LibriVox Forum

Maybe I am wrong here for questions like that, bu I am new in here and couldn't find a fitting place to ask that.
I would be happy for every advice, if here is the 'wrong' place.

Is it possible to write any personal review/comment to a public audiobook, which listeners could read?

Thank you in advance

Here at Librivox, on our forums, we don't accept any reviews. We don't allow any negative criticism. I know reviews can be positive also but we stay away from the whole concept. However, archive.org, who hosts all our books does have a review area. On the left side of our catalogue page for any project you will see a link to Internet Archive Page. Click on that and you will find a place to post your reviews.

Thank you a lot for your help!

Darvinia wrote:Here at Librivox, on our forums, we don't accept any reviews. We don't allow any negative criticism. I know reviews can be positive also but we stay away from the whole concept.

Maybe an example is best, if a audiobook has rascist content, librivox don't care, because negative critism is against the hole concept of reviews?
How librivox deal with topics like that, is there a forum part, where I could find discussions about that?

Could it be you misunderstood? LibriVox does not allow any reviews of the audiobooks made by volunteers, here in the forums. Are you asking for the rationale behind that decision?

The book content makes no difference to us when we take it up to read it. We don't change the content on purpose. If it's a published book (and is currently in the Public Domain), it can be read. Racist, sexist, chauvinistic, profane, blasphemous, IOW offensive in any way, words are read as they were published. We do not edit the text to make it conform to somebody's views.

Again, if you have something to say about the audiobook (anything at all), you're free to do so, just not in LibriVox forums.

fremdschaemen wrote:Maybe an example is best, if a audiobook has rascist content, librivox don't care, because negative critism is against the hole concept of reviews?

No, LibriVox "don't care" because we read the books as they exist. We simply convert the printed words into audio.

fremdschaemen wrote:How librivox deal with topics like that, is there a forum part, where I could find discussions about that?

Topics like what? There is no forum part where you can find discussions of audiobooks based on the contents of the book from which the audiobook was created. There are simply no discussions of any audiobooks. None whatsoever.

You can find discussions somewhere else, outside of LibriVox. Darvinia suggested Archive.org itself. There you can write a review to any of our audiobooks. And as far as I know, there is no limitation as to what you can say in such a review there.

Thank you for your explain, I didnt understood that before.

This just makes me really sad that for my point of view librivox support publishing and spreading rascist content.

You helped me a lot, thank you tovarisch

Regardless how much we'd like to, there is nothing we can do about your point of view.

The main goal of LibriVox is to publish all existing public domain books in audio format. And we, as members of LibriVox community sign up to do that. It's not necessarily an oath that we give, but just like any other "user agreement", by becoming a member of the community each of us agrees to uphold and support this particular goal.

You seem to have doubts about being a member. It sounds like you express regrets that you joined LibriVox before learning of such important sides of it.

tovarisch wrote:Regardless how much we'd like to, there is nothing we can do about your point of view.

The main goal of LibriVox is to publish all existing public domain books in audio format. And we, as members of LibriVox community sign up to do that. It's not necessarily an oath that we give, but just like any other "user agreement", by becoming a member of the community each of us agrees to uphold and support this particular goal.

You seem to have doubts about being a member. It sounds like you express regrets that you joined LibriVox before learning of such important sides of it.

This seems a bit harsh to me. A LibriVox member can disagree with recording racist or otherwise objectionable material. There are some projects I refuse to participate in (MC, BC, record, or PL) due to their content. People are free to stay out of such projects.

So while I agree with the goal of LV (to make every PD book available in audio format), I choose to do it in my little corner of ideology rather than "supporting" the works I would rather were cast into oblivion.

One other, quick note for clarification: LibriVox doesn't disallow ALL reviews or even ALL negative criticism. Regarding reviews: I think our Thank a Reader thread gives reviews, in a sense. And regarding criticism: we do not allow unsolicited negative criticism. If a particular reader asks for someone's opinion, good, bad or ugly, they are allowed to receive it. It needs to be constructive, but if a reader asks if their Spanish is understandable, a response of "I give you kudos for effort, but I think you shouldn't record in Spanish. It's not undertandable" is allowed. Same for style - if a reader asks for it, they can get it.

I don't see anything harsh about expressing my opinion about other member's post. Just like you express yours about mine. What did you find harsh?

Members are free to disagree, free to participate in any projects or to abstain. Along with that, I do think that opposition to the organization as a whole is at conflict with being a member.

This is not the first time you point out that you refrain from participating in some projects. However, you don't make your opposition specific, either by listing the projects or the reasons. I see it in line with the policy of not criticizing. What do you call it when a member, immediately upon being told that we don't criticise, chooses to slap upon the whole organization a derogatory label? Seems like an expression of a regret to me...

Tovarish, yours seems like an overreaction to me. My gut feeling tells me, that fremdschaemen is not a native speaker and might not have understood well what has been said. Going by the user name, they sound German. I'd be very happy to translate and/or explain in German if wanted.

ETA: Oh, and I think I see where fremdschämen comes from: we're having a very difficult time here in Germany with the extremely right feeling themselves on the up, causing much of trouble to people with different beliefs than the Christian religion, and people from other countries in general, but specifically refugees. It seems that fremdschämen is afraid that by listening to some (racist ect) librivox content these people find their views supported. I'm sure this is not the case, those people have other sources that seemingly support their views.

The Librivox app lets you write reviews, but they are checked before being published, I think. I try to write an encouraging review for most of the books I listen to!

Well, if you want to write a review about the content of the book (and from my understanding, this is what the original post is about), I guess goodreads would be a far better place for that than archive.org or the librivox app.

tovarisch wrote:I don't see anything harsh about expressing my opinion about other member's post. Just like you express yours about mine. What did you find harsh?

If I may respond to this (particularly as this has occurred previously) I can address how your post read as harsh to me also:

You seem to have doubts about being a member. It sounds like you express regrets that you joined LibriVox before learning of such important sides of it.

Particularly to someone who is new, saying essentially "If you don't like it you shouldn't have joined" or "If you don't like it you can leave" can sound a lot like "if you don't agree I wish you would leave" or even "please leave".

I think it would be clearer to say that Librivox has a well considered opinion on this topic and while this isn't going to change, readers are free to participate only in projects of which they approve and not to participate in projects of which they do not approve.

fremdschaemen wrote:Thank you for your explain, I didnt understood that before.

This just makes me really sad that for my point of view librivox support publishing and spreading rascist content.

You helped me a lot, thank you tovarisch

Some people may have a problem with the amount of Christian material that is published. Who makes that call? Best is for LV to be completely independent.

Having said that, I do query the choice of some books that readers choose to record, but that reflects on the readers themselves rather than Librivox.

for many books, it depends on how you look at it. for example, a ton of anti-slavery books contain language that we consider racist, but using it to criticise racism. in the same way, i know that we have plenty of readers who read nonfiction material out of an interst in the history, so that we can learn from it, though the reader may not even agree with the content. i have done that myself (some of it is of professional interest to me and i imagine a lot of others too).

i coordinate plenty of books written around and about world war I. they contain some terrible things said about the german population in general (not just the army and politicians). i am german myself. now if you said some of the things contained in the books to me today id get pretty angry, but considering these things in the historical context is a whole different thing. same goes for things said about women, and plenty of other groups of people.

naturally these examples do not apply to everything, but they might show how many shades of grey there are

Elizabby wrote:...If I may respond to this (particularly as this has occurred previously) I can address how your post read as harsh to me also:

You seem to have doubts about being a member. It sounds like you express regrets that you joined LibriVox before learning of such important sides of it.

Particularly to someone who is new, saying essentially "If you don't like it you shouldn't have joined" or "If you don't like it you can leave" can sound a lot like "if you don't agree I wish you would leave" or even "please leave"...

Oh, I agree.

Saying "if you don't like it, go" is pretty much personal advice to leave.

Saying, "if you don't like it you can leave" is but a statement of fact. If I don't like it, I can leave. Right? Bud did I say that? I did not.

Even if I said that, it would not imply that I wish they leave. We are free to do as we think right, and nobody can tell us what we should do or even less what we shouldn't have done. Yes, any of us can leave. It's our choice. Even less do I presume to give any advice to any member as far as their beliefs go.

I cannot help it when "you seem to be misinterpreting my words" might sound to somebody that I accuse them of purposefully twisting what I have said. But you seem to be reading in my words what you had on your mind, not what I had on mine.