Time to leave Librivox - for the moment.
Posted: March 26th, 2008, 11:08 am
Librivox admins: are we brave and big enough to have a debate here, or is a weekend's thought and an hours typing going to vanish? It would be great if it was the former, because I'm not the only one thinking this....
I came to Librivox about 10 months ago, and since then I've read some stuff, tweaked the wiki, contributed to a podcast, proved that remote book collaberation can be done, and contributed a bit of something different to the fun projects.
Of course, I don't mean "oooh, look at me, look what I've done", as I've contributed a tiny fraction of what some contribute. But when I do it, first of all, I usually do it the same day as I put in for it (if you can't do it, don't say you will), and secondly, I read, I edit, I do my own rec-check, then I put headphones on and listen for buzz, hum, clicks or squelches, I re-record again if needed, then I carefully play with the mp3 encoding to make sure it is "just so", and the end result hasn't needed anyone to do my editing for me.
I don't believe the listener deserves any less than the best I can do. But we have this bizarre "no comments" policy - and yet we also all know the external reviews and the real world is out there, and in almost every case, if we were brave enough to say, for example "ok, but slow it down, pace, and don't eat the mic", it would be great.
Heaven forbid the poor fellow ever sees that external review - he's a big contributor, and he could be great with just a few nudges - but he's an "avoid this reader" in the reviews. What a waste of a great resource.
Point 2 would be this whole public domain thing - it puts people off.
You know, I think it's great that people have the time to do this for free. In a couple of cases, they don't need to worry financially, and I know there are also quite a few house-bound people here, and I think that's really fantastic they they contribute - and I really don't mean that to sound patronising.
I don't begrudge reading at all - although my voice is part of my income, I also volunteer reading the talking newspaper, and do some free audio description for the local theatre. But no-one is going to be bundling up my work and selling it on.
And here's where I think the most needless policy is:
http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/CopyrightAndPublicDomain
[quote]If you volunteer to record for LibriVox, you must agree to release the audio files you make into the public domain. This means that anyone can use those audio files however they wish.
What does "however they wish" mean, exactly? People may use our recordings to profit; Anyone may do all kinds of things that you would prefer them not do - and you have no recourse to change that. For example you might see:
CDs of Romance of Rubber sold as a fundraiser for a charity you don't like;
Origin of the Species as background atmosphere for a pornographic film;
Fables for the Frivolous sampled into a violent rap song;
The summary of Frankenstein used to promote a major motion picture;
our recording clipped apart and rearranged as a ransom note, signed with your name and city.[/quote]
Why MUST I agree to that? I mean, why is it necessary to have that at all? Sure, it doesn't stop someone doing that, but it provides no deterrent either - it's almost incitement to do something like that.
And no, I'm not down with this whole "intellectual copyright is evil" nonsense - of course, I'm not asking for "copyright" on the recording, but anyone who uses that argument needs to put their welfare cheque down and think about who's paying it! Then pop on a Che Guevara t-shirt and move to Cuba
BUT - all of that aside, the thing that got me in the end was the whole fragility of people's egos round here. A while back, I pointed out that I thought that a certain recording was great, I like the voice and reading style, but the audio quality was poor. But we don't do that - my post was corrected.
I also pointed out last year that some of the very long community podcasts could be confusing to newcomers who didn't know what mojomove was (and why would they), and even though there was general agreement that perhaps there was a little tightening of podcasts to be done, it provoked a flurry of PMs...how dare I criticise!
So, I pretty soon learnt not to have an opinion if it wasn't anything but glowing.
And so, I posted this post:[quote="digitaltoast"]Great! The CoriCasts are always good - just the right length, and plenty to keep interested....lack of inane waffle always makes a good podcast![/quote]Simply because I enjoyed it - I listen to a lot of podcasts - not just Librivoxcasts - on the train and cycling to work, and there are some good ones and there are some bad ones. The good ones are generally 10-20 minutes long, and make me want to listen again. The others have me keeping my finger on FF a lot - and if you read the sentence, I don't see how it could be interpreted as an attack on anyone here or certainly not any one person in particular. In fact, can anyone see an attack in that sentence at all?
But oh no, the PMs came in - apparently, my comments were "hurtful" and my "slams" at other podcasters "unnecessary". Wow - I'd love to see what a psychiatrist could read into THAT interpretation! Certainly a whole lot more than was being meant. And then I had another PM from hugh, who had obviously been contacted by the aggrieved, with a more rational and diplomatic response, but basically saying egos are like glass round here, tread carefully. (hugh can publish his pm if he wants - it's not up to me).
You know, it all feels a bit Stepford Wives - on the surface, everything is shiny and lovely and controlled, but scratch the skin and it's all a bit septic underneath - if you don't give people enough oxygen to breath, they become stifled and start flailing about.
In summary, on it's own, fragile egos might almost be amusing and cope-able with (is that even a word?!), but add the enforced public domain policy, the no-improvement of readers policy, and an upset PM guaranteed whether I praise or comment, and you know...I just can't be bothered!
If the PD policy changes, I'll probably come back, but at the moment, if I've got any spare time, I think I'll read a book to myself, thank you.
I came to Librivox about 10 months ago, and since then I've read some stuff, tweaked the wiki, contributed to a podcast, proved that remote book collaberation can be done, and contributed a bit of something different to the fun projects.
Of course, I don't mean "oooh, look at me, look what I've done", as I've contributed a tiny fraction of what some contribute. But when I do it, first of all, I usually do it the same day as I put in for it (if you can't do it, don't say you will), and secondly, I read, I edit, I do my own rec-check, then I put headphones on and listen for buzz, hum, clicks or squelches, I re-record again if needed, then I carefully play with the mp3 encoding to make sure it is "just so", and the end result hasn't needed anyone to do my editing for me.
I don't believe the listener deserves any less than the best I can do. But we have this bizarre "no comments" policy - and yet we also all know the external reviews and the real world is out there, and in almost every case, if we were brave enough to say, for example "ok, but slow it down, pace, and don't eat the mic", it would be great.
Heaven forbid the poor fellow ever sees that external review - he's a big contributor, and he could be great with just a few nudges - but he's an "avoid this reader" in the reviews. What a waste of a great resource.
Point 2 would be this whole public domain thing - it puts people off.
You know, I think it's great that people have the time to do this for free. In a couple of cases, they don't need to worry financially, and I know there are also quite a few house-bound people here, and I think that's really fantastic they they contribute - and I really don't mean that to sound patronising.
I don't begrudge reading at all - although my voice is part of my income, I also volunteer reading the talking newspaper, and do some free audio description for the local theatre. But no-one is going to be bundling up my work and selling it on.
And here's where I think the most needless policy is:
http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/CopyrightAndPublicDomain
[quote]If you volunteer to record for LibriVox, you must agree to release the audio files you make into the public domain. This means that anyone can use those audio files however they wish.
What does "however they wish" mean, exactly? People may use our recordings to profit; Anyone may do all kinds of things that you would prefer them not do - and you have no recourse to change that. For example you might see:
CDs of Romance of Rubber sold as a fundraiser for a charity you don't like;
Origin of the Species as background atmosphere for a pornographic film;
Fables for the Frivolous sampled into a violent rap song;
The summary of Frankenstein used to promote a major motion picture;
our recording clipped apart and rearranged as a ransom note, signed with your name and city.[/quote]
Why MUST I agree to that? I mean, why is it necessary to have that at all? Sure, it doesn't stop someone doing that, but it provides no deterrent either - it's almost incitement to do something like that.
And no, I'm not down with this whole "intellectual copyright is evil" nonsense - of course, I'm not asking for "copyright" on the recording, but anyone who uses that argument needs to put their welfare cheque down and think about who's paying it! Then pop on a Che Guevara t-shirt and move to Cuba
BUT - all of that aside, the thing that got me in the end was the whole fragility of people's egos round here. A while back, I pointed out that I thought that a certain recording was great, I like the voice and reading style, but the audio quality was poor. But we don't do that - my post was corrected.
I also pointed out last year that some of the very long community podcasts could be confusing to newcomers who didn't know what mojomove was (and why would they), and even though there was general agreement that perhaps there was a little tightening of podcasts to be done, it provoked a flurry of PMs...how dare I criticise!
So, I pretty soon learnt not to have an opinion if it wasn't anything but glowing.
And so, I posted this post:[quote="digitaltoast"]Great! The CoriCasts are always good - just the right length, and plenty to keep interested....lack of inane waffle always makes a good podcast![/quote]Simply because I enjoyed it - I listen to a lot of podcasts - not just Librivoxcasts - on the train and cycling to work, and there are some good ones and there are some bad ones. The good ones are generally 10-20 minutes long, and make me want to listen again. The others have me keeping my finger on FF a lot - and if you read the sentence, I don't see how it could be interpreted as an attack on anyone here or certainly not any one person in particular. In fact, can anyone see an attack in that sentence at all?
But oh no, the PMs came in - apparently, my comments were "hurtful" and my "slams" at other podcasters "unnecessary". Wow - I'd love to see what a psychiatrist could read into THAT interpretation! Certainly a whole lot more than was being meant. And then I had another PM from hugh, who had obviously been contacted by the aggrieved, with a more rational and diplomatic response, but basically saying egos are like glass round here, tread carefully. (hugh can publish his pm if he wants - it's not up to me).
You know, it all feels a bit Stepford Wives - on the surface, everything is shiny and lovely and controlled, but scratch the skin and it's all a bit septic underneath - if you don't give people enough oxygen to breath, they become stifled and start flailing about.
In summary, on it's own, fragile egos might almost be amusing and cope-able with (is that even a word?!), but add the enforced public domain policy, the no-improvement of readers policy, and an upset PM guaranteed whether I praise or comment, and you know...I just can't be bothered!
If the PD policy changes, I'll probably come back, but at the moment, if I've got any spare time, I think I'll read a book to myself, thank you.