OT: Newbie Welcome and Invitation

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Hi there!

For the new folks around here, let me introduce myself. I'm Dan, your
moderator (well, one of them, anyway) and I've been noticing that we've
been picking up a bunch of new members since the last time I wrote one
of these, so I thought I'd say "welcome!" to all the new people here.

Welcome!

Now a few of you have already posted (Hi to Gussi, chxenocide, dee,
Jude, and buffy_sd1 !!), and it's been great hearing from you. But
while others may prefer to merely lurk, I'd like to extend an invitation
and some encouragement for all of you to introduce yourself and join in,
either with fics you have written, feedback for other authors' fics, or
discussion about the show. All of these are important parts of keeping
this list active and interesting and everybody's contributions are
welcome.

If you're going to introduce yourself, here are some things you can talk
about, if you'd like:

Who you are; where you're from; when you started watching "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer"; when you first became interested in the idea of Buffy
and Willow being romantically involved; why you think they'd be a good
couple; favorite moments, episodes, or seasons from the show, either in
regards to the B/W 'ship (shorthand for "relationship") or just
generally; whether you plan to write fanfic for us; fanfics you have
enjoyed; fanfics you'd like to see written (challenges).

(obviously, you don't have to talk about ALL of that--I'm just throwing
ideas out there for you to talk about)

The things that really keep this list going are new fanfics and feedback
to the authors, and we always need more of each. Don't be intimidated
if you think you can't write as well as other people; none of the
people writing currently were as polished when they began writing,
either.

(If you have major spelling or grammatical problems, though, it wouldn't
hurt to have someone preread or "betaread" your fic before you post it.
If you don't have anyone who can do this for you, just post a request
for a beta, and there are plenty of people who will be glad to help.)

Also, please remember to post a header on your fic (that's the thing
with "Title", "Author", "Rating", etc. You'll see it on other people's
fics). And while these are primarily Buffy/Willow lists, we do accept
stories where either Buffy or Willow is paired with another female, in
moderation.

Almost as important as fanfic is feedback. It keeps the authors going,
and it's much easier to do than writing. Just because the occasional
windbag (like me) writes a long, long, fb and you don't want to do that,
that's okay. A simple one-line acknowledgement is perfectly fine and
lets the author know that people are in fact reading his or her work.

(Although I like to include at least one specific thing in each fb,
since it seems to me that writing "I liked when Willow forgave Buffy.
More, please!" isn't much more difficult than writing "I liked it.
More, please!" But that's just me.)

As for discussion of the show, we certainly enjoy that here, too. Just
be careful about the use of SPOILERS.

SPOILERS are details of either an episode that aired for the first time
in North America within the last 7 days, or details/rumors/news/whatever
about upcoming episodes and the general future of the series.  

If you're going to use SPOILERS in your post, you must use Spoiler
Space. That is, 20 lines of space that contains no part of your actual
post, so that people who don't want to know what you're going to tell
them will have the opportunity to delete the email without the SPOILER
catching their eye by accident.

T
H
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S
P
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S
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Got it?

Just remember that there are two kinds of SPOILERS (for the current ep,
and for future eps) and they require separate SPOILER SPACE. If you're
talking about "Entropy" (last week's ep), and you want to talk about
what you've heard about "Seeing Red" (which airs on Tuesday), you must
use ADDITIONAL SPOILER SPACE. (If you're just speculating off of the
top of your head, though, you don't.)

You must also let people know which type of SPOILERS you're posting, so
they don't read your post expecting a discussion of the current episode
and run into future knowledge, against their wishes.

But the Subject line, while specific, also has to be bland. Just label
it " 'Entropy' review--SPOILERS" or "SPOILERS for 'Seeing Red' " or
"SPOILERS for future episodes". Do NOT write "Xander SPOILERS" or
"Disturbing SPOILERS" or "I can't believe these SPOILERS"--details
(including your take on them) are for after the SPOILER SPACE, not
before.

(The ultimate foolishness along these lines happened last year, when
someone posted a message on another list entitled "Faith Dies!
SPOILERS!" Gee, a little late with that warning there... [not to
mention, she didn't])

So to sum up the Spoiler Rules:

1) SPOILER SPACE for current eps (because they're delayed in some parts
of the country, and because the UK is seeing the eps on Thursday, so we
give a one-week grace period for people to catch up).

2) SEPARATE SPOILER SPACE for future episode information.

3) Bland labels, that just tell us which of the two types of SPOILERS
your post contains.

By the way, if I slip up and let an inappropriately marked post through,
I'll apologize to the list. But that's not a criticism of whomever made
the post; that's me taking the blame for not doing my job and
explaining these things correctly. So don't feel bad, any correction is
not meant to hurt at all. (And an apology here to the poster whose
mistake I pointed out this week--as I said in my off-list groveling,
that was my fault, not yours.)

As the paragraph above indicates, the posts of new members are
moderated, meaning they must be approved by myself or one of the other
moderators. (Say hi to Quin, Shadow, and Kimber [listmom]! You can
also say hi to listdad, but as he's wandering in the wilds of Brazil, he
won't hear you. Rod? Rod, are you out there? [see?]) This is a security
measure we instituted when we were getting spammed a while back, but
once we know that you're not a spammer (and once I remember to do it),
we'll take you off of moderated status and let you post at will.

Well, I think that's everything. Which means it's probably not.
Anyway, welcome one and all, and hope to hear from you.  

Enjoy youselves,

Dan

PS to chxenocide--kicking quote list!