At 9/15/09 11:26 PM, Zombie-Genocide wrote: My question Is, If Zerovoting is a problem, Then why not just take out the Zero? Vote 1 - 5 instead of 0 - 5? Sure, they can onevote you, (onevote?) But that would not hit so hard.

So then people will be bitching about how they got 1-voted.

The issue isn't that people are just voting zero... it's that they're doing it maliciously.

I don't know... It seems like I'm the only one, but I think the audio portal voting system works really well. Unlike in the flash portal, however, exposure depends largely on the number of votes as opposed to your actual score. The more votes you have, the more resistant you are to zero bombers, and thus the longer you are able hang out on the first few pages.

The current system is good for two reasons:
1. New content can float easily but is cycled quickly
2. Better content that has had more exposure (ie, more views/more votes) will stay on the front few pages for longer
3. Users who aren't the best artists and who are serious about getting feedback are able to push their own submissions up to the front and eventually can gain substantial weight and exposure.
4. This system COUNTS on zero bombers and five rocketers, meaning the jerks who are trying to cheat the system are actually the ones making it work.

We go under the assumption, in this system, that after a week or so a song with 150 votes is better than a song with 23 votes. And as far as I can tell this is an accurate gauge of the quality of a song.

But a lot of people have trouble coping with this. They say "You shouldn't five rocket your own stuff all the time because it's obviously not perfect" and "Zero bombers are just disrespectful and nobody should zero bomb an average or quality piece of work".
I disagree. You should do both of these things. Of course not all the time, but without zero bombers we'd get no content cycling.

Yes, if it were a perfect world and everyone voted fairly then yes, zero bombing isn't good. If we get by the fact that the world isn't perfect and realize that people will bomb and rocket, we can see that this system works out pretty well.

The solution to zero-bombing is simple.

Right now, you have two rating systems for both the flash and audio portals - the two systems being the 5-star system (with the faces) and the 10-star review system. Why do we need two systems?

Scrap the 5-star review system and keep the 10-star review system. In rating, they will also be reviewing and thereby revealing themselves. Their votes are not anonymous, so any bad or unfair rating is more detectable and they are more likely to be punished for engaging in such behavior (i.e. whether by mods temporarily banning them from reviewing, or by other users deciding to give this user bad reviews in return). Thus, they are also more likely to refrain from this behavior.

I'm still not sure what the point of having the 5-star system is when we already have the 10-star system. Someone please explain this to me. "The 5-star system has the faces so it looks cool" you may say. Okay, well if you want to keep the faces then just move them to the review section (have the faces there instead of the stars), and possibly change the review scale from 10 to 5 (there's no need for 10 rankings, honestly).

At 10/7/09 07:48 AM, runpoochrun wrote: The solution to zero-bombing is simple.

Do you have anything new to add to the discussion?

Voting power, etc. would be determined by your vote in the new 5-scale + review system instead of the current 5-scale without review system.

At 10/7/09 07:56 AM, jarrydn wrote:

At 10/7/09 07:48 AM, runpoochrun wrote: The solution to zero-bombing is simple.

Do you have anything new to add to the discussion?

Can you answer my question first? Why do we have two rating systems?

At 10/7/09 07:59 AM, runpoochrun wrote: Can you answer my question first? Why do we have two rating systems?

Probably because calculating average scores out of 5 instead of 10 requires smaller floating point operations?

When you consider that there are probably millions of votes being cast per day, it's always good to have as many free server resources as possible.

Reviews would be out of 10 because it allows you a greater deal of precision when rating someone's work, but won't tax the server because there are way less reviews than votes, and submissions are sorted by average votes, not review scores.

speculation

Voting by the 10 system isn't all that effective anyway.

Because people pretty much just write a review of "AWESOME!!! 5/5 FAV'D! 10/10~~!!!"
Gosh, 6 people find this review helpful!

All it would serve is to inflate songs disproportionately to their actual merit as music.
So essentially nothing would change, as instead being flooded with low-scored songs, you'd be flooded with high-ranked songs.

Sometimes, though, it gets discouraging working off of no exposure. Whereas reviewing other songs is what I do, the favor is not always returned. I know, useless bitching, but I like to vent every now and then. The problem being that, like me, everyone is only obsessed with their own work and asks for feedback, whilst at the same time ignoring everyone else.

Most people who submit songs to the Newgrounds Audio portal, on a regular basis, are much aware of the flaws and problems it has. In short, many users feel the rating they receive on there songs is very unfair. This rating is important to them because they have the chance to receive special privileged such as the entrance into the top 5 weekly songs or the top rated song list. This essentially defines the popularity of the artist.

It has come to my attention that many aspiring artists have actually quit submitting royalty free songs to the portal, some to the extent of removing all of there content. As you can see, it is easy to prove that the audio portal has problems, but rather then emote you too these problems, I have come up with a solution! If you have made up your mind that there is no solution, or if you are happy with the way the audio portal works now, I would advise you to stop reading!

To find a solution to the problem, we first need to understand the source of the problem, which as previously discussed, lies with in the "rating system" and the "Top 5" system. My proposal is to base the choosing of the top 5 against something which is true and does not change. So how do we do this?

How the Top 5 Is chosen

Popularity / Time

Time = Amount of hours since the song was submitted.

Popularity = A sum of the views, downloads and reviews of the song.

* This value will only last until the end of the week.

Popularity:

This is only a test system and may need to be changed
0.1 point per view
0.2 points per download
(0-10)/10 Points for review, x2 if the review is helpful, /2 if the review is not

So lets put this into practice

At the time when the top 5 gets chosen...

Lets say song A gets

100 Views
10 downloads
no reviews

time since submitted - 10 hours

Song B gets

200 views
10 downloads
no reviews

time since submitted - 30 hours

Song A would have precedence over song B for the Top 5 because it has a higher value of popularity / time.

This value would be removed when the top 5 songs are chosen for that week.

The other top songs, which are not related to any timed, or daily activity, would be chosen simply by having the highest popularity. This of course would create a problem where these popular songs would be cemented in, with no chance of the song list changing. This is a small price to pay for fixing the bigger problem of the top 5, but I have also though of several solutions to this minor problem.

The most popular songs, which are say 5 years old or more, could possibly put in a "Hall of fame", which would change around the top songs.

The most popular songs could also be weighed against time, so songs that are older could be reduced down the tract.

The top songs could be reduced a top 10, and the weekly top 5 could be changed to the weekly top 10, this would reduce the effects the problem has.

This system would essentially fix many problems which users face. People would not face angry users, 0 bombing there songs In fact, there is actually no way to make a song have a bad score because it can only be increased. If someone writes an insulting review, it could be flagged and removed.

The final change would be to either remove the rating system or leave it there for a simple indication to people viewing the song, how good the song was rated by other users, whether it be valid or not.I suppose the rating would become more valid because there would be no reason to lower it without legitimate reason.

The rest of the system would remain the same, your download only counts once per day, same with views, and you can only review once.

In conclusion...

Pros:

Would make many people happy, and improve the quality of songs on the top 5 list.

Would also be easy to implement because everything can be calculated from current data.

Cons:

Would cement the top songs.

Would take some time and work to change the portal.

Would be hard to get people to adopt the change, even if they want a change.

I've read many comments here and most of them are about of voting per day removal. I have to agree that once per day voting is crap so I'm for per song voting entirely! I've marked several reviews on my songs as abusive but no actions were noticed then. Though most user are "whining" as the topic starter wrote(am I right?) admins better to listen to users. Admins, if you are tired about this then do what the crowd says - all ng users are smth like newgrounds clients and if client doesn't like the good - they refuse to obtain it. Most sites have a once per "material" voting system whatever it can look like. Topic starter, I hope you can solve this question without numerous bans.

What's the pros and cons of limiting the vote per person to each entry?

For example, every song/loop, each member can only vote 5 different times and thats it.

At 10/13/09 02:37 PM, Android-Music wrote: Admins, if you are tired about this then do what the crowd says - all ng users are smth like newgrounds clients and if client doesn't like the good - they refuse to obtain it.

I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were paying to use Newgrounds?

In fact, considering the ad revenue feature, Newgrounds is paying YOU.

Listen, I didn't say anything about payment(if it's a king of joke, this one is not the best), read the text carefully, guys.
For example you made a site and people complain about one or two details like that and you tell them : f..k off, jerks, I'll ban you immiefdiately! What must be their reaction? They will leave your site and spread bad words about your it.
And: the single and most powerful con is that all is fair, no cheating - self vote raising or other crap.

At 8/28/09 02:30 PM, Supersteph54 wrote:

At 8/28/09 12:06 PM, Chronamut wrote: Loads of stuff

OK, then I'm out of ideas :(.

Not just yet... After a lot of brainstorming, I have come up with my 3rd solution!

As Box-Killa said, the main problem falls heavily on the fact that 0-bombers crave attention: they want Top 5's, Top 30's, etc. And so, they vote low on people's songs so that theirs comes out on top. The solution is simple (lol, that phrase has been said like 50 times in this thread :P): they CAN'T vote until the top 5/30 and the featured artist are announced. Now, the problem of this is that it would then be impossible for the top 5/30 to be determined, so you add a recommendation system. An example will make it easier to explain:
So, say, Song X gets submitted to the AP. Obviously, this will have no score so far, since voting is disabled. Instead, people can 'recommend it' for the top 5. Song X has the most recommendations by the end of the week, so it's top of the week. From then on, the voting system continues normally. Now obviously, the AP needs more exposure for its songs to be recommended, so a simple solution is to fix the links at the bottom of the page. Like, when you press the link at the bottom of the top 30 newest songs, it'll take you to all the songs submitted since the last top 5/30 and featured artist was announced, sorted from most recent at the top to least being at the bottom. When the week passes, this list is refreshed and new songs from that week are posted there. This list can also be sorted by most recommendations.

Pros:
-Those links at the bottom of the page will finally be fixed, making the AP much easier to view songs with.
-I suppose it's easy to implement.
-0-bombers can't harm all the songs submitted before the next top 5/30 and featured artist have been announced.
-Top 5 will become much more accurate.
-Say goodbye to self-voters.
-AP gets more exposure.
-Artists finally get the chance to see how it feels like fairly being put ino the top 5.
-Yay, the AP is fixed!

Cons:
-Didn't think of any yet...

What do you think?

At 10/24/09 02:28 PM, Supersteph54 wrote: Great Idea

You don't have to disable voting before the songs get to the top 5, because if it depends on the recommendations, zerovoting would be pointless, so the score would still be fair.
Otherwise the songs that don't make it to the top 5 would be forgotten and have no score.

At 10/25/09 05:33 AM, Sytze wrote:

At 10/24/09 02:28 PM, Supersteph54 wrote: Great Idea

You don't have to disable voting before the songs get to the top 5, because if it depends on the recommendations, zerovoting would be pointless, so the score would still be fair.
Otherwise the songs that don't make it to the top 5 would be forgotten and have no score.

True, just that in my idea, the top 30 would still be relying on the votes, so the less opportunity the zero-bombers have to kill other artists' votes, the better. After the best songs go to the Top 5, they'll have a good score with loads of votes, which make them harder to 0-bomb, whereas if they get 0-bombed a few hours after they were submitted, the zero's would take down more of the score and they'd have much less of a chance to enter the top 30. That's why once they enter the top 5, the voting system comes to normal, more people will listen to them, more will vote, and the score would be just.

This entire community is screwed up and off in its own little world as far as user/content management is concerned. The audio portal is just one facet of that screwed upness. If you want a real solution, attack the problem at its source, go somewhere else. Tom Fulp seems to be convinced he can run this place differently than any other community of a comparable size in the world.

Threads dedicated to specific topics and kept alive for weeks, months, even years, does not make sense. Posting every single new song in a single list without the slightest hint of differentiation, not even genre, doesn't make sense. Not enforcing any regard or guidelines as to what defines each genre, much less putting them in place, does not make sense. Allowing users to vote on any entry any number of times on any given day, does not make sense.

Essentially, what this place is, is a truth serum for society. We're a bunch of evil kaniving bastards, and this place harbors and displays that perfectly. If you want fairness, go somewhere that's actually managed, rather than one that puts forth a facade of management and lets its users run rampant overtop of one another.

Some of thats wrong...but fuck it. You guys know this shit is fucked up or this thread wouldnt be here. And if anyone with any influence or say in it actually gave a shit, stuff might start changing. But it hasnt. The solution is still to go somewhere else, even if I am wrong about a thing or two.

I mean, think about it...everyone always says the audio portal is here strictly to serve the flash artists, right? But how many really good songs are there on here, even best of all time songs, that deserve to be there, that aren't featured in any flash videos? And how many flash videos, even flash artists, are there in the flash portal that absolutely refuse to use audio portal music? Despite this irreputable fact, you guys are gonna sit there and tell us the audio portal is strictly to serve the flash artists? My ass. The truth is, there are thousands of people that come here, strictly for the audio portal, and twice if not thrice as much just for the flash portal. Whether NG and mr. Fulp want to admit it or not, the two are independent entities. It is irresponsiblility, negligence, and down right fucking laziness that prevents the staff here from giving the audio portal the attention and maintenance it deserves, not some righteous and divine purpose like the fact that its devoted to the flash artists.

NG, like any community of this stature, started out modestly. No one behind the scenes expected it to become what it has. Same goes for the audio portal. But the shit happened. When other communities deny their obligation to their viewers to properly maintain and upkeep the facets of their website, they loose viewers. Mr. Fulp and the NG crew have benefited in this respect from the many series, and re-watchable video content in their flash portal. No doubt, that is and always will be the focal point of the website. But it has become a scapegoat for them to ride out and say the audio portal can be cast aside. You are all...nay, we, are all fools for believing in it and following it and contributing to it for so long. I can't say that if a great majority of the audio artists left this place that it would get any better, I imagine it probably wouldn't. If anything, its condition only proves to me the lack of respect NG has for audio artists. But we would be better off for it devoting our art and our hard work, sweat and tears to some other community that better appreciates us for what we do.

Make no doubt about it, and do not be duped my fellow musicians, this place has neglected you, will not change for the benefit of you, and refuses to recognize your contribution to its visitor flow, and as such has wronged you for it. It's not fair, that we contribute how many dollars in advertisement revenue to this website, and yet they give us nothing...they yield for nothing, saying that we are part of a secondary facet to the primary effect, neither of which seem to completely cooperate with one another. Even in its own mission statement, the website cannot fulfill its dubious purpose. It's a completely arbitrary example of internet community and social environs. You need not suffer it, there are countless alternatives willing to welcome you with open arms and impart unto you a system breeding fairness and proper recognition for talent and influence. This place is made of clicks, who rule it, and trends which fuel it. You need not suffer this horseshit any longer.

why can't some of us just go the the NG office in person? Even if we don't get access to anyone we need to speak with, some physical presence should send a message.

At 10/26/09 02:59 AM, Don-Sanchez wrote: why can't some of us just go the the NG office in person? Even if we don't get access to anyone we need to speak with, some physical presence should send a message.

As if the message isnt already clear to tom fulp, do you honestly think hes in the blue on this? Things just arent that simple when you have thousands of people walking around on your site..

At 10/25/09 07:35 AM, EoD696 wrote: My ass. The truth is, there are thousands of people that come here, strictly for the audio portal, and twice if not thrice as much just for the flash portal.

I like you. You make good posts.

It's almost like EoD is under the assumption that this is the only place on the internet on which people like me (as well as other audio folks) advertise my music. Like I don't upload my music here, and then link other people on other forums (on which it is easier to grab someone's attention) to this place so they can hear what I got. Gotta upload your music somewhere.

I mean, you guys DO go to other forums, right?

Right?

Yeah Pretty much...

I will brag in the other forums

At 10/27/09 10:48 AM, EmperorCharlemagne wrote: It's almost like EoD is under the assumption that this is the only place on the internet on which people like me (as well as other audio folks) advertise my music. Like I don't upload my music here, and then link other people on other forums (on which it is easier to grab someone's attention) to this place so they can hear what I got. Gotta upload your music somewhere.

I mean, you guys DO go to other forums, right?

Right?

I'm not saying everyone comes here and only here, but I know that those people are here, otherwise this thread wouldn't be. Who fights for improvement on an internet community that's screwed up, if they know of better ones to go to? Thats just silly...

At 10/27/09 12:51 PM, EoD696 wrote: I'm not saying everyone comes here and only here, but I know that those people are here, otherwise this thread wouldn't be. Who fights for improvement on an internet community that's screwed up, if they know of better ones to go to? Thats just silly...

I'm just thinking of ways to fix it. True, there are many other websites where our music can be appreciated more, since Newgrounds is all about flash, but I'd rather help solve the problem than run away from it.

I don't like pointing out problems if I don't have solutions. So here's my suggestions for improvement...some of them, if it were I making the calls, I'd scrap the portal, and work an entirely different GUI from the ground up using the same database, and base that GUI off an alternate system that has proven itself in a time tested environment against a comparable user mass, like Soundclick or GarageBand or the Sony Acid site.

First, force flash artists to use audio portal music. Sure, they can utilize whatever music they like, but that music has to be submitted and approved into the audio portal first. This way, you avoid copyright infringements much more thoroughly, and you improve traffic throughout the site and cooperation between the two portals.

Second, the featured artist is much more important than that silly piece of eye candy asshole robot visualization for the top 5...not to mention the fact that your featured artist should be more important than the top 5 most voted on submissions of the week. Switch the two around. And maybe make it so the featured artist is a voted on sort of deal, with a poll in this forum. That's just a personal thing, I believe much stronger in democratically elected recognition than staff forced to bear additional burdens, like finding a good artist to feature that hasn't been recently.

Best of all time...scrap it. Like Mr. Fulp said in his imaged reply to the box man, its a self fulfilling prophecy, no matter how you spin it. Show the top 5-10 submissions for each genre (one iframe, with a dropdown box to select genres), if any submissions are there for longer than a month, remove them from the capability of being on that list.

Do the same deal with the top submissions, for the most recent submissions (iframe list of 5-10 submissions, differentiated by genre, selected by a dropdown box). This way when I'm checking out new stuff, I don't somehow stumble upon a 13 year old american girls idea of what russian polka should be, and people get longer exposure to the viewers that might actually be interested in their style of music.

Publicize contests. Officially organized or not, contests are a huge fuel for the fire in many musicians in this place, and such should be capitalized on, in the front page. Offer awards for these people, and front page exposure. Notice the and, not or. Front page exposure is everything in this place, because when you get down to it the system is FUBAR, the front page is all that anyone could ever hope for as far as exposure is concerned. The rewards could include anything from multiple votes per day, to displaying a pic or banner in place of one of the ads. Its whatever kind of arbitrary, in house benefit can be mustered, but its something that signifies a since of accomplishment and doesn't eat into the websites revenue, because we all know its all about the benjamins.

That's all I got for now. You do those things, it will make life easier for everyone, except the poor sap who gets stuck implementing the changes.

At 10/27/09 01:13 PM, EoD696 wrote: First, force flash artists to use audio portal music. Sure, they can utilize whatever music they like, but that music has to be submitted and approved into the audio portal first. This way, you avoid copyright infringements much more thoroughly, and you improve traffic throughout the site and cooperation between the two portals.

What I don't agree with you in is forcing flash authors to use music from the AP. This could cause many problems like not being able to make music videos, and loads of people ranting throughout the flash forum. It would increase exposure in the AP, but I don't think it's the best way to do it.

IMO, exposure isn't the main problem. What needs removing is zero-bombing (and if you look in the page before this one at the bottom, you'll see my solution to removing zero-bombing). By doing that, the audio portal automatically gains more exposure. Many artists have given up making music due to the fact that their songs have low scores (obviously because of zero-bombers). If there are no zero-bombers, people would gain more self-confidence, submit more songs to the AP without giving up and therefore increasing the amount of artists on the AP.

Another simple way to gain more exposure is to fix those links at the bottom of the page, as I said earlier. They can give a much clearer view of all the songs from recent to oldest, and by doing my idea of refreshing the recent tracks list every week, and by doing my recommendations idea, not only will it remove zero-bombing almost completely, but it will also increase publicity in the AP, and make the Top 5 be more fairly chosen.

I think that by doing the above, zero-bombers and lack of exposure wouldn't be problems anymore, and it can be done without completely redesigning the AP as you suggested.

At 10/27/09 01:57 PM, Supersteph54 wrote: Many artists have given up making music due to the fact that their songs have low scores (obviously because of zero-bombers).

Really? How many? Any examples?

Every time I stumble on someone's userpage and read through their various posts, there will be one (possibly a couple) stating that they're:
a) Giving up music
or
b) Leaving newgrounds for a different website

I haven't come across ONE person who wasn't still submitting music. Sure they might leave for a month, but they'll be back. They'll always be back.

It's like when I try to give up WoW.

At 10/27/09 02:01 PM, jarrydn wrote:

At 10/27/09 01:57 PM, Supersteph54 wrote: Many artists have given up making music due to the fact that their songs have low scores (obviously because of zero-bombers).

Really? How many? Any examples?

Every time I stumble on someone's userpage and read through their various posts, there will be one (possibly a couple) stating that they're:
a) Giving up music
or
b) Leaving newgrounds for a different website

I haven't come across ONE person who wasn't still submitting music. Sure they might leave for a month, but they'll be back. They'll always be back.

It's like when I try to give up WoW.

Don't you see it as obvious? With the flaws the AP has, many people are bound to give up making music. I mean, I almost did after submitting my first song and it getting 0-bombed, since I didn't know how abused the voting system was at the time.

Oh, and enjoy your examples:
Scooter-16
Borntodj167

They may not be much, but I'm just giving you some proof. I know both of these persons in real life, and they both gave up after seeing how far their score drops down a few minutes after they submit a song.

I can mention loads of songs that deserve top 5's, but didn't get them, and if you ask yourself, I'm sure you can too. Entering top 5's and 30's rely a lot on luck, since 0-bombers ruin the scores of every song they see except theirs.

What I'm trying to say is that 0-bombing really sucks and by removing it, the AP would be twice as good.

I submitted the recommendations idea to the Newgrounds Evolution thread, maybe it'll get noticed over there...