will be happy to edit your sign-up for you.
I have more questions!
Please ask them in the comments, or email us at voiceteammods@gmail.com, and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.
TIMELINE
Sign-ups: Now – December 22nd
Discord server opens: December 23rd
Challenges post: December 27th – December 31st
Final challenge ends: January 9th
Results & Celebration: January 10th
Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which means that all challenge drops and deadlines are scheduled at 12:01 AM UTC of the relevant day. You can use TimeAndDate to convert to your timezone. Your facilitators—airgiodslv, cathalinaheart, eafay70, forzandopod, klb, and novalinium—are in EST (UTC-5), CST (UTC-6), PST (UTC-8), and CET (UTC+1).
MAJOR CHANGES FROM LAST YEAR
- Players who have participated in past Mystery Box rounds but are not participating in this round can sign up for a focus group discussion in our planning server. In this focus group, after sign-ups close (December 22nd–23rd), volunteers will read through the planned challenges in advance, give feedback, and ask questions so that we can revise them and make them as good as possible before they’re officially revealed!
- We’re making official our hospitalization exemption for points break: if any participant is hospitalized during Voiceteam Mystery Box, they are allowed to retroactively opt in to points break for any day even if the deadline for doing so has passed.
- We are revising the project lead bonus from requiring that the project involve “three or more people” other than the project lead to requiring the project involves “three or more Voiceteam players” other than the project lead.
RULES
- For Mystery Box, we’ll be offering team sign-ups and individual sign-ups. In team sign-ups, teams of between five and fifteen players can sign up as a complete group. In individual sign-ups, individual players can sign up to be matched by mods with others who signed up individually (individually matched teams will have up to twelve players).
- Each player will have a cap for how many points they can earn for each day’s challenges. You can sign up for a lower point cap (100 points max for each pair of challenges) or a higher point cap (200 points max for each pair of challenges).
- Since team sizes and point caps will vary, each team’s final score will be scaled. Points will be determined by dividing the number of points each player earned by their total maximum (based on their choice of point cap), averaging this number for all the players in the team, and then multiplying this number by the average team size.
- This challenge is all about adding fun and connection to our lives, not adding stress! If you choose to sit out a couple days or to only take on a single challenge for the whole event, that’s perfectly allowed. You may take a points break for any day’s challenges—just let the mod team know you want a points break within 24 hours of that day’s challenges being revealed. If you take a points break, your score is not included in the team’s scaled score for that day. Players who prefer to participate without concern for points are welcome to take a points break for all 5 days!
- Challenges will sometimes leave room for interpretation. If you are not sure whether something counts, please check with the mods. We support creativity and will often be generous with what we allow!
- Completed creations should be turned in to the mods via an Airtable form. A mod will look over and verify your submission and will reach out to you if we disagree about the point value or need more information from you. You are also encouraged (but not required) to share your creations within the Discord and/or crosspost your creations to our AO3 collection so that other players can see and enjoy them!
- Each team member has the final decision about their own creations (including their part in collaborative creations, if they choose to participate in any). There are no minimum requirements for the quality or size of your creations. If a good-faith plan is made for multiple people to collaborate on a work and some members aren’t able to meet the deadline, the partial project can be submitted for points by the members who did finish in time.
- The mods are committed to supporting a positive experience for our players! Please feel free to come to the mods to request support with any issues, including but not limited to: feelings of exclusion, conflict with a group member, and concerns about the rules or structure of Voiceteam. If you suspect a problem might be brewing but are unsure whether it’s worth checking in with the mods, PLEASE give us a heads up about it. We’ll keep your concerns confidential unless you give us the go-ahead to share them, but we can help you think up solutions or make mod-level changes as needed to address the problem. For more serious problems, see our anti-harassment policy.
Code of Conduct for Players
This is a community space, and players are expected to act in ways that take the needs and feelings of other players into account. Specifically, players should not publicly complain about their team, give unsolicited critique of another player’s fanwork, or pressure or exclude team members. Pressuring team members includes, but is not limited to, repeatedly suggesting ways for the team member to earn more points, or repeatedly checking in on a team member's progress, without that team member having agreed to that type of interaction first.
Any player who breaks this code of conduct will be contacted by the mods and asked to stop. If this type of behavior happens repeatedly, they may be asked to leave Voiceteam or asked not to return in future years.
The above code of conduct is not intended to silence calling out or calling in of racism, transphobia, or other behavior harmful to historically marginalized communities. This community will always make space for that kind of feedback, and the mods will always work to support players who speak up about this type of behavior. This includes calling out/calling in of the mods.
Code of Conduct for Mods
Mods will not delete any words by players from our Discord unless those words violate our anti-harassment policy and their deletion is requested by the affected community members. In case of deletion, we will keep screencaps of the unedited conversation for accountability reasons. If necessary, we encourage participants to hold us accountable to our own actions. We aim to mod this event from within the community, not above it. We will always be open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in our anti-oppression work and our work on making Voiceteam a fun and healthy community.
FAQ
I don’t have a pre-made group and don’t like the idea of being matched to a group of total strangers. What can I do?
While Voiceteam is a great place to make new friends, we also know there are lots of reasons someone might not feel comfortable being thrown into a social situation with a group of strangers. To address this, we have the option for “sign-up buddies”! People who sign up in individual sign-ups can choose one sign-up buddy, who will be guaranteed to be on the same team with them. Please note that to keep matching from becoming overly complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal, so if person A requests person B, person B must request person A (and not person C)!
What if I have one or more people I’d like to privately request to NOT be on a team with?
If you sign up without a pre-arranged team, there will be a field in the sign-up form where you can tell us who, if anyone, you would like to request to NOT be on a team with. Nobody except the mods will see what you type here.
What if my team is not a good fit for me?
Switching teams is a possibility—please reach out to us if you would like to request a team change and we will let you know about other teams you could switch to! If a player chooses to switch teams after the challenges have begun, we will have an individual discussion with them about their options for how to handle previous points and points going forward, since those options will vary from player to player based on the specifics of their situation. However, one rule of thumb is that when a player switches out of a team, it will never negatively impact the score of that team.
If you want to discuss team switches or any other concerns or feedback, feel free to message mods at any time via Discord or email. We will also invite anyone who wants to do an optional check-in on Airtable before Day 3 challenges are revealed.
What is Discord?/Tell me more about how the Discord server is going to work.
Discord is a text-based chat platform. Every server (like the Voiceteam server) can host multiple text and voice chat channels. Some of the channels will be open to the entire Voiceteam community and some will be visible only to members of your team.
Voiceteam players will be emailed an invitation to the Voiceteam Discord server on December 23rd. You can spend the first days saying hi and getting to know your team—we’ll provide some optional icebreaker questions you can answer for each other—and then the first list of challenges will be posted at 12:01 AM UTC on December 27th.
We hope this event can be an opportunity for participants to get to know each other better and form lasting connections! However, in the interests of facilitating moderation we'd encourage you to keep to the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord for coordinating Voiceteam projects with your team, rather than creating a separate team Discord for yourselves. If you do decide to create a separate Discord for your team, we highly recommend you add one or more of the event moderators so it's easier for us to get caught up in the case of issues - you can always remove us after all of the challenges have closed.
Players will also have the opportunity to assign themselves the roles “DMs Open,” “Ask to DM,” or “DMs Closed.” Please respect the DM preferences that players show through these roles.
Are minors allowed to participate?
Yes, minors (and over-18 folk who prefer to avoid mature content) are welcome to participate in Voiceteam! To accommodate these participants, NSFW content in the Discord server is kept in separate age-restricted channels. The only exception to this is in team-specific channels, and only if all members of that team have expressed comfort with NSFW content not being separated.
How do I keep track of when drops and deadlines will happen each day?
We know this can be confusing! We will have a time zone converter set up in Discord in a prominent location to help players keep track of when the next drop or deadline is coming up.
We're also maintaining a Google Calendar with these dates and deadlines that you can subscribe to. (If you just view it, it will show up in GMT (UTC+0), but if you add it to your own Google Calendar, which you can do by clicking the + in the bottom right corner, it will convert to your local timezone.)
Are there limits or requirements for crossposting creations I make for Voiceteam?
Nope! You may crosspost any works made for Voiceteam whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to not crosspost at all and only share with the mods, or only share within the Voiceteam Discord. One reminder, though, is that since many Voiceteam works are collaborations, all collaborators should discuss and be on the same page about when/where a work will be crossposted.
I observe Shabbat in a way that makes me not able to participate (or have a similar situation that means I’d need to take a certain day each week off from playing), but I still want to compete for points! Is there a way for me to do that?
Absolutely! If you will need to take off a specific day each week but still want to play for points, let us know in advance and we will make your deadline later than everyone else’s to make up for it.
What’s an example of what a challenge might look like?
Here are all of our past Voiceteam challenges.
What if I was already working on something before Voiceteam started? Is there a way to get points for it?
Any creation can earn points for a Voiceteam challenge as long as it is completed during the time that challenge is active. This includes WIPs you were already working on that happen to align with one of the challenges.
What are your content moderation rules and how do they work?
We have put in place two content moderation rules. If someone finds a fanwork that they think may violate one of the rules, they can report it privately (and anonymously if they want) to the mod team.
We have designed our response plan to prevent this system from being used to harass fanwork creators. We will never publicly share information about any reports, and we will only contact the creator about a report if we are sure the fanwork really is against one of these rules. If it’s unclear to us whether the fanwork violates the rule, the mod team will privately consult with one or more members of the marginalized group impacted, or as close as possible to that group, to assess if harm is being caused to the impacted community by the fanwork. If harm is being caused, we will move forward in private conversation with the creator of the fanwork to discuss the situation together and figure out possible next steps.
If the work is in violation of one of the rules and the fanwork’s creator cannot or does not wish to alter it, any points previously earned by the work will be removed and the work will be removed from our Voiceteam AO3 collection.
What plans does Voiceteam have in place to address racism within fandom and our community?
At the start of Voiceteam, players will have the option to opt into a section of channels intended to be a safe space for creators of color. This space is run by a mod of color, and none of the white mods will have access, nor will any white player in Voiceteam. Most importantly, we ask that everyone - whether you're a person of color or not - respect that space.
We will also continue with the universal bonus of +10 points for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters.
We are continuing to reflect as a mod team about our anti-racism practices within fandom, which we recognize to be a space deeply shaped by racism. We remain open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in this area.
How do I sign up?
Head to our sign-up post on Dreamwidth or directly to our sign-up form on Airtable.
What if I want to make a change to my sign-up form after I've submitted it?
Unfortunately, you will not be able to edit your sign-up form directly, but if you contact one of the mods or email voiceteammods@gmail.com, we will be happy to edit your sign-up for you.
I have more questions!
Please ask them in the comments, or email us at voiceteammods@gmail.com, and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.
