What is a CNFans spreadsheet, exactly?

Spreadsheet, sheet and table all name the same object

The word gets used three ways inside one conversation, which is most of why the phrase feels slippery. People say “the spreadsheet” when they mean a public page of rows, “the sheet” when they mean the same page shortened, and “the table” when they mean the grid itself. No file changes hands and nothing gets installed.

What sits behind the page is a list of links. Each link points at a listing on a domestic marketplace, and each listing belongs to a seller who has no idea the table exists. The table is a finding aid, closer to a shopping list somebody keeps for you than to a catalogue.

One link row and the four things inside it

A row is deliberately small. It carries an address, a short description, the variant that was picked, and usually a date. That is enough to recognise an item and enough to open it, and anything more would be out of date within a week, because marketplace listings rewrite their own wording without telling anybody.

Rows are written by people, and people copy. A row that was accurate when it was written can survive for months after the listing behind it changed, so you are reading a snapshot with a human author. The date matters more than the confident tone.

1. Address: where the listing lives, and the only part of the row that has to be exact.
2. Description: a few words so you can recognise the item without opening it.
3. Variant: the size or version the row was written for, where the author recorded one.
4. Date: when the row was last touched, which is the column most readers skip.

Three words people use for three different objects

Sorting the vocabulary out removes most of the confusion. The table is a page. The platform is the service that buys on your behalf, receives parcels at a warehouse and ships them onward. The marketplace is where the seller actually trades. One order touches all three, and the table is the only one of the three that never handles your money.

That split also explains how a table can go quiet while an order keeps moving. Nothing about the table is load-bearing once a purchase exists. Losing access to one is annoying; it is not the same event as losing an order.

Note rows that sit beside the link rows

Not every row is a link. Some tables carry a block of plain notes: which marketplaces are covered, how the author handles a dead link, when the last check happened. Those rows look like data and are not. Read them as the author telling you the limits of everything underneath.

We keep the same habit on our own pages. A measurement row without a method is an opinion with a number attached, so our rows state what was measured, how many times, and when.

The file and the platform are not the same object

Reports circulating in August 2026 described the platform as no longer taking new orders; this desk does not repeat that conclusion, and what follows is the check you can run yourself. Open the pages, look at whether they return content rather than an empty shell, and look at the date on any statement before you act on it.

The same discipline applies to any table, ours included. A table is cheap to publish and just as cheap to abandon, so the useful question is not “is this the good one” but “what is the date on the row I am about to trust”.

Ten thousand rows and one you can check

Length is the least useful signal available. A long table is a long list of unverified claims, and a short one can be worse if nobody ever opened its rows. The test that separates them is whether a row can be checked against something outside the table.

Our own benchmark is a measurement run filed as KB-2026-03: 46 footwear rows, three pairs of every model, insole length and widest point taken with the same tape and the same board, and four rows retired because the three pairs disagreed by more than 6 mm. A row that survives that kind of check is worth more than a thousand that cannot.

Where the numbers in this entry come from

Own measurement run one, filed as KB-2026-03: 46 footwear rows, three pairs of each model measured with the same tape and board, insole length and widest point recorded, and four rows retired because the three pairs disagreed by more than 6 mm.

◇KB-2026-11· 2026-09-30 See the batch ledger · Challenge a figure

Entries filed next to this one

• How is the link table laid out, column by column?

  Most tables run left to right: a row number, the link, a short title, the variant, then a date. Past that the order varies by author. Treat the first four columns as the identity of the row and everything further right as commentary, because authorship and maintenance differ from table to table.

• What does each column actually tell you?

  Treat every header as a claim rather than a fact. Numeric columns with a stated method are worth the most, seller wording is worth the least, and a status column is only as good as its date. Where two columns disagree, the one with a method and a date wins.

• How do you open a link from the table without losing your place?

  Open listings in a second tab and leave the table where it is. Note the row number and the search string that found it, because filters usually reset when you come back. A row number, a search string and a copied address are enough to rebuild your position after almost anything.

Gauges this entry points at

• Applicability protocol

  Work out which entries apply to your order right now.