Re: Why the Overall Chart History Needs Reworked

albummaster — Sun, 7 May 2017 04:37:08 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 05/07/2017 08:37

jackbrown8786 wrote:

The way it's set up, "Last Year End" is listed and then "6 Months Ago" is listed. Sometimes, "6 Months Ago" is equal to "Last Year End," it's literally the same thing sometimes. Sometimes, "6 Months Ago" is a later point in time compared with "Last Year End" and sometimes it's an earlier point in time.

Similarly, "Last Week," and "2 Weeks Ago" and "Last Month" ARE sometimes "Last Quarter."

thanks for the feedback, and I agree with much of it. However, I think the terminology on BEA may be a point of confusion. These are the labels (and dates) currently used:

Code:

Today 2017-05-07
Last week 2017-04-30 (7 days ago)
Last month 2017-04-07 (a month ago)
Last quarter 2017-02-06 (three months ago - not a quarter in the fiscal sense)
Last year-end 2016-12-31 (the end of 2016) *
Six months ago 2016-11-08
Two years ago 2015-12-31
Three years ago 2014-12-31
Four years ago 2013-12-31
Five years ago 2012-12-31

N.B. All of the above are already in chronological sequence.

* The 'last year end' entry is the only entry with a fixed date and is therefore the only entry that might sometimes be out of sequence depending on how far through the year we currently are. The' 'last year end' entry was added following a user request a few years back so people could see how the chart looked at the year end. Prior to that, it was 'one year ago' which people thought less useful.

The 'Last quarter' label is a bit confusing and should probably say 'three months ago' instead as the site does not use fiscal quarters or anything like that. The label will be changed.

Quote:

The current state of the Overall Chart History is ugly and barely usable. Right now, "Last Year End" is listed BEFORE "6 Months Ago" which shouldn't be much of a problem since it's May, but you're apparently using fiscal year cycles so "Last Year End" is actually further back in time than "6 Months Ago." So you're looking at an album's progress on that chart and it goes like this: CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB, FALL, CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB when it reality the album never fell, it's just that you're using data for these columns which aren't listed in chronological order. It's a mess.

Agree, the graph and table should be displayed in chronological order & I'll fix this straight away (the columns/graph can be presented dynamically so they are always in the correct sequence regardless of how long ago the last year end was).

Apologies for the frustration with the way things are currently set up (it looks like the change mentioned above may have introduced this problem), and thanks for the useful feedback.

EDIT: "straight away" might mean a day or so (as it's slightly more involved than I first thought)

Why the Overall Chart History Needs Reworked

jackbrown8786 — Sat, 6 May 2017 22:10:20 GMT

Author: jackbrown8786

Posted: 05/07/2017 02:10

The way it's set up, "Last Year End" is listed and then "6 Months Ago" is listed. Sometimes, "6 Months Ago" is equal to "Last Year End," it's literally the same thing sometimes. Sometimes, "6 Months Ago" is a later point in time compared with "Last Year End" and sometimes it's an earlier point in time.

Similarly, "Last Week," and "2 Weeks Ago" and "Last Month" ARE sometimes "Last Quarter."

Problem: you're using 2 means of measurement at the same time.

Solution: Create a "Short Term Overall Chart History" which shows the following:

Now. Last week. 2 Weeks Ago. 1 Month Ago. 2 Months Ago. 3 Months Ago. 4 Months Ago. 6 Months Ago. 8 Months Ago. 1 Year Ago.

This will keep it 10 columns long and fix the problem. It will be easier to determine how newer albums are doing.

Then create a separate, "Long Term Overall Chart History" with the following data:

Now. 1 Year Ago. 2 Years Ago. 3 Years Ago. 4 Years Ago. 5 Years Ago. 6 Years Ago. 8 Years Ago. 10 Years Ago. 12 Years Ago.

This will keep the 10 column format as well and could be easily used to determine how the reception to older albums has changed.

The current state of the Overall Chart History is ugly and barely usable. Right now, "Last Year End" is listed BEFORE "6 Months Ago" which shouldn't be much of a problem since it's May, but you're apparently using fiscal year cycles so "Last Year End" is actually further back in time than "6 Months Ago." So you're looking at an album's progress on that chart and it goes like this: CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB, FALL, CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB, CLIMB when it reality the album never fell, it's just that you're using data for these columns which aren't listed in chronological order. It's a mess.

Look at "To Pimp a Butterfly" in the overall History chart. It never fell, it always climbed, but it appears to have fallen 5 ranks from 112 to 117 between "6 Months Ago" and "Last Year End" before gaining 7 ranks from 117 to 110 between "Last Year End" and "Last Quarter." In reality though, it climbed from 117, to 112, to 110 and you'd be able to see this if the columns were listed in chronological order. EVERY album seems to be doing this except for the ones that actually did fall and then climb again, in which case for those albums it appears that they kept climbing.

Problem is, you can't just switch the order of the columns because in a few months, the order that they're currently in will be the correct chronological order. The different measurements have to be done away with. You can't be looking at "Year End"s in between "X Months Ago." At the very least just get rid of the "Year End" column and add "6 years ago."

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Re: Why the Overall Chart History Needs Reworked

Why the Overall Chart History Needs Reworked