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[David Glasses]

Folk Alley should consider eliminating the song ratings system.  The obvious pettiness by which people give songs a "1" in order to lower a song's rating and improve their own song's standing is really disheartening.  Few songs deserve a 1, and it's very strange when you see a song receive a 4 or 5 one minute and a 1 the next.

[Ann VerWiebe]

Honestly, we talked about taking down the rating system in almost every meeting.  In the near future, we plan on switching to something that allows listeners to applaud a song they like.  That way, interactions will be positive or not at all.  Please have patience with the slammers in the meantime [insert reason here that would only get me into trouble].

[JoLynn]

That sounds like a great solution Ann. Thanks to all of you at Folk Alley for continuing to care about this issue, and for coming up with a workable plan.
Positive reinforcement is always good, even in a critique.  Will we be able, still, to communicate with words  in a comments/discussion forum on individual songs (a very important feature in Open Mic, in my opinion)?

From an artist's standpoint there is nothing like hearing from appreciative folks who discover your  music  in the Folk Alley Open Mic feature - I've discovered some real jewels there and a few  who have actually become friends over time.  If it had not been for the comments section, I might never have made the connection, or have the ability to follow their progress with new projects/albums, etc.  This is especially important for the independent, self produced artists who may only  play regionally, but write for posterity or perpetuity.

Folk Alley Open Mic is the glue which keeps us connected to all this great music from all over the world.  It's too great a thing to be mired down in petty school yard bully-like, back-stabbing competitiveness. (We can look to the major marketplace for that any ol' day.) I'm glad you are "fixing" this problem.  I look forward to the new set up.

[acadien]

Competitive nonsense is all it is and hardly any listeners except for the artists themselves seem to be at the root of it. I'll take mine down and look for other avenues to share my music.

[Jim Pipkin]

I've never liked the ratings system, or the negative energy and mindless accusations it generates. I do, however, LOVE the concept of a system that allows me to offer my listeners a free download with just a mouseclick, and opens up a community of other writers and musicians.

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, but I was bummed enough at the silliness to take my tunes down for a bit. Ego was all it was, and once I got past that I reposted and ignored the slams.

[JoLynn]

Good man, Jim. 

[acadien]

  Yeah, That's the spirit! 

[Jim Pipkin]

The fun part of the ratings system has been communicating with Linda, Chris, Ann, and the other IT folks at FA about the "dark side" of some otherwise normal-seeming musicians in the Open Mic section. They know who is gaming the system by giving 3s to every new song so that their own stuff rises in proportion, among other ways of gaming the boards. They won't post it, that would be crass, but IP addresses are easy to discern, and multiple emails and names don't matter.

So, if you have been smacking other artists around needlessly, you should be aware that your antics have been providing some wry amusement to the behind-the-scenes folks.

Compared to singing to a bar full of drunk oil riggers, the emotional damage has been slight.

[Ann VerWiebe]

If anyone could handle a bar full of drunken oil rig workers - it's you Jim, you've got the stuff!

As for the gaming, it doesn't take a rocket scientist (and, some of my best friends work at NASA, so I have rocket scientists at my disposal if needs be) to figure out that multiple memberships created from the same IP address in a very short amount of time using the same password probably are from someone with an agenda.  Whatever that may be.

[Jim Pipkin]

Just go with Bluegrass, ghost stories, and anything by Merle Haggard, and you might get out alive.

Damaged, but alive. 

[chris castle]

I agree with everything above. The rating system does allow for mischief, and artists are going to rate themselves "5" everytime. But Jim's also right about this being a great outlet. I threw out the bath water awhile back, and the baby went with it.

Some of my strongest myspace connections came from a few good months on Folk Alley's Open Mic. This summer, we'll head out on a month long, six-state run. And every one of those contacts happened through Folk Alley. 7% of the traffic that hits my official website comes through Folk Alley. So it does work.

As for artists hyping themselves: that's an ugly part of our culture. Music is seldom judged on its own merit, but rather, we consider something "good" once it has passed the "masses" litmus test. All independent artists know this, and of course we'd wanna speed up the "recognition" process. So we can't hate the players, and we can't hate the referees. But as my old pal Jay-Z once said, we can certainly hate the game.

I was a jerk to some people here last year, cause they truly hurt my feelings. But that's in the past. And if the bath water ever gets that dirty again, I'm better prepared for it now. I've got some new babies, and I recently acquired a strainer.

Peace, all. Thanks to everyone here who keeps this thing moving.

[Ann VerWiebe]

Chris--Welcome back! Please post pic of baby strainer.

[chris castle]

<img src="http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii114/chriscastle_photos/baby_strainer.jpg">

[Joan Kennedy]

I never liked the ratings either, and the idea of fixing them has been on the table for years at this point. So I'm thinking it is not an easy fix or it'd be done by now.

The problems brought in by the ratings are either because people are no damn good, or because something in the ratings system itself brings out the worst in people who mostly are basically okay.  As a third-born kid out of six, I know something about wanting to stand out, and about getting knocked back down if someone else thinks you're sticking up a little too high. 

With eleventy gazillion songs on tap here, it got to the point a long time ago that nobody could listen to them all.  Every artist would have a better chance of being heard if each had only one song at a time on FA. There could also be a link to some offsite reservoir (soundclick, myspace, facebook, whatever) where the artists park their other songs, in case anyone wants to hear more. But if you could load on a new one here only by taking off your old one, instead of like now with some folk dumping on several at a time and keeping literally dozens here, you'd have a lot more people listening to that one song.

Contests would be fun too, especially if the only prize were braggin rights, and if they were a separate function from the Open Mic library. The best way to keep it honest would be to have the judges be the other contestants, and contestants not able to judge their own work. Non-contestants who also wanted to judge could be "trusted agents" who had racked up credibility by posting a certain minimum number of posts and had been members for a certain minimum length of time. Another thing I've seen work well, is that the average score that the contestant rated the others would be added to that contestant's own score. It makes people more generous for some reason.

[Ann VerWiebe]

Chris--That's the hardest I've laughed in a long time.  I'm not even going to ask where that picture came from.

Joan--Good comments!  I'll make sure to point out your post to Linda when she gets back from the wilderness.