Tagging demos anonymously? Stop this now

Thom Wilkins · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 May 2005 Posts: 587

Lee Gordon wrote:

I'm beginning to believe this whole tagging thing is a tempest in a teapot..

I have been reading this thread and have to agree with Lee.

Now if tagging demos will serve an SEO function and raise my visibility - that's fine with me...

If fact - If you want to tag my demos with every phrase in a thesaurus - that's OK too. That way when someone searches for ...." fair, sunny, sunshiny, undimmed, summery, estival, tropical, equatorial, torrid, sultry, stuffy, close, muggy, sticky, steamy, overheated, uncooled, unventilated, oppressive, suffocating, stifling, like a hothouse, like a steambath or sauna, insalubrious, warm as toast" - I'll pop-up....maybe?...(BTW all theasaurus entries for WARM...)
Now with enough (Varied) tags - the entries will become meaningless, as everyone will approach an "AVERAGE" of good/bad/nonsensical/ relevant and irrelevant tags, eventually (perhaps) leading V123 to rise to the top of every search - and adding to the general "GIGO" confusion of unwanted search results that have resulted from people trying to "HACK" the search algorithms with URL spamming, dictionary spamming, etc...So I would take this "EXPERIMENT" as what it is..... an Experiment...(I would also take comments (tags) with a grain of salt and not get my panties in a bunch about them.... )

Bottom line - It might help raise V123 search results, I don't think it will hurt in that regard, If I am not satisfied, I can always take my business somewhere else. As far as I am concerned V123 is good advertising bang for the buck.

And yes some demos on V123 are absolutely horrendous - Shouldn't the "artist" know how bad they really are?... I don't think people intend to post absolute crap - sometimes they don't know that is what they have.... Just look at the IDOL auditions, the awful ones - think they are good - and are shocked at the response.... V123 could use a Simon... that would do all of us a favor!

I am willing to take a wait and see attitude- let this shake out a while - sometimes taking a long view is best in dealing with new/emerging channels... and change in general... I am sure V123 is not intentionally trying to torpedo their business model, but evolve it into something more workable and sustainable.

Now, as far as I can tell - only talents that have submitted an audition get a chance to "PEER REVIEW" demos... I don't have a problem with that, after all that is what SAVOA does (savoa.org) but I do believe that we set the peer review bar much higher that V123 - (NOTICE:Now being a board member of SaVoa, I could be biased Wink

)

Thom

J.S. Gilbert · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008, 05:25 (GMT) Post subject: Thanks Thom

Actually I think it's designed to let some folks who maybe shouldn't be here really know they shouldn't be here.

Voice 123 sees this as some sort of club that they can't deny admission to and given the ltiigiousness nature of things, I can't blame them.

The tags may support some SEO, but I'm not positive. There is another similar thread over in the General section and it would appear the villagers there are about ready to go burn down Dr. Frankenstein's castle.

And as far as anything sorting themselves out. If I have learned one thing it's that actors will often allow themselves to have bottoms that are worse than those of alcoholics and drug addicts. It's a shame there isn't an actors anonymous.

Don't assume anyone will go quietly into the good eve. On the contrary they are more likely to take their inappropriate butts down to audition for American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance.

Thank you to those of you who see this as a proactive attempt by Voice 123 to make things better. Whether it is in deed or fact, who knows?

Melba Sibrel · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008, 14:23 (GMT) Post subject:

So. I did submit an audition last night and got the "oh won't you tag some demos" page. Did listen to the first 15 seconds or so of about 20. And almost all the way through on one that was outstanding, one that was really bad and one that was perplexing. But I didn't tag. Had no intention. It occurred to me that tagging on Amazon is done by looking at the total info on the product including reviews, catalog descriptions and existing tags. But all I have here is an anonymous demo. If I were to enter a keyword (tag) it could be (and probably would be) redundant. ie: warm, deep, rich, high, sweet. It only makes sense to use terms which would be searched, and most likely the individual has already done the description on his or her page. And if not, why should I do their work for them?

This is clearly not designed as any kind of weeding tool and won't be used as such. And it won't be SEO-able outside v123. The blog clearly states that. Now! If this be the harbinger of a better search function onsite, that's fine. But what sense does it make for someone else to describe my demo/voice? If I don't agree, I'll remove it. And I can describe myself, thanks much.

Diane Havens · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 1281

Exactly, Melba. There's a piece of the puzzle missing here, as is so often with 123 and their miscommunication skills. Oh, and ask the same questions of them in a week or so and you'll probably get different answers. So it leads me to believe something is rotten in yada yada...

(Now, back to the French Open where my man Federer is struggling against Nadal!!!!)

Greg Houser · **Voice Talent** Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 174

Melba Sibrel · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008, 20:10 (GMT) Post subject:

Yes, Greg, it's being touted as community-wide -- at this time. I don't take that to mean it will stay that way beyond the initial rollout.

As to everything else you've written...my head just spins around and explodes. You keep track of that stuff, report back (in English, please)....I'll just stay here and try to get a handle on opening multiple tabs in my browser... Laughing

Greg Houser · **Voice Talent** Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 174

wilco,

Actually, I'm going to snag a friend of mine who is a true DB wiz in a week or so and we'll see what we can see.

But if you look at the existing search queries, the responses are all based on information stored on the page. I don't see why they would go through the trouble of splitting the tables and changing the way the SQL query operates to keep these tags separate.

Then they have to institute processes to keep the otherwise open DB from allowing the search engine spiders from accessing them (which they do routinely)

Maybe they did all of this, but it's not something I normally see in practice.

Maxine Dunn · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 675

....vaguely wondering why there are two threads that are identical?.... it's getting dizzying keeping up with them both....

Greg Houser · **Voice Talent** Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 174

Can't answer that question, but since I seem to be having to explain the same thing on two threads, I can sympahize with you.

Maxine Dunn · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 675

Isn't one of those cute moderator guys supposed to consolidate or something when this happens?

Diane Havens · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 1281

Well, they would normally, Maxine, but they're probably busy tagging demos right now.

Maxine Dunn · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 675

Hahahaha! Diane that cracks me up.

And what cracks me up even more is that I have no idea how to even tag someone's demo, even if I wanted to! Nor how to see what anyone may have added to mine!

Although sometimes I'm comfortable here in my low-tech bubble...
kopfstand

Erik Sheppard · **Voice Talent** Moderator Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1317

Diane Havens · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Jun 2006 Posts: 1281

Greg Houser · **Voice Talent** Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 174