Spring Cleaning: Doing the Org's Work

[Kireblue]

[*]Project coordinators (good with encouraging people to get stuff done and sticking with it)[/list]

If you fit any of these roles and would like to help out, please let us know in this thread. Based on the response we get here, we will then coordinate what you can do to help the site as a whole.

Sadly, I don't really know anything about web design. But I do feel that organizing things and coordinating groups of people is something that I'm good at. I feel that I've done a good job at coordinating the MEPs that I've organized in the past, and I've also managed the AMV Contests/ Departments at MomoCon and SeishunCon for the past few years. I think that I'm also good at PR management and responding to questions/ concerns. Lastly, I feel that I'm good at listening to people's ideas, analyzing them, and helping them become a reality. If you think that I'd be of any use to you, I'd love to help out however I can.

[MycathatesyouAMV]

I don't really know web, but I would love to assist for anything that might be needed for graphic design related stuff that could be used for the site if possible.

[MaboroshiStudio]

a skin is just window paint as far as I am concerned... can I work on a new design for the org? Sure but it won't change any of the functionality... do people really want a new skin
or do they want functionality.

two items can be accomplished at with a reskin...

1) look
2) make the site responsive

[XStylus]

[*]New Pro Features – One major group of users the Org has not helped over the years is convention coordinators. If an anime convention wants to do anything with AMVs (contests, exhibitions, etc.), the convention coordinator must do it themselves and this can often be a pain for them.

I have MANY suggestions on what would be really helpful for AMV coordinators. It'd be awesome if the org could basically serve as a ready-to-go service for conventions in that the org would be "the submission system" for entrants. It could handle the ingest of submissions, handle the submission and entrant paperwork and provide sorted reports and spreadsheets, and perhaps even have an entrant facing status page so that entrants could see at a glance what the status of their submission is (was it DQ'd, and why?).

I would LOVE to be involved in helping to shape that. Having dealt with the crazy number of submissions AX gets, I gots ideas.

[Phlashbak]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJEWdiBPGtQ

HAPPENING TIMEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Niotex]

1. New Pro Features – One major group of users the Org has not helped over the years is convention coordinators. If an anime convention wants to do anything with AMVs (contests, exhibitions, etc.), the convention coordinator must do it themselves and this can often be a pain for them. The Org will have new convention features to make this easier such as collecting and hosting videos (duuugh), automatic contest rules enforcement (date premiered, anime used, video category, hasn’t won any previous contest (prize trollers), etc.), uploading “no bumper” copies of videos, collaborative and distributed contest judging, playlist creation tools, bulk video downloads, single-file set list creation and download, and more.

This has been talked about for years and is something that needs expansion beyond just the primary contests. A few years ago there was already talk of producing a standardized package for conventions to grab from the Org. Things such as a submission platform, lose standardized rules to reference, live programming and such to create more of an Org umbrella situation and promote the Org at these events. Tracking submissions across cons was a annoying task that wouldn't be easy to tackle without a database rewrite that'd facilitate the feature though, so I welcome that.

1. New External Site Coordination – Some people have their own web sites and would like to show off their videos on their own site. The Org will have an “embed” feature to allow videos to be streamed from other sites. Some people like to host their AMVs at other sites like YouTube because it can bring them a little cash or whatever. The Org will have a “embed video” feature so that AMVs hosted elsewhere can be embedded and viewed inside the user’s video catalog entry page here at AnimeMusicVideos.org.

I don't think people are stupid enough to try and monetize creative common/fair use works on you tube. Even if they were I don't think it's the primary motivator to host videos there. For an embedded player to work it'd have to work as a standalone html5 player without any login requirements the org currently has. It'd also have to be at least comparable quality which could to my knowledge be attained by just directly streaming the h264 files to the player rather than re-encoding them first like we do now. Primary focus here is easy of use and taking away as many gates as possible for people to share their work on the new platform.

1. New Education Features – The Org will host a formal AMV wiki to better educate members of the ways of the AMV. This will replace the current (highly outdated) “guides” section.

The format in which this is presented is key probably. Years ago a full start to finish technical video catalog was proposed for all major workflows and software packages. The idea was to provide people a complete one stop solution regardless of what software platform they were working on and could reference videos showing and explaining things every step of the way. Both Brad (AtomX) and myself toyed with some formats at the time to see what'd work. I had proposed a broad index of topics to GQ at the time but was as always promptly shot down. A rewrite of wiki/guide/index of this magnitude would be equally as large of an undertaking as the redesign itself. Any thoughts?

Specifically, we need the following kinds of volunteers:

• Web site designers (make things pretty and visually easy to use)
• Web site front-end developers (good with web browser framework tools and that kinda stuff)
• Web site back-end developers (good with server-side code, databases, command-line tools, etc.)
• Project coordinators (good with encouraging people to get stuff done and sticking with it)

If you fit any of these roles and would like to help out, please let us know in this thread. Based on the response we get here, we will then coordinate what you can do to help the site as a whole.

I'm aware that these are separate things but considering the amount of man hours the elephant in the room is the additional fund raiser money. I myself don't fit the bill for any of these 4 speciffic positions but I can understand the immense undertaking it is. With that and the (over estimated price for the) server in mind, are there any plans for work compensation for these people?

We have tried getting people to do stuff then announce what has been done when the update is ready for release. This seems to have confused the community into thinking nothing is getting done then suddenly everything happens. I want to change that immediately.

With this new effort, I would like to turn this around so that everyone knows what the volunteers are working on as they work on it. Everyone will know how the site and community are growing. Everyone can get involved in making this a better place!

It's a combination of some members of the administration leaving and the remaining stonewalling people asking questions or trying to get work done. And frankly also your absence throughout the years that's made people skeptical about any work being done. If you step of to the plate I take no issue with any of this, thus far you've proven yourself more than willing and capable in your responses. Same can't be said for everyone on the administration though, but that's just my 2 cents as someone who's been tossed nothing but scraps over the years.

[CrazyDreamer]

As I recall from the fundraising thread, Phade is getting somewhat more involved now that his kids no longer need quite the same level of constant parental supervision. Allow me to suggest that this is a good reason for having been absentee, and whatever some may think about the leadership in the interim, I'm willing to trust him now that he's more involved again.

As for volunteering, I don't have the skills you're looking for. I'm not even very good at the portions of information science that concern the database (e.g., taxonomy and schema construction). But if there's a chance that the actual video information taxonomy and/or the functions that interface with it might be substantively revised, you might want to consult with me or someone in my field. (I could put out feelers once you develop a more thorough and concrete project proposal.)

[MaboroshiStudio]

I can help out with the web design / front end

[MaboroshiStudio]

getting a Project coordinator would be very helpful tho...

[Sephirothskr]

PHADE LIIIIIIIVES.