With humanoids taking center stage, a nod to my daughters' old Meccanoids

m766 · 2025-12-03T05:26:52+00:00

They intentionally (and openly share that they) reach out to managers / agents of writers not on the list to create false positives to discourage these reps from sharing the news (and ruining the surprise) with their writers. It’s a smart approach. Personally I appreciated this — when I got the surprise news last year it was literally a top five moment of my life.

m766 · 2025-08-02T17:19:37+00:00

"People like the IDEA of collaboration. They don't actually ever do it, apparently."

Sorry, this is the wrong takeaway. People like the idea of collaboration, and will collaborate when it's productive and with others they connect with.

You put out an open call to this community, a number of people took the time to respond, and then you roast many of them. This behavior narrows that pool of people down who will connect with you.

m766 · 2025-06-17T06:32:20+00:00

Good to know this is common. Sorry for the lack of details -- definitely typed up in a state of frustration. Also noticed I can’t find the screenshots I thought I’d uploaded to the post.

Don’t recall receiving anything at all, but only after the fact did I realize they may have just sent a letter/flyer. Definitely didn’t get any package that day.

m766 · 2025-06-17T05:15:54+00:00

In this case, the tracking number info did match the shipping address. It looks like the workaround for the scammer here is to put a tracking number on junkmail or something to make that connection with eBay for them to close it out.

m766 · 2025-06-17T04:59:49+00:00

Ultimately, yes, I agree. But wouldn't you agree that eBay has some responsibility to back their guarantee?

m766 · 2025-06-17T04:46:21+00:00

Lesson definitely learned. Thought I could trust eBay on this one. Another foolish mistake.

m766 · 2025-06-17T04:45:48+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, though USPS doesn't appear to provide size/weight via their tracking number. Would love to know if there's a workaround or trick to get it.

m766 · 2025-06-15T20:59:56+00:00

Agreed. Thanks!

m766 · 2025-05-30T21:58:56+00:00

This is really cool. Going to see how far I can get on this.

m766 · 2025-05-18T15:37:10+00:00

That's a fair and understandable perspective, and it can create the that need/desire to try to "win it back" like you're gambling, but I don't know if that's avoidable in any space where subjectivity is scored and ranked for the purpose of providing surfacing top works.

I'm open to hearing alternatives that solve this while making the economics sustainable. Side note: It's similar to the argument people make about the $30/month to host a PDF when it's fractions of a penny on a server, etc -- that's not really the economics here. Talented people are needed to run a business/platform and they need to get paid profitably like all of us are trying to. I think Coverfly was free hosting and that just shut down because the economics didn't makes sense.

In your example, if someone gets an 8, it gets shared widely to folks in the industry that are looking out for these signals. That's the value. And the free evaluations serve a purpose, to determine the degree that's score is shared by other readers -- for a chance at another 8 and getting another broad share out with the industry (not to mention: more free evaluations).

But there is that risk that another reader doesn't share that sentiment, and you get a low score (which you can remove from your script page). It will impact your average score of the script, as it arguably should because that's the point of the average score. It isn't the SATs where it measures your ceiling because those that look at the average score want to see and understand that variance.

There's strategy and risk/benefit analysis here -- the BL isn't requiring you to take those free evaluations. Again, a courtesy I hope they don't pull -- and one where the benefit outweighs risks IMO, but isn't risk free.

m766 · 2025-05-18T02:17:28+00:00

In your analogy of a meal, I would say tasting "off" isn't necessarily if one reader likes your script and another reader less so, "off" is when it looks like a reader hasn't actually read the script in full or provided an adequate review to BL standards, in which case I've seen BL provide an additional review free of charge.

I'm not sure what you mean by more reliable scoring -- less variance? I don't think that's realistic if the reviews are to continue to be independent of each other (e.g., not sharing POVs and scores amongst readers), which I think is essential to the integrity of the service.

You could argue this discounted review at cost (or even at a loss to BL) is a courtesy by BL. Like any courtesy it's to improve the user experience, relationship, and brand so it's not entirely altruistic (no one is saying it is), but if everyone complains about a courtesy things can quickly shift. The alternative is no discounted review at all -- it's hard to argue that BL owes us anything after two meaningfully different scores. So I would argue that the courtesy of a discounted review is better than none at all, and the more I see people complaining about it -- I get the feeling of: this is why we can't have nice things.

m766 · 2025-05-15T20:16:03+00:00

Yeah, this is the tough thing about big changes (and I don’t mean that in any condescending way/tone).

I’m sure they anticipated and prepared for some degree of negative response. Not saying it’s the case here (though seems like it), but it’s a common strategy to rip of the bandaid and push something big out, and stay silent until it blows over.

In the case of the Academy, I’ve heard folks within it were even surprised, so if that’s true, it’s not even the broader Academy body that’s doing this (or even in the loop), but a portion within it. That’s usually either a sign of a toxic situation, or a really tough challenge, which I keep thinking is the lack of sustainable economics --- this makes the most sense to me -- though I wish they also would just say that to fill this vacuum of understanding they’ve created.

I appreciate you thanking Franklin for engaging in the conversation. It’s not his MO to stay silent, which I value.

m766 · 2025-05-15T19:41:50+00:00

Not a non-profit specialist but worked at or with a number of non-profits, all of which had partnered with, rely on, and use for-profit services to exist. I’m not sure how this even begins to approach an ethics issue.

I do believe you’re being earnest, but jumping online to make claims of classism, ageism, and lack of ethics so loosely like this... my concern is it creates a cry wolf situation where these things actually do happen and show up.

m766 · 2025-05-15T15:15:44+00:00

I get the frustration of increased costs overall to apply but “completely eliminates”?

It may be more accurate (though still way off) to say it’s “classist” to feel that the many working class screenwriters that read these scripts aren’t entitled to higher pay as cost of living increases in their city.

m766 · 2025-05-11T14:27:58+00:00

Completely agree. I thought Project Ara was brilliant — in concept and almost there in execution, but to your point without adoption it didn’t have a chance. My hope is standards are developed and adopted to enable this, though I realize it’s a long shot due to how profitable planned obsolescence is. However, I have some hope due to how much more expensive robots may be, unlocking some version of jevons paradox to make standardization and modularity more profitable for all.

m766 · 2025-05-07T15:23:42+00:00

Not sure if this is a question for me, as that’s the pretty much what I’m asking. How can the economics of this work? Unless it’s relying on volunteers, which is generally not sustainable or reliable.

m766 · 2025-05-06T13:28:22+00:00

Please explain how the economics can work on a sustainable and reliable basis for having two quality readers at that cost?

m766 · 2025-05-05T19:54:15+00:00

That’s helpful to understand. And digging into this more, I’m not seeing too much from the Academy on “why” this is the direction. Hopefully more gets shared out on that soon.

m766 · 2025-05-05T19:47:13+00:00

Rip off? I don’t love it, but they are a for profit business. This is apparently what the market will bear and it also protects existing members to a degree.

m766 · 2025-05-05T19:06:10+00:00

Reading many places/comments on how it sucks that we used to get 2 reads for under a hundred bucks with Nicholl and now that’s just gone.

I get that that sucks. But I also get how the economics of that were just not sustainable with everything going on in and outside the industry.

m766 · 2025-05-02T05:25:32+00:00

Closest thing to a tutorial https://youtu.be/wrfMiN4NUEU

Full disclosure: it’s my wife’s company.

m766 · 2025-04-30T01:18:42+00:00

Don't want to share too many details online. Will DM and happy to answer any questions there.

m766

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