Mod post: SPN Newsletter FAQ
With the new season coming we wanted to have a post up to help people out since this fandom is growing every single day and we see the way things change first hand. This FAQ is to help you, as the people creating the various contributions, and us, as the people who bring those contributions to the fandom at large.
Please take five minutes to review this post and look over the different points. There's no changes from the way we've been doing this over the past two and a half years, it's just all down on paper, so to speak, so everyone's on the same page.
Please DO NOT leave any links to submissions here. They WILL NOT be gathered and added to an edition. Read the post and find out where they go.
Podfic/Podbook makers Please be aware that those submissions fall under the requirements for regular fiction now. Read over that section to familiarize yourself with what's all included with that to be included in the newsletter.
So, what’s this thing again?
spnnewsletter is the current fandom newsletter for Supernatural. We were preceded by sn_newsletter. spnnewsletter started posting editions on February 17, 2006.
Our daily posts include all links we can find since the previous edition that involve Supernatural, pending a few exceptions that are outlined below. We try to bring every piece of Supernatural news and fannish creation we can possibly include to the fandom at large.
How do I submit something to the newsletter?
Two options:
1) Crosspost your contribution to one of the MANY communities we watch from the spn_watcher flist. If it's there, we'll get it (provided your contribution has the information we need).
2) If we've missed you in the previous edition or you haven't crossposted at all, you can comment to our most recent edition and we'll get you that way. Please only comment if you posted prior to the most recent edition and we missed you. For instance, if the newsletter is posted at 7:01pm on Sunday night and you post something at 7:15pm Sunday night, do NOT comment to make sure we won’t miss you on Monday. Please wait until the Monday edition is posted. If we have missed you in that edition, then comment.
Why do I have to wait for the most recent newsletter to comment with my link?
Honestly, because most people crosspost like a mofo. When we're coding and we have to slog through sometimes upwards of 250-500 posts a day and a lot of them are duplicates (or triplicates/quadruplicates/etc), to see the same fic we've already caught and linked posted in the comments gets a little irksome. Trust that we'll see your fic if you've crossposted it and if we haven't, comment and we'll grab it the next day, easy peasy.
What do I need to do to get linked in an edition?
Basically- do something related to SPN! Fic, icons, meta, fanmixes, art, vids, etc, etc that has been created and posted, within a few days to a week of the most current edition.
Beyond that we do have some guidelines:
Fan Fiction (including Podifcs/books):
Your fic MUST include a title, rating and pairing OR the statement of an absence of a pairing ("gen" or "no pairing"). We will NOT link a fic without these three things. The rating must be one found in the MPAA rating guide (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) for ease of linking and because they're the most widely understood. We also accept the rating of "adult".
- Posting your fic to a Sam/Dean community, an RPF (Real Person Fiction) or a gen community doesn’t exclude the fic from requiring an indication of pairing/no pairing because sometimes fic gets crossposted mistakenly. We will refuse to link your fic without those three requirements, no ifs, ands or buts. So spell it out for us--Sam/Dean, Jared/Jensen, Jared/Jeffrey Dean Morgan, etc, etc.
- The fic must be behind an lj-cut. Find out how to do one here.
- We don't link to drabbles.
- We remove everything down to the base URL, including cutids and reply links. This leads readers directly to the header of a fic so they're aware what they clicked, in case there is more information we haven't included in the NL (kinks, genderswap, bdsm, etc) or they've clicked the wrong link mistakenly. This is to cover our butts and also to make the reader responsible for what they're clicking.
- "Wincest" is not a valid pairing listing. Wincest can refer to Sam/Dean OR Sam/John, Dean/John, Sam/Dean/John, etc. We do not make assumptions about your fic so if you have "Wincest" listed as the pairing we will pass it by until we see it listed as Sam/Dean.
Fanart/Icons
Any icons and fanart must be labeled for potential spoilers (anything that hasn’t aired in North America) and, if there is a pairing or something explicit in the fanart, a note of the rating and pairing so we can list it properly for the newsletter readers.
The more information you can give us, the easier our job is.
Multimedia
Covers fandom contributions created in different media from fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc. Can include things from podfics (which fall under the qualifications that regular fic require), fanmixes, original songs, etc.
Again, more information is always welcome and greatly appreciated.
Where do you get the links that make up the newsletter every day?
We have a journal, spn_watcher, that we've friended people and communities with. We collect links from the friends list in that journal every day and from the comments of the previous edition.
I posted something a few months ago that I'm just crossposting to communities now. Will you link me?
Sorry, no. We do not link to older contributions because we aim to stay current with fandom and because there’s a chance the items were already linked when they were originally posted. We also try to only link to something once within the newsletter.
When you crosspost links please link to the actual journal entry and not your whole journal/community/month/day/tag/etc. If we have to look for your contribution, even if it's only a couple entries down in your journal, we won't link it so it doesn’t delay our coding.
I have something I want linked on another journal site like JournalFen, InsaneJournal or GreatestJournal. How do I get it linked?
You don't, unfortunately. We're an LJ-based newsletter and for the foreseeable future are staying that way. If we had to watch three other sites for information we'd never get an edition done. If you post a fic to your own personal website (not fanfiction.net or another archive site) and crosspost the fic to LJ we will link to the LJ post where the link to the offsite fic is, but not to any other journaling systems.
Hey! I listed gen and Sam/Dean in my fic but it was mostly gen! You put it under Sam/Dean! Why?
Gen means general, or an absence of pairing. If you've listed ANY pairing in your fic it will go under the appropriate header. It's rather impossible for your fic to be both.
My fic is mostly Sam/Jess [or Dean/John or John/Mary or Bobby/9-tentacled ominipus, etc] and a little Sam/Dean- why did you put it in Sam/Dean?
When a fic has Sam/Dean listed as a pairing, even if it’s only hinted at, we automatically put it in that category and list the other pairings with the rating. This is to save us a lot of heartache and hassle.
Why don't you link to episode reviews anymore?
Have you ever seen how many people review an episode in the 24 hours after it airs? We already have two issues on Fridays, one in the morning and one in the evening, because of the higher volume of posts after a new episode. If we had to code the episode reviews on top of it all we'd all likely have a breakdown.
To get around this issue we put up an episode review post on show night (new episodes only) and people can comment with links to their reviews back to their journals/communities. We don't allow the actual reviews to be posted in the comments, but the links are fine. It's easier on us and keeps them up to date and together for everyone else looking to read them.
What's your spoiler policy?
If it hasn't aired yet in North America it MUST be cut and labeled. Period. This is to protect the people who read the newsletter from being spoiled as well as the compilers who want to be spoiler-free. If we discover a post that hasn't been indicated as containing unaired spoilers or has uncut spoilery information we will automatically ban that person indefinitely from being linked in the newsletter. No exceptions.
I have a journal/community I'd like you to watch so you don't miss me!
Great! Please be aware that if you have a journal you'd like us to watch but you crosspost your fandom stuff anywhere and everywhere, that will just be one more place for us to watch unnecessarily. We prefer watching communities BECAUSE people crosspost there and it cuts way down on the personal journals we have to watch. But basically if you have a recs/graphics/fic comm/journal, etc, or post exclusively to your own journal/community please let us know either at spn_watcher, or on the most recent edition of the newsletter.
You're a fandom service. Shouldn't you link to whatever people post?
The coders who work on this newsletter do so out of their own free time. We have the rules we do to make coding as easy as possible on ourselves, the readers and the submitters.
Hey! I have a comment/suggestion/criticism/heap of praise for you!
Great! Feel free to comment to this post. Please don’t leave links to your submissions there, however, as this is not where links should be left and we likely won’t get it in enough time to include it.
I left a comment/suggestion/criticism/heap of praise for you guys but no one got back to me!
Bear with us! As mentioned above, we do this in our free time and sometimes the suggestion post gets missed, but we do TRY to check it regularly. You might also want to check if you have comment emails enabled because we screen the comments on that post. If you don't get them emailed you won't be able to see the comment back to you.
I left a link in the suggestion post for you to put something in the newsletter but it never went up!
Links left for the newsletter in the comment/suggestion post likely won't be seen for a few days or more after you've posted it. For a more prompt response please post your links in the comments of the most recent newsletter.
You didn’t address a question/issue/concern I have!
Leave a comment to this post and we can answer it for you to the best of our abilities as soon as possible.
Beyond all these guidelines the spnnewsletter reserves the right to refuse to link anything we see that may not fit within these guidelines, may bring about controversy/wank or if we're unsure what it's about/where it goes. Clarification is allowed but due to time constraints it's up to the creator to initiate it
On top of that, all of the coders are only human. We do this after work/school, in our spare time, in a rush to make sure it goes up, etc, etc. We make mistakes. We miss things. We put things in the wrong place. If any of that happens leave us a quick, polite note and we'll fix it. It may not be instantaneous, but it will be fixed. Being polite to the coders goes a long way, and while isn't quite as memorable as the people who are rude to us, is MUCH more appreciated. ;)
Please take five minutes to review this post and look over the different points. There's no changes from the way we've been doing this over the past two and a half years, it's just all down on paper, so to speak, so everyone's on the same page.
Please DO NOT leave any links to submissions here. They WILL NOT be gathered and added to an edition. Read the post and find out where they go.
Podfic/Podbook makers Please be aware that those submissions fall under the requirements for regular fiction now. Read over that section to familiarize yourself with what's all included with that to be included in the newsletter.
So, what’s this thing again?
spnnewsletter is the current fandom newsletter for Supernatural. We were preceded by sn_newsletter. spnnewsletter started posting editions on February 17, 2006.
Our daily posts include all links we can find since the previous edition that involve Supernatural, pending a few exceptions that are outlined below. We try to bring every piece of Supernatural news and fannish creation we can possibly include to the fandom at large.
How do I submit something to the newsletter?
Two options:
1) Crosspost your contribution to one of the MANY communities we watch from the spn_watcher flist. If it's there, we'll get it (provided your contribution has the information we need).
2) If we've missed you in the previous edition or you haven't crossposted at all, you can comment to our most recent edition and we'll get you that way. Please only comment if you posted prior to the most recent edition and we missed you. For instance, if the newsletter is posted at 7:01pm on Sunday night and you post something at 7:15pm Sunday night, do NOT comment to make sure we won’t miss you on Monday. Please wait until the Monday edition is posted. If we have missed you in that edition, then comment.
Why do I have to wait for the most recent newsletter to comment with my link?
Honestly, because most people crosspost like a mofo. When we're coding and we have to slog through sometimes upwards of 250-500 posts a day and a lot of them are duplicates (or triplicates/quadruplicates/etc), to see the same fic we've already caught and linked posted in the comments gets a little irksome. Trust that we'll see your fic if you've crossposted it and if we haven't, comment and we'll grab it the next day, easy peasy.
What do I need to do to get linked in an edition?
Basically- do something related to SPN! Fic, icons, meta, fanmixes, art, vids, etc, etc that has been created and posted, within a few days to a week of the most current edition.
Beyond that we do have some guidelines:
Fan Fiction (including Podifcs/books):
Your fic MUST include a title, rating and pairing OR the statement of an absence of a pairing ("gen" or "no pairing"). We will NOT link a fic without these three things. The rating must be one found in the MPAA rating guide (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) for ease of linking and because they're the most widely understood. We also accept the rating of "adult".
- Posting your fic to a Sam/Dean community, an RPF (Real Person Fiction) or a gen community doesn’t exclude the fic from requiring an indication of pairing/no pairing because sometimes fic gets crossposted mistakenly. We will refuse to link your fic without those three requirements, no ifs, ands or buts. So spell it out for us--Sam/Dean, Jared/Jensen, Jared/Jeffrey Dean Morgan, etc, etc.
- The fic must be behind an lj-cut. Find out how to do one here.
- We don't link to drabbles.
- We remove everything down to the base URL, including cutids and reply links. This leads readers directly to the header of a fic so they're aware what they clicked, in case there is more information we haven't included in the NL (kinks, genderswap, bdsm, etc) or they've clicked the wrong link mistakenly. This is to cover our butts and also to make the reader responsible for what they're clicking.
- "Wincest" is not a valid pairing listing. Wincest can refer to Sam/Dean OR Sam/John, Dean/John, Sam/Dean/John, etc. We do not make assumptions about your fic so if you have "Wincest" listed as the pairing we will pass it by until we see it listed as Sam/Dean.
Fanart/Icons
Any icons and fanart must be labeled for potential spoilers (anything that hasn’t aired in North America) and, if there is a pairing or something explicit in the fanart, a note of the rating and pairing so we can list it properly for the newsletter readers.
The more information you can give us, the easier our job is.
Multimedia
Covers fandom contributions created in different media from fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc. Can include things from podfics (which fall under the qualifications that regular fic require), fanmixes, original songs, etc.
Again, more information is always welcome and greatly appreciated.
Where do you get the links that make up the newsletter every day?
We have a journal, spn_watcher, that we've friended people and communities with. We collect links from the friends list in that journal every day and from the comments of the previous edition.
I posted something a few months ago that I'm just crossposting to communities now. Will you link me?
Sorry, no. We do not link to older contributions because we aim to stay current with fandom and because there’s a chance the items were already linked when they were originally posted. We also try to only link to something once within the newsletter.
When you crosspost links please link to the actual journal entry and not your whole journal/community/month/day/tag/etc. If we have to look for your contribution, even if it's only a couple entries down in your journal, we won't link it so it doesn’t delay our coding.
I have something I want linked on another journal site like JournalFen, InsaneJournal or GreatestJournal. How do I get it linked?
You don't, unfortunately. We're an LJ-based newsletter and for the foreseeable future are staying that way. If we had to watch three other sites for information we'd never get an edition done. If you post a fic to your own personal website (not fanfiction.net or another archive site) and crosspost the fic to LJ we will link to the LJ post where the link to the offsite fic is, but not to any other journaling systems.
Hey! I listed gen and Sam/Dean in my fic but it was mostly gen! You put it under Sam/Dean! Why?
Gen means general, or an absence of pairing. If you've listed ANY pairing in your fic it will go under the appropriate header. It's rather impossible for your fic to be both.
My fic is mostly Sam/Jess [or Dean/John or John/Mary or Bobby/9-tentacled ominipus, etc] and a little Sam/Dean- why did you put it in Sam/Dean?
When a fic has Sam/Dean listed as a pairing, even if it’s only hinted at, we automatically put it in that category and list the other pairings with the rating. This is to save us a lot of heartache and hassle.
Why don't you link to episode reviews anymore?
Have you ever seen how many people review an episode in the 24 hours after it airs? We already have two issues on Fridays, one in the morning and one in the evening, because of the higher volume of posts after a new episode. If we had to code the episode reviews on top of it all we'd all likely have a breakdown.
To get around this issue we put up an episode review post on show night (new episodes only) and people can comment with links to their reviews back to their journals/communities. We don't allow the actual reviews to be posted in the comments, but the links are fine. It's easier on us and keeps them up to date and together for everyone else looking to read them.
What's your spoiler policy?
If it hasn't aired yet in North America it MUST be cut and labeled. Period. This is to protect the people who read the newsletter from being spoiled as well as the compilers who want to be spoiler-free. If we discover a post that hasn't been indicated as containing unaired spoilers or has uncut spoilery information we will automatically ban that person indefinitely from being linked in the newsletter. No exceptions.
I have a journal/community I'd like you to watch so you don't miss me!
Great! Please be aware that if you have a journal you'd like us to watch but you crosspost your fandom stuff anywhere and everywhere, that will just be one more place for us to watch unnecessarily. We prefer watching communities BECAUSE people crosspost there and it cuts way down on the personal journals we have to watch. But basically if you have a recs/graphics/fic comm/journal, etc, or post exclusively to your own journal/community please let us know either at spn_watcher, or on the most recent edition of the newsletter.
You're a fandom service. Shouldn't you link to whatever people post?
The coders who work on this newsletter do so out of their own free time. We have the rules we do to make coding as easy as possible on ourselves, the readers and the submitters.
Hey! I have a comment/suggestion/criticism/heap of praise for you!
Great! Feel free to comment to this post. Please don’t leave links to your submissions there, however, as this is not where links should be left and we likely won’t get it in enough time to include it.
I left a comment/suggestion/criticism/heap of praise for you guys but no one got back to me!
Bear with us! As mentioned above, we do this in our free time and sometimes the suggestion post gets missed, but we do TRY to check it regularly. You might also want to check if you have comment emails enabled because we screen the comments on that post. If you don't get them emailed you won't be able to see the comment back to you.
I left a link in the suggestion post for you to put something in the newsletter but it never went up!
Links left for the newsletter in the comment/suggestion post likely won't be seen for a few days or more after you've posted it. For a more prompt response please post your links in the comments of the most recent newsletter.
You didn’t address a question/issue/concern I have!
Leave a comment to this post and we can answer it for you to the best of our abilities as soon as possible.
Beyond all these guidelines the spnnewsletter reserves the right to refuse to link anything we see that may not fit within these guidelines, may bring about controversy/wank or if we're unsure what it's about/where it goes. Clarification is allowed but due to time constraints it's up to the creator to initiate it
On top of that, all of the coders are only human. We do this after work/school, in our spare time, in a rush to make sure it goes up, etc, etc. We make mistakes. We miss things. We put things in the wrong place. If any of that happens leave us a quick, polite note and we'll fix it. It may not be instantaneous, but it will be fixed. Being polite to the coders goes a long way, and while isn't quite as memorable as the people who are rude to us, is MUCH more appreciated. ;)