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The Five-Minute Deep Space Nine Subsite FAQ by Derek Dean |
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Q: What is Five-Minute Deep Space Nine?
It's the subsite of FiveMinute.Net dedicated to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's referred to by the abbreviation 5MD. (See the main FiveMinute.Net FAQ for information about the site as a whole.) Q: Who's in charge? The station head of 5MD is Derek Dean. He contributes to the subsite fairly regularly and handles any submissions to the subsite. You can contact him at his 5M.net address. Q: Is 5MD open for submissions? Yes, and we welcome your submission. To view a list of uncalled fivers, please visit the List of Uncalled 5MD Episodes at Derek's site. Q: Huh? Derek's site? List of Uncalled 5MD Episodes? Er, yeah. Derek, in case you missed his job description in his FAQ, is a computer programmer. Thus, every so often, his geekdom just overflows beyond the normal bounds of work and causes him to write software for himself. One of his (so-called) brainstorms is to write a fiver tracking system to smooth the fiver-calling process. Q: Oh my gosh. What a nerd. But it also sounds kinda cool. How does it work? Basically, you can visit the Tomb of the Unknown -- er, that is, List of Uncalled 5MD Episodes to see what's available or not. If you find one you want, sign up for an account. You can add fivers to your personal called list, remove them, draft them online, even submit them automatically to Derek via the site. Q: You went to way too much effort. What else did you do? Well, I included an email notification system. Basically when you check out a fiver, you get 3 months to do it. If 2 months have passed without a submission, I send you an email reminder at which point you can optionally renew the fiver if you'll need more time. I then send you an email reminder a week before it's due, and then, if not renewed, I expire the fiver, return it to the uncalled list, and email you about the change. It also emails you when you submit a fiver, and when I pass a fiver on to Zeke for publication. I also mocked up a stats page similar to the one like the staffers have, though it only lists fivers done for the subsites covered by my site. Q: That sounds really neat, but do I have to use your site? No. We can still do things the old way. If you see an episode you want to call, email me. You can also submit your fivers to me the old fashioned way as well. Q: What if I want to do a fiver for an episode that's not on the uncalled list, but hasn't been published? Obviously, if it's been called by someone else, you'll just have to wait for that person to remove it or for it to expire. However, I've called a number of fivers to myself, because I either want them to be done by an experienced fivist, or because I'm thinking of saving them for an event or something. So if there's a fiver you want to do that's not uncalled, but not published, email me about it. I may be able to let you have it, or I can tell you when it's currently set to expire back to the uncalled list. The main point of the uncalled list is to tell you of fivers that are definitely available to everyone, but that doesn't mean they represent every fiver available. Q: You do realize you switched from third-person to first-person during the course of this FAQ, right? Yeah, well, you started it. Q: What's "Season 8": What You Come Back To? "What You Come Back To" is a virtual season in a similar vein to the Virtual Voyager seasons. While under the 5MD banner, it is not controlled by Derek, but by Nell (CNyel_att_aol_dott_com), and as such all requests for WYCBT fivers should be made to her. At the time of this writing, all written episodes have been fived. |
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