Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

At 12/5/11 05:31 PM, adsubzero wrote: (...)But how did they get popular? They also had their songs on first page.(...)

This. Totally.
I'm also excited about the redesign and everything but the majority of the popular artists I've seen in this site are really REALLY good and they've earnt popularity by making awesome tunes and not giving a shit about zerobombers :\

I can't say my opinion matters much anymore but if we are going to change things then lets not just focus on the voting system. The voting system is easily decided by the layout of the website.

Why do we have an audio visualizer? I'd much rather see a soundcloud format for streaming audio (but with higher quality). This leaves more room for new voting options and information. If we are going to keep it relatively indie and force downloads on all our songs please make the download picture more obvious. I'm not sure how many people realize the floppy disk is for downloading or how many even know what a floppy disk is.....

That being said, voting can be removed and you can find a new way to allow new comers to make their way in the portal. The amount of audio content submitted daily is too high to do it like the Flash portal and the lack of a reason to vote makes it pointless. If you keep voting give it a purpose to the voter as well as the user who submitted the content. Adding weekly features and rewards gives people incentive to do their best as well as EXP for voters.

Really the audio portal just has too small of a community compared to the flash portal for the votes to even out. 20 votes = alot of votes in the audio portal and a flash that doesn't even pass the under judgement section gets more.

I have other opinions but they are not directly related to voting but in short if songs could be blammed like the flash portal things could get really interesting.

I've been peddling this idea for a while now, which is combining the review system with the voting system. It means audio artists are more likely to get feedback, and it's easier to root out. It also means that in order to get your daily experince deposit, you need to review new things, motivating people to review new stuff as it comes in, instead of it getting a few views when it's submitted and then stagnating forever. There are some flaws, but i think it would help get users motivated to review instead of just voting and not providing any useful criticism.

At 12/5/11 10:17 PM, Xyresic wrote: and it's easier to root out.

*troublemakers, easier to root out troublemakers...

Sorry for the *triple* post, but after reading more into the first page, I agree that having to review every song is time consuming and will probably discourage some from voting at all. I like Toms idea of just keeping it simple, but merely having a "like" button doesn't really cater for opinionated people like me who want everyone to know that I hate the current song with a passion :P

I saw someone mentioned not to make a dislike button. Why not? You could go youtube style and simply have likes and dislikes (Although this would probably work better in the flash portal where people pretty much only vote 0 or 5.)

Or, maybe we could use the Youtube style with likes and dislikes, but add a "neutral" option. It won't add or subtract from your score, but it will offer an option who don't like or dislike it either way. At the end of the week, whichever songs have the largest percentage of likes compared to the dislikes and neutrals will be the best of the week.

Just my two cents

At 12/5/11 10:53 PM, Xyresic wrote: At the end of the week, whichever songs have the largest percentage of likes compared to the dislikes and neutrals will be the best of the week.

The problem with that is it's basically just a wolf in sheep's clothing. Rather than zero-bombing, you'll have people going around 'dislike'-bombing, trying to push their own submission to the top. In the end, the result is the same -- you've just given it a different name.

90% of votes in the AP are either 0 or 5. By making the Top 5 rely on likes vs dislikes, all you've done is removed the options for voting 1, 2, 3, and 4.

At 12/5/11 11:29 PM, RampantMusik wrote:

At 12/5/11 10:53 PM, Xyresic wrote: At the end of the week, whichever songs have the largest percentage of likes compared to the dislikes and neutrals will be the best of the week.

The problem with that is it's basically just a wolf in sheep's clothing. Rather than zero-bombing, you'll have people going around 'dislike'-bombing, trying to push their own submission to the top. In the end, the result is the same -- you've just given it a different name.

90% of votes in the AP are either 0 or 5. By making the Top 5 rely on likes vs dislikes, all you've done is removed the options for voting 1, 2, 3, and 4.

IF you read my post in here about my take on the "like" system,

you could only have a like button (no dislike), "scores" are based on like to FULL listen ratios. Meaning you listen all the way through and then choose to like the song or leave it, you can only listen to one song at a time. Full listens can only be done once (hits can be another stat), liking can only be done once.

Malicious listeners will have to endure a FULL sit through of 1 song at a time, and if they really decide to do it anyways, they can only do it once.

I explained in a bit more orderly fashion last page.

At 12/5/11 11:29 PM, RampantMusik wrote: Rather than zero-bombing, you'll have people going around 'dislike'-bombing, trying to push their own submission to the top.

I agree, but any system that involves voting will have problems with zero-bombers. People are only doing it to get noticed, so either we make it easier for people to get noticed or we remove the voting system all together. As long as people can vote, there will be zero-bombing. Unless you remove weekly tops to stop them from trying to get attention.

Ah yes, the question of the decade... are voted really worth it on the audio portal? Let's look at some factors here:

Pros:
1.) In high traffic, voting can help users accuratley determine what the public thinks of their submission

Cons:
1.) 0 bombers lead to great audio users leaving NG
2.) The top 5 of the week is ridiculously abused with 5 bombing and 0 bombing.
3.) The score tends to detract people away from songs, simply because it has a low score.
4.) Due to the low amount of voting traffic, even one single vote can destroy a score.

Now then... I am sure there are a (couple) more Pros there... but simply put, the system does NOT work the same way that the Flash Portal does because THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH VOTERS. In fact, I have never seen a new audio submission get highlighted as green or blue because there are not enough votes for the system to recognize it as an eligible submission for that highlighted color. In the Flash portal, it can take an hour for a submission to receive 300 votes. In the audio portal it can take a week.

Since there is not enough traffic for voting to be accurate on the audio portal, I would have to agree that voting should be switched over to:

1.) Reviews
2.) Faves
3.) Facebook Like Button! <--

A Facebook like button would be a grand idea to help promote the songs everyone enjoys, along with sending traffic to NG, allowing people to listen to other songs and accidentally click those front page ads so the office gets money ;)

To completely demolish IP vote hacking, I say we decide the top 5 of each week with a simple not-as-easily-abusable-system that revolves around Reviews and Favorites. Abuse of this system can clearly be monitored by mods as well, since alt accounts are very clear and obvious. In order to abuse this system, a user would literally have to create many alt accounts and review his/her submission with all 10s. I say give mods the option to remove it from the top if abuse is clear, allowing the next submission with the best review average to make it in. It isn't to much trouble for mods to look over the reviews of the top 5 each week.

Anyway, those are my two cents on everything.

I think the root of the problem is how many times people can vote. Zero-bombers, so called because they spam zeros on a particular submission every day they can. Maybe if we made the voting system just like the review system, i.e. one vote, that's it. True, this wouldn't stop people from signing up more accounts to spam, but people already do this anyway, so unless we figure out a way to stop THEM than any new system could be undermined. This system has the added benefit of (hopefully) motivating people to vote for more new submissions as they get uploaded.

People who are gonna write paragraphs please read whats been already said in THIS thread, not to mention what has been said countless times on this forum.

At 12/5/11 06:53 PM, RampantMusik wrote:

How do you apply retroactively, and fairly? Songs with no reviews - what score do they get?

I guess a song would have to get reviews to be deemed worthy of being ranked. With an improved way to see good songs or newer submissions I don't see that being a problem. I would think it would provide more incentive to review tracks too. And people who write stupid one sentence reviews giving a zero is not the same as being able to secretly and anonymously zero bomb. They would have to publicly zero bomb and break review rules to do so.

Instead of voting, there should be pictures of cats. So you can look at cats while you listen to music. In fact, we could get more cats in if we got rid of the music, so let's just do that.

Tom, I'm sending you a dropbox invite, cause I have a lot of pictures of cats.

At 12/6/11 12:26 AM, Supersteph54 wrote: the guy whose song got 0-bombed should care less about the 0 and shouldn't get butthurt, since votes won't be used to get exposure but will just be used to output a score.

I'll be perfectly honest with you here. I don't give a shit about the score. But as an artist I find it - and it should be for you all, as well - extremely disheartening to see your score drop, sometimes by 2-3 whole points, in the fifteen seconds it takes some self-righteous, pretentious fuck-up to find and click the big ol' "0" button.

THAT'S the problem I have with the system. Not the scoring system, not how the Top 5 are picked: my problem lies solely with those assholes who simply see the new submissions and the zero button, and say "Challenge Accepted."

As far as I'm concerned, the system actually doesn't work too badly. In fact, I think mods being able to see voting habits, then hand out warnings and bans accordingly would solve the problem -- I think people might think twice if there was the possibility that they'd actually be held accountable for their actions.

At 12/6/11 12:53 AM, jarrydn wrote: Being able to see people's voting habits, and handing out punishments? Not very democratic. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

You're really gonna say that?

Theres an extremely defined line between a spamming zero bomber and a critical voter.

I shouldn't have to listen to a single second of a song to be allowed to like it, let alone have to listen to the whole thing (or write a review, urgh). If there's no "dislikes" and no 0-5 scoring then why should we have to wait?

Arbitrary restrictions are pretty heinous!

At 12/6/11 12:58 AM, midimachine wrote: I shouldn't have to listen to a single second of a song to be allowed to like it, let alone have to listen to the whole thing (or write a review, urgh). If there's no "dislikes" and no 0-5 scoring then why should we have to wait?

I can tell if I like a piece of music in 10 seconds. So can other A&R people - that's all they give you when you submit music to a label.

Whatever way you want to slice it, the Audio Portal simply does not get enough people to give accurate feedback to a vast majority of the users.

At 12/6/11 12:58 AM, midimachine wrote: I shouldn't have to listen to a single second of a song to be allowed to like it, let alone have to listen to the whole thing (or write a review, urgh). If there's no "dislikes" and no 0-5 scoring then why should we have to wait?

Arbitrary restrictions are pretty heinous!

You dont HAVE to do anything lol.

Regarding my ideas, If you enjoy a song you'll listen all the way through.... because its enjoyable obviously.

Wait for what? This post isn't making too much sense to me man.

At 12/6/11 01:00 AM, RampantMusik wrote:
I can tell if I like a piece of music in 10 seconds. So can other A&R people - that's all they give you when you submit music to a label.

Whatever way you want to slice it, the Audio Portal simply does not get enough people to give accurate feedback to a vast majority of the users.

Although you can USUALLY decipher the quality of a song within the first 10 seconds, you're not giving it a fair chance or a full-hearted listen.

Money seeking A&Rs have nothing to do with what music was meant for, or what this portal is for.

Someone was like "you shouldn't be able to like something until you listen the whole way" and I was like "fuck that noise!"

At 12/6/11 01:08 AM, midimachine wrote: Someone was like "you shouldn't be able to like something until you listen the whole way" and I was like "fuck that noise!"

Valid reasoning of course, a compromise of a minute or 1:30 minimum (as i originally said actually). There would be volume levels i presume, something this site doesn't have atm.

would deter malicious voters none-the-less to some degree.

What I'm saying is that if you remove the ability to vote maliciously completely then we don't have x-bombing and legitimately crap music just fades into obscurity.

If people want to attach a score to things then they should leave reviews, since words are more helpful than numbers and the review scores don't actually do anything in the AP charts and rankings.

At 12/5/11 07:21 PM, gavkay21 wrote:
I would like a sound cloud system where users can comment at timed points on a track earning them exp points.

Throw in a like button that defines how high in the monthly charts a song gets, as though the track has a had "sale" the same way itunes and beatport work.

There should be a chart for every genre that changes monthly instead of it all mixing up and not know what your going to get.

Another idea i had was having a whats hot box that bassicly shows new uploads that are getting decent activty. Next to the whats hot box there could be a incoming tracks which display songs that have been just uploaded. So the idea is that you can play incoming and hot tracks from the front page and comment on them.

Put in system that reports spammers that are just commenting for exp.
Also colour code the sound bars to indicate the genre which should be cut down a bit into a smaller : range genres.

Thats my two cents sorry if that post is a little incoherent and unclear pretty tired :-(

Organized - bold is substitute for quote. Great ideas here, take note!

At 12/5/11 09:01 PM, Mrmilkcarton wrote: I'd much rather see a soundcloud format for streaming audio[...].
-more room for new voting options and information.
-please make the download picture more obvious, I'm not sure how many people realize the floppy disk is for downloading

In a weird way the voting system works pretty well, though the weekly 5 and top 30 systems based off the voting I think is where the disconnect is since that's where the system abuse comes in. Ultimately any system will have its drawbacks, though some of the suggested ideas so far should have fewer then the current.

My hope is that future NG deals with audio in a way that appears more legitimizing; Clear download link, clear author info, clear song info, clear comments section. Most of this is had, so things aren't far off.

ITT: artists who rarely review complain about not getting enough reviews.