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 GaryLASQ
Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined: Mar 19, 2009
Member#: 428
Posts: 66
   
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 Posted:
Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:37 pm Post subject: What if SAM's no-repeat wait was 12 days? |
 
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What if SAM's no-repeat wait was 12 days? (2 days longer than whatever the wait time is for members, which is currently 10 days.)
Let SAM play even more of the "hits", as long as members get a crack at them first. I think it would be better for the station if SAM played more of the popular songs than it currently does, as long as members have had a chance to pick them sooner than SAM can.
The current way SAM works is not good, in my opinion. It plays too many "obscure" songs, but it also can get pretty crazy at times with the popular songs. Just check out the Played History (great new feature, btw) for Thu 3/4 at 11pm and Fri 3/5 at 12am...
That's a killer line-up don't you think? Songs like, Don't Worry Be Happy, Give Me the Night, Living in America, Pop Musik, One Night in Bangkok, Say Say Say, Major Tom, Easy Lover, Let's Go All the Way, and a few others, are all popular favorites for many of us. Unfortunately, SAM picked all of them the moment they went green (became available for members).
I'm not sure how SAM is programmed, but I have a feeling that if it is feeding the queue 10 days + 1 hour later (on 3/15 at around 12am), it will pick most if not all of them again, immediately after turning green. At this rate (depending how idle the queue is every day from midnight to 8am over the next month or so) I'm guessing it will take at least 40 days or more before most of these songs see the light of day again, for those of us in the western hemisphere.
I think if SAM were playing "clean up" and played more of the hits, instead of competing with us for the few hits that it does play, then this station would be an even better all-request station.
If making SAM wait longer than us is hard to do or frowned upon for some reason, another (perhaps even better) idea would be to make the no-repeat wait time for everyone (including SAM) be something like 9 days + 4 hours. This way, songs repeatedly picked by the same faithful VIP member (who may routinely pick songs at about the same time of day on most days of the week) would move around the clock much faster, because the minimal offset would be 5 hours (4 + 1, every X number of days), instead of 1 hour (0 + 1). This would help mix things up better, especially for the songs that most members (including SAM) like to play.
I know I've mentioned this second idea before in another similar thread, but I think it is worth repeating. Sorry to keep complaining about SAM, but it's the one thing here that I feel still needs some adjusting to make this a better station. |
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 JERIC 
Fleet Admiral (Proprietor)
Joined: Nov 27, 2007
Member#: 1
Posts: 174
Location: Richmond, VA
  
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Posted:
Mon Mar 08, 2010 7:09 am Post subject: |
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Unfortunately, it is impossible to program SAM to wait longer than the request wait time.
I think the reason why SAM went on to picking popular songs is because it ran out of least requested songs to pick. If I change this, then the chances of it swiping a greenie are higher.
Adding more songs, favorites, and fellow humans is the best way to make the situation better. |
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Messiah
Commander
Joined: Dec 30, 2009
Member#: 659
Posts: 528
Location: Santa Rosa,CA
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Posted:
Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:03 am Post subject: |
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I agree with Jeric if all the good songs are gone that's just the way it is. I'm sorry for being blunt but I can't afford a VIP at this point. I have had VIP's play all my greenies for me and I couldn't stay up to listen to them all. Then the next day I went on and had no greenies. As I said before that's just the way it is. |
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FerrisBueller
Commodore
Joined: Nov 03, 2008
Member#: 239
Posts: 3389
Location: San Antonio, TX
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Posted:
Tue Mar 09, 2010 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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Here is one possible solution: Allow SAM's picks to not trigger the Track Played Recently setting. So, SAM can play anything it likes, without affecting members, particularly VIPs. The Track Played Recently setting would then only be activated by someone actively picking a song. If fellow VIPs are cherry-picking all your greenies, or you share many favorites with other members, well, those are different problems. 
Resolving fellow VIPs picking favorites is not a trivial issue, unfortunately, since new member / new VIP growth has to be weighed against not degrading service for existing VIPs.
One possible solution would be to have a Favorites Auction feature, which would work as follows:
Users start off with a certain number of Points (say, 100 for members, 1000 for VIPs). They can use these to bid for songs and times to hear them. So, if you *really* want to hear One Night in Bangkok at 7 P.M., you can bid more points for it at that time slot. If you *kinda* want to hear Major Tom at a similar time frame, you can bid fewer points for it.
It might even be possible to include an option for negative bids, so if there's a song you really don't want to hear, you can vote against it during the times you're listening (with positive points deducted if you win and the song isn't played-- see below).
So your user profile might look like this:
ARTIST
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Murray Head
Peter Schilling
Bobby McFerrin
SONG TITLE
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One Night In Bangkok
Major Tom
Don't Worry, Be Happy
PTS BID
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750
100
-100
TIME SLOT
=======
7 PM - 8 PM
7 PM - 8 PM
7 PM - 8 PM
At a selected time (say 12 AM every night), SAM could check the various VIP bids for songs, and schedule the song for the winner(s) (deducting the points bid accordingly), while the auction losers would have their points returned to them to bid for other specific songs/times. If two or more VIPs bid for the same song/time frame, the "winning bid" for a competing song would have to exceed the combined bids. At the end of each week, the points would be reset back to 1000 for VIPs and 100 for members. There could even be an "auto-allocate" feature to split the points evenly among favorites, if desired.
The advantages of such a system is that the songs the most VIPs want to hear at a time are the ones which are played, and additional points for bidding can temporarily be awarded for other desirable station benefits (such as donating to the stations, writing album reviews, etc.). Also, if there's a song you as a VIP absolutely *want* to hear, this system makes that more likely, without having to camp out until it becomes green.
The disadvantages include the added coding complexity, and that this would be much less spontaneous than the current system. It also wouldn't be ideal if many people have unpredictable demands on their time, for obvious reasons.
The biggest challenge right now, is that unlike many of the other 24/7.fm stations, there simply isn't any new 80s music being actively created. So, at some point, it will become extremely difficult to add new songs, and consequently, new favorites.
While new members are great, and new VIPs are wonderful, they will make the issue more difficult to resolve. Many will decide that the benefit of being able to request songs is outweighed by the fact that 1) others pick their favorites for them while they're listening, or 2) their favorites have been picked over, and are almost never available for them to request, which will eventually happen. Then, as Messiah has pointed out, a VIP membership won't be worth purchasing. |
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 SiriusCreations
Admiral (Administrator)
Joined: Nov 28, 2007
Member#: 16
Posts: 922
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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Posted:
Wed Mar 10, 2010 4:16 am Post subject: |
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It is a nice idea FB, I do not know if this is allowed by DMCA rules.
_________________
That's the beauty of music. They can't take that away from you. (Andy Dufresne - The Shawshank Redemption)
Here you can see my request lists |
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gopherhockey
Cadet 1
Joined: Apr 18, 2009
Member#: 451
Posts: 3
Location: Minnesnowta
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Posted:
Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:04 am Post subject: |
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I actually appreciate a lot of the not-so-popular songs off of the fairly popular albums. One reason I am not a member here is because many of the albums I grew up with and love are missing most of the "good stuff".
If adding more albums can help, I'd suggest going back and back filling the ones that are here so they are complete.
Just a few quick examples: Loverboy - Keep It Up CD. It has 9 songs total, I see only 2 available here. This is just one off the top of my head, there are many more. Their Get Lucky CD is missing quite a few... or 38 Special Strength In Numbers, only 3... I would actually rather hear the other songs than the same few hits over and over and over.
BTW: The fact that The Cure: Disintegration has only 4 songs available is a CRIME! And yea, I don't want to go scrambling around to find songs on compilations, I understand that might be part of the reason but I dno't think it is in these cases. (and I think all of these have good 80s vibe)
There are a lot of songs I grew up with that are special to me that you wouldn't consider a "hit" but might actually enjoy. As it is I wouldn't be able to share via request because they aren't available.
One thing I like about EFM - most albums seem complete.
If I had any vote I'd tell SAM not to allow the same album to be played within a few hours (vs. one)... would avoid someone creating a playlist that paralyzes the system into one genra or just 10 different albums. I think thats bad for the station overall.
Or maybe limit even members requests to only X number per hour. I had SAM set up a while back, can't remember if this was an option. |
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FerrisBueller
Commodore
Joined: Nov 03, 2008
Member#: 239
Posts: 3389
Location: San Antonio, TX
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Posted:
Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| gopherhockey wrote: |
| If adding more albums can help, I'd suggest going back and back filling the ones that are here so they are complete." |
Amen to adding full albums. Quick, easy, and costs nothing but some additional time.
| gopherhockey wrote: |
| BTW: The fact that The Cure: Disintegration has only 4 songs available is a CRIME! |
I think The Cure: Disintegration lack of tracks has more to do with the fact that some are instrumental tracks, and others are more than 6-7 mins (which can foul up the queue). But I'd like to see more songs from this album added, as well. Hopefully, the restrictions on it will be relaxed.
One other addendum to the previous Favorites Auction idea: if it is not allowed by DMCA, perhaps allow VIPs to request their faves via auction, and then allow SAM to pick from what's left over. If need be, there could even be a cutoff so if VIPs don't bid enough points for a favorite, SAM gets a shot at it (albeit, with the odds reduced in proportion to the amount of points bid by VIPs). |
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 PostmasterDCLXVI
Ensign
Joined: Dec 16, 2008
Member#: 335
Posts: 30
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Posted:
Sun Mar 21, 2010 8:26 am Post subject: |
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The whole idea behind having System/Admin pick requests is to try and give airtime to tracks that are not requested very often by members. Atleast that's my understanding & I might be wrong.
As for the idea of adding full albums here, I completely support it. |
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GaryLASQ
Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined: Mar 19, 2009
Member#: 428
Posts: 66
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Posted:
Sun Mar 21, 2010 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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| FerrisBueller wrote: |
| gopherhockey wrote: |
| If adding more albums can help, I'd suggest going back and back filling the ones that are here so they are complete." |
Amen to adding full albums. Quick, easy, and costs nothing but some additional time. |
| Postmaster666 wrote: |
| As for the idea of adding full albums here, I completely support it. |
More complete albums would be nice but that is getting a bit off topic. To be clear, I am in no way saying there isn't plenty of great music already in the playlist here. (I have accumulated many favs. Enough to keep me feeding the queue for hours and hours on any particular day.)
I was venting my frustration with a single popular song, like Major Tom for example, being held hostage by SAM for weeks and weeks. It almost feels as if SAM has been programmed with a favorite list of it's own. If true, then it is probably A, picking them almost immediately after turning green and B, the queue is always just an hour long. This would cause it's favs to move around the clock very slowly. And for the regular VIP DJs, they are usually picking songs at around the same time of day each day during the work week. This keeps their popular favs stuck in a particular time block for quite a while as well.
Since SAM can't be given a longer no-repeat wait than members, then I really think changing the no-repeat time from X days to something like X days and 6 hours (call it X.25 days if you like) would make a big difference in members seeing a larger variety of popular songs turn green more often. Even if SAM did have a longer wait, I still think this is a good idea regardless.
Edit: Looking at the Played History log for 3/15, all of the songs I listed in the first post did get played by SAM again 10 days later, with the exception of Major Tom and Pop Muzik because member mrrp (with his non-vip req-wait) got to them first. (I bet SAM would have played those two also had mrrp not played them.) Fortunately, it doesn't look like SAM played them immediately after turning green, maybe a couple of hours afterward. So they won't be stuck in the overnight time block quite as long as I figured. But still, popular songs work their way around the clock (a couple of hours at a time, every X number of days) way too slowly in my opinion.
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Winter
Vice Admiral (Moderator)
Joined: Feb 07, 2012
Member#: 1174
Posts: 115
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Posted:
Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:01 am Post subject: |
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Reviving an old topic, because this is actually quite interesting.
I have noticed, since I joined the station, that most of us are on during the US daytime/evening but not so much when it gets late. I get on every morning to nothing but SAM in the queue.
A lot of us who are on at the same time have quite a few overlapping favs. Stuff doesn't always get played right away when it goes green, but songs that enough of us really like usually get played by someone within a day or two at most of it turning green.
However, SAM mostly plays stuff that we don't hear much of otherwise - and sometimes for good reason! But it isn't often lately that we've gotten on to see that something we really wanted to hear was played by SAM.
I would be interested in hearing about this from the later in the day (from my perspective) listeners at this point. Do you have a hard time getting to hear stuff that you like? Is it other listeners, or does SAM have something to do with it?
_________________
Winter |
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Devin888
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: Apr 15, 2009
Member#: 448
Posts: 265
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Posted:
Mon Aug 20, 2012 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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Now I'm thinking SAM has the right to pick what ever songs he wants because not everyone is a VIP member and we may not be online when they are so they would want SAM to pick a popular track also from high numberd played tracks. |
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FerrisBueller
Commodore
Joined: Nov 03, 2008
Member#: 239
Posts: 3389
Location: San Antonio, TX
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Posted:
Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:10 am Post subject: |
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| Winter wrote: |
I would be interested in hearing about this from the later in the day (from my perspective) listeners at this point. Do you have a hard time getting to hear stuff that you like? Is it other listeners, or does SAM have something to do with it? |
In my experience, it's typically not an issue-- except for the albums where there is only 1 track. The combination of SAM and other VIPs usually makes these very-popular one-hit wonders impossible to request.
However, I've learned to live with it, and to make use of YouTube if I *really* want to hear a particular 80's one-hit wonder...
Apropos the adding all tracks from an album: Doing this may reduce the tracks held hostage by SAM, if there are other tracks SAM can pick from the album instead. So, it's not a completely unrelated issue... 
_________________
"The question isn't 'What are we going to do today?'-- It's 'What *aren't* we going to do today?'" |
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MRRP
Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined: Apr 01, 2008
Member#: 120
Posts: 95
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Posted:
Sat Oct 06, 2012 8:30 am Post subject: |
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the original "problem/complaint" has improved in my opinion because more Vips are requesting more around the clock, and there seems to be more fav SAM tracks. Now it is possible for a SAM fav to make it through a night without being assured to be picked. |
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AbeFroman
Rear Admiral (Ambassador)
Joined: Jul 10, 2010
Member#: 857
Posts: 184
Location: Bartlett IL USA
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Posted:
Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:20 am Post subject: |
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I agree with mrrp. The requesting activity around the clock has picked up a lot lately, which is great to see. Many "rare" favorites aren't as rare as they have been because SAM is not getting the same opportunities at "night".
I've noticed it's not so much just songs that seem popular that SAM zeroes in on as it is the way it goes after artists that have only 1, 2 or 3 songs in the playlist. A lot of these type of artists can be found in soundtrack albums. If you look at the played counts (which reflects requesting by both members and SAM) of tracks on soundtracks, you can see on many, how much higher the counts are for artists that only have that song (or a couple of songs) in the playlist, versus other artists on the same soundtrack that have several other albums/tracks in the playlist.
All in all, the ideal situation is, more active VIPs, picking all day every day; and more members exploring more of the playlist, trying out more unheard stuff. If you don't want to wait 1.5 to 2.5 hours to hear an unheard song, there is always YouTube . Then if you like it, add it to your favorites and play it here for the rest of us some time. |
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