Featured Artists

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,526]

 

On that same note: we have a top twenty for the day, but should we implement a top ten of the week? That seems a little more stable, as the twenty of the day will change pretty rapidly. (If not, I might start up a blog and do the top ten of the week.)

 

Changing the query that generates that list to be a "top 10 of the week" (or "top X of Y time period", for that matter) is a cinch. I'm thinking of just renaming the list to "Popular Tracks", though, which means I wouldn't need to rename it every time the algorithm was tweaked. I can't imagine that I'll have this query set in stone forever, but I think it may be beneficial if not every user on the site knew exactly how it was generated. Minimizes the risk of it being gamed.

[CloudFyre 848]

Changing the query that generates that list to be a "top 10 of the week" (or "top X of Y time period", for that matter) is a cinch. I'm thinking of just renaming the list to "Popular Tracks", though, which means I wouldn't need to rename it every time the algorithm was tweaked. I can't imagine that I'll have this query set in stone forever, but I think it may be beneficial if not every user on the site knew exactly how it was generated. Minimizes the risk of it being gamed.

 

Hmm...I see what you're saying. On the other hand, "Popular Tracks" seems too abstract to me. Presented with just that name, I have no idea at all what it implies, other than someone(s) somewhere sitting behind a computer thought it was "good" or "popular".

 

Besides, saying one of your tracks was in the top ten for the week is good for bragging rights.

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,526]

 

This brings up a topic that I'd like to cover briefly: featured tracks. (Not necessarily featured artists, but featured tracks.) One pet peeve of mine that I would like to voice (in a good way!): I understand the idea of keeping the charts even (which is something that we'll need to do every so often), but we really have to watch out that we're not stifling popular artists solely because of their popularity. If they're getting a zillion views/likes/listens, that's not something that should be hindered. There should be some degree of control to be sure (that way one artist doesn't dominate the entire website week in and week out), but if we start knocking popular songs off of the charts because they're *too* popular, then we're effectively censoring what is an otherwise perfectly natural rating system. People will gravitate towards what they think is good music. It's just that simple. Mandopony and Eurobeat have insane amounts of views for very valid reasons: their songs are well done, and they communicate well with their listeners.

If we weren't going to use the judges system and instead use a system of listener voting, the votes would be skewed to the popular songs. I'm not sure if this was mentioned already but to get around this we could have a system of yes votes and no votes. That way, a song with only 100 listens could still be high up in the charts xD Of course, the issue that arises from this is that a song with only 1 vote at all (a yes vote) would put it all the way at the top of the charts. If you made it so that the song had to have at least 10 votes, then the people who couldnt get that many would be unable to get to the featured song.

 

I don't think this has to be a "human judges vs. automated toplists" question. I think both can co-exist peacefully, as they serve to identify music in two entirely different ways:

 

 

Human Judges

• binary: no concept of ranking; a track either is or is not "good enough" to be featured
• timeless: once featured, the track is immortalized as such
• comes with constructive feedback: a track cannot filter through this system without being reviewed multiple times; each review is published
• no popularity bias by design: the binary decision is based entirely on an audio file
• requires explicit submission by the artist
• requires a significant amount of human work by the judging panel

Automated Rankings

• spontaneous: tracks will eventually be pushed out from the rankings
• popularity bias by design: this system would tell people all about the hottest music on Pony.fm; this is good information in its own right
• fully automated: no humans to "burn out" from the work; every Pony.fm staff member can take a vacation at the same time and music would still be rolling in and out of the spotlight of its own accord
• any and every track could rise to the top - no concept of submission other than the publishing process itself
• order of list is semantic: the tracks on top are the "best" by the algorithm's rules

 

I think it's nice to know what's popular on Pony.fm - and frankly, no one has to commit to any kind of work (other than me to tweak the algorithm as needed - not like I'm about to stop coding anytime soon anyway ) to maintaining an automated list. The judging system, if/when/once it is finalized and implemented, would probably bring new tracks to the table a lot less often - but with a much greater reward for the artist.

Hmm...I see what you're saying. On the other hand, "Popular Tracks" seems too abstract to me. Presented with just that name, I have no idea at all what it implies, other than someone(s) somewhere sitting behind a computer thought it was "good" or "popular".

Besides, saying one of your tracks was in the top ten for the week is good for bragging rights.

 

A little badge could be added to tracks that make it into the popular list to signify that it happened. That would indeed be pretty nice. I'd prefer to wait until the site itself gets pretty popular before doing anything like that, though, because it would give the algorithm a lot more data to work with. Right now, it's pretty easy for a single person to influence the list because there's so little traffic in the private alpha.

 

The ambiguity is intentional.

[CloudFyre 848]

 

I don't think this has to be a "human judges vs. automated toplists" question. I think both can co-exist peacefully, as they serve to identify music in two entirely different ways:

 

 

Human Judges

• binary: no concept of ranking; a track either is or is not "good enough" to be featured
• timeless: once featured, the track is immortalized as such
• comes with constructive feedback: a track cannot filter through this system without being reviewed multiple times; each review is published
• no popularity bias by design: the binary decision is based entirely on an audio file
• requires explicit submission by the artist
• requires a significant amount of human work by the judging panel

Automated Rankings

• spontaneous: tracks will eventually be pushed out from the rankings
• popularity bias by design: this system would tell people all about the hottest music on Pony.fm; this is good information in its own right
• fully automated: no humans to "burn out" from the work; every Pony.fm staff member can take a vacation at the same time and music would still be rolling in and out of the spotlight of its own accord
• any and every track could rise to the top - no concept of submission other than the publishing process itself
• order of list is semantic: the tracks on top are the "best" by the algorithm's rules

 

It was never humans vs machines to begin with. I was just stating it for the sake of the argument. In any case, I agree with what you wrote above - the two can exist together as a form of checks and balances.

[Carbon Maestro 1,003]

When I do my judging in my

, I pay attention to all the genres and try to listen for the songs that set the standard for that genre, and then make my decision from there. I definitely think that a group of human judges will easily beat any algorithm, it's just depends on how many songs there are to review.

 

Peresonally, I wouldn't mind spending 3 minutes per song review, and even though I'm an orchestral musician, I've reviewed a bunch of diffferent genres from electro-jazz to dubstep to rock and have some constructive feedback available for all of them.

[Freewave 1,145]

A bit of both would be great. If we can get a panel to put a few of their favorites in a particular column (what Dusk was doing initially) that would be great. But we're small enough that algrithms between new and popular can get people a spotlight in the menatime w/o many people getting frustrated or claiming a human bias.  Definitely should not allow one over another, get the balance right (dm).

[ASocialyAwkwardPony 299]

Just wanted to pop in and say that if you need any judges for more Experimental and Metal stuff I would be happy to help with that. I know I am not very well known yet so not sure if you would be interested in having someone unknown on the judge panel, but if there is any way I can proove myself I would be happy to help.

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,526]

Just wanted to pop in and say that if you need any judges for more Experimental and Metal stuff I would be happy to help with that. I know I am not very well known yet so not sure if you would be interested in having someone unknown on the judge panel, but if there is any way I can proove myself I would be happy to help.

 

Thanks for the offer. I'll keep it in mind.

 

Judging is something that will really be more about writing an effective critique than being famous (of course, it won't hurt if you have both), and it may also be a way to get your name out there as well, as being a judge would make you an official Pony.fm staff member.

[DusK 1,264]

I wish I was good enough at critique to be a Pony.fm j00j...

 

But seriously, is there any rough ETA on when all that's gonna get started?

[Anorax 29]

I wish I was good enough at critique to be a Pony.fm j00j...

are any cats involved?

all hail joojcat!

sorry, find no reason to repeat what DusK's already asked. Just had to make an OCR joke.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Anorax