I know, I know. Everyone hates these kind of posts, but occasionally they need to be done. Besides, I didn't do one when I picked up Ghost Stories awhile back.

Firstly, like every other editor on the site, I follow TV.com's guidelines for submissions, including new episodes. Before submitting to any show on the site, I highly recommend that people look over the guidelines, as they can answer many questions people have. (And yes, I also look over them fairly regularly to make sure there haven't been changes or updates I'm not aware of.)

Secondly, if you're not sure about something that goes in the guide, I'm more than happy to answer questions. Depending on my work schedule, it may take a couple of days, but I will get to the PM. But I can only answer questions as they relate to the shows I edit -- if the question is about another editor's show, they will be the best source for information.

I've been around since TV.com cropped up. Due to personal issues I was on a bit of a hiatus for awhile, but I'm back online. I'm just taking it easy, enjoying the shows I'm editting, and now I've got a new show on my plate, so I hope to enjoy editting that one as well. ;)

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

... 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.

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. ;)

Regarding queues and such first ... my queue is a weird little child these days with random items from three to four weeks ago occasionally popping up. It is current through to March 2 right now, so if you have anything that I should have pending, please let me know.

Any e-mails I've been sent in the last couple of months seemed to have disappeared into some netherworld of e-mail Heck, so please forgive me. I also seem to be losing PMs, which I'm digging through slowly, so if I haven't responded, I either didn't get it, or am still looking for it.

Regarding the last blog post about the cell phone ... apparently they now have unlimited mobile browsing. But no one could be bothered to tell me. *SIGH* Annoying.

And as a side note? Before submitting to one of my guides, please be familiar with the TV.com submission guidelines. I've had to decline a lot of submissions in the last little while because they don't meet the submission guidelines. I'm fairly easy-going -- if it's something that is my personal preference, I'll edit it in the queue myself. But if it's site guidelines and it's repetitive ... I will decline and state why. TV.com keeps their guidelines at: TV.com Guidelines Center

Here where I am, it's 6:42 AM. That's morning. That's wrong. I don't really like anything prior to 8:00 AM. Heck, I prefer 10:00 AM. But I've been up for four hours. Doing what, you ask? Well, you didn't, but if you're still reading this I assume you want to know. Talking to my cell phone provider. I was going to call my credit card company today too, but decided after all this that I would probably bite some poor guy's head off (see previous rant on credit cards).

I couldn't sleep when I woke up around 2ish, so I thought I'd call and check on my balance. I never get the bill, so I call when I want to know (or wait for the automatic debit, which I went with because I never get the bill). My mind has blocked out the specifics, but it was over $500. How, you ask? (Well, again, you didn't, but you know the drill.) Mobile Internet usage. The interesting thing? The bill was far lower in October and November, when Internet usage was rampant, but it got much less use in December -- when the fees went through the roof.

So we get call #1. Talked to a representative in billing. It was before 3:00 AM at this point, 6:00 AM their time, so not much was open. Asked her about the bill, asked about cancellation (not because I wanted to, but because I want to know what my options are), even willing to pay the cancellation fee if I go that way. (Which I may.) She couldn't give me much information at all, which is funny, because she had access to every question I needed answered (and yes, without getting a bill I *have* called enough times to know exactly what department does what over there). But whatever. That sucked up ... oh, about an hour of my day.

The department I needed opened at 5:00 AM my time, so I figured I'd just stay awake for the next hour or so and putter around. Alright, I came here. Working on my queues, answering my PMs, learned my e-mails aren't going through (technology hates me) ... working on the old desktop so I have to go grab my laptop because what I need is actually on there. Whatever. I'll do that later. Call in and get ... well, I think it was billing again. I tell them I need to speak with the Internet people. They transfer me to Mohammed, who promptly disconnects the call. Did I mention that I spent eight minutes on hold waiting to get to Mohammed?

Alright, let's call back in again. I get billing, who says they'll transfer me to the Internet group. The next agent is not with the Internet group. She's with some other random department. She says she'll transfer me. After eight to ten minutes on hold (again), I get disconnected. So I call back, again, and this time I go with tech support. They actually got me to the Internet people. After over a half an hour with them (really nice guy, but he couldn't really answer my question) they opted to just credit the overages since they couldn't figure out where they were coming from. Well, that's nice, but I didn't ask for that. (I know, I'm complaining about free money. Go figure.) What I wanted to know was what the @#$% happened. No answer for that. But still, really nice guy. I asked him to block Internet access from the phone, because someone is running up the Internet and it isn't me. Heck, I'm so anal from my cell phone I refuse to access non-mobile sites, and even then I barely check my e-mail.

So Internet transfers me to tech support, who does some sort of weird cycling thing on my phone. I was all happy and good at that point (well, as happy as I can be at 6:00 AM after spending the wee hours of the morning talking to these people) until I decide to make sure the Internet isn't working and find out that hey, I can get online. Nuh-uh. So I call right back and get billing, who transfers me to tech support, who then puts a total block on all Internet access. I can't even access the provider's automatic phone site now (which I'm okay with -- I asked for that). But I forgot to ask about the cancellation thing, so I need to phone back again. I figure what the heck -- get it all out of the way now.

So I phone back and get customer service. I ask to talk to cancellation. I make it clear I don't want to cancel, I was just advised to speak to them with some questions. After typing things and taking about five minutes to transfer me, I get another guy. This guy immediately tells me that he's going to be able to help me cancel my phone. I don't WANT to cancel my phone. I don't have a land line; it's my only means of communication. So I explain that. He keeps trying to help me but really, I just want to know what I would need to pay if I DID cancel my phone. ($200 cancellation fee plus one month's service if you're wondering.) Over and over I make it clear that I don't want to cancel, but he keeps offering to cancel and to credit me $150 of the $200 so that I will only have to pay $50 for the cancellation. At that point I said screw it, and asked for a supervisor. He never asked me why, but placed me on hold for about seven minutes (hey, the phone has a timer) so he could 'explain'.

How can he explain that the reason I want a supervisor is because he wasn't listening to me when he didn't listen? So he told her I wanted a supervisor because I wanted to cancel over the Internet thing. NO! I wanted a supervisor so I could pass on feedback about him! The supervisor decides to give me $50 (which, again, I didn't want -- I just wanted to pass on the feedback!), probably to shut me up at this point since I've basically been talking to them for four hours (and I imagine the notes in my account are horrendous). And she thanks me for my feedback, but suggests it was a language barrier. Where? I speak English. He spoke English. His was accented, but I understood him perfectly, and I know he understood me when he was paying attention. His problem was he wasn't listening, not that I couldn't understand what he was saying. Heck, *I've* got an accent. And people can understand me. Everyone else there could.

And I feel like I got nothing accomplished. I didn't want the credits. They were nice, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted to know what the @#$% I was being billed for. And they don't know. They can't explain it. So I'm thinking today or tomorrow I may shop around. Unfortunately, there's only one other semi-decent option in this town, and I don't like them either. *SIGH* I hate technology.

Oh, and did I mention the fun thing? For the last few days my cell phone provider has been delivering messages to the wrong people. I'm not sure right now how many people I owe apologies to because they got messages not intended for them. Thank God I wasn't messaging anything that was incredibly private or confidential.

... you would laugh. After six months of perfect health (absolutely perfect!), I manage to have snagged myself one nasty cold. I don't get any ill effects except for two: I'm stuffed up beyond all reasonable belief, and I sound like Elmer Fudd on methamphetimines. Picture Elmer. Make him female. And make him sound even more Fudd-y than usual. That's me.

On the bright side, I get extremely energetic when I have a cold. The amount of work I'm likely to get done in the next few days is truly amazing. And everyone will let me go to it, because when you sound like I do, people avoid you.

Or laugh hysterically.

Apparently it's in thanks for all the effort I went to assisting them with their transaction.

Which makes me worry. Apparently I'm suffering from some form of degenerative memory condition, because I don't remember helping them with their transaction. I realise I'm forgetful, but am I *that* forgetful? Did I sandwich it in between work shifts? Luckily they apologised for taking so long to get in touch with me -- the presidential library and museum former director hope I'm not angry with them.

If there's one downside to the Internet, it's all the scams out there. I truly hope most people are smart enough to not get involved with them. For anyone who has ever wondered, I'd like to offer some totally unsolicited advice ... DON'T. The sad thing about this modern world we live in is that when something sounds too good to be true ... it is. I'm not saying there aren't wonderful opportunities out there and wonderful people, but an e-mail addressed to 'Dear Friend' is never good. I only noticed it because I occasionally check to see if anything useful is in my junk folder. I've got four e-mails promising me either authorised or certified bank drafts ... no, wait, I checked the vague subject, that was five ... and one offering me viagra and cialis (again, spammers ... wrong gender). The only mildly useful thing was a monthly newsletter for a site that I vaguely recall having a username and password on.

Speaking of sites, I supposed I should check out Chase Visa. They claim my statement is available for viewing. For what, I don't know -- they can't get my name right either, and I don't have a Chase Visa. ;) Yes, another piece of junk. I can't remember the last time I got mail that was actually for me ... that wasn't a chain letter. Because no matter how many of those things you send, little Timmy O'Toole is still stuck down that darned well.

Yeah, I've said it before. But it's true. Any time I've ever had a problem with anything, staff has taken care of it.

So I just wanted to say thank you. ;)

Each year when the new seasons start up, I get a crop of episode submissions for the guides, many of which do not meet TV.com criteria (which you can find at the forum post titled Criteria of Acceptance: Episode Submissions for NEW Unaired Shows...). All episode submissions must meet those guidelines -- and these are rules that need to be followed by not only the average submitter, but also editors and trusted users.

What are the guidelines? Simply this -- any submissions for new, unaired episodes must provide a source link (in the comments field), and must have two of the following:
- Episode Title
- Episode Airdate
- Episode Summary

Which means that if it doesn't have two of the three, it shouldn't be there. And UNKNOWN, TBA, etc, are not valid episode titles. I've never seen a situation where the summary and airdate are known but not a title -- a far more likely scenario is that the airdate and title are known but not the summary, or the airdate and summary are known but not the title.

And any submissions for any episode that hasn't aired yet (according to the TV.com guidelines in that link, which are provided by the administration) must be accompanied by a link. And the IMDb is not a valid source.

Thank you very much. ;)