New site ideas (Points System / Subgenre Change Proposals) - request for feedback
Hi all. As Metal Academy has always been a community site, I want to let you guys have some input on the potential new site. Below are two links that will take you to detailed explanations of aspects we don't currently have here at Metal Academy.
The first one is a Points System, where site members can earn Clan and Global points.
Click the below
The second one is a (mostly) automated replacement for the Hall of Judgement. Basically it's a subgenre (and therefore potentially genre and clan) changing system. Clan points and Global points earned give users weighted influence on proposed subgenre changes, rewarding active / knowledgeable site members.
Click the below
Anyway, the descriptions are detailed, so I hope you'll all take the time to read through them and click on the various sections. Is this all too much? Probably! But I've never done things in halves. If I'm ever going to make this new site a reality, I want it to be fucking perfect! I never want to have to redesign it again.
Let me know what you think.
Interesting stuff Ben and food for thought for sure. My initial thoughts:
I am not fundamentally opposed to a points-based system, but I do forsee issues with it. Members becoming obsessed with point acquisition rather than having genuine enthusiasm for the music being the most obvious, for example writing garbage reviews that add nothing to the conversation in order to accrue points, posting a million times in the "What are you listening to now" threads with just an album name or making a multitude of posts that have nothing to do with metal.
That said, though, if you were intent on introducing a points system then this seems like a very well-thought-out way to do it. I don't think votes on cover art should count towards clan points, though, as you can rate an awful lot of covers in a very short time without knowing anything about the clan's genres, making it the most obvious area for abuse. The Revolution, for example has nearly 6000 releases currently and I could rate every cover with very little thought and zero knowledge of the musical content, but I could accrue 6000 points within that clan - the equivalent of 500 reviews, when in reality I have only rated 32 Revolution releases.
The new "Hall of Judgement" sounds like a very good evolution of that concept and would, hopefully, lead to better and more timely outcomes. It is all looking very exciting to be sure.
I would highlight the same concerns around the points system in that there would need to be some controls on what is a genuine “accrual” contribution. Years ago, over on my other forum, the owner had such a system in and the member with the highest number of points each month won some merch of their choice from limited lines in the shop. First of all, posts in the “…Listening to” thread stopped contributing to the points tally and pretty soon then because nobody posted anywhere else, the system overall became redundant. A lot of us also post our reviews both against the release page and also in the relevant forum thread (especially if a feature release) so there’s a risk of double counting I would guess.
I also agree on the cover art votes. I rate a lot of album covers and can often have no idea what is going on in the album, sub-genre, genre or clan for that matter. The Hall of Judgement has always been my least favourite feature of the site. Even though it has grown on me slowly over the years, I still find it hard to see much value in it, but I can see the appeal for others.
Firstly, I want to reward activity on the site. If people want to be involved in conversations or rate loads of album covers to farm points, well as long as they're doing those things responsibly (and it's easy to tell when they're not), then I see that as a good thing. Any community site can only be better if more members are being more active. I've attempted to give each action type appropriate points (such as 1 point for rating a cover and 12 points for writing a review). I can easily adjust the numbers if people are abusing things, but again, if lots of people started rating covers, that would make the site better, not worse.
That said, what I wanted to do here is make sure that this sort of farming activity has limited impact on things that really matter, such as the proposed subgenre voting system.
The Primary voting weighting factor only takes into account ratings and reviews. It does not take into account things like forum responses or cover ratings. I wanted a clan members weighted input to represent their knowledge of that clan, as much as that is possible.
The Secondary bonus does take a member's global point total into account, including the forum posts and cover ratings, but it's only a small bonus in the scheme of things. It's gravy, not the main meal.
I hope this clears things up a bit. I have a feeling from your messages that this distinct difference wasn't made clear. Or perhaps it was, and you still feel the same. Let me know.
Purely from a personal point of view, the fact that there are points awarded for various actions will not make any difference to me, as I will most likely continue interacting with the site in much the same way as I do now. I am sure there are people out there who will feel motivated by some kind of reward system and good luck to 'em, but I would never view it as much more than a background feature. I am quite comfortable with my own level of involvement, but I guess if it gets more people interacting it may make things more interesting (although we have had mixed results with that in the past!) I guess I am just a little concerned that a points-based meritocracy will cause an increase in assholery on the site.
Much like Vinny, I have never been that invested in the Hall as I often find sub-genre micro-management to be tedious and not something on which I enjoy focussing too much. Is it heavy, doom, black, death, thrash (the five alchemical elements) or a mixture of the above is usually enough for me!
I'll also continue using the site the same way, though if anyone wants to gain points for the albums they listen to and the covers they check out, they can do that, just as long as they don't abuse the system. As for the Subgenre Change Proposals, it really does look like a great evolution for the Hall of Judgement. Instead of just submitting it via a forum thread, we can just go to an album's release page to propose adding or removing a subgenre for other members to vote in a limited amount of time and see if it reaches enough upvotes for the admins to decide the outcome. So if that new feature goes well, we would have more immediate voting participation and better results. Anyway, exciting new features, and all the more reason to look forward to the new site. Awesome work, Ben!
If you were to implement the new site, Ben, would you still retain features such as the playlists and monthly clan features or do you envision moving on from them or replacing them with something else?
I am totally up for experimenting with both ideas. I'm most curious about the potential events stemming from the cascade idea.
If you were to implement the new site, Ben, would you still retain features such as the playlists and monthly clan features or do you envision moving on from them or replacing them with something else?
Personally I would vote for retaining them since I've had a lot of fun doing those, but I guess that's up for Ben to decide.
I think this is a big advancement on the current Hall of Judgement concept to be honest Ben. I've always felt that our regular's opinions should hold more weight than a newbies in these discussions as they have more skin in the game & have built up community respect over time. I also think the Administrator should have the right to block a change that's not going to present the site in the right light too. The audit trail is an excellent addition as we've only recently seen people questioning changes that I've made behind the scenes that weren't visible to the users. The points system may come across as complicated to some of our less analytical users however that will chug away in the background & do its thing autonomously so people won't really have to understand it. All they have to know is that the more they contribute, the more say they have in the site. Ultimately, any change that will see us being less tied to the another website's genre-tagging is a positive one in my opinion as I have no faith in those other sites to get it right.
If you were to implement the new site, Ben, would you still retain features such as the playlists and monthly clan features or do you envision moving on from them or replacing them with something else?
These are fun, when the time permits and the activity levels compliment them better. The busier the site, in terms of membership numbers, the better these two features should be. I think (if they do stay) they need freshening up a bit. In terms of the playlist, maybe give them up to a rotation of the clan members involved in them, like the feature releases have a rota, do the same for the playlists, although this would work better with more active users.
The “party” playlist that Daniel does is a neat idea, one that could have some further legs in terms of a community playlist that everyone contributes to, showcasing the range of genres and sub-genres the site encompasses on monthly/quarterly basis.
I think (if they do stay) they need freshening up a bit. In terms of the playlist, maybe give them up to a rotation of the clan members involved in them, like the feature releases have a rota, do the same for the playlists, although this would work better with more active users.
This is a good idea, Vinny, obviously depending on who wishes to be involved. Bringing this idea back to the present, however, between us, you and I are responsible for the playlists for the four clans we are both members of, so I would be quite happy to work out a rota for the two of us to produce the playlists for those clans if that is something you would like to try now.
If you were to implement the new site, Ben, would you still retain features such as the playlists and monthly clan features or do you envision moving on from them or replacing them with something else?
As things stand, I would want to retain them, albeit in better form. The list section on the new site has the ability to import Spotify playlists into a list, making it a lot easier to manage the playlists aspect.
I haven't considered how to improve the clan features aspect, but I'm sure something could be done. We could certainly build in a way to really emphasise those albums on the site each month.
I'm sure I'll have more ideas to discuss, so stay tuned...
I haven't considered how to improve the clan features aspect, but I'm sure something could be done. We could certainly build in a way to really emphasise those albums on the site each month.
Could each clan's monthly feature be displayed in a prominent position on the respective clan's homepage?
One more question: will the new scoring system mean the end of the clan challenges and their completion in order to lock in clans? How will newer members gain a fourth clan - do you envisage it being by accruing a predetermined number of points in any prospective fourth clan?
I think (if they do stay) they need freshening up a bit. In terms of the playlist, maybe give them up to a rotation of the clan members involved in them, like the feature releases have a rota, do the same for the playlists, although this would work better with more active users.
This is a good idea, Vinny, obviously depending on who wishes to be involved. Bringing this idea back to the present, however, between us, you and I are responsible for the playlists for the four clans we are both members of, so I would be quite happy to work out a rota for the two of us to produce the playlists for those clans if that is something you would like to try now.
Thanks Sonny, but right now, time is not on my side. Between work and effectively setting up my home for scratch following the break up, I would not be doing any of the playlists much justice - struggling to keep up with my nominations as it. Let’s see how things are rolling into the new site when it comes. Or if that is some ways off then we could review in new year.
I think (if they do stay) they need freshening up a bit. In terms of the playlist, maybe give them up to a rotation of the clan members involved in them, like the feature releases have a rota, do the same for the playlists, although this would work better with more active users.
This is a good idea, Vinny, obviously depending on who wishes to be involved. Bringing this idea back to the present, however, between us, you and I are responsible for the playlists for the four clans we are both members of, so I would be quite happy to work out a rota for the two of us to produce the playlists for those clans if that is something you would like to try now.
Thanks Sonny, but right now, time is not on my side. Between work and effectively setting up my home for scratch following the break up, I would not be doing any of the playlists much justice - struggling to keep up with my nominations as it. Let’s see how things are rolling into the new site when it comes. Or if that is some ways off then we could review in new year.
No problem, Vinny. Just let me know if and when you feel it is something you wish to do.
I've been perusing this and wanted to catch up, maybe a bit longwinded:
As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Ben that the Points system would be a good idea to drum up more contribution and have something to get people excited about interacting with the site apart from the intrinsic "value" of the forum or discussing reviews. I had the same kneejerk reaction as Sonny and Vinny, as the internet has undoubtedly made me jaded against neat community ideas because the only thoughts that pop into my head immediately are how can they be broken and abused by people with too much time on their hands. I think the sentiment here is that I want this site to be taken seriously, but I'm with Ben's post that says that it's only a good thing that more people are more active on a site like this, and that outweighs any potential "but what if..." right now.
At this point, any contribution is genuinely helpful contribution and the people who come in just to write one word reviews for imaginary Clan Points in order to have a higher number can just get ignored or blacklisted. I want it to be taken seriously too, but it's not that serious at the end of the day. Obviously I'll change my stance if more assholery immediately shows up. I think having cover ratings as 1 point is fine, maybe it'll get me to remember to rate covers. I might be careful about "Adding A Forum Thread" gaining points, since it could lead to more cluttered forums? But I'm not sure how easy or difficult that would be to clean up if it gets out of hand with how the new site will work.
Anything to make the Hall of Judgement be more intuitive is great, and I think tying it to the points system makes sense. I think I would be more inclined to learn and discern more of the subgenres if the system was clean and easy to use.
Even though I've been bad at keeping up I agree that the monthly features and playlists should stay in some form, it's a nice way to push certain albums in the spotlight.
Just a quick comment on the proposed points-per-review system: Some of my very earliest reviews, written before I joined the site and ported over from RYM, are from a time when I wasn't very confident in my reviewing ability and so were very short affairs and wouldn't be deserving of a full 12 points in my estimation. Do you think these should be awarded less or even no points because, frankly, I would be embarrased for them to receive 12 and so would probably just delete them and attempt to rewrite them later?