podficmeta | Tell me something good -- Audible headers

My technology has influenced my preferences: I have an older iPod shuffle with no screen. While the files may have their metadata associated when they're on the web, as soon as they're local, they are maple-leaf seeds adrift in the universe.

This is what I love when I hear it at the start:
1. Fic fandom and title
1.5 (File x of total)
2. author name and contact
3. narrator name and contact
4. crucial headers
5. narrator's headers, including the fact that full headers appear at the end of the fic

This is the full "front matter," which I only want at the start of the first of a multi-file fic.

When #1 is missing I don't bother to listen. Items 2 & 3 let me FB the creators. Regarding #4: My crucial is probably your trivial, but I'd suggest:
a. Nature (gen/slash/het)
b. Pairing
c. Warning

#5 is where narrator's notes/info/additional comments would go.

Then I want all the detailed info -- "back matter" -- at the end of the fic. These include
1. URL for textfic at archive
2. Full spelling of author's name and link
3. Complete author header, including author notes
4. URL for podfic at archive
5. Full spelling of narrator's name and link
6. Complete narrator header, including narrator notes, beta thanks, music sources, phase of the moon, &c.

The full back matter only needs to appear at the end of the final file. #1 is helpful because I prefer to read podfic over textfic; if it's really special, I may want to go back and get the textfic. I appreciate full spelling in #2 and #5, because our psueds are designed more for the eye than the ear -- and as we all know, English spelling is highly unpredictable. The narrator's notes in #6 could also appear at the start, but I'll admit I want a "taste" of the reading before I invest too much time in listening to metadata.

FILE BREAKS
Multiple part files? That's why I assimilated and listen on a iPod. Podbooks provide chapter divisions, so the "front matter" can be skippable and the "back matter" can be jumped to. (I actually bought Audiobook Builder so I could mush multiple-file fics.) But podbooks require Apple's tech.

I think USENET provided a model of ensuring the pieces hang together: each file tells you how many other files there are. If I start listening and hear, "This is file 1 of 6," then I have a chance to go track down the other 6.

To faciliate skipping around on all devices, I like:

Five seconds of silence at the beginning of the file!

Front matter

Five sec silence or a stinger/beep tone.

The fic!

End announcement: if a multi-file fic, then
"end of file 1 for the SGA fic, Fabulous Fifties. continues in file 2"

The second file would start with a very abbreviated header, like "File 2 of (final number) for the SGA fic, Fabulous Fifties, by author name, read by narrator name."

and so forth.

What source are you downloading podfic from where the files can get lost? I'm curious, because what I have mostly seen is either simply enormous single files or zip files with all parts. I am, perhaps, too influenced in my expectation by the work of the audiofic archive.

I also hate when you get beginning/end title announcements for various parts, or silences between the parts. I just want the whole story to play seamlessly, so I can remain immersed in the world of the story without being interrupted by the technology.

I do prefer to download mp3s because I've never owned an mp3 player that played m4a. (I use Linux, and the latest generations of iPods are just a big pain in the ass with Linux.) And, while I can play m4b/m4b on the desktop, the chaptering technology has never worked out, and there actually comes a file size where my preferred player (totem) gets really enormously confused about where in the file it's playing, and it's hard to go back and forth within it, or (on the very, very largest of files) pause and restart.

Also, I'm not big on getting anyone's contact info/spelling of names in the audio. Audio just doesn't work for conveying that sort of information. There's a reason that the radio stations I'm familiar with say, "just go to our general website [conveniently, our call letters] and click on actual English language word or search for keyword actual English language word."

Convenient call letters aren't always available.

For example, the archive I use most often is creatively mispelled—and that's fine! If I spell out the URL at the end, then the reader won't get lost trying to reach audiofic.gingerly.com.

I want title, author, and reader. That's it. Nothing front or back. That should be in the metadata (and frankly, I look at headers BEFORE I d'load, so I don't need that).

And no repetition. I mean, I know which file I'm listening to. Why would I need the title again?

I'd like all the music in an mp3 (oh wait, that was another post :)...

How annoying is it for you if someone includes more extensive headers? And if they're going to include more extensive headers, do you suffer them better at the front or the back?

Not very.

i prefer to have urls and things at the end, but header notes aren't a big deal. Now, if they were at the beginning of every part, it probably would bug me, but mostly because I like staying immersed in the story!

I like the podfics I possess to stand alone, too, so when I make mine, while I don't give out as much as the first commenter listed (and as a listener, would hate to receive this much information in audio form at each listen, actually), I try to include full headers for the fic, my name as the reader, etc. I sometimes include reader's notes at the end, which, if I was less lazy, I would put in a different chapter of the audiobook version, probably. I make sure the metadata contains in the 'comments' field the URL for the story if there is a reliable one.

I suppose my practice as a recorder matches the default minimum that I like receiving as a listener, too. I don't /ever/ want to have to seek out the names of the author, reader and story outside of in the file itself; I like not having to resort to the web for its full headers and URL too (but I dislike having words / names / URLs spelled out, in general).

My peeves are more along the metadata organisation :) I want the READER's name to be the 'Artist' and the author's name to be in the 'composer' field. If there's a cover graphic artist I'll shift their name in 'Album Artist' (an iTunes field I'm not sure makes much sense, but that's how I use it, anyway). I don't want the Title field of the metadata to include anything beyond the title of the story itself (no fandom, pairing, name of the author or of the reader). This is (the basics of) how I rework the metadata of every podfic I keep in my library.

I think you should turn this comment about the metadata/tagging information into a top level post. :D? :D?

Overall, I like your approach to the audio metadata. It's enough so that I'm always oriented to the story I'm about to listen to, but not so much that I feel as if I'm being forced to watch a PSA to get to the story.

I'll make a top post about it, y! After I've finished working though. :)

I suppose my practice as a recorder matches the default minimum that I like receiving as a listener, too.

Yes, this! Personally, I only record title and author (I stopped doing my own name, for some reason, even though I like it when other people do it?), and occasionally author's notes if I think they enhance/change the story in some way, because that is all that I am interested in. I fast-forward through everything else myself, and once I realized that, I started slowly reducing the amount of info I include in my recordings to match my own preferences/expectations, instead of conforming to how others were doing it.

Any other information, like warnings, ratings &c, I will look up prior to downloading, if I am concerned about that kind of thing (which generally I am not).

Please put your name on your podfics. I am most likely to listen to podfic on my phone (which is a dumb phone with a crappy mp3 player interface) or on what is actually a program for viewing movies on my computer, which doesn't display most of the tagging metadata. Although I may decide, "Hmm, I really like the reader who reads that one story I have," I can guarantee that I'll never get back around to the audiofic archive to figure out who was the reader of that one story. OTOH, if I already know your name, because I've heard it a billion times, I may realize that I will want to download the next podfic you post to amplificathon.

I visited this community hoping to participate in discourse about podficcing methods, a topic that I love, and looked forward to joining many interesting discussions.

However you, the community administrator, have just told me that I should change the way I podfic because it doesn't fit your personal preferences; that the way I podfic is wrong because *you* say it is wrong.

This is not okay with me. I feel that it is comments like these that have been silencing discussion of podfic, and while I had not yet joined the community, I will be removing it from my subscription list because I will not support these attitudes.

I appreciate that you took the time to describe your metadata limitations and will take it under advisement, however I will not respond to any further comments -- my feelings on this matter are not up for discussion.

I'm responding to your comment, not because I expect to change your mind, but for anyone who comes to read this exchange after the fact.

When I said, "Please put your name on your podfics," I wasn't giving you an order, I was making a suggestion.

And I went on to explain what exactly about my listening setup it is that is the reason I think it's better if readers read their names when they podfic. In other words, I was giving you evidence to support my position.

Just because I'm the community administrator does not mean that I'm going to stay out of discussions or couch my opinions in reticent terms. I'm going to talk as I always do. I think podfic discussion is only going to get off the ground when people talk about what they like and why they like in a direct and forthwright way.

Sorry you've decided to leave the comm.

FWIW (and I honestly don't know if it *is* worth saying, but hopefully this comment will be useful to you and not just annoying?), I had a similarly aversive reaction to your initial comment as aphelant.

Like, I grumped around for about 10 minutes after I read it, and then told myself I was being ridiculous. And I'd thought it was just me overreacting, but since I am not the only one who had that reaction, maybe there is something in the way the comment itself was stated that we should examine.

I think maybe it was the way that it was written in the second person? Like, "if I already know your name" instead of someone's name. It was, indeed, like telling someone else to change to fit your preferences, when you could just as easily fix the problem by changing yourself (by going to the audiofic archive to look up the information, which, even though you said you wouldn't do it, is still something you *could* do). So it kind of came off like you were taking a problem that either you or her could change and putting the responsibility to change it on her. And so, yeah, it made me defensive, too.

Anyway, I think the moral is maybe that we should speak about these things in general terms, rather than directed to specific people. We can say what we like and others will read it and maybe change because of it, like that person who just made a music-free version of her podfic because she saw that a lot of people disliked music. But when it gets to the point of telling others what we want them, specifically, to do, it starts feeling like it's crossing a line and feelings get hurt.

I dunno, what do you think?

This part I am saying as a general participant in discussion: This was, in fact, a suggestion to a particular person. Aphelant said she had stopped reading her name aloud in podfic, and I would like aphelant to change that practice. She could and did tell me to get stuffed, but I wasn't speaking in generalities because I wasn't speaking to the general case.

I would have preferred that she told me to get stuffed because she thought the practice I am advocating was wrong (either for her in particular or podfic in general) and explained why, as that would have been of interest to the community in general, or, at least, me. Her reason for leaving appears to be that I tried to make her do something. I don't have any power over her practice; we don't post podfic to this community so it isn't as if she has to conform to my preferences or lose a place to advertise.

This part I am saying as the mod: I'm really, really not looking to make this into a place which restrains its discussion or discursive practices to accommodate readers' sensibilities. If other participants want to look at this discussion with Aphelant and personally change their presentation of ideas, that's cool, but I am not going to require or encourage that couching discussion in generalities become a community norm.

This part I am also saying as the mod: You can comment anonymously, but you must sign your anonymous comment in some manner. Future unsigned anon comments will get frozen without response. If you are coming from LJ, rather than commenting anonymously, you may want to login via OpenID, so you don't have to try to remember to attach a name. (I don't care if your name is your actual fannish pseud, I just don't want all the anonymous commenters to appear to be the same person.)

but I am not going to require or encourage that couching discussion in generalities become a community norm

Oh, I didn't mean require! I was speaking to you as a participant, not at all as mod. And not about policy, just about analyzing what had happened and seeing if that should inform our thoughts about how to phrase future discussions? Because I feel like we should be able to discuss *and* avoid stepping on peoples' feelings, especially if it's the case that it's not just one person being randomly sensitive but is rubbing multiple people the wrong way. But yeah, if we start to make rules about how do to that, then it becomes sort of icky, so it's just... like, as a discussion point. Podficmetameta, as it were.

And in the name of that, what would your point have lost if you had stated your preference overall, instead of telling a specific reader what to do? She would have still heard it, right, as would others, and everyone would be aware that some people listen in a way that means they won't hear the reader's name unless it's said in the file. So what would be the downside of saying it that way?

Not that I'm saying you have to! But I'd like to understand the other perspective on this, because it is unclear to me what the benefit is of speaking in specifics, at least in cases like this. And the downside of it is a lot more apparent to me.

And okay re: signing. Hmmm... I'm not sure what to sign as, though, because I was doing the "anonymous because I don't want to make accidental enemies if I fail at wording this well" thing, not the "anonymous because I don't have the option of signing in" thing. I am trying to say this in exactly the way that I would if I *were* signed in, but if I knew that I had to have my name associated with it forever if I did misspeak and upset you, I wouldn't have said anything. Is that okay? Or do you think people shouldn't use anon for that in this comm? If you say not to do it anymore, then I will respect that.

I really am trying to be constructive and not a troll. I hope that's coming across.

Is it okay if I just go with some ridiculous fake name, though, as long as I'm consistent?

~la araña discoteca

re: generalities vs. specifics.

Er, do you think anyone reading this exchange doesn't understand that you, specifically, would like me, specifically, to speak in a different way? Seriously, the generalities don't de-personalize the discussion once you've used the reply to function. And some people, including me, view a switch to generalities as a transparent attempt to defuse potential anger and evade ownership of the opinion being stated, and find that indirectness annoying in itself.

Also, the use of 'we' in discussion actually stomps all over buttons I have about people deciding they can read my mind, as well as invoking appeals to, not just irrelevant authority, but nameless authority. This project to change the way I speak wasn't something you and I entered into together; aphelant decided I was doing it wrong and you concurred.

Because I feel like we should be able to discuss *and* avoid stepping on peoples' feelings, especially if it's the case that it's not just one person being randomly sensitive but is rubbing multiple people the wrong way. (Have you considered that it's two people being randomly sensitive?) Look, I can't protect anybody's feelings when I don't know them well enough to know how their particular feelings get hurt. I can (pretty much) avoid insulting people and always avoid threatening people. I can't anticipate somebody's issues with authority or whatever it is I tripped over in Aphelant's psyche or conceptualization of polite discussion or whatever; you couldn't have known that I hate being we'd at. Standards of behavior are not ever going to be universal; even the flame-y, trolling, directly insulting behavior that would get kicked out of 99% of internet discussion is de rigeur on lolmeme or 4chan. I think it is even more difficult to come to a consensus on what behaving well is than on what behaving poorly is.

I have pretty much come to agree to disagree time, especially since this discussion has less than nothing to do with the aesthetics of podfic.

Re: anonymity. Um, sure, if you feel the need to be witness protection-y about it, sign with whatever. It's not as if people's actual fan pseuds aren't ridiculous, or as if no one's ever gotten an account just to sockpuppet.

I've got the memory of, like, a fruitfly, so it's difficult to earn my undying enmity by being an asshole in just one discussion. Also, I try to limit my minion ranks to reasonable people; generally speaking, no one goes around swearing vengeance on my behalf. FYI.

Noted, on all points. And I will try to keep the "we" thing in mind.

Thanks for having this conversation with me. I know it probably wasn't what you would have chosen to talk about, but you were very cool about it, and I, at least, found it helpful to my thinking. And I am totally happy with "agree to disagree" as an endpoint :)

-la araña discoteca

My peeves are more along the metadata organisation :) I want the READER's name to be the 'Artist' and the author's name to be in the 'composer' field. If there's a cover graphic artist I'll shift their name in 'Album Artist' (an iTunes field I'm not sure makes much sense, but that's how I use it, anyway). I don't want the Title field of the metadata to include anything beyond the title of the story itself (no fandom, pairing, name of the author or of the reader).

Yes! Metadata should be, you know, in the metadata!

"I want the READER's name to be the 'Artist' and the author's name to be in the 'composer' field."

It's stupid that Audacity (where I export to mp3 and write my metadata) doesn't offer a "composer" option.

And while I, as a listener, absolutely wished the reader was listed first, as a reader myself I will of course list the author first, because, duh, not my fic!

Yeah, I always to my tagging after I re-open the file I outputted from Audacity with a tagging software or in iTunes.

As a reader, though, I /do/ put my name in the artist field. I'm the one putting out this recording, not the writer. I don't have any difficulty in spontaneously thinking like that, probably because in interpreted works (in podfic, in music), the interpret is of more importance to me in general than the ... composer.

I think it's a good thing you don't have any internalized bashfulness, there, and just list yourself first! Personally, I can't do that, but that's entirely about seeing myself, as a reader, as secondary to the author, not about any notion that podfic readers are secondary to authors.

To be perfectly honest, as a listener, I slice by readers before I slice authors. A good reading can save a middling story, a bad reading can wreck a good story. And if I like the story tastes of the readers I follow, I can just trust them to have picked stories I would have liked to read if I had come across them.

Yup yup yup. :)

+1. It's an aural experience, and the reader's skill is what matters most.

If there's a cover graphic artist I'll shift their name in 'Album Artist' (an iTunes field I'm not sure makes much sense, but that's how I use it, anyway).

Clearing out some tabs and I saw this comment, so I thought I'd jump in... The way I've always understood album artist is for e.g. musicals, where I might want to put the individual vocalists in the "artist" field so I can see who's singing, but still want to keep the album together as one unit when I sort by other fields. (I could also just check the "compilation" box, but that makes the files harder to find.) So I might put "David Hyde Pierce" as the singer for a song from Spamalot!, but the album artist field will be "Original Broadway Cast" or something like that.

The field has an influence on iTunes sorting, but I doubt it will make a difference as long as you don't have two podfics with identical titles and cover graphic artists but different authors or readers.

Right, yeah, I've often thought it was probably there for that, though I use the compilation check myself. But it comes in very handy to put the cover artist's name - which could also easily go in the comments, of course. :)

My minimum preference for the beginning of a fic is title, fandom, author and reader name. I also like rating and pairing. I like to have websites at the end, because if I make it to the end, it's probably because I liked it, and would be happy to get more. Other than that, I don't care, but I've never encountered a podfic that I felt had too much header information. Generally, I find the opposite.

I hate separate files. I mostly don't download fics that are made up of separate files.

I love separate files, because my dumb phone mp3 player did not support return to last position played, and neither did my desktop player. And I prefer really long stories (I almost never dl something under 1 hour), so if I get interrupted by something, the fastforwarding is stupidly intense if it's all in one file.

Do you download podbooks or the mp3s? And do you download short or long?

Podbooks are mp4s, right? I prefer that to mp3s, because "chapter" breaks can be handy for longer stuff, but I'm fine with mp3s. I'm more likely to use breaks to rewind to a part I want to hear again, rather than to fast-forward, as I generally only listen to my iPod on long trips, like plane rides. There aren't that many fics that are more than one plane ride, so I don't really have the problem of having to return to a fic I was in the middle of.

I download both short and long. The shortest fic on my ipod right now is 8 min. 22 secs. The longest is 5 hrs. 27 min.

Podbooks are m4b. Mp4 is a video standard.

I don't travel so much super long distance. When I'm working, my commute from door to door is usually in the neighborhood of one hour. Luckily for me, audacity freaks out when people try to work with am mp3 that runs longer than an hour, so a lot of podfics are broken up into 45-60 min chunks.

Podbooks are m4b. Mp4 is a video standard.
I should totally have looked that up. Anyway, if something I want to download is available in m4b, I'll take that over the mp3 file, but it's not part of the basis by which I choose what to download.

I second

cathexy -- reader, author, story title.

I will look up all relevant ratings/warnings before downloading, I don't need it recorded.

However, I *do* like 'reader's notes' at the very end, especially if it's a long podfic -- I kinda want to hear the reader's story, too :)

Ok. Independently of what the writer included in the original posting I want:
1. pairing (or "genfic of"),
2. fandom (this is kinda obvious but it doesn't hurt and it's not that long anyway),
3. word count and time of recording
4. warnings (if fandom has decided they are nice then i don't see why podfic should be the exception).
A one-line summary to remind you why you wanted to read that story would be nice too (I oversave and then i don't know which is which and thus can't tell if it's something i'm in the mood for). Alternatively the reader could just state the trope or kind of fic (Wing!Fic, angsty, etc).
5. Author & reader (ideally this would be in the metadata and searcheable)

All this information needs to be at the begginning, i think a separate file might be good but only if the names of both files matched properly so the player could find them easily.

If there are author notes of the kind "i wrote this because.../for" then I would like them at the end or the begginning depending where they make more sense (most of the time authors themselves put them in the appropiate places) so after all the other info. Even if the author didn't include it I would appreciate a "End". "End of part x" seems unnecesary, half the time i don't even notice that my player has changed to the next file and it's fine, i wouldn't mind overly much of only "part x" was announce at the beginning of each file but "the whole title + part" gets annoying fast.

Reader notes can be fun too, although I have almost come across any so i might not have the right idea :p

Thanks for asking! :)

Oooh! never thought of #3 and it's really helpful information! Thanks.

I normally add it myself to the folder where i keep the file but yeah, basically it's good to know for how long you'll be sitting with that story so you don't get interrupted/end up staying up till 4am <.

I'm almost always listening to podfic on an mp3 player that handles metadata to an extremely limited extent, and also often gets playlist order confused. So at minimum, I like podfic to have title/fandom/author/reader and part x/x at the beginning of every file, and for that to be clearly separated from the reading text by at least a few seconds of silence, so if the order gets mixed up I can find the right next part without spoiling myself.(I also really don't like podfic that comes in a bajillion tiny files like audiobooks often to - I understand it's convenient for some people in terms of saving a place, but for me it's not worth the hassle.)

More extensive headers at the beginning of the first part, and links/notes at the end, make sense, but I wouldn't want them at every part. At least a link or site+search terms to where to find out more about the podfic would be nice, since that doesn't always show up in metadata.

Tell me something good -- Audible headers

Make audio files stand alone!

Re: Make audio files stand alone!

Re: Make audio files stand alone!

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