This side differs a bit from my usual complains about the firefly. But I’ll go on with that soon enough, I promise ;)
I want to give my fellow nonteam members an impression of what is going on behind the scenes of that awesome team with this report! (If you never heard about the nonteam because you came here from a completely other direction, check out the Nonteam Blog or the Forum on Etsy - we give a fun guarantee!)
Let’s begin with...the beginning maybe.
Lesson 1: INGREDIENTS
I have a spreadsheet my brother created for me (Love you for that - it’s a lifesaver!!!). My own knowledge about spreadsheets starts with “they exist” and ends with “magicians can do strange things with them”. It’s a google document because I usually work on the sidebar from different computers. This way I have access to the newest copy of my list wherever I am. Additionally, it would need a total crash of google to lose the data and it’s much more likely that my computer fails me. Here you can find some basic information about it.
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| general list with formula |
You can see a section of this list in the picture above.
(I’m sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. Looking at screenshots with text is always horrible, especially in this size. Tried to make the pics at least recognizable....But here is a link to the last list - Don’t worry! It won’t bite and you can’t mess it up. There’s a saved copy somewhere in the depth of the Internet :) )
It has basically LOTS of rows and four columns. A,B,C and E - ignore D for now, that’s my “memo to me”-column. I’ll tell you something about that later.
Column A shows the shop/buyer address (yellow circle).
Column B shows the shop/buyers name, as it will be seen on the sidebar in the end. It automatically/magically appears when I enter a shop link in column A, due to the determined formula you can see in the red circle.
Column C (blue) - the one with the unimpressive single letter - is the most important one. Only when a letter turns up there behind your name, you’ll be on the sidebar later!
Column E (green) has also a determined formula. It generates the needed html code with the link to your shop and your shop name from B as long as there is any symbol in column C.
Everyone confused by now? No, not yet? Alright, I can be even more confusing ;)
Well, what the heck do I actually DO with this stuff?
I update the sidebar only every second week, as Patty from BUBBLECITYSOAP and me take it in turns and she does it the other weeks.
When it’s my turn, I open the list from the last challenge I took care of. BTW: When I talk about “the list” I always mean the spreadsheet, NOT the sidebar. I only see the actual sidebar at the very end of this procedure and - when everything goes according to plan - only for some seconds. First thing I do (after saving a backup) is sorting the list by C and delete every letter in that column. Except for the “t”, these are the volunteers and leaders and they always stay on the sidebar.
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| list cleared and ready for the current challenge |
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| Ready to fill in some shops and buyer |
Lesson 2: HEATING UP STUFF
After sorting the list by shop names again (B), I open the current entry thread in a new window. Display both next to each other and start with the hard part ;) - I have made this screenshot at 8.30 on FRIDAY morning and we already had round about 140 entries! Nonteamies, you rock!!!
I go through the whole entry thread from the first entry to the last. And no, I do NOT look at the treasuries themselves by that time! That comes later...
First of all, I scan every page for removed posts, “ups, wrong link earlier”- posts etc. or entries from volunteers. For every such post I make an x in column D. That helps me counting the treasuries, but I’ll come to that later.
There are two possibilities now:
Either the curator has participated two weeks ago and is still on the list (remember, I do not delete the names). In this case the person gets an “y” in column C and E (the html code lines) will automatically be added. The “y” stands for yes, but it could be any letter. Just turned out that it is the most comfortable letter for me to reach on the keyboard. :)
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| adding new participants |
That way the list slowly fills up
until the end pf the challenge.
* I recently learned that you can open a new tab by holding ‘control’ and click the left mouse button. I’m probably the last person who found out, but I was thrilled about it, as it keeps the tab active from which you come - VERY comfortable!
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| HUGE PROBLEM |
At the end of every session I count the shops on my list (by sorting) and compute the number of existing treasuries.
That’s an very easy formula: numbers of pages I’ve already done x 10 (entries per page) + 11 (volunteers and leaders) - “x’s” in column D.
For example: I’ve done 13 pages, no “dead” posts, three volunteers have participated so far (= 3 x) and one x for the the thread starting post.
13 x 10 + 11 - 4 = 137 - et voilá, that’s also the number of participants on my list! If it doesn’t come out even, I try to find the missing shop. But sometimes I fail to find it :(
That’s basically what I need column D for. I also make a note there about the last page and shop I added / marked when I take a break.
I repeat the counting at the very end the of challenge, before I change the sidebar. I know, I miss a few shops every week and I’m really sorry for that! Please don’t take that personal - I’m trying my best and I definitely don’t want to bully someone! Whenever you notice a mistake, just convo me and the shop will be added right away!
Lesson 3: PUT THE ICING ON THE CAKE
While the list of participating shops/buyers grows and grows during the challenge, I additionally start with the fun part (mostly on Saturday): Looking at the treasuries! I open them all, see whether the posted link is right (contact the curator if not) or whether it is a “fake” treasury without the inspiration item. Although, I haven’t seen any of these in the entry thread. To me, that’s another plus for the thread - spares us a lot of “tag thieves”! Other little mistakes, like a forgotten blog link, another team tag or a double entry will for sure make your treasury unable to win the challenge, but you will still be on the sidebar! It is there to honor the time, energy and creativity you have spent for the team! Not to punish someone for being human.
After the challenge ended, the list is completed and all entries are checked I go through my list and search for doubled names, wrong formula etc. When everything looks good, there are only three little steps more to take.
Step one is to sort the list by column C again (you know, the one that actually says who participated) and delete all shops/buyers in A that have not participated this week, then sort by shop names in alphabetic order again (B).
The next step is to copy and paste the complete column E into an text editor (You can’t copy it directly into the sidebar edit window. That would disorder the whole html code). This is the part where there is a little “technical” problem:
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| copy into text editor |
To get rid of the tiny little lines - that destroy the whole code - I just mark the whole text and let the editor replace all the wrong marks. Just takes a few seconds (I think my brother - the perfectionist - is much more agitated then me). To be sure, I compare the first position with the original code from the blog. When everything is correct I finally..........
…...........get a glimpse of the SIDEBAR itself.
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| final |
I just copy the text from the text editor, paste it into the edit window of the sidebar and save the whole thing. When the blog has updated, I click on several shops (some old ones and some new ones) randomly, to see whether the links work. When they don’t - I have a problem ;) But I always make a copy of the previous list, so I can restore that just in case and solve the problem.
When everything is fine I edit the list once more, change the title to the current challenge number - and start waiting for your convos! ;)
And that’s it!
OK, agreed. It sounds very confusing! But trust me, when you’ve done it once and get the hang of it, it is REALLY simple!
Some final thoughts....
Updating the sidebar IS definitely time consuming! I’m not trying to tell you anything else.
There are two big time killer: One is, for sure, to make the list. I don’t know how long it took me this week, as I was writing this record along the way. If I had to guess, I’d put it somewhere between two and two and a half hours all together (without looking at the treasuries).
The second time killer - and the one I personally have the biggest problem with - is checking the treasuries. I don’t like to see the other treasuries before I made my own. Unfortunately, I have to start looking at them pretty early. So I have to fit in my own entry somewhere in between. You all know how long it takes to at least LOOK at all the entries. I’m trying to comment on as many as possible, but there are weeks I can hardly do more than my absolutely favorites and the ones I’m featured in....
In addition, it’s proofed now: I’m not a Cylon, I’m human! (Yes, some people HAD doubts about it..) I make mistakes during the whole process and delete shops instead of adding them, close wrong tabs, add wrong marks and so on (Uh, I deleted Dotty once, and only noticed it in the last moment! *grmf* - Sorry!). That normally leads to a lot of confusion and frustration.
But anyway, it’s not making my life hell! I still sleep pretty well and have only positive thoughts towards the whole team! When you get some routine with the whole thing it even becomes fun. For example,
there are people who always participate (and often enough round the same time). When you made some lists, you get a pretty good overview. I’m not keeping track of it, or something alike! Two weeks ago I was waiting for someones entry, who ALWAYS participates and normally very early - but this time she took her time. I even checked the treasuries on her shop page and started to worry about her...and finally she posted the link. :) I’m also wondering about the question why there are so many shops starting with letter B, S or T? Or try to imagine how people found their shop name, anyway. I’m curious...
I’m really glad, that I can help all of you finding your amazing team mates and enjoy to be in the fantastic team!
You see, it neither disturbs my whole weekend nor is it the “dullest thing ever” to update the sidebar! So, if you like to join our funny little sidebar group. We welcome everyone with arms wide open! :)
