the24thkey

Voiceteam Mystery Box is a two-week mini spinoff of Voiceteam to wrap up the holiday season and start the new year! Starting on 12:01 AM UTC December 27th (7:01 PM EST on December 26th), we will announce two new point-earning challenges per day for five days. All ten challenges will remain open until 11:59 PM UTC January 8th (6:59 PM EST on January 8th). Once all the challenges have closed, the team with the highest score wins!

TIMELINE

Sign-ups: Now – December 20th
Discord server opens: December 22nd
Challenges post: December 27th – December 31st
Check-In: December 29th
Challenges close: January 8th
Results & Celebration: January 11th

Voiceteam runs on UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). The closing of sign-ups, the closing of challenges, and the results and celebration happen at 11:59 PM UTC on the dates listed. All other scheduled events happen at 12:01 AM UTC on the dates listed. To get a sense of what that is where you live, you can do a Google search for “midnight UTC in my time zone" or enter your location on this time conversion website. Your mods—eafay70, forzandopod, klb, novalinium, robin_fai, shash, and twtd—are in GMT (UTC-0), EST (UTC-5), MST (UTC-7), and PST (UTC-8), but we have players from across the world. Anyone from any time zone is welcome and able to participate!

MAJOR CHANGES FROM LAST YEAR

• We have reformatted this intro post to separate procedures (how Voiceteam works) from rules (what is and is not allowed), which we hope will make the information easier to process.


• We have added the following new content moderation rule: "No works that dox, harass, or personally attack other members of the fannish community."


• The first paragraph of the Player’s Code of Conduct has been updated to include the bolded sentence: "This is a community space, and players are expected to act in ways that take the needs and feelings of other community members, including players and mods, into account. For example, players should not publicly complain about their team, give unsolicited critique of another player’s fanwork, or pressure or exclude team members. This list is not comprehensive, and mods will address any behavior that we believe violates community norms."


• This year, we are offering the option for pairs of teams to form an alliance. This would mean that there would be a shared space on the Mystery Box Discord that only those two teams (and the mods) could access. Teams can use this shared space to strategize together, discuss cross-team collaborations, cheer each other on, etc. Alliances will not impact scoring in any way, and not every team will choose to have one, but they are available for teams who are interested in having a social space that is larger than their single team but smaller than the entire Mystery Box server.


• We are continuing the system from May Voiceteam of offering to pair new players (at their request) with experienced players to guide them through their first Voiceteam.


• We are also continuing the system from May Voiceteam of having 2-3 mini orientation challenges for new players to try out before Mystery Box officially begins. To allow more time for orientation challenges, the Discord will open a day earlier this year than it did in past years.


• We have changed the opt-in window for points break. Any player will be able to opt into or out of points break at any time until 24 hours after the final set of challenges drops. At that point, all decisions about points break will be locked in and players may no longer change them except in cases of an unexpected life emergency.

PROCEDURES

1. Mystery Box offers team sign-ups and individual sign-ups:
   
   1. Team sign-ups: You create your own team before signing up. Teams can have a minimum of 5 players and a maximum of 15 players.
   
   
   2. Individual sign-ups: You sign up without a team, and mods sort you onto a team with other people who used this sign-up option. If you want, you can choose one “sign-up buddy" who is guaranteed to be sorted onto the same team as you. To keep sorting from getting too complicated, sign-up buddies must be reciprocal—if person A chooses person B, person B must also choose person A (and not person C)!
   
   
2. There will be two new challenges announced each day of the challenge posting period. You do not have to complete both challenges, but you can if you want to. Unless the challenge text specifies otherwise, you can complete any challenge as many times as you’d like and you will earn points each time.


3. Each player will have a point cap, which is the maximum number of points they can earn from each set of challenges. You can choose a lower point cap (100 points max) or a higher point cap (200 points max).


4. Challenges will sometimes leave room for interpretation. If you are not sure whether something counts, check with the mods. We support creativity and will often be generous with what we allow!


5. When you create something that fills a challenge, you will submit it to the mods using an Airtable form. A mod will look over and verify your submission and will reach out to you if we disagree about the point value or need more information from you. You aren't required to share your creations with anyone but the mods, but if you are comfortable doing so we invite you to also share them in the Voiceteam Discord and/or add them to our AO3 collection!


6. Since team sizes and point caps will vary, each team’s final score will be scaled. Points will be determined by dividing the number of points each player earned by their total maximum (based on their choice of point cap), averaging this number for all the players in the team, and then multiplying this number by the average team size.


7. You may take a points break for any set of challenges—just let the mod team know by the end of the opt-in window. If you are on points break for a set of challenges, your points for those challenges do not affect your team's scaled score. Players who find points more stressful than fun are welcome to take points break for all 5 challenge sets!


8. The mods are committed to supporting a positive experience for our players! Please feel free to contact the mods about any Voiceteam-related problems you have, including but not limited to: feelings of exclusion, conflict with a team member, and concerns about the rules or structure of Voiceteam. If you suspect a problem might be brewing but aren't sure if it’s worth bringing to the mods, please give us a heads up about it! We won't share your concerns with any other players without your permission, and we can help you think up solutions or make mod-level changes as needed to address the problem. For more serious problems, see our anti-harassment policy.

RULES

1. Each team member has the final decision about their own creations (including their part in collaborative creations, if they choose to participate in any). There are no minimum requirements for the quality or size of your creations.


2. Players can only get points for a single creation once. For example, you cannot submit one podfic for two challenges and get points from both challenges.


3. For multichapter works, every chapter can be submitted for points separately. Each chapter will be treated as a separate creation, so you can submit any chapter for any challenge, independent of what challenge(s) other chapters of that work were submitted for.


4. If a good-faith plan is made for multiple people to collaborate on a work and some members aren’t able to meet the deadline, the partial project can be submitted for points by the members who did finish in time.


5. If an unexpected emergency arises in a Voiceteam player's life (for example, if they or one of their loved ones is unexpectedly hospitalized) they are allowed to opt into points break for that round even if the opt-in window has passed.


6. If a challenge leaves room for interpretation, you must abide by any decisions the mods make regarding the interpretation of that challenge. If you want to be sure that a creative interpretation will count, please ask before going ahead with it!


7. Voiceteam does not allow works that violate our content moderation rules.

Code of Conduct for Players

This is a community space, and players are expected to act in ways that take the needs and feelings of other community members, including players and mods, into account. For example, players should not publicly complain about their team, give unsolicited critique of another player’s fanwork, or pressure or exclude team members. This list is not comprehensive, and mods will address any behavior that we believe violates community norms.

Pressuring team members includes, but is not limited to, repeatedly suggesting ways for the team member to earn more points, or repeatedly checking in on a team member's progress, without that team member having agreed to that type of interaction first.

Players should also honor mod decisions about Voiceteam rules and refrain from lashing out at, attacking, or personally insulting mods when sharing feedback or concerns.

Any player who breaks this code of conduct will be contacted by the mods and asked to stop. If this type of behavior happens repeatedly, they may be asked to leave Voiceteam or asked not to return in future years.

The above code of conduct is not intended to silence calling out or calling in of racism, transphobia, or other behavior harmful to historically marginalized communities. This community will always make space for that kind of feedback, and the mods will always work to support players who speak up about this type of behavior. This includes calling out/calling in of the mods.


Code of Conduct for Mods

Mods will not delete any words by players from our Discord unless those words violate our anti-harassment policy and their deletion is requested by the affected community members. In case of deletion, we will keep screencaps of the unedited conversation for accountability reasons.

Mods will listen to player feedback about Voiceteam structures and mod decisions thoughtfully, and we will work together as a team to make sure that any concerns or issues brought to us are addressed with respect and care.

If necessary, we encourage participants to hold us accountable for our own actions. We aim to mod this event from within the community, not above it. We will always be open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in our anti-oppression work and our work on making Voiceteam a fun and healthy community.

---

FAQ

I haven’t played Voiceteam Mystery Box before. Can you give me a clearer understanding of what it is and how it works?
We recommend you check out our New Player Q&A, which is made of questions new players asked in the Mystery Box 2023 Discord and the answers they were given by returning players.

If you want more information on the origin and general vibe of Voiceteam, in awesome audio documentary form, you can check out An Abridged History of Voiceteam, created by TheLordOfLaMancha during Voiceteam Mystery Box 2023.

What support do you have in place for first-time players?
New players will have a box to check at sign-up to request being paired with a more experienced guide. Those who choose this option will be matched with a returning player who has signed up for the role of guide. New players can reach out to their guide whenever they’d like for extra help, support, and collaboration, knowing that the guide volunteered for the role and will be happy to help!

Also, in the days between when the Discord opens and when the first challenges drop, there will be a couple of short orientation challenges that new players can complete for fake points. Players can use these practice challenges to familiarize themselves with how challenges look, what contributions count for points, how collaborations are scored, how to submit to Airtable, how to check their point totals, etc. Experienced players are welcome to complete the orientation challenges as well, for a refresher on how Voiceteam works, a way to warm up and bond with their team, and of course for fun!

Do I have to be an experienced podficcer to join?
No! You just have to love podfic. There are non-voice ways to participate in audio fanworks for points, like contributing writing, beta, editing, directing, or graphics. There will also be some challenges that can be fulfilled without audio fanworks. No one has to do every single challenge.

How big of a commitment is this going to be?
No bigger than you want it to be! The point of this event is to have fun and make friends, and if you end up getting inspired to create a bunch of stuff, cool. If not, that’s also cool.

What is Discord?/Tell me more about how the Discord server is going to work.
Discord is a text-based chat platform. Every server (like the Voiceteam server) can host multiple text and voice chat channels. Some of the channels will be open to the entire Voiceteam community and some will be visible only to members of your team.

Voiceteam players will be emailed an invitation to the Voiceteam Discord server on December 22nd. You can spend the first days saying hi and getting to know your team—we’ll provide some optional icebreaker questions you can answer for each other—and then the first list of challenges will be posted at 12:01 AM UTC on December 27th.

What if I have one or more people I’d like to privately request to NOT be on a team with?
If you sign up without a pre-arranged team, there will be a field in the sign-up form where you can tell us who, if anyone, you would like to request to NOT be on a team with. Nobody except the mods will see what you type here.

What if my team is not a good fit for me?
Team switches are an expected and healthy part of the process! Please reach out to us if you would like to discuss a team change and we will let you know about other teams you could switch to.

While we are welcome to reach out at any time, we will also have a more structured (optional) check-in via Airtable around the time the third set of challenges is revealed, which you can use to share any concerns you have about team fit.

Can I change my sign-up after I’ve submitted it?
You can! After you submit your sign-up, we will email you a copy of your answers. If you’d like to make any changes, you can reply to that email and we’ll edit your sign-up for you.

What’s an example of what a challenge might look like?
Here are all of our past Voiceteam challenges.

What if I don’t like some of the challenges?
That’s okay! The challenges are spread out to interest a wide range of different players, and not every challenge will work for everyone. In some cases, you might have feedback about how to tweak the challenge to make it more fun for you, which we invite you to share in the #feedback-about-voiceteam channel or by DMing a mod.

In other cases, you might find over time that seeing what other people create inspires you and changes your mind about some of the challenges. Sometimes players even find that the challenge that seemed least appealing to them at first ends up being their favorite! We encourage you to keep an open mind, and to reach out to teammates for ideas about how to make a tricky challenge fit with your interests, or for cheerleading and support in trying something new.

We do ask, though, that you keep any negativity about challenges that don't work as well for you to appropriate areas, such as #feedback-about-voiceteam or conversations with mods. In team spaces, please focus on the challenges you are interested in and/or constructive problem-solving about those that you are having trouble with. This will help keep team spaces positive, encouraging, and fun!

How do I keep track of when drops and deadlines will happen each day?
We use dynamic timestamps in Discord to help players keep track of when the next drop or deadline is coming up. When we put a time in a message using a dynamic timestamp, it will automatically convert to whatever that time is in your local time zone.

We're also maintaining a Google Calendar with these dates and deadlines that you can subscribe to. (If you just view it, it will show up in GMT (UTC+0), but if you add it to your own Google Calendar, which you can do by clicking "Add to Google Calendar" on the bottom left, it will convert to your local timezone.)

What if 12:01 AM UTC is very late at night in my time zone?
Those in time zones where 12:01 AM UTC is too late at night to comfortably stay awake for challenge drops can sign up to have the challenges revealed to them 4 hours in advance, so that their sleep schedules are not too disrupted by Voiceteam. However, anyone who participates in this early challenge drop must NOT discuss or react to the challenges in any way outside this channel until the challenges have been officially announced in the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord.

I observe Shabbat in a way that makes me not able to participate (or have a similar religious or cultural reason that I’d need to take certain days off from playing), but I still want to compete for points! Is there a way for me to do that?
Absolutely! If you will need to take off specific days for religious or cultural reasons but still want to play for points, let us know at sign-up, and we will send you the challenges earlier to make up for the missed time.

Are there limits or requirements for crossposting creations I make for Voiceteam?
Nope! You may crosspost any works made for Voiceteam whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to not crosspost at all and only share with the mods, or only share within the Voiceteam Discord. One reminder, though, is that since many Voiceteam works are collaborations, all collaborators should discuss and be on the same page about when/where a work will be crossposted.

What if I was already working on something before Voiceteam started? Is there a way to get points for it?
Any creation can earn points for a Voiceteam challenge as long as it is completed during the time that challenge is active. This includes WIPs you were already working on that happen to align with one of the challenges.

Do you recommend teams create their own separate Discords or group DMs to coordinate projects on Voiceteam challenges?
We hope this event can be an opportunity for participants to get to know each other better and form lasting connections! However, in the interests of facilitating moderation we'd encourage you to keep to the Voiceteam Mystery Box Discord for coordinating Voiceteam projects with your team, rather than creating a separate team Discord for yourselves. If you do decide to create a separate Discord for your team, we highly recommend you add one or more of the Voiceteam mods so it's easier for us to get caught up in the case of issues - you can always remove us after all of the challenges have closed.

Regarding DMs, all players will have the opportunity to assign themselves the roles “DMs Open,” “Ask to DM,” or “DMs Closed.” Please respect the DM preferences that players show through these roles.

Are minors allowed to participate?
Yes, minors (and over-18 folk who prefer to avoid mature content) are welcome to participate in Voiceteam! To accommodate these participants, NSFW content in the Discord server is kept in separate age-restricted channels. The only time NSFW content would be mixed in with SFW content would be in team-specific channels, and only in cases where every team member is over 18 and has expressed comfort with doing so.

I am a past player who is unable to play this year, but I’d like to still be involved in some way. Is there a way to do that?
Players who have participated in past Mystery Box rounds but are not participating in this round can sign up for a focus group discussion in our planning server. In this focus group, after sign-ups close (December 21st–22nd), volunteers will read throughthe planned challenges in advance, give feedback, and ask questions so that we can revise them and make them as good as possible before they’re officially revealed!

Past players who are unable to play this year but still want to stay involved also have the option of participation as Discord “ghosts,” which is a tradition started by flamingwell in Mystery Box 2023. Discord ghosts will not be part of a team or able to submit any creations on Airtable, but they will have access to All-Team Channels in the Discord and can help cheer on and support all of the players from there!

Where can I find your content moderation rules, and how do they work?
We have put in place three content moderation rules. If someone finds a fanwork that they think may violate one of the rules, they can report it privately (and anonymously if they want) to the mod team.

We have designed our response plan to prevent this system from being used to harass fanwork creators. We will never publicly share information about any reports, and we will only contact the creator about a report if we are sure the fanwork really is against one of these rules. If it’s unclear to us whether the fanwork violates the rule, the mod team will privately consult with one or more members of the group impacted, or as close as possible to that group, to assess if harm is being caused to the impacted community by the fanwork. If harm is being caused, we will move forward in private conversation with the creator of the fanwork to discuss the situation together and figure out possible next steps.

If the work is in violation of one of the rules and the fanwork’s creator cannot or does not wish to alter it, any points previously earned by the work will be removed and the work will be removed from our Voiceteam AO3 collection.

What plans does Voiceteam have in place to address racism within fandom and our community?
At the start of Voiceteam, players will have the option to opt into a section of channels intended to be a safe space for creators of color. This space is run by a mod of color, and none of the white mods will have access, nor will any white player in Voiceteam. Most importantly, we ask that everyone - whether you're a person of color or not - respect that space.

We also have a universal bonus of +10 points for any Voiceteam fanwork that centers one or more characters of color. This includes racebent characters.

We are continuing to reflect as a mod team about our anti-racism practices within fandom, which we recognize to be a space deeply shaped by racism. We remain open to suggestions and feedback from members of our community for how to improve in this area.

Will there be a safe space set aside for trans players as well?
Yes! We will also have a set of channels designated only for trans players, run by a trans mod.

How do I sign up?
Head to our sign-up post on Dreamwidth or directly to our sign-up form on Airtable.

I have more questions!
Please ask them in the comments, or email us at voiceteammods@gmail.com, and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.