stargateficrec | Admin: December

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Admin: December

Okay, yesterday I did the fun part, my first rec of the month. Now I have to don the mod hat again.

The beginning of the year will bring about some changes. No worries. We always do this. We're going to have some categories moving, I'm going to open up the floor for new category requests, I'll cover some things that I cover just about every month because people still continue to make the 'mistakes', and finally some fun stuff. *g*

1. Categories Moving

The categories that will be shifting to the 'Other' category are BDSM, Angst, and Action/Adventure in the Genre section. In the Pairing section, we'll be moving John Sheppard/Aidan Ford, John Sheppard/Ronon Dex, Rodney McKay/Ronon Dex, Cameron Mitchell/Carolyn Lam, Daniel Jackson/Janet Fraiser, and Teal'c/Samantha Carter.

If you really want to save these categories as their own, each will need a volunteer for at least three months before we assign rec'cers for January. Some of these categories have never had a rec'cer before. Some have rec'cers so rarely that no one has signed up for MONTHS. If we aren't going to use them, we'll move them. You'll still be able to rec, but you'll have to sign up in the 'Genre: Other' or 'Pairing: Other' section.

2. Category Suggestions

Since we have the potential to move out nine categories, I'm going to open it up for suggestions on new categories. Please understand though, just because it is requested doesn't mean it will become a category. Interest is the key determination. [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and I will go over the requests and decide which ones to offer trial runs to before anything becomes official. I don't think I've actually done this as an open forum before, so I'm sure there will be kinks in the system. Bear with us. I just want to try something new.

3. Regular Reminders

I hope everyone is still reading. There are a few things I want to touch upon and they are important.

When To Request

I still think that there's confusion on when you can request to rec. Basically, you can request WHENEVER. The links to the categories are on the user info page. Just go there, click the link 'Volunteer To Be A Rec'cer' and go there to rec. For some reason, I guess people seem to think they have to wait until I put up the link post to volunteer. You don't have to do that. Just go and get your name in line. Easy squeezy. If you sign up after the first of the month, you're running the risk that [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] won't get the email notification. (This happens a lot with her LJ.) If she doesn't reply, it merely means that she didn't get the notification and you didn't sign up until after she went through the categories. She goes through all of them once, and then uses the email notification system for anyone who signs up at the beginning of the month. I'm perfectly fine with that method. There are a lot of categories, and she's on dial up. So the best way to make sure you get signed up for a category is to sign up as soon as possible!

Requesting A Month

I say this every month, and every month people do it. Now, people are starting not to receive the months they request and they're confused as to why they aren't getting their months. Basically, it doesn't matter if you request, say, January. If there is someone in line ahead of you, they'll get it before you. It is first come/first served. It's the only fair way to go about it.

An example of a request:

I'd like to take a turn at rec'cing Jack O'Neill.

That's all it takes. A lot of circumstances can determine that if you put in this request:

I'd like to rec Jack O'Neill for January.

You may not get to do it in January. So it's best to just use something like the first one.

Posting Rec's

DO NOT wait until the end of the month to post your recs. Flooding the comm with numerous recs in one day floods people's flists. I do realize that sometimes things come up, but if you put up a rec once a week, it isn't a burden. If you can post an entry in your LJ, you can quickly put up a rec! ;) If you find you haven't put up ANY rec's by the mid-month admin, email either myself (angelsgracie @ livejournal.com) or [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] may contact you to find out what's up. *g* I really don't want all four recs done on the last day of the month. We're willing to work with anyone, just let us know!

A Note Of Thanks

I want to thank everyone who responded to my appreciation post with their notes of thanks. It's nice to hear that people think we're doing a good job. We really want to make this comm the best it can be and everything we do works towards that!

Membership

We're up to 550+ members!!!! I'm soooooooooooooo excited. The membership has grown by soooo many these past couple years!

November Recs

Last, but not least, BIG KUDOS to our rec'cers last month. We had 22 categories rec'ced last month. Of those, 20 fulfilled and/or surpassed their commitment. That is simply AMAZING!!!!. Only one person only did one rec. It was a popular category too so I'm hoping this month it will bounce back. And only one category had no rec, but that person doesn't seem to even be watching the comm anymore. So I am soooooooooooooo excited with these stats. You guys did an EXCELLENT job!!! It's a challenge for the December rec'cers to beat that! *g*

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I had so much fun last month reccing away for my category - I had to restrain myself from posting too many :P I've got the reccing bug...

I really like the category system as it is - seeing as Category: Other, allows for some of the more obscure pairings/genres.

I'll suggest a Friendship: Team category, cos there's a lot of great fics out there that explore that dynamic (but it might be a bit close to Genre: Gen, which is already there on it's own) :D

Friendship: Team is interesting. Although like you say, it is like Gen. The Friendship categories have been lacking rec'cers as of late, especially Jack and Sam. But I am in the process of working on something in the 'Team' arena, so we'll see what we can do for you!

*grins*

I'll have to keep a lookout for some fics that fall into the Jack/Sam friendship category - seeing as Gen is my absolute favourite type of fic to seek out. :D

(deleted comment)

Whenever you get the time, you're more than welcome to sign up and rec. :)

And thank you for the kind words. I appreciate them!

Could we have Episode Related Category in the cycle?

We started taking it over in the Genre:"Other" category for a few months last year, I felt guilty about signing up for it again, but if it's part of the regular rotation, no guilt! LOL

Actually, we had an Episode Related/Episode Tag category and it ended up being moved for lack of interest. It seemed to gain interest once we moved it. However, I'll put it on the list to bring it back because it did pick up interest over the year.

I wound up being one rec short dammit! It took me a few tries to get the hang of it, hopefully I can take another stab at it and do better next time. I saved my written instructions so I will be prepared. *G*

You can volunteer any time you want! :)

*perks up* I'd be up for reccing femslash as a category all its own. Maybe a femslash: other category for pairings?

I think this one came up with someone else before. I categorize all slash as slash whether the partners are both boys or both girls. We do have one f/f pairing that is a category all its own (Sam/Janet). I would be more than willing to set up more f/f pairings if people show interest in them. But femmeslash itself really does fall in the 'slash' category because I've never separated male and female pairings in the Slash: Other category.

But like I said, if you want to suggest possible f/f pairings for 'Pairings', I'm sooooo game for that!

Yeah, it was with someone else, because I didn't know you'd felt that way--otherwise I would have suggested just the specific pairings! Thanks for explaining the reasoning behind it, though, because I do appreciate that.

As to other pairings, I think Sam/Vala is getting to be fairly common, and maybe Teyla/Elizabeth or Teyla/Sora. Or maybe a crossover slash pairing category--I know more than a few people who're into Sam Carter/Kara Thrace, or Sam Carter/Sarah Mackenzie.

But whatever works! Thanks!

Okay! I'm going to add Sam/Vala and Elizabeth/Teyla to the possible categories. The suggestion of Crossover pairings is an interesting one. I'm definitely going to give it some thought and run it by [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] to see what we can come up with.

Honestly, I have no idea if there will be enough reccers to rec crossover pairings, but I thought it sounded interesting enough to suggest, at least.

I realize it's not possible to go back and separate out the memories and tags, but if there's a real interest in femslash, would having two people a month doing slash, one femslash and one m/m slash be workable? We already have a femslash tag and we could continue to place all slash recs, regardless of pairing's sex, in the "Slash" memories.

I'm not certain what percentage of the comm reads f/f; I have the impression it's a smaller corner of the fandom than m/m (but I don't know that for a fact). It seems as if there are quite a few slash pairings that get little to no love and I worry that expanding to very specific pairings in femslash would just make for more "dead" categories. I know when I rec'ed John/Aiden, I quickly ran up against choosing between "well, here's another story by the same author for all the other recs I've done" vs. not meeting the minimum. Rec'ing 1 or 2 good John /Aiden stories as part of doing a general "slash" month of recs worked better for me.

I can see, though, where that would screw up the system and you'd be eternally telling everyone where to look for f/f recs prior to rec'ing and so on. The tagging will be the same so it's no diff to me. I just don't know if having categories that have a rec'er maybe half the time but are separated works better than having a single category more likely to have a rec'er each month - but more likely to involve moderator time.

I really don't want to start a precident of having more than one rec'cer in a category a month, and that takes us right back to separating m/m slash from f/f slash. Slash is slash as far as that category whether the pairing is both male or both female. We don't separate by gender. If someone signs up for slash, they can rec any pairing so long as both people are of the same gender. I've never put a restriction on that. I've never said it had to be one or the other. In the 'Genre' category, the Slash section has always been open to whatever pairings the rec'cer wants to choose. I really don't want to put restrictions on it.

We have had some people sign up for more obscure pairings, and when they do, we've been flexible in the four minimum recs. It's quality that we want and we realize that with some of the requests, there aren't going to be as many recs. I'm rec'cing just such a category this month myself. We have, in the past, allowed a single rec'cer to rec two different pairings if the fanfiction just isn't out there.

As for the 'Slash' category, I'm going to leave that one as it is. It's not one that's been limited to one specific pairing and is a great way to get the rarely written pairings into the recs.

If we don't beat last month, I'll be shocked. My little tagging fingers are worn to nubbins and it's only the 6th of the month! Woo hoo! The other thing I like is I'm seeing a lot of interaction, with people telling rec'ers they liked a story and just generally enjoying the fics as a community. :) :)

I'd like to rec a series........I'd like to do a LOT of things on LJ, but I don't know HOW. But there's noone around willing to teach me these things. Would anybody like to volunteer. It's not like I'm not computer literate but LJ tends to confuse me GREATLY.

I don't know that I have the knowledge to help you but I'm happy to try. What sort of things do you need help learning?

Just about everything potentially, but mostly I'm having trouble making posts with LJ cuts right now. But I REALLY need someone to hold my hand through an IM to take me through the process a few times. I have a physical condition which makes learning some things difficult. I may have to ask you to lead me through a certain process a number of times till i get it right every time. I detest appearing ignorant to the masses but I have noone to help me the way I need the help, one on one, step by step.

And could SOMEBODY tell me how many k a word file can be before it's too big to go into a post? Or number of characters or something? I keep getting the "too big" error.

thank you

I'm not an IM person and I'll tell you up front that I'm very distracted at this time of year and know nothing about conditions that can make it difficult to learn things. If that's all right with you, I'm still happy to try to help. If you find someone else who can do better, just let me know and I'll stop trying to help. :)

To keep from appearing ignorant in public, I suggest you practive making cuts using your own journal. Just set the security level on your practice post to, "private." You can post anything you want and nobody but you will see it. If you get it wrong, no big deal! Just edit until it's what you want.

Making an LJ-Cut is fairly easy, especially if you're familiar with HTML. I'm going to assume you are not so forgive me if I over-explain.

You use tags to tell a program how to display something in a manner that is different from normal. If you respond to this comment, look at the e-mail that LJ send to you. See where it quotes what I typed? Before and after the word "tags" in the 1st paragraph of this sentence, you'll see some code that told the browser to show the word in italics. That code is the tag.

For every tag you open, you must close it. You do this by adding a backslash to the start of the tag code. That's what the tag I added after the word, "tags" is: a closing tag for italics.

If you know this pattern, then all you need to know is what the little code is for an LJ Cut. Substitute < for [ and > for ] in your code. I have to use brackets or else it tries to apply the code rather than show it. The code looks like this:

This is the lead-in info.
[lj-cut]This is the stuff that gets hidden.[/lj-cut]
And this is the that doesn't.

On your post, you'd see...

This is the lead-in info.
(more...)
And this is the that doesn't.

When you preview the post, it does not show you the LJ-Cut, which makes it hard to be 100% certain. However, if you've gotten the coding wrong, it'll immediately be obvious because you typically get a, "...irreparable error in...user must fix..." instead of a post to proof. Before I felt comfortable witht he system, I posted everything that had a cut as private first, check it, and THEN edit the security to make it public.

The LiveJournal FAQ (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faq.bml) is, at best, a work in progress but sometimes it will answer your question. The maximum size of a post? I don't see it. I don't post stories so I've never choked on it. I'd say a good, general rule is what, 10 pages? But I certainly do not know that answer to that.

Thank you for the lovely packages you gave me on my user info page. It was a lovely surprise. Thank you for your generosity. I'm looking forward to a whole new year of excellent stories. :)

*HUGS*

You're welcome! I'm glad you like them. I love those virtual gifts. They're fun! I'm looking forward to a new year too... some fun changes ahead! :)

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Admin: December

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Woeful newbie

Re: Woeful newbie

Re: Woeful newbie

Re: Woeful newbie

THANK YOU!!!

Re: THANK YOU!!!