Just to clarify, I'm aware that "allow for people to drop out without telling you" isn't really feasible for exchange-based fics for precisely the reason you mention. That point is more related to *non*-exchange based ficathon, and some of the others are suggestions for exchange-based ficathons. For example, some people on this post have mentioned that because for them the main thing is writing they don't really mind if their prompt is fulfilled or not, and for me as well - sure, it'd be cool if I could request a fic, but the main thing I want to do is give answering a prompt a go, you know? So it doesn't *have* to be "X person must write fic, request a prompt and have that request fulfilled". Again, I've never modded one of these things so I don't know whether it would be possible/how much extra work it would be to, say, have an extra post with the various prompts so that people who haven't signed up can give it a shot anyway or match up people who say "I can't guarantee I'll be able to write fic" with people who say "I don't mind if my prompt isn't fulfilled" although I and some others are having Thinky Thoughts about a disability-themed ficathon that tries to be as accessible as possible, so we can test how this all works out in practice. None of these are ZOMG YOU MUST DO THIS IF YOU DON'T YOU SUCK FOREVER things, they are really just suggestions, but I did want to frame the discussion in such a way that people realise these are actually accessibility issues for various PWD; I can trace pretty much all of the issues I have with ficathons back to either autistic issues or depression.

And re: e-mail - the thing is that this really isn't something specific to e-mailing zomg mods zomg!! (although I admit that can be a bit intimidating in and of itself. >>) I have this issue wrt pretty much any form of e-mail beyond very informal with people I know. I really appreciate the thought, and it does really help to know that you are not going to kill me and eat me for dropping out, but it's not going to solve the issue for me. Chances are nothing will (because a lot of my social anxiety is disproportionate but is still grounded in reality - "what if I mess up some social norm that is obscure to me but where violating it will make the other person think I am deliberately incredibly rude?!" is something that has a reasonable chance of actually happening if I'm not very very careful due to autism-related issues), so I have to find ways to work around it. Hence I suggested form e-mails in the post, because really, for something like dropping out - especially if you don't want reasons - there's no *need* for the person to formulate the e-mail all on their own.

Speaking about reasons - it is awesome that you don't need any for dropping out! Do people know that beforehand? I'm asking because all of my e-mail issues will grow even worse if I'm worried about needing to explain why I'm dropping out, and if there's nothing like "we don't need to know why, we just need to know that you won't be completing this" in the rules I'll probably assume worst case scenario. :(