Plane of Giving 2025: Should we?

As we approach GP's birthday, I'm wondering if we want to do our Secret Santa again this year. Last year was pretty rough, with a lot of people who wanted to opt out still being counted in, bugs in the GUI, etc. So if I got the mechanisms working this year, would people be interested?

So first, the more I look at Plane of Giving, the weirder it seems. Is that the whole "say a word enough times, it stops being a real word" kinda thing? Should we change the name?

Next, lets talk about how it'd work. If we were to do it again this year, I'm thinking the following:
To join:
- You must have been on GP for at least one week
- You must have made at least 5 posts
- You must be in at least one game

From there, we go into if we want to go all digital like last year, or allow sending gifts as well. Last year, we opted not to do the latter, as we didn't want the hassle of international shipping, and breaking it down into digital, same country, and international seemed a bit rough (and potentially making very small pools). Another option would be allow everyone to receive a digital gift, and have flags for sending/receiving physical gifts, though I'd need to figure out the logic to allow that loop.

What do you folks think this time?

My suggestion would be, to join:

- Your 3 criterias, above, and;
- You would have to explicitly opt in before some date, to be defined. Everyone is out by default.

I understand this may be an extra hassle but, considering the alternative, I guess that would make it a better experience for all participants.

I think the more manual the thing is, the safer it is!

Express interest below, right here in the comments.

e.g: Count me in!

I can’t see there being an absolutely massive list of participants. Maybe 20? Then one of the mods (or someone who isn’t involved) can simply match people up using the note system. Again, right here in the comments.
"Qralloq, you buy a gift for ___"

We already have the code from last year, and fixing it should be straight forward, given what we know from last year. But even with the bugs, we had well more than 20 participants. I think it was over 80? I do want to add/track more of who sent/received something.

I'm game :)

I think it's a great idea. I enjoyed participating in it last year, and finding out about my giftee enough to provide something meaningful and possibly unexpected to them. Similarly, the gift I recieved was awesome.

I would be in, but yes, we should be sure the glitches are out this time. Otherwise, manual like KCC suggested wouldn't be too complex either

I'm definitely in! Can't wait, GP is like a second family to me 😄

Ok, I'll start working on code tomorrow, and put something on staging so we can test it. Do we want to keep the name? It's not bad, I guess, but any other suggestions?

I like the name.

I agree with KCC that doing a Secret Santa draw on this small scale is best done using an old-fashioned, manual method. No need for code.

I didn't take part last year, but I would be up for it this year.

Happy to take part 🎅

I had fun sending a present last year, and would be happy to do so again this year.

I don't mind the name. It's cute 💁‍♀️

Yes the name is fun! I get this mental image of presents floating together in the same strange planar dimension, before reaching our own reality!



(looks like AI doesn't know how to wrap presents 😅)

And finally, do we want to restrict to just virtual like last time? There was some interest in doing physical presents as well, but I'm not sure if that should be it's own sub group (all folks who want to do physical), or some other variant?

This will properly be the only secret online santa event I'm participating in this year. I'm good either physical or online.
But I somehow feel that physical givers/receivers should match physical givers/receivers and online givers/receivers should online givers/receivers.
That is a bit more hazel to make two subgroups

even more complicated if people are ok with either physical or online gift.

That's okay. Neither do I.

I have a google form ready, just a question of virtual vs virtual + physical.

Yes, I think it should be set up that people can explicitly opt into a subgroup that is OK with electronic or physical, with the default expectation being that they will be electronic presents.

Physical becomes a problem with international shipping as well. Someone might buy a $25 book and then find that it costs WAY too much money to ship it and back out as a result

So them we stick to digital only, or give the people that are willing to ship a gift the to option to ship a gift anywhere, or locally only?

That's my biggest concern; it's too small a group to group by country.

We'll go digital only. I'll have the thread up ASAP.