librelist archives

Re: [fretwar] Round 6, Interviews, Fret War TNG

From:

Hank Marquardt

Date:

2009-12-14 @ 21:00

Guilty as charged I guess ... I somehow missed the topic transition.

With respect to sign up, I didn't find it confusing and reply to or
click to from a confirmation email seems pretty normal/standard.

Once successful, a user never does it again, so I'd say do whatever
makes your life easiest with respect to processing the signup and it's
associated service inquiries.

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 01:12:42PM -0700, Chad Woolley wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Hank Marquardt <hmarquardt@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Yep, got that in the works. That and opt-in by default on sign-up, and
>> >> also really reducing the number of steps to sign up.  I figure if
>> >> programmers can't figure out how to click a damn link in their email
>> >> then nobody will.
>> >>
>> >
>> > It's not so much that programmers can't figure it out, it's user
>> > experience, I live in my email client but don't always have time to
>> > casually search off links, so while I could figure out how to click
>> > the link, it'd be nicer to have the message text in the email ... and
>> > remember, this is the geek group -- the target user for whom fb or
>> > other social site might be the extent of their geekness ... they'll
>> > expect this.   IMO
>>
>>
>> Yes.  I can click a link, the point is I may not want to click it
>> RIGHT NOW, and log in to the site to read the comment (which will
>> require me to type my password since you still don't have 'remember
>> me').
>>
>> It's about usability and user experience.  Facebook gets it right -
>> you should include the text in the email.  The only reason not to do
>> this is because you want to drive more page views, which is not a good
>> reason, because it isn't necessarily true (or if it is, not worth the
>> degraded user experience).
>
> It seems like you both have a larger problem of not actually reading
> emails.  Let me help:
>
> "That and opt-in by default on sign-up, ___and also really reducing the
> number of steps to sign up___.  I figure if programmers can't figure out
> how to click a damn link in their email then nobody will."
>
> Emphasis added to point out what I was really talking about.  Let's
> rephrase this clearly:
>
> 1) Yes, you are both correct.  Quoted text and facebook style spamm FTW.
> User Experience.  Yes.  I agree, you guys are right.  Bang on.  Awesome.
> I agree.  You are right.
> 2) For ********signup******* this is different.  It by default has to be
> a little more difficult or else the site gets flooded by anonymous
> griefers, spammers, and other turds.  What *I* want to do is relax this
> a little bit because...
> 3) As demonstrated above, nobody actually reads their emails, so having
> a reply-to-join plus a click-here-to-confirm is too hard.
>
> So, we were talking at cross purposes about two totally different
> things.  Hopefully that resets the conversation and you guys have
> suggestions for the sign-up process.
>
> --
> Zed A. Shaw
> http://zedshaw.com/
>

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 03:00:12PM -0600, Hank Marquardt wrote:
> Guilty as charged I guess ... I somehow missed the topic transition.
> 
> With respect to sign up, I didn't find it confusing and reply to or
> click to from a confirmation email seems pretty normal/standard.
> 
> Once successful, a user never does it again, so I'd say do whatever
> makes your life easiest with respect to processing the signup and it's
> associated service inquiries.

Hehe, yeah that was pretty funny.

True, but based on the database I'm finding two things with "balks"
(people who don't complete the signup):

1) People with strange google hosted email that makes it so they can't
receive replies, so they just never confirm via email.
2) People who confirm in the reply, but don't actually click the final
confirm link.  Instead they just go straight to the site.

I'm currently trying to figure out the technical problem with the google
hosted email.  I think it's a specific weird DNS trick google is doing,
or some special headers they use.

For #2, I'm thinking of how I can catch them going "out of process" and
herd them in the right direction, or just get rid of the final
"click-to-confirm" and consider them confirmed on any first login.

Thoughts?

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

> Hehe, yeah that was pretty funny.
>
> True, but based on the database I'm finding two things with "balks"
> (people who don't complete the signup):
>
> 1) People with strange google hosted email that makes it so they can't
> receive replies, so they just never confirm via email.

Hmm.   Don't know about this one, but everything worked fine on a
straight up gmail account.

I do have and use a couple domains that use google apps for email, so
I can signup under a dummy account and help test when you need that.

> 2) People who confirm in the reply, but don't actually click the final
> confirm link.  Instead they just go straight to the site.

Does the click through really give value to the process?  If someone
is going to write a bot to sign up  email addresses I'd guess they'd
be proficient enough to both reply to the email and parse the final
one to curl the link?   Or maybe I'm giving the spammers too much
credit.

> For #2, I'm thinking of how I can catch them going "out of process" and
> herd them in the right direction, or just get rid of the final
> "click-to-confirm" and consider them confirmed on any first login.
>
> Thoughts?

I'm guessing you know how to do this, so I must be missing the
question?   User has a status flag, no?   Changes from 'N'ew to
'E'mail Confirmed when they reply ... then to 'A'ctive when they click
the link in the 2nd confirm email ... so if you get a login where
user.status == 'E', bounce them to a "Yo, Dumbass ... " page to repeat
the final step or resend the email.  Again though, if the final click
isn't really adding value, I'd eliminate it.

I've been lurking in the background while reading everybody's emails, I
think you guys bring up some great points. 

I haven't had problems with a couple of gmail accounts and google-hosted
accounts when I tested. So I think it really comes down to people *not*
reading the instructions in our confirmation emails, thinking that just
a reply confirms their accounts. In that case, eliminating that last
confirm click might actually be a good idea.

Also, as we have a horde of 14-year olds coming in, I expect all the
things you guys mentioned, including spam etc. What I'd be more worried
about though, is gaming the rating system. I expect some of these users
to find their niche groups, and then create more accounts to mass-rate
other players' submissions. While rivalry is great to an extent, I
wouldn't allow such behavior. That's probably more important than
comments like "lol, yr mom", in my opinion.

What do you guys think?

> Also, as we have a horde of 14-year olds coming in, I expect all the
> things you guys mentioned, including spam etc. What I'd be more worried
> about though, is gaming the rating system. I expect some of these users
> to find their niche groups, and then create more accounts to mass-rate
> other players' submissions. While rivalry is great to an extent, I
> wouldn't allow such behavior. That's probably more important than
> comments like "lol, yr mom", in my opinion.
>
> What do you guys think?

Sock puppets are the bane of most sites, I think the filters will have
to adapt over time, but yes a horde of puppets will suck the fun out
of the site for the guys without that ability.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Hank Marquardt <hmarquardt@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sock puppets are the bane of most sites, I think the filters will have
> to adapt over time, but yes a horde of puppets will suck the fun out
> of the site for the guys without that ability.

Yeah.  Only allowing submitters to rate would help that, but as Zed
said it's about fans too.

So, Zed needs to incorporate his cool hate-based social engineering
from librelist into the comments and rating system, so that sock
puppets can get slammed down :)

Other ideas:

* You must listen to the entire song before rating
* You must also rate a certain number/percentage of other entries
before your rating counts (or fully counts).

-- Chad

Fretwar illuminati,

I have an idea that will both allow multiple submissions, prevent gaming,
and also remove the need for a 'first submission' bonus. Simply divide the
round into separate submission and voting stages. Announce the round, and
allow submissions and listening (but no voting) for several days - long
enough to give players plenty of time to put a submission together, but not
too long as to drag the round out too far. Then, close off submissions and
allow a day or so for voting.

This plan completely removes any benefit or penalty for being an early or
late submitter, as all submissions would be given equal voting time. Also,
there would be no incentive to game the submission process by entering
duplicate submissions.

I think the only real disadvantage is that the rounds might need to be a
little longer in order to allow sufficient creative time for players to put
a submission together. One possible way to save time would be to open the
next round during the voting phase of the previous round. It might take a
few rounds to find an ideal number of days for submissions and voting, but I
think a good balance could be found with enough fine tuning.

Obviously this would require a bit of work on the back end, but I don't
expect it would be anything too difficult.

Thoughts?

Chris

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Hank Marquardt <hmarquardt@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Sock puppets are the bane of most sites, I think the filters will have
> > to adapt over time, but yes a horde of puppets will suck the fun out
> > of the site for the guys without that ability.
>
> Yeah.  Only allowing submitters to rate would help that, but as Zed
> said it's about fans too.
>
> So, Zed needs to incorporate his cool hate-based social engineering
> from librelist into the comments and rating system, so that sock
> puppets can get slammed down :)
>
> Other ideas:
>
> * You must listen to the entire song before rating
> * You must also rate a certain number/percentage of other entries
> before your rating counts (or fully counts).
>
> -- Chad
>

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 6:34 AM, Chris <lawlor.chris@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the only real disadvantage is that the rounds might need to be a
> little longer in order to allow sufficient creative time for players to put
> a submission together. One possible way to save time would be to open the
> next round during the voting phase of the previous round. It might take a
> few rounds to find an ideal number of days for submissions and voting, but I
> think a good balance could be found with enough fine tuning.
> Obviously this would require a bit of work on the back end, but I don't
> expect it would be anything too difficult.
> Thoughts?

This is a good idea, but it may reduce the amount of people who
actually vote, because:

A) They don't want to take the time to rate everything at once.
B) They may not want to (or be able to) return to the site later

Overall, I think these are minimal concerns, and we should consider
this approach.

-- Chad

I don't object to this model, but the more I think about it, we really
should give the current one a stress test first before making lots of
changes.

I think the cowbells thing will work out better when there are more
reviewers and if each submission gets over a dozen or two reviews, the
calculations will be reasonably good ... I think they kinda suck for
low volume reviews like we have with 10 of us ... the SDs are too
high.   I do think that if you wait till everyone has submitted before
voting you will have people more naturally do relative rating all by
themselves ... I know I would ... Listen to 10 submissions and 1 or 2
will end up being 5s ... they become the benchmark ... I personally
would never give a 1 to genuine effort but I'm sure others will ...
everyone else distributes withing the bell curve.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 6:34 AM, Chris <lawlor.chris@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think the only real disadvantage is that the rounds might need to be a
>> little longer in order to allow sufficient creative time for players to put
>> a submission together. One possible way to save time would be to open the
>> next round during the voting phase of the previous round. It might take a
>> few rounds to find an ideal number of days for submissions and voting, but I
>> think a good balance could be found with enough fine tuning.
>> Obviously this would require a bit of work on the back end, but I don't
>> expect it would be anything too difficult.
>> Thoughts?
>
> This is a good idea, but it may reduce the amount of people who
> actually vote, because:
>
> A) They don't want to take the time to rate everything at once.
> B) They may not want to (or be able to) return to the site later
>
> Overall, I think these are minimal concerns, and we should consider
> this approach.
>
> -- Chad
>

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 11:29:03AM -0600, Hank Marquardt wrote:
> I don't object to this model, but the more I think about it, we really
> should give the current one a stress test first before making lots of
> changes.
> 
> I think the cowbells thing will work out better when there are more
> reviewers and if each submission gets over a dozen or two reviews, the
> calculations will be reasonably good ... I think they kinda suck for
> low volume reviews like we have with 10 of us ... the SDs are too
> high.   I do think that if you wait till everyone has submitted before
> voting you will have people more naturally do relative rating all by
> themselves ... I know I would ... Listen to 10 submissions and 1 or 2
> will end up being 5s ... they become the benchmark ... I personally
> would never give a 1 to genuine effort but I'm sure others will ...
> everyone else distributes withing the bell curve.

Yep, and also I think a way better winnars page will help too.  There
wasn't enough data to do a "leader board" originally, so I just did each
round.  Now I can do a leader board that's more than just cowbells for
each round.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

Also, I think the call to action could be much clearer on the landing
page. That is the kindest way of putting it. There are like 6 options
and none are visually distinct. I think improving the flow alone would
help greatly with voting and submissions/new user sign ups.

Maybe this is intended to keep FW under the radar. But I thought I'd
bring it up at least.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 6:34 AM, Chris <lawlor.chris@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think the only real disadvantage is that the rounds might need to be a
>> little longer in order to allow sufficient creative time for players to put
>> a submission together. One possible way to save time would be to open the
>> next round during the voting phase of the previous round. It might take a
>> few rounds to find an ideal number of days for submissions and voting, but I
>> think a good balance could be found with enough fine tuning.
>> Obviously this would require a bit of work on the back end, but I don't
>> expect it would be anything too difficult.
>> Thoughts?
>
> This is a good idea, but it may reduce the amount of people who
> actually vote, because:
>
> A) They don't want to take the time to rate everything at once.
> B) They may not want to (or be able to) return to the site later
>
> Overall, I think these are minimal concerns, and we should consider
> this approach.
>
> -- Chad
>



-- 
Dylan Clendenin
831.331.1484

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 09:13:19AM -0800, Dylan Clendenin wrote:
> Also, I think the call to action could be much clearer on the landing
> page. That is the kindest way of putting it. There are like 6 options
> and none are visually distinct. I think improving the flow alone would
> help greatly with voting and submissions/new user sign ups.

What would you put on the front page?  And, remember there's two types
of people: players and fans.  So it's not six, it's three each.

> Maybe this is intended to keep FW under the radar. But I thought I'd
> bring it up at least.

Partly.  That's more why the signup is kind of a bitch and a half.  The
front page is more that way because I couldn't think of another way to
do it so that it told people wtf FW was about, and let them see what's
going on.

So if there's ideas for the front page lay 'em on me.  I'd love to have
something that showed in a snapshot what was going on right then (kind
of like a sports caster), but they could also figure out what FW was all
about.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 09:13:19AM -0800, Dylan Clendenin wrote:
>> Also, I think the call to action could be much clearer on the landing
>> page. That is the kindest way of putting it. There are like 6 options
>> and none are visually distinct. I think improving the flow alone would
>> help greatly with voting and submissions/new user sign ups.
>
> What would you put on the front page?  And, remember there's two types
> of people: players and fans.  So it's not six, it's three each.

visually there are still 6 buttons/links with a different action. they
are categorized but existentially there are still 6 things that are
not too visually distinct.

>
>> Maybe this is intended to keep FW under the radar. But I thought I'd
>> bring it up at least.
>
> Partly.  That's more why the signup is kind of a bitch and a half.  The
> front page is more that way because I couldn't think of another way to
> do it so that it told people wtf FW was about, and let them see what's
> going on.
>
> So if there's ideas for the front page lay 'em on me.  I'd love to have
> something that showed in a snapshot what was going on right then (kind
> of like a sports caster), but they could also figure out what FW was all
> about.
>

I think all the signup and commenting actions of fans should be hidden
from the landing page and only on the point of actual need do you
expose those actions. Like the landing page is all about the current
round, nothing else. All user activity presupposes the current round.

I think all you need on the front is a link to the music submissions
for the current round (which explains what the theme or challenge is)
and a way to signup in order to add your submission to the round. Fans
and commenters can be presented ways of signing up at the point they
actually need it—on a particular submission page. I don't think Fans,
at this point or really ever, need to get the prominence of first page
real estate like they do currently. Fans are nice and we want people
to comment and vote and say what they think.

What you have at the bottom I think is actually the most useful:
"Playing Fret War is easy. Just signup for an account and then send
your submissions to play@fretwar.com." That is the essence. I think
the players and participants are the ones that should receive the most
attention and focus.

> --
> Zed A. Shaw
> http://zedshaw.com/
>



-- 
Dylan Clendenin
831.331.1484

I wanted to comment. I've participated in Fretwar through 3 rounds (I
believe) and wanted to share my experience and observations.

First of, I think it is an honor to be asked for feedback on a cool
concept like fretwar.

I may seem a heretic here for saying but it is just a fundamental
question, is competition necessary? For me, the best thing about
fretwar was creating something, recording it, sharing it and getting
feedback from other musicians. The premise currently is that you must
be better than your peers or else you lose.

I mean who can take me seriously (after all aren't I the guy that got
last place three consecutive times in a row?). Kidding aside, I feel
legitimate issues are raised through my experience. I'd like to learn
how to record digital music better and progress in my practice as a
musician without necessarily feeling like I got to face a voting
panel. Should players of my mentality be told to go somewhere else to
find a place where musicians can just do whatever they want?

I generally like the concept of having a challenge (a specific musical
exercise or style to try to create) and a deadline by when it must be
submitted. For me the whole war of fretwar was getting my recording to
sound good and submitted on time.

I don't know what to really propose here or whether my experience has
any relevance in the overall mission of this FW endeavor. I guess I'd
like to propose that FW become a place that encourages and pushes
creativity, excellence, challenges to learn new styles and techniques
and receive feedback. Perhaps war and creative challenge are not
mutually incompatible ends and there is a way to encourage and promote
both purposes. I'm curious how others have had similar or different
thoughts on this same vein.



On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Chris <lawlor.chris@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fretwar illuminati,
> I have an idea that will both allow multiple submissions, prevent gaming,
> and also remove the need for a 'first submission' bonus. Simply divide the
> round into separate submission and voting stages. Announce the round, and
> allow submissions and listening (but no voting) for several days - long
> enough to give players plenty of time to put a submission together, but not
> too long as to drag the round out too far. Then, close off submissions and
> allow a day or so for voting.
> This plan completely removes any benefit or penalty for being an early or
> late submitter, as all submissions would be given equal voting time. Also,
> there would be no incentive to game the submission process by entering
> duplicate submissions.
> I think the only real disadvantage is that the rounds might need to be a
> little longer in order to allow sufficient creative time for players to put
> a submission together. One possible way to save time would be to open the
> next round during the voting phase of the previous round. It might take a
> few rounds to find an ideal number of days for submissions and voting, but I
> think a good balance could be found with enough fine tuning.
> Obviously this would require a bit of work on the back end, but I don't
> expect it would be anything too difficult.
> Thoughts?
> Chris
>
> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Hank Marquardt <hmarquardt@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Sock puppets are the bane of most sites, I think the filters will have
>> > to adapt over time, but yes a horde of puppets will suck the fun out
>> > of the site for the guys without that ability.
>>
>> Yeah.  Only allowing submitters to rate would help that, but as Zed
>> said it's about fans too.
>>
>> So, Zed needs to incorporate his cool hate-based social engineering
>> from librelist into the comments and rating system, so that sock
>> puppets can get slammed down :)
>>
>> Other ideas:
>>
>> * You must listen to the entire song before rating
>> * You must also rate a certain number/percentage of other entries
>> before your rating counts (or fully counts).
>>
>> -- Chad
>
>



-- 
Dylan Clendenin
831.331.1484

Interesting thoughts Dylan ...

I understand all your points ... and have to say that I agree with
most of them as I too just do this for fun, to get better at both
playing recording, as before this I'd been simply a basement 'noodler'
with no focus since I quit band playing 20 years ago.   So a feedback
only user class might be interesting .... But ...

The site is Fret*WAR* and from inception was designed to be a
competitive site, so creating the non competing user class before the
site even launches seems to dilute the concept and the brand.  So
while we can voice our opinions on that, that call is really Zed and
Ahsanul's

I lived the 80's as a guitar player ... speed was king and the whole
scene was a competition ... I've no desire to relive that, I like that
I've learned to phrase and not just shred, yet at the same time I
think that while I may not be the fastest, nor the best composer, or
have the best production, I can score reasonably high in all of those
such that the total package/product will stand a chance in competition
... so for that reason I'm OK with the competitive part even though my
drive is closer to yours in what makes me do this.

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Dylan Clendenin
<dylan.clendenin@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wanted to comment. I've participated in Fretwar through 3 rounds (I
> believe) and wanted to share my experience and observations.
>
> First of, I think it is an honor to be asked for feedback on a cool
> concept like fretwar.
>
> I may seem a heretic here for saying but it is just a fundamental
> question, is competition necessary? For me, the best thing about
> fretwar was creating something, recording it, sharing it and getting
> feedback from other musicians. The premise currently is that you must
> be better than your peers or else you lose.
>
> I mean who can take me seriously (after all aren't I the guy that got
> last place three consecutive times in a row?). Kidding aside, I feel
> legitimate issues are raised through my experience. I'd like to learn
> how to record digital music better and progress in my practice as a
> musician without necessarily feeling like I got to face a voting
> panel. Should players of my mentality be told to go somewhere else to
> find a place where musicians can just do whatever they want?
>
> I generally like the concept of having a challenge (a specific musical
> exercise or style to try to create) and a deadline by when it must be
> submitted. For me the whole war of fretwar was getting my recording to
> sound good and submitted on time.
>
> I don't know what to really propose here or whether my experience has
> any relevance in the overall mission of this FW endeavor. I guess I'd
> like to propose that FW become a place that encourages and pushes
> creativity, excellence, challenges to learn new styles and techniques
> and receive feedback. Perhaps war and creative challenge are not
> mutually incompatible ends and there is a way to encourage and promote
> both purposes. I'm curious how others have had similar or different
> thoughts on this same vein.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Chris <lawlor.chris@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Fretwar illuminati,
>> I have an idea that will both allow multiple submissions, prevent gaming,
>> and also remove the need for a 'first submission' bonus. Simply divide the
>> round into separate submission and voting stages. Announce the round, and
>> allow submissions and listening (but no voting) for several days - long
>> enough to give players plenty of time to put a submission together, but not
>> too long as to drag the round out too far. Then, close off submissions and
>> allow a day or so for voting.
>> This plan completely removes any benefit or penalty for being an early or
>> late submitter, as all submissions would be given equal voting time. Also,
>> there would be no incentive to game the submission process by entering
>> duplicate submissions.
>> I think the only real disadvantage is that the rounds might need to be a
>> little longer in order to allow sufficient creative time for players to put
>> a submission together. One possible way to save time would be to open the
>> next round during the voting phase of the previous round. It might take a
>> few rounds to find an ideal number of days for submissions and voting, but I
>> think a good balance could be found with enough fine tuning.
>> Obviously this would require a bit of work on the back end, but I don't
>> expect it would be anything too difficult.
>> Thoughts?
>> Chris
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Hank Marquardt <hmarquardt@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Sock puppets are the bane of most sites, I think the filters will have
>>> > to adapt over time, but yes a horde of puppets will suck the fun out
>>> > of the site for the guys without that ability.
>>>
>>> Yeah.  Only allowing submitters to rate would help that, but as Zed
>>> said it's about fans too.
>>>
>>> So, Zed needs to incorporate his cool hate-based social engineering
>>> from librelist into the comments and rating system, so that sock
>>> puppets can get slammed down :)
>>>
>>> Other ideas:
>>>
>>> * You must listen to the entire song before rating
>>> * You must also rate a certain number/percentage of other entries
>>> before your rating counts (or fully counts).
>>>
>>> -- Chad
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Dylan Clendenin
> 831.331.1484
>

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 11:22:04AM -0600, Hank Marquardt wrote:
> Interesting thoughts Dylan ...
> 
> I understand all your points ... and have to say that I agree with
> most of them as I too just do this for fun, to get better at both
> playing recording, as before this I'd been simply a basement 'noodler'
> with no focus since I quit band playing 20 years ago.   So a feedback
> only user class might be interesting .... But ...

Hmmm, "basement noodler"... that was me too.  Maybe that should be the
user type to focus on initially.  Interesting.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 09:09:33AM -0800, Dylan Clendenin wrote:
> I wanted to comment. I've participated in Fretwar through 3 rounds (I
> believe) and wanted to share my experience and observations.
> 
> First of, I think it is an honor to be asked for feedback on a cool
> concept like fretwar.

Yeah, you're the only bassist since James Golick is a giant whimp and
won't play.  "Waaah my fretless is out of tune. Waaaahh!" :-)

> I may seem a heretic here for saying but it is just a fundamental
> question, is competition necessary? For me, the best thing about
> fretwar was creating something, recording it, sharing it and getting
> feedback from other musicians. The premise currently is that you must
> be better than your peers or else you lose.

Yes!  I knew it.  Ok, *you* want the next feature I want to add after I
get gear working:  blogs.  I was thinking about people who don't
necessarily want to compete, but really do want to publish their music
online and get feedback.

That's basically a blog.  I was thinking you'd send your submission to
blog@fretwar.com and it'd make you nearly the same submission page, but
it's not part of the round.  Just you and your buddies.  It'd have the
usual RSS feeds, comments, ratings, etc.  But, it's just for you and
people who comment on your site.

But, I wasn't sure if adding blogs would overload fretwar.  Now I'm
thinking the blogs for musicians could be the "beginner to intermediate"
player's domain, or just for people who aren't interested in competing.
You could put your stuff on your blog and have people check it out, and
when you start getting good enough you can then try and compete.

What do you think?

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

Well Zed, I agree James Golick needs to get his shit together and face
me in a bass-off.

Perhaps I didn't stress the fact that I do *like* the structure FW
enforces—the deadline and the specific target to shoot for.

It is the camaraderie of other stringed musicians and trying to meet
the challenge before us before a deadline that makes FW different and
unique.

If I just wanted to share my music only I think there are probably
better sites to do that. I use a free account on soundcloud.com for
that. Adding a kind of musical diary area to fretwar may dillute it
but I can't be 100% sure either way, it would have to be tested
probably and I support the idea in theory. But there is the ideal and
then there's the way stuff actually gets used in real-life.

Maybe all submissions go to the same place but users can opt-out of
the ratings and just allow comments. Those submissions could never be
the winner or the loser but still be a player in the round. Maybe the
more agressive Fret Warriors amongst us will think that is too
passive. Not sure though.



On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 09:09:33AM -0800, Dylan Clendenin wrote:
>> I wanted to comment. I've participated in Fretwar through 3 rounds (I
>> believe) and wanted to share my experience and observations.
>>
>> First of, I think it is an honor to be asked for feedback on a cool
>> concept like fretwar.
>
> Yeah, you're the only bassist since James Golick is a giant whimp and
> won't play.  "Waaah my fretless is out of tune. Waaaahh!" :-)
>
>> I may seem a heretic here for saying but it is just a fundamental
>> question, is competition necessary? For me, the best thing about
>> fretwar was creating something, recording it, sharing it and getting
>> feedback from other musicians. The premise currently is that you must
>> be better than your peers or else you lose.
>
> Yes!  I knew it.  Ok, *you* want the next feature I want to add after I
> get gear working:  blogs.  I was thinking about people who don't
> necessarily want to compete, but really do want to publish their music
> online and get feedback.
>
> That's basically a blog.  I was thinking you'd send your submission to
> blog@fretwar.com and it'd make you nearly the same submission page, but
> it's not part of the round.  Just you and your buddies.  It'd have the
> usual RSS feeds, comments, ratings, etc.  But, it's just for you and
> people who comment on your site.
>
> But, I wasn't sure if adding blogs would overload fretwar.  Now I'm
> thinking the blogs for musicians could be the "beginner to intermediate"
> player's domain, or just for people who aren't interested in competing.
> You could put your stuff on your blog and have people check it out, and
> when you start getting good enough you can then try and compete.
>
> What do you think?
>
> --
> Zed A. Shaw
> http://zedshaw.com/
>



-- 
Dylan Clendenin
831.331.1484

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:42:59AM -0800, Dylan Clendenin wrote:
> Well Zed, I agree James Golick needs to get his shit together and face
> me in a bass-off.

Yeah, I guess fetlife leaves no time for bass.

> Maybe all submissions go to the same place but users can opt-out of
> the ratings and just allow comments. Those submissions could never be
> the winner or the loser but still be a player in the round. Maybe the
> more agressive Fret Warriors amongst us will think that is too
> passive. Not sure though.

Hmm, let me think this over.  I feel like there's something here but I
can't quite articulate it.  You're right that letting people compete but
not compete is kind of unfair, but there needs to be someplace for
people who are easing their way into being competitive.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 08:34:30AM -0500, Chris wrote:
> Fretwar illuminati,

You are a pope. :-)

> I have an idea that will both allow multiple submissions, prevent gaming,
> and also remove the need for a 'first submission' bonus. Simply divide the
> round into separate submission and voting stages. Announce the round, and
> allow submissions and listening (but no voting) for several days - long
> enough to give players plenty of time to put a submission together, but not
> too long as to drag the round out too far. Then, close off submissions and
> allow a day or so for voting.

It sounds like the general theme about the "multiple submissions" can be
broken down into two requirements:

1) I have multiple bad ass takes I want the world to hear, so let me
post them both and play them.
2) DAMN! I sent in my song and I totally forgot the bass line and I'm
getting creamed in the ratings!  I need to correct it!

Let's call #1 "multiple renditions" and #2 "multiple takes".

For multiple renditions I basically have to get off my ass and make
flowplayer play them both, and add a way for people to rate each
rendition.  Letting people play both is easy, just a couple tweaks to
the javascript that runs flowplayer.  Letting them rate one, then
another, etc. is a little more involved, but pretty easy.

The real question is how your stats would look.  Do you get the average
of all your submissions?  Is there a limit to how many?

Now, what you're suggesting is a solution to the multiple takes problem.
My desire was that you had to get it right the first time, which adds to
the game elements of the site.  A big part of making a game fun is that
someone can come up from behind and take the lead because the current
leader makes a dumb mistake.  One of those mistakes could simply be they
sent in a screwed up submission by not paying attention to the final
recording.

I think what you're asking for Chris is "staging", but if the entire
round is run in a staged/stepwise way then the game becomes more like a
rules oriented musical D&D.  I doubt many musicians would find that fun.
Coders, yes, but not many others.

However, what if *your* submission was staged.  When you submit, you get
a backstage area where you can edit it, fix up typos, or send in a new
cut if you goofed it.  But, once you hit that publish button you're
done.  You've done your performance and you've gotta deal with the
consequences.

What do you think?  That way it improves usability of submissions, but
you can still screw up and lose the lead, just not because you messed up
an email.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:

>
>
>
For multiple renditions I basically have to get off my ass and make
> flowplayer play them both, and add a way for people to rate each
> rendition.  Letting people play both is easy, just a couple tweaks to
> the javascript that runs flowplayer.  Letting them rate one, then
> another, etc. is a little more involved, but pretty easy.
>
> The real question is how your stats would look.  Do you get the average
> of all your submissions?  Is there a limit to how many?
>

I think averaging would work. Probably don't need a limit - it takes time to
craft a good submission and the rounds aren't really long enough to submit
more than two or three. That could change once the user base opens up
though.


> Now, what you're suggesting is a solution to the multiple takes problem.
> My desire was that you had to get it right the first time, which adds to
> the game elements of the site.  A big part of making a game fun is that
> someone can come up from behind and take the lead because the current
> leader makes a dumb mistake.  One of those mistakes could simply be they
> sent in a screwed up submission by not paying attention to the final
> recording.


> However, what if *your* submission was staged.  When you submit, you get
> a backstage area where you can edit it, fix up typos, or send in a new
> cut if you goofed it.  But, once you hit that publish button you're
> done.  You've done your performance and you've gotta deal with the
> consequences.
>

That would be awesome. As it is now, my song description from the initial
email submission usually doesn't make it to the site for whatever reason, it
seems I have to send two or three emails before it actually 'takes' on the
site. Probably my mistake. But it would be great to be able to tweak those
things on the site itself, rather than through email. I think that is more
aligned with user expectations as well. Once the user base expands, there
will be tons of "Where's the 'edit' button?" questions.

Chris

>
>
>

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 01:31:26PM -0500, Chris wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
>
> That would be awesome. As it is now, my song description from the initial
> email submission usually doesn't make it to the site for whatever reason, it
> seems I have to send two or three emails before it actually 'takes' on the
> site. Probably my mistake. But it would be great to be able to tweak those
> things on the site itself, rather than through email. I think that is more
> aligned with user expectations as well. Once the user base expands, there
> will be tons of "Where's the 'edit' button?" questions.

Ok I'll look at implementing that.  Let's see if I can bang it out for
this weekend before we start round 6 and then everyone can try it out.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://zedshaw.com/

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
> However, what if *your* submission was staged.  When you submit, you get
> a backstage area where you can edit it, fix up typos, or send in a new
> cut if you goofed it.  But, once you hit that publish button you're
> done.  You've done your performance and you've gotta deal with the
> consequences.

Good idea.

Should still have multiple renditions, though.  Averaging them sounds
like a good idea, that will prevent some exploits, but not all.