It's Not Easy Being Green

Okay, you know what? I'm demystifying the spnnewsletter. For anyone interested, or uninterested because it won't help their cause of getting AS MUCH ATTENTION AS POSSIBLE, this is what each of the seven coders does once a week.

1. We go to spn_watcher's friends list - this is the list of communities and private journals we watch. There's 533 communities and individual livejournals friended there. And you think they're ALL our friends? I don't know most of the people I link to every week. Most of the most prolific Supernatural posters are not on my friends list.
2. We go back to the page where the last newsletter lives. For me, the lowest number of skips I've had to do was skip=300, and the most was skip=450.
3. We open an Update Journal page (or a Word document, or something to type in anyway) and using this format we separate the links into categories.

WHAT LINKING ENTAILS:
For each fic link (the ones that take the longest) we have to copy the link and the title, find the rating, find the pairing, and figure out how to spell the person's username (because they usually don't write it out again so we can just copy-paste. To those who do, THANKYOU.) We also have to figure out which category it goes in - if there's even a whiff of Wincest I put it in Sam/Dean, if there's a crossover or unusual pairing it has to go in Other, etc. etc. For non-fic links, we have to figure out what it is we're linking to, figure where it goes in the newsletter (not always easy) and we don't link off-LJ, so we have to link to the person's LiveJournal and say who posted it. Sometimes we post repeats.

4. If the link does NOT have any of the information we use - for instance in fanfic if it doesn't have a recognised rating, a link to the fic, or a pairing - we DON'T LINK IT. You know what? Because there's already about skip=350 OTHER posts to look at and we're not going to spend an extra five minutes figuring out the rating and pairing of that one fic, especially since some of us don't like to read certain pairings or ratings.
5. I imagine others may do this earlier, but about 2 or 3 hours later when I've finished wading through all those pages, I go to the comments to the previous newsletter and add all those links in the appropriate category. At this stage I'm usually pretty tired and interesting in doing ANYTHING but coding, so again if your comment has no link or pairing or description or rating, I DON'T LINK IT.
6. I fix whatever myriad mistakes in the coding I've made this time - usually I try to preview the post, but sometimes I don't remember and it goes out into the world with a bad tag. THIS IS AN ACCIDENT, not an intentional ploy to destroy your friends list. Have patience, I will fix it.

All of that is just what I do on Wednesday afternoons, as one coder. The mods have a harder job in terms of decided what to add to the spn_watcher friends list, take care of the badly behaved commenters, and generally keep things in order. It's a huge job. Some nutters even do it twice a week because they don't want you lot to miss out!

Unsurprisingly, sometimes we miss a post, or make mistakes. We're only humans doing the Supernatural fandom a FREAKING HUGE FAVOUR, after all. I don't mind doing it, I find all sorts of interesting things and it keeps me involved and active, but quit being whiny bitches when it doesn't go your way. One politely-worded, correctly linked comment in the post will do wonders for you.

It's not like journal readers can't go to the userinfo to find out what our rules are, and it's not like the rules are hard to follow, either. You can also see exactly how many people OTHER THAN YOU are enjoying the newsletter (2938, for those of you not willing to click a link). We have to worry about making sure everybody's happy, and included, and getting out of it a comprehensive list of the goings-on the in Supernatural fandom. Look at how many people have put so many hours into keeping that going for you (and I swear, the newsletter gets longer every week) and then complain about your one fic not being included because your header was wrong.

To quote kroki_refur, the recent wank gets the ( Fabulous Drunk!Sam Seal of Disapproval )

ETA: on a happier note, OMG DIRECTOR'S CUTS! Very cute. Glad they're over that whole ( spoilers for Heart )

ETA2: You're all really sweet, but I didn't really do this for attention for me, not half because that would make me as bad as the person I'm complaining about. I figure if people know how much effort we all put in (including truffle_shuffle, monkiedude, marishna, bunnymcfoo, clex_monkie89, innide_darling, researchgrrrl, vylit, winterlive, and estrella30) they would at least understand the process, see that it isn't elitist and see how much work we put in.
Also, A"LKHAFLKJHSD:FKJHSDF CHRIS LOWELL HOLY PIZ. WOOOOOOW.

Green Queen