Pony This Song to MeFi

March 7, 2015 10:29 AM

We have a one-stop button for posting MeFi Projects to Metafilter. Could we also get a one-stop button for posting MeFi Music to Metafilter?
posted by Going To Maine to Feature Requests at 10:29 AM (24 comments total)

That's an interesting idea, yeah. We've talked before about ideas related to helping Music be a little more visible on the site, and this could be a nice way to approach that, though I think we'd need to think a bit about whether anything wants/needs tweaking with Music post/thread layout stuff, etc.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:33 AM on March 7, 2015

I've wondered about this before too. But I also wondered if "here is a song by this person" is enough for a thread on the blue? Or maybe you were thinking about adding more links, like more examples from the person you're posting about? In my own tiny mind I thought more about posting to the grey, like "here is something done by Mefi's own..."

I also thought maybe there should be a monthly mefi music thread on metatalk (MMMM!) but maybe I will stop kidnapping this pony now sorry
posted by billiebee at 10:45 AM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yes, I realize there are some issues and complications with this - I'm not too certain whether a one-song post is notable enough on its own. Still, it might be something that other, more music-inclined folks would hit more often. Sometimes you just want to post a great jam.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:01 AM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

A perhaps incorrectly placed question; what is Music-Talk... Could/Should/Ought/Aught-not someone make a post there about like a genre or a band or CoolMusicTopic? Or am I misunderstanding everything, and what is meant is posting a single song to MF?

Like could I [one] post about the most frequent chords used following a C or Eminor (or maybe about a whole link set about analyzing various musics [or this actually fragments MeFi Prime, which is not the best idea, so I probably answered myself, and even though there is a music sub-section, music "posts" should go to MF])?

This result is striking. If you write a song in C with an E minor in it, you should probably think very hard if you want to put a chord that is anything other than an A minor chord or an F major chord. For the songs in the database, 93% of the time one of these two chords came next.

Part One: I analyzed the chords of 1300 popular songs for patterns. This is what I found.
Part 2:
Really cool Part Three
I'd need to research 'hook theory'/folks involved before posting anywhere, I was just searching for a random topic that I pretended might have been real in popular music; such as what the "rise of the major seventh chord meant", and that popped up, with some discussion in the comments and it all [data/music mashed-up] seemed nifty.

Or is it much more purely Music Talk, like 'talk around the posting of peoples own music/organizing MFMusic Challenges as occurs in Music', rather than postings on the topics of multifarious 'musics', which all fit well within the current SOP of the Blue, where "posts" on topics/subjects go to MF.
posted by infinite intimation at 11:37 AM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sort of piggyponybacking on the comment above, and related to the OP's question, could there be a button to post to MeFi Music from other parts of the site as well as the other way around? So if someone posted a music-related FPP could it be re-posted to MusicTalk as well as Music posts being posted to the front page? In particular, I see AskMes about making music or buying instruments etc and I always think the best people to answer them might be MeFi Musos, but I don't know how many people from one subsite read the others. So if we saw an AskMe that would seem to be a good one to repost on MusicTalk is it possible to do that?
posted by billiebee at 12:13 PM on March 7, 2015

Music Talk is fine for basically anything musical, if you think people'd be interested, though the impetus for it is to provide a space in particular for stuff that doesn't necessarily fit on other parts of the site. So chatter about writing or arranging or mixing, or collaborative proposals, or niche bits of music stuff that wouldn't really work on the front page for e.g. lack of a substantial link, is the core stuff there.

But, yeah, plenty of things that'd be fine on the blue or the green are okay over there too—certainly, cross-posting something awesome from Mefi, or an interesting musical question from Ask, is fine now and then if you feel like folks on Music Talk would be specifically interested.

could there be a button to post to MeFi Music from other parts of the site as well

I don't think there's really anything like an established need for that; manually resposting, or posting about/linking to, something from elsewhere on the site should be a pretty quick thing to do and we don't see the kind of traffic of posts on that part of the site that'd really argue for a need to automate it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:24 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Projects is for stuff we do elsewhere on the web. Music is not. "Here is a thing on MetaFilter" is not what the Blue is for.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:38 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

A perhaps incorrectly placed question; what is Music-Talk... Could/Should/Ought/Aught-not someone make a post there about like a genre or a band or CoolMusicTopic?

I think of MeFiMu Talk as being to MeFiMu as MetaTalk is to MetaFilter as a whole. I'd post something to MeFiMu Talk if it was specifically about MeFi Music, like "Here's an idea for a future challenge," or if I was looking for a collaboration -- "I need some handclaps, does anyone here want to chip in?"

If I had a FPP-type post like "Check out this awesome new video by a band you will deride posthaste" or question like "Please recommend a good MIDI controller" I probably wouldn't bother with MeFiMu Talk, especially with the former; it's so low traffic that it really isn't worth it.

I do think that posting a single song to the blue is weird. On the other hand, I think challenges and individual songs could stand to be sidebarred more often, and challenges (and results thereof) regularly announced (and feted) in Meta. I also miss the MeFiMu podcast and I wish one of the people who expressed interest in taking it over had been encouraged to do so.

Since SLYTs of music videos are allowed, I assume that if a MeFiMu post has an accompanying music video, that Sys Rq would not have an issue with the linking of the video as an FPP.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:55 PM on March 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

TIL: There is a sub-sub site called Music Talk.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:00 PM on March 7, 2015

There also seems to be a sub-site devoted to questions and answers.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:02 PM on March 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

If this means I'll eventually get my music posted on the blue, then FUCK YEAH I AM ALL IN!
That said, I would flag said post as "WHY WOULD YOU EVEN"
posted by not_on_display at 9:34 PM on March 7, 2015

It's happened before.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:07 AM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I agree that one song might not, in most cases, be worthy of a MeFi post, but what if you could post a song to the front page in a way that was less than a full post? I'm envisioning two lines, just the name of the song and the artist on one line, then "posted by..." On the second. It would be differentiated from regular posts by not having a title, and with perhaps a different background color, or maybe a music note icon in the left margin. If you click on the post, it just takes you to the Music page for the song, rather than having a regular comment page on the Blue. I think it would be a cool way to both drive some attention to Music and also create a little more visual interest on the front page.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:58 AM on March 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

That's a great idea, Rock Steady. (I am imagining pb twitching in his sleep and muttering "Hey, Siri" followed by the lines of code needed to implement this. A pause, then: "MAKE SHIP ITERATE" and the changes are posted to the dev queue. With a satisfied sigh, he returns to REM sleep.)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:28 AM on March 8, 2015

I'm just an idea man, Johnny Wallflower. I leave implementation as an exercise for the reader.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:47 AM on March 8, 2015

Rather than a one stop button, surely MeFiMusic should have a "one..two..three..FOUR!" button.
posted by arcticseal at 2:13 PM on March 8, 2015

The "All Activity" sidebar on the Blue is obvious enough that even I catch posts highlighted there; what about a "song of the day" type slot somewhere in there? Could just rotate submissions on a daily basis (automatedly, obviously. Or maybe not! Whichever would be less work).
posted by cotton dress sock at 9:06 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Here is a song that's on music.metafilter" sounds like a very thin post. Once in a while, someone will write a mefi-related song that gets a lot of attention because it's an in-house sort of thing (Hey Google, My Town's In The Lake) but stuff like that could be sidebarred.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:07 PM on March 8, 2015

"Here is a song that's on music.metafilter" sounds like a very thin post.

True, but I also don't think that people will go hog-wild with posting a bunch of junk. I guess I trust mefites to hold back a bit and only post when they think they've found a gem. We've had the post button in projects and I don't think that we've seen the site get inundated in project posts. (If there was ever a time before projects had the button, comparing the pre- and post- numbers might be a way to get a smidge of a feel about the impact of such a change.)
posted by Going To Maine at 9:27 PM on March 8, 2015

Well, what about a "Metafilter Radio" play-button doohickey tucked in a corner of the front page of the blue that will play random (or sequential or recent) mefi tunes if you wanna clickit? Like a mini non-intrusive version of the one that already appears in the front page of the Music subsite.

Also, yeah, Punch'em in the Dick is the pinnacle of songdom.
posted by not_on_display at 11:29 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

But I also wondered if "here is a song by this person" is enough for a thread on the blue?

Well, there are frequent posts of SLYT videos of songs, not all of which are notable for their video content. For example.

I reiterate my approval of Rock Steady's idea for a minimal FPP footprint for MeFiMu songs.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:04 AM on March 9, 2015

> True, but I also don't think that people will go hog-wild with posting a bunch of junk. I guess I trust mefites to hold back a bit and only post when they think they've found a gem.

So if it's going to be infrequent and just for special gems, why the need for a one-stop button? What's wrong with making people create a post as they would for any other neat thing? I too feel strongly that a single song makes for a very weak post and much prefer not_on_display's idea of a "Metafilter Radio" play-button.
posted by languagehat at 7:05 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, this site would get more out of The Toast creating a post to metafilter button.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:39 AM on March 9, 2015

So if it's going to be infrequent and just for special gems, why the need for a one-stop button? What's wrong with making people create a post as they would for any other neat thing?

My (incorrect?) assumption is that most people just don't think about posting from music to Metafilter, and that there are some really good songs being lost in the shuffle. The one-stop button lowers the barrier by reminding folks listening to a great jam that it's okay to post it. It's a nudge that would hopefully take things from near zero to several a month. (In contrast, I don't think MeFi needs a "Post from The Toast" button because people already feel completely fine with that. No nudge needed.)

I too feel strongly that a single song makes for a very weak post and much prefer not_on_display's idea of a "Metafilter Radio" play-button.

I wouldn't mind some kind of Metafilter radio instead/either; I mostly just wanted to make it easier for music content to be surfaced by users other than Cortex (who does so via the podcast outros).
posted by Going To Maine at 10:06 AM on March 9, 2015