Mod Post: You have GOT to be kidding me

[medie]

I'm not sure you guys realize this, but, um, I don't have time to be doing three and four passes through the rec categories every month, scooping up late volunteers and adding them to the list. We're hitting the busiest time of year at work, I am doing NaNoWriMo, I have a dozen other fannish commitments as well.

I am in the process of doing this month's list. I just finished the character prompts. We have, at any point, 17 character categories.

Do you know how many have volunteers for November?

3

I'm hoping things will look better when I hit the pairing categories, but I'm not holding my breath.

Whatever I find in those categories for November is it.

I will make NO second, third, and fourth passes through the categories. Any late volunteers we get will be put off until December.

This should not be a stressful process for me, people, but it is. It's frustrating. I look at the number of people watching this comm versus the number of people actually participating and I want to throw up my hands.

As it stands, we will NOT be adding any Stargate Universe categories. We may even start deleting categories out. Some of them haven't had volunteers in a year or more. The numbers just aren't there to keep them going or to add any SGU ones. Why should we? So I can comb through ten or fifteen more categories with no volunteers in them?

Communities like this run on the backs of its participants. Without your participation, there is no comm.

I like to pretend I can do everything myself, but really? I just don't have that much in me.

So, as they say, ball's in your court. What you choose to do with it is up to you.

Comments

[anotherdreamer5.livejournal.com]

How do I volunteer?

[danceswithgary]

You have my sympathy. I wish I read more than McKay/Sheppard so I could help. :-(

[tejas.livejournal.com]

I just put dibs in for Character Daniel Jackson. Thought I'd chime in here, to save you the time. I'll take November.

[hllangel]

Being relatively new to Stargate fandom in general, pretty much the only fic I read comes from this comm. Wish I could help more. I really do.

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the categories should be parsed down to something more manageable. Suggestion: nix the genre categories...and just have people use those when they tag other fics. How many fics are produced in some of the rarer pairs? If there's not much, that might explain why there's not so many reccers. Instead, there could just be a blanket "rarepair" category instead. If you need help with the behind-the-scenes stuff, I could help you.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I read very little that both doesn't come from here and doesn't belong in a category that's oversubscribed, unfortunately. I've also tried to figure out the guidelines for reccing and for volunteering and have thrown up my hands in frustration more than once. I'm sure it works — it obviously does — but I find both difficult to navigate reliably.

I know you've got an established procedure, but it would seem to me to be a lot easier to do something more like a monthly rec sign-up post. (Admin post goes up, listing categories or not, and first commenter for a given category gets it — that sort of thing.) I find it hard enough to trawl through the layers of categories to volunteer to rec; I can't imagine going through all that to find who has volunteered.

I honestly would like to help, but I don't see how I can beyond making simplistic suggestions, unfortunately.

[delphia2000.livejournal.com]

I'll chime in too that I watch so I can find good stuff to read. This is just about the only comm I have that lets me know about what's out there. Otherwise, I don't read much and don't know of things to rec. I'm not trying to be unhelpful or uncooperative and I can understand the frustration, but for those of us with limited time, this place is much appreciated.

[groovekittie.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I don't even read fic anymore. :( I have all these fic communities on my flist and I just cruise past them. I wish I could help out.

I barely write fic too, and I'm doing nano this year as well, so I feel your pain.