I reserve the right to decline any request or move writers around as necessary to ensure that the teams are fair and balanced. While I will do my best to accommodate requests, it will disrupt the activity to have, say, five people on one team and two on another, or to have multiple writers with prolific output on the same team.

This year is a trial run and will determine whether this accommodation will be provided in the future. Any indication that this is a bad idea (including, but not limited to excessive lobbying, unbalanced or aggressive teams, pressuring other team members to switch with your friends, etc.) will result in this experiment being a one-off.

Part of the fun of this activity (IMHO, at least) is getting teamed up with people you might not otherwise know on the site. In each of the nine years I've run this, I've made at least one new friend among my Write-A-Thon teammates. So before you start strategizing about how to get all your close friends on the same team, I'd ask you to seriously consider the community aspect. I get wanting to have a friend to participate with, but it's also not so hard to make a new friend on your own Red Team while cheering on your friend on the Green team. This isn't cutthroat Game of Thrones, people!