improving search results - thumb down thread II

Hey!
I was thinking to entitle this thread
"Why the devil craps onto the biggest heap", but few would have understood that.
Its a really rough translation of a german idiom, describing the fact that thoose that have the most are most likely to get even more (mostly money or goods) - in our case, this is a phenomenon happening right here before our eyes, let me just mention the tracks 816 or 1633... theese are so prominent because of their outstanding thumbs-up-counts, so more and more members discover them and: give them even more thumbs!
So we are about to have a top ten group that will keep gaining thumb headroom before other jams listed on page four, the only way to break this vicious circle is to instantly get 15 thumbs right after you uploaded, then you'll be in the game.
OK, now that was a really harsh judgement, but its easy to notice theese effects by adding a little drama...

so lets keep record:
Problem A: "the devil craps on the biggest heap"-phenomenon

Here goes Nr. 2:
Since multi-instrument jams are more likely to sound nice (give alternative explanation here), people tend to give more and more thumbs, the farther a jam develops. We have cases were all tracks prior to a vocalist joining a jam dont have half the thumbs the track including vocals gets.
When it comes to analyzing thumbs in order to find out what might be a good practise backing with the inviting character some sessions have, the thumbs given for creativity or finished-off-jams mentioned in this example aren't worth much.
One first attempt to break with this problem was the backing track (<3 musicians) vs advanced sessions (3+ musicians).
That works, for it just cutts off the high-thumbed many instruments remixes from the trio backings, BUT theres quite a few really backing-like tracks with four musicians (you only need seperate percussions and drums and you'll have four people and still space)...

on the record:
Problem B: We have only one thumb that rates creativity, full song result, basic feeling of "I like that" AND should tell us, if a track is a great practise backing or wether people like to play along to this...
thats too many purposes for one thumb I'm affraid...


I'd be interested if you have any opinions ideas on A & B,
of course I have done some home thinking, and to make it a little easier on you, I'll just give some ideas - none of wich has my personal favor so far:

Solutions A

A-1: Taking out the three best rated jams from search results. As soon as another jam hits more thumbs, they'll be back in...
A-2: Showing a random ten out of the top 50 jams on the top-10 page - then you'd get diffrent results every time you open the page... thats not necessaryly cool if you are trying to find yesterdays track...
A-3: showing a random, and diffrent-coloured "underdog" session in the top ten list - this way, it would be obvious that this is a random track and more jams would get some exposure.

Solutions B:

B-1: leave things as they are... one of the negative things: the advanced sessions are a little hard to be found via search engine (easyier to go via "more best rated jams" from the startpage than to find the advanced sessions link in loopsearch).
B-2: Develop a two (or more) dimensional thumb rating, p.e. one thumb for "I like", one for "this is jammable!"

there are some other ways one might take, but now its your turn to get your brains in gear :)
thanks!


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Hi Dick -
you are thinking as hard as you are coding ! And really, this is a hard riddle.

Here are my ideas after some reflektion:
Solution idea to problem A:
your A3 might be a possible feature (one random underdog track in the best rated).
But how about this:
INSTEAD of the present hit list of best rated from top to bottom: let us have a list of only "20 top sessions" - which will be defined as every track with more than (let's say) 12 thumbs up, or 15, and who will be chosen randomly out of the whole. In random order and per day (like the featured session already). So every track with more than 12 thumbs will take part in the game.

Solution idea to Problem B:
first do not forget: the good practice track for a bassist is not the same as for the horn player! But in fact sometimes I find one track especially good for practice.
How about that:
Let us have a playlist of up to "20 basic practice tracks".
I can imagine that Dick could chose them simply (not too democratic, but why not, it is simple and I trust).
Or: Dick put another button on the player (if there is space left...) reading "this is a good basic practice track"
But look at that: We often would like to give many thumbs when very excited about a session. So better not put it beside the thumb up and don't call it thumb :). Maybe only a button without visible counter? And the 20 best will always make up the list.
I would focus on "basic practice" and not on "jammable".

Yeah, let's be creative...

good ideas there - the space problem is a big one... one could open a "review" link that would open the space thats used for riffs too (that white box that displays the chord info theese days), then there could be three rating options for recording quality, practise usability and some other factor...

another idea:
we could put a date of expiry on the top ten search results - so the best sessions would disappear after a year or so, giving space to others on the top of the list. Dont get me wrong, theese sessions would stay online, and would still be shown among the best alternatives on the jam pages, Im talking about taking them out of the loopsearch results only... I think thats not too bad an idea there.
any other creative people around?

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expiration date, +1...maybe Top Tracks of X Month as well as the all time super-hits list?

i would not add more thumb rating options, great concept but even the one thumb option is not so used..i can see those option laying dormant...maybe when there are 1,00o active posters it could be used?, idk

slightly tangent, but more and more i have wished for a download counter on tracks, this would let you know that someone might be working on your jamsession, BUT a high dl count would also let others know that it is a good backing track...acting a bit like a 'good backing' thumb...

more thoughts, but i need to go...i'll think on it