Further Discussion of the Creative Jam

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Folks seem to like the idea of hosting a creative jam where everyone can play and anything goes in terms of medium.  (This discussion also has a version on Dreamwidth.) Let's discuss some further parameters.

Each session will have a theme of some kind so as to give people a starting point.  Themes are being collected on the original post.  You can suggest a favorite cause, something that's underserved by the mainstream, something you think will have widespread appeal, quirky concepts, whatever you want.  There will be a theme poll on Monday.  Currently my plan is to offer a question with checkboxes (mark all the ones you would participate in) and a question with radioboxes (mark the theme you'd like to feature first).

We need to decide some aspects of timing:
* How often should the creative jam happen?  stryck suggests once a month.
* When should sessions happen?  I suggested the last day of each month as a possibility, which gives different days of the week and doesn't conflict with an established project.  Conversely, we might consider picking a Monday or Tuesday, which tend to be high-traffic days for blogging, the way the Poetry Fishbowl is typically on the first Tuesday of each month. 
* How long should each session run?  stryck suggests a 24-hour period from noon to noon, similar to Sketch Fest.  Torn World's Muse Fusion has a weekend span.

Ideally, we'll reach parameters for timing that maximize the number of people who can participate, both as prompters and as creators.  Nobody is expected to participate in every  session; you can pick and choose based on your interest in the themes and/or your schedule availability.  The goal is to attract a large enough pool of people that we can cycle through different folks over time and still have a good level of activity each session.

Since this community is all about crowdfunding, we should cover that too.  Probably some creators will want to post a free sample, so that the audience has something to enjoy.  Likewise many creators will want to make some items available for sponsorship in various ways.  (If you don't want to post a whole item for free, consider an excerpt such as the beginning of a story or detail of a picture.)  Do we want those posted in comments/replies under the jam session post, as new posts within the community, as new posts on the creator's site, etc.?  If items are posted elsewhere, they should at least be linked from comments/replies under the jam session post so that they're easier to find. 

Another crowdfunding aspect is that there are lots of established projects with unique characters, settings, etc.  Some of those have relatively open participation (like the shared-world Torn World) while others are the work of one person.  If creators want to do something from one of their own settings, or prompters want to request something from a favorite project, those are welcome along with new or one-shot items.  The Muse Fusion has a rule that prompters aren't allowed to request a specific creator for their prompts.  Do we want to instate that rule for our creative jam too?

Most projects have perks, sometimes different ones for individual supporters vs. collective audience.  Some creators will probably use their favorite perks.  Do we want to consider some kind of collective perk, maybe based on activity level -- number of creators participating, number of prompters participating, number of items posted, etc.?

A followup post after each session would be helpful, though it's not required.  Those take some work to compile, but they make it easier to track progress and look at all the goodies.  If someone would like to volunteer for this, please speak up.  I may not have time for it myself.

What do we want to call this?  I used "panjam" and "creative jam" in my original post.  "Crowdfunding Creative Jam" would be a little more specific to the community.  Other suggestions are also welcome.

Do we want an icon to advertise the project?  Both the Poetry Fishbowl and Muse Fusion have session icons, and the Crowdfunding community has a variety of "Crowdfunding" icons.  Once we've picked a name, artists and other icon makers could devise some possibilities that people could use, and we could vote on an "official" one.

If you have other ideas, suggestions, questions, etc. then please speak up.  In particular, think of the projects you host and/or support, to see if they do things that might be helpful here.


POLL QUESTIONS

What should this project be called?
- Crowdfunding Creative Jam
- Creative Jam
- PanJam

Which of the 15 themes would you participate in? (checkboxes)
Which theme do you most want to do first? (radiobuttons)

How long should each session run?
- 24 hours, from noon to noon
- 48 hours
- weekend, Friday night to Monday morning

When should each session run?
- last day(s) or weekend of the month
- third Monday or weekend of the month
- some other time, consistent each month
- some other time, flexible each month

Working from prompts, should creators be REQUIRED to post at least an excerpt free?
- Yes
- No

Working from prompts, should creators be REQUIRED to share the resulting material with the prompter?
- Yes
- No

Where should creative material resulting from prompts appear?
- Entire content pasted directly into a reply to the prompt under the main post.
- Only an excerpt in a reply to the prompt, linking to full content elsewhere on Crowdfunding.
- Only an excerpt in a reply to the prompt, linking to full content elsewhere on creator's site.
- Separate message on Crowdfunding, linked in reply to prompt (no excerpt).
- Separate message on creator's site, linked in reply to prompt (no excerpt).

Should there be a time limit for creating work based on a claimed prompt?
- No, creativity takes however long it takes.
- Yes, one hour.
- Yes, one day.
- Yes, one week.
- Yes, some other timeframe.

May creators treat someone else's prompt response as a new prompt (i.e. sketch inspiring story)?
- Yes
- No

May prompters request a specific creator?
- No, all prompts must be general enough for any creator to use anywhere.
- Yes, but everyone else may still use that prompt if they wish.
- Yes, and only the named person may claim that prompt to post resulting material.

May prompts specify a particular character, world, etc.?
- No, all prompts must be general enough for any creator to use anywhere.
- Yes, but creators may use the prompt for something else anyway and post resulting material.
- Yes, and creators must use the particulars specified in order to post resulting material.
- Only for characters/worlds/etc. whose original creators explicitly give permission.

How many people may make use of the same prompt?
- Only the first creator to claim the prompt, for maximum spread of creators over prompts.
- Everyone who wants to use it, for maximum flexibility of creator choice in inspiration.

Comments

[jenny_evergreen]

I think once a month is right; I don't have a particular preference on what day; last of the month is kind of fitting, I think. I think 24 hours is a good time span, though I'd also be cool with adding a few more hours.

I agree that at least a pointer should be posted on the original post, because otherwise it will get too hard to find things. If someone acts on a prompt, they should reply to it and point to the location of the portion they intend to share; it should be required that some portion be shared free as part of participating.

I think that, while creators should be free to play in whatever worlds they wish for their work, that being part of creativity, I think having prompts be so specific has the opposite effect on creativity; I think prompts should be at least potentially useful to anyone.

I'm not sure that any group perk is going to really work; I think it's best to leave the perks to individuals.

I know I don't have the time/patience to do a follow-up post, though I will appreciate it if someone else does!

I don't have any name suggestions. I think that PanJam has a nice ring, but there's something to be said for the simple clarity of Creative Jam, too. I think adding crowdfunding makes it too bulky.

I think an icon would be nice.

Sorry, I'm having a bad day for inspiration. :(

Okay...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your input. I've added a list of questions and choices to the post, based on people's suggestions.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

This is a great idea. I think a key to success would be to encourage people of all skill levels to play. I think that's a huge part of the success of SketchFest.

As to prompts for particular projects, if we allow them, it might help for folks like Torn World or Aldersprig to say either "I/we welcome fanfic" or "If you want to do something inspired by my/our world, please use your own characters and create your won world." Torn World has a place for non-canon work, for instance, where people could share things inspired by, but not consistent with, that world. Though this could be complicated to police (and upsetting if there was a need to police it too)...I guess I'm still thinking about this issue.

Regarding scheduling, once a month is probably good. One possibility would be to run the Creative Jam from Sunday into Monday, perhaps for 48 hours instead of 24, so that people who have day jobs and people whose weekends are always taken would both have a chance to participate.

The last of the month could be problematic for many people in some months, and I think, for at least the first few months, we should try to pick dates that will build momentum, rather than be sabotaged by holiday parties (Halloween and New Years come to mind).

I do like "Creative Jam" better than "PanJam".

[jenny_evergreen]

I also like the Sunday to Monday idea, accessing both weekend and weekday folk and short enough to lend the sense of urgency that makes people prompt and work now rather than wait till later, which often ends up becoming never.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I do like the weekend/weekday bracket. The drawback is that it causes posts to go up on the least active day of all, and that the high-traffic Monday gets cut off early. That's likely to lead to very low participation.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

I was thinking Sunday afternoon to Monday night (or even Tuesday morning, for the night folk).

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

A 48-hour Sunday/Monday block would work nicely. But in order to catch the Monday traffic, someone would have to post a reminder, "The jam is still going! If you haven't seen it yet, please visit Sunday's open-session post." Otherwise the session will have scrolled out of view for many people.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

THAT I could do; I wouldn't be participating most Sundays myself, but would look forward to coming in on Monday mornings. Although, considering how huge the comments will probably be, maybe it would actually makes sense to do a whole new post for Mondays; it's one event, but two posts for the two days.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>THAT I could do; I wouldn't be participating most Sundays myself, but would look forward to coming in on Monday mornings.<<

This would be quite helpful. Thank you for offering.

>> Although, considering how huge the comments will probably be, maybe it would actually makes sense to do a whole new post for Mondays; it's one event, but two posts for the two days.<<

And just link back to the first post? That would make more manageable comment trails, yes. However, it would also spread out the content more, raising the need for a followup post collating all the created material -- and we don't have a volunteer for that yet.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

If the Sunday post were regularly edited to point to the Monday post when it was made, it would have the same effect as having one post, to my mind.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

If the Sunday post allows comments, people will tend to post prompts and responses there, which spreads them out. If it doesn't allow comments, there's not much point to reposting the whole thing and it might make people think the process is jammed; better just to post a brief pointer to the Sunday post.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

I meant that both posts would have prompts and responses; your concern, as I understood it, was that having two posts would spread out the content more. My point was that linking the two posts (a link would have to be retroactively added to the Sunday post on Monday since we wouldn't know what the link to the Monday post was until Monday) would effectively eliminate that concern, making the situation not really any different than one massive post.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Understood. Check back again when we have information on the timing? Also, collating a list of posted materials and summarizing the session would be done afterwards, not while people were still writing for prompts.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> I think a key to success would be to encourage people of all skill levels to play. I think that's a huge part of the success of SketchFest.<<

I agree.

>>Though this could be complicated to police (and upsetting if there was a need to police it too)...I guess I'm still thinking about this issue.<<

It would be difficult to "police" anything here, and probably more inclined to discourage than encourage creativity. (I suspect we'll be lucky if people even read the guidelines before posting prompts.) It's also more complex than will fit in a poll yet, but people can continue to discuss it.

Timing and other points have been added to the list of poll questions/answers. Thanks for your input.

*laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I am now imagining several jars of jam behind a slice of bread, with apricot-strawberry-grape-etc. spread in swaths, and then the text caption. Hee!

[meeksp.livejournal.com]

*heehee* Glad to know you like my icons!

I do like the idea of a Creative Jam, though I think my own participation will depend on the theme and prompts offered, as well as my workload at the time. I don't think that prompts should be targeted at any particular person or project, but that creators should be free to apply them to their existing characters/settings if so inspired. SketchFest is easy to make time for mostly because the prompts are general enough not to require much, if any, research.

Questions:
Should there be a time limit for creating work in response to the prompts?
Would responses to other people's entries be permitted (eg. a sketch based on a story or poem written to one of the prompts)?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>Glad to know you like my icons! <<

They are made of cotton candy WIN.

>>I do like the idea of a Creative Jam, though I think my own participation will depend on the theme and prompts offered, as well as my workload at the time.<<

That's fine. Please watch for the poll and indicate which themes most appeal to you.

I've added your questions to the list. In general, though, I suspect that a minimum of structure will encourage a maximum of participation. We just need enough to provide a basic project framework.

[stryck.livejournal.com]

I think responses to entries should be allowed, but if we do that, then we should probably go for a longer period of time, to allow for possible snowball effects.

One of the reasons I don't participate in Sketchfest beyond prompts is the time limit, so that might be counter productive.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I think responses to entries should be allowed, but if we do that, then we should probably go for a longer period of time, to allow for possible snowball effects.<<

If you're talking about options for the project's open window, even 24 hours is plenty. I've seen projects that length -- and even shorter -- with prompt cascades.

However, if you're talking about the proposed time limit on items created from prompts, that's different. A time limit would need to be moderate -- too long and people wouldn't see the stuff in time, too short and there's no room for development.

I dislike the Sketch Fest time limit, although I understand that it has roots in valid artistic exercises. I only ever prompt. If I were going to try creating, I'd probably just use the prompts, give each piece the time it needed, and not post the results.

I want the project here to be as flexible as possible, to appeal to the widest number of people. I suspect that each restriction added will cause some people to shrug and decide it's not for them -- or else people will just ignore a big wad of rules and do what they want anyhow. We do need a very basic framework of parameters such as timing, but beyond that, I believe that less is more. I'm listing most questions for voting, but I'm hoping that people will vote for fewer rules.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

I think there should be a time limit; people don't want to throw prompts out there and hope to hear about a result weeks or months later. The WIDEST limit I can think of is from Jam to Jam, because at least that's a reliable space of time, but I really think that 24 hours should be the time in which people are creating, too.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Time limits favor prompters at the expense of creators. (I've repeatedly heard people say they don't do Sketch Fest because of the 1-hour limit.) Similarly they favor shorter or less complete works over longer or more complete ones. That's okay for Sketch Fest because it explicitly focuses on sketches. In a project for mixed creativity, I'm less inclined to set a limit that favors short over long.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

I think time limits also benefit creators; from a monetary perspective, you are going to lose customers if they have to wait too long for the results of their prompts.

As is true of Sketch Fest, one an initial product is produced, it can be finished at a later date; so a short story that's only four or five paragraphs in at the time of the Jam could have an excerpt posted within 24 hours but be finished over weeks or even months.

With that in mind, an even shorter time limit might be feasible; one aspect of a time limit is that it encourages people to use several prompts over just one or two, so that the creator is more creative and more prompters are rewarded.

Re: Thoughts

[jenny_evergreen]

The idea is that you don't have to FINISH the work, just get as far as you get and post an excerpt (or the whole thing; you can post what you created so far and finish at leisure; you can even choose WHETHER to finish based on sponsorship, as one option); so say you write for an hour on the prompt, getting a couple pages into a short story, then put it down and start looking for a new prompt. With no time limit, you'll probably just keep writing that same short story and not try any other prompts.
I'm pretty sure that's the reason for the time limit at Sketch Fest.

Some thoughts

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

Once a month sounds good.
I think it would be a really good idea to have it run 48 hours (or weekend) rather than 24. It keeps on happening with Sketch Fest that people go "I'd love to take part but THAT ONE DAY this month I have something else"... Though if the 24 hours limit is just for leaving prompts, and creating and posting things can happen later, that would help, too.

"Working from prompts, should creators be REQUIRED to post at least an excerpt free?"
Do you mean an excerpt from each story, or an excerpt of the sum total?

Personally, I'd favour a requirement of "must show the result to the person who wrote the prompt", with public posting being optional.

For the love of kittens, please no posting every single reply to a prompt in the community as a new post. That would be a horribly overwhelming flood.

A rule of either "you must post your reply as a comment" or "you must post your reply on your own site, and link to it from a comment" exclusively seems too restrictive to me.
Person A posts stuff on their own site/journal, and would prefer feedback in one place, so a rule that the whole thing must be posted in a comment would be offputting.
Person B doesn't want to post their work publicly (yet), so a rule that would mean they'd have to make a "I wrote a story/drew a picture based on prompt X" in their own journal and link to it from a comment would be silly.

I'm not really certain if by "prompt responses" you mean a comment (with "I made something!", maybe an excerpt, maybe the whole thing), or the finished work itself.

Regarding requesting a specific creator, I see no problem with that provided it's an optional add-od, not exclusive. "I'm curious what [person] makes of this", not "I don't want to see anyone but [person] having a go at this".

Requesting a character or setting, similarly, as an optional add-on might work... "[general prompt] (in [setting]/featuring [character] if you're familiar with them)" - people who aren't could still use the general part.
There's nothing wrong with a request limited to a particular setting or character here and thre, but there'd be a potential of things getting cliqueish and unfriendly to newbies who aren't familiar if there are too many of them, and I'm not sure if something like like "You may leave 1 specific-character/setting based prompt for any X general ones" would make things too complicated.

Re: Some thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>"Regarding requesting a specific creator, I see no problem with that provided it's an optional add-od, not exclusive. "I'm curious what [person] makes of this", not "I don't want to see anyone but [person] having a go at this"."

Yes, I like that. I had similar thoughts to yours about requests.<<

I have revised the original question and answers to reflect a scale of options including these.

>>Also, this occurs to me: Would there be prompt claiming, so that only one person could respond to each prompt, or would it be open for as many people as wish to respond to any prompt? This is probably a question for the poll. I prefer the latter--the more creativity, the better!<<

I've added a question for this also. Like you, I prefer maximum flexibility to choose and reuse prompts.

Re: Some thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>A rule of either "you must post your reply as a comment" or "you must post your reply on your own site, and link to it from a comment" exclusively seems too restrictive to me. <<

Where to post the material needs to be consistent, or the result is likely to be chaos. I think that it should be the creator's option whether to share an excerpt or complete item, or not at all, so that would reduce the chance of conflicts. If someone just wanted to say "I wrote a drabble based on this prompt, but it's not ready to share yet," that would be fine. But it depends on how people vote for some other questions.

>>I'm not really certain if by "prompt responses" you mean a comment (with "I made something!", maybe an excerpt, maybe the whole thing), or the finished work itself.<<

I meant work created from a prompt (or an excerpt thereof) and have tried to clarify that in the polling notes. Comments like "I'm claiming prompt X" or "I drew a sketch" without elaboration, or brief descriptions, are basic parts of the call-for-prompts project model.

>>Regarding requesting a specific creator, I see no problem with that provided it's an optional add-od, not exclusive. "I'm curious what [person] makes of this", not "I don't want to see anyone but [person] having a go at this".<<

I revised that question to account for a range of options.

>>Requesting a character or setting, similarly, as an optional add-on might work... "[general prompt] (in [setting]/featuring [character] if you're familiar with them)" - people who aren't could still use the general part.<<

Also expanded.

>>There's nothing wrong with a request limited to a particular setting or character here and thre, but there'd be a potential of things getting cliqueish and unfriendly to newbies who aren't familiar if there are too many of them,<<

I agree. I prefer maximum flexibility and minimum rules -- but I'm hoping that people will post mostly flexible prompts and not make it look like we should've set more rules.

>> and I'm not sure if something like like "You may leave 1 specific-character/setting based prompt for any X general ones" would make things too complicated.<<

Probably too complicated.

However, for Sketch Fest I often leave 1-2 Torn World prompts out of my 5. One went something like "Torn World: a mischievous snow-unicorn foal climbs a cliff while a ranger looks on in horror." Now, that has specific implications in the target setting -- but anyone could say, "Hey, I wanna draw a unicorn on a cliff!" and do that. It would just turn out differently, which is fine.

Worth noting is that creators do frequently use parts of prompts instead of the whole thing, or mix and match several prompts to create a single item. That makes it much easier to repurpose prompts targeted at a given world or creator, as long as creators are allowed to tweak prompts as desired. It makes the inspiration a lot more usable.

[minor-architect.livejournal.com]

I'm of two minds on the question of prompters requesting work based on a creator's characters, worlds, etc. On the one hand, I see ankewehner's point about confusing those who aren't familiar with a creator's previous work...but on the other, allowing such prompts might encourage new patrons to check out those settings and give their creators new followers. So I suppose the next step is to decide which of those options gives the bigger benefit.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I would think a response by a particular creator/using that creator's worlds, characters, etc., would be a better advertisement for that creator's other work than a prompt. <<

I think that both prompts and created material serve to attract attention. Maximum freedom in prompting is likely to encourage more prompters to participate. (People can be hesitant. If they're thinking, "Is this general enough?" they may just decide not to prompt in case they're wrong.)

>>Of course that only works if there's a note somewhere in the response saying "this is part of a series/set in an ongoing world/etc., here is a link to the previous/other works, this is what you should read before this one." (But I suspect most creators would do that anyway.)<<

In Sketch Fest, you can't put links in prompts. But in LJ or DW, prompters could easily put links to a referenced source in (or near) their prompt, like:
"Torn World (http://www.tornworld.net/index.php): a time storm in the Crystal Desert. (Registered readers, see reference article (http://www.tornworld.net/settingpageview.php?id=9).)"

Plus, anyone could take the nifty idea of "time storm" and use it in some other setting, which would wind up totally different than the original source.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I have refined the poll notes somewhat to give a range of options on those questions. I think that maximum flexibility will encourage maximum participation. Hopefully there will be enough general prompts that a few specific ones will be welcome rather than annoying.

I'm hoping people will vote to allow the specific prompts to be posted and anyone can use them or take parts for reframing in other contexts. I might say "snow-unicorn" aiming at Torn World creators, but I don't see a problem with someone else just using the "unicorn" part.

Re: Well...

[jenny_evergreen]

But what about someone using the whole thing? I could write about a snow unicorn that has nothing to do with Torn World.

I really don't like the exclusionary feeling of creator/world specific prompts.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>But what about someone using the whole thing? I could write about a snow unicorn that has nothing to do with Torn World.<<

That way lies AU and fanfic, which some people enjoy.

>>I really don't like the exclusionary feeling of creator/world specific prompts.<<

You can vote against those if you choose.

Notice that it's a choice between maximizing prompter freedom (prompters may request anything they want, including a specific creator or world), maximizing creator freedom (all prompts must be generic ones usable by anyone anywhere), or balancing the two (prompters may request specifics, but creators may generalize those prompts anyhow). Too far in one direction or the other may discourage some people from participating, and likely different people at the different ends of that spectrum.

Re: Well...

[jenny_evergreen]

*nod* Personally, I think it's most important to safeguard creator freedom in this instance. I am concerned about the copyright issues that might come into play with the compromise option. Obviously, opinions will differ!

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

For comparison: Muse Fusion primarily focuses on Torn World, and forbids requesting a specific creator, but people can request crossover/fanfic stuff that just winds up as non-canon. Sketch Fest prompts are available to all artists, but it doesn't explicitly forbid prompters from making more detailed requests.

*ponder* At a risk of getting too complicated again, we might consider a rule that if creators based something on someone else's established material, they couldn't post it for sale but only for free; or possibly require permission from the original source founder before such material could be posted for sale.

Simpler is probably better though.

Re: Well...

[jenny_evergreen]

That is EXACTLY what I'm worried about! Taking the snow unicorn example; that's actually something that someone could prompt who doesn't even know about Torn World, and then someone else who ALSO doesn't know about Torn World could write a story about a snow unicorn and then be told they can't charge for the story because it infringes on Torn World's copyright.

Also, there IS Muse Fusion; people should save their Torn World prompts for that. Your Fishbowls are a totally appropriate place for prompts set in your various poetry worlds. If another creator has a fan base that wants to prompt for specific works, I think it makes eminently more sense for that person to have their own event rather than looking for specific prompts in a creativity fest that is intended to inclusive rather than exclusive.

Re: Well...

[jenny_evergreen]

For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with a creator writing within their specific world(s) from general prompts.

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>Taking the snow unicorn example; that's actually something that someone could prompt who doesn't even know about Torn World, and then someone else who ALSO doesn't know about Torn World could write a story about a snow unicorn and then be told they can't charge for the story because it infringes on Torn World's copyright. <<

1) It's not "and then" if the rule is posted as part of the session announcement, before any prompts go up. That's first.

2) I was thinking in terms of people using prompts directly set in someone else's setting. If they're just taking inspiration and doing something different with it, that doesn't really count -- snow-unicorns on somebody else's iceworld have only the name in common with the Torn World version.

>> If another creator has a fan base that wants to prompt for specific works, I think it makes eminently more sense for that person to have their own event rather than looking for specific prompts in a creativity fest that is intended to inclusive rather than exclusive.<<

That kills the coolest thing I thought about a jam session here. We have a bunch of creative people, most of whom have their own projects, coming together in this location. Ruling out specific requests for those projects turns the whole thing a lot more generic. I don't think it's the same if the creators are the only ones who can bring in specific projects. Meh.

Re: Well...

[jenny_evergreen]

True. I still think it's an alienating rule. More on that in a minute.
Agreed, but there are grey areas; I don't want drama because some people think something is related and other people don't.

Ah. I see we are operating on entirely different views of the event; you are seeing this as a very community specific event, whereas I was seeing it as a general public kind of thing, in the way that Sketch Fest is.
I think there's a place for both concepts, though I'm more interested in what I was thinking we were talking about.

If we are specifically doing a mutual fan kind of thing, I think it should be named more specifically; in that case, something like "Crowdfunding Compersion" and I think we should take profit out of the equation completely.

Re: Well...

[jenny_evergreen]

I'm glad I'm not alone!

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

A bit of a drive-by, as I am wrangling hanging hardware and crown molding today, but I have some thoughts!

~I would limit world-specific requests to those worlds who have explicitly invited them and are allowing other creators to play in them, and make a post prior to the creative jam asking creators and world-builders to make that clear and give an introduction to their world in the comments. I'm not picky about my projects, and would invite (to use the example above) someone to come up with their own version of a snow-unicorn, but there are creators who have more possessive feelings about their creations and if someone asks for something specific to their world they're going to feel bent out of shape by someone getting it 'wrong', or for using even the seed of their idea to potentially profit. If we make a distinction between 'okay to prompt from' and 'not okay,' that may forestall any drama. It may also be a nice opportunity to introduce community members to our projects and let them know that fanworks are okay.

(Eek, more later, have to run now...)

Okay...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>I would limit world-specific requests to those worlds who have explicitly invited them and are allowing other creators to play in them, and make a post prior to the creative jam asking creators and world-builders to make that clear and give an introduction to their world in the comments. <<

I have added this option for the relevant question above.