Huzzah for no shame!

So the original concept is this: We play a ship card, attaching 2 character cards to either end, and, for each ship card played, we write and publish a shipfic for the characters attached, wait for a certain number of upvotes, then move on to our next play. (In the case where a card's ability lets it be played without a ship card, only 1 fic is required for playing that card.)

Here is a list of questions that J posted elsewhere that we'll do well to answer before starting...

1) How many likes and/or what like/dislike ratio does a story need before we accept it?
2) How much time do we give them to reach that point?
3) how long should the fics be? (Fimfiction's 1k word minimum requirement should be sufficient.)
4) Do we have to use the scenarios from the ship cards?
4b) If not, should we give a bonus if they do anyway (maybe a lower like requirement)?
5) Can multiple ships from one turn be combined into a single fic?
6) Do special abilities have to be used in the fics? (For example, if I play a card using its "replace" ability, does the fic have to include have to include the other card in the ship breaking up with the one that got replaced?)
6b) If a pony's "swap" ability is used, do we also have to write fics for the new ships the swap creates, or do we only write them for ships we play from our hands?
7) Should we post the fics to our own fimfiction accounts, or should we create a shared account to anonymize the fics for fairness? (Though I don't think that any of us have that many followers right now, so it might not be an issue.)
8) How many points will we play to? I think the game recommends 10 for a three-player game.
9) Should we give a bonus point to anyone (or just the first person) who writes a fic that makes it to the featurebox? (I vote yes.)
10) How long do we give a person to complete their turn?

Here are my votes and suggestions with some minor tweaks from the aforementioned "elsewhere."

1-2) Maybe we could set the standard for number of required upvotes by the average of what the other fics receive after a 24 hour period, and the first fic gets a free pass instantly. (The second will have to wait for the first fic to reach 24 hours old.)

3) I vote 1k words minimum.

4) It could be fun to require the use of the ship card scenarios, but maybe it would stifle our artistic creativity, so perhaps a compromise is in order. I propose we make it so that, for every shipfic that we choose to write according to the card's scenario, we bank one opportunity to choose our own custom scenario independent of a future ship card. If we have no custom scenarios banked or don't want to waste a custom scenario but we'd still rather not use the card scenario, we may flip a coin to decide, and, even if we do end up having to use the card scenario, we won't get to bank a custom scenario for the future.

Maybe that's over-complicated, but it would give us structure and encourage writing the outrageous scenarios provided by the game... for science!

5) I suggest that, if we want to, we might be allowed to combine multiple plays into a single fic, but ONLY if the ships/plays share at least one character card in common, AND, if we do, we should require an extra 500 words minimum to be added to the fic for each additional combined play.

6) Maybe we could follow the same guidelines for card abilities (like gender, race, and universe augmentation) as I suggested for ship card scenarios so that we have some encouragement, but also the chance to avoid writing absurdly silly or personally unwanted shipfics (though the characters shouldn't be optional, only the conditions of their ship as told by the cards).

I propose that, if a card's ability includes replacing, switching, or breaking up characters, we use the same custom scenario points system or random coin toss per card ability. (No need to keep the points for ships and abilities separate from each other, I think.)

In the case that we use a 'switch' or 'replace' ability, for example, and we want to gain the custom scenario point or we've been forced by coin toss to use the card ability in the fic's scenario, we'd be required to write a minimum of 1000 words for at least 2 of the ships (4 characters cards) involved in that 'switch' or 'replace' including the ship of the character played, of course, and optionally explaining how any characters were left without a ship (discarded). (Each pair may be separated into its own chapter if we prefer and need not be in the same universe necessarily, but all still only need to total at least 1k words.)

This could make for some really weird and possibly disjointed fics. If they're too disjointed, then you may have trouble getting enough upvotes, so you'd have to be creative and clever, I think, or you could write two separate fics at 1000 words each and total their upvotes. That would make it easier to get the required upvotes, but it would take longer to write, obviously.

There are also some plays that can, with a single break-up, cause even more breakups due to a large chunk of the shipping grid being separated completely from the central Fanfic Author Twilight card. I propose we ignore ships that are discarded due to that unless an author wants to address them in their fic for fun.

If this is all too much for us, we could always just say that no card abilities matter. Maybe that would be more fun, or maybe it could deprive us of some fun stories. In any case, my vote is to use the point system.

Lastly, I propose that a ship card's scenario only matter in a fic as the ship card is played to the grid, and not as attached character cards are later changed.

7) I have a completely blank account, but I wouldn't mind competing with slightly more established accounts on Fimfiction. I'd prefer to keep accounts separate, but I'm not set on it, so if other players vote against this, it's no problem at all.

8) I vote we go to as many points as the rules say, and follow all other rules as closely as possible outside of our hardcore rule expansion.

9) I'm liking this idea. I say a bonus point for making it to the feature box, but only once max per turn's worth of fics.

10) Some turns have many many more plays involved than others. Maybe we should think about setting a maximum time cap for each fic instead?

Actually, maybe we could just see how fast a single round for all players takes without a time limit, and then we could decide from there whether and how long a single play or turn should take.

10b) In case a fic doesn't meet the required number of upvotes after being published within a reasonable ammount of time (like maybe 3 days), maybe the player could have the option of either writing a second fic for the ship with no scenario requirement and totaling the upvotes for both, or they could decide to cancel their play and make a different play.

UPDATES:
8/16/14 - 6:00 a.m.
Upvotes system may be dropped.
Custom scenario system may be dropped and all ship card scenarios be required.

8/16/14 - 11:30 a.m.
Upvote requirements may be changed to a percentage of up vs down.

3541991
If no one minds, I think I'm going to go ahead and make some executive decisions so we can get this started soon.

1&2) No upvote requirement this time, but you are still strongly encouraged to write the best stories you can. (Maybe I'll give a cookie to the person with the highest overall upvote/downvote ratio.)

3) Ships will be at least 1000 words long, in line with fimfiction's rules. There is no maximum wordcount, but since we're going to be writing a lot of stories, short is good.

4) Use the scenarios in the ship cards.

5) You can combine multiple ships into one fic, but only if they are connected. For example, if you start off the game by shipping Cheerilee to Twilight and Braeburn to Cheerilee, you can put both of those in one fic. But if the next player then ships Tom with Cheerilee and Octavia with Braeburn, those must be two different fics.

6) When using a "Replace" ability, you have to write a fic for at least one of the resulting new ships. When a Changeling's ability activates and you would normally write a fic involving that changeling anyway, you must use that ability in the story (which really just means that the changeling does have to impersonate the pony you're making it impersonate). When you make a ship with a Changeling and its ability does not activate in the game, you may choose to have it impersonate anyone you please (or no one at all, if you prefer) in the story. When using a "Swap" ability, you do not have to write fics for the new pairs created by the swap. However, if you play a card with a "Swap" ability and use that ability to immediately change who that card is shipped with (for example, you either swap the card you just played with another or you swap the card you shipped it with with another), you may write the fic based on the the two ponies connected by the ship card before or after the swap. (Cards with abilities that are not technically "Swap" abilities, but that still move cards around (like Discord and Derpy) count as a "Swap" ability for the purposes of this rule). No other abilities should affect the stories you write.

7) We'll use our own accounts. Since we are no longer requiring X upvotes, this is not an issue.

8) We have four people playing, so that means the game will end at eight points.

9) Any player who gets a fic into the featurebox for any amount of time (with or without mature fics turned on) will receive one bonus point. This may only happen once per turn, and a player can receive no more than three points this way. This will be on the honor system, but screencaps and/or witnesses are nice too. (Whenever a story hits the featurebox, there's usually at least one person who will congratulate the author in the comments. Those people are very nice and convenient, no?)

10) Unless it turns out to be a problem, we will not impose any time limits on turns. But we encourage you to finish your turn in a timely manner.

11) There shall be no shame.

12) Have fun.