Where are the voters lately?

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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by frankie big face »

Lunkhead wrote: In the data that I gathered, multiple fights that happened at the same time are listed separately. Just glancing at it now, summing the votes for the "fight periods" may actually return the total number of votes per "fight period" to the range of the pre-"HoMBH" era, or higher. In which case, er, um, nevermind. ;)
Actually, that's the opposite of my point, which is that it's likely that many people who vote at all, vote in more than one fight. But based on Erik's question and Spud's reply, I think I may be wrong.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by frankie big face »

Spud wrote:
erik wrote:What happened around fight 370, where it kind of jumps up there?
A switch from multiple to single fight format, which lasted until around 415, with multiples returning from 415 to 432 with a few singles thrown in.
Welllllll......that's pretty interesting, isn't it? So when we changed to the single fight format, the number of voters skyrocketd at first, but has since declined quite a bit. So there you have it: more fights=more voters.

As I've always said, the more the fights the better. *ducking*
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Spud »

Welllllllll, don't forget, these are votes per fight. So with only one fight to vote on, it is going to get more votes. The week previous to the spike, there were 11 fights. That's slicing it pretty thin.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by JonPorobil »

Hey look! Switch to single fight, and the votes spike, then eventually decline! Oooh, but then switch back to multiple fights, and votes spike... and then eventually decline.

Just keep it fresh. That's all you need to do.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by JonPorobil »

Now, to play Devil's Advocate to myself...

Back in 2003, when I first discovered Songfight, it seemed only reasonable to have to download every song before listening. After all, there were usually only about twelve of them per week (anecdotally, anyway; I didn't do any statistics on this), and how else were we supposed to get to hear these things, anyway? But now, the average number of songs per fight has almost doubled (again, anecdotally; if you think I'm wrong, you can do the math yourself), Flash has revolutionized the way we get our media from the Internet, and I think fewer people than before are willing to put up with the hassle of downloading all the songs to listen to them. Maybe if we started turning the gears on getting a Flash-based jukebox of the current songs, the average Joe User will be able to browse the songs without committing all the time and effort it takes to download them?

I know, I know, downloading isn't really that big a time commitment, nor a lot of effort, but compared to how easy it is for me to browse YouTube, for example, Songfight is downright Spartan. I think that Joe User has gotten pickier as the tools to browse complicated media websites have gotten more powerful, and Songfight now finds itself a bit outmoded in his eyes.

THAT SAID, I don't hate the way it looks and works now. I like the fact that nothing major has changed about Songfight since I first stumbled upon it five and a half years ago. I don't mind downloading all the songs to listen to them. But we're talking about how to drum up more votes (if the conclusion is in fact that more votes need to be drummed up), which means trying to get Joe User and Wendy Websurfer (who don't read or post on the boards, and probably don't know personally any of the artists or bands on the site) to listen to more songs and click the "Vote" button more often.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by erik »

Isn't stream-all really fast and stuff?
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by rone rivendale »

I know right? I don't dl any of the songs (cept Melvin's). I just stream-all every week and listen to them all that way. And then I delete songs from the stream list as I go along if they suck. And then the next time I open my winamp, I listen to the stream minus the crappy songs and delete more. And then listen again and delete more. Until I get to 1 song. It's like a weekly Nur Ein! ^_^
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Lunkhead »

iTunes, at least on the Mac, isn't so great with .m3u files, unfortunately. It tries to put the songs in the playlist into your archive as streaming files and I don't think it assigns the songs to a playlist with a matching name the last time I checked (unless you use a utility called "M3U2iTunes", in which case you get the playlist, but it's still a little wonky).

EDIT: I guess I could use Windows Media Player on the Mac. There's something yucky about that idea, but it would probably work.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

This thread started sucking about the time the graph hit town. :P
.....but I'm sure it's a very nice and accurate graph, Spud.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Spud »

Lunkhead wrote:iTunes, at least on the Mac, isn't so great with .m3u files...
Aren't you the user profile that we made the podcasts for?
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Lunkhead »

I don't think so. I'll subscribe to them in iTunes and see how that goes.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Spud »

I didn't mean you personally.

Watch out for the iTunes caveat on the podcast page. It doesn't work as well the first time as it does on subsequent podcasts. So subscribe now, don't expect it to work for THIS week, but you should be fine NEXT week. It's an iTunes thing.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Hoblit »

Lunkhead wrote: EDIT: I guess I could use Windows Media Player on the Mac. There's something yucky about that idea, but it would probably work.
I have two PCs running XP and I don't have Windows Media Player installed on either one. Its a yucky idea all the way around.

(*I do have the OLD tiny little media player application though...(( That real basic little grey and pink rectangle box )) its separate from their mangled product they have these days)
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by frankie big face »

I actually think Generic might be on to something (and I know Sam has had this idea before). The "stream all" button sucks on my computer (it's handled in the browser by Quicktime, but there are no artist names, time counters, etc.) and iTunes doesn't like it much. I also dislike the non-alphabetized artist list. I understand the logic behind it, but it makes it look as if they were placed carelessly on the front page. I've tried using the Podcast in iTunes, but I mostly just forget about it until iTunes stops grabbing them. All really nice ideas but no replacement for a front page interface.

Spud, we're bored and ready for the next big thing.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by erik »

hahahahha, sucks to have a Mac
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by jack »

yes on all the mac issues for me too.

i know it's a radical idea, but with all the cool new widgets and flash apps out there (like this) that can import playlists, why not use something like this to replace the old "stream all" link.

i know it's all fancy pants and not old school but you know.....
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Niveous »

I've been looking at this thread for a while now and shaking my head. I didn't think there was a problem with the number of votes, SF always ebbs and flows.

If anyone is worried about the amount of voters at Songfight- just remember to vote and convince people you know to vote. Do we need more than that? Go rock the vote.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Spud »

Well, eleven days have gone by, and there are 60 votes. I am not saying we should immediately go back to seven-day fights. We'll leave it this way for a bit. However, I do have another idea for getting the vote count up. I think you're going to like it, whether or not you perceive a voter-turnout 'problem'.
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Billy's Little Trip »

Spud wrote:However, I do have another idea for getting the vote count up. I think you're going to like it, whether or not you perceive a voter-turnout 'problem'.
Which is?
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by HeuristicsInc »

Pick a title that MC Frontalot can't refuse? :)
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Spud »

HeuristicsInc wrote:Pick a title that MC Frontalot can't refuse? :)
-bill
Yeah, but that won't do anything for the REST of us...
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Re: Where are the voters lately?

Post by Eric Y. »

Spud wrote:Well, eleven days have gone by, and there are 60 votes. I am not saying we should immediately go back to seven-day fights. ...
Nice to see that despite the extended deadline, there is not an overwhelmingly unmanageable number of songs entered.

I intend to give the new voting system a try this week... I only wonder whether the "pick all the ones you like and none of those you don't" system will result in more ties than the old way? Only time will tell -- as the front page says, it's an experiment; if that does turn out to be a problem though, it might be possible to hybridize the voting systems (I think I remember Coverfight used to work this way), where you say which ones are good or bad, but also pick a #1 overall. Just a small suggestion.

Thanks so much for all you do to keep everything working so smoothly, Spud; your efforts are appreciated by all.
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