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Community Check-In and Feedback 2022

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2022 7:04 pm
by Lunkhead
How are you all doing? How are you enjoying Song Fight? In software development there are things called "retrospectives" where a team or group meet to discuss a unit/period of work they've completed and discuss things they should stop doing, keep doing, and start doing. Maybe we could do something like that in a thread periodically, like quarterly or 2x per year? I can't promise to make everyone's dreams come true but maybe there are simple changes that could be made with how Song Fight is run that could make folks happier here.

One thing that I've seen come up lately is about reviews, particularly a low ratio of reviews to entries. Reviews can be a really valuable part of the experience for folks here, although of course, your mileage may definitely vary. I don't really have any clue how to get to a place where more reviews are being written. Maybe you do?

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2022 8:27 pm
by sleepysilverdoor
Yeah I don't have any ideas beyond "actually write my reviews". I try to be one of the more reliable reviewers but I'm well aware I slacked off last week...too many young'uns. I also suspect many of the folks that enter don't really even look at the boards all that much. Maybe a slight nudge on the front page like "please try to review other people's songs" but written in a much more welcoming less blunt way. I'm not good at not being blunt so I got nothing there.

For what it's worth if I have an issue it's that for some reason there was some https certificate issue that led to my work internet blocking songfight songs from streaming, either from the front page or the jukebox. Jast's mirror gets me around it so I end up just downloading them and listening on repeat throughout the day sometimes.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2022 8:29 pm
by Pigfarmer Jr
I know it's a headache, but if the jukebox was operational then I'd be more likely to review. I've started a couple of times and not finished because of time restraints and it's harder to listen at work these days. It's not a magic bullet, but if I get a chance to listen through a few times before sitting down to write the reviews then it goes more quickly.

I liked the idea of review fight, whoever suggested it? But I don't see it taking off with 15-20 song fights, tbh.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2022 9:07 pm
by Sober
Yeah, it's reviews for me. I admit that I almost never review a fight that I'm not in, but I review 100% of the time I'm in.

I've griped about this a lot, but getting better at songwriting and production is basically the whole point of songfight for me. And reviewing (and getting reviews) is a huge part of why I've improved over the last 20 years. Mindfully listening with a critical ear to people who have responded to the same prompt as you have in different ways - and receiving feedback from those same people - will make you think about your songwriting and production processes, and you'll likely make friends, too. If you're not going to participate, then what's the point? You don't win anything.

Further: Songfighters getting better is important for the broader success of songfight. If 90% of the songs on the front page sound like ass, then a random visitor who clicks a song at random will likely be like "lol these people are a joke" and never come back. If they hear something interesting with some production skill involved, they might listen to more songs, maybe find an artist they really click with and end up buying an album or merch.

To make the point super clear: How many people are here because of MC Frontalot, for example? He's super good, and that drew people to the website - a lot of us have sold albums/merch and made connections and friends because of Frontalot. Every songfighter has the potential to be the next Frontalot, and bring more interesting, creative people to this community. But we have to work on ourselves, and we have to work to make our fellow songfighters better. Reviews are a big part of that process.

Maybe adding a line to the fightmaster confirmation email? Like "thanks for submitting. A big part of songfight is the reviews; make sure you get in there with your notes, and say hi to your fellow songfighters" or whatever.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:18 am
by WreckdoMelle
I’ll write them, but I can’t give any production tips since I have a tin ear. I try to leave my personal musical bias out of it or honestly I’d be discounting some otherwise decently constructed and executed music.

As far as being able to talk about what I’m hearing, I can really only speak to the “soft” aspects of a song, which never leaves me much of use to the artist, so I think, hence rarely reviewing. But if I can be helpful for someone not giving up, then maybe that would make it worthwhile.

I find the community and the feedback are what keep me coming back and I appreciate the prompts and the optional challenges. I love the listening parties and side fights. The Discord has a good vibe. And have really no issues with the way the site works or the policies. The reviews are tremendously helpful except those who expected top 40 and got Brown instead; genre bias in reviews is UNhelpful. I want to sound exactly like metal David Bowie but I’m obvs still working on it. Thanks for all the advice, it has not fallen on deaf ears, just ears that can’t for the life of them tell if there’s enough compression, levels any good etc.

I’ll try to also be the sort of thing I like to see around here and participate a bit more; that won’t bring more diversity of opinion or widen participation, but about that, it can be hard for the shy. Don’t know if I’d have the guts to come on the boards if I didn’t know this community from WreckdoM. Being human (and not a dude) in the internet, and on bulletin boards, can be scary when you’re putting your art out there.

But, if I drive someone from Songfight with my stuff, I’m sorry guys, they should pick at least 2…

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:21 am
by WreckdoMelle
Sober has a good idea, maybe some verbiage letting fighters know about the boards and encouraging them to check it out.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 10:29 am
by vowlvom
Getting new people involved with the reviews would definitely be a good thing. If that can be gently encouraged somehow then I think that'd be a major plus.

I tried to review every fight when I first joined and kept it up for a couple of years I think? But felt like I got burned out after a while. Part of that was judging Nur Ein, which is apparently something I am not mentally equipped to do, part of it is that... and it's difficult to phrase this in a non-asshole way, but SF has some very committed regulars, and after a while I find it very hard to say new things about people who have a consistent style and quality level? And when I reach that point, I feel like they're not going to enjoy hearing me say the same things every fight, either. So there have been a few occasions where I've thought "it's been a while, I'll chip in some reviews again" but I get to one of those songs and have nothing new to add whatsoever, and there's just a level of fatigue I find it hard to overcome.

Shout out to Instant Band as a fun thing that shakes things up a bit in a fun way each time it happens, I don't always have the energy to get involved lately but I really appreciate that it exists.

edit: +1 on the jukebox too. That made it so much easier to just dip in and have a listen.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 12:40 pm
by Pigfarmer Jr
vowlvom wrote:
Sun Mar 13, 2022 10:29 am
... after a while I find it very hard to say new things about people who have a consistent style and quality level?
As one of those people who fit into this category, I'm perfectly okay with a "Pigfarmer is doing pigfarmer things" response. And I'm cool with the whole "it's not my genre/cup of tea/taste" stuff, too. It lets me know someone listened and didn't care for it while it isn't personal. Hell, just put up a stock phrase and move on. No-one is expecting FAWM at songfight.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:56 pm
by rone rivendale
I have problems doing reviews too. I'm not a technical person when it comes to instrumentation and I feel like all I have to say is either "I like how this sounds" or "I don't like how this sounds" or "This sounds like INSERT BAND HERE".

And yeah, for some of the long time Fighters, it is a matter of this song is good but so is everything else they do. So what do you say to that?

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:01 pm
by Sober
WreckdoMelle wrote:
Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:18 am
I’ll write them, but I can’t give any production tips since I have a tin ear. I try to leave my personal musical bias out of it or honestly I’d be discounting some otherwise decently constructed and executed music.

As far as being able to talk about what I’m hearing, I can really only speak to the “soft” aspects of a song, which never leaves me much of use to the artist, so I think, hence rarely reviewing. But if I can be helpful for someone not giving up, then maybe that would make it worthwhile.
The diversity of styles, equipment, skill level, and cultural influence is a huge bonus imo. If I wanted 'pop productionfight,' I'd find an Andrew Huang group or something. As with your songs, don't let genre bias change the way you review. It's all valuable.

vowlvom wrote:
Sun Mar 13, 2022 10:29 am
I tried to review every fight when I first joined and kept it up for a couple of years I think? But felt like I got burned out after a while. Part of that was judging Nur Ein, which is apparently something I am not mentally equipped to do, part of it is that... and it's difficult to phrase this in a non-asshole way, but SF has some very committed regulars, and after a while I find it very hard to say new things about people who have a consistent style and quality level? And when I reach that point, I feel like they're not going to enjoy hearing me say the same things every fight, either. So there have been a few occasions where I've thought "it's been a while, I'll chip in some reviews again" but I get to one of those songs and have nothing new to add whatsoever, and there's just a level of fatigue I find it hard to overcome.
Totally understand fatigue for folks who judge the big sidefights. And I get what you're saying about folks who have more or less sounded the same for a long time, good or bad. "Classic you" or something is often my copout. But if a bunch of us are doing the same shit and not improving, we need to hear that, too.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:02 pm
by Sober
rone rivendale wrote:
Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:56 pm
I have problems doing reviews too. I'm not a technical person when it comes to instrumentation and I feel like all I have to say is either "I like how this sounds" or "I don't like how this sounds" or "This sounds like INSERT BAND HERE".

And yeah, for some of the long time Fighters, it is a matter of this song is good but so is everything else they do. So what do you say to that?
Push yourself. Part of writing reviews is that it makes you think critically about a wide variety of song styles and production levels. You will improve as a songwriter and producer through this exercise. This is the point.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 9:34 pm
by gizo
Thanks everyone - I've enjoyed reading this.

I think Sober is right - if we want to drive more engagement from the folks who submit then the most effective moment for that will be at the point of submission. That is to say - if we could change the Fightmaster response to include a Call To Action (including invitations to review, join the boards, maybe even the discords etc, with links), we're more likely to get a bit more traction.

I also agree with Sober that the act of reviewing is good for songwriting. I'm a shit reviewer - both in terms of what to say, and making time to say it - but I know that if I spent more time on it, I'd benefit from it. Don't know how to change that overnight, but I'll try.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:18 pm
by Lunkhead
Thanks a lot for all the comments so far. Here are the takeaways I'm seeing, in no particular order.

- get the Jukebox running again

This is entirely on me. My free hosting blew up and I have to set up an alternative and due to how I built the Jukebox it's complicated and won't be free. But I'll try to get to that, it's definitely been on my TODO list, and I've been missing it too.

- a report of certificate issues accessing the mp3s from certain environments

sleepysilverdoor feel free to DM me about that or post in Slack/Discord about it if you'd like to have us try to troubleshoot that issue.

- a download of all the files is useful

Thank you Jast for offering the download! In another thread it was discussed that the download doesn't update when late/missing songs get added. I may take a look into how hard it would be to offer the download natively on songfight.org and in a way where it updates the zip file automatically when I add late/missing songs.

- reviews are appreciated but it's not clear how to get more

Lots more to dive in to on this topic, I guess. For now I'm going to set a signature on my Fightmaster III emails:
FMIII
Join the community on our forums!
Be a hero, write reviews, make Song Fight better!
https://songfight.net/forums/
Should I add Slack and Discord links too? I think unfortunately the Slack link expires periodically and has to be updated so minor nuisance there but hopefully the Discord link is evergreen. Also I don't want the signature to be too long and spammy but I'm not sure what the threshold is for that.

- Instant Bands are appreciated

I really enjoy those too. Thanks Ken for organizing those!

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:42 am
by jast
Lunkhead wrote:
Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:18 pm
Thank you Jast for offering the download! In another thread it was discussed that the download doesn't update when late/missing songs get added. I may take a look into how hard it would be to offer the download natively on songfight.org and in a way where it updates the zip file automatically when I add late/missing songs.
In the meantime I've added a self-service way to re-download a fight. To avoid it getting triggered excessively by random folks, it's not documented how to do that, except here: append an "allow_redownload=1" query parameter to the page URL. I've already tested this with the current fight and it's up-to-date now.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2022 3:24 pm
by robynmackenzie
I didn't even know there was a Discord! I know previous invites I've gotten to Discord servers expire in 7 days, I don't know if there's another link that could be posted?

As for reviews, I'm definitely someone who is fairly sporadic about it. I like to listen in one big chunk, so I try to set aside time to do so but don't always get to it. It's really on me to change that and maybe switch up my pattern a little. I think all the suggestions here are good.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 11:22 am
by ujnhunter
Yeah, Discord links seem to expire within 7 days. https://discord.gg/3eQHCUG <---good for 7 days... ;)

Edit: Pasted the Discord Link from the Homepage which doesn't seem to expire! ;)

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 1:46 pm
by Lunkhead
That's annoying. Does anybody know a more durable simple way to guide people into the Discord and/or Slack?

EDIT: This claims it's possible to make invite links that never expire but maybe I'm misunderstanding? https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/ar ... nvites-101

EDIT 2: And Slack claims their invite links don't expire over time, but are limited to being used by 2000 people. https://slack.com/help/articles/2013302 ... -workspace

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:53 pm
by ken
I've been thinking a bit lately that having so many places for community like Slack and Discord dilute these message boards. Are we sure we want to move away from this, or am I just being old fashioned?

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2022 7:45 pm
by jast
Personally I find that forums do not replace chats and chats do not replace forums. Case in point, we've had the IRC channel for many years and it hasn't stopped the people who are active there from posting here (to the extent they were posting here in the first place).

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2022 10:21 am
by Sober
Does the IRC still exist?

Anyway, yeah I think the discord is great for bullshittery that doesn't need to be preserved in any way. I don't think anyone has ever used the voice chat except maybe sometime around songfight live. Maybe I'll start to idle it.

I get that slack is useful for folks who want to be able to participate while at work, and I know it has some useful features for organizing/collaborating on some things, especially around songfight live etc.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2022 1:41 pm
by BoffoYux
Lunkhead wrote:
Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:18 pm
- get the Jukebox running again

This is entirely on me. My free hosting blew up and I have to set up an alternative and due to how I built the Jukebox it's complicated and won't be free. But I'll try to get to that, it's definitely been on my TODO list, and I've been missing it too.
That would be appreciated - The jukebox is very handy and I was using it to find fun songs to play in the Listening Party preshows.
Easy way to search songs of people in the chat room - surprise! Here's your song from 15 years ago you totally forgot about.

Also - Please put a 'donate to help pay for bandwidth' or 'coffee button' on the page. I don't mind sending some to help support the cause, and it shouldn't be all on one person's shoulders.

Re: Community Check-In and Feedback

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2022 2:18 pm
by fluffy
These days, bandwidth is cheap, it's being able to host apps that's expensive. The Jukebox is written in Java, right? I don't know of any free/cheap Java service hosting, unfortunately, aside from plopping it onto a Linode or DigitalOcean VPS that you happen to use for other things as well.

On that note I have a Linode that I use for hosting a bunch of stuff and I could set up an account for the SF Jukebox on it, as long as it's still using songfight.org itself as the hosting provider. I'd recommend migrating the database over to SQLite though, like there's no way the jukebox needs anything heavier than that and I don't want to deal with administering a "real" database.