Festivids

Challenge
Name:	Festivids
Date(s):	2009-present
Moderator(s):	former - etothey, giandujakiss, current - odessie, cosmic_llin
Founder:	etothey
Type:	Vidding gift exchange
Fandom:	Rare fandoms
Associated Community:	Festivids LJ community
URL:	Festivids AO3 collection,2010-2016 Festivids website 2009-2010 Festivids website (offline)
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Festivids is "a fannish vid exchange inspired by Yuletide." The concept is simple: rare and under-vidded fandoms are nominated, fans make requests for certain fandoms, vidders sign up anonymously and are paired with a request for a vid, then the vids are revealed (first anonymously and then the vidder's identity is revealed). Assignments are given to the vidders in November, with the vids being revealed in mid-January.

In keeping with Yuletide and Yuletart, Festivids was initially going to be called Yulevids. After the exclusionary nature of the name was pointed out, the mods held a poll to determine a new name for the community. The name refers to Festivus, a family December holiday tradition popularized by the TV show Seinfeld.

Years of Festivids are named according to the year they start in (so December 2009-January 2010 would be "Festivids 2009" or "Festivids 2009-10").

2009

Policies

A description of the policies for 2009 was found here; however the community has been deleted and the data was not archived. A list of the fandoms nominated was found here; however the community has been deleted and the data was not archived.

Festivids 2009: The Vids

For a full list, see Festivids/2009.

2010-2011

Over 75 fans signed up to participate. Over 20% of the participants did not complete their vids, but volunteers stepped up to take their place.

Policies

A description of the policies and procedures for 2010 can be found archived here A list of the fandoms nominated can be found archived here and here.

Festivids that year required content notes

Festivids vid submissions will require content notes. The content notes will look like this on the submissions form:

• No standardized notes apply
• I prefer not to give content notes (viewer proceeds at their own risk; could be anything)
• Sexual violence
• Physical triggers (e.g. epilepsy or migraine: strobe lights, bright lights, "stuttery" cuts between 2-3 stills)
• Other (you may use this box if you would like to indicate the presence of other content, such as, for example, particularly graphic violence, self-harm, or anything else)

"I prefer not to give content notes" is a perfectly valid option; "Other" will open up a text box so you can type in whatever you feel is appropriate to your vid.

The moderators reminded participants that source needed to be readily available and popular fandoms might not make it past the challenges

We've noticed that a few nominations have crept in for source that is not readily available. Please keep in mind that that source must be available somehow by the time assignments go out, whether it's a DVD set with a known release date or some other method. If we mods can't assure ourselves that a source exists that's accessible to people, and no one comes forward to demonstrate that the source exists, we will strike it from the nominations. This holds especially for proposed safety fandoms, to prevent someone from winding up with an unfindable safety fandom in their assignment. Also, while nothing prevents you from nominating a popular vidding fandom (something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer with well over 100 vids extant), these are very likely to be removed during the disputes period. We've already spotted some of those floating around the nominations.

Reasons to dispute the inclusion of a fandom were

Things that we are looking for:

Things that we are looking for:

- corrections of names (misspellings and the like)
- duplicates (fandoms that got on the list multiple times)
- fandoms with source that is not yet available through whatever means
- fandoms that are supposed to be safeties but are not marked as such, or v.v.
- fandoms that are not rare: 100+ vids extant, please provide links to evidence
- anything else you think needs mentioning

When you make a dispute of any kind, there is a text box for your notes.

ETA: When disputing rarity, please provide evidence, and also note that raw Youtube hits (e.g.) alone are not a good indicator because other things show up on the search--I see 8,000+ hits for "burn notice vid" on Youtube but was only able to count to 85. (I'm going to try another search, just to be sure, but 85 is still pretty close to 100, but...)

Daughter of ETA: If a source can be played on your computer or through your browser, source can be obtained through a screen-capture utility (or, in the case of things like Youtube videos, through plug-ins). Availability of such source (computer games, Youtube videos, etc.) is not an issue.

Volunteers were recruited to go to locations where fanvids might be posted to count the number of existing vids.

So disputes are still underway, but if you happen to have some free time or particular knowledge of the following fandoms, we'd appreciate your help. Even doing a vid count for a single fandom would be tremendously useful. (I'm doing some of these as we go, but the more the merrier!) And be sure to check your fandoms in case a clarification is needed (for example, there's a couple cases where there are multiple fandoms by the same name and we're not sure which one the nominator meant).

So disputes are still underway, but if you happen to have some free time or particular knowledge of the following fandoms, we'd appreciate your help. Even doing a vid count for a single fandom would be tremendously useful. (I'm doing some of these as we go, but the more the merrier!) And be sure to check your fandoms in case a clarification is needed (for example, there's a couple cases where there are multiple fandoms by the same name and we're not sure which one the nominator meant).

ETA: Have updated the list--a couple of new ones (including a few fandoms I've flagged because I would appreciate the help of people who know those fandoms), a lot of disqualifieds. Thank you, everyone, for your help with all this!

The burden of proving a fandom was too popular to be included was on the personal making the objections:

1. In terms of non-rare fandoms, burden of proof is on whoever does the disputing. Non-rarity disputes that do not offer evidence, including an actual count, are going to be disregarded at this point. Thank you to everyone who has helped with counting! 2. Fandoms needing clarification that do not receive it from the nominator by the end of disputes (e.g. a nomination called "Random Movie [Movie]" that does not specify year, when there are five movies of that title) will be struck from the list.

After fandoms were nominated and vetted, and the list of participants was finalized, vidders were then matched with one another:

Signups end tomorrow at 9 pm PST (please go here if you want to see a current list of participants), and that means soon we’ll be running the match and emailing out your assignments! Hopefully, we’ll be able to match everyone, but we may have to privately contact one or two vidders to ask them to consider expanding their offers, and we’ll likely post here asking for a couple of early pinch hits – so make sure to watch this space! Depending on how the match works out and whether we need to do any manual reassignments, assignment emails may not all go out simultaneously, so please don’t worry if some people receive their assignments before you do.

Signups end tomorrow at 9 pm PST (please go here if you want to see a current list of participants), and that means soon we’ll be running the match and emailing out your assignments! Hopefully, we’ll be able to match everyone, but we may have to privately contact one or two vidders to ask them to consider expanding their offers, and we’ll likely post here asking for a couple of early pinch hits – so make sure to watch this space! Depending on how the match works out and whether we need to do any manual reassignments, assignment emails may not all go out simultaneously, so please don’t worry if some people receive their assignments before you do.

When you receive your email with your assignment, it will give you some basic information about vid submission procedures, but here’s a quick summary:<

When your vid is complete, you must use the submission page link in your assignment email to send us the details. On the submission page, you can give us the title, fandom, recipient, and other basic information. You must also provide us with links to a signed version, and to an unsigned version.

The unsigned version can be either uploaded to a streaming site, or to an anonymous download service, where people can access your vid. For your convenience, your assignment email will contain an anonymous Viddler account for you to use for your unsigned version – but if you’d rather create your own anonymous account, either at Viddler or somewhere else, that’s totally fine too. Each anonymous Viddler account is shared by a few other Festividders, so please try not to give into temptation and watch the other vids on the account!

Whether you use the Viddler account we assign or some other streaming account, please remember to set the vid to private prior to the golive date. And if you don’t use your assigned Viddler account, when you submit your vid, please give us the name and password on the account (or, if it’s vid-specific, the password for the vid), so that we can make sure the vid is public and accessible at golive.

For the signed version of your vid, which we will put up on the reveals date, you can submit a different streaming link (not using your assigned Viddler account!), or a download link, or even an LJ or Dreamwidth post where your vid will be announced. Once again, please make sure that it’s FLocked or privatized prior to reveals on February 5, 2011.

All regular vids (not pinch hits or treats) must be submitted by January 8, 2011, at 9 pm PST.

If you are not signing up for Festivids but want to make a treat or do a pinch hit for someone, that’s totally fine – and encouraged! If you’d like to use one of the anonymous Viddler accounts to submit the unsigned version of your vid, just email us at festivids at gmail dot com and we’ll send you the info. (And tell us who your recipient is so that we don’t accidentally assign you to that person’s account!) Treats must be submitted before the golive date of January 22, 2011.

Participants were encouraged to write an open letter to their matched vidder:

A "Dear Festividder" letter is an optional post on your own LJ/DW/other blog where you may:

A "Dear Festividder" letter is an optional post on your own LJ/DW/other blog where you may:

- list your original requests
- talk about additional details

This is for:
- the benefit of your giftvidder, in case they'd like to know more about your requests
- people who wish to receive Treats, so they can let potential Treat-givers know what their requested fandoms were

This post is where you can link your Dear Festividder letters in the comments if you so desire. Please note that these letters are completely optional. You do not have to do one at all, and it is up to you what you want to put in it.

That being said, if you decide to link one here, please include the following information:

- subject header: sign-up name
- body of comment: list of fandoms you requested plus a link to the actual letter

Please remember to keep things polite, and do remember that any requests are optional, as your vidder is only required to vid in one of your requested fandoms. Have fun!

Since the 2009 IRC chat room was popular, fans were referred to the server which had been running for the past year.

Often participants dropped out or failed to complete their assignments. This is when calls for "Pinch-Hits went out. There were sometimes multiple rounds of pinch hitter requests:

• Pinch Hit #2, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #3, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #5, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #6, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #7, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #8, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #9, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #10, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #11, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #12, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #13, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #14, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #15, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #16, ^{Archived version}
• Pinch hit #17, ^{Archived version}

As in 2009, there was a listing for volunteers to beta each other's vids:

This post is for people (who may or may not be vidders or Festividders) to offer their services as vid-betas--either general/technical betas, or betas for particular fandoms. This way Festividders in need of a beta know who they might approach.

I suggest leaving a comment formatted loosely as follows:

Name/handle/username
Preferred contact method: email/PM/messenger dove/etc.
Willing to do general/technical beta for any fandom: yes or no
Specific fandoms: list here
Other notes: miscellaneous stuff here

For example, here's my list of beta offers:

Username: yhlee
Preferred contact method: email (requiescat at cityofveils dot com)
Willing to do general/technical beta for any fandom: yes, provided no excessive violence
Specific fandoms: Dark Crystal, Dr. Horrible, Dr. Strangelove, Galaxy Quest, Heathers, The Incredibles, Labyrinth - 1986, Last Exile, The Last Unicorn, The Middleman, Mohabbatein, The Princess Bride, Robin Hood - 1973
Other notes: I really am willing to be a beta. :-) Just drop me a line and I will let you know what my availability is.

As with Yuletide failure to complete an assignment meant you would be barred from participating next year. However, the challenge offered a penalty free cancel date:

Hello, lovely Festividders!

This is just a reminder that the default-with-no-penalty deadline is Dec. 1, 2010, 9 p.m. Pacific Time. If you notify us (at festivids at gmail dot com) that you need to withdraw for whatever reason and you do it by then, no penalty!

That being said, if you find yourself needing to default after the deadline, do please let us know as soon as you can, as it helps us find a pinch hitter faster.

I hope your vidding is going well! Please don't hesitate to contact us...

There were several check-in dates

In 2010, the preferred streaming platform was viddler:

When you upload your unsigned vid to Viddler or another streaming service, please make sure that you set it to private so that no one can peek at it before golive! (And, if you use an account other than your assigned Viddler account, please make sure to supply us with whatever password or other info the mods will need to access it.)

But uploading could be complicated

Since this has come up, and because we did not adequately explain it for newcomers: all regular participants and official pinch hitters are assigned a Viddler account that they can use if they want to for their unsigned vid. The thing about the accounts is that because there are a lot of Festividders, we didn't make an account for every single person. Each account has 5-6 people assigned to it.

We've arranged things so that giver-recipient pairs are not assigned to the same account. If you make a treat and use Viddler, it's possible that your recipient might be using your Viddler account as well. The chances are slim, but if you would like to make sure, you can email us at festivids at gmail dot com and we can assign you additional Viddler accounts for use with treats if you like. [edited]

That being said, if you choose to use the assigned Viddler account, it's very likely that you'll find others' vids there. We ask that you refrain from watching others' vids. Obviously there's no way to enforce this, so it's up to you. :-)

Participants could also sign up to make extra 'treats'

If you are interested in making a treat, that's great! And, we point out, an excellent way of managing pre-golive excitement. Treat vids, unlike official assignment vids, may be submitted anytime before golive on January 22, but because we do not know what time the golive process will begin, we recommend submitting your treats before January 21. If you are signed up for Festivids you can use the link in your assignment email to submit treats, just as you would for your official assignment vid.

After vids were posted anonymously, viewers were invited to try to "Guess The Festividder"

Then the names of the creators would be revealed in a complex process:

1. The reveal date is February 5, 2011. We don't have an exact time, but it'll probably be in late morning PST.

2. At that time, the vid masterposts [ LJ / DW ] will be edited to include the name of the vidder for each vid. You will also be able to access the updated website masterlist. Note that the website masterlist will automagically have the signed links in it.

3. Once that happens, the mods will individually edit each of the fv_poster vid posts to include the name of the vidder. We will also put up whatever signed links were specified by the vidder for reveals. (Such as, an LJ or Dreamwidth post, a download or website link, etc). If you want to change your mind on this front, please email us at festivids at gmail dot com and we'll take care of it for you.

Note: we'd love to be able to magically edit all the fv_poster vid posts automatically, and we may be able to do that some future year, but it wasn't feasible for this year. Please bear with us as this will take a bit of time on our end.

4. Once the masterposts are up, everyone is free to post whatever they like in their own journals (vid announcements, squee, shock, horror, etc.) while the mods work on editing the individual fv_poster vid posts.

5. When this process begins, we need everyone to unlock previously-locked LJ/DW posts for signed links so they are public when the vid post is edited. If you submitted a streaming link to a currently privatized vid, we need that to be made public, too, as we'll be grabbing embed code for them. Since it's not feasible to have everyone on standby to do this when we start the process, if you're going to be away from your computer, please unlock your LJ/DW/other post whenever you can before reveals, but keep it backdated or untagged so people won't stumble on it by accident. Once all the reveals are up and you're back at your computer, you can change the date on your post if you like and bring it forward or add tags to make it easier to find.

Festivids 2010: The Vids

The Master List for 2010 With Reveals

2011-2012

In May 2011, Festivids 2011 started off with a change in management with both yhlee and the website manager leaving. Yhlee was replaced by "The lovely and (scarily) talented lithiumdoll/halcyon_shift will be succeeding her, and she's already got awesome and terrifying plans for new and even-more-amazing website features, so we're lucky to have her."

The remaining moderator giandujakiss spelled out the technical skills they were hoping to find:

Hello, lovely Festividders!

I have some very sad news to report. Owing to real life circumstances, our talented and infinitely patient mod, yhlee, will be stepping down at least for next year, and our Website Elf will no longer be able to provide support for the site. sobs

I'm still here, but I am not the technical mod - as far as I'm concerned, all of the technical aspects of Festivids - which include signups, matching people, sending out notifications, and accepting vid submissions - are accomplished by really powerful sorcery.

So we very much need someone who is able and willing to step into yhlee's shoes for next year and, in particular, who can handle all these computer-y things. The Website Elf can provide a filedump of the current website in April, so that it can be moved to a new server. (You understand that I personally have no idea what that means; yhlee told me to say it.)

Anyway, under the cut is a description of what kinds of responsibilities a new web admin mod would have to take on.

What we need at this point is a volunteer who is willing to take the website on as a project. We're looking for someone who knows how to wrangle PHP4 and MySQL server, as those are what the site is built on. We'd also need someone to provide hosting compatible with these requirements. The filedump will be provided with database credentials stripped, but specifications for the databases (fields, etc.) will be given so that the volunteer could generate new databases and add their own credentials.

Matching is actually carried out in conjunction with a Tcl script that is run locally. Basically, the website is set up so that after signups, the administrator (i.e., the mods) can log in and generate a specially formatted CSV file to be downloaded. That file is then fed to the Tcl script, which generates matching, and returns a different specially formatted CSV file with all the matches, and when that new CSV file is uploaded to the site, it imports all the matches to the site (and then assignments can be sent via the site, etc.). This is an artifact of the last two Festivids (the Tcl script was written before the website, so we decided it would be a better use of resources just to keep using the Tcl script).

Note that if a volunteer wanted to code a new matching script, or to integrate matching on the website itself, that's certainly possible--you just need to hook in the right CSV files, and yhlee can provide specs for that. But for now, the Tcl script is public domain and will be provided to Festivids to be used as needed. For anticipated Festivids signups, it should do okay, but its efficiency is apparently O(n^2 log n), so it's going to slow down considerably for larger numbers of people; do bear that in in mind.

Tcl can be run easily on Mac OS X or Linux, and I believe there's an installation available for Windows. Since the script exists, using it is mostly a matter of going to the command line and providing appropriate parameters; instructions will be given for doing this.

Please note that the filedump will not be provided with any additional support beyond what's in the files. yhlee can provide some support for using the Tcl script if necessary. Note that the website code is messy, because it had to be written in a relatively short amount of time, but a volunteer should feel free to adjust the code as appropriate.

Once again, let me remind you that the entire text under the cut may as well be in a different language, as far as I'm concerned.

And, this job basically runs from about September until February, but becomes particularly time-consuming during the nomination period, the signup/matching period, shortly before the vid submission deadline, and shortly before golive. Last year, that meant the greatest time commitments were between mid-September and mid-October, and the first half of January.

But on the bright side, you get a spiffy mod icon, designed by charmax. *points*

If this job sounds at all like something you might want to do, please shoot us an email at festivids at gmail, and we can discuss it further.

In July 2011, the first Festivids Collection was created at AO3.

...there are no changes to how Festivids is being run, but since AO3 is now allowing people to post fanvids via embeds, it seemed like a good idea to create a Festivids collection. Point being, if anyone is interested in posting their vids to AO3, you can now tag them as Festivids. (And if you have any trouble posting, let me know; I'm new to the ways of AO3.)

And a new dedicated domain name was set up: festivids.net

The definitions of a 'small' fandom were redefined:

This year, we've decided to slightly broaden the definition of a "small" fandom. For Festivids 2011, a small fandom will be one where, excluding vids made specifically for Festivids:

1. there are 100 or fewer vids available online (streaming or download)

or

2. 8 or fewer "new" vids have been posted online in the past four years (see definition of new below)

or

3. vids by 5 or fewer vidders are available online

A new vid: Is a vid that has not been made available online before in any form. Thus, a VCR vid made in 1985 but first posted to the internet in 2010 is "new"; a VCR vid posted to the internet in 2006 but then remastered digitally and reposted in 2010 is not new.

Available online: Means that any interested viewer can actually obtain the vid online (streaming or download), with or without instructions available at the website or weblisting. A mere listing of the vid's existence without information about obtaining it online does not make it available.

Since this is a new definition, we're really not sure how it's going to play out - it may make little difference at all, or it may open the door somehow for a bunch of fandoms that don't really feel all that "small." If that happens, we'll just have to tweak it again next year - we're still figuring out the best way to do things!

And fans could each nominate up to 20 fandoms:

As a new feature on the site this year (thanks to the eternally awesome lithiumdoll), you'll be able to edit your nominations yourselves, so it's fine if you want to go back and change something (or add more fandoms if you haven't used up your full 20) before the nomination period ends. You'll also see at the site a list of fandoms that have been disqualified in past years. You can still nominate them this year, but if they were disqualified once, they probably don't qualify unless they are affected by the new expanded definition of a small fandom, so you probably are going to want to investigate first.

And a schedule was set up.

Viddler was again selected as the streaming host:

Hi there! As many of you know, when you receive your vidding assignment, you also receive a username and password for a Viddler account that you can use to upload the anonymous, unsigned version of your vid.

(These accounts are shared by about 5 Festividders each, and they are completely optional - you can use another account/service if you wish.)

We will be reusing many of the same Viddler accounts that we used last year, and in order to do that, we will change the passwords. Many of you still have your unsigned vids from last year still uploaded to those accounts. It's fine if you want to keep them there, but please be aware that you will lose the ability to edit those vids once we change the passwords. If you would like to make a change to your vid from last year after the passwords change, please contact the mods and we'll do it for you.

1,089 fandoms were nominated. A complete list of fandoms offered is archived here, ^{Archived version}

The number of vidders who signed up has not been archived but 110 vidders completed their vids and there were 12 pinch-hit requests (down from the previous year).

We have 150 videos, made by 110 vidders, across 129 fandoms, totalling 7 hours 15 minutes and 58 seconds of play time.

There was some discussion about the various streaming platforms: Viddler, Vimeo and Blip:

"

Viddler, however, can be somewhat erratic in quality. So if you want to use another streaming service, that's fine. You just have to make sure you create an anonymous account that cannot be traced back to you, make sure that your vid is not public when you upload it, and provide the mods with the link. You will also need to provide the mods with whatever information we need to be able to see your vid prior to golive. For example, you can simply give us the username and password for the account. Alternatively, if you use Vimeo, you can password-protect the vid itself, and provide that information. I believe on YouTube, you can choose a setting that ensures that only people with the exact URL can see the vid - that works as well.

Or, if you don't like streaming services, you can also provide a download link for your anonymous vid, using an anonymous file sharing service like Megaupload or Mediafire. If you do that, please make sure that your vid is still online and available at golive - the mods will not be able to test download links at that time.

A final note about particular streaming services:

(1) Vimeo is a popular option for Festivids because the quality is nice and it allows you to "replace" a vid without changing its URL, so you can edit your vid easily. However, please keep in mind that Vimeo can have a hair trigger when it comes to taking down vids for perceived copyright infringement (which is why vidders who use Vimeo like to password-protect their vids). Also, Vimeo is unusually prone to technical problems that take vids off line, or take embeds off line, or that prevent new uploads from appearing. If you use Vimeo, please, please make sure your vid is accessible at golive - last year, we had problems with a couple of Vimeo vids at golive.

(2) Blip has changed its embed code in some weird way and now the embeds don't seem to work on LJ. It's fine if you want to use Blip, but if we can't embed your vid, we may just put up a straight link to it.

There were problems with site logins from users with LJ accounts:

Hi, Festividders! As some of you have already discovered, right now, unfortunately, LJ logins are not working at the Festivids site, likely due to the recent DDOS attacks on LJ. We'll post here once everything's working again. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Days before launch, Viddler streaming embeds stopped working on Livejournal, where all Festivids were posted:

Hey guys! Just wanted to point out that at least as far as we can tell, Viddler's iframe embeds do not work on LJ, or at least they do not seem to be working right now.

In the submission form, there are embed instructions for Viddler that explain how to grab the older embed code that works for LJ - basically, you have to click the red "embed" button while watching the video, and copy the default code.

If you have already submitted your vid and used iframes, do not worry - we've corrected the code. But for future submissions, please make sure to follow the Viddler embed instructions in the submission form.

Festivids 2011: The Vids

The Master List for 2011 With Reveals.

2012-2013

Festivids 2012: The Vids

The Master List for 2012 With Reveals.

Notable vids included Defeat You by echan, a 3 Ninjas vid with a clip of one of the actors giving a shout out to the recipient.

2013-2014

• Festivids 2013 Schedule, ^{Archived version}

Festivids 2013: The Vids

The Master List for 2013 With Reveals.

This round produced 205 vids—more than any other year—for 145 different fandoms. The most-represented fandoms include Sleepy Hollow (2013) (7 vids), Pacific Rim (6 vids), Friday Night Lights (5 vids), and Masters of Sex (4 vids).

2013 is notable for being the year Orlando Jones found Festivids.

2014-2015

• Festivids 2014 Schedule, ^{Archived version}
• By Jan 2015, approximately 310 vidders had created accounts on the Festivids website.

Festivids 2014: The Vids

The Master List for 2014 With Reveals.

2015-2016

• Festivids 2015 Schedule, ^{Archived version}
• A complete list of fandoms available to sign up are archived here, ^{Archived version}
• A copy of the FAQ can be found archived here, ^{Archived version}
• By 2015, over 310 vidders had participated in the challenge over the years

Festivids 2015: The Vids

The Master List for 2015 With Reveals.

2016-2017

• Festivids 2016 Schedule, ^{Archived version}
• A complete list of fandoms available to sign up are archived here, ^{Archived version}

Festivids 2016: The Vids

The Master List for 2016. Reveals are set for 11 Feb 2017, 12:00PM EDT