Group Projects Moving Slowly?

Post by **Lynnet** » July 14th, 2013, 10:34 am

TriciaG wrote:
Any of these would be inexpensive and easy to do for any professional programmer worth his/her salt... and I imagine we have a few of those lurking behind the scenes?
If this were decided upon, it won't be in the Mellon Grant rollout happening in a couple/few weeks.

Maybe they should have asked me before planning this

lubee930 · Post by **lubee930** » July 14th, 2013, 11:53 am

Lynnet wrote: After consultation with my 'technical advisor' (my husband, who is a programming guru and sells programs for 6 figures - and just told me the fee for our 5 minute conversation was $2000 ) here are the possibilities for this:
Lynne

That's wonderful, Lynne!

Yes, it seems simple enough to me when I say--"How about inserting a pop-up 4-line form"--but then I suppose that it might be much more complicated to accomplish than I would have the expertise to realize!

lubee930 · Post by **lubee930** » July 14th, 2013, 4:01 pm

Cori wrote: I don't think LibriVox is for everyone, and that's not a bad thing, there are a lot of other ways to enjoy books, spread knowledge, volunteer, share, and generally make the world a better place. Let's not lose the fun aspect of this.

So very true, Cori. And, yes, I'll bet you've seen LibriVox evolve in ways that most of us newer members can't even imagine! Thanks for putting it in perspective!

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 15th, 2013, 10:03 am

1. Claim but no test recording
2. Test recording but no claim
3. Claim(s) but no upload
4. Only 1 upload (after a reasonable period)
etc

If we can identify a reasonable chunk of users in each category we can presumably survey them

Ay, there's the rub. I could give you a list of 100 people to sift through to find those in (1).

(2) necessitates going through the Listeners and Editors Wanted forum and searching the posts of people who have posted there.

3. same as 1, except the ones whose claims were removed after some months. No record of them.

4. is easier (admins could find a selection of these, given time, which we don't have at the moment)

At the risk of being accused of being as subjective as the rest of you ( ) my gut tells me that 1 & 2 are likely to be technical reasons

My gut doesn't. In my experience, if people really want to record, they will plug away until they have got the hang of it. With (1) I have seen many occasions when someone hops on to the forum, claims 1 or more sections, and then never logs on again. I suspect this happens especially after there have been articles on the web telling people how easy it is to make money as 'voice-over artistes'.

EDITED TO ADD: I agree with what Lezer says. I myself have seen articles on the web that recommend our super-friendly advice to people who want to do their own podcasts. It riles me, frankly.

Ruth

lezer · Post by **lezer** » July 16th, 2013, 3:14 am

A completely different suggestion to make the group projects in the Readers Wanted: Books forum perhaps be picked out more easily by prospective readers: have the [ ] tags read something sensible.

At the beginning of each topic title, before the book title, we had originally planned to put some information - the ~ sign for when the project is still looking for a DPL (which is removed once the DPL if found). And then the genre in [ ] (so [FICTION] or [HISTORY] or [KIDS]). I think that helps readers find things they like. Especially new readers, who will be overwhelmed by 100+ projects to choose from.
Right now, a lot of the topics just show [GROUP] - which doesn't help at all. Or they don't have the tag.

This is something BCs can keep accurate.

Won't be a miracle cure, but might help, and is easy to do?

Anna

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 16th, 2013, 3:27 am

The GROUP and SOLO tags are supposed always to be replaced by genre when the project leaves the Launch Pad. It doesn't seem to be happening.

Ruth

Post by **ToddHW** » July 16th, 2013, 3:32 am

Suppose we divided "Readers Wanted: Books" into two separate forum topics - fiction and non-fiction perhaps - so that looking for something to record isn't as daunting? Then the [ ] could be for more specific genres within fiction or non-fiction such as [mystery] or [kids] or [western] or [history] or [architecture] instead of wasting the [ ] on the too broad [fiction] or [non-fiction] split?

I hope I haven't used the [group] tag (though I bet I have) - isn't everything in Readers Wanted: Books a [group]? (Otherwise it would be in Going Solo?) Only time [group] seems useful is while in the Launch Pad, and if all the solos really said [solo] the [group] would be unnecessary.

(Is it possible for other than an admin to edit the topic when something moves from Launch Pad to other forum? I did not realize that as BC I could change the topic title line - if I can - when I edit the first posting.)

Thanks, Todd

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 16th, 2013, 3:35 am

All projects in Readers Wanted books/short works/dramatic works are group projects, yes. If you wrote the post, you can edit the subject line. I have always done it myself when MCing, and I imagine that very few BCs (and possibly some MCs) have never realised this.

ETA I have now amended some of them.

Ruth

ccfpcl · Post by **ccfpcl** » July 16th, 2013, 4:12 am

Speaking as the owner of a languishing non-fiction project, I'd like to speak up in support of Todd's suggestion to split the "readers wanted" fora.

Chris.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 16th, 2013, 4:40 am

Do you think that many readers read only fiction or non-fiction? You might get even fewer visitors to your topic if the two were split

. I wouldn't say it is languishing, by the way. It started less than a month ago and has 32% sections assigned (though granted most of those are you

).

Ruth

ccfpcl · Post by **ccfpcl** » July 16th, 2013, 4:50 am

Fair point about casual browsing behaviour Ruth. Hadn't considered that.

[My perspective on Escoffier is that I had my first non-aligned volunteer yesterday, 3 weeks after go-live. This compares with some projects that are already half sold before they make it to Readers wanted! Guess my glass is half empty

Thanks for promoting it BTW!]

Chris.

Loveday · Post by **Loveday** » July 16th, 2013, 6:01 am

RuthieG wrote:The GROUP and SOLO tags are supposed always to be replaced by genre when the project leaves the Launch Pad. It doesn't seem to be happening.

Ruth

Crumbs - I had no idea. Updated the one of mine which was wrong

lubee930 · Post by **lubee930** » July 16th, 2013, 8:35 am

Loveday wrote:
RuthieG wrote:The GROUP and SOLO tags are supposed always to be replaced by genre when the project leaves the Launch Pad. It doesn't seem to be happening.
Ruth
Crumbs - I had no idea. Updated the one of mine which was wrong

Nor did I--where did I miss that?? I just supposed that there were variations in the manner that different BC's titled their projects. And as a matter of fact, I have sometimes used a combination, as in: [GRP/BIO] Blah, blah, blah by John Doe--when space permitted. Oh, well. Learn something new every day!

lubee930 · Post by **lubee930** » July 16th, 2013, 8:53 am

I kind of like the idea of having two threads--READERS WANTED: FICTION and READERS WANTED: NON-FICTION--as I would probably be browsing one of them to the exclusion of the other. Helpful for newcomers? I think it might be. It would point them in a certain direction more easily.

It would be interesting to see if a change of that type increased activity (ETA: or decreased activity) significantly in either group as compared to prior to the split. Ruth, I think that you could sign on as a full-time statistician--never mind the Admin duties and recording!

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » July 16th, 2013, 9:48 am

Ruth, I think that you could sign on as a full-time statistician

It has its attractions. Numbers generally do what you tell them to do

.

Ruth