After the Exchange

The exchange ends at the end of the month. Once July or January rolls around it’s time to do some housekeeping. It’s really important to fill out the exchange feedback it’s how we know who to move up and who might not be a good fit for the exchange. Letting us know about great gifters or poor ones helps make our exchange better for everyone each year.

This is very rare but does happen on occasion. Please wait until the exchange is over. Do not post anything publicly about it, as some people procrastinate until the last moment. Once the exchange is finished you will get a feedback form to fill out. Let us know on that form within 7 days and you will be assigned for makeup gifting. We make sure everyone gets something!

If you don’t get assigned to makeup gifting after 7 days then please send Ammit a private message on the forum. Sometimes I forget to check the feedback list, I will get you sorted right away.

After the exchange ends you will have two weeks to send in your feedback about your recipient and your gifter. Failure to fill out your feedback will prevent you from advancing in the exchange and repeated failures can get you banned from the gift exchange. Don’t hurt your fellow participants by failing to fill this out.

After feedback has been submitted a small team will look over everyone’s feedback and the records of what they gifted. From this, they will decide who moves up or stays at the same level. On very rare occasions they may even ban someone for doing something like not giving a single gift

It might feel a little weird knowing strangers will be looking over everything you gifted to decide if it was a “good job or not”. The audit is a ton of work and trust me I would much rather not do it, but the reality is that some people will always flake out on stuff like this and they ruin the experience for everyone else. The only way we can have an exchange as robust, generous, and long-lasting as we do is to evaluate how everyone one did.

The auditors are a group of 2 to 5 people, it varies each exchange. They go over the feedback sent and make the call about how people did. They are pointedly not allowed to be active members of the server they are auditing to make sure they have no bias about certain players.

At all levels good communication and politeness count in spades. We want this exchange to be pleasant for everyone participating.

The main they look for is if you made your recipient feel cared about. That trumps everything else. After that, they will look over what you sent to make sure you follow the basic guidelines. If you are a level 1 gifter and did those things you will get moved up to level 2. If you did not get moved up you can ask for help to figure out what went wrong.

If you are gifting and level two and did a good job you will stay at level 2. This is normal and does not mean you did anything wrong. Level 2 is the main part of the exchange and where most members participate. The auditors love it when they hear you put a lot of care in. Did you pay close attention to wishlists? Did you scope out your recipient’s barns for ideas? Were you careful and thoughtful about what you sent? All of these things are positive marks that increase your chances of being invited to level 3 in the future.

Level 3 is invitation only and it can be pretty tough to get invited to level 3. Here are some things the auditors are looking for:

• You need to show you can gift really extravagantly. Again it is not about the amount spent. Your recipient should feel like really pulled out all the stops to make them feel special. This often takes the form of some real-life money spent, and millions of hbs spent, but does not have to be that.
• Do you understand how the game works? Being game-savvy is an important part of being one of the best gifters in the game. Those members who really understand how the game works are more likely to be moved up.
• Your past performance here counts. If you have always been a lavish gifter you are more likely to be moved up than someone who has always been less so. It’s nothing personal but they want to see proof that you are going to be a good addition to level 3.
• Level 3 should be an overwhelmingly positive experience and if you can’t handle conflict in a cool-headed way level 3 is not for you. If you want advice on how to qualify for level 3 you are always welcome to ask, but making a bunch of drama over not getting moved up, or worse attacking other members over the exchange will get you blacklisted from level 3.

Something that is important to note: The auditors have notes for every single time you participate, and every time counts. If you were kind of a low-effort participant for 3 exchanges in a row you have more to prove and a harder time moving up than a person who was a super generous gifter every time.