A Caveat on Betas and Betaing

[kenazfiction.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to throw this out there, as I have in the past:

Slashy Santa tends to be a fairly incestuous (!) exchange in terms of participants. This is particularly true when it comes to Silmfic, and to stories involving Men and/or kink... there are only a few of you writing in these genres. Consider your choice of betas carefully, and whenever possible, seek someone who is NOT participating in our exchange. So far, I don't think we've had a case of someone betaing their own gift-fic, but I fret about it every year.

So, consider yourself warned. If you have questions on whether or not a particular person is a "safe" beta, by all means ask me and I'll do what I can to help... Ultimately, I'd rather a writer find out early who their recipient is than a reader find out they're reading their own story.