June Monthly Meta: Development from the other side
Published May 31, 2022, 6:48 a.m.
Hey there, itsthejoker (dev team and admin team for Grafeas) here to talk about tooling!
In software development, tooling refers to programs or scripts that only serve to maintain other programs or scripts. In our case, we write tooling for the QA and Engagment teams so that they can directly interact with the keeper of data, Blossom, or various spreadsheets that are used to keep track of different things (like the delightfully awesome Treasure Hunts in Discord).
Since all of …
Happy Fifth Birthday, Transcribers of Reddit! Celebrations Inside for…
Published April 1, 2022, 8:46 a.m.
Happy April, Transcribers of Reddit! Today might be April Fools’, but we have something serious to celebrate…
On April 1, 2017, /u/itsthejoker and /u/CaptCoe launched Transcribers of Reddit to organize their hobby of transcribing greentext over on r/DnDGreentext. Almost immediately, they realized two things: 1) people were actually interested in …
March Monthly Meta: Clear the Queue Highlights
Published March 1, 2022, 8:45 a.m.
Hey everyone!
Back on January 15th we attempted to clear the queue again, transcribing every post that the bot throws at us. We’re happy to announce that it was another success! It was a rather close call though… 11h 49mins after we started, all transcriptions were completed, with just 10 minutes to spare!
Here are some interesting stats from the event: Image
CtQ in Numbers
37 Participants
Happy New Year! January Monthly Meta: Survey Results
Published Jan. 1, 2022, 8:44 a.m.
Welcome to 2022, Transcribers of Reddit! As we reflect on the last year… maybe we shouldn’t. Moving on!
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who participated in our annual December survey for 2021! We received 71 total responses this year, just squeaking through at the last second to take the title for the best response rate we’ve ever had! You all left some incredibly helpful feedback that we are excited to review so that we …
Please take a few minutes to tell us how we're doing! December survey…
Published Dec. 1, 2021, 8:43 a.m.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year - the time when you all get to tell us how we’re doing!
That’s right, it’s time for our annual December survey. The survey takes five-ten minutes and is absolutely crucial to help us improve the volunteer experience. Take the survey here, or read our Q&A below first!
Who should take the survey? YOU, as long as you are a transcriber - whether …
This is not your usual monthly meta... But a celebratory one as we re…
Published Nov. 10, 2021, 8:43 a.m.
We've slightly *cough* *cough* delayed our November meta as we have something special to shout about!!
Frankly we're astounded! We always say this but it truly is amazing to see how far we've come in this time. We've put in a lot of effort along the way but without all of you amazing volunteers doing what you do we wouldn't have achieved anywhere near so …
Spooktober strikes again! October's monthly meta inside 🎃
Published Oct. 1, 2021, 8:42 a.m.
Hello Transcribers!
This month’s meta comes from the Engagement team! We wanted to use our post to talk about the various projects that we run :)
The ToR Treasure Hunts
Lately our hunts have been feeling some pressure from beyond the ToR Kingdom… pressure from beyond the stars! If you don’t know what we’re on about then we’d highly recommend scrolling back through the #Treasure_Hunt channel in our Discord channel to see the …
September Monthly Meta: Quality Assurance
Published Sept. 1, 2021, 8:41 a.m.
While many of our statistics reflect the number of transcriptions someone completed, it is much more important that they are well made. Or as we often say: "Quality over quantity".
But how can we make sure that this is actually the case? With such a large volume of transcriptions it would be impossible to review all of them. In this post we look at the measures we take and how the process has been drastically improved during the …
August Monthly Meta: Administration and Nonprofit Life
Published Aug. 1, 2021, 8:40 a.m.
Afternoon, all! Although I am also on the Dev team, my day to day role is actually much more heavily weighted towards our Admin team because I serve as the President of Grafeas Group, the nonprofit organization that we formed to be the financial sponsor of TranscribersOfReddit. Today's meta is all about fundraising and other stuff that you don't normally get to see!
Fundraising is the largest part of my job, because all of the money that we …
July Monthly Meta: CtQ Results & Leaving Beta
Published July 1, 2021, 8:40 a.m.
Hey there! Joker here representing our Dev team to talk about an incredibly important milestone, then following up with some results from the latest Clear The Queue event!
When we started this thing four years ago, we simply did not expect that we would A) get so many people involved and B) make this much of a difference across Reddit. We have every single one of you to thank for that!!!
The thing about starting a new project …
It's a brand new world out there!
Published June 3, 2021, 2:37 a.m.
You may have noticed that our site is a little bit snazzier now; after almost two years of development work, we're incredibly pleased to bring you our pride and joy.
Well... that's not entirely accurate.
What I mean to say is, we're incredibly pleased to:
- bring you a new site
- and a new backend for all our services
- and a much better overall system that powers everything
More details will be coming soon in the form of our first engineering post, but for now, please feel …
Featured in WIRED!
Published June 3, 2021, 2:35 a.m.
Early this year, we were featured in WIRED UK and subsequently in WIRED! Check it out here:
June Monthly Meta - Happy Pride Month!
Published June 1, 2021, 8:38 a.m.
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 …
May Meta - featuring stats from the Clear the Queue event + more insi…
Published May 1, 2021, 8:38 a.m.
Hello transcribers, this month’s meta post is brought to you by the Engagement Team! All of the mods have so much fun creating and running the variety of games, events and discussions with you all! This post will primarily feature info about the recent Clear the Queue event, but we’d love to hear any thoughts or feedback you have for us about our other events too.
Just over a month ago we hosted our second ever official Clear …
Four years of Transcribers of Reddit! Birthday Celebrations inside! 🎉
Published April 1, 2021, 8:37 a.m.
From all the mod team, we’re so proud to celebrate Transcribers of Reddit’s fourth birthday with you all!
We’ve grown so much over the years, it is truly amazing for us to see how much this sub has grown and spread. With over 4325 volunteers dropping in from across the globe we’ve managed to complete around 141,883 posts over the years; an astonishing number!
It all helps, no matter how many transcriptions you do, whether it’s 1 or 10,000 …
Monthly Meta Post: March
Published March 1, 2021, 8:37 a.m.
Hello everybody, the Welcome team is in charge of the March meta post! Here are some quick news:
We have now 4,211 transcribers and 134,781 transcriptions made in almost 4 years! Those are some impressive numbers!
We have recruited two new mods for welcoming new transcribers, /u/cloakknight and /u/MurdoMachlachlan, woohoo!
Other than that, here are some recommendations from the team:
Don't …
2020 - 'Best Of' Thread!
Published Feb. 1, 2021, 8:36 a.m.
NOTE: Voting is now closed!
Hi everyone! It's time for the 2020 Best Of TranscribersofReddit!
You will see 6 comments below with the categories...Feel free to nominate other transcribers (You can nominate yourself for any category except 'Most Uplifting' - 1 comment per nomination, please). Make sure you tag the user and provide a link to the transcription/comment you are nominating (except 'Most Uplifting' - that can just …
Happy New Year, Transcribers of Reddit! January Monthly Meta and Surv…
Published Jan. 1, 2021, 8:35 a.m.
Happy New Year! 2020 is finally over, and like most of you, the mod team couldn't be happier about it. Here's to a better, safer, and healthier 2021 for all.
First of all, a MASSIVE thank-you to everyone who completed our December annual survey! We received 70 responses, the most participation we've ever had in a survey, and you left some incredibly helpful feedback that the mods are excited to review so that we can better serve our …
Please take 5 minutes to give us some feedback! December monthly meta…
Published Dec. 1, 2020, 8:34 a.m.
Happy December, transcribers! Here at Transcribers of Reddit, this is the most wonderful time of the year - because every year, this is when you get to give us your feedback on how we are doing!
That's right, it's time for our annual December survey. The survey takes five minutes and is absolutely crucial to help us improve the volunteer experience. Take the survey here, or read our Q&A below first.
November Meta ~ Introducing the ToR Treasure Hunt ~ what, when and wh…
Published Nov. 1, 2020, 8:26 a.m.
We've got something fun on the horizon, join us on Discord on the 11th for the full details and the first hunt!
What is it? ~ A semi-regular competition
When is it? ~ The first round starts on the 11th, at 21:00 UTC
Where is it? ~ On Discord (and ToR)
What is …
DOOT DOOT (servers) DOOT (tech) DOOOOOOT (bots) DOOT (and more) DOOT!
Published Oct. 1, 2020, 7:18 a.m.
This month's update is from the dev team!
First off, some numbers:
Total completed posts: 118,993
Total volunteer count: 3761
So what have we been up to? We've been laying the groundwork for something super exciting...
...LEAVING BETA.
(we're not there yet, though. Almost!)
We've been in beta for three and a half years now slowly working out kinks and finding lots of places where things can go sideways, so for the past year, …
September already?! Updates inside
Published Sept. 1, 2020, 7:18 a.m.
Hello gang! It's hard to believe that summer is almost over, but here we are again with another meta post. This month we'd like to highlight our templates and Welcome team!
First and foremost, we'd like to welcome our newest mod /u/ce-walalang! Ce will be taking care of our Asia/Oceania transcribers. Make sure you say hi in Discord!
This is your semi-regular reminder to always check the rules of the parent sub …
August meta - News inside, we're looking for mods!
Published Aug. 1, 2020, 7:17 a.m.
It’s August! Somehow…! This month’s meta post brings the news that we are looking for mods!
We’ve done a little reshuffling internally, we have five teams that look after different aspects of ToR and our monthly metas will also feature an update from one of the groups going forwards.
- Welcome - welcoming new volunteers and giving feedback on transcriptions
- User - community management via Discord
- Development - bot development
- Admin - the nonprofit side of the organisation
- Engagement - looking for ways to improve …
July's meta - Tips and tricks for transcribing!
Published July 1, 2020, 7:16 a.m.
It's that time again! The theme of this month's meta is tips and tricks.
I'll share some of my favourites in the comments below, but we'd love to hear from you too!
What has helped you get to grips with transcribing?
Have you learnt anything along the way that might help others?
What advice would you give to new transcribers?
Please share your tips to help new and seasoned transcribers alike!
Super Important …
Monthly meta - Our wild world
Published June 1, 2020, 7:15 a.m.
Alright so May went by in a skinny minute.
It's pretty easy to lose track of time with all the chaos in the world right now. I have no doubt that 2020 will be a paradigm shift, a complete change in how we go about our daily lives.
It's easy to make jokes about it being the end of the world, but I choose to believe it's the start of a new one. I see so much pain in …
Monthly meta - Come what May!
Published May 1, 2020, 7:07 a.m.
I'm not quite sure I believe the calendar but somehow it's May already!
In wondering what the topic for the month should be I started thinking about the phrase "Come what may." Turns out it goes back quite far! As early as the 1300's in France, a similar sentiment in Spain (que sera sera), then popularised in Shakespeare's Macbeth and more recently in a song from Moulin Rouge.
So this month, please share posts you've transcribed with funny/wistful/daft/made-up …
March Monthly Thread: WE GOT FEATURED IN WIRED
Published March 1, 2020, 7:06 a.m.
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 …
February's Monthly Thread: Checking New Year Resolution Lists
Published Feb. 1, 2020, 7:05 a.m.
Hello there, fellow volunteers! Even if the time to wish "Happy 2020" is maybe gone, we wish you to have an excellent year, with its lot of successes and good things (and a lot of transcriptions if it's one of your resolution for the new year 8-P).
As Internet says, "New year, new me". Have you witnessed something impressive or original during your transcriptions? Someone suggesting you a new subreddit to transcribe? Transcribot replying "Good human" to you? Wholesome …
January Monthly Thread: Annual Survey Results
Published Jan. 1, 2020, 7:04 a.m.
Happy New Year, Transcribers of Reddit! Do you have any resolutions or ToR-related goals for 2020? Did anything particularly awesome happen last year? Put your monthly and yearly highlights in this thread! Here is the one from last month.
Once again, thank you so much for everyone who participated in our annual December survey! The mod team uses your feedback to make improvements to the subreddit and learn how we can improve. While we mull over the …
December Monthly Thread: Our Third Annual December Survey
Published Dec. 1, 2019, 7:02 a.m.
Happy end-of-2019, Transcribers of Reddit! Have you received a hilarious response? Seen transcribot start speaking in an alien language? Received a thoughtful testimonial? How many "Good Bot"s have you received this month?
Put your monthly highlights in this thread!
At the end of every year, the Transcribers of Reddit mod team calls upon our transcribers to lend a helping hand by filling out our annual survey. The survey helps us keep track of how we're doing, gather feedback, …
Awww Gust's Monthly Meta Post!
Published Aug. 1, 2019, 7:01 a.m.
Hello, fellow Redditors!
It's August, people are enjoying their vacations and/or sweating under another heatwave and September becomes closer and closer. Even if the July thread has lost its way through here, we have found the August one, so here we go!
We have 2,693 people having accepted the Code of Conduct and we are at 82,172 transcriptions. That makes roughly 500 new volunteers and 12,000 posts transcribed in two months. Yes, even in vacation our volunteers work hard, …
Did-JUne Miss Us? It's the June Monthly Meta Post!
Published June 1, 2019, 7 a.m.
I think we can all agree that May was a fairly unimportant month, all things considered, and we definitely intentionally decided that it didn't need a meta post and didn't just forget about it. MOVING ON!
Our latest stats!
As of June 2nd, 2019, we have a total of 2200 volunteers who have accepted the Code of Conduct, and these wonderful, amazing, superhero volunteers have completed a total of 69,874 posts. In case you were curious, that puts the …
APRIL ANNOUNCEMENT META POST: Introducing Smellscribing!
Published April 1, 2019, 6:59 a.m.
Anosmia, the congenital lack of a sense of smell, is a tragic condition that affects roughly 3% of Americans worldwide. As firm believers in the necessity of accessibility, we decided that we weren't doing enough to support this significant fraction …
The monthly post we love the most, slightly late but pretty great!
Published March 1, 2019, 6:58 a.m.
What is a monthly post if not a few days late? When those immortal words were first uttered by Aristotle Demosthenes uh, me, I figured it would be fun to look at what we've been up to in the last month that's had us so busy!
We passed 60,000 posts! As of right now, we've completed 60,892 posts!
WE PASSED 2000 VOLUNTEERS!!! We have 2,036 registered volunteers right now and that is completely unbelievable and amazing.
February Monthly Thread, Filled With Greatness As Expected
Published Feb. 1, 2019, 6:57 a.m.
Disclaimer: varying levels of greatness will be experienced. ;)
Welcome to February, traditionally a month of mild weather! As we take our first steps into a new month, we're greeted with record low temps in the US / Canada and record highs in Australia; may all of you be blessed with temperature-appropriate accommodations and safety.
As I write this, we have a whopping 1,986 registered volunteers; we're so close to 2000 that I can taste it! I'm so proud …
Best of ToR: January Monthly Thread and Survey Results
Published Jan. 1, 2019, 6:56 a.m.
Welcome to 2019, Transcribers of Reddit! Got any resolutions or transcriber-related goals for the new year? Did anything particularly awesome happen last year? Put your monthly or yearly highlights in this thread! Here's the one from December.
Thank you so much to everyone who answered our end-of-the-year survey! The mods are going over your feedback to see how we can improve the subreddit, but in the meantime, here are the responses we …
Best of ToR: December Monthly Thread and Survey
Published Dec. 1, 2018, 12:43 p.m.
Happy December, Transcribers of Reddit! Have you received a hilarious response? Seen transcribot start speaking in an alien language? Received a thoughtful testimonial? How many "Good Bot"s have you received this month?
Put your monthly highlights in this thread! We goofed last month, but here's the October monthly thread.
Now that we're ending our second calendar year, we're making a Transcribers of Reddit tradition and running a new survey so we can …
October Meta - The Boston Library Project and beyond!
Published Oct. 1, 2018, 12:42 p.m.
It's been just over 6 months that we've been getting involved in the Boston Library Project and we're staggered at how much of a success it's been!
A massive thank you to everyone involved, we know it's been hard and it's quite different to our work here on Reddit but we've been so impressed by the dedication you've all shown to such a great cause! The project has now finished so we thought this …
September: In Which The Holidays Are Getting Uncomfortably Close
Published Sept. 1, 2018, 12:42 p.m.
Is it already September? Where did the days go?
As so many of our volunteers head back into varying levels of school across the world and the weather begins to turn to a different season, we thought you might be interested in seeing some numbers about where we are!
Subreddit
Subreddit subscribers as I write this: 2,902
Number of actual volunteers: 1,692
Number of completed posts: 47,625
Number of people who have accepted the …
Best of ToR: Summer Vacation Edition & August Monthly Thread
Published Aug. 6, 2018, 12:40 p.m.
Happy August, Transcribers! We're a little late this month (bad mods!), but welcome to our August monthly thread!
It's the height of summer, so what have you been doing on your summer vacation? Gotten any good transcribing done? Drop your summer vacation stories, favorite transcriptions, and best /u/transcribot moments below!
Here's our big summer news: At the end of June, our parent organization, Grafeas Group, was granted 501(c)(3) charity status! This will allow …
July Meta Post - Transcriptions, More Transcriptions, and Statistics
Published July 1, 2018, 12:38 p.m.
Hello, all! As you may know, we planned and completed a special event for the first time called Clear the Queue; while we didn't quite get there, we did have a great time and made some new friends! We've learned a lot about what to do (and some things what not to do), but overall it was a great experience for everybody.
As promised, I sat down and got a bunch of stuff I thought was interesting based …
June Meta - Exciting announcements inside! 💃
Published June 1, 2018, 12:37 p.m.
We’d like to invite you to join us on Discord for fun, chat and advice as we try to achieve something that’s only happened once (twice?) in the last year. We’ve grown a lot and you’ve grown with us, …
May meta! Celebrations inside! 🎉
Published May 1, 2018, 12:37 p.m.
Lot of exciting things for this month's meta post! Last month saw the official 1 year birthday for ToR so we wanted to commemorate it somehow. Thanks to an excellent suggestion we've decided to make a world map with a pin in for each of you volunteers so we can see how far our mission has spread!
Long story short, websites are silly and the easiest way we've found to achieve …
April Fools! ~ April Monthly Thread ~
Published April 1, 2018, 12:36 p.m.
Note: April Fools is over, so please don't change the footer anymore :)
/u/astheriae isn't around this week so that means I get to do this month's post (yay). This month, April Fools and Easter ended up on the same day. If you celebrate Easter, then happy Easter! And if you celebrate April Fools, that's weird, it's not a holiday. However, we're not robots …
Best of ToR - "The Ideas of March" and other misspoken delights
Published March 4, 2018, 12:33 p.m.
The most amusingly innocent man once hosted a pub quiz I went to. His questions were sprinkled with unintended inaccuracies that had the entire pub laughing together all night. He called spiders "Arkanids", read out the name Marlene Dietrich as "Marly Ditch" and, most notably, asked a Shakespeare question referring to "The Ideas of March". It was priceless.
So this month we're asking for any amusing misspellings, misunderstandings or other mishaps you've …
Best of ToR February - How bot are you?
Published Feb. 1, 2018, 12:32 p.m.
Hello best bots of reddit! This month we're wondering how bot are you?
We've seen a few of you score highly with /u/perrycohen and I've just found out I rank 173rd of 2671 bots on reddit - so what about you?
To find out if you've placed (only some people are on it, I have no idea why) go to this page …
Best of ToR: January Edition and Survey Results!
Published Jan. 1, 2018, 12:31 p.m.
Welcome to 2018, Transcribers of Reddit! Have you received a hilarious response? Seen transcribot start speaking in an alien language? Received a thoughtful testimonial? How many Good Bot's have you received this month?
Put your monthly highlights in this thread! Here's the one from last month.
The results of our end-of-the-year survey are in! Feedback about the sub is being processed by our mod team so we …
Best of ToR: December Edition and SURVEY
Published Dec. 1, 2017, 12:29 p.m.
Happy December, Transcribers of Reddit! Have you received a hilarious response? Seen transcribot start speaking in an alien language? Received a thoughtful testimonial? How many Good Bot's have you received this month?
Put your monthly highlights in this thread! Here's the one from last month.
Best of ToR: November Editon!
Published Oct. 31, 2017, 10:28 a.m.
Have you had a hilarious response? Seen transcribot start speaking in an alien language? Received a thoughtful testimonial? How many Good Bot's have you received this month? Let us know!
This is where you place your personal highlights of the month! Good, bad, or anything in between!
We have a shiny, brand new moderator! Everyone give a friendly hello to
Best of ToR - Spooktober!
Published Oct. 14, 2017, 9:35 a.m.
Have you had a hilarious response? Seen transcribot start speaking in an alien language? Received a thoughtful testimonial? How many Good Bot's have you received this month?
Share it here in our October thread!
