Stats for MetaMusic March 10, 2010 8:52 PM   Subscribe

Would it be possible to tie in some stats to each song uploaded to MetaMusic? Maybe the number of downloads, or votes for "support" like in the Projects section.

I know that everyone doesn't have the time and/or inclination to post comments on each song, but it might be nice to know if people are actually listening to the tracks we upload. Right now that can be hard to tell.

A simple "# of downloads" would be fine, and maybe an option to vote/"thumbs up" a track.

Maybe this has been discussed before, so I apologize if I'm being redundant.
posted by hiteleven to Feature Requests at 8:52 PM (10 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

ha! I was about to suggest this.

Another thing I noticed: Some MP3s seem to get their ID3 tags nuked somewhere along the line.
posted by dunkadunc at 9:45 PM on March 10, 2010


Seems relevant. I listen to and/or download far more tracks than I get around to commenting on or favoriting, more of out of laziness than anything else. I download something to pop onto my Ipod for later listening, eventually get around to it but never get back to META-Music to comment etc ...
posted by philip-random at 12:04 AM on March 11, 2010


I was under the impression that the song poster can see the number of listens. Is this not true? Or do you just want to have downloads caller out separately?
posted by Plutor at 4:33 AM on March 11, 2010


I was under the impression that the song poster can see the number of listens. Is this not true?

Nope. There used to be play counts, but not anymore. There were technical issues.

Here is a previous thread about play counts from MeFiMu Talk.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 4:44 AM on March 11, 2010


There seems to be a reluctance to creating 'popularity contests' as well as technical issues.
Here is a previous thread about clickthroughs from MetaTalk.
posted by tellurian at 5:30 AM on March 11, 2010


Posted by pb in the thread linked to by Karlos:

A separate mechanism where someone explicitly says, "I listened to this" might take care of the gaming concerns and the fact that you can listen to MeFi tracks through multiple channels where it's not even possible to attempt play tracking. And maybe some sort of explicit system like that would give people some feedback that isn't a comment.

To me this sounds like a good idea. Beyond technical issues, there were concerns that users could game the numbers with a counter...I know some sites manage to get around this somehow, but I wouldn't ask the mods to try and code that up here.

As for the popularity contest issue, I don't think that anybody wants to turn Meta into a place where we're pushing people to "Digg" our posts and all that. But, considering that the Projects page has such a mechanism, I don't see what the problem is.

And the thing is that I make music that's mostly electronic beeping, and I'm new to the Music site, so I don't have the ties there that others do. So my posts would certainly be at the bottom of any list. But, it would be good to know that people we're listening.
posted by hiteleven at 8:14 AM on March 11, 2010


IIRC, votes were added to the Projects site in addition to favorites as a way to say "this should be on the front page." Adding them to Music doesn't really add anything that's not available through favorites.
posted by InfidelZombie at 9:07 AM on March 11, 2010


IIRC, votes were added to the Projects site in addition to favorites as a way to say "this should be on the front page." Adding them to Music doesn't really add anything that's not available through favorites.

Go take a look at the Music site and see how many tracks have favourites. Even music that actually manages to attract comments can go favourite-free. The favourites button just doesn't seem to be popular on the Music site. Maybe people feel their favourites are already too cluttered. I don't know.

The more I think about it, an automated # of downloads/plays seems to be the best way to go, IF it can be coded. If some people want to play with their numbers to make them feel special, that's there problem. I would just like to know how many people are listening to my music. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest.
posted by hiteleven at 9:13 AM on March 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


so I don't have the ties there that others do.

That's okay, most of us just wear t-shirts. Or record our songs nekkid.

I will say it's nice to know you're being listened to, but one person -- just one -- saying "hey, I dig this thing you did" means more to me personally than knowing 50 people listened to it without comment. Still, I guess it's good to know whether your song just went unnoticed or something.
posted by davejay at 10:47 AM on March 11, 2010


I like this idea.

Most of the evolution that has occurred at the MUSIC section has been community driven. There have been some vote taking kinds of things, some popular opinion and usually with cortex spearheading things for us.

While discussions about various changes to MUSIC, here is a recent one , are always great, we've never given great thought to future repercussions.

For example, "most favorited" and "most playlisted" have, in my opinion, not served us very well, and I believe is precisely why we see so few favorites. It's likely that there is some hesitation among some to favorite something that may be charted on the MUSIC front page, when we are all in some way in competition for that.

While the "count per listen" won't fix everything for everybody, it would hopefully bridge the gap a bit for the scads of great contributions that quickly fall off the map because they received no comments or favorites.

In any case, I think that this and the other both deserve further consideration and debate.
posted by snsranch at 4:48 PM on March 11, 2010


« Older Live New Book Club   |   My pony has an iPhone Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments