Well you've come to the right place.
Our goal here at HPR is to make it as easy as possible for you to get your show released.
We take care of the hard bits so you don't need to.
Recording your first show can be a daunting prospect but hundreds of people
like yourself have done it, and so can you.
Don't worry that we won't like the topic, just have a look at our Archive
to see how diverse the contributions have been.
Don't worry if your audio isn't perfect,
that your voice sounds funny,
that English isn't your native language,
that you suffer from a speech impediment,
that your show has loads of ummms and awws in it, etc.
We have plenty of hosts that fall into all these categories, but continue to produce great shows.
At the end of the day the show is about the content and less about perfection.
That's not to say we won't help you with ways to improve the audio if you wish,
or narrate your script for you if you can't or won't record it yourself.
This is some important information that you will need to know before uploading to HPR.
You will no longer be allowed to edit HPR pages on Wikipedia.
Once you upload a show, you will be associated with the HPR project.
As such, Wikipedia policies will prevent you from creating,
or editing pages relating to
Hacker Public Radio. For more information see (Re)Creating a HPR page on wikipedia.
We do not syndicate shows not produced for HPR.
HPR is founded on the principle of Hackers sharing knowledge, so we are not a media aggregation site.
For this reason we are only releasing material created exclusively for HPR.
Once released, the creative commons license will allows sharing it to other locations.
We will continue to promote new podcasts, and other creative commons material,
thought our sister site Free Culture Podcasts.
We do allow promotion of one example episode of creative commons content.
You post it as a regular show in the series Podcast recommendations,
with your introduction as to what the piece is, why it's important,
what version of Creative Commons it is released under, and provide links to the website, and to the RSS feed.
You are agreeing to license your show CC BY-SA 4.0.
All our shows are now released under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
license, which means that while you continue to retain the copyright to your show,
you are allowing us (and everyone else) to use it provided we give you attribution and that we release it under the same license.
Click the link for more information.
You have permission to redistribute your show in its entirety.
Never include content, for example music, in your show that you do not have permission to redistribute.
Try to avoid using any content in your show that can not be redistributed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
license.
If you are redistributing under another Creative Commons license, GNU Free Documentation License, public domain,
or FLOSS software license, then please signal that when you upload your show.
We do not post other copyrighted content, even if it is made available under fair use, or by arranged permission.
The audio of your show will not be moderated.
We do not vet, edit, moderate or in any way censor any of the audio you submit, we expect you to do that.
Aside from checking snippets for audio quality/spam checking,
we have a policy that we don't listen to the shows before they are aired.
This is a long standing tradition arising from the fact that HPR is a community of peers
who believe that any host has as much right to submit shows as any other.
Please note that this only relates to the audio you upload.
We do transform the audio into different formats.
The rest of the meta-data (branding/summaries/tags/show notes/etc.), are managed by the HPR Community,
and probably will be edited.
There is no guarantee that we will accept your show.
Even after it is processes, any material that is reported as harming HPR may be unlisted until such a time as the situation can be resolved.
You can expect your show to be rejected for (incomplete list):
- Inaudible audio
- Containing Copyright Content, even Fair Use
- Not a HPR Episode
- Containing Harassment, Trolling, Spamming, etc, Content
Please refer to Free speech and general conduct
which describes the agreed approach to this topic.
Your show will be signaled as containing explicit content.
Given that we are an open forum for free speech,
we signal all our shows as "explicit" with the assumption that the listeners will apply the required discretion when playing the shows in public.
That said the majority of our content is technical in nature and therefore is often considered appropriate for any audience.
If you feel that your show will be considered inoffensive in every region of the world
then you can signal your show as Clean when you upload the show.
When dealing with content that is "explicit" or contains material that would best be suited for a mature audience,
it has become traditional to include a short warning at the very beginning of the show before the intro,
to allow listeners sufficient time to switch off the episode should they so desire.
Please refer to Free speech and general conduct
which describes the agreed approach to this topic.
You determine when your show will be scheduled.
You decide when you upload your show when it should be released.
You can pick a day, or put it in the reserve pool and let the Janitors use it there are free slots.
We use UTF-8 end to end.
See the video "Characters, Symbols and the Unicode Miracle -
Computerphile" for an interesting background to ASCII and UTF-8.
Keep accessibility in mind.
When you includes output from the command line in the show notes,
posting screen-shots of console or terminal output
makes it impossible for screen readers to access the text.
Always try to include the raw output ( eg: embedded in <pre> tags)
Include descriptive language in any link texts.
Avoid structures like: "For accessibility information
click here".
Rather use: "For more information click our
accessibility page"
When adding Images, add the descriptive text under the image (not in the alt tag).
That way everyone can benefit from the description.
Your show will be heard by an International Audience.
We have people listening from all over the world, who may not have the same cultural background as yourself,
therefore you should be as clear as possible when giving details.
For example always give temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit, measurements in Metric and Imperial,
dates in YYYY-MM-DD iso8601 format,
and abbreviations using the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Never assume that your audience knows what age a sixth grader is, or how big a 20 Cent Euro coin is.
Keep in mind that keyboard layouts are also different so make sure to specify the key shape or the position
inrelation to a common known standard.
For example:
The at sign normally situated above the 2 key on a US keyboard, and has a unicode number of U+0040.
For more information see Wikipedia
If you have any questions please join one of our contact channels to chat with people who will help.
The first thing you will need to do is decide on a topic for your show.
OMG I just learned, broke, hacked, discovered this cool thing and noone in my house get’s it.
Check out our 91 in depth series, or 6,938 unique tags for ideas.
You might already have an idea,
but if not you can have a look at our Archive page for examples of shows people have recorded in the past.
We maintain a page of requested topics
that have been sent in by the community.
Feel free to add it to the list via the contact channels.
Requested Topics, or our
Series page to see if you can add your knowledge to the pool.
If you are worried that your show may not be of interest to Hackers then you can click here to check if it is.
If you can't think of anything to talk about then please just record a show telling us
how you got into tech
as a way to introducing yourself to the community.
3. Record your show.
Please select more detailed information
on how to record a show:
Don't forget to introduce yourself in your show.
4. Upload your show.
Once you have your audio ready you can post your show by going to the Calendar
page or press the ⇧Upload⇧ button.
After you have selected a date you will be redirected to the request page,
where you will be asked to select your show and email address.
We will send a link to where you can upload your show to this address and so it must be a valid working address
that you can access quickly.
We intend to use GPG to speed up the validation of hosts,
so you may wish to use an email address that has an associated public key available on public key servers.
More Information.
You determine where in the schedule your show will be released.
We use UTF-8 end to end.
Your show will be heard by an International Audience.
We also need reserve shows.
You will no longer be allowed to edit HPR pages on
Wikipedia.
Deciding when to post your show
Y
We have a flow diagram if that helps.
Please see for more information on the queue.
Regular Queue
- You must have your audio recording ready to upload before you pick a slot.
- All hosts must leave at least 9 slots (approximately two weeks) between their shows.
- New hosts, Interviews, and other time critical shows should use the first free slot.
Otherwise, when the queue is filling up then leave some slots free for new contributors by selecting a slot in the first empty week.
Reserve Pool
If you have a non urgent show that is timeless, then add it to the reserve pool.
future feed
Over the years
The HPR Schedule is entirely community driven and we recommend that you pick the date or show number
as then you know when your show will be released.
However the slots will only be allocated once the shows have been successfully processed.
Any missing information can result in a show missing the requested slot.
The reserve pool is intended only to be used in the cases where there is still a gap in the schedule one week prior to release.
This was known as the emergency queue, but now can also be used when the hosts don't care when the shows are scheduled.
They will be used on a first come first go basis, when there is no conflict with the scheduling Rules.
These shows contain a message alerting listeners to the fact that we had free slots that were not filled.
not possible to move them.
All reservations need to be approved.
Regular Queue.
Any host can select any free slot a up to year in advance. However the audio must be ready at time of picking a slot
so that it can be upload immediately afterwards.
In exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to reserve a slot while not having the audio available,
but this must be approved by the HPR Mailing List in advance.
Be sure to allow as much time as possible, and include a reason why you feel it is necessary to reserve the slot.
This is intended only for exceptional circumstances, such as a scheduled interview where we would
like the audio to be released as soon after the event as possible,
or to cover an important topical situation that has occurred.
Due to the extended time now needed to post shows to external sites,
the extra work this entails and the disruptive effect of reservations,
we will no longer be allowing them except in very rare cases of the type mentioned above.
The following are standing reservations:
- Anniversary episodes.
- HPR Community News on the first Monday of the month.
- The first day of the fourth month.
- The days following new year.
Any host can select any free slot a up to year in advance, by recording their show and uploading it to the desired slot.
In exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to reserve a slot while not having the audio available,
but this must be approved by the HPR mailing list in advance.
Be sure to allow as much time as possible, and include a reason why you feel it is necessary to reserve the slot.
This is intended only for exceptional circumstances, such as a scheduled interview where we would like the audio to be
released as soon after the event as possible, or to cover an important topical situation that has occurred.
Due to the extended time now needed to post shows to external sites,
the extra work this entails and the disruptive effect of reservations,
we will no longer be allowing them except in very rare cases of the type mentioned above.
[?]
You can post your show by going to the Calendar page.
Once you have selected a date you will be redirected to the request page,
where you will be asked to select your show and email address.
We will send a link to where you can upload your show to this address and therefore it must be a valid working address
that you can access quickly. We intend to use GPG to speed up the validation of hosts,
so you may wish to use an email address that has an associated public key available on public key servers.
The audio of your show will not be moderated, however the information provided in the upload form
may be moderated.
All publicly facing material is managed by the HPR Community as a whole, and not just the host providing the show.
The show hpr2210 :: On Freedom of Speech and Censorship
describes the agreed approach to this topic.
Note: This email address will be published on the HPR website and will be given out in the feeds,
so please use a public email address for this purpose.
Where we publish it we pad it with dot nospam at-sign nospam dot.
i.e. hpr@example.com becomes hpr.nospam@nospam.example.com.
If you do not want to have your email exposed, please contact the admin@hpr team to arrange a alias.
Once you press next, an email will be sent to your email address pointing to where you can upload the show.
You need to open the link within 15 minutes or the temporary lock will be released.
Once you open the link, you can fill in the information at your leisure.
The upload form works on the assumption you will be posting one show at a time, from the same IP address.
Once you have pressed submit you will not be able to edit any of the information.
Questions ?.
Got any questions not covered here, then just email "admin" at "HPR",
and we'll get in touch with you with all you need to know about getting your show published.
You can chat with other podcasters using IRC in the #oggcastplanet channel on the
libera.chat network.
Follow us on Mastodon (use the tag #hpr)
and on Twitter (use the tag #hpr).
We have a Facebook and
LinkedIn group,
so please join and spread the word.
Response Episode
https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2021-September/004250.html
Our Mottos
Any audio is better than no audio.
Any topic of intrest to hobbyists.
It ain't a show unless it's on the server.
If you tell us you are doing a show, then you owe us a show.
You don't need anyones permission to upload a show, but if you have any questions then drop into the
#oggcastplanet channel on libera.chat
and chat with a live person 24/7.
On this page you will find information on how to record a podcast. Our golden rule is Any audio is better than no audio.
so keep that in mind. Don't forget to introduce yourself in your show.
Many of today's portable media players support recording audio out of the box.
Search for "Voice Recorder", to see if there is an application for your smartphone.
Whichever option you have close to hand, try and set the recording to the best quality format
(WAV or FLAC),
and set everything else to the highest setting.
It's always the goal to get the best quality audio but here at Hacker Public Radio we value content over quality
and so long as it's audible we'll take it.
Then just record your show, request a slot,
and we'll do the rest.
Recording with a portable media player.
Some of our hosts recommend Android Audio Recorder on my android phone.
It's available on F-Droid
and Google Play.
These are the recommended settings:
- Recording Source - Unprocessed
- Sample Rate - 44.1 kHz
- Encoding - .flac
- Audio Channels - Mono
Recording/Editing using your Computer.
The majority of podcasters use Audacity.
First set the Project Rate to 44100Hz, then you can either record your show in Audacity itself or
import the file you recorded earlier and edit it as you wish.
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for
Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.
When you have finished editing your podcast you can export it.
- Confirm that the Project Rate is set to 44100 Hz (bottom left).
- File -> Export and select FLAC File.
- Click Options... to reveal FLAC Export Setup.
- Set Level to 8 (best).
- Set Bit depth to 24.
Recording Interviews with the Phone.
If you want to record a one-to-one interview with someone then you can use
Skype in conjunction with Skype Call Recorder.
If everyone is using skype then it won't cost you anything otherwise you will need to pay for SkypeOut service.
Although the quality is usually terrible, you could also put your phone on hands free and
record with a portable media player.
Recording round table discussions.
If you would like to record with multiple participants then you can use Mumble.
Connect to chatter.skyehaven.net Port: 64738 .
Walk through the audio wizard and then pop into the Hacker Public Radio room.
Once you are ready press the recording button, select multichannel and then start.
That will record multiple tracks, one for each participant which you can edit and then submit.
Kwisher made a Mumble tutorial
which you might find useful and Delwin
has produced a number of short shows on how to configure the audio quality.
Avoid Bedding/background music.
You may include backing music but it's best if you don't. Most long time podcast listeners speed up their shows,
as this allows them to cram more shows into a day. Having bedding music makes it more difficult to understand,
and prevents tools like truncate silence from working correctly.
Others will convert shows to mono to listen in one ear leaving the other free to carry out their other chores.
Still more slow the shows down so that they can improve their English.
Others are hard of hearing and backing music makes it difficult to understand the text.
We mix down to Mono.
We will by default mix down your show to one channel mono and we will
transcode to MP3, ogg and spx formats. If you want to control this in more detail then please email admin at Hacker Public Radio for more information.
There is no need to add any information to the file as that will be inserted based on the information you fill in when you upload the show.
Feel free to use the promotional material to spread the word in your podcasts, or have them played on to other shows.
General HPR promotion
New Year Promo
The unique link sent by email will allow you to manage both the episode and information about yourself that is displayed on HPR.
The following information will be requested:
Remember All information will be displayed publicly. The only exception is that your email address will be sent
in the feed with some anti-spam additions.
For example hpr@example.com will become hpr.nospam@nospam.example.com
- email: already populated
See notes above
- image: Optional
If you have associated a Gravatar image with an email address,
then it will be displayed here.
Otherwise you can upload a 80x80 image .
- Name/Handle: Mandatory
It should be the name you wish to be known as on HPR. It can be your real name, an Internet handle or both.
- Your Default license: Mandatory
This field tells us what your work is normally licensed under. All our shows are now released under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license, which means that while you continue to retain the copyright
to your show you are allowing us (and everyone else) to use it provided we give you attribution and
that we release it under the same license. Click the link
for more information.
- Profile: Optional
Enter some text about yourself with links to your blog or other online presence.
Your profile information is used on the website, in the RSS feeds, and on social media sites. You can change your profile information at any time, by submitting another show.
Press submit and your show will be sent to the HPR Volunteers to be processed.
Keep an eye on the calendar for when it is posted.
Your show information is used to process the media files, on the website, in the RSS feeds, and on social media sites.
- REQUEST_UNVERIFIED -
- REQUEST_EMAIL_SENT - email sent
- EMAIL_LINK_CLICKED - pending upload
- SHOW_SUBMITTED - upload complete
- METADATA_PROCESSED - shownotes.{json,txt} processed to html
- SHOW_POSTED - show in the database
- MEDIA_TRANSCODED - audio all generated
- UPLOADED_TO_IA - on the IA and visible
- UPLOADED_TO_RSYNC_NET - archived on rsync.net
What is a show?
A show is your audio presentation (which we do not moderate),
with an intro, outro, a title and a summary.
The audio is the recording you have made and sent in to HPR.
The intro (introduction) is a piece of audio introducing the show. The components are:
- a synopsis taken from the details submitted with the show (added automatically)
- acknowledgement of our hosting provider (added automatically)
- HPR introduction music (added automatically)
The outro is added automatically. It contains the HPR outro music.
Each show needs a title to describe what it is about.
Similarly, a summary helps to add more information describing the show so a potential listener
can decide whether to listen to it or not.
Each show is expected to have certain mandatory attributes listed
below.
HPR shows are usually expected to be informative or educational, and as such some sort of accompanying written material
is highly desirable. This might consist of brief notes, links to relevant web sites, or possibly longer notes
and examples. Photographs, diagrams and example files are also welcome if the host feels
it helps to get the message across.
Shows are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
See Stuff you need to know
for much more detail about this and related issues.
As a contributor you can choose when your show will be released.
We only release one show a day, during week days,
but if a slot is free you can claim it. Go to the calendar
page to do this. You need to have your show ready to upload before you reserve a slot though.
What defines a show as being "Produced for Hacker Public Radio"?
- If you create material and post it first on HPR then it meets the requirements of "being produced for HPR".
That means once you upload it to the HPR server you can publish it anywhere else you like.
What are the mandatory elements of an HPR show?
We are trying to maintain a collection of tags to allow people to find shows on the same (or similar) topic.
Tags are simple words or short phrases describing aspects of a show such as what topics are covered in it.
To get hints about what tags have already been used you can view all the current tags in alphabetical order on this page:
Tag summary
Some examples are: android, creative commons and gaming.
Are there any tags that are best avoided?
Is it OK if I don't include notes with my show?
- Please don't do that. It is important to provide good show notes for reasons described on the
Picking a slot for your show page:
- They provide the listeners with more information on the topic your show is covering
- They ensure your show gets posted on time (the volunteers don't have to make notes for you)
- They encourage people to download your show
- They allow your show to be indexed by search engines
- They make your show accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing
How do I include photographs or other files with my show?
What is and is not edited in a show after submission?
We don't listen to the audio before posting a show to the website, so we don't change the content.
Unless you have done so and told us you have, we add an introduction to the audio announcing what it is.
Similarly we add an outro. This is not editing since we don't change the content.
We may make changes to the show title, summary or tags. Usually these are minor changes such as spelling corrections.
The intention is not any sort of censorship, merely to make these items more understandable or easier to index.
Depending on the form the show notes take we may modify these.
- If what is submitted is plain text we convert it to Markdown in order to generate HTML.
- If the notes are one of the permitted markup formats (mostly Markdown flavours) we may adjust this to ensure
that valid HTML is generated.
- If the notes are HTML we run them through an HTML checker and correct any mistakes it highlights.
- We may correct spelling, grammar and punctuation if this clarifies anything which might otherwise be unclear.
- If despite the request for show notes of some kind, none are provided, we may add notes which help to clarify
the content of the show. This may be done after the show is released (when we have had a chance to listen to it).
We are working on the production of reports about any changes made, which will be sent to the host after we have
processed the show.
We may make changes to a show's metadata if the host requests it (see the item on
fixing errors after upload).
If a show contains links to resources which disappear after a period of time, we may at some future time change
the notes to refer to any Wayback Machine copy that can be found.
What are some common errors in show notes?
It depends on the note format to some extent:
HTML notes
It's very easy to hand-write bad HTML. That's why we use an HTML checker on it, and fix the errors it reports.
A common fault is to write <code><pre> to define a pre-formatted block of text using a fixed-width font.
However it's illegal because the <pre> tag can't be enclosed in other tags like
<code>. Use <pre><code> instead.
Markdown notes
- This is quite a forgiving format. Some people embed HTML in the Markdown, and the HTML used suffers from some
of the issues discussed in this document. These are much harder to spot. The HTML checker can't
really help unless it's run on the output from Pandoc.
General errors
Spelling is often an issue in notes. As the notes are processed they are edited in the Vim editor with the
spell check option turned on. In most cases spelling problems flagged by Vim are corrected.
Grammar and punctuation can also be issues. We do not have very effective grammar checking tools in the note
preparation workflow. Modifications may be made to split up extra-long (often comma-spliced) sentences,
rationalise the use of capital letters and similar.
If I notice an error in my show's details how can it be fixed?
The HPR administrators can make changes to show titles, summaries, notes and so forth. Ideally send an
email to admin at hobbypublicradio.org explaining what the problem is and we'll fix it for you.
We'll also ensure that the changes are propagated to the relevant page on archive.org.
Don't be tempted to send in your corrections as a comment. Comments are not propagated to archive.org, so people
referring to that copy will not see the changes.
Some environments prevent access to sites which use the word 'hacker' or 'hackers'
in their names (or content in extreme cases). The site names hobbypublicradio.{com,net,org} have been created,
which link to the main HPR site, in order to get around this restriction.
See the mailing list thread here:
https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2015-February/002493.html
How can I talk to other HPR hosts and listeners?
- You have a number of choices:
- The mailing list hpr@hackerpublicradio.org is where various
policy matters are discussed and announcements made. You need to be a member of the list to post to it.
Visit the listinfo page to sign up.
- You can join the #oggcastplanet channel on IRC.
Visit the freenode.net network to sign up.
- A number of HPR messages may be found on Twitter and
Mastodon.
- There is a chat group on Telegram
- An HPR tradition exists where we record a 26-hour show at the turn of the year celebrating the
arrival of the New Year around the world. We use Mumble to record the show and anyone can connect
to the Mumble server and speak to other HPR listeners and hosts. The recording is used to make multiple
shows which are released when they are ready.
I'd like to post a show but I would
rather not have my email address published on the site.?
The mail is just a way for us to get back to you if there was an issue posting the show.
If you trust the janitors to know your real email we can just use an alias for you on the web site and have it
forward the email to you automatically. That runs the risk that were the redirect list compromised then your
real email would get exposed.
If you prefer, we can use the janitor email for your shows with your own host id. Then if any emails come in we can manually
forward them at some point. The risk is that you are trusting the janitors to protect your email but again it could be compromised.
In both cases we would do our best to protect your email but we can't guarantee anything.
The other option is to use an a throwaway email, like https://www.guerrillamail.com/
for your show. This will be up for enough time to get the key necessary for to post the show.
However keep in mind that we will be very suspicious of any submission done this way and will be checking it in detail,
so expect delays in processing.