Librivox is all growed up now.

[williamjones]

It's time to drop the excuse: "...because that's the way we've always done <something>"


In the beginning, Planet LV was null and void.
Then HM said "Let there be light!"
Planet LV was still null and void but now you could see it.

When HM conceived of starting a depository or source for PD literature, it can be looked at like a store, one of whose Obvious Mandates was "To attract Listeners/customers, you MUST have products on your shelves."

So, attracting people to record books, poems, government documents, etc. was PARAMOUNT. Grab people off the street if need be; ask the neighbor who lives in the next apartment, etc., etc. Just get some books recorded!! An unspoken phrase in this initial directive was "without regard to quality"; i.e., "Accept anything from anybody. Gotta load up those shelves."

This was valid IN THE BEGINNING.
Year 2021 is NOT the Beginning.

Quality Counts:

My thesis is this: With 16,000+ titles in the Planet LV catalog, a "bare shelves" hazard is no longer of concern. The Critical Mass has been reached and surpassed. The ongoing concern should now be one of QUALITY.
QUALITY is what will build an audience of returning listeners and will induce word-of-mouth spreading of the word.

A frequent Planet LV listener remarked to me about a year ago: "I hate it when I'm getting into a great novel and suddenly, there is a string of narrators whose accents are difficult to decipher. Sure, I can figure out what they're saying ... eventually; but I chose this Librivox book to hear a story, not as an exercise to figure out what a foreigner is saying."

I've heard similar comments (from an MC!!)) about narrators who are just deadly dull, killing the enthusiasm for continuing to read the ensuing sections of a story.

Planet LV has one obvious obligation to users: fluent, easily understood narrators... not BARELY understood, but EASILY understood.

The One Minute test should be a more extensive and should be a Pass/Fail test arbitrated by a Jury of BCs, the people who deal with the raw audio.

The obvious Questions might be:
1. Who would select the Jury members?
2. What criteria should be adopted as the basis for accepting or denying a narrator's offerings?
3. What would be the basis of Rejection: Black-Ball or Majority of a group of jurors?
4. How and when would a potential narrator's recitation be forwarded to the Jury?

Them's my thoughts and questions. I am eager to hear your thoughts and answers

[annise]

My thoughts
NO
Librivox is what it is. And it does what it says it does. It records books in the public domain - it's nice people listen but we aren't selling anything or attracting customers we are recording books because we like recording books - just like many people paint pictures because they like painting them or make pots or any other hobby.
And the great thing about it is that it is much easier to store recorded books than pictures or pots.

Anne

[williamjones]

My thoughts
NO
Librivox is what it is. And it does what it says it does.

Anne

I figured that's what you (and some others) might say.
But that attitude diminishes the appeal of Librivox.
The "That's the way we've always done it" is narrow minded and injurious to the future health of the LV institution. It is a pernicious infection on the body of Librivox.

[annise]

And that is what I thought you would say.
but trying to make out I am narrow-minded is not much of an argument.
If we were listener-based we would only record books that are popular or on the school reading lists
Our prime directive is to record all public domain books.

Anne

[philchenevert]

Oh dear Bill, there is no need to get nasty. LibriVox has never had the mindset of "thats t he way it's always been done" There have been constant changes over the years based on mutual agreement that something is clunky or outmoded, much improvement in the infrastructure over the 10 years I've been here. We do indeed point to our prime directive "record audiobooks and give them out free" (my phasing) and judge by that as a starting point for potential changes but within that we are always looking for ways to get the job done and do it better.

You will notice that is the customer mentioned except that our recordings will be free to them. Adding the stipulation of easily understandable would complicate things exponentially. If you think for a minute of the complexity of adding this requirement, the layers of prooflisteners, panels, judges, appeals, criteria, etc, etc you will see that not only does it pervert us from our primary goal, but is just not doable. I am very open to talk about this since you feel so strongly about it.

[williamjones]

Oh dear Bill, there is no need to get nasty. LibriVox has never had the mindset of "thats t he way it's always been done" There have been constant changes over the years based on mutual agreement that something is clunky or outmoded, much improvement in the infrastructure over the 10 years I've been here. We do indeed point to our prime directive "record audiobooks and give them out free" (my phasing) and judge by that as a starting point for potential changes but within that we are always looking for ways to get the job done and do it better.

You will notice that is the customer mentioned except that our recordings will be free to them. Adding the stipulation of easily understandable would complicate things exponentially. If you think for a minute of the complexity of adding this requirement, the layers of prooflisteners, panels, judges, appeals, criteria, etc, etc you will see that not only does it pervert us from our primary goal, but is just not doable. I am very open to talk about this since you feel so strongly about it.

Thanks for your counsel and advice, Phil.
However, I disagree about the exponential increase in complications. It might be only linear. And, I've already gone thru many possible problems and found none really significant. Especially considering the improvement of the quality of the Librivox output.
As I mentioned in my preface story, bad narrators are like lumps in the mashed potatoes or gravel in the rice pudding.

First, one point: Bad narrators must be removed. Their appearance in a Librivox cataloged item leads one to believe that Librivox is cheap and 2nd class.

See ya in a little while at Zoom/2.
And, thanks again.

[Availle]

Fun fact: Nobody ever thinks that they are bad narrators.

And to answer your suggestion: NO.

[DACSoft]

@williamjones
You seem to have a different idea of what LibriVox is (or should be), then either I or many of the other LV volunteers.

Planet LV has one obvious obligation to users: fluent, easily understood narrators... not BARELY understood, but EASILY understood.

Not true. To rephrase Anne/annise's statement in words similar to yours:

Planet LV has one obvious obligation: "to record all public domain books"
LV does not, and should not, rate (or pass/fail) potential volunteers' narration abilities, styles, accents, etc.

The One Minute test should be a more extensive and should be a Pass/Fail test arbitrated by a Jury of BCs, the people who deal with the raw audio.

Again, not true. From my perspective, LV is a site for narrators: individuals who enjoy making audio books, who volunteer their time (we don't get paid here) to do so, have a place to do so, and are not excluded by some subjective standard of "professional quality."

First, one point: Bad narrators must be removed. Their appearance in a Librivox cataloged item leads one to believe that Librivox is cheap and 2nd class.

Absolutely not, IMHO.

LibriVox is welcoming to any and all who would enjoy assisting in the prime directive. Bad narrators are in the eye of the beholder; a bad narrator to one listener is a good narrator to another.

A benefit to readers and listeners of LV is the "choice of voice." If a listener doesn't care for a particular narration they can select an alternate version at LV, if one is available. And if the listener doesn't like a narration, and thinks they can do better, then they are welcome to (join LV and/or) record their own audio version of the ebook.

[Rapunzelina]

Just enjoy reading and don't worry about listeners. It's not as if we're selling a product and we'll lose customers

LV is about books, the love of books and the love of reading. And if some people appreciate listening, that's an extra bonus

[Kitty]

The "That's the way we've always done it" is narrow minded and injurious to the future health of the LV institution. It is a pernicious infection on the body of Librivox.

I have to disagree with this sentence. "Not changing something" which has turned out to be a good way of making a community work wonderfully and harmoniously together based on tolerance and acceptance is NOT narrow-minded and injurious to continued smooth running of the same community.

However: starting to become selective, having a board of self-proclaimed specialists decide who is to join and who needs to go away because they are not good enough for the taste of this small jury, THAT is not only narrow-minded, it is dictatorial, restrictive, elitist and ultimately will destroy the harmony and tolerance of the forum.

We have enough restrictions in this world of ours, LV shows that it works quite well without stigmatizing anybody and refusing their volunteer work.

Also: people who suggest such "censoring" should always be aware: what if one day someone in the jury finds that YOUR work is not good enough for publishing I bet Robespierre never dreamed of ending up on the guillotine himself when he started his terror regime. It's worth thinking about.

Sonia

[Basquetteur]

I hesitate a little bit to particiapte in this good discussion, but I would like to say that Librivox allows smoothly and easily to record as many versions of the same book as the individuals volunteers wish. Therefore if someone is unhappy about a version he/she can always record its own new version. Also, I think the librivox community is open and encouraging, and innovative, flexible and broad minded. The success is enormous and its goal steadily advances and will never be complete.
Regards
Basquetteur

[BengtW]

I believe we can have it both ways. There is no reason to have a quality goal apart from it being understandable. I do however think that in the neat future human voices emulated by AI trained software would do a "subjectivity better" performance than than many readers. The main goal is for readers to read and secondary for the listeners to listen.

You can argue it is hard for a listener to find works they could enjoy given the large amount of works and this webpage does nothing to help them apart from the occasional blog posts. I have however since starting the YouTube channel realized that this kind of channel solves this problem and gives listeners better options to find popular works and once you found something you like to be recommended more. The YouTube algorithm is self trained for this purpose, to maximize view time for it users.

Let librivox care for readers and other channels for listeners.

[williamjones]

The "That's the way we've always done it" is narrow minded and injurious to the future health of the LV institution. It is a pernicious infection on the body of Librivox.

I have to disagree with this sentence. "Not changing something" which has turned out to be a good way of making a community work wonderfully and harmoniously together based on tolerance and acceptance is NOT narrow-minded and injurious to continued smooth running of the same community.

However: starting to become selective, having a board of self-proclaimed specialists decide who is to join and who needs to go away because they are not good enough for the taste of this small jury, THAT is not only narrow-minded, it is dictatorial, restrictive, elitist and ultimately will destroy the harmony and tolerance of the forum.

We have enough restrictions in this world of ours, LV shows that it works quite well without stigmatizing ("stigmatizing"??? get real!) anybody and refusing their volunteer work.

Also: people who suggest such "censoring" should always be aware: what if one day someone in the jury finds that YOUR work is not good enough for publishing I bet Robespierre never dreamed of ending up on the guillotine himself when he started his terror regime. It's worth thinking about.

Sonia

Thank you for your comments, but, you've missed my point... "Censoring" refers to ideological content and that is not at all the problem I think needs addressing. The main point is that LV should feel honor-bound to offer understandable renditions of pieces of significant literature. AND, if a particular rendition is NOT understandable, then do not present it to the listening audience as tho it were. You used the "scare-terms" "restrictive and elitist" when thoughtful people would use the terms "adequate and suitable".

I envision BCs referring to the jury a section's .mp3 file (or a 1-minute test) about which he/she has a significant concern as to its being "easily understood". I.e., not every .mp3 but only those which raise a flag in the BC's ears.

The impression which LV gives to someone listening to a section of a work should not be Amateur Hour in the church basement.

[Availle]

We already worry about understandability.
One of our criteria - mostly intended for foreign speakers of a language - is "being understandable by a native speaker".

If you are ever concerned about somebody not being understandable in one of your BC projects, you can always contact your MC for another pair of ears to listen.

[williamjones]

I believe we can have it both ways. There is no reason to have a quality goal apart from it being understandable. I do however think that in the neat future human voices emulated by AI trained software would do a "subjectivity better" performance than than many readers. The main goal is for readers to read and secondary for the listeners to listen.

You can argue it is hard for a listener to find works they could enjoy given the large amount of works and this webpage does nothing to help them apart from the occasional blog posts. I have however since starting the YouTube channel realized that this kind of channel solves this problem and gives listeners better options to find popular works and once you found something you like to be recommended more. The YouTube algorithm is self trained for this purpose, to maximize view time for it users.

Let librivox care for readers and other channels for listeners.

Thank you for this comment.
AI recitations would be helpful in distinguishing "Dirty" from "Thirty" but still cannot handle rising and falling tonal inflection. There will always be a place for human eyes delivering meta data to one's vocal apparatus as Noam Chomsky said.

Your statement, "The main goal is for readers to read and secondary for the listeners to listen." Is kinda frightening...this implies that LV should become place where readers (i.e., narrators) can practice, for their own pleasure, recording things and there is no need to list or advertise the titles of what the narrator has recorded because he/she has already had their fun and there is no need for other people to hear it. Is that what you mean? Do you see that LV is just a "write-only" device for the amusement of the narrators? This is the hidden meaning of the "reader-centric" posture I hear bandied about mostly by old time MCs.

I can speak only for myself in this regard, but when I record a section for some LV project I am HOPING that someone, someday will listen to it and enjoy or appreciate it. I get some positive feedback when I see the download counts roll up on Internet Archive. (foolish pride!)

Again, thanks for your comments.