What to do with SongFight.NET

[jb]

It would use a blog *mechanism* to display timely items from around the 'net that have to do with Song Fight. Nobody would necessarily be blogging, but whenever you uploaded a picture to Flickr and added it to the Song Fight Flickr group it would appear on sf.net. Likewise, if you made a comment on the Song Fight Myspace page, it would appear on sf.net, and if you tagged a link in del.icio.us as "songfight" it would appear on sf.net.

It's a way to aggregate the activities that are happening, while requiring only a tiny bit of effort from the users in order to populate the site. Hopefully it would happen as a matter of course once people get used to tagging stuff "songfight" in various places.

[Ross]

Thanks.

[Bjam]

Do that many people actually use delicious/flickr/myspace for songfight? The last (actual) Myspace comment is from March(and, to be honest, doesn't get used at all that much), the only time Flickr stuff gets updated with songfight tags is around SFLs, and delicious I dunno about. It seems like it will be very similar to the current SF.net(which, as we have established, sort of sucks[C'mon, there's a prominent sidebar link to a SFL from four years ago. Four years.])

I just don't see it being used often enough to make me think to check it often. Most of the sites that I check often are ones that update every day, or on a scheduled basis. I usually don't bother with sites that never update, hence why, I think, no one goes on the sf.net page at the moment.

If you want SF.net to be popular enough to be checked often, it needs to be something that actually intrigues people. And the thing that intrigues people is themselves. Think about it, the Daily Roll Call thing is posted in just as much(if not more) than all of the other non-fight topics together. People like talking about themselves and connecting with other people.

A dedicated chatroom that's easy to access would be used a ton by people(I think most people are turned off at the moment because they have to install stuff, and it's a pain to get it up and running at the beginning if you don't use IRC that often, and then to keep it open all the time).

Something where people can post their top five SF songs of a certain genre would be used by people, because people care about what other people like. I know that I like certain people more than others on SF, and if they praise a band I would probably check out that band.

Q and As with different prolific Songfighters(especially ones that have "made it") would make other SFers feel connected to that SFer. I want to know about how the teachers on SF incorporate music. I want to hear about the family people on SF incorporate their family into their music. I want to hear how the college people on SF record music in a dorm.

Do articles about the history of Songfight.

Make a decent 'about' page with contact details for press.

Actually get some press.

Get a decent shop with t-shirts up and running.

Talk about the roots of certain types of music.

Make it more than just Songfight. Involve the people that participate.

You want to network? Don't shove links from other sites that are only used by a small percentage of Songfighters.

But that's just my opinion, and you do what you wish with Songfight.

[Lunkhead]

What JB's talking about sounds similar, to me, to what Technorati does. Check out the search results for "songfight" on Technorati:

http://technorati.com/tag/songfight

You'll find blog posts, photos, videos, etc. that SF! folks have posted (and admittedly some noise results). Aggregating all that stuff would probably result in frequent updates. It sounds to me like what JB is talking about is something where the users generate the content in various places, while the SF! admins host a centralized portal to that user generated content. Then it's up to the users to provide the content they want, such as a blog with posts listing somebody's top 5 favorite SF! songs in a given genre, for example.

[Lord of Oats]

things

I agree.

[jb]

Do that many people actually use delicious/flickr/myspace for songfight? The last (actual) Myspace comment is from March(and, to be honest, doesn't get used at all that much), the only time Flickr stuff gets updated with songfight tags is around SFLs, and delicious I dunno about. It seems like it will be very similar to the current SF.net(which, as we have established, sort of sucks[C'mon, there's a prominent sidebar link to a SFL from four years ago. Four years.])

These are good points, and I don't have a great response. I guess I was hoping people would *start* to tag things "Songfight" on flickr, and if the myspace comments went up on sf.net that people would use that as an easy way to "blog" on sf.net.

I was also thinking of including tags like "Songwriting" and "home recording" on delicious and google news, since that would be interesting content that generates itself.

Basically, my goal is to make sf.net a way to keep up with what the sf community is doing, without anybody having to do much work after it's up and running. As you say, what intrigues people is themselves.

A dedicated chatroom that's easy to access would be used a ton by people(I think most people are turned off at the moment because they have to install stuff, and it's a pain to get it up and running at the beginning if you don't use IRC that often, and then to keep it open all the time).

I've wanted to put a chatroom on the site for a while, but haven't found an application that is easy and free, and which could be customized to look songfighty.

Something where people can post their top five SF songs of a certain genre would be used by people, because people care about what other people like. I know that I like certain people more than others on SF, and if they praise a band I would probably check out that band.

I wonder if we could come up with some questionnaires that would automatically generate a blog post...

Q and As with different prolific Songfighters(especially ones that have "made it") would make other SFers feel connected to that SFer. I want to know about how the teachers on SF incorporate music. I want to hear about the family people on SF incorporate their family into their music. I want to hear how the college people on SF record music in a dorm.

I agree about this idea, but it would never work because this sort of thing is a lot of effort. We could start it, and it would go for a while, but die out pretty rapidly.

Do articles about the history of Songfight.

That's like work. What part of "JB is lazy" hasn't been explained well enough yet.

Make a decent 'about' page with contact details for press.

Yeah, we prolly should do that, and stick a link to it on sf.org too.

Actually get some press.

SF itself doesn't care about press, you know. Not sure what we have to gain by flacking.

Get a decent shop with t-shirts up and running.

Yeah, that'd be nice. We've always been hesitant because of the inherent IP issue with SongFight's name and graphics and such.

Good thoughts, Bjam.

[wages]

<b>I think Bjam is right on with all/most of her points. </b>

So, [a significant portion of] SFers don't really use flicker/blogs/myspace/everything else (I personally only have MySpace because about 20 of my real friends on on there). I think that is speaking volumes about our community. I think we really DO need our own type of site that accomplishes the same as flicker/blogs/myspace/etc. If not, then here is what I propose:

<b>ARTISTS PAGES</b>
*move the artists' pages (http://songfight.org/archive.php?sortke ... pand=false) to SF.NET

*create a form where artists can enter their details without admin's help. Note: admin's could set it up so that changes aren't posted until they are approved, if you so choose.

*on said artist's page (and lets keep it to where you only get an artist's page if you have entered a song on SF, plus the below bonus features could be disabled if you don't post songs or content for longer than 6 or 12 months), add:
---favorite sites (personal or whatever; perhaps put a limit of 10 on it)
---add a way for artists to post their news which is also dumped onto the .NET homepage (perhaps artists and/or admins could choose which bits of news appears on the sf.NET homepage and which do not)
---add a way for artists to post *links* to their MP3s (or simply, to "plug in" to their SomeSongs acct) that are hosted elsewhere (and/or provide free hosting to those who actually enter songs on SF). This could really be integrated into SongSongs, but I've never been to that site when it is 100% functional, so maybe not!
---get somesongs to be setup to work all the time!
---show "online" status (which would also be good for Bjam's chatroom, which I would use!)
---yes, Bjam's "top 5" (or 10?) favorite SF entries as indicated by each individual artist
---also, "top 5" artists, "bottom 5" songs, "5 most promising tunes that could have been better", "5 favorite sidefights", etc, etc. In fact, just set it up so that each artist can simply create their own lists that they can modify/delete/whatever. That would be sweet ass!

<b>STATISTICS</b>
*I would love to see statistical information exploded! Some ideas:
--Overall Vote to Entries percentage
--Percent of overall Vote per entry
--sort artist songs by total votes and vote percentage
--identify 2nd and 3rd place entries
--option to include/disclude collab entries (set it up so that collaborators can indicate which artists were in the collab)

<b>OTHER (MOSTLY RESPONSES TO BJAM)</b>
Bjam suggested a "Q&A" with fighters on various topics. This could be a form and then it WOULD work with minimal admin input; if you really want, you can make it so that only fighters with X entries or X forum posts are allowed to answer the Q&A (I can write up preliminary questions and map out how the questions should be generated [which could be discussed in a forum page, not that I want to take all the glory!] if someone else can commit to the programming):
------page 1 (tell us about yourself) where you collect general info such as age, bday, instruments, college (--dorm/apart/house)?, family?, I live in an ______ (house/apart/trailer/etc), etc, etc, etc
------page 2 (auto-generated interview questions based on the previous page's questions)
---------You said you are going to college and living in a two bedroom apartment with a family of two. How do you record in that situation?
---------You said you sing and play guitar. When did you start? How prolific would you say you are? Which are you strongest at? etc, etc, etc
------page 3 (review answers, edit if necessary, then post)
------now it goes on the sf.NET homepage in a blog or whatever you go with. You could have them be posted "as artists fill them out" or "one per week, in the order they were filled out" or "admin turns on the Q&A for you and you get one week to fill it out" or ????, but we definitely need to ability to post comments on the Q&A.

<b>regarding "Do articles about the history of Songfight."</b>, Again, anyone could do this. Once there is some sort of automated posting system, anyone could do this or other repeat types of content such as...
"The Reviews Show this week featuring **reviewer**". Someone could record their reviews live like BLT suggested and it could always be the same reviewer, or a different reviewer each week, or the first reviewer who posts it that week, or whatever.
"I Remember When..." where a different veteran SFer could recount some significant SF happening from the past.
"Rants and Raves" where a different fighter can bitch about whatever gets under their skin or loves about SF.
......and on and on and on. The main thing is, a form could be setup for each type of article. A forum thread could be setup so that we can determine who will do the article that fight, then the admin could send a link to the article's form page to the selected individual who could fill it out. Then they click "post" and it goes onto the sf.NET homepage. <b>I know it would be a lot of coding, but if anyone was willing to do that code, then we could really jack up the site.</b>


P.S. SPUD, my artist page is still not up. I believe your post said to nag you, so... <b>NAG! NAG! NAG! NAG!</b>

[Hoblit]

I'm thinking that the 'artists' pages ya'll are talking about could actually be set up on the server as a <font size="5" color="red"> wikipedia. </font> JB could make one call to the hosting company and have them enable that feature. (assuming its a relatively modern hosting set up) He would just have to install it once....maybe a half hour there. Once that is done, users can do the rest. Just a thought on that one.

We could also all contribute to a songfight history article there as well. US, we the people.

btw, I figure he may be against that idea just out of the fact he has the word banned. Also note what a hassle it would be when it would start getting vandalized by the likes of the 'you know whats'.

[Bjam]

Have the artist page be 'invite only' then. You could have someone in charge(or several people) who has time to check e-mails to bandspace@songfight.net(or something), then they can e-mail out a username/password (bjam/251jdgsd), and only they can change their wiki-esque bandpage(well, and the admins). Have it be a designated format, and customizable but not to the extent of Myspace. You'd still have the 'lag' time for getting your username/password, but it would be able to be edited as you wish, instead of having out of date information up there for years.

Each artist could have 'News' section in their Wiki-esque bandpage, and whenever that gets updated, there could be a 'Artist Update' page on the main SF page that shows the ten most recent updates or something. So if I update my page and say that "I'm playing a show on September 15th at x, and I'll be playing with y, and there will be some songfight songs and some original songs!", a blurb will come up on the main page saying 'Bjam: I'm playing a show on September 15th [...]'. So you've got that main page with wordpress-esque updates, but instead of just myspace/flickr tags, it also incorporates the SF people.

This stuff makes a lot more sense in my visual mind. I suck at words

Something where people can post their top five SF songs of a certain genre would be used by people, because people care about what other people like. I know that I like certain people more than others on SF, and if they praise a band I would probably check out that band.

I wonder if we could come up with some questionnaires that would automatically generate a blog post...

Easy peasey. Make a topic asking people to ask questions and they will come.

Actually get some press.

SF itself doesn't care about press, you know. Not sure what we have to gain by flacking.

New blood? A feeling of "Hey, someone out there might be listening to my music". Mind-numbing giddyness at seeing your name/friend's names mentioned in print/radio/television/etc. Proving to friends/family that it's an actual thing you do. All it takes is a few calls to local newspapers/radio stations. The news love this sort of homey/local/internet stuff. I chatted to someone at NBC10 about SF, and they were interested in doing a piece(but then I got busy and never returned their calls... woops!)

Get a decent shop with t-shirts up and running.

Yeah, that'd be nice. We've always been hesitant because of the inherent IP issue with SongFight's name and graphics and such.

IP issue?

(Also, yay! People like my ideas! I thought it would be shot down in seconds...)

[erik]

P.S. SPUD, my artist page is still not up. I believe your post said to nag you, so... <b>NAG! NAG! NAG! NAG!</b>

Not everyone reads every thread. It would probably be more effective to nag him via PM or email.

[Jefff]

Most of the sites that I check often are ones that update every day, or on a scheduled basis. I usually don't bother with sites that never update, hence why, I think, no one goes on the sf.net page at the moment.

This is why I think aggregating all the far-flung blogs would be a great idea. Because it would create a regularly updated site out of a lot of sites that aren't regularly updated.

[Billy's Little Trip]

That's like work. What part of "JB is lazy" hasn't been explained well enough yet.

That's what moderators are for. Multiple mods, each with one small duty to help out, usually gets the job done. Plus it gives you some one to blame if it doesn't get done.

[erik]

These are good points, and I don't have a great response. I guess I was hoping people would *start* to tag things "Songfight" on flickr, and if the myspace comments went up on sf.net that people would use that as an easy way to "blog" on sf.net.

Would every myspace comment become a seperate "blog entry"? Like if Glenn makes a myspace comment about "5 favorite SF love songs" and then I copy him because I think that's a cool idea, would both of ours show up seperately on sf.net? Would that be a problem at all, especially if the number of similar myspace-comments-turned-sfnet-posts was more than 2? Have I completely misunderstood the way this thing might work?

[jb]

I'm thinking that the 'artists' pages ya'll are talking about could actually be set up on the server as a <font size="5" color="red"> [CENSORED]. </font> JB could make one call to the hosting company and have them enable that feature. (assuming its a relatively modern hosting set up) He would just have to install it once....maybe a half hour there. Once that is done, users can do the rest. Just a thought on that one.

We could also all contribute to a songfight history article there as well. US, we the people.

btw, I figure he may be against that idea just out of the fact he has the word banned. Also note what a hassle it would be when it would start getting vandalized by the likes of the 'you know whats'.

Well, I installed a wiki a long time ago and gave it a bunch of press on the board and check out how much action it's gotten.

I'm telling you guys that, as much as I love the suggestions that involve humans generating content specifically for the site a la interviews and band pages and such-- it won't happen. It'll be all gung-ho for a while and then people will tire of it and it'll fade away. Without the constant promotion and new-user generation it brings, content sites inevitably fade away through lack of interest.

Take my word for this, having run (with Spud, natch) the site for like 5 years and tried running various other community-based endeavours involving the Song Fight community and other communities large and small. Managing content is WORK. Song Fight is FUN. For almost all of you, the two will not meet.

I like the discussion, and I hope I'm not coming across as a killjoy. Some of this stuff will, hopefully, get integrated into whatever sf.net becomes.

[jb]

These are good points, and I don't have a great response. I guess I was hoping people would *start* to tag things "Songfight" on flickr, and if the myspace comments went up on sf.net that people would use that as an easy way to "blog" on sf.net.

Would every myspace comment become a seperate "blog entry"? Like if Glenn makes a myspace comment about "5 favorite SF love songs" and then I copy him because I think that's a cool idea, would both of ours show up seperately on sf.net? Would that be a problem at all, especially if the number of similar myspace-comments-turned-sfnet-posts was more than 2? Have I completely misunderstood the way this thing might work?

That's how it would work, and it shouldn't be a problem at all. It'll be a stream of content, just like any blog, with different users contributing. If we find other RSS feeds that have a songfight angle, we can add them.

[Jefff]

I'm telling you guys that, as much as I love the suggestions that involve humans generating content specifically for the site a la interviews and band pages and such-- it won't happen.

But of course, if anybody wanted to give something like this a shot, they could set up their own blog and have it feed into SF.net.

[wages]

I'm telling you guys that, as much as I love the suggestions that involve humans generating content specifically for the site a la interviews and band pages and such-- it won't happen.

But of course, if anybody wanted to give something like this a shot, they could set up their own blog and have it feed into SF.net.

That works too.

[Reist]

Each artist could have 'News' section in their Wiki-esque bandpage, and whenever that gets updated, there could be a 'Artist Update' page on the main SF page that shows the ten most recent updates or something. So if I update my page and say that "I'm playing a show on September 15th at x, and I'll be playing with y, and there will be some songfight songs and some original songs!", a blurb will come up on the main page saying 'Bjam: I'm playing a show on September 15th [...]'. So you've got that main page with wordpress-esque updates, but instead of just myspace/flickr tags, it also incorporates the SF people.

I can see myself checking that site out. If we do it like this, then it would probably be a much cleaner site, in that not every single article about Songfight would find its way onto the page - just things people take a short time to post about their music/lives.

I second this idea.

By the way, we should keep the picture gallery - it's cool to see pics from all the concerts I can't go to.

Maybe a section dedicated to videos people have taken from concerts they've played (embedded youtube videos). Only legit members can post their videos, as to keep it somewhat family friendly. Anybody like that idea?

[jeff robertson]

Well, I installed a wiki a long time ago and gave it a bunch of press on the board and check out how much action it's gotten.

Hey, I tried using that wiki but I couldn't figure out how to register so I could edit stuff, so I gave up.

[Project-D]

I know that the webring doesn't get a lot of use, as was mentioned, but there are still sites there that are active, and updated semi-regularly. I have a blog that is music related and I mention songfight from time to time, des has a blog too, with lots of great content, there's probably a few others with blogs too. Soooo, how about finding a program that can "scrape" a random page from the webring (not necessarily RSS) and put it on the "SF Blog". It would take some geek to get it going, but I think the technology is possible.

Or:

Google Alerts will do a websearch for any terms you want then email you the results, (kind of like the scraper mentioned above). I have found the contents of my own blog emailed to me several times. WordPress can automatically post any email sent to a super secret address, so you could set Google Alerts to search for songfight related terms and have those results automatically (or after editing) forwarded to a Wordpress blog. Humans could easily post blogs/comments when needed, but most of the content would be automatically generated. Any webpage with "Songfight" in the text would be searched by google anytime it's updated, incorporate that with BJams "artist update" idea, and a few sporadic human updates, and you could have fairly consistent content with minimal effort.

I know what JB is saying about content, anybody that has a blog knows it. I can't imagine managing this site. The point is, each one of us seperately produces content on our own pages, albeit sporadically for most, but as a whole it adds up. Surely the technology exists to consolidate it easily?

[fluffy]

But I'm not going to produce a magazine or anything like that. A sfbb stats widget would be cool-- Fluffy, if you read this, how hard would that be? Like, who'ss online, recent topics, recent post subjects, stuff like that?

Hi! Sorry I'm late.

I believe there are already phpBB mods to do that. phpbb_fetch_all has a view along those lines, for example. Coding a custom one isn't that hard, either, since phpBB's database schema is pretty simple.

[spinlock]

Hey there,
This sounds fun. How about a Planet Songfight?
For example http://planet.gnome.org/ or http://planetkde.org/
After all, a few songfighters have their own blogs. I think that's all that's required.
Judging from these other planets, only about 20% of the posts are on-topic, but they're still interesting to read.

Another thing i've seen elsewhere is a stats page, as has already been suggested. I think that's a great idea.
The ones I particularly remember are "most common word (per user)" "most smilies used this week (user, examples)" "rarerest word (used by / in thread)"
Anything that gets continually updated and gives us something else to look at when the forum's quiet and there isn't a new title.
Songfight is more addictive than chocolate.