amplificathon | (no subject)

okay, as we are about to wrap up (though everyone has LOADS of time to record/post more. just saying), i have some preliminary poll results to share, and i can also tell you some of the conclusions the mods have already made about how this has all gone this year, and how we are likely to move forward.

1) early on in the challenge, i received a very nice, very helpful suggestion about fandom tags. i (me,

general_jinjur) shot it down. i'm not sure why, in retrospect. tags are necessary. i think i was just being weird and defensive. :/ we are currently putting fandom tags into place, and we will add tags as we go next year. (credit goes to both

twasadark and

jadesfire2808 for this suggestion.)

2) we are working on a scheme of points for length. yes, we agree that it's necessary. but i want to make this very clear: short podfics are completely valid by the terms of this challenge. ficlets are awesome. my personal suspicion is that if we had disallowed or discouraged them during this iteration of the challenge, we would simply have wound up with fewer podfics, not more long podfics. we are working on putting together some ficlet anthologies to address the concerns of listeners who want something long enough for a commute. yes, i think we would all like to encourage longer recordings - but we really don't want to discourage new readers, and i think short fics are a way in for them.

3) after the challenge is over, we do have many ideas for moving forward, some from feedback, some from the hivebrain. we're currently consensusing about them, you'll hear soon. we do want to continue to encourage people to make recordings, and to discover rare fandom fic, and to build community, and to have stuff to listen to. on that tip,

fish_echo mentioned the librivox project - it's not fannish, and wouldn't include unpublished original fic, but i think it does sound appealing. :) also, it's a way to create/find/share audiobooks that you can listen to while carpooling, which podfic might not necessarily be suited to. :p

4) the poll! it's still open. please fill it out - replies are all private, so feel free to say what you think (i promise that if you make me cry, i will keep that private, too. heh.)
if you said yes to a physical prize, please fill out the address answer! or email us, audmod at gmail. or email me, jinjurly at gmail.
if you volunteered to create an internet deliverable prize, expect to be contacted pretty soon. :)
if you have feedback you don't want to leave in a poll, please comment or email.

i am very grumpy today. my apologies if that comes across here. it's not you, it's me. y'all are awesome.

Threaded | Flat

All sounds awesome! Except, when are you not weird (if not defensive)? Tags, yay!

Also, don't be a spoilsport. If we make you cry, we want to know about it so we can gloat. The, of course, is the imperial 'we'.

Looking forward to making lots and lots more podbooks for everyone!

Hey, this was a great contest and I've enjoyed doing the podfics. I've got one more I'm trying to finish up before the deadline. I kind of had a dual purpose, since I wanted to record

t_verano's The Sentinel stories and I was going to do that regardless of the contest, but it was nice to be able to combine the two. And I have downloaded the crap out of everybody's else podfics. I'm doing a lot of walking, and listening to podfic is my motivator. I've listened to In The City of Seven Walls twice now, that story will never get old.

Will you have this one again next year, and/or run a different contest? I'd particpate again.

Laurie

I fangirl you hugely for all you've done with this challenge and with the archive. This has rocked hardcore, and I am delighted and deeply grateful.

As for the points/length thing: I'm one of the people who has benefited from racking up points for very short podficlets. For me, it was wonderful to learn that drabbles/ficlets were allowed and welcomed. That's a big part of what gave me the courage to pop my podfic virginity and try it for the first time. It let me learn all the requisite reading and editing and Audacity skills on small stuff that I could work on in manageable little chunks, and if I screwed something up and had to start over from scratch, it wasn't discouraging enough to make me give up and lose heart. So you gave a big shot of motivation and encouragement to this newbie, at least.

That said, there's nothing I love more than a long, tasty podfic, and I now have a very deep appreciation for what goes into making them. The stamina and dedication that go into recording longer works absolutely does deserve recognition and reward.

As for me, I'd be perfectly happy to plummet in the standings based on point adjustments for length. Lower points for really short stuff, higher points for long stuff, whatever makes it feel fair, I'm all for it.

In conclusion, thanks so very much to you and your co-mods for the enormous amount of hard work you've put into this challenge. I've come out of it with lots of lovely new stuff to listen to, and I'm also hooked hard on contributing to the wealth by recording things for others to enjoy. I can't thank you all enough. You rock beyond the telling of it.

You guys have done an incredible job - keeping up with the posting volume must have been such hard work. The fandom tags would be handy in the comm, but given the speed that you've been uploading things to the archive, finding things there has been nice and easy.

Having done both long and short stuff (although not over 30 mins since that scares even me...) I think weighting for length sounds like a good plan, but maybe only once you've recorded over 5 fics, if that's not too fiddly. That way, people can ease themselves in gently, and I've enjoyed listening to the little ones as much as the big ones! Anyhoo, given how great this year has been, I think we'll all trust you to do what's best for next year :D

I have a whole bunch of stuff sitting on my computer waiting to be edited - I was in a talking mood but not a 'faffing with Audacity' mood, so there may be a bit of a fic dump over the next few days...

Thanks so much for all your work - it's been an absolute blast. I think I'm addicted!

This has been a lot of time and effort on the parts of the mods and it's definitely paid off. I'm not sure I'll ever catch up on all the podfic I've got bookmarked to download and listen:)

I'm just really greatful and excited to have had a challenge where I could actively participate and contribute. So thank you for that as well.

Merci Beaucoup again for creating this challenge and giving our podfics a permanent home!

I had a lot of fun discovering new fandoms not only by listening but also reading. Inviting authors to pimp their work to us was a brilliant idea, completely unexpected opportunities came up.

A point system that takes the length into account would be nice, because some people have taken on real lindworms and should be rewarded.