Would like to post Music posts (songs) to the front page August 14, 2015 6:44 AM   Subscribe

I would love the ability to post extraordinary metafilter music to the front page in the same way that we can post projects to the front page! What do people think?

Since I'm not particularly active on the music site, I don't know if this is something people who post there would want, and would love input on that from the community :)
posted by internet fraud detective squad, station number 9 to Feature Requests at 6:44 AM (46 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher



It's something that hasn't happened much that I can recall, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I think the obvious comparison is to Projects, which functions in a pretty similar way, though the fuzzy threshold of "is this worth a post on its own" may be easier for folks to cross on a project of a different type or scope (long reads, interactive stuff) than for a single musical recording. But we see posts about one or a handful of non-Mefite recordings sometimes, so hey.

One practical consideration here is that it's not impossible people will as a vocal plurality think that a one-song post is too thin and flag/complain accordingly, and that's sort of a community input thing by definition so if a lot of people feel that way they aren't really wrong and it's something we'd end up having to look at deleting. Which is a little more of a bummer for someone in-house having a post-about-their-thing deleted than probably a normal deletion.

Historically what's been more likely is a Metatalk post for a notable song, but I think some of that is just a reflection of the fact that the songs that got called out in Metatalk were often explicitly Metafilter-related in terms of lyrical content.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:49 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I mean, if Punch 'Em in the Dick didn't get it's own FPP, that's a pretty high bar that has been set.

Seriously. though, this is a great idea. I think at one point there was some talk about a kind of quasi-FPP status for Music songs on the Blue, like it would just be one line with Title and Artist and a little blurb instead of the Title-Post Text-Byline 3-line style and instead of a full-on MetaFilter comments page it would just link to the Music comments page. That might eliminate some of the "SLMeFiMu" complaints.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:02 AM on August 14, 2015


I would vote "no" on this, if only because of the intensely personal and subjective nature of what makes a particular song/album/artist important to some people and not others. I mean, I think we've all known the guy (and we've all been the guy!) who says, "You just HAVE to listen to this song! No, wait, here's the best part coming up... OK... no, you have to listen to the whole thing!"

I like the fact that MeFi Music is its own section.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 8:16 AM on August 14, 2015 [14 favorites]


Yes to this sort of thing. Let a million music filter posts blossom upon the blue.
posted by boo_radley at 8:50 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


One practical consideration here is that it's not impossible people will as a vocal plurality think that a one-song post is too thin and flag/complain accordingly,

There is no way this would ever happen.

We desperately need a sarcasm tag. Or an emoji.
posted by zarq at 8:56 AM on August 14, 2015


Old MetaTalk on this question
posted by Going To Maine at 8:57 AM on August 14, 2015


In all seriousness though, I love this idea and it would be great to have a tool on the subsite to help make front-page posting of MeMu content easier.
posted by zarq at 8:58 AM on August 14, 2015


I'm good with it- I don't get over to Music much, but I find I benefit greatly from having songs other people like pushed in my face every so often, and a front page post would do that pretty nicely.

In keeping with that concept, here's a fan fronting for the Foo Fighters, covering Tom Sawyer. Sorta awesome, really.
posted by Mooski at 9:01 AM on August 14, 2015


Seconding overeducated_alligator, you're going to receive a lot of enthusiastic "yes!" responses but I don't see it as a good fit at all; let those who groove to music stuff find it in the MefiMusic section, with an occasional shout-out on MetaTalk for exceptional songs and/or songs that fit into site culture (punch in dick seems a fan favorite). There's also pointers to great songs on the Mefi podcast which is how I found them.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:10 AM on August 14, 2015 [4 favorites]


Correction: "Punch 'Em in the Dick"
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:11 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


I agree with overeducated_alligator and joseph conrad is fully awesome (I just wish I had as great a username as theirs); this is one of those ideas that looks good until you think about how it would work out. People will say "This sucks, why did you post it?" and feelings will be hurt. Let Music be Music.
posted by languagehat at 9:17 AM on August 14, 2015 [12 favorites]


i think a post that is either a bunch of someone's music or a few different songs by different people that are related by some thread would be really cool. it seems like hurt feelings are just as much of a danger with projects posts. mefites could just not be jerks and if they are jerks, especially about another mefite, their comments could be deleted.
posted by nadawi at 10:00 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


It seems pretty rare in general for a FPP to be based around a song, much less a Mefite's song.
posted by smackfu at 10:35 AM on August 14, 2015


posts are made about single music videos all the time and they're made about a grouping of an artist's works. it seems like if people take the same care towards crafting a post showing something they found interesting over at mefi music then it would be a good post.

and again, if people are getting extra shitty at members here, i'd think our awesome moderation would take care of that.
posted by nadawi at 10:50 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Of course we don't see deleted comments, though--what do you think, cortex (or other mod)? Do you often have to delete comments from project posts, or find that people express hurt feelings to you behind the scenes?

Nothing that jumps out at me, in terms of recurring grary comments over on Projects.

But to be clear, I'd draw a distinction between Projects posts on Projects, where comments are pretty low-traffic in general and people commenting there usually showed up specifically thinking like "I wonder what cool stuff mefites have been making", and Projects posts that have been brought over to the front page, where the audience is less self-selecting and may be less supportive in general. Certainly I've seen (and once or twice had) a Projects post get posted to the blue and then seen a fairly critical discussion develop, with the author mefite varingly receptive to criticism.

And how I think about Projects sort of plays to that: Projects is a place for folks to post stuff they've made, and a place people regularly find post material, but not every Project is post material and not every post of a Project turns out to be a well-received post. I think a lot of that comes down to poster judgement—usually when I've seen a Project-posted-to-the-blue go sideways, it's something where I'm kind of like "why did they think it was a good idea to put that on the blue in the first place?"—but there's also just the whammy of differing audiences.

So, Music and Project aren't perfect analogues, but there's some similarity there in I guess distinguishing between "I like this" and "this will make a well-received post". The occasional amazeballs song might do well on the blue by itself; a post that collected some work together so it doesn't just live or die on people collectively agreeing that a specific single song is great might be more likely to do well. But there's some judgement and whammy factor in there.

Another big difference between Projects and Music is that with a lot of Projects material, the thing being linked is more complicated to consume than a recording—often it's a site, or a piece of writing, or a collection of videos, or so on. Which is to say: it's something that's harder to (a) immediately consume and be done with and (b) have the kind of quick instinctive reaction people have to e.g. a random song they hear. We're as musical consumers generally pretty comfortable with listening to a song and quickly developing an opinion—always subjective and often pretty critical—and whether or not that will make for a good conversation on the blue, or a conversation the mefite musician will particularly want to see and be part of, may as a result be a spottier deal than with your average Projects post.

So, complicated. I still think "I think this is great and would make a good post" is an okay reason to turn a song or set of songs on Music into a post on the blue, but it definitely is something that bears sort of head-checking yourself about so you don't set both yourself and the musician(s) in question up for a foreseeable bummer outcome.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:09 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


it seems to me with projects or music it's maybe best to just check in with the creator before a post goes live to say "hey, do you want this to see a wider audience?"
posted by nadawi at 11:20 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


Not that I visit there often, but my impression of the purpose of Projects was for people to get feedback on stuff they're working on, and then maybe once it's got the kinks worked out, it might be something that's ripe for a FPP. Maybe things don't play out that way, but that seems a bit different than taking a song directly from Music and posting it, without any revision, to the front page.

On the other hand, in both cases, the main barrier to posting is the posting member's opinion of it, and reposts from Projects don't seem to be going badly, so there may be a lot of worrying over nothing.
posted by LionIndex at 11:44 AM on August 14, 2015


it seems to me with projects or music it's maybe best to just check in with the creator before a post goes live to say "hey, do you want this to see a wider audience?"

I usually ask. and the answer has been "no" more often than not.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have the "Post this to Mefi" button be off by default, so that the OP could turn it on either during FPP creation or when/if their project is ready for a wider audience.
posted by zarq at 11:55 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just to clarify; self-linking is still a no-no, right?
posted by DanSachs at 12:50 PM on August 14, 2015


One major difference between Projects and Music is that a Project post has something external it's linking to (the, um... project) where the Music post is hosted locally. Promoting a Project to the front page involves an external link, where promoting a Music post would just link to the Music page, right? That seems a little odd to me.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:02 PM on August 14, 2015 [3 favorites]


Maybe the sidebar would be a good place to highlight the occasional MeMusic contribution.
posted by klarck at 6:15 PM on August 14, 2015


I too vote may with the overeducated_alligator block.
posted by terrapin at 7:04 PM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]


One major difference between Projects and Music is that a Project post has something external it's linking to (the, um... project) where the Music post is hosted locally. Promoting a Project to the front page involves an external link, where promoting a Music post would just link to the Music page, right? That seems a little odd to me.

Yeah.

I mean, nothing against the Music people or anything, but if I were interested in that part of the site, I'd be there already. The people who are, are. Maybe. If they know about it.

So, I dunno. Flag as fantastic and hope for a sidebar, maybe? Or, alternatively:

Permanent Music presence on the sidebar? (I'm thinking just a "most recent" RSS-based kinda thing.)
posted by Sys Rq at 10:16 PM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


The idea doesn't interest me at all. I mean, we already have a music section, so I don't get the point of also posting the music to the Blue.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:48 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


The way I think about it is that a song in and of itself (not a video, not a story about a song) is rarely a good FPP. I mean we've seen it happen but it's totally the exception and not the rule. So while Projects are a bunch of different sorts of things, MeMu stuff is songs and songs are rarely good FPPs so making a mechanism to help people make song-FPPs doesn't seem like the best way to move forward if the goal is better exposure for MeMu stuff. However I bet there are other great ways to do that and it might be worth thinking about some of them.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:41 AM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


What jessamyn said.
posted by languagehat at 6:59 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


OH GOD ARGH NO, the entire reason I come to MeFi is to procrastinate and avoid working on music that needs to get done urgently, which is just about every day!

Anyway, as the (uh... checking....) 12th most favorited MeMu contributor! MeMu is my happy internet wacky B-side grotto where only a few people know or care what I do (unlike Twitter with video game fans) and I only upload one out of every 350 songs I write, the very, very stupidest ones, and usually only when I'm high, like right now.

Man I should upload something.

So anyway, I don't mind there being sort of a separation or lack of linkage between these subsites; I appreciate the low-key dimmed-lights lounge atmosphere at MeMu, like, pretty much they stick a tiki drink in your hand as soon as you walk in, it's real plush, the band is great.
posted by jake at 8:34 AM on August 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


Update: I totally did it, HAHAHAHA
I'm gonna go to sleep now, though.
posted by jake at 9:00 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


No no no no. The main thing that keeps me sharing songs on MeMu (albeit less frequently than I used to) is that the general attitude is kind, helpful, and supportive. Otherwise I would probably just throw music into a soundcloud account and never reveal it to anyone. Songwriting is personal and intimate, and I think it should stay in an intimate place like MeMu.

The only exception I'd make is maybe for some of the collaborative cover albums and challenges. I think those would be fine shared with the blue. But, yeah, for the most part: no no no no.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 9:02 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I vote against this pony.

This is the greatest song ever posted to MeMu. I can't understand how anyone can not love that recording, but someone will read this comment, click through to listen to it and hate it. If I posted it to MeFi, lots of people would hate it. Some percentage of them would feel compelled to complain about how bad it is. MeMu is a safe place where trashing someone's work isn't tolerated. There's a social expectation to either say something nice or not say anything at all that isn't present in MeFi.

There's nothing stopping someone from making a post about what they find in MeMu, I just think automating the process is going to lead to hurt feelings when the comments for a quirky song change from "Oh, wow! Zydeco with tubas! Awesome!" to "What is this garbage with all of the tubas? This sucks!"
posted by double block and bleed at 9:13 AM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


I'm sorry, but this song always has a special place in my heart and I consider it to be a work of genius: I Am Truly Fully Licensed Hairstylist by Beardman.

So. Many. Questions. Is she really saying "AJ Whalen"? Where did she get the hairstyling accredition from? Was it difficult? And how is the career in hairstyling going?

Incredibly funny and infections and I would like AJ Whalen to come to a Mefi Meetup.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:28 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I think notable songs would more appropriately go in the best-of/sidebar than on the blue. Unless there's a backstory or it was part of a theme post, or there was somehow more to say about it than I would read browsing the subsite itself.

Sorry, I love me some MeFiMu, but "A song a mefite did that I happen to like" is not much "Filter" when the subsite is right there.
posted by ctmf at 2:07 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Just the prospect of having a song I wrote appear as an FPP on the Blue gives me hives, sorry. Sidebarring heavily faved or flagged-as-fantastic songs seems okay, though.
posted by en forme de poire at 3:43 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Regular sidebar for music contributions seems to be a decent compromise.

*readies triangle*
posted by arcticseal at 5:00 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


> I would like AJ Whalen to come to a Mefi Meetup.

She's been delayed.
posted by ardgedee at 3:35 PM on August 16, 2015


but seriously once, sooner or later in the far-flung future when an oral history of Club Penguin is published somewhere on the Internet, the Metafilter FPP has got to include links to those songs otherwise it is wrong.
posted by ardgedee at 3:37 PM on August 16, 2015


I'm surprised and kind of sad at how hard this got shot down. I thought it was a cool idea and have thought about doing it myself a few times (you guys NOPEing this, have you heard the quality of some of the unknown, unsigned stuff that gets posted over there?!).

But I would say that cause I'm a happy little regular in that neck of the woods, and also I totally get that not everyone would be comfortable being FPP-ed.

Maybe it doesn't need a mechanism - maybe it just needs someone to drop the OP a line saying, hi mind if I post your song? And then do it. I've posted an FPP about a single song before, it totally worked.
posted by greenish at 6:16 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


From the MeFi Infodumpster: Which posts in Music have the most favorites?

Number of Favorites:
* 445 for mediocre's Punch 'Em In The Dick (NSFW lyrics)
* 252 for mrzarquon's Runnin' With The Songsmith
* 240 for cortex' Ballad of Steven Slater
* 236 for cortex' Mathowie's Community Blog
* 235 for chococat's Olivia
* 181 for frenetic's Making Me Nervous
* 174 for chrismear's Thou Shalt Always Filter
* 163 for cortex' 88 Lines About 44 Mefites
* 126 for edgeways' You Spin Me Round
* 121 for cortex' matthewchen is spamming
* 118 for flapjax at midnite's I'm Waiting for the Man
posted by zarq at 7:13 AM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you want to do something nice for a song on Music, leave a comment on it.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:32 AM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


What about Monthly music round-ups on MetaTalk? Less formal than the front page, it's about MetaFilter stuff. Once a month, someone could kick off "here are the songs I like," picking a song or two from the month, and then others could chime in, and we could also discuss past songs. Alternatively/additionally, there could be a (follow-up) MeFiMu monthly selections podcast.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:46 AM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


A slight spin on the Music of the Month MeTa post idea - to encourage people to dig in the MeMu archives, you could only post songs from that month, but from any year back to MeMu's start in 2003.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:52 AM on August 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh I love that idea! MeMu - Now and Then.
posted by billiebee at 11:54 AM on August 17, 2015


While I would be over the moon to have a song of mine posted to the front page it seems like that would quickly turn into a promotional tool - which we see on the music sub, that is, people who only post music and don't otherwise contribute - and then subsequently get shut down.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:21 AM on August 19, 2015


cortex reminded me that there used to be music podcasts, but there were only 5, all in 2009:
1M: Corduroy Is My Guinea Pig
2M: That Postcolonial Baloney
3M: Bleeding Hands Don't Lie
4M: A Socially Acceptable Christmas
5M: Stick This In Your Sleigh And Ride It

(There was also a one-off comics digest podcast, back in 2011)
posted by filthy light thief at 1:53 PM on August 19, 2015


Sidebarring songs has come up several times over the years. Here is a thread from 2010 in which cortex, Matt, and Jessamyn all weigh in -- but as far as I can remember it's never actually happened apart from the big collaborative stuff.

Busy mods listening to all the songs and choosing which ones get sidebarred is probably not going to happen, especially given their lack of response to the suggestion here.

Something mod-approved but not mod-driven, like filthy light thief's ideas, is probably the way to go.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 2:49 PM on August 19, 2015


Yeah, I'd be happy to support that. (And would like to make sidebarring more of a thing too, but, yeah, I don't want to overcommit to a Yet Another Thing and just set it up for failure. We'll see, there.)
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:59 PM on August 19, 2015


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