Thread: Music Section

Due to an overwhelming majority of users UPing this project, it's moved to development.

Originally Posted by Gi-gi-gi-giaru!

For the new Project Overgrow - since we have plans to put a new library in, and we already have drawing galleries, why not put up a music site as well?

It would make a great, although small at first, part of the site where people could showcase their originally created music, either from the Pokémon game soundfonts or otherwise.

Here is the staff's criteria for what we want in a music section.

1: Access to free software that can allow anyone to contribute their music.
2: A simple system for uploading and streaming the music, and commenting on the music.
2a. Alternatively, we could provide a forum where links to an uploading/streaming site are feasible; ie., if everyone can upload to YouTube.
3: Some infrastructure and community: what a forum's rules would look like, some demonstration that we have people who are currently making music and committed to sticking with the project.

If you respond to any of these criteria, please list the number for which you are responding. If you can create a proposal that answers all of these, the staff will start testing it.

Since I'm the one who proposed it, I'd guess I have a role in sticking to its development.

I've already got a potential programmer (named Qombat) for the music CMS, but we don't know how long it would take to build one. Youtube is probably not an option, because it's very tedious to upload it at a good quality.

As for the rules, at least copyright-wise I'd expect it to be the same as Newgrounds. Must be your original work, yada yada.

I would personally suggest we work on both simultaneously, the forum and the system. A few words on both:

System:
-Something that allows users to talk about the music thats uploaded
-All music uploaded must go through the mods to ensure no copyright issues
-It should be ensured that the music is original
-All creators should be able to upload it easily
-This should provide a good place for users to get some attention.


Forum
-Moderation is important.
-Place for every musician to make atleast a thread about their music, similar to the art section.
-The musician should get comments etc, from users in that thread.
-This should allow users to suggest stuff to the musicians, maybe even suggest new songs to make etc.
-A thread for each genre, to allow discussions regarding music from proffesionals (Linkin Park, etc) so we have lets say a thread for "Alternative Rock" a thread for "Jazz" and users can suggest and discuss music.

Originally Posted by Badal

-Something that allows users to talk about the music thats uploaded

A comment system? Not too hard.

Originally Posted by Badal

-All music uploaded must go through the mods to ensure no copyright issues

Moderation is fine too.

Originally Posted by Badal

-It should be ensured that the music is original

Moderation.

Originally Posted by Badal

-All creators should be able to upload it easily

It can't get easier than a one-click upload to here. I'd be bridging the system to use the Filemaw API.

Originally Posted by Badal

-This should provide a good place for users to get some attention

That's really circumstantial.

Originally Posted by Badal

I would personally suggest we work on both simultaneously, the forum and the system. A few words on both:

System:
-Something that allows users to talk about the music thats uploaded
-All music uploaded must go through the mods to ensure no copyright issues
-It should be ensured that the music is original
-All creators should be able to upload it easily
-This should provide a good place for users to get some attention.

Again, I'm proposing the Newgrounds model - users are "unapproved" at first - their first submitted work will go through the mods. If they pass that check, other works they submit will be let through automatically, and the user will be "approved". However, if they fail the check, then the work will not go through, and the user will stay "unapproved".

Also, should there be a rating system or not? A comment system is inevitable, but what about numerical ratings, like there are on Newgrounds?

Thirdly, we should have an integrated streaming music player - again, the way Newgrounds does it.

Forum
-Moderation is important.
-Place for every musician to make at least a thread about their music, similar to the art section.
-The musician should get comments etc, from users in that thread.
-This should allow users to suggest stuff to the musicians, maybe even suggest new songs to make etc.
-A thread for each genre, to allow discussions regarding music from professionals (Linkin Park, etc) so we have lets say a thread for "Alternative Rock" a thread for "Jazz" and users can suggest and discuss music.

I concur with all of this except the last one. The last one might be a thread for each artist, or things like that.

@Qombat: Agreed to the last one.

Also, if its possible can users post "Vocaroo" stuff up directly, so lets say I post a song- "XYZ" and user "A" listens to it, User A wants to say that my note on one of the lines is a bit off and he show's me how to do it, he can do a quick vocaroo, and upload it. I think if possible can you link Vocaroo to the system itself? That would be pretty interesting if done.

And If we can get something that is along the line of myspace musicians. I'm just taking my group's example because, its easier to explain. For example here if you look at the music, you can upload your own songs, pictures, etc. So having a page for a musician will also be highly helpful

Originally Posted by Gi-gi-gi-giaru!

Again, I'm proposing the Newgrounds model - users are "unapproved" at first - their first submitted work will go through the mods. If they pass that check, other works they submit will be let through automatically, and the user will be "approved". However, if they fail the check, then the work will not go through, and the user will stay "unapproved".

Also, should there be a rating system or not? A comment system is inevitable, but what about numerical ratings, like there are on Newgrounds?

Thirdly, we should have an integrated streaming music player - again, the way Newgrounds does it.



I concur with all of this except the last one. The last one might be a thread for each artist, or things like that.

@Gigi: I think rather than having a "rating system" we should do the "like and dislike" buttons, or "up and down" since having a rating system, can be a bit pissing off for content creators, because and can be a bit time consuming for the viewers, as they will have to decide whether to give 4 stars or 3 stars, etc. Whereas its easier to say, I like this, or I dislike this.


That would be too spammy. Every BMGf user can have their own thread, yes. But not every professional musician. There are millions of bands and imagine each one of them having a thread, not everyone listens to every band and I think having a thread for each pro artist would be very space consuming and useless. We should start off with a thread for each genre and then go on to see if there's extreme activity, we could hold polls or have a thread where users can suggest pro bands that deserve threads and if enough people agree, the thread gets made.

Originally Posted by Badal

@Qombat: Agreed to the last one.

Also, if its possible can users post "Vocaroo" stuff up directly, so lets say I post a song- "XYZ" and user "A" listens to it, User A wants to say that my note on one of the lines is a bit off and he show's me how to do it, he can do a quick vocaroo, and upload it. I think if possible can you link Vocaroo to the system itself? That would be pretty interesting if done.

And If we can get something that is along the line of myspace musicians. I'm just taking my group's example because, its easier to explain. For example here if you look at the music, you can upload your own songs, pictures, etc. So having a page for a musician will also be highly helpful

I got bored for about four weeks and wrote a deviantART / Newgrounds engine clone. I don't have it around anymore but I'm sure I can do a similar thing again.

With regards to moderation, there's sort of a negative aspect of both ends, and it really depends how power-crazy the administration team is.
If you really feel the need to look at every work that comes through the system, then the suggested "REVIEW FUCKING EVERYTHING" is fine, however if you're looking at a higher quantity of users (and (hopefully) subsequently, works) you'll want to look at a gate system like Newgrounds.

Originally Posted by Qombat

I got bored for about four weeks and wrote a deviantART / Newgrounds engine clone. I don't have it around anymore but I'm sure I can do a similar thing again.

With regards to moderation, there's sort of a negative aspect of both ends, and it really depends how power-crazy the administration team is.
If you really feel the need to look at every work that comes through the system, then the suggested "REVIEW FUCKING EVERYTHING" is fine, however if you're looking at a higher quantity of users (and (hopefully) subsequently, works) you'll want to look at a gate system like Newgrounds.

I just read gigi's system, of having the first work, approved and then consequent getting through directly, I feel thats the best way. Good suggestion

Originally Posted by Badal

@Gigi: I think rather than having a "rating system" we should do the "like and dislike" buttons, or "up and down" since having a rating system, can be a bit pissing off for content creators, because and can be a bit time consuming for the viewers, as they will have to decide whether to give 4 stars or 3 stars, etc. Whereas its easier to say, I like this, or I dislike this.

So, go the Youtube way on ratings. Fine with me.

That would be too spammy. Every BMGf user can have their own thread, yes. But not every professional musician. There are millions of bands and imagine each one of them having a thread, not everyone listens to every band and I think having a thread for each pro artist would be very space consuming and useless. We should start off with a thread for each genre and then go on to see if there's extreme activity, we could hold polls or have a thread where users can suggest pro bands that deserve threads and if enough people agree, the thread gets made.

Well, really, think about it, how many bands/musicians/artists are the BMGf collective really going to care about enough to make a thread for them?

It's like the Outside the Box forum, really. How many topics, really, can you make about what you do in your daily life?

Originally Posted by Badal

I just read gigi's system, of having the first work, approved and then consequent getting through directly, I feel thats the best way. Good suggestion

This could be taken a step further with user ranks. If a user is caught doing something moronic, they can be knocked back to the gated rank a couple of times (three or so, depending on the reason) and eventually just ban them.

Originally Posted by Qombat

This could be taken a step further with user ranks. If a user is caught doing something moronic, they can be knocked back to the gated rank a couple of times (three or so, depending on the reason) and eventually just ban them.

So, basically, an "infraction" system for the audio CMS.

Originally Posted by Qombat

This could be taken a step further with user ranks. If a user is caught doing something moronic, they can be knocked back to the gated rank a couple of times (three or so, depending on the reason) and eventually just ban them.

Sounds good, as long as only staff can do this.

Originally Posted by Gi-gi-gi-giaru!

So, basically, an "infraction" system for the audio CMS.

Something along those lines.

Originally Posted by Gi-gi-gi-giaru!

So, basically, an "infraction" system for the audio CMS.

Not really. With the Haystack framework, I had a ranking system that went like this:

[-1] Unregistered User
[0] Banned User
[1] Limited User
[2] Registered User
[3] Respected User
[4] Section Moderator
[5] Global Moderator
[6] Administrator

Certain actions and pages would react differently depending on this ranking flag.

I think we should just have 5:
Unregistered[-1]
Banned[0]
Limited[1]
Registered[2]
Staff[3]

So you if you register, you go to registered, if you fuck around, you go to limited, if you still fuck around, you get banned. Staff for the system is "staff"

Originally Posted by Badal

Sounds good, as long as only staff can do this.

This would be hardcoded to preference. Most likely, moderators can ungate someone, but only administrators can promote. I'm not going to code permission settings and the like as this would be a closed-source project and the actual codebase would never be released publicly (as with all my projects). This of course is assuming I'm taking on the project.

Originally Posted by Badal

I think we should just have 5:
Unregistered[-1]
Banned[0]
Limited[1]
Registered[2]
Staff[3]

So you if you register, you go to registered, if you fuck around, you go to limited, if you still fuck around, you get banned. Staff for the system is "staff"

Originally Posted by Qombat

With the Haystack framework

Regardless, your idea leaves for a lot of potential holes and much less flexibility and room for expansion.