LibriVox: Amateurs Ascending

Comments about LibriVox? Suggestions to improve things? News?
annise
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Post by annise »

I haven't used forums at all - but I did use my real name on a family history site - and a total stranger managed to find out my phone number and ring me up. I found that scary so I don't use it here.
We have had people who signed on with their real names ask us to change them - because they were concerned about future employers doing a google search on their name and investigating what titles they had read. I don't know if it would happen - but I think if I were a teacher I might bear it in mind - some school boards mightn't appreciate you contributing to the Darwin readings for instance :D - or reading Fanny Hill .....

Anne
bobgon55
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Post by bobgon55 »

Those are good points, Anne. I'm glad I don't work at a school so oppressive that I could not read Darwin or Fanny Hill. However, our university it pretty conservative in many ways, but LibriVox activities are all kosher with them.

Bob
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Post by JohanLiebert »

I've been to AlternateHistory.com for quite a time too, if my opinion is still needed :) I'm a huge history geek I write my own timelines :)
April Gonzales :D
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Piotrek81
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Post by Piotrek81 »

bobgon55 wrote:Have others been on other communities of practice or special interest and what is the climate of anonymity?
I've been a member of some 10-12 fora. Mostly small and music-related, but I'm also registered on one language-learning forum. This doesn't mean, of course, that I frequent them regularly... In most of these communities people are rather open about themselves- there are usually threads with photos and users often give information about their real first names and age,so if you have the patience to search for bit of data for whatever reason, you will surely find a lot. I, too, have published some of my data in such places, although I've tried not to reveal too much...
Apart from that I'm also a member of 2 communities of purpose/practice. One of them is related to music, and the other one to languages. Sometimes people there share their(?) photos in the form of avatars, but I don't do it- I'm there for a different reason.
As to the general Fb-like social networks, I was a member of 2, but in both cases I deleted my account, because I hardly visited these sites, and thus didn't see the point of remaining there.
annise wrote:I did use my real name on a family history site - and a total stranger managed to find out my phone number and ring me up.

That IS scary :shock: Hopefully, no problems ensued?

Plus, I can't imagine how a high school or a university in a 21st century can frown upon reading about evolution :roll:
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RuthieG
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Post by RuthieG »

That link to Communities of Practice was most interesting. It leads also to another Wikipedia article, Online Participation, in which I read:
Many of these communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique culture. They also involve significant time from contributors with no monetary gain.
LibriVox is an archetypal example of that, I think.

Ruth
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Post by JohanLiebert »

RuthieG wrote:That link to Communities of Practice was most interesting. It leads also to another Wikipedia article, Online Participation, in which I read:
Many of these communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique culture. They also involve significant time from contributors with no monetary gain.
LibriVox is an archetypal example of that, I think.

Ruth

It is, indeed. I've only been here for a very short time relative to you guys and I feel that I immersed myself to a whole new community very different from the forums I've been before. Anonymity is one thing, but the fact that people here work together to accomplish something worthwhile, something every people that knows or have been touched by modern technology can enrich themselves with... It is just amazing, if there are other words to describe it then please fill it in.

In Anime-forums we just talk about shows and sometimes things that triggers arguments. Anonymity is not really a practice there, because we talk about our own lives, our schools, our families (that's why we post pictures of ourselves), and why anime and manga is the best kind of entertainment. In AH we make friends [and enemies] all over the world, again talk about history and anything nonsense, and from time to time debate on whose version of history is correct. We have to show ourselves, our intellect, and sometimes education, because you can never win against a history major. Yes in the long run everyone learns from it, but at the end of the day, we just realize we have been so stupid indeed and nothing in us were changed. But here, you know something will change when other people hear the story you read, the poetry you recited. You know you added another piece of knowledge to their minds, even though those people will not (or never) know you, and that what makes this forums the best for me :) I know this is all becoming irrelevant with the first post so please bear with me :P
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I will not be around the forums for quite a time but I'll log-in whenever there's time. Please PM me if you need to talk with me. Thanks!

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Piotrek81
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Post by Piotrek81 »

I, too, think that this community stands out among the ones I've been a part of before, precisely because of this collective effort undertaken to produce something new. That's probably one of the major benefits of the Internet: people who otherwise would probably never get to know each other can collaborate in creating something new, and perhaps unique. I mean, I suppose that many of the texts we're turning into audiobooks here have already been recorded somewhere by someone. But how many of them have never been rendered in such a form?
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Post by RuthieG »

It goes even further, of course, because without the collective effort of Distributed Proofreaders, who nowadays provide most of the content on Project Gutenberg through a similar online collaborative endeavour, LibriVox would probably not even have been able to get going.

Of course, with the advent of corporate (i.e. Google and Microsoft) input into the scanning of books for the Internet Archive, we now have an even more vast number of books available to record, but without the original Project Gutenberg volunteers, and later also Distributed Proofreaders, could LibriVox ever have become the force it is now?

Ruth
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Cori
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Post by Cori »

It's funny how anonymous LibriVox *is*, given that we're putting on the internet one of the most personal pieces of ourselves -- our voices. After all, if I were to Skype-call any of my prooflisteners and start talking to them, I bet they'd know it was me long before looking at my name or asking me to identify myself.

I also like LibriVox for getting to know people's character before I ever learn the 'usual' things we know about people -- whether they're married, with kids, in school of some kind, their job, and so on. I know LibriVoxers by what they're like as people to work with / hang out with: funny, serious, committed, enthusiastic, steady and so on. Ofttimes I never find out anything else, and it's fascinating how well that still works for creating community.
There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!
bobgon55
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Post by bobgon55 »

What fascinating responses! Thank you all for these.

Thank you, April, for pointing to AlternativeHistory.com. It is a good site to compare to LV. I wonder if anyone knows of any other site(s) that involve the cooperation and collaboration that is so vital to LV. I think it is the one thing that really makes LV unique.

Also, I just noticed on Vimeo a basic "Be Nice" policy, similar to LV, where they write in the community guidelines page:
The Internet is a wonderful place, but we have all noticed that it can also provide people with the means to insult and harass others without taking the full responsibility for their words. A community that allows that type of behavior will quickly decay, so we insist that while you are on Vimeo you respect the people you encounter and their videos. You are free to disagree, but you are not free to attack people simply for your amusement. If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, don't say it on Vimeo. If you cannot conduct yourself in a respectful manner, you will be removed.
Does anyone know of other community sites that have a policy like this, too? I have read where most sites that people visit - most prominently YouTube, Tumblr, & the like - can be pretty blasé about allowing members to more than negatively criticize others, basically to abuse them. It's funny because "being nice" or at least being civil seems like such an obvious criterion for fundamental community behavior that the fact that so many sites allow it is a bit puzzling. I wonder if it is a sort of laissez-faire postition on the part of the admins there or do they so exult freedom of speech that they cannot bear to censor or even censure the offenders.
philchenevert
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Post by philchenevert »

Bob. Love the discussion by the way.

Reading about the "be nice" policy, I just want to say that I found it absolutely refreshing when first joining LibriVox and said kinda the same thing: :"Gee why don't other sites do this?".

I now know that it does NOT come naturally. It takes constant vigilance, a lot of hard work and many unseen hours by admins on the site to maintain something as apparently simple as "Be Nice". On being made an admin, I saw how this is a never ending struggle. So if we all enjoy the sense of comfort that comes from being able to work and contribute in an atmosphere of civility and niceness, thank the administrators who have spent, and will continue to spend so much of their own time making it happen. They would probably like to be working on their own solos or projects but instead stand as sentinels at our gates to detect the trolls early on and escort them away from us. Which is why other sites don't or cant do this.

I, for one, certainly do thank them all!
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bobgon55
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Post by bobgon55 »

Phil,

Firstly, congratulations on joining the admin team. You are certainly more than qualified for this. Bravo, sir!

Unless I have not been paying very close attention, you became an admin relatively recently. I'm assuming, then, that you found out the sentinel work of the admins by reading the admin forum. Hopefully, you have not had too much experience with trolls so far. I'm wondering what trolls would actually even be attracted to LibriVox. Why would they even want to come here? Are there people that just like to wander about the internet dropping anonymous abuse on innocent artists sharing their work with the world? Hard to fathom.

In any case, I certainly do thank all you admins as well for this. Despite years of experience in performing, I still have a pretty thin skin when it comes to criticism. If I didn't I might have made more of a go of professional theatre. As it is, I teach - very happily, by the way - theatre and speech courses in a university and even have a hard time critiquing my students, working very hard to always give corrective advice without destroying their motivation to perform. Other professors do not walk on eggshells as much as I, thinking that if the students don't have the skin to handle the abuse, better that they should leave the field now, because there will be plenty more to come. I may have posted this before but I had the lovely luck to be able to interview the great Sian Phillips of I Claudius fame and she told me that the teachers at RADA told her, "You will never work as hard or be treated as poorly in the profession as you are here at RADA." A tough, but probably practical approach to actor training. Usually, it is the reverse.

Thanks for being a part of the discussion, Phil.
philchenevert
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Post by philchenevert »

Bob. I just realized that I've never given a straight answer to your questions.
Why do I volunteer here?

1. I like to perform; it give me joy to act out something, so that is the main reason why I record stuff here. And I get to do it EVERY DAY if I want! My recordings are performances with imaginary audiences. With the children's books, I picture a bunch of kids sitting there and I am performing the story for them. great fun.

2. To help others is a big thing with me so being able to help other people, especially newbies, is a big added bonus and LibriVox gives me all the chances I could wish for to do that.

3. uh ... I forget your other questions, but I also must have a deep need to teach and making videos is a wonderful outlet for that.

as I said, I forget your other questions but will respond when I remember.
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Carolin
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Post by Carolin »

as to trolling - we dont see it on the forum in the regular sense of the word as much. what we do get is negative criticism, often referring to certain chapters read by a certain reader in a group project. i find this quite unfortunate, because people seem to forget that someone put their spare time into something he or she enjoys to do and got no reward for it other than recognition by unknown strangers on the internet. a listener who does not enjoy a chapter or two of a book should keep in mind that had these volunteers not come together to record that book, there would be no audiobook at all.

and then, to get back to your original question, id like to say something that may have come up before in one form or another: we all love books, in all shapes and forms, be it on paper or on tape. and we know that there are people out there who depend on audiobooks to get their share of "reading", due to different circumstances. ive been tending to the thank you emails account for a few weeks now, and there it becomes extra-visible. a lot of our listeners are very thankful to the effort put into the projects by our readers, because they cannot read books themselves, be it because their eye sight is failing, or because they work a very exhausting job and are just too tired to pick up a book to read at night. if you check the thank you mails-thread, you will see what i mean :)
i started volunteering because i have been listening to a few audiobooks on my commute (i had three hours a day on bus and ferry), and i realized that there was a random person somewhere in the world putting effort into this book so that there would be an audiobook for others (for me!) to listen to. thats when i decided to help volunteering in my free time to produce more audiobooks, and to give some of it back :9:

i hope i could explain myself here, i seem to be not so good with words lately (master's thesis is eating my brain) :)
Carolin
bobgon55
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Post by bobgon55 »

Carolin,

I think you explained yourself quite well! I have looked at the thank you thread and listened to some of them read on past podcasts and I know that LOTS of people benefit from our audiobooks. Some of the books have been downloaded thousands of times - one I saw the other day had been downloaded over 136,000 times!

I think it's great that we can contribute to a public service with a cultural and artistic end. As much as it is important to feed and clothe the hungry and needy, feeding the mind and the psyche is also important. People that have their primary needs still need what we can offer.

Keep plugging away at that master's thesis. Eventually, the clouds will part and the sun will shine through and all your thoughts will crystallize into a finished work!


Phil,

I'm glad to hear you use the word "perform," because we are performers here, not just readers. This is Oral Performance of Literature, just like the title of the course I teach at the university. So, performing, helping and teaching motivate you. Splendid!

Thanks, Phil and Carolin, for joining the discussion.

Bob
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