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Does anyone know exactly how Ourstage regulates the judging process? Last month, I got 38th in Americana/Alt-country, but today that same song is at #1 in Americana/Alt-country. Is judging totally fan based, or does Ourstage have the opportunity to be selective as well?
Dan Walker
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Dan,
First, congrats for the #1 rating! The understanding I have, I am pretty that i am correct, all the judging is fan-based. OurStage does not get involved with the judging, other than facilitating the process.
The probable answer for the difference in rating from one month to another is that different people judge at different times. The tastes of one set of judges is somewhat different than another set of judges. in my opinion, their system is probably the most fair of any site that sponsors a judging contest. The songs are paired randomly; but with the requirement that each song is paired against each other song the same number of times.
I hope that I was more helpful than confusing with that!
Al
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Songs often go up and down throughout the month... but I am sure that folks will check out Americana now that you've called attention to it being in first place..
Brian
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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I assume the rankings are based on average ratings-- the first song I entered shot up to #1 for a short time because the first three people who listened to it loved the song. After that, not so much... Rankings seem to settle down a bit after you hit the 60-70 listens mark. I like the fact that you're not required to vote, a la Garage Band... it kinda makes you want to vote. The specific channels are cool, too, like the Newport Folk Festival one. I'd like to do well there.
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The reason i bring this up is because I have had numerous comments and emails from ourstage members in the past month or so trying to discredit the process. I assume that they are just displeased with how unfavorable their song ranks.
I have tried garage band once, and it didn't satisfy knowing that I HAD to vote and at the same time no one seemed to be listening to my song submissions. One thing is for certain, our songs are actually listened to and voted on, for better or for worse, at ourstage.
Thanks Ya'll! & to Brian- many greetngs from New England to Nap-town (Muncie, IN is my old stomping ground).
Dan
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On the surface, Ourstage seems to have the fairest judging model that I can imagine. In order to scam it, you would have to do a LOT OF JUDGING!
What would be interesting to know is the demographics of the average/median voter in each category. I probably wouldn't do anything different if I had that information, but some folks could probably use that data and better target their entries.
Kevin
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I have a collab with Mark Kaufman currently at about bottom of the pile in the Rock category. I have one or two issues with the system and also the people who actually judge. There are some categories that have perhaps a couple of hundred songs and Rock and Alt Rock have approaching 1500 songs each. This seems hardly fair. I have judged over 1200 battles because I wanted to listen to the songs and see what was rated higher to get an idea of the marketplace and competition. Sometimes I have a different opinion from most others but mostly my opinions agree. I cannot understand why our song is so low. There are some real turkeys in every way imagineable that have a better or similar rating. Either the system is not working properly or the people judging are not voting fairly. I have also noted that quite a proportion of songs are off topic. Some are pure pop some are country or folk. Some are thrash metal which has its own category. Also some songs have been mutiple entered in other categories. Perhaps Rock should be divided into more categories to even out the volume of entries and people should only enter one song.
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1200 battles is amazing! Even at only 30 seconds per entry, that is a lot of effort. I think "Classic Rock" is definitely a genre that should be added.
Kevin
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Thanks Kevin. I listen to it rather than watching the crap on TV. If a song is any good I listen to most of it. I admit that some can be quickly disregarded after 20 secods or so but even then I FF to midway to see if it gets better. Do not get me wrong there are some great songs entered. I am urprised at the quality both from a technical POV and also from an artistic POV. However it is apparent that some entrants have spent more time on image and artwork than on the song writing playing and recording aspect. I would be grateful if you listen to our song and perhaps one or two randomly placed higher efforts to see if you agree with my assumption that we are several hundred places at least wrongly placed. I cannot accept that we are that bad compared to the rest.
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There's definitely some variance, no question about it. My song "Breathing You In" didn't even make it to the quarterfinals in February; it won the genre and came in 3rd in the finals in March. This month, so far, it's not in the top 20 yet. But I think it has more to do with the randomized system. There are a lot of songs, so one vote, before the end of the month, is going to have a fair amount of impact, I imagine.
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The process, I think, is excellent. But the judging has everything to do with the randomness of who judges and what they think. Very much like the real marketplace...fickle, time-sensitive, etc. Congrats, Dan! Although it goes up and down...now that we get deeper into the month, that number 1 means more. EDIT: Whoops--fickle indeed. You got bumped to 16. The tune is great...you might get there anyway. I had #2 for a couple days in folk...it's 49 now. Production is a key element (other than being an excellent song and performance) and yours is definitely great. Good luck!
Last edited by Mark Kaufman; 04/12/08 04:31 PM.
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Anybody know if "favorite" has any impact on rankings? I have a song that has 4 "favorite marks" but has a mediocre rank on the charts. Ben
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Big Jim: I've listen to your song and a few others there and I just think it comes down to demographics. If the majority of voters are 13-16 teenage boys, then a certain type of rock song will be judged higher. If the 18-25 age group votes the most, then another type of song will win. If the 40-60 crowd is the most active (I doubt it), then your song would do better. I think Mark laid out some good reasons as to why you are not doing fantastic and most listeners only give 30-60 seconds before voting (I think). Your song grows on you.
Having said all that, it doesn't make any sense that your song is down so low -- maybe it will move up soon.
Kevin
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Ya- my #1 went to #17 in a matter of 5 days. It felt really good at #1 though.
I think a few things need to change on ourstage. I get sick of judging battles where the genres don't match up. Most categories have a rock, rap and gospel song submitted for battle. These don't make any sense in a folk genre battle etc. Ourstage needs to filter these out somehow. Maybe each song should have an application process. Submit your song, wait for someone to review and then get a confirmation email before entering into a genre battle.
Also, I have found that in judging, unless it is completely obvious that a song doesn't compare in content and quality to the other song in battle, voting for SAME will most always get a 50%-90% agreed with you rating. This might be the clue that ourstage looks for in cheaters. Ourstage does say that cheating in this contest is impossible, but unless someone is regulating this, I don't really see how ourstage can accomplish this.
Ok-maybe iv'e gone on too long, but here some things to think about.
Dan
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dan, that's what the "Off Topic" button is for. You need to report any songs that are obviously in the wrong genre. This is probably the biggest issue that the site has right now; especially towards the beginning of the month, there are so many songs that are just categorized wrong. But I'm confident they'll improve on this and maybe get more staff to screen.
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Well, here's the thing about rankings... it's just like critics... if you believe the good stuff, you should believe the bad stuff. My tune ranked 205 in the pop category. It's not pop. It's sort of 80's retro pop. But there's no 80's retro pop category, so I have no chance. In general I don't put a whole lot of faith into groupthink ratings. What you mostly end up with is music that sounds like it was designed by committee. Look at the top 10 songs at garageband.com. They all sound like B sides from radio artists... meaning they sound a lot LIKE what's on the radio, but maybe not QUITE as catchy. They've got the contemporary vocal sound, the contemporary guitar and drum sounds, the contemporary hip cool lyrics, all that stuff, but they're just not that GOOD. Apologies if I've just insulted anyone who is actually IN the top 10 at garageband.com. I meant those OTHER songs, not YOURS! However, any place you can post your music for free and get it heard is still worth doing.
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Anybody know if "favorite" has any impact on rankings? I have a song that has 4 "favorite marks" but has a mediocre rank on the charts. Ben Ben, Getting a few "favorite" flags (counts) won't hurt any, and may help with download sales, but from my understanding they won't impact your vote ratings one bit. The only thing that counts with judges voting between two songs is: same, slightly more, more or by far. In other words your song might come in last and yet have a bit of positive fan support! Michael
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Johann Sebastian Bach MichaelBorges.comLicenseQuote.com
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Well, here's the thing about rankings... it's just like critics... if you believe the good stuff, you should believe the bad stuff. My tune ranked 205 in the pop category. It's not pop. It's sort of 80's retro pop. But there's no 80's retro pop category, so I have no chance. In general I don't put a whole lot of faith into groupthink ratings. What you mostly end up with is music that sounds like it was designed by committee. Look at the top 10 songs at garageband.com. They all sound like B sides from radio artists... meaning they sound a lot LIKE what's on the radio, but maybe not QUITE as catchy. They've got the contemporary vocal sound, the contemporary guitar and drum sounds, the contemporary hip cool lyrics, all that stuff, but they're just not that GOOD. Apologies if I've just insulted anyone who is actually IN the top 10 at garageband.com. I meant those OTHER songs, not YOURS! However, any place you can post your music for free and get it heard is still worth doing. Well, if the public isn't supposed to do the ranking, then who is? Who else is going to be the best judge of what the public wants or likes? An elite panel? If so, who gets to be on it? Maybe I think I deserve to be on it, because I think I have a great ear for arranging and production, and songs/remixes I've done have been downloaded over a million times. Maybe you think I don't deserve to be on it. Who gets the final say?
Last edited by Andrew Aversa; 04/13/08 12:10 AM.
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As far as I can tell, the system seems pretty fair to me. If the songs are brought up at random, then it would be mighty difficult to play it. There is a bit of jumping around to start with, which is to be expected, but after while, the rankings seem to move up and down at a slower pace, which is more indicitive of where a song stands relative to it's peers. it's a good tool to judge public perception, which is quite different to a muso's point of view.
cheers, niteshift
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Here's a question. When a contestant puts a banner on their web site or MySpace page asking fans to vote for them, the fan clicks the banner that takes them to Our Stage to vote. Does the fan then have to sift through several battles to find the particular artist that they want to vote for? Maybe Danny can answer that one. I've wondered about that since they started offering the banners. Ben
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Ben: That is correct, while you can put up banners, there is NO way to go straight to a particular song or artist you want to vote for. Thus, putting up such a banner during the month is almost futile, because even if someone votes hundreds of rounds, chances are they will only get your song once - if that. It is far more helpful in the (quarter/semi) finals when there are fewer songs, but you still have to vote on whatever you're given at random. Plus, in these later rounds, you have a limited number of votes per round, based on the total number of possible matchups.
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Yeah, so the banner is more of a marketing tool for Ourstage which I don't have a problem with. But it does kind of mislead people to think that they can vote directly for their friends. I really didn't think that that was the intention for the banners, but we have an opportunity to put this contest under a microscope and every angle should be scrutinised. This could very well be the perfect internet music contest as long as people like us question small details like that. Ben
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Big Jim: I've listen to your song and a few others there and I just think it comes down to demographics. If the majority of voters are 13-16 teenage boys, then a certain type of rock song will be judged higher. If the 18-25 age group votes the most, then another type of song will win. If the 40-60 crowd is the most active (I doubt it), then your song would do better. I think Mark laid out some good reasons as to why you are not doing fantastic and most listeners only give 30-60 seconds before voting (I think). Your song grows on you.
Having said all that, it doesn't make any sense that your song is down so low -- maybe it will move up soon.
Kevin Thanks Kevin for taking the time to listen to our song. I agree with all you say. I do think that this is probably the fairest way of judging. I accept that some folk only listen to the first 15 secs or so and then make up their mind. However I just wonder if there is a wee tech hitch or glitch that some songs get left on the shelf without being voted on too much. Random is great but does it mean that some songs statistically get lost in the mix. Perhaps a number printed after the song could show just how many battles that song has been entered in. My impression of random is that scientifically it can be very unfair. The permutations of all the possibilities of parings must outnumber the amount of judging taking place. This can in theory make the results innaccurate.
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Jim,
It's always essentially going to be random in that even if every song was judged 100% the same number of times, it wouldn't be by the same actual humans. And there's no way around that. When you allow open voting, the only way you could control it is to force everyone to vote on every combination and most folks wouldn't do it that long or if forced wouldn't really try very hard. I think the best way for this to become more and more fair is for their judging numbers to keep climbing... more often than not even the millions who vote on American Idol get it pretty close to right (though I sometimes disagree based on actual talent, it's unusual for them to be way way way off on the bottom 3 for example).
I think they will continue to improve thing. The great news is that it's free to enter, you can use it as a quick gauge to which of your songs are more popular (since you can enter more than one) and as it stands now, you can enter the same song again if you want (though if I were running it, I wouldn't allow that.. but that's just my opinion...).
Brian
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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You folks are great! It's very interesting to hear all these thoughts unfold from different voices.
It also seems that songs that have made it to the top ten only stay there for a couple months. Judging the same top ten month after month must get boaring with so many songs to listen to. It seems that a song really only has a short window to do well unless it has sat in the bottom 200 with only a battle or two under its belt.
Dan
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Thanks Brian. I understand and agree with what you say. I actually think it is a great system. It is the humans who use the system that are flawed and there is no way to improve their taste or judgment skills other than by education. I do feel that the most valuable suggestion is to increase the time a song HAS to be listened to before judging. Too often especially in rock and similar categories the song does not get a fair hearing as it maybe slow to build up. I also believe that the draw decision is used too often. Perhaps if they had to choose one over the other it might prove fairer. I also think that the Rock genre should be looked at and perhaps sub divided into smaller more manageable sections. 1400+ entries is IMO too large and too many songs to be judged fairly especially when other categories have just 100-200 or so entries. I am not being negative just trying to improve upon an already great site.
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It might be just be me, but it seems a lot of the female country artists are putting pic's up showing lots of cleavage (kinda hard to compete with that lol) To be fair though most of them have talent behind those over bared chest's. Derek
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LOL In rock folk are putting up some great artwork just a pity that a lot of the music and recordings that goes along with it sucks.
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Derek, just put up your own pic of a prettier woman with more attractive cleavage. Seems to be common practice among some of the rock boy bands. The pictures we choose are very influential...I've come to realize they deserve a lot of thought...
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Hmm pictures we choose influential?? Ok Mark I'll take you at your word. Now Big Jim what I need from you is an insurance quote for my car insurance! . And Mark can you suggest any vacation resorts a musician might enjoy? Derek
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Sorry Derek we cannot accept your insurance application too much of a risk. You do not pass the sanity clause.
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Hey Mark Nothing has changed. Remember the 70s album sleeves?
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Sorry Derek we cannot accept your insurance application too much of a risk. You do not pass the sanity clause. Oh no, you canna foola me--everybody knows there is no Sanity Claus.
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You spoiled the punchline. I was waiting for Derek to ask about the sanity clause. LOL
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Hey my song "These Old Shoes" dropped down from almost 200 to #51 in the Newport Folk Festival catagory overnight.
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It is interesting to see where things end up. I decided to enter my video that won the JPF awards. It started around 15th and has steadily dropped to 247th as of right now. It's been favorited a few times and listened to a bunch.
It will be interesting to see what makes the quarter finals in about 10 days. With only 20 entries making the quarter finals, I'm thinking the video has a hard road to climb to get back to the top 20.
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Well do not feel too bad our song is at 1400 only about sixty voted lower. It would not be so embarrassing until you see what is voted better.
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Hey Big Jim What Mark said And Mark I still need those resorts names ! Derek
Last edited by Derek Hines; 04/13/08 07:07 PM.
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I wonder if a female band member wen't topless for the picture would that be flagged innapropriate? Derek
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And Mark I still need those resorts names ! Derek Only two left: The Last and The Final. Sorry.
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Ahha Well Mark then you might appreciate this, there is band from california (the bay area I believe called papa roach. They have a song (a pretty cool sounding song in fact) called "Last Resort" . So there might be something to your reply after all Derek
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Over all,I'm pretty pleased with ourstage.I'm finding out what songs are popular and which ones are duds,what catagorie I fit in and what ones I don't.I have a soundclick page thats 6 months old and 1450 hits,a myspace page thats 3 months old with 570 hits,and my ourstage page thats only 40 days old and my songs have been heard 3,103 times.I'm seriously thinking of dropping the myspace page as I never cared for the overall vibe there.
I was as high as #3 in one contest,which frankly was way above my expectations.Of course it dropped since then,and I don't expect to be a winner.I'm perfectly happy if I place in the middle of any contest,simply because the over all quality of the music there is so good.Of course there are some stinkers,but the sink dosen't fill up the whole site. The only bone I have to pick with them is that the winner of last months folk category is not a folk song,in my opinion,and I have very broad interoperation of what is a folk song. Check it out for yourselves and see if I'm off base with that statement.
I do think they need to define the categories better and hope they "police" the submissions a little better. Relying on the users to do it can only go so far. I wondered if they did anything at all when someone pushed the button because of so many wrong placements,so I placed one one of my songs in the wrong category and they sent me an email saying they removed it and why. Good on them.
As for the fairness of the judging goes it seems fair,but I know people and I know about machines. Some people love to cheat and any machine can be rigged,hacked or broken. Some day someone will find a way to cheat the system,they always do,but the operators there seem to be honest,stand up guys and gals and will probably handle the problem before it causes them too much harm.
PB
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Just a quick comment before ihave to leave JPF for a week or two. My brother just had a massive heart attack.
As I mentioned earlier, I think it is about as fair as this type of contest can be. Certainly not pefect...but pretty decent. Keep in mind that anything created and used by humans is no more flawless than the humans invovlved in their various contributions to the project.
In the Latin Channel, my song, "A Hot Day In Havana" has held steady between #21 and #17 for the past 8 days. The first couple of days, it waivered between 80 and 100. But since then, it has been pretty consistent where it is at this point (#17 yesterday).
I have but one qualm (qualm...another word we do not use as much as we should!) with OurStage; and it has been addressed previously in this thread. And that is, the Channels (genres) are too broad. How can you fairly judge a 60's Retro Rock against a song that Maroon 5, or Pink, might do, or against a Heavy Metal group? Similarly in Jazz, which I do a lot of (I know grammarians...it should be of which I do a lot. But, I don't talk like that...and if you do, you really shouldn't!), how can you fairly judge a Diana Krall song against a Jazz Fusion or B3 Funk piece?
But, that said, I still think it is a very good process. And as someone else pointed out...a LOT of other folks are getting a chance to hear your music...for free! Free is a pretty good advertising/promotion budget for you!
An Derek, I say that the CAN pictures matter. Why? Because if two songs rate identical in my judgment; I will look to see who cared enough about their own work to put up a good promo picture. Nice artwork and a a tastefully creative picture suggests to me that this is a person/band/group who cares about their music and how they want to be perceived by their audience. If they other guy doesn't care enough about his own music, why should I? Keep in mind, I use that criteria ONLY when all else is equal in my eye/ear. Do Look at the ladies' cleavage? You bet! But, it doesn't influence my voting unless it is a better promo picture than the other artist when all else is equal.
Just my thoughts.
Al
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Hi All, I can assure you I didn't post up my cleavage! Well I entered my song on "Ourstage" I entered it on Country first, ranked 350, I changed it to singing/songwriter, and I am now at 1300, I am totally confused by it all, I'm lost. I ticked the little box to say that "Ourstage" could sell my song, did I do the right thing? I get really scared with these computers, cause I don't understand how it all works. Does that mean, they will sell my song for me, and make me money for my song? I hope so!Help! I just went back in and changed it to Country, Gosh I hope I am doing this right. Where's Greg, Derek, Jim, Mike, help me out here. Totally confused! Michele
Last edited by Michele Bolton; 04/14/08 01:39 AM.
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Michele, You can choose to make your songs available (or not) for download sales. I think pricing is set by OurStage at .99 cents per song. Currently artists can collect 100% minus any bank fee which OurStage pays. In the future they will likely retain a sales commission after they figure out what their costs are to offer this service.
Beyond that, you can switch the Genre (Channel) anytime you want, but I think it's best to do it on the first day of the month when a new contest series starts. Might as well wait and see how a channel does. Sometimes things can change radically towards the middle or end of the month for better or worse.
Cheers, Michael
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Johann Sebastian Bach MichaelBorges.comLicenseQuote.com
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Well, if the public isn't supposed to do the ranking, then who is? Who else is going to be the best judge of what the public wants or likes? An elite panel? If so, who gets to be on it? Maybe I think I deserve to be on it, because I think I have a great ear for arranging and production, and songs/remixes I've done have been downloaded over a million times. Maybe you think I don't deserve to be on it. Who gets the final say? Sorry about the late reply - just getting back to this thread. There's a great quote by Henry Ford - He said if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse." I'm just saying that what you end up with (when using groupthink) is usaully whatever sounds most like what everyone is already listening to. And that frustrates me when I go to sites looking for new music that I'll like and the stuff at the top of the heap sounds like the stuff on the radio but not quite as good. And the better stuff is often down around #80 or so. Well, better in "my" opinion. And actually, an elite panel WOULD do a better job of ranking music, in my opinion. Sometimes it's a good idea to have a Henry Ford. And you can only be on the panel if you like the artists I like. OK, I'm kidding about that part. But this is my take - in the past, the "filter" was the record companies and the radio stations, and we all complained, but it sort of worked. But the concept of groupthink doesn't work for me as a filtering mechanism, because the results, as I've said, sound just like whatever is popular. Does the rankings of ourstage show you how a certain audience (ie whatever genre you choose) feels about your music? Yeah, it does, but as pointed out by many, the genres are too broad, and so you can't really target what you do, unless you happen to write stuff that sounds like what's already popular. I still think it's a neat site and I still think any chance to get your music heard is good. I think there will be more sophisticated formulas out there, in time. Some sites analyze the music you have on your computer and what you listen to and then compare that with other site members and come up with suggestions for you... sort of like the amazon model, but more in depth. I'm interested in seeing how that will play out.
Last edited by Richard Maclemale; 04/14/08 03:26 AM.
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Pandora already does what you're suggesting Richard. They have expert filters and then give you suggestions based on what you say you like.
We do the same thing in our awards. At the start, a tiny number of people pick genres so they are consistent throughout the process. By having the stuff filtered correctly for genre, it makes the entire comparison screening process dramatically easier. Not everyone agrees with the "name" of a genre, but at least once you're inside it, you're going to hear music with commonalities and a somewhat logical collective.
As with any process where you choose one thing over the other, people will always disagree. Each year we have to pick a song of the year out of the entire entries. We rarely end up with a song that even half the voters in the genre category even chose as one of their top 5. (i.e. out of 20 nominees). But once something is in the top 6 at the end, it's considered for song of the year. Last year we ended up with a song that finished second in it's category as overall song of the year based on the final voting just among the top 6. We didn't have a single song in any category that didn't get votes so it's clear that even the very worst song in any given category had someone who thought it was one of the 5 best.
That's why we've always stressed that our goal isn't to say "this is the greatest song/album out there..." but rather here's some amazing music that our system has put forward for recognition and attention. Our combined group of experts, peers and fans all voted and came to this combined result. I think by having that mix, you really get a lot of diverse perspectives. Ironically, the fans are often the best, of the 3 groups, at picking what eventually wins. Industry is the least effective. = )
Brian
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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Can someone help me with a technical question when voting?
I've had no problems voting since I joined Ourstage til now. When I click the "more" or "same" button, it just sits there. I refresh the page and resend the info and try again and once it worked, but then the next song, it just sits there after I vote. I see "Script Error" in the bottom corner. I have done lots of judging with no problems, so it's weird. I tried judging on an old computer we have and had no problem, so I know it's not the site. I don't see a place where I can ask them over at Ourstage, so I'm posting here in hopes someone can help. What's wrong with my computer?? :o (I do have a strange laptop...very finicky).
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. -- Abraham Maslow, American Psychologist
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Kristi,
Their are two probable causes:
1: Their board is overwhelmed with traffic at the time and their bandwidth cannot carry the load. It happenes to me at times. Simply click off of the site for 30 secnds or so and then back onto it. That usually works, but not always.
2: They are updating the judging results and the board is temporarily unavaiable durng that process. It usually lasts no more than a minute or two.
Could be something else, bt those are the two most probable causes.
Al
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Hi Al, Thank you for your help. Well, it's good to know it's maybe not my computer! Those ideas make sense. I did just try clicking off for 30 seconds with no luck...maybe it's a heavy night of voting or something. It might be helpful to see how many people are online, like you can here, ya know? (not that I would know what amt of people might cause traffic problems, but...at least we'd know if it's a busy time...kind of like shopping...avoid the crowds!) I will keep trying..thanks again! Kristi
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. -- Abraham Maslow, American Psychologist
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