Voting System suggestions...

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 01/08/2007 - 23:49

yeah yeah!... I'm going to make a rant again you think, but actualy no... I've just thought a lot about the voting system, and music top lists in general, and I thought this:

Would it really be so problematic to make different TOP-LISTS? ... I mean, every music television has them (MTV etc.)... when we have one giant list for all genres, I still find that the result is kind of blurry...

Now I'm not talking about making lists for a score of genres, more like they do it on TV... for eksample:

Rock/Metal/Live
Dance/Techno/Trance
Symphonic/Orchestral
Experimental/Retro

hope you can see what I mean... maybe other ways of setting them up could be done.

Now I don't know shit about the difficulty of making something like this, I just thought I'd personaly like to see a few charts instead of just one big..

and PLEASE! this is not a rant! ... it's just a suggestion, and I'd like to hear others opinion on it... if I'm maybe the only one who think this would be appreciated.

PEACE!

xo · Post by xo » 02/08/2007 - 17:01

Oh nooooo....

Okay Razmo. Just use last.fm.

Makke · Post by **Makke** » 02/08/2007 - 18:20

I see where you're coming from Razmo, I just think this'll be a hard one to maintain, and also I don't think enough people care.

Personally, I don't really see the great benefits. The Metal and Orchestral categories would be quite small, and the Dance/Techno category would be huge.

IMHO, categories would only complicate things and lead to controversy as some artists will refuse to be categorized in such broad genres when their creation is clearly ultra hardcore multi-task 2k terror gabbah, and not "techno".

Max Levin · Post by **Max Levin** » 02/08/2007 - 18:38

Sorry, Makke, I didn't mean to take control of your brain, it just happends sometimes!

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 02/08/2007 - 18:51

Would it be hard to maintain, if there was just a simple checkbox when you upload, with a few ovarall genre categories to place your music in? ... there would not even have to be any kind of voting at special categories, just the usual voting scheme... you'd only need a filter function to get genre chart lists... anyone who don't like them, can just choose not to sort the thing

...

it would also make it easier for anyone to find tunes on RKO in a specific genre, something I've missed a few times, when having a drink with my friend, and playin' techno all night...

Maybe called this thread a genre vote thing is the wrong wording... I just would like to see some sorting possibilities, and some categorization of the vast amount of tunes available...

Makke · Post by **Makke** » 03/08/2007 - 9:53

razmo wrote:Would it be hard to maintain, if there was just a simple checkbox when you upload, with a few ovarall genre categories to place your music in?

Ok, I might've used the wrong word when saying "hard to maintain". But you'll always have people who don't want to use the given categories because they're too broad, and using too narrow categories would require hundreds of different categories - something I personally find very silly. Plus, too narrow categorization would render the filters useless to anyone not "in the know" of all the genres.

Then there's the people who'll label their music "wrong", either deliberatly or by accident, and then you'll have errors in the filter and complaints about this-and-that being categorized wrong, and who'll have to fix that? LMan I guess.

And would you be able to label your remix with several different genres, say for a symphonic rock-tune, would you then be able to mark Rock/Metal and Orchestral at the same time? And what if said tune also had electro/techno influences? And what would keep attention-seekers to mark every category they can, to get through as many filters as possible?

Plus, as I said before, any category marked "electronic" or "techno" or "dance" would be huge, while others would be next to empty.

In the end, LMan would have to be the one to implement it and maintain it, and I think it would bring a lot of extra work to an already heavy load.
I know I'm sounding very negative here, it's just that I've seen categorization go horribly wrong too many times to actually give a damn about it these days.

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 03/08/2007 - 11:25

Makke: ... naah, you don't sound negative, just worried it won't work

and I can see the problem for sure... it's just that it WOULD be nice, if you could search out a specific genre... it's a pain to listen to each and every MP3 to find a particular genre.

In the end I don't see what maintenance the genre thing would require.. it could be a simple text-string where people could write whatever genre name they want (to prevent people from complaining their genre is not there)... if people deliberately write something else, they as a musician is not really into their work are they?... do you think that anybody would really be categorizing their work wrongly, just for the fun of it? ... if you are serious about your music, and want your music to turn up in a search, you'd certainly make sure, you type in the right genre, or it won't show up in a search!

we're not talking "dumb-ass listening voters who like to spread havoc" here, we're talking musicians that (hopefuly) care about their work.

I'm not trying to just have an opposite opinion here, it's just what I feel

I just really don't see the problem in a simple genre text-string, and the ability to search for a specific genre...

jgb · Post by **jgb** » 03/08/2007 - 11:40

So, a basic tagging functionality would solve the problem?

I.e. I might tag my only remix (this far, working on another one right now!)like this:
dance unz monomachine synth delta hubbard "rob hubbard"

I am using tagging like on flickr.com here. A fixed set of genres would not really solve the problem in my opinion, I totally agree with Makke here.

If tags would be used, who would set the tags? The remixer or the remix.kwed.org jury?

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 03/08/2007 - 11:56

jgb: read my last post again

... I'm talking about a text-string, exactly to prevent what you're talking about... it's up to the musician to be honest about his genre placing, and with time there will have build a certain "genre code" among all in the scene... it would be crusial of course, that you can always change this genre text-string, should you change your mind or if you have written a wrong genre (newbies to genres could easily fall into this problem)...

but all in all, this scenes musicians seem reasonably clever and serious enough, that they'd care much, that their work is located in the right category, so that it shows up in the right search....

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 03/08/2007 - 12:03

...and if you're uncertain if your piece could fit more than one genre... then make two or three text strings so that your tune could show up in more than one genre...

now I'm no psycic... I cannot say if it'll show out to be totaly worthless, but to rule this out before its even been tried is a shame I think... it could always be removed if it show out to be worthless...

Of course there will be some work involved with making it possible... and I don't know how much since I'm definitely not an internet-site-shark like LMan... and if it's too much, I understand if it would not be... but this IS the suggestion forum right?

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 03/08/2007 - 12:19

...but it's likely, that if this genre thing was reality, that people would search for the usual genre namings like:

Dance, Trance, Techno, Goa, Rock, Metal, Orchestral, Synthpop, Electronica, Experimental etc. etc.

if you wrote a non-standard text string, your tune would never pop out... but I'm certain that the musician will figure this out really fast, if he's serious about his music

Also, some categories might include other smaller ones... but again, it's up to the musician to figure out on what criterias he want his music to show up.. now making more than one text-string could pose a possibility for overuse of the system, since a musician would always want his work to show up in one definite genre... I think that if more strings were left, that would be unused, that some musicians may be tempted to place their stuff in genres where it does not belong perhaps... but again... it's not anonymous... and others might spot this "abuse" easily...

jgb · Post by **jgb** » 03/08/2007 - 12:33

So, tagging with a set of predefined tags where one can choose from zero to all of the tags?

Hmm... well... hmm...

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 03/08/2007 - 12:46

jgb: you're not understanding me correctly I think... I'm not talking about tagging.... I'm talking about a text-field where you can decide for yourself what you want to write... you could write "Fika" or "kickass techno" or whatever you'd like... it's just that weird text strings, would probably not get searched, thus your music would not show up, so who would want that? (well the first example might just get a few searches, but that's another story

)... in fact you could call it a simple "search string", and not even a genre string...

Razmo · Post by **Razmo** » 03/08/2007 - 12:52

in all, it's no different to the search function on title or author... you would not even need to write the string on the RKO listings... you'd probably have the code for the seaarch already... I'd say it's just a simple extention of the search engine that people can use if they want to, and not if they don't... it's up to the composer to write some search criteria on his stuff, if he/she want to be found when people search...

It would encourage musicians more to write a genre though, if the string was vissible on the RKO listing though... if it's "invisible" it might not catch on to some people maybe.. a simple 16 character string would be enough to write one genre, and could be shown aside RKO listings... that would give musicians a reason to write something (if it has impact on their work being heard more, they'll do it I'm sure!)

Post by **LMan** » 03/08/2007 - 18:16

Hey razmo,

first of all let me assure you that even I might have appeared a bit gruffy in my previous posts, I appreciate the input.

A loose genre tag thingy might be a nice feature, but not related to the voting - i.e. as Makke said people would try to be in as many charts as possible. I'm afraid not every remixer would be reasonable enough to set reasonable genres.

We had the same discussion a couple of years ago; we were facing the same problems, and there's one problem that gets overlooked again: What happens with the tunes already in the system?

So even if it were the tags, we'd still have the problem that we have thousands of untagged tunes in the system.

On the other hand: it has a positive influence that there's no genre clichees here. You actually go and download and listen to stuff you wouldn't normally listen to. Broadens the musical horizon.

Cheers