... a little randomosity ...

• 19Nov 09

  In case anyone was wondering ...

  ... yes, I do still exist, I just don't blog anymore.

  • Posted Nov 19, 2009 9:41 am PT
  • Category: Other
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• 25Apr 08

  Heads up for the weekend ...

  ... my queue is currently 100% empty, but I may not get a chance to check it until Monday. I'm basically working 48 hours straight, so I don't have time to sleep let alone do anything else. But everything is good right now -- all quotes, notes, trivia, allusions, cast, crew and summaries have been cleaned out completely. Have a good weekend everyone.

  Okay, here's something totally random before I toddle off for the night ... I only just now figured out how to add the beginning tagline. I've been looking at those for weeks wondering how the heck people did it. And it turns out I can put pictures up there too! Seriously, you can lead an old dog to technology but you can't make it learn.

  • Posted Apr 25, 2008 10:54 pm PT
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• 21Apr 08

  Guidelines and submissions and random chatter ...

  As I sit here at 3:25 AM clearing my queue, waiting for my toenails to dry, watching Matlock and eating Twizzlers, I'm once again inspired to remind submitters of the TV.com guidelines regarding various things. Me being me, I'm too lazy to repost things I've posted in the past, so I'll provide links.

  TV.com Guidelines Center: This is the link for the official TV.com guidelines regarding submissions. All editors are required to adhere to these guidelines.

  Quotes, Quotes and More Quotes: Quotes seem to be particularly confusing. What goes in bold, what goes in italics, etc, etc. I've expanded on the TV.com guidelines in a previous post. The explanation does not deviate in any way from the actual guidelines -- it just includes more specific examples, along with an example of what the HTML coding looks like. Something I do for my guides is use the full name of the speaker whenever it is known (ie. Olivia Benson rather than simply Benson or Olivia). This is not part of the official guidelines so I will not decline a submission if it isn't done, but I would appreciate it if it is done at submission because that means it's less time I need to take editting the queue, which means it will show up that much quicker.

  Criteria of Acceptance: Episode Submissions for NEW, unaired shows...: Basically, what this says is that in order to submit a new episode, all submissions must include a URL verifying the information as well as two of the following three: Episode Name, Episode Summary, Episode Airdate. This means that there aren't supposed to be any submissions for episodes without a title and a summary. If there aren't two of the three, it will not be approved. As an editor, I can't add those either.

  That covers the major things. As to the minor things ... please don't include page breaks or line breaks when making submissions. When you hit enter, the site actually includes it automatically -- including them with the submissions adds extra unneeded white space. The first time I'll edit it myself and advise in the comments. After that, I'm very likely to decline the submission. Same with other HTML issues, or minor things. If it can be fixed in the queue, I'll initially edit and approve it and advise. After that, I will likely decline. If I can't figure out what the heck the submission says (I've had those), I'll also decline because I need to know what's being said. If I can't figure it out, odds are other people can't either.

  There are certain things that are left up to editor's discretion. I will not add names for guest stars until the episode airs. There are a number of reasons for this -- the information can often be considered spoilerish, names can change (I've yet to find a 100% reliable source -- even network press releases can often contain inaccurate information -- this is also why I won't add names for 'recurring' characters), etc, etc, etc. I also will not add starring cast until the episode airs because it can't be 100% verified. I'd rather have the information not appear until the episode airs and be correct than be incorrect ahead of time and need to be fixed. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I will not include international airdates in notes. The primary reason for this is that there is really nowhere to draw the line -- if I include the Canadian airdate for an American show, I can't really justify not including the Argentinian, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, German or Mexican airdate as well. So the only airdate I will use is the airdate of origin on the original network. (The one exception I've made in the past was for a cancelled Canadian series where episodes aired on French television months before airing on the original network because that was a rare situation.)

  And as two final notes to submissions and the like, do not copy and paste information from other sources. This includes thefutoncritic, the IMDb, TV guides, etc, etc, etc. That information is copyrighted to those other sources and cannot be used at TV.com. All information submitted to TV.com must be 100% original. Secondly? thefutoncritic, the IMDb and Wikipedia are not primary resources. thefutoncritic and the IMDb are frequently incorrect when it comes to guest cast and character names. They're a decent back-up or verification source, but should never be the only source of information. And Wikipedia ... also good only for back-up. Anyone can and does edit Wikipedia, and unfortunately, the information is not always correct.

  ---

  Ah, all the business over with, so my final note of all ... as many of you know, I've been having some serious connection issues lately. Those appear to be fixed. Staff was aware of this, and I'm very thankful that they were so understanding -- I love the people here. If you've sent me a PM and haven't heard back, I'm slowly sifting through an extremely long list of PMs and trying to figure out what I have and haven't responded to. I'm very bad for that. If I owe you a PM, please feel free to shoot me a line and let me know that I'm behind on my responses -- it takes me forever to sift through those for some reason. My queue is completely cleared out, so there's nothing pending in there right now.

  • Posted Apr 21, 2008 3:48 am PT
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