An Observation about OCR

[Nabeel Ansari]

Nobody can hear your tone of voice in a forum post. Nobody except yourself.

That wasn't tone of voice sarcasm, you were supposed to pick it up by seeing what I quoted. Sorry it didn't work out so well.

[The Legendary Zoltan]

"Your work has not gone unnoticed." . . . "He still hasn't posted a mix since my debut."

. . . Yeah, OK. It seriously flew over my head.

But anyway, what do you think about the submission season idea?

[Darangen]

I think limiting the time frame of when submissions are accepted would be a bad idea. Not only because of the disadvantages you mentioned, but limiting submissions is just placing more restrictions on the community, which is always a bad thing.

I get the idea you were trying to get across, fewer submissions means less work for the staff and less stress on the queue, but it also means less awesome music. Less music = very bad.

[Liontamer]

Hate to be dismissive, but I'd never be in favor of seasonal submissions periods. There's no way we'd do that. More music, plz.

[Level 99]

That wasn't tone of voice sarcasm, you were supposed to pick it up by seeing what I quoted. Sorry it didn't work out so well.

Nobody can hear your tone of voice in a forum post. Nobody except yourself.

OK I've been thinking about it and I have a very real suggestion that I'd like to think at the very least could inspire a spin-off idea that works. Here goes.

What if OCR had a "submission season". Basically just have a set period of time during the year in which OCR accepts submissions. I personally think that the site could reduce that period to a single month out of the year but if that sounds way too drastic then how about OCR accepts submissions from January through June. Then the remaining 6 months is just posting.

Advantages of this system:

+The flood of remixes won't seem to be endless

+People would enthusiastically prepare that ONE remix they plan to submit that year.

+People can participate in the many remix projects on the site while not working on stand-alone remixes.

Disadvantages of this system:

-The number of remixes submitted might diminish (I think it's a good thing)

-Some people might feel inconvenienced (screw 'em )

-Rejectees may be frustrated because they have to wait a year to resubmit.

Final Sales Pitch:

I think it would be a great system. I think that OCR is popular enough now that if you only accepted remixes during the month of January, you'd receive enough to keep you busy throughout the year. If the queue ever runs out, then you can increase the submission time frame.

What do you think of this strategy? Are there tons of fatal flaws?

This wouldn't really limit the amount of submissions we get: it would either coral them into a much heavier submission period, or discourage people from remixing often, or both. People would also still try to submit offseason as well, and it doesn't lessen the amount of work that is done on the backend. Mixes would still need to be spread out. And that would definitively limit the amount that a person COULD submit in a given year, which is not our primary goal (once every 3 weeks is plenty submission time, but halve that and its getting way too restrictive).

By trying to restrict people to doing one mix a year, seemingly leveling the playing field, you're only frustrating people and driving more people away. Some people make more music than others, and all individuals are treated as equal as possible in the posting process. It also discourages people from saving up to one mix per year because of the amount of submissions that are still rejected. Would you want to only have a very small amount of shots to make it and then have to wait 6-11 months before trying again? I don't think any mixer, veteran or novice, would be happy with that kind of scenario. And neither would we.

Keep thinking, though! Never stop coming up with ideas to make the site better.

[Newt]

The only structural change I can recommend to the site/staff is to re-org as a 501c3. It's very scary to me that at this point rights holders could go after DJP's personal livelihood.

Along with that, I would recommend the board and the judges panel to be separate. I'm sure there's a number of people on the site with non-profit experience, legal experience, etc that are unwilling or unable to judge that might step up to help keep everything running (especially if specifically approached). It's also not hard to imagine people who could make good judges that don't have the additional time or willingness to help run an organization.

As a bonus, donations to OCR become tax deductible. Personally speaking, this would make it /much/ easier for me to donate to the site.

Hopefully this would also stop any personal attacks on DJP whenever the site could possibly make any money (rare those events may be). While I don't personally believe he would run away with a boatload of cash and close the site, there currently isn't any external regulation preventing that from happening.

[Liontamer]

We love volunteers, and all staff are basically long-term volunteers, and in a sense I'm a volunteer too.

If anyone wants to come on board to offer something productive to the site, volunteering is great. IIRC, I first did work here in 2003 when I PMed djp to offer new mix titles for old mixes which had non-unique titles (the ReMix name was the same name as the source tune, or just the artist name. I never WAS able to get a hold of AmIEviL...).

After joining the panel, I also led a project to update the homepages, real names, and emails of all the ReMixers. I've also worked on adding source tune names to most of the mixes after the community took an initial stab way back when. And then there's the updated tagging project that will see the light of day this year. I didn't ask permission to pursue any of those efforts, you just need the time to pursue it and the skills to get the job done.

Find a void that need to be filled, make sure you're not rolling your own solution that possibly can't be integrated into the site (e.g. if you're going to code an automated submissions form, make sure it's done in a way djp can work with) and be proactive.

I'd LOVE to see the tags project (genre/instrument/mood classifications for all the ReMixes) get tackled pretty aggressively, I just don't have the time myself. If community members wanted to work on THAT, for example, that's something any number of people could tackle with an organized effort.

[Dhsu]

1. The writeup is not the only effort involved in posting a remix. There's getting it tagged, uploading it to multiple servers, and getting the associated YouTube video uploaded, not to mention Facebook/Twitter promotion of the mix.

I feel like the uploading part should be fairly easy to automate using a script or two.

[KyleJCrb]

I'd LOVE to see the tags project (genre/instrument/mood classifications for all the ReMixes) get tackled pretty aggressively, I just don't have the time myself. If community members wanted to work on THAT, for example, that's something any number of people could tackle with an organized effort.

I was working on the tagging when it was open to the public. I talked to djp about it awhile back but never got any follow-up. I'm still up for it, though.

[BardicKnowledge]

I'd LOVE to see the tags project (genre/instrument/mood classifications for all the ReMixes) get tackled pretty aggressively, I just don't have the time myself. If community members wanted to work on THAT, for example, that's something any number of people could tackle with an organized effort.

I was working on the tagging when it was open to the public. I talked to djp about it awhile back but never got any follow-up. I'm still up for it, though.

I'm also up for working on tagging, Larry. Hit me up sometime if you want some more support there!

[Brandon Strader]

Are you guys interested in spreading out work to lower the load on Larry / DJP? There are many things you guys do exclusively that you probably don't need to. Just like there are things judges do that don't involve judging, like making the judgement threads, downloading and hosting the mp3s, updating the decisions thread (sometimes ).. there's something in there that could be done by a volunteer to speed up the process. Judge goes to work and thread + mp3 is already available and out of the inbox? Faster. And Larry is focusing on the new torrents and tagging, the twitter, project obligations, any number of things that could be done by a volunteer or several volunteers to get stuff done sooner and more efficiently. I don't know what you guys need that would help speed up progress with the site but I'm interested in helping. I was going to volunteer to make project OCR template websites before you guys changed the standards and made it so the directors are responsible for their own site.

[Fishy]

Are you guys interested in spreading out work to lower the load on Larry / DJP? There are many things you guys do exclusively that you probably don't need to. Just like there are things judges do that don't involve judging, like making the judgement threads, downloading and hosting the mp3s, updating the decisions thread (sometimes ).. there's something in there that could be done by a volunteer to speed up the process. Judge goes to work and thread + mp3 is already available and out of the inbox? Faster. And Larry is focusing on the new torrents and tagging, the twitter, project obligations, any number of things that could be done by a volunteer or several volunteers to get stuff done sooner and more efficiently. I don't know what you guys need that would help speed up progress with the site but I'm interested in helping. I was going to volunteer to make project OCR template websites before you guys changed the standards and made it so the directors are responsible for their own site.

Dood, you can clearly see who makes the judge threads (and is thus working the inbox/doing the uploading) in the decisions forum. It hasn't been larry/djp for years (although larry does some now and again).

[Brandon Strader]

Dood, you can clearly see who makes the judge threads (and is thus working the inbox/doing the uploading) in the decisions forum. It hasn't been larry/djp for years (although larry does some now and again).

Yeah I know, I said "Just like there are things judges do that don't involve judging"

They could use some volunteers too.

[Darangen]

I'm fairly certain Darkesword and most likely others also help with the PR stuff (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) It's not just Larry and Dave.

[derako]

If anyone wants to come on board to offer something productive to the site, volunteering is great.

The only position I would be useful in would be a judge of Orchestral/Symphonic music. I believe that type of a position is held for users with a bit more tenure than I, but nevertheless I wanted to put it out there. I've actually been thinking about it for awhile now.

Thanks,

-Derek-

[Gario]

The only position I would be useful in would be a judge of Orchestral/Symphonic music. I believe that type of a position is held for users with a bit more tenure than I, but nevertheless I wanted to put it out there. I've actually been thinking about it for awhile now.

Thanks,

-Derek-

They offer positions when they need them, and they'll come to you when the time comes, as according to this link. I personally suggest getting heavily involved in the WIP forums helping people out with their music, getting familiar enough with a variety of genres to give useful feedback on them, continue to post responsibly and be supportive to OCR. That way, when the time comes that they need to expand they'll see you as a prime candidate. That's my personal suggestion - it's pretty much a rewording of what the link says, but perhaps you'll find it helpful, anyway.

[Liontamer]

They offer positions when they need them, and they'll come to you when the time comes, as according to this link. I personally suggest getting heavily involved in the WIP forums helping people out with their music, getting familiar enough with a variety of genres to give useful feedback on them, continue to post responsibly and be supportive to OCR. That way, when the time comes that they need to expand they'll see you as a prime candidate. That's my personal suggestion - it's pretty much a rewording of what the link says, but perhaps you'll find it helpful, anyway.

That, and we can't use folks who can/want to only judge 1 genre. We need folks who are willing to evaluate anything no matter the genre.

[Ab56 v2 aka Ash]

No really though: why don't you make the site open source? I've personally seen development of a site occur because they made their code open for volunteers to play with.

[Newt]

No really though: why don't you make the site open source? I've personally seen development of a site occur because they made their code open for volunteers to play with.

Given the history of the site, I can think of myriad reasons why open sourcing seems like a scary thing to do. It also requires more work to deal with than not doing it.

Not that I would object to it.

[Brandon Strader]

Someone could Bob Ross a happy little doggy door and make an OCR Kill switch

[Kenogu Labz]

There are several good reasons not to make it open source: poor maintainability, potential for security issues, and lack of direction for planned features being some examples.

[Ab56 v2 aka Ash]

If there are good reasons for not doing it and also good reasons for doing it, do a careful cost-benefit analysis before dismissing the idea.

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

Love all of you and everything about the mission statement of the site, but it's late and I have a life so I'll be the first to admit I tl;dr'd this one.

I'll assume that someone mentioned the voting system a la VGmix by now, and I'll agree that there's pitfalls to that system when any/all users can vote... I've also seen first-hand from having met Stevo and some of the gang at PAX East this year that I know you guys work RIDICULOUSLY hard considering you're all glorified volunteers. As someone who just finished putting everything he had into ConBravo, I can sympathize for how much the kickstarter thing must've hurt. To think many of you have time to make music on the side is insane.

I've been pretty inspired by another new media business model from entertainers/gamers/entrepreneurs VGA Live. They've got a membership fee and suggested yearly membership re-donation of $50 to go 'turbo' and access their minecraft server, tf2 server, and be able to chat live on the show as well as other benefits. Not unlike Something Awful's paid forum membership, it really helps to weed out the idiots.

My suggestion is that, perhaps, a 2nd tier of membership for OCR would work well. I can donate, and I would support the kickstarter v2, but what gets me REALLY excited as a potential contributor to the site is the opportunity to help in a tangible WORKLOAD way.

If there was, for example, a pre-judge judging system, one which premium members of a sort were allowed to help with or vote on, which allowed us to weed out the really awful stuff and save the judges time, I, for one, would happily pay for the opportunity. Hell I would happily pay just for a permanent acknowledgement of raised status.

Call it a pride thing but I've been with the site for nearly a decade and I want to do what I can to build this brand with you guys too. It sucks to think that great musicians might be withholding contributions when they see a backlog of a year and I want to do what I can to contribute to a solution.

[Brandon Strader]

"2nd Tier of OCR"

Can we have... BADGES?

OCR Needs ACHIEVEMENTS!

[Annie Felis]

"2nd Tier of OCR"

Can we have... BADGES?

OCR Needs ACHIEVEMENTS!

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!:

Watched The Coop's animations for over 15 minutes.

Anyway a pay-tier thing may be kind of obnoxious to some folks if it's a regular fee. I think some new people should be able to come along and join up on the Minecraft or TF2 without having to pay X amount of dollars a month.