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Cast Iron Brick posted:Okay, I'm all set up to go with DT. Does anyone know how to force Express Scribe to use hh:mm:ss:tt format? I'm only seeing hh:mm:ss:t and I figure the former is a common enough timecode format for their not to be a fix for this. I think that t stands for tenths of a second so, no. Also there is no way to adjust the frame rate in Express Scribe, and for most of the stuff I've done, it drifts off by 1 or 2 seconds per half hour or so. (Seconds drifts, I mean.) It is a fairly common timecode format, and there ought to be a fix, but there's not. I keep hoping. Meanwhile there are macros and hotkeys.
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Dec 4, 2015 10:07
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The majority of the time, I don't really care what horrible things people are talking about as long as they're articulate and are excellent public speakers. Executives are the best <--A shameful sentence. Contradicting what I just said though,  Holy poo poo Would it be breaking NDA to anonymously forward clips to a health inspector? I'm um... asking for a friend.
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Dec 4, 2015 13:01
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Heh, while y'all are busy blacklisting lovely stuff, JKL gave me the best birthday work/present, a movie that seems interesting 
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Dec 4, 2015 18:35
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Well, it's not a SyFy original movie, but it definitely looks like it could be. It's one of those films where the runtime is less than 90 minutes with credits
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Dec 4, 2015 19:40
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If you haven't seen it yet, watch like the first 3 minutes of it, it's like some kind of weird avant-garde piece on the nature of humanity in the modern era where it's like everybody is speaking in entirely different conversations even while talking to one another.
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Dec 4, 2015 19:42
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:I'm surprised more folks don't blacklist my shows. The exception would be the videos we do for that internet search company; just a handful of people tell me not to send 'em. But those housewives scattered across the country? Not a peep. Maybe I am paying too much! The other week when I was uploading work I saw that you guys got the upcoming season of a show I really, really dig. I was torn between trying to come up with some kind of a bribe to get put on the project or demanding I be kept off it so I don't get spoiled.  So far there's nothing I really hate, but improv-style shows are generally my least favorite. Give me a well-edited History Channel/Discovery/TLC style hourlong any day of the week. I've gained a huge respect for good editing in my years of working as-broadcast stuff. (Best ever? Inside the Actor's Studio. My God, that show looks like it's edited by Mr. Spock, the shots are so precise.)
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Dec 4, 2015 22:37
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Any textbroker writers with good ideas for getting out of the 3 gap? I was rated a 4 initially and had an editor blast my rear end for comma-splicing and run-ons. I accept the criticism, it's what it is. I speak a few languages and do editing and translation work in a few as well, so sometimes I have an unfortunate tendency to make one sentence what should be two. I'm taking on all the technical criticism they give and trying to be mindful of my comma usage, but now I'm stuck in this kind of level 3 hell. For example, presently there are 1828 pending level 4 articles, and only 67 level 3 articles. It has significantly reduced my ability to write for them, because I don't really have any opportunities to write anything that would show technical skill. SEO articles also don't help - most level 3 articles are SEO that require me to use very awkward structures. The clients accept them, but the editors don't. I'm mostly just venting, I realize this is the way things work. But I'm also wondering if any of you have overcome this problem? Thanks.
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Dec 4, 2015 23:17
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Here's what I learned in my simplified grammar class; maybe it will help you. Comma splices and run-on sentences are almost the same thing - you're joining together multiple "sentences" (or independent clauses that could be sentences), but you're not doing it correctly. If you use "for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so," then you use a comma, like in this sentence of yours:Paramemetic posted:I speak a few languages and do editing and translation work in a few as well, so sometimes I have an unfortunate tendency to make one sentence what should be two. So that's correct even though it's long. On the other hand, if you don't use one of those seven words, you need a semicolon. So look at a shorter sentence like this: Paramemetic posted:I accept the criticism, it's what it is. That's a comma splice because it's two independent clauses joined with only a comma. Instead, the comma in the middle of it should be a semicolon. I don't know if that's helpful? I don't really write on Textbroker, but maybe that would make them happy?
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Dec 5, 2015 00:16
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^^^ That poo poo's the bane of my existence even now. It's hard as poo poo to relearn that.kazmeyer posted:So far there's nothing I really hate, but improv-style shows are generally my least favorite. For me it comes down to certain sports and amateur-hour reality. The problem with sports is a lot of the time there's so much loving background noise distracting you, and with garbo low-skill reality nobody, and I mean loving nobody, knows not to talk over someone else so it just turns into a garbled mess that makes me feel like I'm schizophrenic. I absolutely loved when we got local TV shows for the Minnesota area, hunting and fishing and poo poo, those were nice. Shame those seem to have stopped though. Favorite's gonna have to be scripted stuff though, mostly because that's where I get to see things like good or hilariously bad acting, special effects that may or may not have been put in, hell, sometimes even get a script to work with. I've basically learned how to write scripts from this job. Shima Honnou fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 00:35
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Goldfinch posted:Here's what I learned in my simplified grammar class; maybe it will help you. Comma splices and run-on sentences are almost the same thing - you're joining together multiple "sentences" (or independent clauses that could be sentences), but you're not doing it correctly. If you use "for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so," then you use a comma, like in this sentence of yours: This is spot on. I would add you could use either a semicolon or just a period in that latter example. So it'd essentially be two sentences. Any independent clause can be its own sentence, as you said. Ps. Would you like a job? Haha Jedi Knight Luigi fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Dec 5, 2015 |
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Dec 5, 2015 04:03
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I never got dropped to 3, and I got out of there as quick as I could, but the best advice might be to apply to as many teams as possible. A lot of the listed teams are dead (unless they started removing them in the last year) but team orders tend to be more valuable than 3-star work, at least. Unfortunately I think the TB editors are pretty biased. If you're 3, they treat you as a 3 and really need to see something exceptional to consider rating an article 4. They didn't seem to take past history into consideration all that much. Alternatively, give the other content mills a shot if you can.
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Dec 5, 2015 06:22
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Me a week into working UHRS, barely making $8 an hour: Who are these fuckers claiming to make $15 an hour? Do they have lightning fingers? Me several months into working UHRS, making $16 an hour: I AM A GOLDEN GOD
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Dec 5, 2015 07:15
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No reason I can't look at other content mills, I just know textbroker pays out. Fortunately I did jump on teams, there are a bunch of holiday marketing ones that pay decently and I will start looking at other content mills as well. I am getting the impression of bias you mentioned. The most recent "3" ranked things didn't even come with comments and I don't see what would be wrong with them, but what can you do, I guess? Onwards and upwards. What other reliable content mills pay out these days? The OP is a bit dated and recent conversation is all transcription.
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Dec 5, 2015 12:13
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Writer Access seems to have work if you can get on love lists there. Haven't tried Scripted but think that may have work as well, think they reorganized the site recently. Many of the other sites with work right now seem like they pay a lot less.
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Dec 5, 2015 14:52
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WritersDomain and Zerys both still exist, although I feel like there hasn't been much of anything that pays well on Zerys for a couple of months now. Constant Content is a good bet if you're into writing and pricing your own thing, although it may take a while for those articles to sell. I hear SwarmContent is similar, but I haven't tried that one yet.
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Dec 5, 2015 15:53
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All of the above. Writer Access is the most reliable to find decent work from what I've found/heard. Zerys and Writer's Domain tend to be a lot of the schlock SEO stuff, though neither has editors as insane as Textbroker. I have no idea how Writer's Domain is in terms of available work these days, though. I've heard that they keep claiming to put out a regular volume of assignments, but that writers never see them.
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Dec 5, 2015 16:15
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Either way I see it, that gives me a lot more options. I would eventually be interested in Constant Content but I don't have a good enough feel of the market to write things that will move at this point, so I'm still scoping. I'll sign up on those other ones, I'm glad to hear that it's not just me being a bad writer that is leading to my TextBroker woes. Part of me thinks, "well, maybe academic writing just didn't prepare me for this," but then another part of me goes "I'm being asked to write the same phrase 8 times, and the instructions specifically said don't use semi-colons. Maybe these editors are just poo poo." I'll check out Writer Access, and probably Zerys and Writer's Domain, since I'm not above writing schlock SEO stuff if someone is giving me some money and it's something I can do in a timely fashion.
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Dec 5, 2015 16:37
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The trick to Constant Content is to write about dogs and cats. Seriously, articles about dogs and cats sell like hotcakes. Writing about social media ("Top Ten Hot New Twitter Tips!" type of thing) is something else I've had success with. Most everything else I've put up has (eventually) sold, although it might take a few months. WritersDomain tends to put batches of their work up early in the morning and then again in the evening (for my time zone anyway - around 5am MST, and then around 5pm MST). If you know what sorts of things they're looking for and are quick you can bring in a good chunk of change because they'll pay out $18 per 4-5 star rated article you give them. (and $15 for a 3 star.) I don't do much with them because I tend not to be around when their batches drop, but I know there are a couple of other people in the thread who work with them a lot so maybe they'll show up and give some tips.
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Dec 5, 2015 16:48
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Paramemetic posted:Either way I see it, that gives me a lot more options. I would eventually be interested in Constant Content but I don't have a good enough feel of the market to write things that will move at this point, so I'm still scoping. I'll sign up on those other ones, I'm glad to hear that it's not just me being a bad writer that is leading to my TextBroker woes. Part of me thinks, "well, maybe academic writing just didn't prepare me for this," but then another part of me goes "I'm being asked to write the same phrase 8 times, and the instructions specifically said don't use semi-colons. Maybe these editors are just poo poo." Constant Content has a feed of recently sold articles so you can see the sort of topics that sell, and they've been pushing a casting call style system the last year or so as well, so there are assignments to write as well. Academic writing really doesn't prepare you for web writing beyond having fluency and a basic grasp of how language works, unfortunately. Not that the Textbroker editors are really finely in tune with web writing either. They're just robots programmed to adore AP style. And yeah, the editors very, very rarely pay attention to the client requests. I think only once out of 1,000 posts did I get a comment saying something like "X is a mistake but we see the client asked specifically for it so you get a pass this time."
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Dec 5, 2015 16:48
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A lot of my issue for web writing has been tone exactly because academic writing prefers that sort of haughty, up its own rear end cant and rhythm. I mostly translate religious literature so that doesn't help either. I mainly try to write mimicking the tone of things like clickhole, where it's somewhere between spoken and written tone, but that doesn't lend itself well to strict adherence to a format designed for scientific writing. I'll definitely have another look at constant content as well, then. One of my issues is that I can pretty effortlessly churn out some poo poo about a topic if I'm told what is wanted, but I don't spend much time thinking about ten ways to improve my twitter. I can probably get a feel for it though and I figure if I lowball pricing based on the time it takes me to write rather than number of words that might work well.
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Dec 5, 2015 17:08
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Paramemetic posted:I'll definitely have another look at constant content as well, then. One of my issues is that I can pretty effortlessly churn out some poo poo about a topic if I'm told what is wanted, but I don't spend much time thinking about ten ways to improve my twitter. I can probably get a feel for it though and I figure if I lowball pricing based on the time it takes me to write rather than number of words that might work well. Yeah, that's definitely the problem with Constant Content - coming up with your own article ideas isn't always the easiest thing in the world. But it's usually a good tradeoff, because a Twitter article I BS'd sold for like $60 three hours after putting it up.
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Dec 5, 2015 17:17
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One thing I did for a while was take Textbroker assignments I wrote and write a fresh article on the same topic to sell on CC. It sort of worked for a while, but I got really lazy about it and started saving them for "rewrite this later", and now I just have a huge folder of crap I wrote three years ago that's never going anywhere.
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Dec 5, 2015 18:39
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Re: Daily Transcription, how heavily is a resume weighed when considering a hire? I have nothing in my work history even remotely applicable to transcription work, but I feel like this sort of thing would be perfect for me, especially right now (and for the foreseeable future). Should I build a resume through odd Craigslist jobs or with one of the "lesser" transcription houses, or is my work history not even going to matter? I assume the test is what's important, but for all I know they'll glance at a resume of nothing but food services, retail, and warehouse jobs and say, "nope." I'm focusing on DT because of their reputation in the thread; I just don't know if they're an ideal starting point -- and I really don't want to blow this before I've even begun. On the topic of Textbroker, seriously how are you supposed to insert a subject that is not a proper English assembly of words into a sentence that needs to be grammatically correct? I see so many open orders that look to be a breeze, except for the fact that the subject, which according to the job description must be used several times, is just a string of several nouns and adjectives in the wrong order. The unsavory nebulousness of this kind of writing work is what keeps me from getting too involved in it. I feel like one of the people in that Cube movie.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:36
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Von Sloneker posted:Re: Daily Transcription, how heavily is a resume weighed when considering a hire? I have nothing in my work history even remotely applicable to transcription work, but I feel like this sort of thing would be perfect for me, especially right now (and for the foreseeable future). Should I build a resume through odd Craigslist jobs or with one of the "lesser" transcription houses, or is my work history not even going to matter? I assume the test is what's important, but for all I know they'll glance at a resume of nothing but food services, retail, and warehouse jobs and say, "nope." For DT the most important thing is how well you do on the test. That's what they care about. DT is one of few outfits that accepts newbies and whose work offerings aren't total garbage (for the most part). Just make sure your resume looks professional and isn't typed on a pirated version of Word or something. You might apply with Focus Forward as well, if you're interested in transcription.
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Dec 6, 2015 00:49
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I'm pretty sure DT might not even actually look at resumes at all, only wanting them as a formality to confirm if you have previously transcription experience or live in the US/Canada. I just helped someone with getting in the other day and she way way overthought the resume process and in the end they didn't even notice she sent it attached to her original request e-mail to HR. And yes, DT is still a decent starting point, just be aware that some of the poo poo they give out will make you want to spend your check on a gun and one bullet. Jerry, I love ya, but gently caress your show. Shima Honnou fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 04:31
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Von Sloneker posted:On the topic of Textbroker, seriously how are you supposed to insert a subject that is not a proper English assembly of words into a sentence that needs to be grammatically correct? I see so many open orders that look to be a breeze, except for the fact that the subject, which according to the job description must be used several times, is just a string of several nouns and adjectives in the wrong order. It depends. Clients have an option to allow punctuation and connecting words, so you can inject commas or "and" or whatever into the keyphrases. Some don't allow that, though. I occasionally had success with writing a more grammatically correct version of the keyword into the article, pasting the real keyword X number of times at the bottom, and sending a message to the client along with submission explaining why I did it. Some clients didn't like that, but most didn't care either way. I kind of hate Textbroker's whole keyword system anyways, since it relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Google operates. For one thing, keyword density doesn't matter at all unless you're overdoing it so much you're stepping into spam territory, and for another thing, exact phrasing of the keyword very, very rarely matters anymore. It's all just old understanding powering old systems for old clients who don't know any better.
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Dec 6, 2015 04:38
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Like, I came in with DT on the merits of my previous jobs being pizza boy and slave labor at a lovely photo shop with my only qualifications being "I know how to type and have some headphones and my sound system is kinda bitchin' I guess"
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Dec 6, 2015 04:44
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Yeah, when you're first starting out in transcription, pretty much everything pales beside the question of "can you do the work?" Resumes are great once you have experience on them, but when you're first starting out it's just a way to demonstrate maybe a fast typing speed or knowledge of computers. When I first started, all I had zero experience, but I destroyed the test and that got my foot in the door. That's kind of what I dig most about freelancing. It's way less of a secure and stable way to make an income than punching a time clock, but it's all about your skill and dedication. If you've got the talent and apply yourself, you absolutely will go as far as you want to in the biz. (I lie. The thing I dig most about freelancing is sleeping in and working in my pajamas. My God, my friends hate to hear about that part of it.)
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Dec 6, 2015 06:09
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Man, I don't know you guys, I love that internet search engine stuff, also this thing I'm working on now about farmers and stuff. JKL is pretty awesome. As for DT, I totally lost faith when they had me send in a hard copy of paperwork, insisted it had to be hard copy for the IRS, I sent it in registered mail to them to make sure, because my personal information! And then apparently they promptly shredded it, they assume, and would now like a scanned copy, "oh but if you just take a picture with your phone that's okay too." I mean the quality of the assignments can be sketchy as gently caress that's fine, that's the business but goddammit at least get your backend poo poo together.
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Dec 6, 2015 06:22
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Von Sloneker posted:Re: Daily Transcription, how heavily is a resume weighed when considering a hire? I have nothing in my work history even remotely applicable to transcription work, but I feel like this sort of thing would be perfect for me, especially right now (and for the foreseeable future). Should I build a resume through odd Craigslist jobs or with one of the "lesser" transcription houses, or is my work history not even going to matter? I assume the test is what's important, but for all I know they'll glance at a resume of nothing but food services, retail, and warehouse jobs and say, "nope." I think I straight up told DT upon applying I had zero experience transcribing. They just took me because I passed the test.
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Dec 6, 2015 07:36
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Slightly Used Cake posted:Man, I don't know you guys, I love that internet search engine stuff, also this thing I'm working on now about farmers and stuff. JKL is pretty awesome. Yeah, DT is kinda super laughable and I'm wondering exactly when it all started falling apart or if it's just always been like this and we never realized.
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Dec 6, 2015 15:49
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:Ps. Would you like a job? Haha Really? I can't do video transcription stuff (limited internet connection), but I'm always interested in writing/editing stuff. Shima Honnou posted:I'm wondering exactly when it all started falling apart or if it's just always been like this and we never realized. Funny that writing websites have also, it seems, been getting worse (like all of WritersDomain's weird new rules/earlier pay cut). Hopefully it's not a long-term continuous slide.
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Dec 7, 2015 00:09
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The writing thing has definitely been going downhill. I think Constant Content is still relatively healthy but that requires 
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Dec 7, 2015 01:48
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I can do almost all the bad reality in the world but when the production companies can't either control their actors enough that they don't talk over one another or use dime-store mics to record them, that's when I gotta tell a show to get hosed. E: Like, this is honest-to-god worse than reality shows that I've worked on that are bad enough to get canceled immediately or even before it gets to my desk because at least I could understand what those fuckers were saying, holy poo poo. Inaudible city over here. Shima Honnou fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 01:50
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Goldfinch posted:Funny that writing websites have also, it seems, been getting worse (like all of WritersDomain's weird new rules/earlier pay cut). Hopefully it's not a long-term continuous slide. Writing sites are in a constant war with Google. They want cheap and nasty content that will get up to the top of the search results, and Google wants authoritative, primary source content there instead. A while back it was pretty much Candyland, but then Google's algorithm started getting smarter about identifying content mill dross and keeping it low in the ranks. Writing sites change their techniques, requiring more from their writers and paying less, and as soon as they start gaining ground, Google figures out a way to ferret out their content and knocks them back down. (Fun fact: If you work for a content mill and Leapforce/Lionbridge at the same time, you're literally working against yourself.)
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Dec 7, 2015 02:07
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kazmeyer posted:(Fun fact: If you work for a content mill and Leapforce/Lionbridge at the same time, you're literally working against yourself.) I had to rate BrightHub content when I still wrote for them, that was amusing. The content mills are best used for a meager paycheck to rack up some industry experience, not that you can cite specific writing or anything. I was lucky and poached a client from one of them. They have ups and downs, but as a whole the industry has gone downhill over the last couple years. Demand cutting down, Writer's Domain getting slapped around, Textbroker catering to the lowest of the low, there aren't really any "high end content mills" around. A few writer friends and I were starting one up meant to focus on high quality original content for a premium price, but the project got put on hold due to various reasons and hasn't been picked back up. I'll probably post it here if it ever launches, though.
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Dec 7, 2015 02:29
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I don't mind most of the stuff DT sends me, but I only do 4-5 hours a of tape a week. And perhaps since I've been there since February they're nice and don't send me poo poo.
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Dec 7, 2015 04:26
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Goldfinch posted:Really? I can't do video transcription stuff (limited internet connection), but I'm always interested in writing/editing stuff. Ouchie. Yeah, it's the former. You'd have to be able to regularly download and upload videos varying in size between about 400MB to 1GB.
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Dec 7, 2015 18:23
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Yeah, and that's the part that really trips people up when I tell them about my job because they seem to think files should be some kind of uniform size when that really, seriously is not the case.
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Dec 7, 2015 19:19
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As a seriously hearing impaired person I just want to say god bless you all who make captioning etc.
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Dec 7, 2015 19:55
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