Interest check for summer Secret Santa event!

[Kat]

Hey everyone, with current events being what they are right now, I thought I'd organize a Secret Santa/gift exchange event in the middle of the year to cheer everyone up. It will run for two months. Here are the basics:

- Interested people sign up and will be randomly assigned a person they will be anonymously giving gifts to. Since guest posting is no longer allowed on the NTWF, I or other volunteers (if any) will be sending out the gifts on everyone's behalf.

- Gifts can be anything! Art, drabbles, poetry, icons/avatars, signatures, HTML coding, Neoboard HTML, it's all up to you. You can even send RL gifts provided that the recipient is okay with it. When signing up, you may opt out of receiving RL gifts; in any case, each person will be drafting their wishlists.

- Gift senders will start off sending little things each week (like sketches, short drabbles, etc.) culminating in a big gift at the end of the period. The gifts don't all have to be interrelated but you can make them so.

- The gifts will also come with clues or hints about the Secret Santa's identity. Ooh, mysterious. Try to guess who your Secret Santa is by the end of the event!

- I want to know if some of you are willing to participate and be a volunteer middleman/woman/person/eldritch horror for another Secret Santa pair. It sounds complicated (one wrong PM can give you away HAHAHA) but it might be fun to popcorn how the recipient tries to figure out their Secret Santa.

This is all I have for now, LMK if you have any questions or clarifications or suggestions. I ran one of these years ago and when I found the old Secret Santa threads, it made me want to revive it for this year.

Woo.

[Celestial]

I would be interested in this! And I'd be cool with being a middle-eldritch horror for a secret santa. x3

[Fraze]

This could be pretty awesome! I doubt I'll be able to participate unfortunately, but we'll see.

Howeverrrr I'm not sure if gifting Neopets items is OK. We're a certified fansite now (which may have happened after you left?) so we're bound to the Neopets rules, which last time I checked explicitly forbid Secret Santas. That would only apply to sending Neopets items (art/writing/etc. would be fine), and it's quite possible my knowledge is out of date. Does anyone else have more up-to-date information?

[Nut]

Jun 2, 2020 11:51:24 GMT -5 Fraze said:

Howeverrrr I'm not sure if gifting Neopets items is OK. We're a certified fansite now (which may have happened after you left?) so we're bound to the Neopets rules, which last time I checked explicitly forbid Secret Santas. That would only apply to sending Neopets items (art/writing/etc. would be fine), and it's quite possible my knowledge is out of date. Does anyone else have more up-to-date information?

I was warned for sending Neopets items in a previous NTWF Secret Santa, which actually caused us to cancel the event--so yeah, I'd say gifting Neopets items isn't allowed. Having so many other gift options sounds awesome, though! I had never thought about doing one with all these possibilities! My first Secret Santa here is one of my fondest early memories of the NTWF, so I'd be happy to see the tradition return!

[Also, somewhere in the world there is some mysterious kind benefactor who kept trying to secretly send me gifts over the years, particularly during a time right after I lost a lot of items due to an account cracking, but my inventory kept being full and I never properly thanked them or cleared out my inventory--I suspect something happened along the lines of I need to reply > but first I have to clear my inventory > never clears inventory > doesn't know how to reply > gets distracted, which is something my correspondence anxiety and uh general flakiness tend to do to me--and I just want to say, whoever you are, I hope you see this and know that I am really touched and grateful that you thought of me all those times, all those years, and I was super touched that you wanted to send me something after I had lost so many items. Over the years I often thought of you and how kind it was for you to think of me. Whoever you are, thank you!!]

I'm not sure yet about my participation, although the intermediary job description is making it sound like an interesting challenge for my PM-juggling abilities HAHA

[Killix]

Last time I was active on Neopets (a long time ago) off-site events or contests that involved distribution of Neopets items were disallowed. I remember having to switch out my NTWF event prizes from Neopets items to art/adoptables so long ago! XD Wasn't a completely bad thing as it resulted in the NTWF Birthday pencil puzzle.


So yeah, Neopets items are a no-no, but there are so many other creative possibilities!

[Kat]

Yikes, okay, crossing out Neopets items from the post. We'll keep it to everything else. I had no idea that came with the certified fansite thingamajigger but I did know about us now being a certified fansite.

But I'm glad folks are interested! Please like the post or comment if you're down for this.

[June Scarlet]

I don't think I'll have time to make eight gifts, but I could work as a go-between, I think.

[Allison]

Count me in as potentially interested, except that I feel I have exactly ZERO artistic or html/coding ability, so I'm not entirely sure what I'll be able to contribute. (i.e. I fear I fail at "digital" gifts...)

[Kat]

Jun 2, 2020 20:30:02 GMT -5 June Scarlet said:

I don't think I'll have time to make eight gifts, but I could work as a go-between, I think.

Hmm, if eight gifts is too much for the period, I could trim it down to biweekly gifts to give people more time to do/code stuff.

Jun 2, 2020 21:31:29 GMT -5 Allison said:

Count me in as potentially interested, except that I feel I have exactly ZERO artistic or html/coding ability, so I'm not entirely sure what I'll be able to contribute. (i.e. I fear I fail at "digital" gifts...)

You can write drabbles or short fics or stories or even a nice letter to motivate them.

[Thorn]

I would love to take part! As long as we get plenty of time as yes, I am primarily a writer and for me this will most likely mean a lot of writing! xD