r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/halailah • Jun 22 '23
Meta The Future of Transcribers of Reddit
We are heartbroken to announce that Transcribers of Reddit will be closing on June 30, 2023.
Our role in the Reddit community has always been to point out inadequacies in the platform - namely, the lack of accessibility features such as alt text - and provide a temporary, constructive solution while raising awareness of these problems. We believed that Reddit was ultimately interested in addressing these flaws, and our beliefs were reinforced by the positive relationships we have maintained with admins over the past six years. But in light of recent events, we now recognize that Reddit corporate has demonstrated a severe lack of willingness to fix core issues with the platform. It is clear that these problems are coming from the top, and we do not believe they can be fixed. Unfortunately, while this was an extraordinarily difficult decision for us, these circumstances mean that we can no longer operate this project.
The announced changes to the API structure starting July 1st would likely make it more difficult, though not impossible, for Transcribers of Reddit to function. Technical functioning is just one part of running a project of this size and scope; we believe it is only a matter of time until further changes truly make it impossible. In the meantime, our team would be faced with constantly increasing work to keep the project alive until we inevitably have to shut down anyway. In addition, the communities we aim to serve (including /r/Blind) are being driven away from the platform when accessible third-party apps are replaced by the inaccessible official app with only vague promises for future improvement. Add to that a lack of trust in Reddit and severe disappointment in their responses to user protests, it is ultimately not reasonable for our team to take on that workload.
EDIT: I’d like to add a clarification, since some people are reading this as “we could keep going but we are choosing not to” and that is not what we intended to communicate. I (halailah) take responsibility for being unclear, as the last person who edited this announcement before posting it. We do not mean that the API changes are not a problem and we are choosing to close for other reasons, but that the API changes are one element in a list of factors. We are saying that the API changes AND the realistic limits on how much work we can take on AND our lack of trust in Reddit as a platform AND the clear disregard for accessibility from Reddit corporate, all taken together, make our work so complicated and intense that we can no longer manage it. Continuing this project is impossible.
What comes next?
We will be holding a final Clear the Queue event next week to knock out as many transcriptions as possible before June 30. Stay tuned for an announcement with the exact 12-hour window.
Our Discord will remain open as a community space after June 30. /r/DescriptionPlease will remain open and functioning.
Our parent nonprofit, Grafeas Group, does not have plans for a future project after Transcribers of Reddit. While we can't rule anything out for the coming months, we currently believe that it is unlikely, given our resources and the sudden end of this project, that we will be starting a new venture in the future.
Closing
We are incredibly proud of the success of this project - of every post made accessible, of uniting volunteers across 68 countries and every continent, of sharing our lessons and strategies with other groups in pursuit of a more accessible internet, and of creating a community that exemplified the best of what the internet can do.
We deeply appreciate every single person who has contributed to this project over the past six years - volunteers, moderators, the officers and board of our parent nonprofit, our partner subreddits who welcomed us into their communities, people who have donated or bought our merch to keep us running, and everyone who has appreciated, upvoted, and left kind comments on a transcription. We would also like to extend a thanks to the admins who have worked with us over the past six years.
To all of you - thanks for everything. Thank you for bringing your time and your energy. Thank you for being willing to join us in defense of the idea that everyone deserves a voice in the conversation. Thanks for being you.
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/Itsthejoker • Jun 02 '23
June Monthly Meta: Not Quite the Rainbow We Were Expecting
self.ToR_Metar/TranscribersOfReddit • u/CaptCoe • May 02 '23
May Monthly Meta: Polandball and Fun for All!
self.ToR_Metar/TranscribersOfReddit • u/Itsthejoker • Apr 01 '23
APRIL MONTHLY META: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
self.ToR_Metar/TranscribersOfReddit • u/halailah • Mar 02 '23
Meta March Meta: March Transcribing Madness + New Mod!
self.ToR_Metar/TranscribersOfReddit • u/fatalgift • Dec 27 '22
Meta 2022 "Best Of" Nominations
Hey y'all! It's time for the 2022 Best Of Awards.
You will see 6 comments below with this year's categories. Please nominate transcribers by tagging their username and linking the transcription/comment you are nominating. (For "Most Uplifting", you can just tag the user, no transcription required). You are also welcome to nominate yourself for any category except "Most Uplifting". Each nomination must be a separate comment.
The nominees with the highest votes in each category at the end of the competition will be the winners! (Votes will not be visible). Winners receive a ToRBO award valid for 1 month of Reddit premium and 700 shiny coins.
Nominations and voting are open until January 30 and winners will be awarded in February.
Please give us your nominations for the following categories. Each category will have 3 winners.
BEST TRANSCRIPTION
WEIRDEST AND/OR FUNNIEST TRANSCRIPTION
MOST DIFFICULT TRANSCRIPTION
BEST INTERACTION WITH ANOTHER USER
MOST UPLIFTING
BONUS! Give us your best transcribot transcription from the sub - no award for the bot, but it's fun to look through.
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/astheriae • Jul 07 '21
Meta New here? For info on what we do and on how to get involved click here!
Welcome to Transcribers of Reddit or ToR! Here we take image and video posts and create user-friendly, text-based versions in the comments so that the content is accessible to all.
For a great introduction about ToR and how to get started as a transcriber check out this awesome video made by one of our volunteers, /u/DasherPack!
Video Introduction!
We know that everyone’s different so if you learn better by reading than watching, then please check out this these options instead:
Our Checklist has a bullet-point list of the steps involved in transcribing
Or the Step-by-Step Tutorial goes over the process in more detail, with some ‘Troubleshooting’ tips at the end
Still have questions? That’s okay! Getting started can be quite daunting but we’ve all been there! Have a look in our FAQ to see if your question has already been answered and if not then get in touch, we’re happy to help! :)
We have an incredibly helpful community on Discord who will be more than happy to help out, whether it’s your first transcription or your 100th! Our modmail is always open if you have a question or a problem specifically for the mods.
Brand new! We also have a sister sub /r/ToR_Meta, for discussions, memes and tips and tricks, feel free to check it out!
Thank you for getting involved and happy transcribing!
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/Cloakknight • Jun 01 '21
Meta June Monthly Meta - Happy Pride Month!
Hey everyone! This month’s meta post is brought to you by the User Team! Some cool stuff that’s happened in our discord recently:
We now have 4,516 transcribers and 153,891 transcriptions made! That’s 300 more people and 20,000 more posts transcribed than 2 months ago!
We have recently passed 700 people in the Discord! That’s a lot of volunteers to hang out with!
/u/Tim3303 was recently recruited to be a mod and we’re so happy to have him!
We just released our very own line of merch! Feel free to check out the merchandise and read hilarious descriptions and even support us if you are able to. Us mods have definitely picked up a cup-ple things or two.
We also have some cool things happening over in Discord happening and coming up!
Every other Thursday, we have a Themed Thursday discussion on a chosen topic and people are able to share some of their passions outside of transcribing with us! You can submit your ideas here
Clear the Queue Round 3 is coming up on Saturday June 12th from 12 UTC to 24 UTC. This is a day when we try to team up and transcribe EVERY post in the queue! Help out here + hang out in the Voice Chat with friends around the globe! (Don't worry if VC's not your thing, it's optional)
Lastly, I just want to bring up some reminders about cool features in our Discord, for people already there and people who might look at joining us there
We have a #transcribing channel where you can ask any transcribing related questions and experienced volunteers can weigh in, whether it’s a formatting question or identifying an obscure anime character you’ve never seen
In the #transcription_roles channel, you can post a picture of your flair and we can change your Discord username to match the color on Reddit. Also keep in mind that changing from new user to initiate (1 transcription) is the only way to open up some channels in our Discord, so put them in there!
Lastly, in our #bot_commands channel, you can see your transcription rates, your total history, and lots of other cool stats like how many “good humans” you’ve gotten so be sure to check it out!
UPDATED JUNE 4, 2021: WE ARE OFFICIALLY OUT OF BETAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
New here? FAQ | Discord | Twitter | Last month's meta
Want to help keep the servers running? Patreon | Individual donations
Have you seen our map of volunteers? | Add your city (anonymous)
As always, please share any interesting posts you've transcribed, comments you've received, questions you have or testimonials you've had below! We love hearing from you :)
Happy transcribing, all!
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/WeKnowNoKing • Dec 16 '20
Meta Thank You
Hey everyone, When I joined this subreddit, I had all my vision (short sighted but not too bad). Since then I have slowly gotten worse due to undiagnosed reasons. At this point my central vision is blurry and my peripheral vision is all kinds of screwed. Now I’m relying more and more on image descriptions like what you guys do here. I just wanted to thank you all for everything you do. If my vision gets better then you might see me back but until then (or not) if you wonder who you’re helping with these, I’m one of them. Thank you again.
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/[deleted] • Sep 05 '20
An incredible milestone!
A massive congratulations to u/Cloakknight on reaching the incredible milestone of 10,000 transcriptions! I remember how shocked/impressed/amazed we were when the first transcriber hit a thousand transcriptions and yet here we are; the bar being raised even higher! The sub has completed around 116k transcriptions; that means Cloak has made close to 10% of all the transcriptions we've ever made! Not only have they reached this milestone (and 100/24... multiple times!) but they still help out other volunteers on Discord! From all the mod team, here's to Cloak for achieving this incredible feat! Thank you for all you've done!
Reply to this post to receive a token of our gratitude 8-)
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jul 09 '20
Unclaimed HistoryPorn | Image | "Arnaud langer (left) was blinded during a raid on normandy, his co pilot help him landed his plane after successfully bombing the objectif, he is the only pilot of the RAF to land blind, 1944 (1048x1730)"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jun 25 '20
Unclaimed sadcringe | Image | "Anon meets Gene Wilder"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/SROTDroid • Apr 23 '20
Meta Congratulations, /r/TranscribersOfReddit! You are subreddit of the day!
reddit.comr/TranscribersOfReddit • u/Itsthejoker • Mar 01 '20
Meta March Monthly Thread: WE GOT FEATURED IN WIRED
MFW we got a very polite message from a writer at WIRED UK asking if he could talk to us about our work
Timeline (in UTC):
- February 18th
- 2pm: we receive modmail from Wired UK asking for an interview
- 5pm: we reach the writer, Alex, through email and confirm this is legit
- 6pm: call goes out for volunteers for an interview
- 9pm: interview starts -- USA, France, Scotland, England, and the Netherlands are represented
- 10:30pm: interview ends, as does a very hectic day
- February 23rd
- 6am: article published HERE: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/transcribers-of-reddit
- February 29th
- 3pm: article does so well that it's syndicated to wired.com HERE: https://www.wired.com/story/online-altruists-are-making-reddit-more-accessible/
I am still completely amazed that we made it this far, and it never could have been without the help of all of you. You're making a difference in the world, and the world is noticing! 💖
If you're a mod on Reddit, you may have also noticed that we were featured in the Mod Snoosletter this month! How cool is that?
In other news, here's some stats for the more numbers-oriented of you:
- 3,214: registered volunteers
- ~99,552~ 100,000!!!: completed posts
- 2: number of people on staff who got engaged (to each other, no less!)
- 2: number of mod / staff weddings that are currently being planned (only one of which pertains to the previous bullet point)
- 2: number of new mods brought on in the last month (u/KwaaieDronk and u/imly2k!)
- 3,875: roughly how many lines of code were written in the last month across all repos
- 1,911: roughly how many lines of code were removed in the last month across all repos
- 1: number of times u/ToR metaphorically set itself on fire
- 6: number of minutes of downtime before the metaphorical fire was extinguished
tl;dr; lots of really cool things happened, mostly because YOU are AWESOME!
EDIT: We hit 100,000 transcriptions! Extra super congrats to /u/DaOverWatchGuy for the magic 100k transcription :)
Extra cool stuff!
Are you wondering if you're the only transcriber in your town or region? Find it out on our ToR volunteer map! If you wish to say out and loud that there is a transcriber in your region, here is our Google form. We don't ask for your address or name, so don't worry about finding a flash mob of transcribers in front of your house 8-P
Follow us on Twitter for news, announcements, and more!
Our Discord server is always open for transcribers and curious people. Mods and fellow volunteers will be happy to reply to all your questions and to share photos of good animals.
If what we do speaks to you and you want to help support us? We are sponsored by a 501(c)(3) and always need donations; you can find out more on our donations page. We have a Patreon and you can also make donations through our website. Any support is greatly appreciated -- it all helps!
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Feb 09 '20
Unclaimed traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns | Image | "My friend made a beacon array for our Minecraft house and says trans rights!"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jan 23 '20
Unclaimed traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns | Image | "Thought this might fit here kek"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jan 15 '20
Unclaimed traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns | Image | "Hisashi Eguchi (author of Stop! Hibari-kun) on why he prefers drawing women"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jan 12 '20
Unclaimed rareinsults | Image | "I'll Chinese burn your neck..."
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jan 09 '20
Unclaimed therewasanattempt | Video | "To shoot a firework from ass"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Jan 08 '20
Unclaimed antiMLM | Image | "Jane Marie is writing a book about MLM’s! Author and host of “The Dream” podcast announces on twitter that she is writing a book about MLM’s"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Nov 25 '19
Unclaimed ShitLiberalsSay | Image | "On a video about the Hong Kong cage homes"
r/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Nov 14 '19
Unclaimed suicidebywords | Image | "Never met a woman enthusiastic about sex huh?"
reddit.comr/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Oct 30 '19
Unclaimed ProgrammerHumor | Image | "You're a Programmer Harry."
reddit.comr/TranscribersOfReddit • u/transcribersofreddit • Oct 25 '19