Author Topic: A Perfect Remixing Site  (Read 312 times)

ZeaLitY

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A Perfect Remixing Site
« on: November 14, 2008, 03:55:59 am »
Someone asked me what an optimal remixing site would look like, since VGMix X incredibly sucks and OCReMix has all but stifled creativity.

OCReMix's Mistakes

  • 2001-2002 - ADMINISTRATION - OCR's administration has traditionally been horrible and swift to ban dissent regarding simple site policies, friendly disagreements, and even criticism of the site's aesthetic. Over time, this alienated tons of people who went on to form their own sites (OneUp Studios, VGMix, etc.) or simply quit remixing.
  • 2003-Present - JUDGING - OCR's judging system started with DJPretzel, who recruited like-minded judges to help accept or reject remixes. Over time, this judge selection process created a very, very narrow set of criteria for valuing remixes that reject a lot of good pieces. This is why VGMix 2 was successful from the beginning; remixers who didn't want to wait three months for their songs or were tired of being rejected despite having good material could instantly post their stuff to VGMix 2, where it'd be ranked on how well people liked it, not what six nerds in music school (or not) thought of it according to their nitpicky criteria.
  • 2006-Present - COMMUNITY - In 2006 and 2007, OCR radically redesigned its forums, eliminating Unmod (an entire community that subsequently moved to another domain) and splitting General Discussion into several subcategories. This reduced the overall community.
  • 2006-Present - LAYOUT - OCR added a sidebar to its already complicated new layout in 2006, making the site a little visually offensive and rife with information overload.
  • 2007-Present - LAYOUT - OCR changed its traditional layout, which listed games alphabetically with all remixes, to a system that's harder to navigate; visitors have to drill-down through several categories to find exactly what they're loking for.
VGMix 2's Mistakes

  • FUNCTIONALITY - VGMix had a lot of ambitions for its communities, allowing reviewers to earn awards for number and quality of reviews submitted, etc. None of these awards really materialized, but were still viewable in a gallery.
  • REVIEW LUMPING - Statistically, remixes with less reviews had higher scores since the few people who downloaded and liked what they heard were the only ones to make the effort. Remixes with more reviews had lower scores since they were more heavily scrutinized. For this reason, great remixes that were submitted early in the site's history (when participation was fanatical) were ranked lower than newer but crappier stuff.
  • ADMINISTRATION - It's worth saying that virt is possibly worse than DJP at running a community. The forums were poorly defined and run.
  • WIP VIEWING - Remixes could be ordered chronologically, but WIPs could only be examined alphabetically, making it a little harder to get only new stuff.
  • POLICY - After you uploaded a remix, you were forbidden to upload a new version, even if it was clearly remastered or better. Virt would come in personally and delete the new version, forcing the site to host only the old, inferior one. Some good stuff was lost to this incredibly stupid behavior.

VGMix X screwed up everything, so it doesn't get its own category.

(post still in progress)
« Last Edit: November 14, 2008, 04:22:11 am by ZeaLitY »

Lord J Esq

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Re: A Perfect Remixing Site
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2008, 06:50:32 am »
Perfection needs three things and two more:

1) An objective and permissive proprietor who only rejects a piece of music if there are legal issues or bad production values. Everything else can be asterisked in any of several ways and, thus, filtered by site users who so desire. A special "professional quality" asterisk can be assigned to any submission that has all the checkmarks.

2) If a community is allowed to develop via forums or threads without proper guidance, it will eventually develop its own customs and attitudes on what constitutes an acceptable music submission. This kind of atmosphere should be prevented. No one should have to jump through hoops of popular opinion to get their music on the site. Peer reviews of works in progress should be prohibited.

3) Music should be sortable by pretty much every relevant variable, such as game, platform, alphabeticality, genre(s), original composer, remixer(s), date original work published, date remix published, original album (where applicable), etc., and also by the meta variables.

4) Accessibility. Not as important as the first three, but it'd be nice if there were primers, outside of the forums, to help newcomers to the remix scene know what they'll need to know to get started...computer hardware and software, external hardware, etc.

5. Reliable, consistent attention by the administrator. No vast periods of silence on the front page. No prolonged periods of downtime. No enormous backlog of submissions.

Ramsus

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Re: A Perfect Remixing Site
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2008, 03:44:18 am »
How's about focusing this down to the 3 most important features and the 3 most important values such a site needs in order to be good.