In Response To: HOLY CRAP! (Louis Wu)
I don't actually see this as a solution for reducing the workload. It's sounding like it's creating much more work than before, even if it's distributed. In fact, especially since it's distributed. Keeping on top of the volunteers, making sure they keep doing their jobs, etc... Not everyone is as dedicated as Claude. You never know when someone just no longer has the time for this sort of thing. When the system does break down, I can see Claude running in to pick up the pieces and having to deal with this monster of a process just so that it doesn't all fall apart at the seams.
Just my two cents as a long-AWOL community member who's been involved in grand schemes like this that failed or faltered because of lack of motivation or time. These are human problems, not idealistic or technical issues, and as such are far more difficult to predict and solve. I just don't want to see lots of effort going into a system that may well cause more trouble than it saves.
Whatever happens, all the best.
<3
: Wow. Today was my youngest's birthday; after I wrote that monster of a post,
: I headed out. Birthday stuff, karate, kids to bed...
: I come back to a monster of a thread. Wow. :)
: I've read through the whole thing now (I'm sure there'll be another 10 posts
: added between the time I started this and the time I press 'Post
: Message'), and I've got a few comments.
: First: I guess one of the problems of a massive post like that is the overall
: thrust can get lost. Lots of people thought the problem was bandwidth -
: it's not, really. We have a LOT now. (Well, you can ALWAYS use more
: bandwidth - and there are always tradeoffs to be made - but that's not the
: real issue.)
: The real issue is man-hours (people-hours, if you wanna be politically
: correct; I'm happy to have women helping out). It's sorting through the
: submissions and deciding what's worth hosting. It's creating QuickTime
: versions of great movies that come out only in WMP9, so that Mac users
: aren't left out in the cold. It's keeping track of what's already up, so
: that we're not duplicating content (this is a REALLY BIG ONE - lots of
: people don't have the memory for this sort of thing).
: Cybrfrk's suggestion sounds really doable - especially since he's volunteered
: to write the code. :) I'd make a couple of changes in the overall scheme,
: I think -
: We'll have a pool of 'watchers' - 10-20, depending on how many people
: volunteer, and how many of THOSE I think could fit into the system I'm
: envisioning. (As several people mentioned, getting volunteers is pretty
: easy - it's KEEPING them that's hard. There are a number of people here
: who'd be accepted in a heartbeat, if they volunteered - and I may be
: contacting them directly, if they don't. There are others who will almost
: CERTAINLY volunteer - but who wouldn't work well within the system, from
: what I can tell.)
: So getting the pool is the first tricky step. :)
: Once we have it, we set up Cybr's system for uploads. Rather than make every
: 'watcher' review every movie, we require a minimum number of reviews
: before a movie can be processed. That is: let's say we set the numbers at
: minimum 7 reviews, minimum 4 positives. (I have no idea if these are
: reasonable numbers; that's something that will have to be tweaked as the
: system comes online.) A watcher has a few minutes, logs into the admin
: site, picks a movie that looks promising from the pool. (Nobody's required
: to watch a particular movie.) They vote, move on. If they were the 7th
: review for that movie, it goes to the second stage - positives are
: counted. If it's got 4, it's accepted (or moved to a final queue, we'll
: have to see). If it's got 3 or less, it's rejected. Movies that remain in
: the initial pool for more than X days (X to be determined later) will be
: deemed so uninteresting that nobody even wanted to review them, and will
: be rejected.
: This way, there's no pressure on a particular watcher to make a 'quota', or
: watch any particular movie. This, experience tells me, will keep watchers
: on the 'active' list longer. :)
: I'll work out with Cybrfrk what the actual features of the upload system are,
: and we'll set something up on a server with a nice fast pipe, separate
: from all other b.org upload sites. Movies not submitted to this system
: will be rejected by default (unless I go looking for them - as
: happened with a movie today).
: I think this might actually work; I think we might actually get through some
: of the backlog, and keep the system flowing. :)
: Other things that should be mentioned, from some of the posts in this thread:
: If you have a hosting plan that costs $12.95 a month and comes with
: unlimited bandwidth... please, don't offer to help mirror files. I
: guarantee that the first HBO movie you host will get you shut down by
: your host - 'unlimited' means 'more than most people need' in these cases,
: not really 'unlimited'. When you burn through 30 or 40 GB in a 12 hour
: period, your host WILL disconnect you - period. And that's far less
: helpful than not having had the offer in the first place - because now we
: have to shoehorn the vid in somewhere else, rather than having waited
: until we had reliable bandwidth in the first place.
: Most movies do NOT come in via email - they're uploaded to our ftp or http
: servers, with readmes. Setting up an email system adds another level of
: complexity that will only serve to make tech support worse. (Someone
: mentioned this explicitly - they were completely right.)
: If you think you can help with the watching job, and you've been around here
: for a bit (I DO need to know you, a little bit, in order to gauge your
: ability to stick it out), and you can write halfway decently, go ahead and
: send me email - I'll pick a bunch from those that come in for when we get
: started. (If I don't pick you, please don't take it as a personal
: rejection; my initial post has had over 2000 reads in the past 5 hours,
: and I'm guessing it'll be two or three times that by this time tomorrow;
: there'll likely be a LOT more volunteers than we can comfortably deal
: with.)
: And... thanks to everyone in this thread. You guys are awesome... everyone
: was trying to help. Even if you didn't have an idea that worked, or you
: misunderstood the root problem... there was so much love here. ;)
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