Best Ever Albums

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

musicoed — Tue, 11 May 2021 16:29:27 GMT

Author: musicoed

Posted: 05/11/2021 20:29

Jameth wrote:

So, essentially what you want is to rate tracks and albums in increments of 0.01 or finer, with track ratings automatically averaged to give the album rating, and tracks with no assigned rating ignored.

I had several reasons why I didn't support this topic anymore.
Today I had a reason to share the sequel through this link.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

albummaster — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 03:12:15 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/10/2021 08:12

Sorry for further problem and thanks for reporting. I'll check into and make a fix (might take a couple of days as juggling my day job).

EDIT: Now fixed

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 00:42:06 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/10/2021 05:42

Alright, the last problem I reported is fixed...

But, the filter is filtering out albums that should be present. For instance, I just tried to edit my chart for 1967. I've got 130 listened albums for that year, but the chart editor only shows 7 pages of items when I try to pick from listened. The list still includes (greyed-out) albums already in the chart, so there should be 13 pages. Same problem with other year and decade charts.

So, so sorry man. 🙁

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

albummaster — Tue, 9 Feb 2021 06:07:27 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/09/2021 11:07

Jameth wrote:

AM,

The filters you put in for the pick from lists are bugged. If I select a list, the filter is in place, but as soon as I attempt to load the second page the filter is removed and all items of that type are listed. I checked on my Mac and my iPhone, and the problem exists on both devices for all year and decade charts and for all four lists. It was working fine a couple of days ago, by the way. Thanks in advance!

Apologies for that. Fixed one problem behind the scenes and then introduce another 🫢 Hopefully fixed now, but please let me know if still a problem.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Mon, 8 Feb 2021 23:55:42 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/09/2021 04:55

AM,

The filters you put in for the pick from lists are bugged. If I select a list, the filter is in place, but as soon as I attempt to load the second page the filter is removed and all items of that type are listed. I checked on my Mac and my iPhone, and the problem exists on both devices for all year and decade charts and for all four lists. It was working fine a couple of days ago, by the way. Thanks in advance!

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

albummaster — Mon, 8 Feb 2021 04:46:38 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/08/2021 09:46

RoundTheBend wrote:

I like that idea - almost like a feature of chart building (insert next highly rated album OR just find it). I think is what you were saying, and if so, that sounds great.

Having said all this, I do find this to be a really low urgency/priority. Like something that's WOW that'd be cool, instead of major functionality of the site.

Having said that I do think I agree with other who have said it could be one of those things that gives BEA an edge. It can be tedious making charts and a good chunk of people rate music before they chart it. I could see the audience being larger than I initially guessed. Dunno.

Alas, thanks again for all you do AM - I'm very grateful for this site.

Thanks, always good to hear. Obviously, it's always a trade-off choosing which features to implement. Often equally valid offshoots spring from these kinds of discussions (100 point ratings etc). Bigger features are always a bit more difficult to fit into the diary, but it doesn't mean they won't ever be implemented.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

RoundTheBend — Mon, 8 Feb 2021 04:25:00 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/08/2021 09:25

I like that idea - almost like a feature of chart building (insert next highly rated album OR just find it). I think is what you were saying, and if so, that sounds great.

Having said all this, I do find this to be a really low urgency/priority. Like something that's WOW that'd be cool, instead of major functionality of the site.

Having said that I do think I agree with other who have said it could be one of those things that gives BEA an edge. It can be tedious making charts and a good chunk of people rate music before they chart it. I could see the audience being larger than I initially guessed. Dunno.

Alas, thanks again for all you do AM - I'm very grateful for this site.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

albummaster — Mon, 8 Feb 2021 04:11:47 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/08/2021 09:11

RoundTheBend wrote:

And you are right, probably less than 10% of users rate albums track for track. I used to and found it when I was on "top of my game" super helpful. But now I struggle to This new feature would totally motivate me to do so again though.

And there's enough features probably piling up that likely would be a better use of your time.

If it's easy to implement/has the ability to opt in as opposed to default that could make both parties happy, but alas, you do this in your free time so no worries.

Thanks (last sentence, as always, the main roadblock to doing anything quickly). The way I could see this working and fitting into the existing site with the minimum disruption (and speaking before I've even thought about it properly), is that you could have some kind of filters to select albums from for your chart (based on your own rating, or if they are in your favourites, or whatever else), and these albums could then be brought into a pool of unranked albums within your chart, until you assigned them a rank (the list could be in order of rating if that's what you'd selected). If you subsequently changed the rating of one of your albums, after creating a chart, the list would not be updated to reflect it (or if a new album was released that was rated high enough, it would not appear in your 'chart' automatically as the chart and your list of ratings are two distinct entities). If you just wanted to sort your albums by rating and have them appear as a 'chart' on the site, that would be a separate thing entirely, but not sure how that would 'fit' with how the rest of the site works (and might actually be too big a change to implement).

Jameth wrote:

I really hate to say it, but musicoed's idea for a finer-grained rating system is probably the best solution to the problem of tied albums, especially in the myriad of cases where there's bound to be 10/20/30-way ties. I'm not advocating for decimal ratings, but even just going from the current multiples of five system to multiples of one would make a huge difference in eliminating ties and improving chart consistency.

I'm not against increasing the rating granularity further than it is now, but I think a lot of people will struggle with it. Agree, increased granularity would give you better control and perhaps individual users could choose whether to enable/disable this functionality as point differences are unlikely to have a material impact on averages. The user interface would need to be updated to facilitate this as it would be almost impossible for users to do this using existing rating UI.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Sun, 7 Feb 2021 15:05:01 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/07/2021 20:05

albummaster wrote:

Albums in one year might not be as strong as another, so decade and then overall charts might not capture that aspect and not sure how they'd get merged together (especially if a user's well-liked albums have the same rating). (Doing this the other way around would require overall charts with 1000s of items which would be very unwieldy).

This is why I think using ratings is the best way to do this...it doesn't matter if one year is stronger than another for a given user, the album ratings will sort it out. And, I agree that it would work best starting from year charts, then decade, then overall, and not the other way around. But, I'm assuming you're talking about building the decade and overall charts based on how the user has sorted their year charts?

I really hate to say it, but musicoed's idea for a finer-grained rating system is probably the best solution to the problem of tied albums, especially in the myriad of cases where there's bound to be 10/20/30-way ties. I'm not advocating for decimal ratings, but even just going from the current multiples of five system to multiples of one would make a huge difference in eliminating ties and improving chart consistency.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

RoundTheBend — Sun, 7 Feb 2021 13:34:32 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/07/2021 18:34

Yeah that makes sense. Not everyone agrees on that rating methodology.

I personally found it very liberating/possibly removed some prejudices of what an album "should be" rated as opposed to "show me the facts" approach of the track by track approach. But totally get it's not everyone's jam.

And you are right, probably less than 10% of users rate albums track for track. I used to and found it when I was on "top of my game" super helpful. But now I struggle to.

This new feature would totally motivate me to do so again though.

And there's enough features probably piling up that likely would be a better use of your time.

If it's easy to implement/has the ability to opt in as opposed to default that could make both parties happy, but alas, you do this in your free time so no worries.

Sorry for the ramble.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

albummaster — Sat, 6 Feb 2021 03:34:52 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/06/2021 08:34

Thread has gone off topic but deriving an album rating from the rating of its tracks (having trouble with translation) has been discussed before - what about albums with just one or two tracks? But an album isn't just the sum of it's tracks, it's also the flow and the overall feel etc. If you had an album consisting of the best tracks of all time, that probably wouldn't make it the best album unless those tracks worked together.

I'll have a look at adding some kind of ability to draw albums into a chart based on ratings (or favs or from other lists), but BEA forces you to pick one album over another within your charts (quite a lot of people - myself included 🫢 - just rate the albums/tracks that they enjoy so rating distribution is skewed). I get the fact some people would like their charts to be consistent with each other (makes sense) and maybe there's a way that overall charts could be drawn from decade charts, which could be drawn from year charts etc, so you could just maintain your year charts and not have to worry about the others (although probably a lot easier/quicker to write this down than to actually implement it). Albums in one year might not be as strong as another, so decade and then overall charts might not capture that aspect and not sure how they'd get merged together (especially if a user's well-liked albums have the same rating). (Doing this the other way around would require overall charts with 1000s of items which would be very unwieldy).

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Sat, 6 Feb 2021 02:33:05 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/06/2021 07:33

musicoed wrote:

See above.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Sat, 6 Feb 2021 02:03:47 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/06/2021 07:03

RoundTheBend wrote:

I second the idea to auto create charts based on ratings. Way cool feature request.

Welcome aboard!

Choo choo!!

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

RoundTheBend — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 23:56:54 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 02/06/2021 04:56

I second the idea to auto create charts based on ratings. Way cool feature request.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

musicoed — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 21:45:03 GMT

Author: musicoed

Posted: 02/06/2021 02:45

Jameth wrote:

...
I think your meaning might be a bit lost in translation, but to me, you seem to be insinuating that this won't get done because a feature you brought up in a thread over on the Music board over two years ago hasn't been implemented. Did you make a thread about it here in the Suggestions forum? Because, this thread is proof that feature requests get done.

Not everyone is so lucky with the fulfillment of their desires.)) But this is definitely not a claim.
There were many reasons why I was not persistent, including the lack of translation from English.

Jameth wrote:

...
Anyways, you seem to be wanting the site to calculate your album rating by averaging your track ratings. Maybe albummaster will respond to your request here...

As far as a "list for the best selected tracks" (I'm just using your same words to avoid confusion), you can already do this by accessing your track ratings through your profile. But, I think there's a recent thread here in Suggestions wherein someone was asking for a way to chart tracks, not just albums, if that's what you mean. And, I believe albummaster said he was considering adding that feature, but I'm not sure.

All this was in 2018. During this time, a lot has changed.
I, not a programmer, had to solve the problem with automatic averaging in Excel myself.
This is a time consuming process and not justified for one user, but it has already been solved.

The problem in 2021 is that rating resources, for reasons I do not understand, are not developing.
At the same time, the Internet has no monopoly on this for a long time.
After all, even oil will soon give way to electricity, so they promise, if anything.))

Here is my next cry of despair 2021.))

musicoed wrote:

09/01/2021
… My needs for music rating remain unmet. There are conditions that are binding on me that are not supported.
Conditions:

1. End-to-end rating system for tracks. Each track must receive an individual T-rating.
2. A pass-through rating system for albums should be calculated based on T-ratings ...

musicoed wrote:

13/01/2021
… It’s hard for me to say how it should look like. I have nothing to choose from. Testing required.
There is a simple task - to determine the best track of the two.
Further, the task becomes more difficult - to determine the best track from the releases of the week.
The ultimate goal is to identify the best track of all time.
The best track of all time cannot be rated less than or equal to any other, and so on.

I have an approximate algorithm in what form it could suit me personally.
Track scores must have two limits - 0 and 5 (worst and best track score).
To bring the calculations back to the traditional five-star system.
But the values after the decimal point should not be limited.
Let’s say that after evaluating the first album, there are several track ratings.
These marks are set in manual mode and can be any.
If there are the same among them, after entering they must change the values.
As a result, you should get a rating of the album tracks, in which there are no identical values.
The minimum step of values can be set by a formula.
Priority, as I already wrote, can have two levels: date, alphabet.
The second album can also contain the same ratings, including the first album.
Therefore, after entering, all the same estimates will have to change again according to the same formula.

An additional option at will, which would simplify the life of a music lover.
I’m not interested in picking the worst track of all time.
Therefore, I would prefer to rate only the best tracks.
Remove from circulation tracks whose ratings are equal or lower, for example - 2 (in my case).
Consider their value 2, but only when calculating the arithmetic mean for the album.

There is another category of tracks that are short duration.
Such tracks should be excluded from circulation and from album evaluation.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 18:00:10 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/05/2021 23:00

musicoed wrote:

Jameth wrote:

...
And yes! No other site offers anything close to the kind of effortless ability to assemble charts this feature would offer. It could be a big draw to the site.

Yes, it's still true, but it won't last forever.
I've been following BEA for three years now.
And, unfortunately, I did not notice any significant progress in this either.

musicoed wrote:

11/20/2018
...
For this reason, I try not to rate tracks and albums on other resources.
My grades are too low, they mess up averages.

BEA is the most advanced evaluation system I've ever met.
Here they track the year and will not allow twice to put the album in one list.
But there is no end-to-end system for albums on BEA.
1 place in the list for all times and last for its year can occupy one album.
An ideal rating system should aim at avoiding unreasonable choices.
I can only dream to:
- the calculation of the average score for the tracks occurred automatically.
- album rating was based on these average ratings for the tracks.
Then, in order to raise or lower the album in the rating I will have to change the estimates of the tracks.
Then I will be interested to rate each track on the album from the list.
And believe me I will do it. For 10 years I am already pretty tired of the calculator.
In parallel, make available the list for the best selected tracks.
And if such options are available at a certain level, then I will strive for this level.
At the moment, there are no incentives for getting additional points on the BEA.

I think your meaning might be a bit lost in translation, but to me, you seem to be insinuating that this won't get done because a feature you brought up in a thread over on the Music board over two years ago hasn't been implemented. Did you make a thread about it here in the Suggestions forum? Because, this thread is proof that feature requests get done.

Anyways, you seem to be wanting the site to calculate your album rating by averaging your track ratings. Maybe albummaster will respond to your request here...

As far as a "list for the best selected tracks" (I'm just using your same words to avoid confusion), you can already do this by accessing your track ratings through your profile. But, I think there's a recent thread here in Suggestions wherein someone was asking for a way to chart tracks, not just albums, if that's what you mean. And, I believe albummaster said he was considering adding that feature, but I'm not sure.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

musicoed — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 15:42:06 GMT

Author: musicoed

Posted: 02/05/2021 20:42

Jameth wrote:

...
And yes! No other site offers anything close to the kind of effortless ability to assemble charts this feature would offer. It could be a big draw to the site.

Yes, it's still true, but it won't last forever.
I've been following BEA for three years now.
And, unfortunately, I did not notice any significant progress in this either.

musicoed wrote:

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

Jameth — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 13:48:07 GMT

Author: Jameth

Posted: 02/05/2021 18:48

LedZep wrote:

Love this idea, it would save so much time. Also I don't think any site has implemented something like this, could be a great feature for BEA. And it doesn't seem like a huge upgrade, but AM knows that better. Also I don't think the order would be a huge problem, if you have 50 albums rated 75/100 just add them chronologically (or randomly).

I think it would mostly present a problem to users with high average ratings or huge spikes in their ratings distribution, which unfortunately seems to be a large portion of the userbase. There seem to be, for instance, plenty of users who slap a 100 on everything that wouldn't benefit from this feature. Maybe it would have the added benefit of persuading users to utilize a wider range of ratings and be stingier with the higher ratings (and not have 150 albums rated 100 from the same decade), consciously or subconsciously. At the very least, you'd still have the option to manually sort albums with similar ratings, which would probably be necessary, anyway.

I think the biggest issue with the ordering would lie with the rating group that doesn't fit within the chart. For example, I've got 93 albums rated 70 or higher for 1970 and 37 rated a 65. How would the editor pick which 7 of those 37 to chart? Random would work, because I honestly don't really care all too deeply about those last 7 albums which I've rated a 65. But, there might be other scenarios for me or others where it would get tricky.

As an additional argument:

There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies with a lot of people's charts and their ratings, meaning they have albums they've rated higher ranked below albums they've rated lower within their charts. There's also a similar inconsistency between user's overall, decade, and year charts. I notice the same thing in my own charts all the time, where I'll have my top 5 for a given year ranked in a certain order, but when I filter my corresponding decade chart for that year, those five albums are ranked completely differently. I'm sure this is a non-issue for a lot of users; but it does bother me to some degree that my charts are inconsistent, and the amount of cross-referencing across multiple charts and ratings lists involved for anyone that wants consistency in their charts amounts to a bit of a burden. Now that I think about it, a big reason that it takes so much work to do this is because you cannot see your album ratings from the chart editor. This isn't a issue for anyone that keeps their ratings logged offsite, but I don't.

And yes! No other site offers anything close to the kind of effortless ability to assemble charts this feature would offer. It could be a big draw to the site.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

LedZep — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 07:33:47 GMT

Author: LedZep

Posted: 02/05/2021 12:33

Jameth wrote:

I've also been thinking that it would be really nice if you could automatically populate a chart from your ratings. For instance, let's say you're editing your chart for 1992, and you've rated 50 albums from that year, you could just press a button at the top of the editor to populate the chart (this feature would probably have to overwrite any entries you've already made) with those 50 albums, ordered from highest to lowest rating. This might also require a custom threshold to filter out albums the user has rated poorly. Taking this a step further, albums could automatically (in the background) be charted once rated, based on the user's settings. I'm sure there are some problems with this I'm overlooking, but I think this feature would save users a tremendous amount of legwork in building their charts.

Re: Chart editor suggestions.

albummaster — Fri, 5 Feb 2021 05:45:43 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 02/05/2021 10:45

No worries, and thanks for your previous ideas as have really helped to improve this area of the site (sorry it took a while to implement them all). Agree, the navigation of those paged items can be a bit cumbersome, particularly if you have large numbers of items to sift through so I'll add something to make this a bit easier along the lines you've suggested.

Also I like the idea of populating charts from ratings (maybe also from favs etc). There might be a few details that could make this a bit more complicated than first seems and possible issues with how to sequence albums with same rating etc, but agree it could help to reduce the user legwork of populating charts, which is a good thing, so I'll definitely check into this.