ZOOM Discussion Thread

[MaryinArkansas]

A few LibriVox Zoom meeting ideas

Two times a month. Possible agendas: The first Zoom meeting the second Sunday of each month, as already scheduled, 12 PM (Noon) US Central Time. This would also accommodate some of the European/UK participants.

A second Zoom meeting the fourth Friday or Saturday of each month, 11 PM (night) U.S. Central time to accommodate participants in the Eastern Hemisphere Australia, New Zealand, etc) Perhaps hosted by a LibriVoxer in the Eastern hemisphere.

Subject matter:

1. Definitely something instructional. There are a lot of “how to” posts in the forum, but many people relate better to seeing a person demonstrate something, especially when they can ask questions.

2. A comment or two about a project that is nearly finished that has special meaning to the participants...something that took considerable time and effort to put together, a first time LibriVox author...maybe include something personal about the writer regarding the book (Wikipedia stuff): “This was John Doe’s 14th mystery novel, and his favorite. The character of police officer Billy Bob was based on John’s favorite brother, who was a sheriff in Toad Suck, Arkansas”, etc.

3. Definitely chit chat.

And so on...

[philchenevert]

For Phil:

Q: Where did Napoleon hide his armies?
A: Up his sleevies.

Ha. Keep 'em coming! I love them.

[adrianstephens]

Hello all,

Just discovered this thread randomly. And I think that is part of the problem. More on this below.

Meeting together might have a number of possible benefits:
1. Team building. Learning what that person looks like you've been messaging for ever. When you can see (or have seen) individuals, you are more likely to be kind to them. This is something I continually need to learn, and I find putting a name to a face helps me.
2. Communicating technique. I found Todd's talk a week ago helpful. Particularly insightful was the lengths he went to to align choruses. Even newbies might have experience from their other lives to bring to the table, either technical or performance related.
3. Building a love of literature in new genres. Somebody chooses a favourite (in in the UK, OK!) passage and performs it.
4. Wearing silly hats - still struggling with this...

And, for completeness, possible negatives:
1. If a group regularly meets, it creates a "clique".
2. Those that cannot meet at that hour/day are excluded and may feel so.

I think Phil expressed gentle frustration that he put in a lot of work, but not many turned up. There are two aspects to that.

1) The work can be shared. I'm happy to help organise as part of a team (and I have a paid Zoom account that can be used). Are others of a like mind?

2) We have hundreds of active participants. How many of them are reading this thread or are subscribed to the Facebook forum. My absolute-no-rationale-gut-feel guestimate is 10% of the people who might have wanted to participate knew about the meeting. If there was some way of
doing a bulk email (perhaps with a survey) that might help - but also creates spam and might be against forum policy. Anybody know if this is the case?

Wishing you all well,
Adrian, from the depths of darkest Cambridgeshire.

[annise]

We do promise people that their email will not be used except in a dire emergency so no we wouldn't do a mail out - I think the only time we sent one was when we were hacked, in case the hacker had been after the email addresses - (they hadn't but it took time to be sure).

I may be unusual, but I like not knowing what LV people look like or how old they are. I think it's nice for a change not to have labels. And I'm an audio learner not a visual one.
But this doesn't mean I object to the meetings , just that I'm not likely to participate.

Anne

[msfry]

We do promise people that their email will not be used except in a dire emergency so no we wouldn't do a mail out - I think the only time we sent one was when we were hacked,
Anne

I wouldn't mind my email being used to send me Librivox notices of general importance to all members. I've managed several mailing lists, and that's what the Blind Carbon Copy feature is for. Everyone gets the newsletter, announcement, attachment, poll or memo, nobody gets each other's email addresses. Ability to make important announcements keeps Librivox admins in the drivers' seat, so to speak, rather than expecting each volunteer to stumble upon a forum post, like the first mention of Zoom on Page 51 in Suggestions, Comments, News, Discussion Forum. How many volunteers think to check out this forum regularly? Even creating the new Zoom Announcement Thread sticky, is still buried 4th down on Page 1 of this forum. How many would think to look there without being notified of its existence?

[TriciaG]

We will not send out emails to our members except for emergencies.

Some people wouldn't mind, but others most definitely do - and we're not going to go back on our promise to those who have already provided email addresses.

If those checking test recordings want to mention the Zoom announcement thread to those newbies, feel free. If those who welcome newbies in the Introduce Yourself forum want to mention it in your post, please do.

It's not like we don't provide resources and tips for readers. They're all over the forum and in the wiki. We haven't thought of everything to say, of course, but there's plenty of advice for those who want to record or PL or BC. Zoom is icing on the cake, but it ain't the substance.

(All my own personal opinions, of course - aside from the statement that we won't send out non-emergency emails. That's solid.)

[msfry]

If you'd care to create a new opt-in feature for announcements, I'm in. No promises broken there, as long as you aren't sharing my email with anyone else. No subscription/newsletter platform I know of does that anyway.

[philchenevert]

Well, this is getting interesting. Many good ideas to think about and they all deserve consideration. I wish to repeat that the reason I am stopping the regular meetings is that I have not been able to find a real use for zoom in getting our audiobooks made. Something where it could make a substantial contribution. My original idea way back, was a regular 'newbie' zoom meeting where new people could ask questions and get some quick answers, maybe every week. But the usual problems of scheduling and time zones stymied that. Hence the test meetings. I'm not tired of it at all. It's entertaining and fun and even educational but nothing that cries out to solve a problem or ease a process. We have things set up for all that now.

I am only one person in this very large organization and appreciate the help you have given in making our test meetings work so well. But it is time to decide: is Zoom useful for us or not? And if so, how would it be implemented.

Zoe, our zombie reader from the bayous says "ggrAARgdddgg!" (which means 'brains!!")

[msfry]

Well, I for one am greatly enjoying these Zoom sessions and I see a lot of potential for talking shop, sharing techniques, and, uh,

Getting to know you
Getting to know all about you
Getting to like you
Getting to hope you like me, la, la, la

I'd really like to know how others stream/download and listen to our books (from IA, LV, audiobook apps, etc.). We've barely scratched the surface, I'm thinking.
I'd like to know what an Mp4 is and why we offer them.
I certainly look forward to some more Voice Coaching tutorials.
Lots of things would benefit by live demonstrations.

I certainly do plan on offering that cover-making tutorial one of these days soon, as promised. Anyone interested in participating in Cover Making Basics, please PM me with your best available times and days, and when I get 2 to 4 participants who can agree on a time, I'll PM an invite. I presume I could also post my invite in the Zoom Announcement Thread as well.

Many of us have things to share. Anyone can download Zoom to their computer and I see no impediment to any of us setting up a Zoom tutorial and hosting it (except of course the need to master the platform, which takes some doing). I'd be happy to host for other presenters as well.

[TriciaG]

I'd really like to know how others stream/download and listen to our books (from IA, LV, audiobook apps, etc.). We've barely scratched the surface, I'm thinking.
I'd like to know what an Mp4 is and why we offer them.

While there are certainly some things that work best in a Zoom-type setting (or YouTube video, but Zoom has the ability for watchers to ask questions right away), questions like these two would work just fine in the forum. I doubt we'd need each respondent to demonstrate visually their method of listening to books, for example. (Mine is so basic, it's laughable: I download them to my computer and listen via a media player.)

MP4's are a video format. We don't do those; we offer M4Bs, which is an Apple-exclusive audiobook format. Someone who knows something more about them could demonstrate them in Zoom, but there's the basic answer. Why do we offer them? A member started converting the projects to M4B and offering them, and we continued the practice. (Here's the starting thread: viewtopic.php?t=24651)

Sunday afternoons are not my best meeting time, so I probably won't be there for this upcoming one. I hope, though, that some solid action items will come out of it (hosts/facilitator volunteers for a few more, scheduling, etc.). This could very well turn out a lot like the Community Podcasts, where when someone is moved to do one, they do it!

I think your cover topic is a good idea, Michele, and I hope you're able to do it. And yes, the invite for it can be posted in the Announcement thread.

[williamjones]

Well, I for one am greatly enjoying these Zoom sessions and I see a lot of potential for talking shop, sharing techniques, and, uh,

<snip>
I'd like to know what an Mp4 is and why we offer them.
<snip>

mp4 files generally contain rolling video, altho it is possible for them to hold only audio.
I didn't know that mp4 files were offered somewhere on Librivox nor why. mp3 files are much more efficient for holding only audio.

[annise]

Michele made a mistake - we do not offer video files - various people do take our files and release them on youtube but our official release formats are shown on our catalogue pages.

Anne

[msfry]

I misspoke, as Tricia explained. Should have said M4B. Obviously, I can't tell the difference, and I still would not know what to do with one.

[knotyouraveragejo]

An M4B file is an audiobook format. It contains audio that is stored in the MPEG-4 format and compressed using AAC encoding. M4B files support book-related features, such as chapter breaks and bookmarking. (see link)

These are made by a couple of volunteers from the mp3 files and uploaded to the archive.org pages for our cataloged projects. The m4b files are the "LibriVox Apple Audiobook" in the list of files on the archive page.

[k5hsj]

The character of police officer Billy Bob was based on John’s favorite brother, who was a sheriff in Toad Suck, Arkansas”

Yes, Virginia, there is a Toad Suck, Arkansas, where I once saw a catfish large enough to fill the back of a pick-up truck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toad_Suck,_Arkansas.

Winston