Potential Feature: Day of Judgment

[Gloudas]

Hey guys, this is an idea for the Audio Portal I've been thinking about for a while, and I was hoping for your opinions/criticisms of it:

This new feature would be called the Day of Judgment. The basic idea is that 24 hours before the Top 5 songs of the week are decided, the highest-ranking 15 songs of that week are put into a list, which is visible from the front page of the audio portal. These songs would ideally be some of the best songs submitted that week, and also some that are quite bad, and were merely zerobombed up there. During the next 24 hours, anyone can vote on any of the 15 songs. As this pool of music would be exposed to the entire community, the higher-caliber songs would stand out by the end of the voting period, and after 24 hours the 5 songs with the highest score would be given the 5 spots of Best of the Week. The following week, 24 hours before the next Top 5 are decided, the process would start over, ensuring that 5 new and quality songs take the previous ones' place.

What is the benefit of this feature? Firstly and most prominently, this feature would allow for the Top 5 of the Week to truly reflect what the audio community wants to hear. Currently, one can only get a spot on the Top 5 through sheer luck, or more often, zerobombing the hell out of everyone else's submissions. What this often creates is a set a five songs that nowhere near represents the quality of music that the Audio Portal can put out. You've all seen terrible songs on the best of the week, and felt that anger when you knew a more deserving song should have its place. The Day of Judgment would help to solve this problem. In the 24 hour voting period, it would be up to the community to decide which of the 15 songs of that week were worthy of being recognized, and which ones had no place being recognized at all. Naturally, people would find ways to cheat themselves onto the 15 spots, but with the eyes of the entire Audio Portal on them, their song would get voted down, and receive no Top 5 spot. After all, the only reason zero bombing is a problem is because individual songs generally do not get much attention, and their scores can be easily manipulated by just 1 or 2 zeroes. However, once the 15 songs that are being considered for Top 5 are shown to the whole of Newgrounds, there will be enough legitimate voting to negate any zerobombing that might continue. Essentially, this process would be a filter, ensuring that songs that have no place representing the Audio Portal are taken out of the running for the Top 5 positions.

A system along these lines is more important, I believe, now than ever, for with the introduction of the Ad Revenue system, people who zerobomb themselves into recognition are getting paid for it. With such monetary reward, there is now more and more incentive to cheat one's song into a spot on the Top 5. Hopefully, the Day of Judgment would nullify such cheating. No matter how hard people worked to get their undeserving song exposure, they would ultimately be stopped during the day of judgment, during which the Audio Community would ensure that their song would not be one of the 5 moving on.

An ideal scenario I imagine would be thus: The Day of Judgment begins, and the 15 highest scored songs of the week are put into the pool on the front page of the AP. One of them is an incredibly high-quality piece of music whose score was lower than it should be. Another is (just as an example, as its score is currently so low) Autotune Flowers, which only had such a high score due to zerobombing. Now, during the next 24 hours the entire Audio Portal would listen to both these songs, and Autotuned Flowers's score would slowly drop, as the high-quality piece's would rise. By the end of the 24 hours, the good song, assuming that it was indeed a song that the community respected and found worthy of exposure, would have a much higher score and be given one of the Top 5 spots, while Autotuned Flowers, it's score lowered, would receive none of the recognition that it tried to steal away from the better song. But again, just an example.

I think the Day of Judgment feature could be a great addition to the portal, and could ensure that what gets put on the Best of the Week truly is the best music of that week, and not merely a product of score manipulation. HOWEVER, I am not naive enough to believe that this idea is perfect, and I believe that it could use improvement and critique. So, now I ask you, what do you think of this idea? Would it a great addition, or only further muddle an already complicated system? I ask because I hope to make this idea into the best one it can be before submitting into the Audio Portal improvements thread, and I want to make sure it can stand up to any criticisms when that day comes. So criticize away

(Rucklo has given me permission to post this thread, and he would like to remind everyone that this is an exception to the normal rules, so don't go posting all your ideas and incurring his wrath on me)

Thanks for reading, tell me what you think

[Koriigahn]

I love this idea, and it's probably the only one of the thousands of ideas people come out with that would actually lower zerobombing.

Well done to you fair sir.

[Snulode]

Sounds good, I thought auto tune flowers was terrible... Wasn't even funny.

[EmperorCharlemagne]

I think the idea has a lot of merit behind it, but would it only be the 15 highest-rated songs of the week that get chosen? Am I understanding that correctly?

If so, the only problem I would see because of that would be that people 0-vote before the 15 are picked in order to insure their own spot. Though you might have mentioned a safegaurd against that as well.

[la-yinn]

This is a great foundation for a weekly tops system.

I would like to add one little thing though:

Since every view/vote/download/whatever (I'm not entirely sure) gets the person paid, I suggest that this system disables the ad revenue for the 15 songs on the Day of Judgment. Since all the songs will be exposed on the front site, it will give zerobombers at least one day of full exposure. Disabling the Ad revenue for that day will leave them with an extremely bad name and no money. Nothing to gain.

[loansindi]

people who zerobomb themselves into recognition are getting paid for it

how much? I've spoken to artists who get large volumes of traffic, and not one of them has made any noticeable sum from their music.

Ultimately, while i approve of any attempts to fix the portal, I don't know that the weekly tops are our biggest problem.

However, speaking directly to your proposal.

This system assumes that a large portion of the audio portal listeners will listen, and vote, during your 24 hour period. They'll be voting against any zero/fiving that has happened in the past six days. If a spam track has been upvoted and a good track has been downvoted, then it's going to be hard for those tracks to equalize and be 'fixed' in the course of one day, won't it?

And further, it's pretty widely assumed that people who get spammy submissions in the tops are already breaking the rules for voting. That they have a number of accounts/ips and are voting on themselves multiple times a day. This problem will still be evident during some sort of last minute voting, because people using unscrupulous methods are, in my eyes, more likely to be ready to vote in that critical last day.

Just my thoughts.

[Gloudas]

At 7/26/09 07:55 PM, EmperorCharlemagne wrote: I think the idea has a lot of merit behind it, but would it only be the 15 highest-rated songs of the week that get chosen? Am I understanding that correctly?

Yes. The reason I decided upon 15 was because it's big enough to include at some of the best songs that were submitted that week, but also small enough that each of the 15 songs gets a good amount of exposure and votes. If the number of songs considered was, say, 50, then each individual song would not get enough notice/scores to negate the effects of zerobombing.

If so, the only problem I would see because of that would be that people 0-vote before the 15 are picked in order to insure their own spot.

Yes, I mentioned that. Admittedly people will manage to zerobomb themselves into the 15 considered positions, just as they do now. However, the judgment will prevent them from going any farther than that, as their song will actually be put under scrutiny, preventing them from manipulating the score.

At 7/26/09 08:00 PM, la-yinn wrote: I suggest that this system disables the ad revenue for the 15 songs on the Day of Judgment.

I think this would make it a bit too complicated. Realistically the most listens they'll get in 24 hours is a few hundred, which is such an insignificant amount of ad revenue money that disabling it wouldn't be worth the effort.

[Back-From-Purgatory]

Only one problem that I see, you're simply taking the old system and fancying it up a bit. How will this STOP 0 bombers? I mean... It's a cool idea and all, but just because people SHOULD vote on the better song, doesn't mean they will. A lot, and I mean A LOT, of people here on newgrounds vote 0 on everything just because. Not necessarily to get to the top with their own work (Not saying this doesn't happen, I know it does, I've caught people doing it to me).
A lot of people just 0 bomb because they're mean spirited, and I honestly don't know how this would stop them. Putting songs into the public eye, in my opinion, would do nothing but increase 0 bombing of good songs.

After all, a song that is sitting at a, say... healthy 4.30 out of 5 just barely on the second page... If voted up onto the front page of it's respective genre will almost immediately be bombed. The front page of anything on newgrounds is the 0 bombers playground.

That's my 2 cents on it anyways... but who knows, maybe I missed something in there and I just don't get it. I'm not saying it's not worth a try, I'm just basically saying 0 bombers will bomb people for no reason, no matter the circumstances, a special day for voting won't stop that.
But please enlighten me if I missed something that should prevent that. (Bar reputation, I'm pretty sure 0 bombers don't give a rats ass about their reputation.)

[Back-From-Purgatory]

Sorry for the double post, but I do have one more thing since it's a topic floating around in here anyways.

I can't seem to find a definite answer anywhere on this... So, how exactly does one earn that revenue? At this point... I've made... wait for it... 5 cents. Sure, it's not a big sum, but I guess it's better than the 0 I've gotten the past 7 years.

I got that 5 cents off one of my songs a long time ago, and to this day, have no idea where it came from.

[Gloudas]

At 7/26/09 08:05 PM, loansindi wrote: This system assumes that a large portion of the audio portal listeners will listen, and vote, during your 24 hour period. They'll be voting against any zero/fiving that has happened in the past six days. If a spam track has been upvoted and a good track has been downvoted, then it's going to be hard for those tracks to equalize and be 'fixed' in the course of one day, won't it?

You'd be surprised. You can see with a song like Autotune Flowers how quickly the score drops once it's hit the front page. That song hit #1 of the week this week with a score above 4.40, but within 12 hours the score was close to a 3.0. It's a good example of how quickly the community can show what they think of a song.

Some songs, yes, will have many votes and will be hard to change in that time period. However, most songs that make best of the week currently do so with only 20-40 votes, and such a small number of votes is what allows them to manipulate the score in the first place. Even though it is only 24 hours, with the entire portal voting each song could easily get over 200 votes in the voting period. Regardless of whether the author has 5 hack accounts or 50, there will simply be too many legitimate votes flooding in during that period to allow a crappy song to sustain a high score.

people who zerobomb themselves into recognition are getting paid for it

how much? I've spoken to artists who get large volumes of traffic, and not one of them has made any noticeable sum from their music.

Admittedly it's a small sum of money. However I'd still prefer to prevent them from having it if they didn't deserve it in the first place.

This problem will still be evident during some sort of last minute voting, because people using unscrupulous methods are, in my eyes, more likely to be ready to vote in that critical last day.

That is precisely my point, and the reason for this feature: with the Day of Judgment, zerobombing won't matter.
Imagine it like this: If there are only 30 votes on a song, and a guy comes along and uses hack accounts to give the song 5 zeroes, the score will drop immensely. This is what happens currently. However, if there are 150 votes on a song, and a guy comes along and zerobombs it, the 5 zeroes will have almost no effect, and the score will much more closely resemble what the 150 votes want it to be.

Cheat voting only works because so few people look at each individual song. Once you have hundreds of people looking at a song, zerobombing is nullified, for one or two zeros can no longer have the significant effect that it did.

[Gloudas]

At 7/26/09 08:15 PM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote: A lot of people just 0 bomb because they're mean spirited, and I honestly don't know how this would stop them. Putting songs into the public eye, in my opinion, would do nothing but increase 0 bombing of good songs.

I don't believe for an instant the idea that half of the audio portal consists raving idiots who spend their time zero-bombing for the hell of it. I've never heard anything so idiotic.

Let's consider for a moment that you're right, that most zerobombers just do it for fun, that they're in fact just mean spirited and like spreading misery. Well if that were the case (which it's not), then they would be zerobombing ALL of the 15 songs, lowering ALL of their scores, and thus not make the slightest difference in the end, as the actual difference in scores would not be affected. Problem solved.

[Back-From-Purgatory]

At 7/26/09 08:43 PM, Gloudas wrote:

At 7/26/09 08:15 PM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote: A lot of people just 0 bomb because they're mean spirited, and I honestly don't know how this would stop them. Putting songs into the public eye, in my opinion, would do nothing but increase 0 bombing of good songs.

I don't believe for an instant the idea that half of the audio portal consists raving idiots who spend their time zero-bombing for the hell of it. I've never heard anything so idiotic.

Let's consider for a moment that you're right, that most zerobombers just do it for fun, that they're in fact just mean spirited and like spreading misery. Well if that were the case (which it's not), then they would be zerobombing ALL of the 15 songs, lowering ALL of their scores, and thus not make the slightest difference in the end, as the actual difference in scores would not be affected. Problem solved.

Now now, no need to get all defensive, you asked for critique and I gave you some. And that's the problem... You're suggesting putting the songs up for voting on Newgrounds, not just the audio portal, this is where the majority of the 0 bombers come in. I've no doubt in my mind that the respectful portion of the audio portal outweighs the 0 bombing crowd (Although it's debatable by how much). But Newgrounds as a whole... that's another story.

You not only get 0 bombers, but you'll get the 8 year olds (No offense), that will give something a 0 simply because they don't like the genre the song is in. That is... someone could upload the best Jazz song ever written, and someone would give it a 0 because it's not rap/hip-hop.

See what I'm getting at?

It is my opinion that there is literally NO way around 0 bombing, it's going to happen no matter what system we have in place, if this proposed system somehow lowers the volume of 0 bombing, awesome, but we won't know until we try it. And to do that, you have to work it out and send the idea to Tom/Wade, whoever else works through the sites suggestion box.

All I'm saying is that there are A LOT of loop holes in this idea... some you can fix, some you can't.

If you get it approved and running, kudos to you. But you need to refine the idea a bit before that ever happens.

[JohnnyFrizz]

I actually like this idea, A LOT!

I think it might work, consider it this way, it could be like the semifinals of a contest to decide who goes to the finals. I like the idea of a wider range of submissions (15 in this case) cause it also helps more good artists to get exposure and even if they dont make it to the finals...ehemm..sorry Top 5 they will already be known among the community.

I only have 2 ideas that might help this work better:

1. Place the "Day Of Judgment" list on the front page (main page), that way EVERYONE on the site and also the newcomers (which generally are the most honest) decide on which submissions should be displayed on the AP front page, this will also help because the tracks will not only be seen from the musician point of view, they will also be seen by animators who will search for potentially useful music for their flashes.

Besides, displaying the list to the whole community will definitely stop hackers or spammers, since they can't handle it against the whole website.

2. Make the list definitive! So that even if the deserving submissions on the list get 0boomed by jealous losers, they can still get their Top 5 at the end of the day (this is very unprovable, but we all know it can happen). If any bad submission gets on the 15 list, it will be 0boomed to back hell anyway.

This idea can be far for perfect, but its the best one we've got so far, so don't make a waste of it.

PM Tom Fulp (or whoever is in charge) right away and consider my pointers.

[Gloudas]

At 7/26/09 10:33 PM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote: All I'm saying is that there are A LOT of loop holes in this idea... some you can fix, some you can't.

Ah, I understand where you're coming from a bit more now. And yes, I agree with you. There definitely is a crowd that will always be there to make unhelpful and biased votes, based off things like, as you said, genre and whatnot. And yes, I don't believe that the system I'm proposing will do anything to better the voting habits of these individuals. However, I think that this Judgment system would help to alleviate the problems that occur when people are trying to manipulate scores for personal gain. Such a system will in no way prevent people from going around voting 0's on anything they dislike, but it will make it harder for such voting to result in personal gain.

Unfortunately, the voting habits of many of Newgrounds' visitors will take more than a simple feature to change :P

[Nintechno]

I think this is a great idea, and yes definitley one of the best of its kind. However instead of having the top 15 scoring songs, why not have something where you could click "Nominate this for Judgement Day" or something. That way the 15 songs with the most nominations would go up for voting instead. If you wanted to prevent people from spamming this you could make it so that one could only vote on a song once for nomination...?

[JohnnyFrizz]

At 7/26/09 11:40 PM, Gloudas wrote: Unfortunately, the voting habits of many of Newgrounds' visitors will take more than a simple feature to change :P

Trust me buddy, visitor's votes are the most honest we have around. Besides, 90% of the visitors usually think (and believe) featured music is Awesome! So they will instantly vote 5 or sometimes 4... Evidence of this? 3rd place on this week's Top 5.

[bladerunner627]

This sounds like a fairly intuitive fix in theory but we'll have to see how it works out in practice. I don't think it'll solve the issue but it should at least soften the blow.

I've really only ever used NG as place to get potential feedback and an archive of all my old works, I hope people enjoy what they hear but you never know.

The "Current Score" doesn't mean anything to me other than "the probability of getting a review." If your song is new or is on the first page of the top charts then you'll get reviews, otherwise it's highly unlikely.

To be honest I'd prefer it simply REQUIRE you to leave some sort of feedback if you're voting, at least this way the 0-bomb douche's can at least be identified. I'm sure this has been mentioned several times before though.

[cornandbeans]

At 7/27/09 12:52 AM, Nintechno wrote: I think this is a great idea, and yes definitley one of the best of its kind. However instead of having the top 15 scoring songs, why not have something where you could click "Nominate this for Judgement Day" or something. That way the 15 songs with the most nominations would go up for voting instead. If you wanted to prevent people from spamming this you could make it so that one could only vote on a song once for nomination...?

Perhaps instead, nominations for the top 5. Each user is allowed 5 individual nominations per week, and are freely allowed to edit/remove nominations to their will. Score is irrelevant and saved solely for the charts and top 30. The problem with having the 15 songs for judgment is that they already get the kind of exposure seen in the top 5, and it's still a product of the flawed voting system. By having only nominations, positive feedback is the only feedback, and no one person with a bad attitude will fuck up the chances for a good artist.

Also, I think the number of nominations should not be displayed. The negative competition would decrease and people would be more relaxed during the nomination period. Either that, or the nominees are displayed by user name--that way we'll know sooner if someone is up to something mischievous. This would be a good way to incorporate awards for audio artists similar to the flash portal. I think this would be a significant renovation that would probably see the return of many audio artists, including myself. I'm going to pitch this to Tom as soon as I can...

[loansindi]

At 7/27/09 03:36 AM, cornandbeans wrote:

and no one person with a bad attitude will fuck up the chances for a good artist.

if people abuse the voting system, won't they just as easily abuse a nomination system?

[Nintechno]

At 7/27/09 03:36 AM, cornandbeans wrote: By having only nominations, positive feedback is the only feedback, and no one person with a bad attitude will fuck up the chances for a good artist.

Yeah this is what I was going for in my post, but you worded it alot better than I could have haha.

[Kaizerwolf]

Okay, i have to admit, when i first looked at this topic, i couldn't help but go "Terminator?" in my mind. :P

Anyway, i do like your concept Gloudas. It would add a lot of promotion to the Audio Portal, what with people being able to vote exclusivly for 15 top songs. I agree with some other posts as well though: it would be a really big zero bombing fest for those to insure their own spots, and those who get onto the Top 15 would soar above others in money earning.

This is a great idea, but if it were to be implemented, it would need a lot more thought. :)

[cornandbeans]

At 7/27/09 04:21 AM, loansindi wrote:

At 7/27/09 03:36 AM, cornandbeans wrote:

and no one person with a bad attitude will fuck up the chances for a good artist.

if people abuse the voting system, won't they just as easily abuse a nomination system?

Well, they could only nominate 5 songs per week and I'm still considering if they should be able to nominate their own...

It's a system that cuts down on maximum abuse. There will still be people who have a little bit of unfair advantage, but at least it's not as devastating as before.

[Gloudas]

The nomination idea is actually pretty good. Like you said, it makes it so that only positive feedback matters. However, the flaw I see with it is that it would then make your chances depend largely on the number of listens you have.

Say, cornandbeans, that you submitted a song here and it got 30 listens and of those listeners, got 25 nominations. That would be a fantastic ratio. However, no matter how great your song was, if F777 submitted a song, which usually gets 800 listens in a short period of time, he would easily get more nominations than you, even if his song was subpar. I believe that a nomination system would rely too heavily on the number of listens you got, and it would just make it hard for small-name artists to get enough nominations to stand a chance.

[JohnnyFrizz]

At 7/27/09 02:19 PM, Gloudas wrote: The nomination idea is actually pretty good. Like you said, it makes it so that only positive feedback matters. However, the flaw I see with it is that it would then make your chances depend largely on the number of listens you have.

Say, cornandbeans, that you submitted a song here and it got 30 listens and of those listeners, got 25 nominations. That would be a fantastic ratio. However, no matter how great your song was, if F777 submitted a song, which usually gets 800 listens in a short period of time, he would easily get more nominations than you, even if his song was subpar. I believe that a nomination system would rely too heavily on the number of listens you got, and it would just make it hard for small-name artists to get enough nominations to stand a chance.

You make a good point here, I say, leave the voting system just like it is now, no nominations, cause instead of having ppl spamming on votes, they will kill each other to have ppl nominate them.

Lets keep the system simple shall we? And add this great feature on front page, problem solved! (well not really, but its a progress...)