Network Criticisms

I'd like people to have a more open set of options for uploading works. The system of having all your music catalogued in one place (Record Hall) is great, but I think adding information has been made unnecessarily complicated and restrictive. In the old forum, you had an editing box the size of the one I'm typing in now to write about your piece because the only way to do so was to start a new thread. Now it encourages you to add as little as possible because of the size of the box. The menus to categorise pieces are frustrating to use; they pigeon-hole everything which probably makes the music database work easier but forces me to choose options which aren't accurate. For example, I consider my trio it weeps for distant things to be in a contemporary romantic style. However, if I select 'contemporary' from the first style field, the sub-style list which follows it does not allow me to label my music as 'romantic' - it dictates by its options that contemporary music can only be minimalist, avant-garde, jazz, etc. I can't even call my piece a trio because that option isn't on the ensemble list! So therefore I propose that as many fields as possible are filled in by the user by typing in precisely what information they want to appear about their piece. Instrumentation in particular should be able to be supplied by the user in this way - what about unusual groups of instruments?

The menus to categorise pieces are frustrating to use; they pigeon-hole everything which probably makes the music database work easier but forces me to choose options which aren't accurate. For example, I consider my trio it weeps for distant things to be in a contemporary romantic style. However, if I select 'contemporary' from the first style field, the sub-style list which follows it does not allow me to label my music as 'romantic' - it dictates by its options that contemporary music can only be minimalist, avant-garde, jazz, etc. I can't even call my piece a trio because that option isn't on the ensemble list! So therefore I propose that as many fields as possible are filled in by the user by typing in precisely what information they want to appear about their piece. Instrumentation in particular should be able to be supplied by the user in this way - what about unusual groups of instruments?

Yeah, well what if you're wrong about your categorization? What if how you categorize your piece doesn't make sense? Wouldn't you want someone to tell you whether your categorization of your work is correct?? No? Me neither. I'm sure it's not Chopin's intent to tell you how to categorize your music, either. But that's what the categories do at the moment, unfortunately.

No worries, though. It will all come together in the end. If anything, we should have the ability to create a category if it doesn't already exist in the upload menus we use when submitting our work. Also remember that those are optional fields. You really only have to pick the forum that your work posts to for people to listen and offer feedback.

So, if the subcategories don't support what your piece is for then don't use the subcategories at all. You have the option to use them or not.

- AA :)

So, if the subcategories don't support what your piece is for then don't use the subcategories at all. You have the option to use them or not.

No. If the subcategories don't support what your piece is for then contact @chopin and suggest to him he add it. This isn't absolute dictatorship.

No. If the subcategories don't support what your piece is for then contact @chopin and suggest to him he add it. This isn't absolute dictatorship.

It's not? So, considering Chopin the Benevolent Overlord of YC is inaccurate?

I feel so lost now... :unsure:

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I stand by my proposition to categorize music by instrumentation, not genre. This is much more descriptive of the music that is out there. We wouldn't even need to change the forum much.

If the instrumentation is a small or large Orchestra, it would go in the Orchestral Forum. If the instrumentation is wind and string instruments for performance in a Chamber recital, we have a Chamber forum for that. Is your music written for a Band to play in a bar or other venue? There's a forum for that as well.

I don't see the purpose in even trying to organize music by style/genre since there are no hard-and-fast genres of music. Instrumentation is so much more specific.

The subcategories are there in case someone feels they can further categorize their music. The reviewers are also there to help. Reviewers will eventually gain access to move works to appropriate forums, and categorize works however they feel appropriate. Categorizing is necessary because when the index/database of works grows, we need some way to narrow results. The network offers multiple ways to find music and this comes in handy with a large database of media. Right now our system is overkill for only 400 uploaded media works to date, but I did not predict this huge loss of members when switching over, nor did I predict the massive log in problems we have had (which SHOULD be fixed by now). In a perfect world without any external variables messing with these plans, this site should have been much busier than it is today. Unfortunately, things went the other way, for now.

However imagine if things went in the positive direction, as I had planned? Our database would be growing exponentially. Imagine if we had 50,000 media uploads? Finding music would be a nightmare if we used the old system. Our big problems right now are speed, integration, and our small index. Trying to get people to use the system after a semi failure will be a major challenge, (and this is one reason why I have to hold back from mass emailing the community at this time), but I am hoping to encourage more use of the site with the next series of updates, to make this site quicker, user friendly, integrated, bug free, and more web 2.0ish. Thus, this is the reason why I am getting the community involved with the next series of updates.

Chopin,

When I hit the reply button I don't always get the quote showing up in the text editor.

Also my shouts don't always go through in the shoutbox.

This seems like an IPB glitch, in which there is nothing I can do about. How often does this problem happen?

Also, I would like to have a few "reference" websites, so I can provide these to the developers, in terms of design. We are going to simplify the skin tremendously to increase the speed, and to fix the problems with IE. Can you guys provide me with sample websites that you personally like?

This seems like an IPB glitch, in which there is nothing I can do about. How often does this problem happen?

I get Shoutbox glitches rarely and the reply quotes do not show up for me about 10% of the time.

Also, I would like to have a few "reference" websites, so I can provide these to the developers, in terms of design. We are going to simplify the skin tremendously to increase the speed, and to fix the problems with IE. Can you guys provide me with sample websites that you personally like?

Aside from the color scheme and logo I really like the current forum skin. For overall web design I'll have to keep my eyes open.

I'm not really going to be using the new system, I don't like it and honestly this is investing a lot of time and resources into something that doesn't matter at the end if there's nobody around to use it. The site was never really that big in the first place, and this is overkill. First you need to figure out how to build back the community, THEN worry about where to put all the stuff once you have a thing going.

Right now there's nothing happening, the site has almost nothing to offer either (it's competing right now directly with stuff like myspace, if the point is just posting music.) Sure you can get people to review things, but do you think that's enough?

Whatever, this has nothing to do with suggestions on the system but since I don't care for it I can't really suggest anything except invest your time in stuff that actually matters before this place becomes even more of a ghost town.

(I'm sorry if I keep saying this, but I think it's important.)

Chopin,

Can you explain the purpose of the network? Why does that need to be separate from the forum? It seems like after integration the network is going to be useless except for Groups, Videos, and some stats (but this could just be ignorance on my part).

Why not move everything into the forum? At the top of the forum there could be extra tabs for Groups, Music, and Video. Adding friends and favorites could be done in the forum as well. Is there any way to make the wiki show up underneath the forum header instead of switching to a completely different looking page? In this way the forum, network, and wiki could be seemingly merged into one big network with the forum as the main feature. I have to assume most people are here for the forum anyway. Perhaps you don't have the software/tools to pull this off or maybe you have another reason why it shouldn't be done, I'm just curious.

Aside from a few glitches and very minor aesthetic issues, I think we currently have one of the best looking forums I've ever come across.

I'm not really going to be using the new system, I don't like it and honestly this is investing a lot of time and resources into something that doesn't matter at the end if there's nobody around to use it. The site was never really that big in the first place, and this is overkill. First you need to figure out how to build back the community, THEN worry about where to put all the stuff once you have a thing going.

Right now there's nothing happening, the site has almost nothing to offer either (it's competing right now directly with stuff like myspace, if the point is just posting music.) Sure you can get people to review things, but do you think that's enough?

Whatever, this has nothing to do with suggestions on the system but since I don't care for it I can't really suggest anything except invest your time in stuff that actually matters before this place becomes even more of a ghost town.

(I'm sorry if I keep saying this, but I think it's important.)

If I had your mentality, I would have given up a long time ago. But I believe in this community, and I believe there are more aspiring musicians out there than most people think. Also, while we did lose members, the site is still active. I believe we are just in hibernation since the site has a potential to grow much greater than what it currently is at. The way to build back the community is to offer something people want. And composers want a place to connect and share their music with their peers.

Chopin,

Can you explain the purpose of the network? Why does that need to be separate from the forum? It seems like after integration the network is going to be useless except for Groups, Videos, and some stats (but this could just be ignorance on my part).

Why not move everything into the forum? At the top of the forum there could be extra tabs for Groups, Music, and Video. Adding friends and favorites could be done in the forum as well. Is there any way to make the wiki show up underneath the forum header instead of switching to a completely different looking page? In this way the forum, network, and wiki could be seemingly merged into one big network with the forum as the main feature. I have to assume most people are here for the forum anyway. Perhaps you don't have the software/tools to pull this off or maybe you have another reason why it shouldn't be done, I'm just curious.

Aside from a few glitches and very minor aesthetic issues, I think we currently have one of the best looking forums I've ever come across.

The network is supposed to organize everyone's friends, and music. If you haven't noticed, the only way to add music is through this network. This forum does not organize friends or music, only discussions. I can't move the network into the forum, because the network is a completely different architecture. But you are right, the people who are signed up now, are here for the forum. The reason for this is because everyone signed up in the past signed up for the forum, when it was the only thing to sign up for. Since the network will be very new, it will take a little for people to understand how to use it. However, in time, when more people sign up and start using the network, I think the forum and network can grow equally together.

But the fact that you don't know what the network is supposed to be used for is a bit of a concern. It could be because we didn't integrate it enough, but this is the purpose of the next series of updates. And I go back to my last question:

Can you guys provide me with sample website designs that you personally like?

I think the problem with the network is simple and i've said this since the day you introduced your idea to the forum oh so many years ago. So many other places does it better.

If I had your mentality, I would have given up a long time ago. But I believe in this community, and I believe there are more aspiring musicians out there than most people think. Also, while we did lose members, the site is still active. I believe we are just in hibernation since the site has a potential to grow much greater than what it currently is at. The way to build back the community is to offer something people want. And composers want a place to connect and share their music with their peers.

If you had my mentality maybe half the forum wouldn't have left. The point is, you should target the site to people who are actually composition majors/etc first so you can get people contributing actual content. That's why I said that just having reviews is not enough, you need a good level of quality in the exchanges. If it's just a bunch of people who are scared of writing in 5/4 then that's what you'll bring in and I don't think I need to remind you that no community like this can live without actual experts that contribute content that matters.

In fact, remember when gardener and I were talking about precisely the level of the descriptions people make of their music, etc? Yes well, what are you doing about this?

Likewise, you NEED to actively champion and ENCOURAGE people who do all this properly. Someone wrote a 5 page dissertation on their piece for others to comment? Put that on the goddamn front page, DO SOMETHING but let others see it and let that be an example of the level. To that effect, get people who are experts to write guides and material on helping amateurs so they can achieve that level and give them room to do it in.

I don't care if you do this with or without the network, but the site has no chance of surviving without something like that. That's what would make this site DIFFERENT from youtube or myspace, or any other "post crap, random comments" site. IF this site is really aimed at composers, then actively get people to contribute content that would reel in people who know something about composition, rather than random joes.

Honestly Chopin, this is not hard to grasp. You know that you cannot compete directly with other sites that provide a hosting/music playing service right now, this won't work. The only way you CAN do something is to appeal to the demographic of people who are specifically interested in a more technical/knowledgeable side of music since they can't get that from those sites (due to their size and user base) yet here the site is small enough that you can give that push relatively easy and you can make it stick through careful supervision and moderation.

This is not brain surgery, it's the principles of building ANY community. You first start by doing your damn best to get people who are worthwhile to contribute content and then you promote it and raise the standards so more people with similar skills are attracted. After all that, after you get a good community of good people going, you can THEN start to worry about attracting everyone else (who will be attracted anyway by that point if the content is indeed good.)

I don't know what you think my mindset is, but certainly I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. People who are worthwhile not posting is the OPPOSITE you want and you should be worried that they LEFT. You should be worried that no new content is generated from this site that can attract people (this is what the lessons, masterclasses, a good review/sharing exchange, discussions, are for!)

Yeah it requires effort, yeah it takes time, but honestly how much have you spent on the goddamn network while forgetting about these things????? Jesus Christ, get it into your head already and don't make me repeat myself. I'm only trying to help you in spite of the bad decisions you've made because I used to enjoy being on this site, despite all the problems I mentioned and I really don't want to see it driven into the ground because you decided to worry about the community too late.

The network is simple, but I have to stress that the purpose of the network is as follows:

1. One stop shop to organize friends within YC, instead of making friends here, then going to Facebook to friend them there.

2. Organize music, to make music easy to find.

3. Find composers of specific styles (for example, you can find all composers on this site who write game music, or orchestral music, or specific styles such as fugues, or concertos)

4. See who is viewing your music even if they do not comment.

5. When someone adds your music to your favorites, that person becomes your fan. Privately see all music that your fans are adding.

6. All friends will observe a notification every time you add music, increasing awareness.

7. An IM system which will be integrated with the forum soon.

The point is, this network is not the same as Myspace or Facebook, but perhaps I haven't done a good enough job explaining it yet. I think the more you use the network, the more you will learn that it is not a myspace or facebook clone, and the purpose of the network is very different. I am aware that the network is very slow right now, and the design has too much bloat. This is why I'm going to address this and try my best to integrate it with the forum.

"Sure you can get people to review things, but do you think that's enough?"

That's the whole point.

Pretty much. And also to offer visibility to your music, and find friends with similar interests.

The more you explain it the more I feel you miss the point and the more crappy it all sounds.

If you had my mentality maybe half the forum wouldn't have left. The point is, you should target the site to people who are actually composition majors/etc first so you can get people contributing actual content. That's why I said that just having reviews is not enough, you need a good level of quality in the exchanges. If it's just a bunch of people who are scared of writing in 5/4 then that's what you'll bring in and I don't think I need to remind you that no community like this can live without actual experts that contribute content that matters.

I think the reason why we lost contributors had to do with many people unable to log in (which was an unforeseen circumstance). This was not supposed to happen. Another reason was because we switched forum software. More reasons include changing location of the forum to a subdomain. The network has nothing to do with people leaving, since the forum acts as a standalone.

In fact, remember when gardener and I were talking about precisely the level of the descriptions people make of their music, etc? Yes well, what are you doing about this?

Likewise, you NEED to actively champion and ENCOURAGE people who do all this properly. Someone wrote a 5 page dissertation on their piece for others to comment? Put that on the goddamn front page, DO SOMETHING but let others see it and let that be an example of the level. To that effect, get people who are experts to write guides and material on helping amateurs so they can achieve that level and give them room to do it in.

Yes I do remember, and I do want to address this. I was thinking about aiding a composer on how to write about his music. If you have any suggestions for me in this area, please let me know. I will probably ask the reviewers for help here as well.

I don't care if you do this with or without the network, but the site has no chance of surviving without something like that. That's what would make this site DIFFERENT from youtube or myspace, or any other "post crap, random comments" site. IF this site is really aimed at composers, then actively get people to contribute content that would reel in people who know something about composition, rather than random joes.

The site is already pretty focused, so we are already on our way there. Although it appears we are not as active as before, this is mainly because a few parts of the site have died, such as the Off Topic, Master Classes and Lessons. A reason why Lessons became inactive is because we lost the functionality to automate this system, which was maintained by Mike (since we switched forum software). And now Mike has left us for the time being, so I do not have any help in this area. However the good news is that the website appears to be getting more active in the "Uploads" forum, which is really a larger concern than the other parts of the site.

Honestly Chopin, this is not hard to grasp. You know that you cannot compete directly with other sites that provide a hosting/music playing service right now, this won't work. The only way you CAN do something is to appeal to the demographic of people who are specifically interested in a more technical/knowledgeable side of music since they can't get that from those sites (due to their size and user base) yet here the site is small enough that you can give that push relatively easy and you can make it stick through careful supervision and moderation.

This is the whole reason why we have a team of reviewers, and why we are pushing for this structure. Our incentive plan is 800 megs of space for reviewers, and this is led by Ron.

This is not brain surgery, it's the principles of building ANY community. You first start by doing your damn best to get people who are worthwhile to contribute content and then you promote it and raise the standards so more people with similar skills are attracted. After all that, after you get a good community of good people going, you can THEN start to worry about attracting everyone else (who will be attracted anyway by that point if the content is indeed good.)

I don't know what you think my mindset is, but certainly I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. People who are worthwhile not posting is the OPPOSITE you want and you should be worried that they LEFT. You should be worried that no new content is generated from this site that can attract people (this is what the lessons, masterclasses, a good review/sharing exchange, discussions, are for!)

Yeah it requires effort, yeah it takes time, but honestly how much have you spent on the goddamn network while forgetting about these things????? Jesus Christ, get it into your head already and don't make me repeat myself. I'm only trying to help you in spite of the bad decisions you've made because I used to enjoy being on this site, despite all the problems I mentioned and I really don't want to see it driven into the ground because you decided to worry about the community too late.

I can design a way to organize and manage Lessons/Masterclasses, but our old way really isn't the best way to manage this. The main problem we are experiencing is execution. Mike used to help me with this, but now he's pretty much gone, and I am left here to do things alone. The fact is, I am not really a programmer, I am an engineer with superficial programming skills. And just so you know, our network CAN and SHOULD be used for lesson management. Off the top of my head, I am thinking about a "lessons" tab under "my profile". The lessons tab could have all the features to become a teacher, request a teacher, request specific lessons, etc. I think this would be the best way to be honest, it would beat the way we "used" to do it. I'll tell you what, if I have enough budget left over, or if you can help me get donations, I can have this lessons system designed and implemented, managed by the network, but powered by the forum (the same way commenting on music is managed by the network, but powered by the forum). I don't think it would cost many hours to be honest.

I'll tell you what, if I have enough budget left over, or if you can help me get donations, I can have this lessons system designed and implemented, managed by the network, but powered by the forum (the same way commenting on music is managed by the network, but powered by the forum). I don't think it would cost many hours to be honest.

This sounds good. I think the more we can have powered by the forum, the better.

I just don't know why you didn't run a live beta test and realize your network blows and needs to be fixed. If you say you did run a live test, then...wtf you guys blow as people. If you did that, then we could've used the old forum until this scraggy didn't suck. It's like going to a restaurant you love that is being remodeled, but they forgot to put the stoves in. It's just a wtf situation.

Considering I asked for constructive criticism, "it sucks" is far from it, and doesn't help me. I'll hear all negative viewpoints (and this is exactly what this thread is for) but the only way I can improve is if you can get your opinions out without being overly emotional about them. The forum is standalone, meaning, you can log into the forum without relying on the network other than uploading new music. But the process of uploading music should be near flawless by now. However, this is the reason why we kept the archives open until recently.

The sequence of events that led to where we are now, was a little more complicated than you think, but I will try to explain. I made the decision to convert over to IPB because vbulletin at the time was far behind IPB in terms of architecture (I got my tips from Mike). I did not want the developers to develop the network with an older vBulletin architecture, because vBulletin was a few months behind a major overhaul of code. This would most likely have made upgrading vBulletin nearly impossible without breaking the network integration. Essentially, we would have been stuck with an older version of Vbulletin for quite some time, and this would have been bad for security updates. Thus, this is the main reason why we switched to Invision.

When the developers were ready for the user integration, we put the forum on a subdomain so that the forum could seem like a standalone. We did have a test site tested by a few members, but when you introduce people at a large scale, things that no one could have predicted begin to happen. So while all kinds of things were happening on the network, the forum for the most part remained untouched. And integrating accounts takes time (and money). To have the developers integrate all accounts for 7000+ members on a test site, then to do it again on the live site, would have cost me more hours than necessary. Like it or not, the best way to get people testing at a large scale is by introduction, little by little.

Like Black Orpheus, I do get shoutbox glitches. They occur whenever I first am on the site. If I go to the shoutbox room, and then go back to the home page, the shoutbox works. If I just go on, nothing happens

I don't know how you like this, but once I made a skin with handwriting scores, and it looked better than the exact symbols of fonts, ... using things like this:

it the original first page of Mahler Sym.6

inverting and changing the colors, like black background and blue notes, ...

My main problem has been with my internet browser malfunctioning when I go to listen to anyones music...

its the latest version of explorer with windows vista basic....

so what is the best browser currently fox, or chrome??

cheers

If your going to stay on Vista switch to Firefox. Internet Explorer will eat your machine.

Better yet, if you're going to stay on Vista, go ahead and shoot yourself now and save yourself the frustration.

lol... I think you're right, vista sux... it works great for about 2 months , then each update screws up more and more. Its like an old car already!

Will use fox more I think...

Attached is our new mockup, so tell me what you think. The only way I can get the design right is if you all participate in criticism.

Yes. Works. Love it.