Tumblr post I think I should bring to your attention

[PhonyBrony 275]

http://lavenderharmony.tumblr.com/post/58005594635/interrobangpie-this-website-is-why-interrobang

 

I shared this in the PonyFM skype group and we had a short discussion about it, but I think it's important to post it in this forum too. It's going to be harsh but I think it's important, so I'm not going to be soft about it. I may sound like an as*hole on this specific post but I won't be sorry for it.

 

 

It is my understanding that one of the goals of PonyFM is to become "the source" for anything pony music related. Most people who make pony music aren't famous, and likewise, a lot of pony music sounds pretty bad, too. Of course, since it still is pony music, we should accommodate for it.

 

One of the things that turns off famous musicians such as interrobanpie, lavender harmony, and laserpony, is that the "bad" music is almost equally as visible as the "good" music on the site. Obviously, youtube has some pretty bad pony music on it, but those songs are hard to find, and for good reason. But on youtube, you can reasonably expect that a song that's easy to find is going to be enjoyable, while a song that has only a few views is poorly made. That's not always the case, but it's an important thing to note.

 

I know you guys are going to say something like "they're famous, so they look down on non-famous musicians,"

That's only partially true. What this post shows is something that I considered when I decided to keep following the PonyFM project. As a semi-famous musician myself, I can totally understand why they think what they think. Now, I don't agree with everything they say, but if we're going to get famous musicians to join, we're going to have to take their opinions into consideration. And I honestly think that if you've gone through the trouble of making a name for yourself over years of producing, you should be rewarded on any related site that you are part of.

 

 

the Phony Brony

Edited August 12, 2013 by PhonyBrony

[Planty 1,052]

Just regarding the visibility, I think they are sorting that out with a review/rating system? (It's actually been a while since I read through this section of the forums so I might not be totally clued in), that will make it more visible.

 

Although they are very harsh, when I was trying to just listen through some random songs, it was frustrating to keep skipping LOADS of songs that just didn't sound very good and I couldn't enjoy (but with is very much IMO, to each his own ).

[akalink 163]

The site is still in its infancy. It seems hardly anyone uses it right now. I'm getting in the top 10 at least a once a day and that is saying something since I don't think I deserve it. There should be probably be something. Most popular per genre should help. I wish the people would use the site for critiques more. More people need to use it too for this to work.

 

*Edit* Since it seems only a handful of people actually use the site for listening, single preview views of new music can really bring bad music to the top chart. Really a rating system would be good. Not a star rating system, I was against this before, but a thumbs up and down system. It rates it by an average system. Except new music with on thumbs up would be destroy long standing music, and one thumbs down would destroy any change for anyone to see the song.

 

*Edit 2* I'm looking more at the blog. I'm really not getting criticized for my work which is interesting because at the moment I'm writing this two of my chiptunes are in the top 10 so I assuming I'm not who the blame is being shifted at (though I would imagine the one's I sing on aren't helping the chiptune purists believe in that site). But here is my point. If those excellent musician's started posting on pony.fm the shit would sift though to the bottom Interrobang Pie is one of the people who inspired me to learn how to chiptune.

Edited August 13, 2013 by akalink

[CloudFyre 848]

I don't think much of that post. I suppose I can agree with most of those points, but they only work as arguments because the site in and of itself has hardly been up and running for a few months now.

The pool of music to choose from is relatively small compared to YouTube, so I don't expect much right now. In fact, I hardly listen to anything period, due to the quality of music not overriding my lack of time. The number of current users makes a the heat algorithm for the "most popular" a relatively shaky tool - I've even been on the front page for quite a while when the site first opened, even though I publicized for a grand total of zero minutes. Last but not least, the actual front page "Featured" review/critique section of the site hasn't even been implemented, so anyone expecting music that's been reviewed by pro's is in for a bit of disappointment.


I'd like to see these people come back when the site has a few thousand different users daily frequenting the site, and actually generating some real data that can be utilized. Then and only then will people be able to "safely" complain about the general nature of Pony.fm.


Just my thoughts.

[PhonyBrony 275]

Just regarding the visibility, I think they are sorting that out with a review/rating system? (It's actually been a while since I read through this section of the forums so I might not be totally clued in), that will make it more visible.

 

Although they are very harsh, when I was trying to just listen through some random songs, it was frustrating to keep skipping LOADS of songs that just didn't sound very good and I couldn't enjoy (but with is very much IMO, to each his own ).

Hmph, I'm not sure about the review/rating system either. I'll get back to you on that if you wish.

And I'm glad you understood what I meant! What you said is exactly what I wanted to say haha

 

The site is still in its infancy. It seems hardly anyone uses it right now. I'm getting in the top 10 at least a once a day and that is saying something since I don't think I deserve it. There should be probably be something. Most popular per genre should help. I wish the people would use the site for critiques more. More people need to use it too for this to work.

 

*Edit* Since it seems only a handful of people actually use the site for listening, single preview views of new music can really bring bad music to the top chart. Really a rating system would be good. Not a star rating system, I was against this before, but a thumbs up and down system. It rates it by an average system. Except new music with on thumbs up would be destroy long standing music, and one thumbs down would destroy any change for anyone to see the song.

 

*Edit 2* I'm looking more at the blog. I'm really not getting criticized for my work which is interesting because at the moment I'm writing this two of my chiptunes are in the top 10 so I assuming I'm not who the blame is being shifted at (though I would imagine the one's I sing on aren't helping the chiptune purists believe in that site). But here is my point. If those excellent musician's started posting on pony.fm the shit would sift though to the bottom Interrobang Pie is one of the people who inspired me to learn how to chiptune.

Yeah. You're right in that if those musicians started posting on the site, the unpopular stuff would end up going down and down. The thing is, the way the site is set up right now, they would only be down on the "what's popular?" part of the site, but if you actually wanted, for example, chiptune, the unpopular stuff would still be there, mixed in with a lot of popular stuff.

Besides, there are a lot more people who make unpopular music than people who make popular music. PonyFM already has some famous musicians. If that number increases, the number of not-famous musicians (as well as musicians who make sub-par stuff) will increase proportionally.

 

I really like the idea of the thumbs up and thumbs down. Of course, with a new song with few ratings, each rating is worth a lot. Perhaps songs with too few ratings could be excluded when searching by rating.

 

I don't think much of that post. I suppose I can agree with most of those points, but they only work as arguments because the site in and of itself has hardly been up and running for a few months now.

 

The pool of music to choose from is relatively small compared to YouTube, so I don't expect much right now. In fact, I hardly listen to anything period, due to the quality of music not overriding my lack of time. The number of current users makes a the heat algorithm for the "most popular" a relatively shaky tool - I've even been on the front page for quite a while when the site first opened, even though I publicized for a grand total of zero minutes. Last but not least, the actual front page "Featured" review/critique section of the site hasn't even been implemented, so anyone expecting music that's been reviewed by pro's is in for a bit of disappointment.

 

 

I'd like to see these people come back when the site has a few thousand different users daily frequenting the site, and actually generating some real data that can be utilized. Then and only then will people be able to "safely" complain about the general nature of Pony.fm.

 

 

Just my thoughts.

You make a good point. The "most popular" feature and similar things will not work out as well as they could, if the site is not posted on often enough. The tumblr post was not talking about that, though. It was talking about the search by genre function (and I guess any filtering option available). Although it is supposed to be a list of all the songs under the categories specified, it's hard to listen to them in order without skipping many unenjoyable songs. I personally think if there is a way to sort all of the songs listed by popularity, it could help out with that... But that's just a guess.

 

Thank you all for replying!

the Phony Brony

[CloudFyre 848]

I really like the idea of the thumbs up and thumbs down. Of course, with a new song with few ratings, each rating is worth a lot. Perhaps songs with too few ratings could be excluded when searching by rating.

 

You make a good point. The "most popular" feature and similar things will not work out as well as they could, if the site is not posted on often enough. The tumblr post was not talking about that, though. It was talking about the search by genre function (and I guess any filtering option available). Although it is supposed to be a list of all the songs under the categories specified, it's hard to listen to them in order without skipping many unenjoyable songs. I personally think if there is a way to sort all of the songs listed by popularity, it could help out with that... But that's just a guess.

 

Thank you all for replying!

the Phony Brony

Mhmm, thumbs up/down is a fairly standard way of doing things. It's not great, but it works. It's hard to find a system that is 1) reliable yet 2) hard to abuse. Heat algorithms + something else would be an interesting way to start filtering results. I'll poke around on Google later and see what I can come up with.

 

It's a little known trick with Fimfiction as well - they use a heat algorithm that puts a MASSIVE amount of weight on the first ten minutes of life that a fic has. If you can post a story and get a large number of people to view it in that ten minute window of time you're all set. The value of views starts dropping at a steady rate after that.

 

I totally agree with what you're saying though: searches by genre is a bit hard to work with in that respect. If they could be ordered somehow, that would be nice.

 

Even if we could add a drop down menu that allowed one to sort by "Most viewed", "Most played", "Highest Rating", etc., then people would probably feel a little more comfortable cruising the website.

 

 

[akalink 163]

Another large problem we have is even though we are a community that is good for sharing. We are not a critiquing community. I've given critiques to people's songs I find fall flat. I don't think they receive it well. I find this odd since pony.fm is really set up well to take and give critique, yet people don't seem to respond to it well. Even on these fourms, I've asked for critique and seen people just going in a lurking in the threads. Honestly if mlp forums and pony.fm keep with that pattern, I would be upset. 

 

Reading some of the earlier posts has made me feel better about the issue.

Edited August 13, 2013 by akalink

[CloudFyre 848]

Another large problem we have is even though we are a community that is good for sharing. We are not a critiquing community. I've given critiques to people's songs I find fall flat. I don't think they receive it well. I find this odd since pony.fm is really set up well to take and give critique, yet people don't seem to respond to it well. Even on these fourms, I've asked for critique and seen people just going in a lurking in the threads. Honestly if mlp forums and pony.fm keep with that pattern, I would be upset. 

 

Reading some of the earlier posts has made me feel better about the issue.

This is true, and often hard to find outside of dedicated fic review groups. MLP fans gather around content, and it just so happens that fics were the single largest event to grace the web presence, with fanart coming in 2nd place. Music seems to be on the rise, but I don't think the average person really understands what, or how a song could be made better. I'd like to survey the community at large to see who *actually* knows something about music compared to people who purely listen for entertainment (and have no musical backing whatsoever).

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

I'm inclined to say that if people want to "fix" Pony.fm's music content, they should take the initiative to upload some of their own incredibly awesome music to it. That would do a lot to balance out the proportion of quality on the site - much more than passively complaining about it would. I don't think anyone would mind this.

 

We do have the music featuring system on its way, and Beta 2 will make the "favourite" feature actually mean something as well.

 

Let's not forget that Pony.fm is still in beta. The intent of alpha was to hammer something out that artists would feel comfortable throwing their music onto. The intent of beta 1 was to figure out what the listeners want as well, by opening up the site and allowing artists to start publicizing it to their listeners.

 

Beta 2 delivers on all of that feedback, as I spoke about in the Poniverse panel. By the end of beta 2, the significant community-centric features that will really legitimize Pony.fm's existence as a unique experience all its own will make it in, based on many months of rigorous testing and feedback collection. Most of the work so far has been nailing in the user experience people want from the site - the truly challenging part, making it an appealing community experience, is the next goal in line.

[akalink 163]

This is true, and often hard to find outside of dedicated fic review groups. MLP fans gather around content, and it just so happens that fics were the single largest event to grace the web presence, with fanart coming in 2nd place. Music seems to be on the rise, but I don't think the average person really understands what, or how a song could be made better. I'd like to survey the community at large to see who *actually* knows something about music compared to people who purely listen for entertainment (and have no musical backing whatsoever).

You make a good point, a lot of people don't know what goes into a song to make it better. I hope I can contribute and begin to remedy this situation. I'm actually doing a panel in a month at Sac Brony Expo about how to make better music. Its more on understanding how music theory works, but its a start.

[DusK 1,264]

Wait, that's the Tumblr for Lavender Harmony?

 

As in, the same Lavender Harmony that tried to claim that "EqD spotlights outstanding music"?

 

EqD, as in, that site that's notorious for having virtually no quality standards and sees really bad music spotlighted on a regular basis, and good music relegated to MotD or rejected outright for really, really stupid reasons (i.e., Sethisto doesn't like your username)?

Noted.

 

Seriously though, if Hall of Fame launches right, Pony.fm's page will be the place to find good brony music. Until then, yeah, the popularity rankings will put some... lesser... tracks on the front page, and it certainly won't do as much to feed ego as what many "a-lister" brony musicians seem to be accustomed to after several years of being worshiped by the masses that their music was fed to by popular sites.

 

Aside from that, I'll leave some words of wisdom in this thread from -- who else -- Lavender Harmony.

"the main reason you should be making music is because it's fun, not to become omgbronyfamous"

"Make music for your own and other peoples enjoyment, share it with those you know, and hey, they might show it to their friends. Don't just aim to get on some blog about My Little Pony, for goodness sake."

Edited August 13, 2013 by DusK

[Jokuc 8,172]

I agree. And to be honest, I think that the site should have something so all songs from the more famous and talented musicians makes it to the front pages and becomes easier to find.

 

Cause famous people gets attention -> more famous people join -> more people will visit the site -> more people will join -> more content

 

yeah

[DusK 1,264]

I agree. And to be honest, I think that the site should have something so all songs from the more famous and talented musicians makes it to the front pages and becomes easier to find.

 

Cause famous people gets attention -> more famous people join -> more people will visit the site -> more people will join -> more content

 

yeah

 

A "famous" brony musician circle-jerk site already exists on the Internet. We don't need another one. Pony.fm doesn't need to be EqD 2 in that regard.

 

Music in the Hall of Fame should take absolutely no consideration for who makes it into account. If the music's good, it should be featured. If it's bad, it shouldn't get featured. If it's found lacking, it shouldn't get a free pass just because its creator happens to be, as Lavender Harmony herself put it, "omgbronyfamous". Pony.fm's front page shouldn't cater to fame. It should cater to talent.

Edited August 13, 2013 by DusK

[techno915 407]

all i can say is that i would really like to have an actual radio station that just plays brony music. you know, like an fm or satellite radio station.

[akalink 163]

all i can say is that i would really like to have an actual radio station that just plays brony music. you know, like an fm or satellite radio station.

If you wanted to make a brony radio station I know just the person to ask. https://twitter.com/Alpha_Link ran wzmr (world zelda music radio) for years until Z.R.E.O closed the site and Ebunch who was part of ZREO took the reigns of the site and made it into it current form of radiohyrule. It might be interesting to have pony.fm music spawn into its own separate radio station in the future. But that is a problem for future pony.fm users.

[techno915 407]

If you wanted to make a brony radio station I know just the person to ask. https://twitter.com/Alpha_Link ran wzmr (world zelda music radio) for years until Z.R.E.O closed the site and Ebunch who was part of ZREO took the reigns of the site and made it into it current form of radiohyrule. It might be interesting to have pony.fm music spawn into its own separate radio station in the future. But that is a problem for future pony.fm users.

um...i wouldn't realy be the one to make it. i would just like it if it were existent and such. i'm fine right now with my classic rock music, but it would be nice to listen to mlp music in car rides and such.

[nlaq 180]

A "famous" brony musician circle-jerk site already exists on the Internet. We don't need another one. Pony.fm doesn't need to be EqD 2 in that regard.

 

Music in the Hall of Fame should take absolutely no consideration for who makes it into account. If the music's good, it should be featured. If it's bad, it shouldn't get featured. If it's found lacking, it shouldn't get a free pass just because its creator happens to be, as Lavender Harmony herself put it, "omgbronyfamous". Pony.fm's front page shouldn't cater to fame. It should cater to talent.

 

Which requires a human element to filter though the content. For search results and other things, ordering by favorite/view/download count is important - but for homepage featured content, we'd need someone on board to go though things themselves.

 

Do we even get enough content to keep a fresh "filtered" list maintained?

[DusK 1,264]

Which requires a human element to filter though the content. For search results and other things, ordering by favorite/view/download count is important - but for homepage featured content, we'd need someone on board to go though things themselves.

 

Which, as I understand, is in the works. And hopefully, it'll be stellar when it does go live.

 

But I really don't think Pony.fm should be giving preferential treatment to self-absorbed "famous" brony musicians in the meantime just to draw people to the site or sate bronypop ego thirst. That would set a rather unfavorable tone for the site's future imho.

[nlaq 180]

Which, as I understand, is in the works. And hopefully, it'll be stellar when it does go live.

 

But I really don't think Pony.fm should be giving preferential treatment to self-absorbed "famous" brony musicians in the meantime just to draw people to the site or sate bronypop ego thirst. That would set a rather unfavorable tone for the site's future imho.

 

Nor was I suggesting such a thing.

 

Are you saying that by giving people the chance to impact a track's rating (via a Brohoof system) and have that be displayed, that that is giving preferential treatment to anyone in particular? 

[FoxyCryptid 4,327]

The problem with "quality control" is that quality is a objective factor unless the work is downright broken in some form or another. It should be gradually decided as people weight in with their own opinions over time, not decided by one person going through and saying "yay or neigh".   

 

Also, rep means nothing. If you're that good you should be able to back it up without special treatment. 

Edited August 14, 2013 by Shoboni

[akalink 163]

The problem with "quality control" is that quality is a objective factor unless the work is downright broken in some form or another. It should be gradually decided as people weight in with their own opinions over time, not decided by one person going through and saying "yay or neigh".   

The Hall of Fame system should use a Jury system that is akin to how music majors are graded in college. They have to approach the music very objectively, looking for things such as mixing, quality of the song, orchestration, clipping, etc. Looking for professional sounding songs. In my experience of remixing, limited resources is not an excuse for making bad sounding music and listeners don't give sympathy for people who are limited in their resources.

[DusK 1,264]

Nor was I suggesting such a thing.

 

Are you saying that by giving people the chance to impact a track's rating (via a Brohoof system) and have that be displayed, that that is giving preferential treatment to anyone in particular?

Oh, definitely not. My statement regarding "preferential treatment" was a response to Jokuc and his instistence that already-established musicians should be given preferential treatment on the site in order to draw people to the site. A brohoof system is fine.

 

The real focal point of Pony.fm's front page should be the Hall of Fame, though, with significantly more visibility than the largely subjective popularity rankings. Having your tracks be among the most visible on the front page of Pony.fm should be earned by making good music, and not how much you've been marketed over the past couple of years.

 

Yes, in the current iteration of Pony.fm, there's no real degree of added visibility for songs that are good compared to songs that really aren't. And that's definitely a problem, I agree. But simply going "Oh, look, it's *insert bronypop musician here*. Front page auto!" is an absolutely terrible idea.

 

Let 'em wait until the music featuring system gets put in. Let them go through the same motions everyone else would have to. Being a fandom A-lister shouldn't automatically make them special on Pony.fm.

[FoxyCryptid 4,327]

The Hall of Fame system should use a Jury system that is akin to how music majors are graded in college. They have to approach the music very objectively, looking for things such as mixing, quality of the song, orchestration, clipping, etc. Looking for professional sounding songs. In my experience of remixing, limited resources is not an excuse for making bad sounding music and listeners don't give sympathy for people who are limited in their resources.

 

The listeners should be ones to decide, not some team of critics with over-inflated egos. Once it reaches a certain level of approval from the audience it gets put in the featured section. It should be a natural process decided by the userbase. 

[DusK 1,264]

The listeners should be ones to decide, not some team of critics with over-inflated egos. Once it reaches a certain level of approval from the audience it gets put in the featured section. It should be a natural process decided by the userbase. 

 

That doesn't work well for any site that does that. Your average listener will judge a track purely based on subjective taste, and look around; taste is really bad in this fandom. If you really need more proof that popularity doesn't necessarily equate to quality, take a quick glance at EqDMusic.com: Lots of crap music on top, lots of great music getting pushed down.

 

OverClocked ReMix has the right idea on this subject:

 

Why aren't the ReMixes ranked by popularity/ratings?

 

We try to maintain a high level of quality in reviewing submissions, and believe that the music posted on OCR sets a benchmark in its representation of the non-commercial game arrangement community. However, there will always be pieces that some people may not like whether due to a ReMix’s genre, game source, etc.

 

We encourage experimentation, curiosity, and an open mind. We don't believe a rating system, or segregating out the "good" mixes by an arbitrary or democratic factor, would support that ideal.

 

 

I've made it a point extensively (really, over and over and over and OVER and over again) that the team responsible for deciding what hits the Hall of Fame should be composed of knowledgeable musicians and music critics who are able to judge a track without their own personal tastes affecting it.

 

I said before that Pony.fm shouldn't be EqD 2. That also goes for making sure it doesn't become EqDMusic.com 2, which would most certainly be the case if we used a popularity-based system for the Hall of Fame feature.

[FoxyCryptid 4,327]

That doesn't work well for any site that does that. Your average listener will judge a track purely based on subjective taste, and look around; taste is really bad in this fandom. If you really need more proof that popularity doesn't necessarily equate to quality, take a quick glance at EqDMusic.com: Lots of crap music on top, lots of great music getting pushed down.

 

OverClocked ReMix has the right idea on this subject:

 

 

 

I've made it a point extensively (really, over and over and over and OVER and over again) that the team responsible for deciding what hits the Hall of Fame should be composed of knowledgeable musicians and music critics who are able to judge a track without their own personal tastes affecting it.

 

I said before that Pony.fm shouldn't be EqD 2. That also goes for making sure it doesn't become EqDMusic.com 2, which would most certainly be the case if we used a popularity-based system for the Hall of Fame feature.

 

Except personal taste should be the biggest issue. It's not what you think is good, it's not what some random critic thinks it good, it's what everyone as a whole thinks is good. 

 

I've seen where elitism in judging fan-work goes, it isn't a pretty place. It's full of hypocrisy and the same people getting through over and over while the little guys are hardly given a chance to reach their potential.