Best Ever Albums

Re: Track pick algorithm

albummaster — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:34:41 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 05/17/2010 07:34

I think ten votes is too high a threshold because tracks are not rated as often, but equally two votes is too low. I think we might try increasing the threshold to five and see if that gives us better results. I think we'll also use a Bayesian average here as well to help smooth things out (like we are proposing to do with the other ratings on this site)

RE: Master of Puppets. This is the breakdown (you can see at the moment how one vote can affect things):

Track Rating
Battery 70
Battery 95
Battery 85
Battery 90
Battery 90
Battery 90
Battery 90
Battery 85
Battery 95

Master Of Puppets 85
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 95
Master Of Puppets 100
Master Of Puppets 80
Master Of Puppets 5

The Thing That Should Not Be 65
The Thing That Should Not Be 90
The Thing That Should Not Be 80
The Thing That Should Not Be 90
The Thing That Should Not Be 80
The Thing That Should Not Be 100
The Thing That Should Not Be 100
The Thing That Should Not Be 90

Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 65
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 90
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 95
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 90
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 85
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 100
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 85
Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 95

Disposable Heroes 80
Disposable Heroes 95
Disposable Heroes 70
Disposable Heroes 95
Disposable Heroes 75
Disposable Heroes 100
Disposable Heroes 75
Disposable Heroes 100

Leper Messiah 80
Leper Messiah 100
Leper Messiah 95
Leper Messiah 75
Leper Messiah 80
Leper Messiah 100
Leper Messiah 75
Leper Messiah 90

Orion (Instrumental) 90
Orion (Instrumental) 75
Orion (Instrumental) 80
Orion (Instrumental) 90
Orion (Instrumental) 85
Orion (Instrumental) 100
Orion (Instrumental) 100
Orion (Instrumental) 85

Damage 70
Damage 100
Damage 90
Damage 90
Damage 85
Damage 80
Damage 75
Damage 70

Re: Track pick algorithm

RFNAPLES — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:26:32 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 05/14/2010 18:26

Some members may be rating only the best tracks. Apparently albummaster feels that some albums have too many highly rated albums while some excellent tracks are still not recognized. Requiring more votes should help elliminate some marginal tracks while lowering the rating should pickup some of those missing great tracks.

Alternatively with a site change members could cast one vote for each albums best track. Highlighting the highest voted track in green with a different shade of green for those ranking 85 or above with at least 10 votes.

Re: Track pick algorithm

Anonymous — Fri, 14 May 2010 14:12:31 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/14/2010 18:12

RFNAPLES wrote:

Simply raise the required voters to 10 and highlight only tracks with a rating of 85 or higher.

I'm not to sure 😕 I think some people are only rating tracks that they see are already track picks. The newer people to the site. As other tracks are not rated they don't bother rating them. This carries on till a song gets a lot higher than the album.

Take Master Of Puppets for example. The song recently got onto the top rated tracks page on the site. Although it's fallen below 90 now, I have never seen any of the other tracks from that album go green. And if there are fans coming onto that page rating the album surely 2 would have rated 100 on any of the other songs.

I could be completely wrong though

Re: Track pick algorithm

RFNAPLES — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:49:41 GMT

Author: RFNAPLES

Posted: 05/14/2010 17:49

Simply raise the required voters to 10 and highlight only tracks with a rating of 85 or higher.

Re: Track pick algorithm

Anonymous — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:46:42 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 05/14/2010 17:46

You have some good ideas here and I will favour any that give an album 1-6 track picks as opposed to the whole album being a track pick or none at all. 😄

I will also recommenced having a lighter green and darker green to differentiate between 90-100% and 60-89% if such a thing is possible

Also a way to get more people to vote on tracks would be nice but I can't think of a single way that can be done. 😕

Track pick algorithm

albummaster — Fri, 14 May 2010 13:10:24 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 05/14/2010 17:10

Just thinking/writing aloud as a direct result of looking at the Bob Dylan Highway 61 page and seeing Desolation Row *isn't* deemed a 'track pick' (but this could also apply to a few other albums that don't have the 'obvious' track listed as a track pick).

At the moment, 'track picks' are highlighted using a very crude algorithm. Track picks are currently highlighted if *any* track on an album has an average rating of 90% or higher from at least two member votes.

Tracks are not rated as many times as albums and therefore the average rating is not as smoothed out. This can sometimes mean that *every* track on an album is a track pick and sometimes the tracks that *should* be a track pick (like Desolation Row IMHO) are not.

I'd like track picks to be more meaningful to site visitors and therefore the algorithm needs to be updated.

I personally think that if an album contains 10 tracks and they are all great, they deserve to be credited, but an equally valid approach is that perhaps only the top 3 tracks should be highlighted on each album (if the average rating exceeds a minimum threshold) and the other seven shouldn´t?

I still think there should be a lower threshold percentage (no 'track pick' should be highlighted if all tracks on an album are rated below a certain value) e.g. we shoudn't be interested in any track on an album if the highest rating is 60.

I'm just wondering if anybody has got any thoughts as to how the 'track pick' algorithm could be improved? In this regard, I favour simple solutions as it is more transparent and easy for everybody to understand.