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Fanscribed notes
The Fanscribed server is defunct, so this page is historical now.
You are here because you're interested in how to transcribe podcasts or you'd like to help.
There's an older page on how to transcribe the podcast, (this page is based on that one), but we use Fanscribed now. It's more efficient than the older methods, and it works in your browser - no software installation is needed! The podcast gets broken into 30-second segments, which are fairly quick to do.
Why transcribe?
Transcriptions make the audio content of the podcast available to the hearing impaired. The transcriptions are also helpful for people who would prefer to read than listen to the podcasts. They're pretty fast to search through, too.
Supported browsers
- I recommend Chrome for this.
- Firefox works, but I have to zoom out a bit so I can see the time in the current segment. If I leave the page open for hours, it seems like Flash starts to eat up CPU.
- Internet Explorer doesn't work.
Who's who
Matt (aka mathowie) and Jessamyn (aka jessamyn) are the usual hosts. Josh (aka cortex) sings the theme song. He's "the guy panned a little to the left and Matt is the guy panned a little to the right."
Formatting
Typing the initial for the speaker will expand to their name in the transcript. For example,
- Typing j; on Fanscribed becomes jessamyn:
- c; becomes cortex:
Other speaker abbreviations are noted in the sidebar on the right.
HTML doesn't work on Fanscribed, so hyperlinks and other modifiers aren't allowed. Instead, use *asterisks* for emphasis. It won't appear on the Fanscribed page, but it will appear in italics once it's been copied to the wiki.
Style
- Feel free to leave a placeholder (like ???) if you don't understand something, or ask the person who said it.
- Removing ums and ahs and erms not only makes your job easier, it makes the mods sound smarter! Plus, it's easier to read, so consider that.
- It's not legal transcription. Do the best job you can, but don't stress out about it.
- People may change the transcription you make. Make sure you're okay with that.
- Have fun, and thanks!
Transcribing
Here's how I do it: Go to the "Transcribe" tab, then log in with your name & email. Go back to the "Read" tab, and click "edit" for the next unfinished segment. You can read what came before, and this helps you deal with the overlap between segments. Segments overlap by five seconds - so if a segment starts or stops mid-word, don't worry about it. You have some leeway on where to stop.
Reviewing
The way that works is that it plays two 30-second segments, back to back. If you're the only reviewer, though, the next review you get overlaps 30 seconds with the previous one, which gets tiresome quickly. The best way I found to cope with that, was to listen just far enough into the second part to make sure that nothing got lost or duplicated between the segments, then move on to the next review.
Thanks!
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to transcribing segments, and to TangerineGurl for introducing us to Fanscribed!
In September 2012, there was a push to finish off older podcasts, and here were the top five transcribers: beryllium, ceribus peribus, Adrian Hon, Pronoiac, & tangerinegurl.
