Thoughts on album/chart of the day and daily posts - Suggestions

albummaster · 2026-02-15T03:35:25-05:00

Been observing for a long while that both those posts (certainly COTD) aren’t getting much, if any, daily engagement (despite the odd tweak here or there), so after five thousand or so, can’t believe it’s been over ten years, it might be time to change things. So I've been brain dumping in the background current thoughts for replacements to fill the daily void. I think something still needs to be posted to give the forums a daily rhythm. Thinking back to a conversation last year where automated posts were moved to the announcements forum and a couple of inactive forums were closed down; speaking for myself, I certainly hoped de-cluttering the music forum and creating extra space might have had a bit more of an impact. However, for whatever reason, it hasn't turned out like that (love to hear insights into why, so they might try to be rectified) and the listening thread continues to absorb a lot of the activity. At whatever time of day, you can pretty much guarantee there’ll be a recent post there. So, people are here, but they are mostly not writing longer-form content. A lot of changes have been made to the site over the past six months, so hopefully people are coming back. There are still a few forums on BEA which haven’t been posted in for long periods, including the tournaments forum which I’d love to see more active. The number of people posting each day is slightly lower than last year, although the number of active logged-in users across the whole site has increased, meaning more people are using the rest of the site, but they aren’t necessarily posting on the forums for reasons we might get into on this thread. Here’s what I’m thinking for a shake-up: • Ditching AoTD for Anniversaries: Instead of a semi-random album, we pivot to anniversaries so the selections become more grounded to the real world (now that we are capturing data for older albums, this is possible). To avoid annual repeats of the same albums, we could talk about an album turning 10 or 20 today rather than just a random pick right now that nobody’s commenting on. Milestone anniversaries should help ensure there’s a bit of rotation (e.g. only celebrate if 50, 40, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5 in descending order, and highest rank wins if there’s a tie etc). At worst, you get to talk about OK Computer once every five years. • Chart of the Day: Right now it’s just there, so thinking of replacing it with a "Recently updated charts" or "Trending charts" feed (based on activity, or a combination of both) to show off what people here are actually creating on a more timely basis. This might also help to surface newer releases in current-year charts etc. We’d put some safeguards in, so people can’t just spam-save the same chart to stay on top etc. • The 8-Hour Cycle: Currently, there’s 12 hours between the two posts, which is too long given the intercontinental nature of the user base. I’m thinking of moving to an 8-hour rhythm and adding a third post, but maybe something user-centric? A "Review of the day" based on top-voted album comments in the last 24 hours (meeting a minimum unique word count), with maybe point prizes for the best ones and placement in site newsletter etc (2026 roadmap contains rough ideas along these lines). Or a trending album from the current year, or most-visited artist if due to a death etc? (this could become a 'Trending item' post), which could help make BEA feel more current/timely, and give something more for people to interact with. One criticism might be that the proposed posts would all still be automated (and I get that), but really to do this manually is too much of a stretch as I need to sleep sometimes - 24/7/365 is unrealistic. By making the posts more interactive and surfacing user-generated/trending/timely content, at least it repositions the debate and adds to the human side of the site. These posts might generate more discussion, or they might not. At worst, we just iterate again until we arrive at something that works (but maybe not waiting ten years next time). Just something to freshen the place up and make it feel more alive and current. The ideas are rough and need some work, but the general direction feels right. Would this kind of change make any difference, or is it missing the mark?

CA Dreamin

Gender: Male

Location: LA

When I googled 'best albums of 2025', BEA did not show up at all. My browser capped results at 20 pages, so yikes, not even in 20 pages did we appear. However, when I changed the search to 'best albums of 2001', BEA appeared on page 3 of the results. That's an improvement, but it's worth mentioning it's still not good, and used to be much better. When I joined the site in 2014, a big reason was because BEA was so visible when I searched the web something music-related. BEA was appearing on page 1 of my search results back then. Not page 3. And that distinction is important, a dramatically affects the visibility of the site. You can look up the stats, but page 1 of search results get the vast majority of clicks, and most people don't even look at page 2 and below. If there's a way to get BEA back onto page 1, I think it would help.

As for the Beach Boys and Ozzy threads, we're still only partially through their discographies, so we certainly did not run out things to discuss. The issue is we're still awaiting album write-ups from two users whose names don't need mentioning because we know who they are 😶 .
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albummaster

Janitor

Gender: Male

Site Admin

CA Dreamin wrote:

When I googled 'best albums of 2025', BEA did not show up at all. My browser capped results at 20 pages, so yikes, not even in 20 pages did we appear. However, when I changed the search to 'best albums of 2001', BEA appeared on page 3 of the results. That's an improvement, but it's worth mentioning it's still not good, and used to be much better. When I joined the site in 2014, a big reason was because BEA was so visible when I searched the web something music-related. BEA was appearing on page 1 of my search results back then. Not page 3. And that distinction is important, a dramatically affects the visibility of the site. You can look up the stats, but page 1 of search results get the vast majority of clicks, and most people don't even look at page 2 and below. If there's a way to get BEA back onto page 1, I think it would help.

SEO is something I'll definitely come back to after finishing the Q1 roadmap. There's so much other stuff to do, that it probably doesn't get enough dedicated time right now. I'll definitely be digging into the details when I next look at it to see what the underlying issues are. Also, sorry if I've been slack (in many aspects), but there's just so much to do.
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Johnnyo

Gender: Male

Age: 67

Location: London Town

CA Dreamin wrote:

As for the Beach Boys and Ozzy threads, we're still only partially through their discographies, so we certainly did not run out things to discuss. The issue is we're still awaiting album write-ups from two users whose names don't need mentioning because we know who they are 😶 .

Fair point. I know that I've been very remiss on the latest Ozzy write up. I feel justifiably rebuked and will try to do it shortly

To be fair, nothing to stop you going onto the next album CAD and I can just catch up. As Richard Dreyfuss famously said in Jaws "Don't wait for me for me"