Master Post

[hansbekhart]

Puerto Rico is in super bad shape. Hurricane Maria has destroyed entire towns, wiped out their electrical grid, trashed hospitals and roads. Right now, ten days after Maria made landfall, more than 40% of the island currently lacks access to drinking water and electricity. It's estimated that it will take up to six months to repair the electrical grid and get power back to the island. They will need sustained, committed aid.

Fandom has come together and done amazing things in the past - from Sweet Charity to Fandomaid to @fandomtrumpshate. Let's show some love to Puerto Rico and help them get back on their feet.



There is now an indexed list of every creator who has signed up for auction, as of 10/14!

How will this fundraiser work?
Creators will reply to this post to sign up for auction! We spend the next few weeks whipping social media into a frenzy about how awesome fandom charity auctions are, and how many frigging cool creators have signed up for this one! Then, the auction page will go live on Dreamwidth! Each offering will get its own comment post, and a frenzy of bidding will happen in the comment threads! The winners will have a set amount of time to send their creator proof of their donation. Once they've donated, the creator gets to work making cool shit! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy - the tried and true formula for fandom charity.

Sign ups will be open until October 15th
The auction will go live on October 17th, and close on October 23rd. Times will be announced. A lightning "Buy It Now!" event will be hosted on either the 1st or 2nd day of the auction, so stay tuned for details.
Proof of donations must be sent by November 6th to claim your prize!


What kind of fanworks can be auctioned?
- fic
- art
- vids
- podfic
- beta services (including basic editing, script/story doctoring, historical accuracy, nationality-picking, etc)
- fan vids
- tutorials (via skype, email, text, whatever)
- Basically anything you want

As far as physical objects go (fan crafts, etc), I'm not able to manage the process of shipping or coordinating the gifting, but if bidders and crafters are able to coordinate that between them, then we will provide the signal boost/publicity!


What charity will I be helping?
All proceeds raised through this auction will go to ConPRmetidos! You can find details on their campaign here, and keep up with their activities on their Facebook page.

You may have heard about the barges and vessels bringing water, diesel, and generators to Puerto Rico. You may also have heard about these goods sitting for days on the water, or on the dock still in the shipping container, because there are no roads for trucks to drive on, no cell service to coordinate drivers, and no fuel to get them anywhere. Lifesaving donations are being bottlenecked at San Juan for lack of a way to get aid to the people who need it.

The reason that we've chosen ConPRmetidos is because of their focus on long term, sustained repair of Puerto Rico's infrastructure. They'll be fixing roads, hospitals, homes, and the electrical grid. They're financing local companies and local efforts. They're working with the Puerto Rican National Guard to coordinate resources and fill financing gaps. And they're not going leave in a couple weeks.


Is this really something that the average citizen needs to chip in on?
Look, I'm as optimistic as it comes but the answer to this is almost definitely yes. Even the most hopeful expectation of the federally managed part of the recovery will fall short of what is actually needed.


But I wanna help NOW!
YAY! You totally should do that too! Here are some reputable organizations that are sending direct aid right now.

The long term will be just as important, trust me.


Who's running this thing?
I am surrounded by some very kind people by the names of @analise010, @sonickitty, @silentwalrus1, @shannonxl, and @im-the-punk-who, and I have a growing list of people who have offered help that I still may greedily call on (turns out these things are complicated and take a lot of hands).

Why are you posting this on Dreamwidth instead of tumblr or some other platform?
So we can talk to each other, of course! And so there's not sixty versions of the same post on tumblr as I edit and adjust details.

Go ahead, ask questions. You don't need a Dreamwidth account to comment; you can do it under anon or with an OpenID.

I have more questions.
Cool beans! Read through the comment threads below, or see here. If your question hasn't been answered, please ask below!

Comments

[gwyn]

I plan to sign up (just have to figure out what to offer), but I also wanted to say that if you need any extra bodies for help running this, please let me know--I'm kind of homebound for a little while, and would be able to help out in any capacity you'd need.

♥ for doing this.

[hansbekhart]

Thank you so much!! I really appreciate it. This is my first time running a fundraiser, so I'm still sort of assessing what I'll need to do and how complicated it will be, and how to manage that. Are you on tumblr? Or do you have an email I can use when I need to reach out for some help?

[analise010]

Hello! A month ago, I started a harvey_fanaid to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey. That campaign is closing today. Can I promote your community in our closing post?

[(Anonymous)]

Absolutely, please do!!! (This is Hans Bekhart - I'm away from my computer and can't log in, but didn't want to not take you up on the offer of promotion.). Thank you so much!!

Proof of donation?

[(Anonymous)]

This is awesome, thank you so much for coordinating it! Quick question: Is the proof of donation going directly to the creator(s)? Like, they get forwarded an email or screenshot of the donation page?

Re: Proof of donation?

[frecklebombfic]

This is how previous auctions I've been involved in have worked, and it's the way I'd be most comfortable with, as a creator.

[magicasen]

Hello! Thanks so much for running this!

My question/suggestion: is it possible to extend the bidding stage beyond a day? I think fandomtrumpshate had theirs up for a week. I think it'd help spread the word in case people are busy that weekend to have it last a bit longer.

[rosehiptea]

I agree with this. For example I can write up to five fics but I probably would only get one or two requests at the most if the auction only lasts a day.

[taichara]

Will this exclusively be auctions, or can people offer buy-it-now types?

[gunpowderandlove]

I second this question. And if so, would there be a separate post for those sign ups? Because I would sign up for both.

[cdvla313]

If there's any chance tags can be created to sort offerings (like fic, podfic, beta, etc), that would be great.

[hansbekhart]

Yes!! I am planning on doing that.

[animangod]

I wanted to help out P.R. recover their infrastructure and when I looked at where the Money is going, I'd love to participate in this

[hansbekhart]

Yay!! Yeah, I keep seeing all these news reports about containers sitting at the ports, unable to be distributed, and knowing how the electrical grid was even before the storm, it seemed like a good way to go. Infrastructure is maybe less sexy than showing up with hot meals, but it'll help get old people their homes back even if they don't have the deeds or have added to their homes or are disqualified from FEMA assistance for some other reason, which will definitely happen. Overall it just seemed like a good thing to help people throw money at.

Thank you so much for participating!

Physical Objects

[shadytail]

As far as physical objects go (fan crafts, etc), I'm not able to manage the process of shipping or coordinating the gifting, but if bidders and crafters are able to coordinate that between them, then we will provide the signal boost/publicity!

I want to offer bookbinding services for fic. Does this mean we can sign up so long as we’re willing to pay shipping (and bidders recognize that the mods won’t help with problems), or not?

Can we sign up if we make sure our offer-comment contains an appropriate disclaimer? Or alternately, segregate us into a separate thread or post? I hope we can sign up, since noone’s even going to see my offer otherwise.

Re: Physical Objects

[hansbekhart]

Sure, please do sign up, that is a great service to offer! Yes, please include all disclaimers or offers for shipping in your sign up post.

By the way, in regards to people finding your services, I'm going to create and maintain lists of offering by category (fic, art, physical goods, etc - and maybe break physical goods into separate categories depending on how many of each type I see) so it'll be easier for people to find.

[(Anonymous)]

I would like to edit my offerings -- is there a way to do that without having a Dreamwidth account? Or should I just thread my edits as a reply to my original post (https://fandomlovespuertorico.dreamwidth.org/669.html?thread=23453#cmt23453)?

[hansbekhart]

Uh, I'm not sure! Did you try editing the post? If not, thread them as a reply to the original. I'm going to be making a completely separate auction post with all the creator details, so I'll just capture it on the final go.

Bidding

[(Anonymous)]

For those of us who are new to all of this, how exactly does bidding work? Is it just comments to the posts advertising works? Thank you for doing this!

Re: Bidding

[hansbekhart]

Yes! I'll be making a separate post for the auction. Each item will get its own comment, and people who want to bid on that item will reply to that comment. If a creator is offering multiples of the same item (say, 3 stories of 2-5K words), then the 3 highest value bids will win the auction, at time of close. You can see this in action here: https://help-haiti.livejournal.com/10319.html

[firefly124]

If we're offering more than one type of thing, should we put that in separate comments? For example, I'd like to offer fic, but my muse currently only plays in one fandom. I'd like to offer beta services, too, but for that I could cover a wider range of fandoms. I'm thinking that would get very confusing in a single comment.

[hansbekhart]

In terms of signing up for the auction, one comment is fine!

We're actually going to be reposting all comments to a separate auction page, so that we can have one auction thread per item. But for the sign up page, it's been helpful to have one comment per creator so I can keep the number of sign ups straight. (I have a minorly extensive spreadsheet going)

If you want to sign up for the Buy It Now! event, then you'd do one comment per item being auction (so one comment for fic, and a second comment for beta services).

[green_wing]

Will there be a request post? I have fandoms that aren't mainstream, so wading through every buy-now or auction post and asking the writers can be a real chore :(

If I could just say "does anyone write this, this, or this" it would be so much quicker?

[hansbekhart]

I'm in the middle of creating an indexed list by fandom and offering type, so it'll be a lot easier to search shortly.

[ironlawyer]

Hi, I'm thinking of offering bead sprites. I was wondering if there are any rules about the recipient paying postage? I can't afford to send many outside the UK but it would be a shame to limit it to within the UK. The Royal Mail offer a pay online feature, so the recipient could pay for the label and then pass it on to me. All goes well, no money would need to change hands.

[hansbekhart]

Nope! I'm not setting any rules when it comes to shipping & handling physical goods. All details should be hashed out between the creator and the bidder. I would note on your sign up that you can offer to pay postage within the UK, and buyer will be responsible for shipping outside the UK. If you feel like doing the legwork, you can include information on size/weight, so a potential bidder can research an estimated shipping cost to their country?

Thank you so much for signing up!!

[catalenamara]

I have a friend who has no online presence but would like to offer beta reading in order take part. Is this possible?

[hansbekhart]

Sure! You can put up a sign up post on their behalf, or they can do it themselves anonymously. They'd need to share some way for bidders to contact them, though; once the auction is over, the winning bidders will contact their creators directly.

Creation

[(Anonymous)]

Apologies in advance if this is a silly question, but what's the etiquette surrounding creation of the auctioned works? I want to sign up but I know I'm going to be pretty unavoidably busy/absent during the first two weeks of November, and I don't know how long the acceptable time of creation would be. Is asking someone to wait ~three weeks an Awful Thing or would that be a normal-ish amount of time anyway?

Re: Creation

[(Anonymous)]

Seconding this question. If the bidding ends October 23, and donations are due Nov 6th, does that mean that the bidder should expect to receive their auction item on/very near to Nov 6th? That's just two weeks turnaround, and for anyone doing more than, say, a 5k fic or a single-panel piece of art, that may be pushing it--especially if they typically take time to have their work edited. Is this something the offeror and winning bidder should simply work out on their own, case-by-case?
--Dienaziscum (Jess)

[psychicmoth]

Hello! I'm an artist and I would really love to participate! Is there a deadline to finish our creations? Or have I to talk about this with the person who will win the auction? Now I have a pretty busy schedule, but I will be able to give my whole heart and soul in December. I know I have to specify this thing in my sign up post, but I would like to know if there is already a set time limit to finish our creations. Thank you! :)

[hansbekhart]

Nope, no deadline! Just make a note on your sign up post, so bidders are aware.

Thank you so much for signing up!!

[jeslieness]

Just wanted to say thanks for all of the work you're doing--the offerings lists are very comprehensive, and I'm sure it's been pretty time-consuming. Thank you!

[hansbekhart]

This is SO NICE, you have 100% made my evening, thank you so much **crying emoji**

It has been very time consuming, but ultimately it's for a really important cause, and it's actually a lot more comforting to be able to actually do something more than send the small donations I already have, you know? It's worth it, and I'm so thrilled at the response so far.

[staranise]

I’m on mobile today and any time I try to go to the signup post, I get told there are too many redirects. There was a comment I needed to reply to, and now in my inbox I’m told I’m not authorized to view it. Any idea what’s going on?

[helahler]

I'm getting the same error! I was wondering if it was just me, but it's not working on my desktop or my phone. I think Hans mentioned before that they were going to lock the sign up post once we hit the sign up deadline, which means making it private and thus unviewable to us for now; I'm assuming that's what's giving us the errors. Hopefully it's temporary!

[soc_puppet]

So I made a couple of things:



I don't know if you have any interest in using them, but you are welcome to do so if you would like.

(Lineart available here for anyone who likes to color. Since, you know, I mostly decided to do this on account of offering custom coloring pages in the Buy It Now section.)

[hansbekhart]

These are so cute!! Thank you for sending them. I'll pass them over to my friends handling the social media/press stuff.

[citrusjava]

Hey, sorry for being annoying, but this is really a pity for me.... so I was a few hours late to sign up - I wrote most of it while it was still open, I missed it....
I'd really like to help. It's not for me to need to understand why I'm not allowed to do this, but it really is something I wanted to do, I put a lot of attention into it.... would you maybe be willing to make an exception and allow me to participate?

[hansbekhart]

Okay :). You've been added to the auction, and to the indexed fic list.

[luthe]

Is the Buy It Now thread open?

[hansbekhart]

It is! It opened yesterday, sorry for the late reply.

[citrusjava]

Hey there, lovely people running this!
I was wondering whether it is/will be possible to go over the "buy it now" items anywhere before it starts, just to be ready when it goes live?

[hansbekhart]

They're up on the same post that they started on!

https://fandomlovespuertorico.dreamwidth.org/1175.html

[daisyface]

Hi! I missed the sign ups, but would be interested in auctioning some items. Is that still possible or are you permanently closed?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm wanting to know the same thing.

[scrollgirl]

[comment deleted]

Neeeeever mind! Clearly I should have gone to bed instead of trying to bid, since I missed an entire paragraphs in bold text!

ETA: Thanks so much for your hard work!

[hansbekhart]

<3<3<3

[ride_4ever]

This is a wonderful thing! I have boosted the signal via my DW and my LJ, and I've bid on three auction items.

[hansbekhart]

Thank you so much for signal boosting and for bidding!!