[rfu-automation] WRFU Automation Working Group Meeting Summary

[Gary Cziko]

All:

Here is a summary of the WRFU Automation Working Group Meeting held after
the general WRFU meeting last Tuesday, June 20. 2006

Attendance:

Gary Cziko
Joe Futrelle
Mike Lehman
Lynsee Melchi
Jenn Rourke

The three main functions of the automation system were discussed and
relevant ideas and plans hatched:

1. Playing pre-recorded station IDs, PSAs and show ads and other station
announcements while there is no live show being aired

This is generally working well. One concern is making sure that out-of-date
materials is removed from the rotation. Lynsee has been involved with this
aspect of automation and Jenn is interested in creating more material now
knows how to add pre-recorded material to the system. But as Lynsee and
probably Jenn will soon be leaving us, we need more people to work on this.

2. Playing scheduled programs either via Internet streaming or via
downloaded sound files (e.g., Radio Bilingüe, World Radio Network, Democracy
Now en Español)

Gary has been primarily responsible for this and would love to have someone
to help. This had been going well until the recent change to Insight cable
Internet access. Now, because of connectivity problems, there are often
interruptions to Internet streaming, some long enough to terminate the
stream and go back to the automated music playlist.  Mike said that measures
were being taken by the tech people to resolve this issue.

3. Playing local music from the automated music playlist.

Local music is  played when there are no live shows and no prerecorded or
Internet streamed shows are scheduled. Issues discussed included:

   - Finding a way add more local music without having to listen to all
   lyrics for profane, indecent and obscene content. Gary believes it should be
   possible to automatically switch between two music playlists, one with music
   known to be clean to be played between 6 am and 10 pm and other music not
   yet checked to be played only during safe-harbor hours when profane and
   indecent material can be played. Gary will check this out.
   - Finding a way of allowing listeners to identify the local music they
   hear during automation hours. This could involve publishing the automation
   logs to a website and/or devising a system whereby a text-to-speech system
   would read the song info from the meta-data stored with each music track
   after each track or a group of tracks was played. Joe will be pursuing this.
   It would  sound a bit like a robot and could be known as "Robo DJ."
   Robo DJ could become quite popular and gain fame as the only local
DJwho plays only local music and whose voice reveals equal excitement
about
   all the music he/she/it(?) plays.
   - We need more local music to be added to the system. Hopefully, being
   able to add music without having to listen to all lyrics should make this
   easier and help get more people involved.

We can use a lot more people to get invovlved in the Automation Working
Group. Automated programs and music still constitute a significant
proportion of WRFU airtime. So this is a way for you to have a rather large
impact on the station's operation (not to mention getting your favorite
local band's music on the air!).

Future meetings: We decided to meet at  7pm on days when the general WRFU
meeting first meets each month.  So our next meeting will be on Tuesday,
July 11 at 7pm at the IMC.



=========================================================

Below is the list of people listed as automation working group members on
the Wiki at http://www.bluwiki.org/go/WRFU#Automation . Please add yourself
to the wiki if you wish to join us and also add yourself to the automation
e-mail list via  < rfu-automation-owner at lists.chambana.net>.

Please remove yourself from the wiki if you are no longer interested in
being involved with this group.

   - Gary Cziko <gcziko at gmail.com>
   - Daniel Meredith <dan.blah at gmail.com>
   - Joe Futrelle <futrelle at shout.net>
   - Patrick Marchwiak <marchwia at uiuc.edu>
   - Claire Krauss <agressivetenor at yahoo.com>
   - Phil Stinard <pstinard at hotmail.com>
   - Lynsee Melchi <lynseemelchi at gmail.com>
   - Danny <ascoyamor at riseup.net>
   - Jenn Rourke <jenncork at midwestninja.com>
   - Christopher Evans <caevans2 at hotmail.com>
   - Brett Ring <ringbr at insightbb.com>


--Gary
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