[martintho]

I personally (...) don't like the members points thing at all. I find it...eh...silly and childish is not the right words, but. Anyways. I want a bigger focus on track ratings. I want track ratings. It might attract more users, or maybe not. Or women. lets face it, lists is a boy thing or maybe even a nerd boy thing. Can someone please discuss that matter of BEA gender equality if it really is an issue? I'm here for the track ratings today. And less focus on bad actors, please (again: the members point is the bandit here). Bad actors always gets evened out when the participant numbers gets big. Look to Wikipedia. It works because humans are actually kind and decent. Peace and Love

[MadhattanJack]

Wikipedia works because Google makes it the highest-ranked result for every search, and because there are no ads and very little spam, people feel safe going there, at which point they see an error (or something they disagree with), correct or change it... and then boom, they get a big dopamine reaction from seeing their new corrected version now made available to everyone in the entire world. (At least until someone else reverts it.) Many of the people making the corrections are kind and decent, but not all, and that's also not why they do it.

BEA members are actually more selfless and altruistic than Wikipedia people because it's essentially impossible to use the system here to overhype or astroturf an album (or band, or track) with a single action, like you can on Wikipedia (again, if nobody reverts you). But we all continue to make charts and rank albums anyway. There's still a dopamine reaction involved, but it's not as addictive because the feeling of influence and control that accompanies it is nowhere near as strong. I've been assuming the point system here acts as a substitute for that, but if so, AM should drop everything he's doing and define more "levels" for people to attain, because more levels would produce more dopamine and more dopamine means more participation. But that's not what he's doing.

To encourage people to rate tracks more, the site would probably have to visually emphasize both the tracks and their ratings more than it does now, but they're already higher up on each album page than almost everything else. Maybe the highest-rated track(s) could be displayed in the album summaries on chart entries, for example — it might be distracting, but if there were an option to turn them off, maybe that could work to avoid negative consequences...?

And regardless, none of this is going to increase women's participation. Maybe there's a way, and I wish I knew for sure what it is, but if it involves a lot of radical changes then the cost-benefit analysis might not work out in favor of even trying.

[albummaster]

The points system was added to encourage participation (particularly data moderation, but also encouraging content such as comments etc), but once people have reached the highest levels, there's a bit of a plateau like MJ is alluding to. This hasn't been addressed properly because it was always hoped to add a premium tier, but this is only possible if the site is active enough to make supporting this viable (proper support can't be provided part-time) and the site needs to finance itself to sustain continual development (otherwise the site will vanish as people go elsewhere). Increased development activity over the past couple of months is aimed at increasing the base level of traffic across different devices (also trying to find ways of addressing the challenge of AI, which can generate album recommendations without people needing to visit the site at all). This time of year is normally the site's busiest period, so hoping that the site gets some traction and is able to maintain it into the new year as lots more improvements are planned. Nice idea about adding top-rated tracks to album summaries (could be investigated).

The site does seem to be very male-centric, I'd love for that to be different (we do have some female users here, and female mods in the past, but who knows the real number as people don't require to reveal themselves), but if there's any female-friendly features that are lacking on the site, more than happy to incorporate them.

In terms of track ratings (and any ratings), BEA excludes outliers from the averages so to a certain extent they are protected from gaming. Not sure what is meant by bad actors, but if you spot any suspicious activity, please report it and it can be investigated.

[martintho]

Thanks to both of you for the very clever replies.
MJ’s idea about showing top-rated tracks in album summaries hits pretty close to what I meant. Changes like that could make the track-rating feature feel less forgotten.

My point was really just that track ratings could use a bit more attention. They already exist, and they could be great if more people used them. That’s basically it.

Bad actors = outlier guys.

[Romanelli]

I don't rate tracks (or albums, or charts) for two reasons:

1. I don't have time. I'm maintaining a fairly large (4200) collection of physical albums, not only keeping them in order, but also keeping them in good shape. They are all on CD, which means a lot of disc cleaning and upkeep and replacement of jewel cases. I also write a review of an album almost every day. On top of that, I keep an eye on the BEA forums for duplicates and...bad actors. I also help make sure that the log of data moderation on the site is kept as current as possible, so that AM can work on other things and have a life. Then I am working to book shows for myself and my band (separately), working at the baseball stadium here, practicing, learning new songs, and promoting my music. Personal life be damned.

2. I don't believe that ratings are, for me, useful. I don't pay attention to them, I don't use them for any reason, and I don't take them into account when assessing albums for purchase or for my wishlist. I also don't fully believe that ratings are completely accurate or honest. In the past, when I paid more attention to them, I would see an album with 10 tracks rated with 4 stars, and each of the ten tracks rated with 4 stars. I don't believe the odds of that being true are very good at all, but it was there more than it should be. Also, I would see future releases with maybe 1 or 2 pre-released tracks have full ratings, including unreleased material. I find comments to be much more helpful and useful. Ratings mean different things to different people. I've seen an album rated with 4 1/2 stars, and a comment that says they dislike the album a lot. Also seen an album rated two stars and a comment that says it's the album of the year. I trust comments more than I trust ratings, which are far too easy to hand out without really thinking them through.

I know that there are users who rely on ratings, and who use them as a big part of what they do on BEA. I have no issue with that. Not all of us depend on ratings, and not all of us find them to be useful or accurate. I do know that AM does a pretty great job of keeping ratings as honest as possible, and if the way an album and its tracks are rated helps someone to discover new music, then great. It's just not a site function that everyone cares about. We all use the site in ways that work for us. My preference would be to have more emphasis on comments than ratings. (With character limits...we don't need 20 paragraph album reviews like they have on that other site.)
_________________
I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history

[MadhattanJack]

[albummaster]