JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum So Where Does Your Song Rank On Ourstage?

I disagree. I think your chances are much better of doing well with an early entry. But if another song that's better than mine comes in late and does well, that's fine with me.

But I have an entirely different view of OurStage than you do...and it's not because of all that whisky you drink...I view it as a showcase, whereas you view it as a contest.

If I won $5000, I'd be very pleased and surprised. $100 I don't care so much about. (Being from Scotland, of course, you'd happily bash my head in with a golf club for a hundred bucks...but I feel pretty safe over here in Minnesota. ) What I do care about is getting my work in the public eye, and I think this is great for that. Winning...that's overrated.

Hey Mark It is a showcase and nothing more. I view it as a bit of fun. However I have the sort of mind that likes to see people play fair form a level playing field.

I had a song taken out of Americana too, they tried to place it in country but I already had a song there,so now my song sits as unentered. I thought traditional country would fit in Americana, I guess not. They are splitting up others genres into subgenres, why not do the same for country, there are certainly enough country styles out there.

I see they have a Southern/Blues Rock channel now.
Not sure I get that. I'll have to check the definition of it.

Seems they like lots of Rock, Metal, and RAP Sub-genres.
Not much interest in Country Subs.

Hey, have any of you folks been having trouble with the Ourstage page over the weekend? When I pull up my profile page, everything is out of place and the "Ourstage Live" window won't load. And when I click on the "show all" button under the songs, it takes me back to the top of the page. Weird. Anyway, I can't figure out if it's a problem on their end or on my end.

Eric

I had problems getting Ourstage to load. I was also having Problems getting logged on to JPFolks.
I was getting could not connect errors.

Bill...and all,

The only problems I've had with OurStage is that the paired songs for judging are taking a lifetime to load. So, I sometimes just give up rather than often wait as much as two full minutes for one pair of sings to load.

As far as JPF, for the past couple of months there have been multiple times when the site simply would not come up. And, on occassion, if it, I couldn't migrate among the various threads. The process weould just time out. It gets pretty frsutrating! If it were my computer, I would have that problem all the time. I can come back an hour later and the site comes up fine with normal navigation...and I haven't done one thing to my computer, other than clicking on my Internet icon. All other sites, SongRamp, OurStage, Soundclick, AirPlay Direct, etc, load normally. Whio knows!

Alan

Al
I have been having the same problems. Usually I just go do something else and check back later.
I do check other sites to make sure it is not a problem on my end.
Myspace, soundclick, Google, my own site, all seem to work just fine.

I have waited as long as one hour to get on JPF.

I also have experienced the same.

OURSTAGE is taking ages to load and sometimes just silver spinning discs appear while it is loading the page and stay there eventually I have to come out and visit back later.


JPF Sometimes nothing happens and the system freezes up when trying to change page or post a thread the spinning icon in the browser just spins. It is frustrating I have to copy paste thread and log off then log back on. It seems to be happening more regularily.

It is possible that the site engines of both are not capable of the heavy traffic they all of a sudden are experiencing.

I have had a really weird thing happen here at JPF. A few months ago I clicked the donate button to make a donation and my computer froze up. A little message at the bottom of the screen said "trying to load images from Paypal" or something like that. I kept trying and got the same message all the time.

Now the "Donate now" button is on the main forum page and it locks my computer up every time. So I downloaded FireFox and use that instead of Explorer and there is no problem. And I use Explorer on my machine at work and there is no problem. So something is wacky on my machine at home.

Yeah, I lose patience with the loading at Ourstage too....

So as to not be accused of thread drift, my song "Summertown" was moved to Singer/Songwriter and quickly fell into the 500's. But it has started to rebound and is currently 335 or so...

Sadly, my song in the folk category, "Bid Adieu, Gwendolyn" has fallen to the 200's after being as high as 9th.

One other interesting thing - for the first time, one of my songs came up while I was judging. Purely as a test (honest ) I said that I liked it very much more than the other entry. It fell four places

I have to admit, Ourstage is pretty fun - I'm enjoying it.

Scott

My song "Tropic Of Candy Corn", in the Latin Channel, is currently at #34. The other three are all 166 or lower, but, at one time, a couple of those three were in the top 20 in their channels.

"Tropic Of Candy Corn", over the past several days, has charted anywhere from 9th to 91st...quite a variance in just 3 or 4 days!

Jim, yeah, the two spinning silver discs is what I get when the songs will not load. I think it is simply a case of the traffic overloading the bandwidth. I would do as lot more judging, as time allowed, if I didn't have to wait so long for the danged songs to come up.

Scott, I have experienced the same thing that you just mentioned. I have voted on my songs (2 of them...one five times, one 2 times), and I have voted what I thought was an honest vote. I voted against one of my songs once because i really thyought that the other song was much better. the other six times, I voted either "slightly more' or "more" for my song. Each time, my song fell in the ranking. I had a private discussion with Michael Borgess about this. If it happened occassionally, I would totally dismiss it due to other voting. But, when it happens "every" time, I have a certain amount of suspicion.

there are other issues that concern me. But, all in all, I enjoy having my songs there and

My song "Tropic Of Candy Corn", in the Latin Channel, is currently at #34. The other three are all 166 or lower, but, at one time, a couple of those three were in the top 20 in their channels.

"Tropic Of Candy Corn", over the past several days, has charted anywhere from 9th to 91st...quite a variance in just 3 or 4 days!

Jim, yeah, the two spinning silver discs is what I get when the songs will not load. I think it is simply a case of the traffic overloading the bandwidth. I would do as lot more judging, as time allowed, if I didn't have to wait so long for the danged songs to come up.

Scott, I have experienced the same thing that you just mentioned. I have voted on my songs (2 of them...one five times, one 2 times), and I have voted what I thought was an honest vote. I voted against one of my songs once because i really thyought that the other song was much better. the other six times, I voted either "slightly more' or "more" for my song. Each time, my song fell in the ranking. I had a private discussion with Michael Borgess about this. If it happened occassionally, I would totally dismiss it due to other voting. But, when it happens "every" time, I have a certain amount of suspicion.

There are other issues that concern me. But, all in all, I enjoy having my songs there and I do enjoy the process of judging. I am still a supporter of theirs. But, I have a realistic point of view, I think. I feel that it is probably the fairest of similar sites out there, but still has numerous issues. I am not convinced that the voting cannot be marginally compromised. marginal is OK, I guess. My biggest complaint is the lack of sub-genres. Country and Jazz are NOT one size fits all!

I am willing to give them more time and see what happens. It's an evolving process. But, my patience does have a shelf life.

Alan

Al I am with you 100% I like Ourstage a lot. There are a few issues and problems with Ourstage it has teething problems no doubt. I am realistic enough to realise that there is no perfect system. I think they are listening but perhaps taking too long to respond to the main probs. The problems are not going to be resolved however if people claim it is fine and hide their heads in the sand or criticise folk for highlighting the problems and concerns.
Like you I am not bitching just trying to get the thing working better and fairer by pointing out flaws and problems.

Wow Brian, I thank you for the OurStage opening too. I want to thank those who are listening to my tune and voting.

"Yielded Vessel" off my first CCM project "Transition" started off at #453 a week ago, and is now at #30.
Again, thanks everyone.....it's appreciated greatly.

Barry Winslow

Big Jim,

Yeah, we're in agreement. Not really bitching a lot...just expressing where my concerns are and that I am willing to them a reasonable amount of time to take care of some issue. And I know that they will not all be resolved to my liking. But, I'm hoping that Country and Jazz will have a couple of sub-genres real soon and that they will have a better system of dtecting who has loaded more than one song in a particualr genre/channel. The rest of it is of lesser concern for me. Take care, my friend!

Alan

Barry,

Welcome to JPF! And I'm happy to hear that your song is doing so good. Congats on that!

Do you mind saying what of Missouri you are from? I live 30 miles west of St. Louis in Lake Saint Louis.

Continued success with your music!

Alan

My problem is getting played, one song has had only two plays and we are 1/3 of the way through the month.

Hi Everett the amount of plays has nothing to do with voting it is the amount of times your song has been played by people not judging but just having a listen to your song. Similarily if a song is selected as a fav this has also nothing to do with voting. It is just someone who has listened to your song independantly of voting they mark it as their fav.

The actual amount of times any song has been voted on is not published. I think it would make interesting reading though.
I suspect that some songs get more battles than others and this accounts for some songs being well out of position.

Hi Alan,
Thanks for the kind words my friend. I was living just east of Springfield, but now moving to Sault Ste Marie MI......yeah, a bit of a weather change.
Great success to you too Alan. Keep up those great chops. Shout anytime.
Barry

Barry,

Yeah...big change! Were you down around Strafford; or were you out on 160 towards Rogersville? Almost all of my family lives in or near Branson. My father is buried there. My mother, two brothers and a sister all live in Branson or very close. I'm the only musician in the family and the only one who doesn't, and has never lived in Branson! Take care. The coming winter should be interesting for you!

Alan

I am curious how they initially rank a song when they move it from one channel/genre to another. They created a new channel. "Tropical Music", which is appropriate for my song "Tropic of Candy Corn". Before they moved it, it was in the top 12% of latin, floating between 21st and 30 most of the time. When they moved it to "Tropical", yesterday, it was put dead last.

I wouldn't have a problem with my song being moved if it had been my error in channrl/genre placement. But, I don't think it should be moved, just because they created a new channel, in the middle of a competition. If the new channel existed before the competition and I overlooked it, bad on me. But, according to the email I received, the three new channels, including "Tropical", were not employed until June 6th...after the June competition had already begun. I had not originally entered the song in the "wrong" channel, because "Tropical" did not exist when I entered my song on June 1st. The new channels should have been initially employed at the beginning of a new monthly competition, not in the middle of one. That is what really rubs me wrong.

I have been a very strong and vocal supporter of OurStage from the very moment they came aboard as JPF partners. I always try to support those ewho support my interests. I am now very unhappy with OurStage. Rather than go on a big rant here (which is so tempting), other than the breif explanation I gave above, I think I'll just refrain from participating in the future and leave it at that. I'll not make a big deal of my dissatisfaction unless someone asks my opinion about them. Then, I will be honest about my feelings, saying no more than what I have said above.

Alan

Alan,

No Sir, we were in Houston MO....North Hwy 63,south of Rolla......nice little town. Yeah Partner, I can relate to the "only musician" deal...I spent 15yrs in Nashville, and outside of doing a few sessions, never did "get anywhere" 'till I moved away. Strange, but so are we as musicians :O)

I was hoping to meet someone thats doing CCM in Branson. Seems like that would be a great place to play.

Hope to be working in the south this winter...I hear that some winters need a snowcat to plow a way for the snowplow trucks to be able to work....too cold for this monkey.
Gotta run but talk to soon.

Barry

Al You are just like me two old farts that like a good moan every now and then. LOLOn a serious note it would do no harm for Ourstage to have a look at the categories. I am sure there are some that are so large they could be subdivided to make life easier. It would also help if they gave guidelines and conditions as to what the actual qualifying criteria is for each category. This might persuade people to put their songs in the correct category. So far it seems that there are more wrongly categorised songs than those placed properly and correctly. There is more than one category for Rap and R&B yet this type of music appears frequently in almost every other category I have looked at. I am fed up reporing off topic songs.

Barry said "No Sir, we were in Houston MO." How cool is that? that's my old hometown...

and to stay on topic, TwinnCampbell was 27 in americana last time I checked

Al, I understand your annoyance. But you also should notice that there are only 46 entrants in Tropical, and you said you were as far down as 91st with "Tropic of Candy Corn" while still in the Latin category. Now I see you at 22, already halfway up from last, and climbing.

Doesn't it appear that they have actually given you an easier field to conquer?

Mark,

I agree that with so few entries, the field is an "easier negotiation". But, that's not what I am looking for. If I were to win, i want it to be on the merit of the song, not the fact that it has limited competition. I simply abject to the fact that when I was in the top 12% of the original channel, that I was added at the very end of the new channel. I understand that everyone else who was transfered to this new channel held their respective positions in the previous channel. We should have been integrated accordingly, by the respective positions our songs held in the previous channel. I was in the top 12% in Latin. I should be behind anyone who held a better percentage ranking in their previous channels, and ahead of those who held a lower percentage ranking. That would have been fair, in my opinion. It is the proncipal that since I was, apparently, the last one moved, at that tinme, I was arbitrarily placed in the last position. That is what irritates me. I'm not looking for an "easy win". I do not appreciate the fact that it was, apparently, an arbitrary placement, rather than a placement based upon accomplishment up to the point of being moved. Any previous merit that my song received is simply ignored. That's my beef.

But thanks for offering your opinion on it. I appreciate the fact that you offered another point of view. And good luck with your entries. You're a "GREAT" musical talent!

Alan

Barry and Louis,

Houston, MO. you say? Well I'll be danged! I have many relatives in that area. My sister lives in West Plains.

My great aunt, Lottie Jane David, married Henry Newton Price and they lived right outside of Houston almost all their married life. They both died in the 1970's and are buried there.

I have been to Houston on countless occassions doing family history research. I'm a genealogist. I have relayives in and around Houston, Allewy Springs, Emminence and Summersville. My mother lived in Rolla for quite a few years after my father died. What's that old saying about small world?

Alan

Louis,

I judged your TwinnCampbell entry three times. Gave it "slightly more" twice and "more" the other time. Good song!

Alan

I'm not sure you're actually "last" when you are placed into a new category. I think you might have something more like a "no vote" status, and that placement at the end of the row probably doesn't matter once the voting begins...I might be wrong about that though.

Mark,

I'll try to be optomitic and assume that you are correct! Thanks for your thought.

Alan

Jim,
I've been reporting a lot of Off-topic songs, especially in New Age / World where I normally enjoying hearing some very fresh & talented work. It's mostly RAP, HipHop & Electronica that are the culprits, and a lot of them have also been offensive with their lyrics, gangsta style rap and images, etc.

I'm with you, "fed up" up with having to report all this, because if we don't, it will just stay there and make for a bad/worse experience. I think the fans are tired of having to "mop up" after a bunch of shameless, self-promoting artists that don't know what they're doing and are ruining a good thing for the rest of us, artists and fans included!

Regards,
Michael

Well I put a song up in the new Southern Rock Category.
While judging I had three songs come up that were covers. I am not sure but I don't think they are suppose to be there so I reported them

When My song was uploaded it went to number 66 out of 77. that was it's starting point.
It stayed there while I was voting.
To my surprise it came up for a vote and it was against the Number one song in the channel.
I decided to test what I have been reading. I voted my song better by "more". Actually I liked the other song. I still think mine is better but we all know how that goes, LOL

When I checked my song later it had dropped to next to last place, 86 out of 87. Guess you can't get much worse than that..

It had also already had 47 plays in less than a 24 hour period.
Strange. I have a couple other songs that I uploaded two weeks ago and they only have 7 or 8 plays. Curious,

I think I'd rather see how many times it was judged rather than how many times it is just played.
I don't know what's going on. LOL.

Bill,
I agree! Actually, it would be nice to see both, since they are tracking everything anyway, so it would be interesting to compare how many times a song got judged over a 1 month contest period and compare with how many times it got played from visitors and fans, etc. which had nothing to do with the actual voting part.

For example, they could show it like this:
Song plays = 500 (by fans and visitors)
Contest plays = 1,000 (by judges during voting process)
Total plays = 1,500

That would be a "no brainer" for them to set up because it's just very basic statistics. I'm sure the most popular songs will go on to get many more plays from fans than only from the judging/voting part of the site.

Michael

"I judged your TwinnCampbell entry three times. Gave it "slightly more" twice and "more" the other time. Good song!"

Hey thanks Al.... Hey we could be cousins or something. I probably knew of some of your relatives.

Louis...

Being cousins would be a good thing...especially from my POV. It's just the "something" that has me a bit nervous!

Alan

lol... well you know how it is in the hills

Post deleted by TAMERA64

Tammy
It has been explained that the number of plays listed has nothing to do with the judging.
It is only the number of times someone has sought out and listened to your song.
They do NOT list how many times your song has been judged

We've got a song entered in Tropical genre under TwinnCampbell and it's already gotten 696 listens, man that's a lot for one week.

Tammy, Bill & Louis,
Again, as Bill reminds us, song plays has nothing to do with how many times it got played (or rotated) in the judging/voting event. That's why I would like to see OurStage clearly report both amounts of plays: how many times a song got played only in the voting process and seperately, how many times a song got played from normal vistor and fan listening usage.

That's it for today... short, sweet & simple.
Thanks,
Michael

I have no clue as to how this OURSTAGE thing works...

ALL I can say is I end up voting for certain match-ups 4-5 times before I ever get to my tune....EVERY SINGLE DAY.....

I didn't see Marks "20 chickens for a saddle for 3 days"....But several other songs 10 plus times in the meanwhile..........And Michelles song came up only once, same with Bill Robinsons....Mike Dunbars tune came up 2x so at least one of us got some "love".....

SORRY GUYS I'M A HOMER.....JPF'S members always get my vote.............

Also my song in Male Singer/Songwriter has languished in the 500-700 range consistently....

Today at work it was ranked 700th....4 hours later when I got home it is at # 229.....

All of a sudden I'm picking up that many votes/spots ????? In 4 hours ????

Something's not right....

But I look at it as solely as a place to play my music for new listeners....

I'm three of those listeners! And happy to be!

Alan

Louis
That is a lot of listens. That many folks seeking out you songs means something, even if as Al says he listened 3 times.
Someone is listening and I'd say liking what they hear

Thanks Bill, yeah I was kindof shocked when I saw the stats...It's only been there a week maybe.

Hey thanks Al

Well, heck, guys! I have one with almost a thousand listens and one with over 500. And neither of them has been "favorited"...not even once. The one with over 500 listens has only been up for 7 days. Interesting!

Alan

PS: My "Tropical" entry now stands at 23.

Hey Al
Count me in for at least a couple.

Well I don't have near that many but I got favorited a couple times.
But I think I did one by accident, LOL

Funny...it lets you favorite yourself, Ha!

Well my cover song "The Letter" has had 1780 plays since May 2nd and was favourited 21 times. Still did not finish in top ten out of just over 100 songs. Other songs that finished well above me had fewer plays and been favourited even fewer times.

My conspiracy theory is that people check the competition in the charts before judging and deliberately vote the better songs which threaten their song down.

Well this is strange.
Maybe not strange, maybe no one is voting.

I have been watching the Southern Rock Channel.
I put my song there two days ago.
It got 47 plays in the first 12 hours or so. Not a single play in the last 36.
There were 99 songs yesterday morning. My song was at 97. I wrote down the last 5 place songs to see what they did.
My song was at 66 until I voted it better than the number one song. My song immediately dropped to second to last, LMAO.

The last 5, including mine, have not moved. The number of songs in the channel keeps increasing but the last five stay the last five, except one. It moved about 10 places. So new songs enter before them rather at the end of the list. So they start out higher before they are even voted on. Now I do understand it will probably get sorted out over time. I will watch the channel for a couple weeks.

This morning I have been judging for 1 1/2 hours in the Southern Rock Channel.
I have seen some songs come up 4 or 5 times, mostly front runners. But the last 10? I have seen three of them one time. one song came up 2 time. But it was against a song I had seen several times.
One song came up 8 maybe 9 times.
How are they supposed to move if they never get voted on?
I don't get it.

Edit
Ok in the last twenty minutes I have seen one of the last 10 come up 3 time.

But I am still seeing the same songs I seen an hour ago over and over it seems. Some songs 8 or 10 times.

I have yet to see these songs which were last when I started this morning. How are they supposed to move if they never get voted on?

Yelp
I've Had My Fill
Everybody Gets The Blues
One Hell Of A good Storm

Well It has been over two hours of voting.
I just voted on the number one song for the 6th time.
I have yet to see any of the 4 songs I have listed above.

Can anyone explain that to me?
One thing has changed, a new song has entered the last five. It was one I saw and I voted on several times, LOL. poor guy.

I have two songs up for vote right now, Both of which I have seen at least 6 times. I have still not seen the four songs listed above.

OK Last Edit on this post.
It has been about 2 1/2 hours.
I am still seeing the same songs over and over again. One I know has come up at least a dozen times.
Those four I listed above. I have still not seen them.

Now maybe this will sort itself out in the end but if this were the last day of voting it would definitely influence who gets into the Semi's. How could a song improve its position if it is never voted on.
I undersatand it is weeks of voting but if this is any indication something just seems off.
I will try again later and see what happens.

Big Jim...I have thought that for quite some time. I try to ne honest with my votes. I have twice voted another song higher than mine because I honestly thought that the other song was indeed much better than mine. But, it sure is painful to do that! But, I think you are right about some (not all) folks in the Top Twenty or so will often check the raniking and vote down songs that are charted higher than theirs.

In an earlier post I had commented that I might not participate in the future. Mark's comment dissuaded me from that. But, I may not hold the contests in such high regard as I have in the past. I will stay and enter songs; but until something makes me think otherwise, it will be more for the opportunity to have my songs heard than for the sake of the contest.

I have experienced much the same thing that Bill has in his post before this one...some sonmgs coming up multiple times, others almost never. And I hasve the same observation that it APPEARS that the higher ranked songs do get more views. I haven't kept any "records" regarding frequency; but my memory tells me that. I hope I am wrong and that they will show me that I am wrong.

I am very open...even hopeful...to have my concerns disproved. I have been a big advocate and vocal supporter of OurStage up until the past couple of days. Just a few simple explanations could assauge my concerns. I leave the door wide open to have my percpetions changed back to 98% positive.

Alan

Post deleted by TAMERA64