Signing Up

How to Sign Up

You MUST have a Dreamwidth (DW) account to participate. The event takes place on DW and you cannot participate without one. To make an account and learn how to use it, please click here.

Absolutely everyone is welcome to join the HSWC. If you have any sort of artistic talent—writing, visual art or animation, music, graphic design, voice acting, sculpting, cosplaying, fanmixing, game or website design, crocheting, mixing drinks, baking, or something not on this list—you are welcome to participate. Even if you don't want to produce any fanwork for the HSWC, you can still participate by joining Team Noir.

The total participant cap is 1,000 members. However, Team Noir has no member cap, so even if this number is reached, you can still participate in the HSWC by joining Team Noir.

Sign ups open on April 8, 2014 @ 12:05 AM UTC (convert this to your time zone here) and will last for one month (until May 8 @ 11:55 PM UTC).

We are currently building a website that will handle sign-ups, and we'll link to it all over the place (including here) when sign ups open. When the time comes, all you do is go to the sign up site and follow these steps:

1. Look at the sign up site's team roster. The roster is constantly updated so that you can see what teams exist; who is on what team; what teams are full, have room for more members, or need more members to qualify for the event; and which teams have or need Friendleaders. Feel free to peruse the roster and use the information there to help inform your sign up choices!

2. Then fill out the sign up form with the following information:

   1. Your Dreamwidth username. You did verify your DW account, right?

   2. Your e-mail address. It should be one you check regularly. It will be shared with your Friendleader so that they can contact you, but it will never be posted publicly.

   3. What team you'd like to join or create. In previous years, the sign up form asked for your top five preferred teams. This year, you nominate a single team to join. However, once you have created an initial sign up, you will be able to freely change your team assignment on the roster as many times as you wish until sign ups close, so you can be sure that you'll be on a team you'll be happy with.

      1. The sign up form will include a drop-down menu of all the already-existing teams to choose from, but you can also write a team in if you don't see your ship listed. For more info on team creation, read the Teams page and the Creating a New Team section below.

   4. Whether you would like to volunteer to be that team's Friendleader.

   5. Any noteworthy content tags or warnings that you would like to add and are not already listed in the major content tags list.

      1. Please note that the major content tags are used to warn for content that may be potentially upsetting and is not a place for sarcastic comments or jokes. Misuse of this tag request form may result in your removal from the Homestuck Shipping World Cup.

   6. A simple rules check sentence that you copy-and-paste from the Participant Agreement.

3. After you submit your sign up, you'll know it's confirmed if you can see your DW username on the team roster.

You can only participate on one team in the HSWC. (Trust us, you won't have the energy for more than one.) However, if you have a friend who can't sign up immediately and you'd like to submit a sign up on their behalf, that's fine. Remember, they have to have their own DW account!

Creating a New Team

If you don't see the team you want on the roster or you haven't heard hubbub of someone else starting a team for your ship (check the HSWC tumblr tags or hswc-team-ads for the latest gossip), you are more than welcome to start it yourself! (For more information on what ship teams are acceptable, see Teams.) You can advertise and recruit people to join your team before and during sign ups. As long as your team meets the five participant minimum before sign ups close, your ship team is cleared to compete.

There's a spot on the sign up form to indicate whether you would like to be your team's friendleader. You don't have to be your new team's friendleader if you don't want to. For more info, click here.

You MUST format your ship team name as seen here. If you mess up you can fix it on the sign up site, but it's best to get it right the first time!

Teams are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. The first thirteen people to sign up for a team are on that team. We encourage you to advertise for your team and talk to each other before the HSWC starts, but participants cannot "reserve" a spot on a team except through explicitly signing up and appearing on the team roster list. Participants also cannot know for certain that they are a team's FL until it is explicitly stated as such on the team roster. Lastly, people cannot "turn away" others from teams that have less than 13 members on the official team roster list—the only reason someone could not join a team is if that team has reached the 13-person cap, again, on the official team roster. Do not try to independently hold spots, turn people away from your team, or become angry if you are not chosen as the team FL: it runs counter to the spirit of the competition and won't do much, besides.

Joining Team Abstrata, Themed Teams, or Team Noir

("What is Team Abstrata?", "What are Themed Teams?", "What is Team Noir?")

If you want to join Team Noir, Team Abstrata, or a Themed Team, simply select the team name from the drop down menu on your sign up form. If there are multiple Abstrata teams, you can pick which team to join on the drop down menu as well.

If you are the first member of a themed team and it isn't yet on the drop-down menu, simply write it in yourself in the appropriate text box.

If Abstrata must split into sub-teams, the first group of 13 team members will be sorted into the first team, the second group into the second team, etc. The first person to volunteer for friendleadership will be FL for the first team, the second volunteer will be FL for the second team, etc.

If you sign up for Abstrata before it splits into sub-teams, keep an eye on the team roster. If you don't like the team you're placed on once sub-teams are created, you can switch which sub-team you're on throughout the sign up period. After the sign up period, however, the teams are fixed and you cannot change your team placement.

Teams Under Five Participants

If your team does not reach five members before the sign up period closes, your team will not qualify to participate in the HSWC.

If you're on a team that's too small, you will have from May 9-11 to switch to another team that has qualified for the event (including Abstrata, a Themed team, or Noir). If you do not select during this time, you will be automatically placed in Team Noir.

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