Should I make documents in the hopper available for all to read?

[Lemon]

Okay, so right now I'm working on an entirely new system for the hopper (pulling data into the site itself, rather than sideloading a Google Spreadsheet via javascript) This allows for a couple new ideas of stuff to be had in the hopper. Let me give you the rundown.

Originally, we had just a list of documents that nobody could see. That started to become a problem when we'd be getting duplicate submissions, so we built a new system where people could see both submitted content still under consideration and submitted content which has been rejected.

I've changed how that data is stored/conveyed a couple of times, but the approach has largely stayed the same. Documents in the hopper are kept private to the F+ reader group, until such time as they're recorded & released when they go in the show notes, or when they're rejected, when I publish the link.

The germ of the idea is that I worried that the documents would serve as "spoilers" for the episode if and when it was released, and I still think there's some validity in that thought. However, that's balanced against the idea of holding back content from people for reasons that seem a little abstract. It could be useful for more people to know the content of the documents we have, so that we'd get better direction on where to go next - as we're standing at around 80 documents still marked under consideration, it can be very difficult to pick one to do next.

So, that's my thought process currently. If you have a case to be for why documents should or should not be made public, make it here.

[advancedclass]

I'm for "no", primarily because of the "spoiler" feeling. Part of the fun of listening to a new episode, or waiting for a new episode to even be released, is the fact that it's such an unknown thing. I read the rejected documents and I've looked over the list of things that are in the hopper, so there's a sense that it could be anything and even once I know what an episode is about, I still never really know what weird, magical direction the episode might take, what kind of weird little alley someone will have found while the episode was being recorded (never forget Conquistadogs).

I guess I'd wonder how your approach to documents would change if you made them available to everyone. Would it be so additional material could be supplied? Because I we already have a subforum for people to work together on compiling material for documents and I can't imagine it would simply things from your end to have the contents of submitted documents constantly changing. Would it be so people could pick which documents to do next, or help narrow down your options, our own little ballp.it Lemon's Choice? Because I think that has merit, if you're having a hard time deciding what to do next, but I also think you could do that without showing us what's in the document.

Additionally, I know you guys often read directly from the sites, not the docs themselves, and I'd be concerned that making documents public before recording could lead to some poop touching or the subject(s) of the doc finding out and deleting the source before you get a chance to boggle at it directly.

That concludes my brief opinion on the very serious subject of how to approach podcasts laughing at weird internet things.

[Nikaer Drekin]

On one hand, I like the fact that the content of the episodes is "secret" to the listeners beforehand, but anyone who still wants that quality could just not read them, I suppose.

On the other hand, I can see it being somewhat useful. I found some content for a NotAlwaysRight doc before I noticed there was one in the hopper, so it might be useful for me to see what had already been collected so that my stuff didn't overlap, or whether or not another doc was even needed! That's something we could email you for access to, though.

[Emperor Jack Chick]

So my initial thought here was to have some sort of vote/ranking system to allow the listeners to rank things they'd like to hear in the near future. I mean, there's an effort to introduce variety but it can be hard to know "hey its been 4 years since we did an episode on topic xxx".

I also feel like a big part of the episode's enjoyment isn't so much the content as the reactions to the content, and the manner in which it is read. Also if you don't wanna spoil content, you can just not read it, ya know.

[A Meat]

Wouldn't mind an occasional poll on ballp.it to choose between a few documents based off of vague descriptions of the content in the doc. Don't really see a point in making the docs in the hopper public, I'd imagine most people this involved in the podcast wouldn't want spoilers, but that might just be me.

Also, at what point should we stop submitting new docs to the hopper? I feel like having 80 docs in there is kind of ludicrous already.

And if I'm just vomiting ideas into this post, I'd suggest an episode with a tiny snippet from a bunch of older documents that have been in the hopper for two years or more, don't know how well that would work though.

[Isfahan]

 I for one welcome streamlining the process by which people tell us we shouldn't have read this because they were really hoping to hear us read that instead

over and over again

[Emperor Jack Chick]

I for one welcome streamlining the process by which people tell us we shouldn't have read this because they were really hoping to hear us read that instead

over and over again

no one ever talks to me so i welcome this too. :D

[EYE OF ZA]

Part of the fun is not quite knowing what's in the documents until they're read, and while the logical response is "so just don't read them", it changes the dynamic of the podcast to have them publicly available.  I think a significant part of the comedy comes from the sympathy between the listener's reactions to what's read and the readers' reactions, so it doesn't make much sense to undermine that.

The main hurdle that not having the docs available is that then it makes co-operation a little more manual, but I don't think that's enough of an issue that it warrants making the whole doc public--if someone wants to look at it because they're preparing their own doc, they can always ask for access to take a look, right?  Plus, if it's public, like other people have said, it gets further into issues of what text is out there and available, and so on.

And if I'm just vomiting ideas into this post, I'd suggest an episode with a tiny snippet from a bunch of older documents that have been in the hopper for two years or more, don't know how well that would work though.

To add some more word vomit, there was that one episode that was three different topics kind of mushed together, and the Mythbusters episode sort of hit similar notes in transitioning from Mythbusters forums to Conquistadogs.  If there's some docs in there that aren't the best but still have gems, there's always the option of more episodes with 'segments' like that.

[NutshellGulag]

I'm just kind of worried about the whole spoilers thing. It ruins the horrible, horrible surprise. And having people vote for what we read next sounds like something akin to Mountain Dew having people vote for what the name of their new flavor should be.

[Lemon]

Couple points of clarification:

As in all things I do, the goal is to have less process and bullshit in my life, not more. So if there's a way to improve anyone's enjoyment of the thing while not spending even more time than I already do on F Plus related matters¹, that's terrific - I'm gonna do that thing. If it's an idea that involves adding an extra process, it's not gonna happen.

What I'm not envisioning and wouldn't want to do is something where there's an upvote/downvote system and the most popular document gets read in an upcoming episode. We have and maintain a terrific amount of autonomy in our handling of the documents we receive, and I'm super duper happy to have it. So no matter what, there's always gonna be executive decisions made as far as what document feels right on any given night. But some nights it's harder to choose.

_{1: plenty of time. Which isn't complaining, I enjoy most of it. But it takes a lot of time.}

[Cyberventurer]

I voted yes despite mostly not really feeling strongly one way or the other.  If someone wanted to compile a similar document to what's already in the hopper, it could be useful for them to do a search for certain phrases to see if it's already been included elsewhere.  Otherwise it doesn't seem like a big deal to leave it as it is now.

[Caroline]

I for one welcome streamlining the process by which people tell us we shouldn't have read this because they were really hoping to hear us read that instead

over and over again

There will always be some people who complain about the selection, however it's made. I don't think there's really any way to avoid that. Personally, I like not knowing what's in the docs, and I like not knowing which one will be read next. There's a sort of weird F Plus alchemy to it that's unpredictable and fun. You guys often pick topics I don't think I'll enjoy so much, but that turn out to be some of my favourite episodes.

[goombapolice]

If we the people make them start reading certain docs, I assure you the episodes would feel less fun and more job-like.

I say keep them hidden purely from a "awful nerd can see that they are about to be made fun of and.go into delete everything mode" standpoint. I don't have to and will not read the docs if they become visible, so the spoiler part wouldn't affect me anyway.

[One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes]

If we the people make them start reading certain docs, I assure you the episodes would feel less fun and more job-like.

I say keep them hidden purely from a "awful nerd can see that they are about to be made fun of and.go into delete everything mode" standpoint. I don't have to and will not read the docs if they become visible, so the spoiler part wouldn't affect me anyway.

This is an excellent point. News seems to travel fast, so it wouldn't be surprising if forums got locked, posts got hidden, and blogs got replaced with big "LOL FUK U HATERZ" macros as soon as a given subculture appeared in a public hopper. Alternately, nerds could easily post a bunch of fake posts for us to read, which would defeat the purpose of the podcast. I think part of the fun is that we discover a cross-section of a site when the people on that site don't know outsiders have noticed them.

[Digital Walnut]

I say keep them hidden purely from a "awful nerd can see that they are about to be made fun of and.go into delete everything mode" standpoint. I don't have to and will not read the docs if they become visible, so the spoiler part wouldn't affect me anyway.

I like the idea of having the docs in the hopper available to read, but this is a very good point. I would hate to see episodes ruined because some awful/weird internet person googled themselves and found their content posted on the site.