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An Introduction to Nominations
"Nominating" is basically us telling AO3's matching algorithm everything we want to match on (in other words, things we want to make or receive). We put in fandoms and relationships and then when sign ups roll around we can request and offer those fandoms and relationships using the tags.
Everyone can nominate from 4 fandoms (Naruto, Boruto, Dreaming of Sunshine, and Crossover Fandom) with 10 relationships each.
If what you want to request/offer isn't nominated, you won't be able to request or offer it! So it's very important that you not skip this step of the exchange, especially if you like rarepairs, minor characters, or any of the more obscure tags.
The process is less complicated than it sounds!
- You read the Nomination Guidelines (that's this doc that you're reading right now, good job!) and make sure you understand them — don't be afraid to ask one of the mods or exchange helpers if you don't!
- You go to the tagset (https://archiveofourown.org/tag_sets/6345 ) and make sure you're logged in to your AO3 account. If you don’t have an AO3 account, you can register for one and wait a few hours to receive your invitation, or contact one of the mods to see if they have any immediate invite links available.
- You click the nominate button and fill in the nomination page with tags you want to request.
- When one of the tag set mods has time, we approve them... assuming you filled it out correctly/assuming that we understand your nomination.
- If you did it wrong or we’re confused, we’ll try to get in contact with you through Discord by making a nomination clarification post on the #exchange_announcements channel
- After nominations close and before sign ups open we all hunt through the tagset briefly for errors like duplicate tags and misspellings. Feel free to let the mods know if you notice a mistake in the tagset. Sometimes we miss things!
Nomination Guidelines
Everyone can nominate from 4 fandoms (Naruto, Boruto, Rock Lee: Springtime of Youth, and Crossover Fandom) with 10 relationships each.
You can only match on tags that have been nominated and accepted into the tagset, so nominate anything you want to receive or offer.
Tag Eligibility
This section is about what you can nominate, and therefore about what you can request!
Fandoms
Any fictional, Naruto-related media is eligible for this exchange, including:
- Naruto
- Boruto
- Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth
- Recursive fanfiction of Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen
Crossovers
- You can nominate crossovers between Naruto subfandoms.
- To do this, all you have to do is nominate a relationship tag under “Crossover Fandom” using the format: “Character A (Fandom 1) & Character B (Fandom 2).” For example: “Uzumaki Naruto (Naruto) & Harry Potter (HP)”
- You can request a crossover with any other fictional fandom! We’ll just assume the fandom exists and that you've spelled the character's names right, so spell-/fact-check your own nominations please.
- RPF (Real Person Fiction) crossovers are not allowed.
Character Eligibility
- All Naruto anime and manga characters are eligible in both the Naruto and Boruto fandoms, as we don't expect any of them stopped existing between one ending and the other beginning.
- Next Gen characters (like Boruto or Sarada) are only eligible under the Boruto fandom.
- Characters who only appear in Boruto are only eligible in Boruto.
- For other fandoms, please use your best judgment and only nominate characters you're reasonably sure exist in that version of the canon.
- You can nominate unnamed characters if you can describe them concisely and clearly.
- You can nominate original characters with or without basic descriptors — for example, you could nominate "Gaara & Original Suna Character (Naruto)" or just "Gaara & Original Character (Naruto)".
- Do not nominate groups such as “Akatsuki” or “Jinchuuriki.” This can lead to duplicate tags and also ambiguity in requests. Instead you can pick as many members of the group as can fit in the tag such as “Deidara & Sasori & Orochimaru & Hoshigaki Kisame & Konan (Naruto).” You could also use a tag such as “Solo: Creator’s Choice of Jinchuuriki (Naruto)”
Relationship Eligibility
Relationships can be romantic and/or sexual (denoted by / ) or they can be platonic or gen (denoted by & ).
Furthermore:
- Relationships must be comprised of eligible characters.
- The only limit for the number of characters you can have in a relationship is the character limit in the nomination input field.
- Threesomes, moresomes, age gap relationships, and crackships are all allowed. If you don't like something that was nominated, don't offer or request it.
Tag Formatting
It's important to format your nominations correctly! You need to know these things:
- AO3's algorithm can only match tags that are exactly the same.
- The tagset will be unhappy with you if you try to submit a tag in one fandom that already exists verbatim in another, which is why we need the fandom in the relationship. For example: Uzumaki Naruto & Haruno Sakura (Naruto) must be nominated with "(Naruto)" on the end so that Uzumaki Naruto & Haruno Sakura (Boruto) can also be nominated! This is also known as disambiguation.
- Sometimes the tagset messes up and we have to reassociate tags with their fandoms, which is another reason why we need to know where your tags are supposed to be.
- If you try to nominate a tag in one category that already exists in another category, AO3 will tack something extra onto it.
- For example, if you nominated just Uzumaki Naruto in the Relationships category, AO3 would turn it into Uzumaki Naruto - Relationship
- ...which also means if we nominated single characters who haven't been used before—like Condor the Ninja Ostrich, as far as I know—into the Relationships category, people who try to use that single character in the Characters category would suddenly end up having to use Condor the Ninja Ostrich - Character.
SO, with that in mind... please follow these nomination guidelines:
Fandom Formatting
- Nominate Naruto manga and anime relationships/characters under Naruto
- Nominate Boruto manga and anime relationships/characters under Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
- All crossover relationships will go under Crossover Fandom
- Use AO3 canonicals (tags that can already be filtered on) whenever possible; use your best judgment otherwise.
Non-Crossover Relationship Formatting
- ALL RELATIONSHIPS need to have their source fandom after them in parenthesis.
- Please use LASTNAME FIRSTNAME, for example Uzumaki Naruto.
- Nominate sexual and/or romantic relationships with a /. For example: Momochi Zabuza/Terumi Mei (Naruto)
- Nominate platonic relationships with an &. For example: Uzumaki Boruto & Uzumaki Naruto (Boruto)
- Nominate single characters with "Solo:". For example: Solo: Hatake Kakashi (Naruto)
- This doesn't mean Kakashi won't interact with anyone else, just that you want the focus to be on Kakashi and are open to other characters.
- You can put as many characters in a relationship tags as the length limit will allow.
Crossover Relationship Formatting
- For crossovers, you must put the appropriate fandom or fandom abbreviation in parenthesis after EVERY CHARACTER.
- For example, Uzumaki Naruto (Naruto) & Harry Potter (HP)
- This also applies to crossovers between subfandoms. For example, Haruno Sakura (Naruto) & Uchiha Sasuke (Boruto)
- If you don't care what version of a character you get, you can just say so! For example, Hatake Kakashi (Naruto) & Edward Elric (Any Version)
Please Keep In Mind....
The tagset system on AO3 is kind of janky, so we can't see who's nominated what and we can't see all unapproved tags at the same time. We'll need to communicate via Discord in #exchange_announcements if we have questions about your tags, so keep an eye out and get assigned the Exchange Participant role to be pinged for that!
Here’s an example of a properly-formatted nomination:
FAQs
Wait, what does nominating mean?
Nominating is the act of going to the tagset and submitting tags that match things you want to request — someone who wants to request a story about Shino and Kiba in Naruto would nominate the tag "Aburame Shino & Inuzuka Kiba (Naruto)", while someone who wants to request a story about them in Boruto would nominate the tag "Aburame Shino & Inuzuka Kiba (Boruto)". After you have submitted tags, we approve them and then during signups, you and other people are able to request/offer the tags you nominated.
What's a tagset?
A tagset is a group of tags that were nominated by participants and approved by a mod. What tags are in the tagset determines what can be requested and offered during sign ups.
Why do we need a tagset? Why not just use the tags AO3 already has?
Exchanges often need tags that AO3 doesn't have yet, like rarepairs! Also, AO3's matching algorithm can only match exact matches ("Nara Shikamaru & Tenten" would not match "Shikamaru Nara & Tenten") and because without them we would only be able to match on tags already in AO3's system. This is why the mods take time to delete duplicates after nominations are over. Because we have a tagset, we can only match on things you nominate within it.
Do I have to nominate?
Nominations are important because you can only match on tags/relationships that are in the tagset. Make sure everything you want is in the tagset before you decide to skip nominating.
Why are there so many rules?/Why do I have to add the fandom after the ship?
The Nomination Guidelines (adapted from the previous Exchange no Jutsu) are there to help standardize the tagset, among other things! Adding the fandom after the ship is important because you can't add the exact same tag to two different fandoms and all our fandoms have lots of character overlap! Long story short, it’ll break AO3. Please feel free to ask one of the Exchange Helper questions if you need help.
AAAAAAA I MISSED NOMINATIONS THOUGH?
If you've arrived too late for nominations and you're desperate to have something in the tagset, DM or tag one of the Exchange Helpers! However, this must be done (at the latest) before sign-ups start in earnest.
What are nominated tags for?
Tags in the tagset are the only things participants can sign up to offer/request and then match on — it's a way of making sure we're all consistent in the tags we use when we sign up so that half of us aren't offering Character A & Character B and the other half Character B & Character A, since those tags wouldn't be able to match to each other.
If I nominate tags, does that mean I have to participate?
No. Please nominate tags that you want to match on even if you're only vaguely thinking of signing up or treating, because otherwise you'll be stuck with what other people have nominated.
My nomination(s) haven't been accepted! Why?
Well, for one, the tagset approval process is kind of wonky and disorganized, so we can only see so many tags at once. Maybe one of us hasn’t gotten to yours yet! There might be other tags to go to first, or the tag set mods went to bed, or something. You should also check out the nomination clarification posts on #exchange_announcements to see if we have asked you to correct your tag or explain why you think a character should be eligible or something.
My nomination(s) were rejected! Why?
Maybe you nominated a character who doesn't qualify for the exchange... or maybe your nomination was really close to a nomination we already have.... or maybe one of the mods made a mistake! Rejected tags should be listed in the nominations clarification posts over in #exchange_announcements. If you don't see anything that explains your rejection, ask about it in #exchange_discussion or ask one of the Exchange Helpers.
My nomination(s) were accepted but I just noticed an error/typo. What do I do?
This happens to all of us. Please ask one of the Exchange Helpers to fix it. There will also be a short period of tagset clean up to look for errors and duplicates before sign ups open. If sign ups have already opened and someone has already used the tag, we’re sorry to say it's basically too late.
Why do we need to use “Solo:” for single characters?/Why do we need to add the fandom after every relationship?
On AO3, you can't have identical tags in different sections and all tagset tags are connected to the tags we use on works. That's why you sometimes see tags with - Character, - Freeform, or -Relationship added on to tags. We're nominating both relationships and characters in the Relationships category for this exchange, which simplifies matching, but it does mean that we're definitely 100% nominating tags in the wrong category for single characters! Using “Solo:” is just being good AO3 community members.
Disambiguating with fandoms is both for clarity in case the relationship becomes unassociated with the fandom you nominated it under and to help reduce "tag drift" which is this annoying thing AO3 does where it makes a relationship you nominated in one fandom show up in other fandoms.
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