Tagging demos anonymously? Stop this now

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

X-ray vision AND cute? Sounds like fun with a capital F. Cool

Bob Bair · **Voice Talent** Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 274

Vision correction and ugly. I guess I'm doomed.

Anthony Reece · **Voice Talent** Joined: 21 Jun 2003 Posts: 53

Yea, I saw this too after recent audition submissions and all I can say is...get out the boots...this is just plain "cow chips" v123.

What are you guys thinking Alex? Shall we next have us talent review and approve which auditions are submitted?

Some times, it is best to leave a working model, alone and keep things simple!

Why on earth Alex do you all feel there has to be more exciting, techie tools added to this system? How about just keeping it simple and if you want to be creative, how about finding a way to allow talent to pay by the quarter, or month verses $299 all at one-time as many struggling vo people can not fork out those bucks all at once.

Or, how about finding a way to help TALENT enjoy MORE realistic vo scales, verses offering seekers "low-budget & free postings"?

Have you noticed, how many projects are "low-dough" these days now that the option is there? I've seen about 3/4 the last month are at that level.

This tag move is beyond me. I would NEVER agree to tag another talents demos. I'm on that train with you Bettye.

Anthony Reece

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

The only growth any of these voice sites can have will be in soliciting more and more low end leads, and recruiting fledgling talent. They need quantity, not quality, to get leads enough to dispense to an ever expanding data base of talent. If only a certain number of the same people keep getting all the decent work, especially by private leads and repeat business -- how can they appeal to the huddled masses and their money? They have to encourage all seekers to post "competitively" rather than just use the perfectly good voice they used last time. Otherwise, the leads dry up, the same 100 or so talents get all the few good gigs and everyone else gets to play tag with demos 24-7 and "practice" auditioning to no avail. Sometimes I think all these "improvements" are designed as diversions to sell the idea that they are trying to make things better for US.

It's a business, after all.

Just a thought.

J.S. Gilbert · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008, 15:22 (GMT) Post subject: it would seem the opposite

It would seem that TOS, is all about warm fuzzies and packing em in like sardines, attracting low offers from questionable clients.

If V123 was about attracting the huddled masses, it would appear they'd be out there splashing a bit more honey around. It woould seem that the frustration they feel is that there are too many unqualified people on the site and no really good means to padlock the door without opening themselves up for all types of litigation.

Perhaps a highly margnial talent may reconsider audiitoning if they were tagged a few hundred ties with appropriate descriptive terms designed to dissuade them. As for "doing someone elses work", some might argue that the natuerr of these online services is that they are community. We live and die by the strength of the collective product we offer. If someone casting for a role who has reasonable rates to offer has to wade through 85% of the auditions being downright bad or at bes inappropriate, he or she will go somewhere where their time won't be wasted.

Not being an expert in things HTML or web 2.0, I do not know if this is a wunderbar idea or not. Is there any possible way on earth that it could negatively effect me? NO. Wait what was that again? NO

If you understand that the basis for accurate assesment on the web is considerd to be anonymous aggregate views, then this does seem to make sense. The only problem is that for whatever reason, actors seem to be more than happy to waste their time and hang in there, regardless of how the signpost points.

As I've said many times, I think the nicest thing about banging one's head against the wall is stopping. No, it isn't my role, nor should I pick up the gautlet to be voiceover cop, but then again I do have some responsibiltiy to my industry, don't I?

Folks, if there was a drunk man camping on yoour doorstep and peeing on your guests shoes, you'd do something about it?

I would love to see some sort of thread that might actually offer some alternative solutions that wouldn't represent potentially volatile litigious situations with regards to having some form of minimal standards for individuals who belong to V123.

Unfortunately, if thre are individuals who do provide quality auditions and they drop out, it's tantamount to the inmates taking over the asylum.

Just my take on an overall situation that isn't easy to grasp.

Melba Sibrel · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008, 15:59 (GMT) Post subject:

But I don't see why v123 can't establish standards. Who can sue them for instituting standards and saying no to doing business? They certainly have instituted many a standard regarding the ending of existing memberships (without refunds) should certain "rules" be violated. These warnings are in orange lettering all over the place with admonishments of professionalism and not hurting the community.

Yet they hurt their own business and the "community" they so blithely claim to protect by having no standards at all on who can be part. They could start by not letting Russian internet sex sites post free pages. Or dogs either. Or people reading a poem they wrote into a $30 mic purchased at Radio Shack. Or not giving a free page. At all. It's the free page that induces the premium membership. Which is their marketing model. But they don't have to give anything away at all to begin with. Who can sue for that? And in my opinion they shouldn't sell premiums to just anybody either. They're trading long term reputation for short term cash flow. That's not a smart way to build and maintain a business.

I wouldn't mind being part of a community-wide peer review (if I was trusted to do so) to keep at least some of the horrid, non-professional, no-nothing wannabes out of the audition que, which they wouldn't be invited to in the read world. I'd also be willing to give some time to mentor those who wanted to be part of the community and needed a little help to reach a minimum standard so they could try their hand at the business. But the current v123 policy of letting anyone with a credit card play pretend does not make them look professional. TOS may be the same way -- with no standards -- I don't know -- but at least I get to choose what I will or will not audition for -- which is what I paid for, at both sites, to begin with.

Chris Mezzolesta · **Voice Talent** Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 258

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

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

Melba Sibrel · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008, 17:25 (GMT) Post subject:

Well, yes anyone can file suit for anything. Getting it to court is another thing. There would be no basis for the suit for there would be no "right" violated.

Edited to add: However, v123 doesn't sell premiums to any and all because of fear of violating some imaginary equal access clause, but because short term cash flow benefits. So the whole mention of suit is moot. Hey! That rhymes.

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

that's been my statement from the beginning.

Lee Gordon · **Voice Talent** Joined: 22 Oct 2004 Posts: 1549

Man, my head is getting ready to explode! I can't believe all the angst and venom this stupid little experiment has evoked.

First, the majority of people seem to have naturally assumed that "tagging" consists of applying negative terms to some strangers' demos. Virtually none of the keywords we attribute to our own demos are value judgements or indications of quality. They are descriptors of style (i.e. sultry, dynamic, friendly, etc.). That's all we are being asked to do. Listen to a demo and come up with one, two or three keywords to help someone match a style they are looking for with an appropriate demo via a keyword search.

I doubt very much that anyone plugs "amateurish" or "sucks" into a search engine when seeking a voiceover, so even if some random person landed on your demo, recognized you as somebody who "gets all the jobs" and added a couple of crappy keywords just to sabotage your standing, it is unlikely to have any effect one way or the other.

Next, is this business about "doing Voice123's job." Well, it isn't Voice123's job to come up with descriptions for each individual member's announcing style. It's incumbent upon each of us to make our profiles as complete and accurate as we can. So are we being asked to do the job of some of our fellow Voice Talents? Yeah, maybe. But we have a lot of people here who willingly volunteer to help each other out, even when the person we are assisting is a potential rival for jobs. What's the difference?

And this is as good a time as any to remind ourselves that this entire process is voluntary. Nobody is holding a gun to our heads making us tag anybody's demo if we don't want to. If you don't want to participate, don't! Apparently somebody wants to do it. As of yesterday, more than 4350 demos had been tagged. And according to the e-mail many of us received from Voice123, "if someone does leave negative tags, you can remove them before the tags are actually used."

Why are people actually playing along? I have no idea. Maybe for the same reason people play the Google Image Labeler game ( http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ ) -- because it can be interesting and potentially useful. I just don't understand the paranoia associated with something that seems fairly benign.

Finally, I agree with those who suggest that Voice123's claims that setting minumum quality standards would open them up to potential EEO litigation is merely spin-doctoring when they really just don't want to turn away anyone who is willing for fork over 300 bucks. Maybe the answer is a two-tiered system -- one for the hoi polloi, and one for the "elite" such as all of us. Wink

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

Well, as I've said on another blog or two... time will tell. Give it two weeks for the search engines to pick this stuff up, and to show how the schema works (since V123 won't explain it), and we can complain or cheer together.

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

Lee,

...don't forget that, like tagging demos, reading these posts is also voluntary....I'd hate for your head to explode. Laughing

David Oxford · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 505

Aren't the keywords, supplied by the voice talent, enough to supply the search engines with the data needed to locate voice talents anyway?? Why is it even necessary to have the feature? I don't pretend to remotely understand the technical aspects of code - it's all well beyond my comprehension - but I thought each talent set up their own keywords when they subscribed to the site, no? Seems redundant or overkill to me.

I think there are so many other things the V123 brain trust could be expending their time & energy towards that would actually benefit the process. There's certainly not been a lack of suggestions voiced by the community HERE regarding such features - only a seeming lack of willingness on the site's part to listen.

While the community has been suggesting, "how about adding another fuel filter to keep the carburetor cleaner and running more efficiently," the 'mechanics' have been answering, "look at the bright, new, shiny paint job we gave the car!"

David