Two Week Time Out Made Easy

There has been a lot of questions about Two Week Time Out lately. We understand that it's hard to grasp, so I've decided to explain it clearly on a post. For now on if people ask, they'll just be directed to this post. While our initial explanation seems to cause mass confusion, my in-depth one seems to be understandable. We hope this clears up any confusion for you with all of the possible scenarios.

So...say we're starting this in the first week of a month. Here's how every possible ARCycling scenario can work out:

2 books in Week 1

• Awesome! You got two books in one week! You are now banned for week two and week three (two weeks for the time out) and you can request again week four.  

1 book in Week 1 and 1 book in Week 2

• Woo! Look at you! You still got two books, but this time it was over the course of two weeks! You are on time out for week three and week four and can request again in the metaphorical week five, meaning week one of next month. Enjoy the books!

1 Book in Week 1 and no book in Week 2

• Bummer! You didn't get your second book in week two, but your time out has still begun. Once you get book one, you have one week to get book two. No matter what, time out starts during week two, book or no book. So you are banned week three and week four and you can request again in the metaphorical week five, meaning week one of the next month. Why is this? Well, this is the only way we can keep track of things. We've giving you the opportunity to grab two books, and it is up to you to make it happen. There is only so much we can do in the name of fairness without driving ourselves insane with dates that are hard to follow.

Well, I got one book in week 1 and didn't get a book in week 2, but I want a book in week 3 because you said we can get 2 books!

• Believe it or not, we hear this a lot, so I want to qualify this. This excuse will never work out for you. Yes, you do get the chance to get 2 books, but this is 2 books in the same week or consecutive weeks. You are misunderstanding our rules. If we let you jump around weeks, the dates will get too confusing for us. We'll start missing dates, letting others take several books when they shouldn't by sheer accident, and we'll go slightly insane because we can no longer simply keep track of things. This system is tolerable for us and fair to you. So, please, be happy with it. We're getting you books! Enjoy them! 

I'm on temporary ban because I got too many books and didn't review any of them, but I've reviewed them all now, so when can I request again?

• Good question! Once we have all the reviews tweeted or e-mailed to us, you can request at the next session and then you will go back into any of the two week time out scenarios mentioned above instead of your temporary overall suspension. Review the books and you won't have to go to temporary suspension round two! 

I genuinely hope that two week time out is more comprehensible for everyone. Most people had trouble grasping bullet points three and four. If there are any remaining questions or things that you believe that we have yet to discuss, please tell us and we'll add it. Don't hesitate to e-mail us if you don't understand one of these points. We want to explain this to you so that you can keep track of your requests for yourself now instead of having to check up with us every week. For now on, all requests about suspensions will simply be responded to with this link.

Christmas break and coal in stockings.

Let's start with the coal in stockings thing. It's the less fun and more mandatory part of this post.

I've been over this before and for some of you Requesters, this ain't an issue. But for others *eyes the masses of the internet*, more of an issue. ARCycling was started to pass around REVIEW BOOKS for more REVIEW. So far we've really mastered the 'pass around REVIEW BOOKS' part. Less so on the 'for more REVIEW' part. Comprende?

Now for some easy math. I think this was covered in like elementary school? Percentages? Let's take the total number of books we had ARCycled up until two weeks ago (11/25) which 356 books. Now I don't keep exact dates of when reviews come in, but let's be nice to ourselves and say that we had 63 then (we didn't). So 63 reviews for 356 books. Even before I do the division, it looks bad, yeah? And rounding in the more optimistic numbers, that's 18%.

18%!!!! 

That's pretty bad over several months of being up. I mean, I have nothing to compare it to, but I'd LIKE for it be closer to 50%. I mean yeesh.

So, like any good company, we've come up with something to hopefully counteract this. Requesters, if you've gotten 5 or more books from ARCycling and haven't reviewed one, you're going to be temporarily banned until all of the reviews pop up. But this is easy to counteract! Review the books! I personally don't care if you say the book was such crap it isn't worth mopping a Taco Bell bathroom floor with! I'm a non-partial party here. I earn no money or popularity off these reviews. I just like reviews! That being said I know the "I don't like writing negative reviews" or "I pointed a gun to my own head and still couldn't finish it" or "I haven't gotten it yet", etc reasons. The 5:1 ratio still exists is time limitless. Especially the not gotten it. No worries if you haven't gotten it yet.

Ideally, we'd like for you to review every title you get. Even if it takes a while. Or you hire your baby sister to write something (though intelligible writing is always good for both you and me!). When you hit your 5:1 ratio, Lili will email you, wagging her finger and letting you know this is just a temporary ban! Temporary! This will also be added to the rules page for Requesters!
If this review ratio doesn't get better, we'll lower the ratio to 3:1. So there. If you regularly submit reviews, you're in no danger!

 Now for festive things!!

So, if you are still in school, you know the beauty that is getting away from responsibility of work, etc. for a few glorious weeks and doing festive things. Then you grow up, get slammed into the real world and have to work and festivity is only something you see other people doing.
Or at least, that's my life.

In order to recapture that a little bit, we'll be closing ARCycling for the Sunday before Christmas and the Sunday before New Years. I know this has been mentioned before, but this is a little more of an official post on it.

That information again: ARCycling will be closed December 23 and 30th.

Now here's the very, very, very, very important thing to keep in mind: the closing does NOT count towards Two Week Time Out. TWTO only works when there are, you know, books moving. If no books move, nothing moves. SO, if you get 2 books on December 16th (last session before closing), you will be freed from Two Time Out on January 20th.

Make sense? Yeah? Okay, now for some random cat images!









And finally, for the festive season...