by dazza1008 » Wed Mar 02, 2011 2:22 pm
Let me start off by saying that I like this place. I was invited here by someone after my video got removed from YouTube, and I just managed to upload my videos here before everything went kaput and I lost all my descriptions. I come here infrequently now due to life being too busy to edit much, but I still like it and want to support it. I was wondering how my donation status was, and was a bit sad to see that we're making less than half the amount of money we need to. I agree that increasing traffic to the site is the way to go. I do think that people had poor manners when I stumbled onto the forums, but I stuck around (and seriously, I can imagine myself as a minority) and I would be coming here if I genuinely wanted feedback. (I wasn't after asspats, but what some people said was unnecessarily cruel). Anyway, I don't know if most people go to the forums, but I can't blame them for thinking that it's the heart of the site and it taints the whole thing.
-I do believe that feedback needs to be made palatable for people to stick around and learn. Forget donations.
-maybe you could have a "Before you post here, read this so you don't get reamed" sticky in the AMV announcements section. The etiquette sticky doesn't give me the sense that most of the feedback can be a) mentioning negative points (but hey, put a positive spin on it and say "that's how we learn") and b) mention that sometime there are asses that roam. (giving negative feedback in a harsh way which basically amounts to as much detail as "I didn't like it"). So that should prepare people for this place to be a place of learning, and also to not go looking for asspats. Lower their expectations by saying that most feedback is mentioning points for improvement, and they will be grateful for any compliments.
-I think it's a great idea to promote at conventions. I'm this close to becoming a staff member for my local convention, and I did go in their anime music video competition last year, which encountered problems with hosting the videos with sound being turned off, etc. I am close to suggesting this be the hub to run it. I believe that if you did want attention no matter what, you could think about specifically catering for AMV competitions and thus they can point viewers in the direction of the org. I don't know the requirements of AMV competitions in general, but at the very least, I think they are looking for places equivalent to YouTube where they can just direct people to view them. I know that what we have could cut the cheese (i.e. if people were to create accounts, and actually enter the comp by submitting here). BUT...
1) it can be a pain, and it would be good if there were some way that the general public could see the videos submitted to a particular convention without having to create an account or vote.
2) it would be good to have a way where the organiser in a convention can upload videos themselves, and then link to the original if possible, say if all entries were to be emailed in, and this also prevents people entering the comp after the due date has passed because they have full control
3) embedding possible?
4) some kind of voting system? (maybe that's better done on the organiser's site)
5) another reason for organisers to post entries here is because some participants might not want the original available for download because of possible stealing OH NOES
6) are there any legal docs here stating 'fair use' or something? For any potential lawyers that come around? (like the disclaimers that would have to be signed when someone submits to a comp, absolving the comp from any legal action that could occur)
All that's required is to think about how we could cater for this (or even have instructions on how to run a comp on the org with what we have existing and email various organisations around the world, offering this service to actually host the comp)
-Has anyone designed a standard flier that people could hand out at conventions that promotes the org?