podficmeta | Entries tagged with topic: metadata

This was shared by Elany/Elany on 20 June 2024 and posted here with permission. I thought it was interesting!

So! The infamous Read by the Author tag, right.

I got curious about whether the state of that tag is really as bad as it seems, so I got some numbers from the past, well, technically past 20 years but past 2006-07 there's no works with that tag and even before then some were very likely backdated. Still, I'm including those also because 2015 marks an interesting shift.

tl;dr it's bad you guys lmao

( longer version (with numbers!) )

bluedreaming

There are several questions of the "ask ten podficcers, get ten answers" variety that get asked at least once a week, and one of them is what kinds of metadata are included in the audio of a podfic. Quite neatly, this topic was also the subject of a 2010 post in this community: Tell me something good -- Audible headers. (I also checked Fanlore, but there’s only a single line in the Podfic Metadata article, from what I could tell at least.) So, out of curiosity, I created an informal and very amateur survey about how podfic creators and listeners feel about metadata in podfic audio.

This survey isn't about the metadata in the file properties of a podfic file, or about the metadata included on podfic cover art, or even about the metadata and tags used on a podfic post, though those are also interesting questions!

Eventually, I'll gather up the submissions to create a (very un)official summary and report and share it here, not to provide any kind of guidance, instruction, or suggestion about best practices, but rather just out of curiosity.

Note about the survey: the linked form is not intended to collect any private or personally-identifying information. Please keep any write-in details non-specific. Results will be assembled and shared publicly for curiosity's sake only. In addition, the form is not intended to be comprehensive or conclusive; I'm sure I'm still missing something very obvious! (And have already had to go back to add things.) Any omitted questions are not intentionally excluded.

Update (2-Dec-2023): After very brief consultation, I’ll keep the survey open until the end of the year to perhaps also get some thoughts from

voiceteam players and other listeners/podficcers.
Update (14-Mar-2024): The form is now closed. Thanks to everyone who participated! I received 96 responses! (A few of these were repeats, due to initial form testing.) I'll update this post again when the results are gathered!
Update (15-Oct-2024): I requested some FTH help with displaying the results, but if that doesn’t end up happening, I’ll definitely have to budge up and do it myself 😅
Update (30-Nov-2024): It looks like I'll have to do it myself 😅

zvi

Roga would like to talk about re-editing and re-writing works for podficcing.

Would readers be interested in editing works for podficcing, whether for content (e.g. sex scenes), length, adding dialogue tags, etc.? Does "permission to record" cover a blanket "permission to adapt"?

How would authors feel about re-writing stories so they are easier to be read or to be understood orally? For instance, if your alien language just isn't pronounceable by human beings, or if you've written something in an experimental, visual structure.

And, Roga didn't ask this, but I would like to know, how would we, as listeners, react to getting a story that was changed from the text? How extensive would the changes have to be for you to want a heads up before you downloaded? Would you want the changes indicated in the metadata or also during the story reading?

zvi

I'd be interested in talking about podbook covers. I know I'd always expect the reader to be on there, but most podbook covers only have author and title. So now i'm feeling kinda egotistical to put my name on my podfics, but, in a way, the reader is the creator of that particular fanwork, right? So shouldn't her name be on there?

zvi

What kind of metadata/id4 tags do you guys wish podficcers would use? Are you retagging stuff after you download? If you podfic, what tagging scheme do you use?

The one thing I really wish people would do which I'm really not seeing is, if they record a series, I wish they would tag all of the parts as belonging to one album and set the track numbers so the series plays in order.

Some other stuff I long for: the reader to be set as the artist (I usually set the author as the composer). The genre to be set to speech, which makes my mp3 player more likely to recognize something as an audiobook. Something to be put in the URL field, either the amplificathon announcement, the audiofic archive listing, or a text version of the story.

What would make podfic work better on your listening device of choice?

jesse_the_k

While I just argued that the act of podficcing adds "fannish value" to a work, I'm unsure that readers must obtain an OK from the writer to make a recording.

Since I'm a newbie, I did some research. While I don't think it's possible for a podfic to fundamentally change a source in the same way, I started with remixes, since there's the same "permission" issue there. It seems most remix challenges are based on a mutual remix: by participating in writing, each fan also permits their work to be remixed (with one "safe" work held inviolate).

The Fanlore Wiki told me:

begin quote
Though remixing in both fanfiction and vidding has become enormously popular, not all fans embrace the concept. [... snip ...] Though some fans feel any story is fair game for remixing, others believe that permission should be gained from the author first before using their work as a jumping-off point. Many fans feel it's hypocritical to reuse the original creations of the copyright holders in the canon while protesting that anyone should be allowed to remake their fanworks.
quote ends

Current metadata don't state whether the podfic's reader has the writer's permission. Would the absence, permission or refusal of writer's OK change how you'd choose or read podfics?

Current Mood: curious

zvi

What sorts of headings do you want the reader to read aloud in podfic? How do you feel about readers' notes? What do you think of readers adding metadata that isn't strictly readers' notes, like a warning or adding pairing information to a fic that was posted without it? If the reader is going to include metadata, does it need to go at the front of the story, or might it be better at the end? What about having it in a separate mp3 file so you can listen to it the first time and then skip it always? Does any/all of the metadata need to be repeated for every file (you know, do we need the announcement, "The most awesomest fanfic ever, by SuperFanWriter, read by PodficsTheBest, Part 3"?)

Podfic Meta

What We Talk About When We Talk About Podfic

so! the infamous Read by the Author tag - by Elany

Podfic Metadata (Headers) in Audio

From Roga

From podcath

Tagging

Should readers get permission to make podfic?

Tell me something good -- Audible headers

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