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 can better serve our community in 2022.
While we’re reviewing the feedback sections of the survey, here is some fun aggregated data to share with everyone!
Who took the survey?
44% of respondents are Initiates - although I bet some of you have ranked up since taking the survey! We got responses from people at every flair level except for Ruby, Jade, and Sapphire.
39% of respondents are frequent transcribers, scoring gamma daily or weekly. In a fun statistical coincidence, another 39% are regular transcribers, clocking in every 2 weeks to 1 month.
How do volunteers like to transcribe?
A resounding majority prefer to transcribe screenshots of social media (86%) and text messages (74%), with very short posts under 100 words also appealing to over half (54%). Not surprisingly, video posts aren’t always feeling the love, with only 9% of respondents preferring those posts.
We crowned a new champion for volunteers’ favorite subreddit to transcribe: 24% of you gave some love to r/CuratedTumblr, which joined our queue in March of this year! Rounding out the top three are r/antiwork (13%) and r/AreTheStraightsOK (8%), both also 2021 additions to our family.
Like last year, volunteers had a variety of opinions on what makes them feel the most rewarded, but one thing was clear - everyone loves getting positive comments from non-transcribers!
How else do you all engage with us?
The vast majority of respondents spend time in our Discord (77%). Of those that don’t, most said it was because they do not use Discord regularly.
2021 saw us ramping up engagement in Discord with community events! About half of respondents who use our Discord said they’ve participated in at least one community event this year, and our Treasure Hunts and Clear the Queue events were the most popular, with about 30% participation each.
The Fun Stuff!
halailah's favorite jokes this year:
What does a cat like to eat on a hot day? A mice cream cone!
Why are transcribers so good at chess? They always make the write move
What do you get when you mix ducks and fireworks? Firequackers
We definitively settled two critical food-related debates this year. Two thirds of respondents believe that a pancake is a thick, fluffy breakfast food that contains a leavening agent (as opposed to a thin one that is not leavened). Just under two thirds say that the shape of pizza is a circle.
🎉 Finally, exactly two thirds of volunteers agree that if a sentence starts with an emoji, the first word after the emoji should be capitalized.