Skeptic Overview 9

PODcast: Skeptic Overview 9
Another busy period of podcasting and board happenings on ATS. This overview covers a very large podthread on the BTS feed, some information on another round of server upgrades, and a call to our podcasters to respond with ideas to better organize our podcast feeds. And a luck-strike-extra, a conspiracy theory thought from the Overlord.

length: 20:00
file: atspodcast_540.mp3
size: 7034k
feed: ats
status: live (at time of posting)

PODcast: Skeptic Overview 9 (reply 1)
BH's attemt at organization

length: 01:47
file: atspodcast_542.mp3
size: 837k
feed:
status: live (at time of posting)

PODcast: Skeptic Overview 9 (reply 2)
Clarifying the need to organize the podcast RSS feeds, not the podcasting forum.

length: 03:16
file: atspodcast_544.mp3
size: 1152k
feed:
status: live (at time of posting)

PODcast: Skeptic Overview 9 (reply 3)
Reply to Skeptic Overlords Pod Cast Help

length: 03:42
file: atspodcast_545.mp3
size: 3469k
feed:
status: hold (at time of posting)

You could enable voting similar to ATSNN, but on a PODthread basis. Top 100 make the feed. One member, one vote per PODthread, in combination with a voting date range. That would ensure the best of the newest PODthreads float to the top.

Hey SO, nice one, great news on the college! That's cool man.

I know I am probably treading on insulting your intelligence here, but wouldn't there be a way to encode some kind of module or output reversal code to the feed that seeks it? So that that it simply fed back in reverse, starting with the first podcast first and so on...?

*ducks and resurfaces for a peek* o_O

Oh a Sci-Fi based Sponsored forum. Interesting Hope it all comes together and a third one hrm. This shall be very interesting indeed.

The pocasts in the RSS feeds need to be date-tagged, so a reverse order would be difficult to keep track of (I thought of that). At the least, we're going to develop a persistent "welcome" podcast that will always appear as the first item in iTunes and Yahoo Podcasts.

For lack of a better idea, we could probably split the ATS feed into:

ATSx.xml --> UFO, Alien, technology, space, science, etc.
ATSg.xml --> Govenment projects, secret groups, military, etc.
ATSc.xml --> Conspiracy theory, nwo, media, cover-ups, scandals, etc.
ATSp.xml --> Paranormal, predictions, cryptozoology, lost-civ, etc.
ATSf.xml --> Fragile earth, medical issues, peak oil, etc.
ATSs.xml --> Staff podcasts (SkepticOverview, etc.)

The above RSS channels will feed the most recent 60 days of material, then we could also have archive feeds (ATSx_a.xml for example) for everything older than 60 days.

The multiple feeds make it more complicated, but as we approach 500 podcasts, we don't have much of a choice now do we? What will happen if we keep this pace up, and have 1,300 podcasts by January 1st? We should figure out the best way to solve this issue now.

(I think we're going to need more PODmods.)

I'm also looking at building a tool that would allow members to manage what is displayed in their personal feed. You may not want some of your podthread replies to be showing up in your feeds (might not make sense to the listener), and a way to define which podcasts appear in your feed should help organize those as well.

Well if there is any thing I can do, just let me know.

I thought I was missing something. I'm lost on the 'feed' thing. It's all too hi-tech for me right now. BUT...

If we, the creators of the 'casts (or a POD mod) had a rating system to rate our PODcasts as more 'private' (and that's the wrong word - more like board-focused) or more public, then only the public ones would show up on the feeds...

Intros, board business and other more personal PODcasts would carry the 'private' rating and wouldn't be available on the feed at all, but would only be accessable from the board.

Then humor and discussion PODcasts would be in a middle rating, where non-ATS members would have to 'dig' a bit to get to them.

Then the music, conspiracy and hi-level, ATS-type PODcasts would be readily available on the feeds.

Now that I read over your quote above, I think that's just what you said!

OK, I'm done. Good luck figuring it out. If there's anything I can do, let me know!

SO, sounds like you're on the right track, and the multiple feeds idea was a bit over obvious for me to risk even mentioning. But couldn't you use that date stamp requirement to your advantage somehow and direct the code to immediately throw those to the rear of the feed presented to the outside world? *ducks once again*

The tools ideas are great of course, and any more ability you can give us to manage what we'd like in our feeds would be greatly appreciated.

And hey, while we are at it, any chance we can try to fix the MP3 write tag problem? Ideally, user-editable, post-upload MP3 tags would be very sweet. Primarily because of changes we might want to make on descriptions and such. But that is a lot of work, no doubt, and really for now it would just be better if at least we could get the code to stop stripping the tags from some mp3's. I haven't quite put my finger on why it is doing that on some files and not on others.

Maybe if I had access to a "test" upload area, I could experiment with various encoding methods and write tags, and eventually identify the exact problem to you, so the fix would be easier and involve much less of your time and effort. I'd be glad to help out as needless to say, I'm not all that crazy about having all the music I do up on the site without even the artist name or song name being displayed in some of them. And if I need to be a member of the PodSquad, ModSquad or PodMods to do it, fine, even if temporarily. By now I guess you know I am an audio engineer, and I think I can help.

Could you create a feed for every fora contained on ATS, BTS, PTS and one for ATSNN? That's a heck of a lot of forums but if you are trying to future proof the podcast set up it might be the only way.

That way there is an existing (already known) method for categorizing the podcasts which shouldn't be too taxing for the average iTunes user to figure out. You could also include a "podcasts" button on all the forums main pages next to "New Thread" button, so a user can click it at will and see what podcasts are available to listen to on the their forum of choice. This is instead of deliberately making the decision to go listen to podcasts. It could be a way of drumming up more interest and awareness of podcasts amongst the members. Thats not to say that you couldnt keep a dedicated place on ATS to show the latest podcasts for each forum.

With regards to the sheer volume of podcasts being posted, does it really matter that only the first 100 or so are visible to iTunes viewers? I don't think the non-ATS member iTunes listener is going to have much call for delving through the entire backlog of podcasts. If they are interested enough in the content they should become a member and use the sites podcast sections. If the older ones are viewable to ATS members through the site then that should be problem solved. iTunes is pretty much raising awareness of ATS right? Its not meant to supplant the site is it?

Just my 2c

[edit on 14/10/05 by subz]

Nah... the display order in RSS readers is a function of the dates, not sequence in the XML.

I guess the subject channels with 60-day windows and archive feeds for each subject is the best solution.

The upload form will soon get a little more complicated.

Also, we're going to need to re-tag all the existing ATS podcasts to the appropriate channels.

And while we're at it... is humor, talk, and music enough for BTS?




That's odd... the tags in the files I uploaded are preserved just fine. It's a simple binary file transfer... you shouldn't see any tags disappear.

PODcast: Skeptic Overview 9 (reply 4)
NrKy's suggestion for resolving the 100-podcasts problem in itunes.

length: 01:48
file: atspodcast_552.mp3
size: 1700k
feed:
status: hold (at time of posting)

REPLY to this podcast with one of your own!

[edit on 14-10-2005 by nrky]


[edit on 14-10-2005 by nrky]

Same here,,,im probably WAY off from being wanted for something like that,,but I will be glad to help.

The problem here is that the iTunes listing for the ATS stream ONLY shows the FIRST 100 podcasts, and not the most recent ones.
It would seem that we need to find some way to frequently change the ATS feed listing FOR ITUNES, which is to have the main ITUNES LISTING updated every week, and everything produced in the previous week archived.
We all know that there are plenty of different podcast feeds for ATS and BTS, but when doing a search for above top secret in the iTunes podcast directory, it only shows the 100 first podcasts. In order to get to the rest you need to actually subscribe to the podcast threads, as opposed to simply viewing it in iTunes Music Store window.
The iTunes Music Store only caches the first 100 podcasts for a podfeed, so we need to minimise the number of podcasts in the stream.
The suggestion I put forth in this podcast is that we have the usual Opening Introductory podcast for each week, with information about ATS, who we are, what we do, etc, but also add to that, information about gaining access to archived feeds for podcasts that don't show up on the main page.

This is assuming that the people who find ATS through the iTunes music store are NOT already subscribers, nor regular ATS members. The #1, Opening Introductory podcast (first one on the list) would be there for those people who are new to our podcasts.

Exhibit A:
[img=http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3023/itunesmusicstoreforats9gh.jpg]

[edit on 14-10-2005 by nrky]

[edit on 14-10-2005 by nrky]

SO, there IS a problem with the content tags for some MP3's:
Here's just one example, from this thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Here's a screenie of the BEFORE upload content tags, and as you can see in Windows Media Player the content tags show correctly and in the Properties dialog correctly as well:



Now here is a screenie of the AFTER upload content tags, and as you can see the content tags have been completely stripped and replaced with the podcast number:



I don't know what it is causing it at the moment. And the wierd thing is it doesn't happen for all MP3 files. I am meticulous about writing those content tags, as I want to make sure the artist and song name display correctly. I test every one for tags before upload.

No it isn't and just the ATS feed isn't enough either, there should be topical feeds for ATS as well as BTS, PTS and ATSNN.

But since you asked specifically about BTS here are my ideas for additional topical feeds.

1. Sportz
2. Non-conpiracy related theological discussions
3. Entertainment(or even better seperate feeds for Movies and Videogames)
4. Food and Cooking
5. Rants

etc etc.

It looks like the ID3 tag issue might be related to your podcast client. The tags are preserved in iTunes when I look at the same file.

The ID3 tags are downloaded fine for me also:

external image