Feature Suggestions v3

[mx]

The other thread got too large. Try to be as concise as possible, greater chance that I will read it that way. Think big.

[Cocaine]

Something has to be done with Staff reviews. Only two recent ones being shown is ludicrous considering it's supposed to be the site's focus. I realize there's the features on the top, but nothing that isn't an indie release or an ultra huge deal ever gets put up there, and it's pretty disconcerting to post a review only to have it disappear a few hours later.

[FlawedPerfection]

The only problem is that we don't have staff reviews for days sometimes. There's times where we have 5 in one day, though, so it's hard to measure how many should be shown. Regardless, I think if staff is supposed to be the focus of the site, then they should get some more prominence on the main page. It's like a sidenote from the user reviews. But if user reviews are more important, then the layout is good. Just depends where our focus is.

[Cocaine]

Either way, having Staff Reviews disappear instantly sometimes is kind of disheartening because it's like being downgraded from a regular user at times. Plus school is finishing pretty much everywhere and it goes without saying that there'll be an influx of reviews come summertime.

[planewreck]

Why not just make two sets of 2x4 boxes on the left and right under featured reviews? Left box for staff, right box for users.

[Channing]

just put them back up with the regular user reviews but make it obvious that theyre staff reviews. think thats how it used to be and it worked well enough.

[mx]

I'll look at different types of formats.


just put them back up with the regular user reviews but make it obvious that theyre staff reviews. think thats how it used to be and it worked well enough.

That will actually be less exposure for staff reviews, they will cycle off quicker

[GleamInRanks]

I completely agree with adding more staff reviews on the front page. The staff reviews are almost always better than the user reviews. So putting more of the better reviews would only make sense. I like planewreq's box idea.

[Channing]

lotta regular user reviews are really good these days

[Abaddon2005]

The FAQ needs a clean-up/update. I've been (kind of) pushing this idea with Jom, but other than a thread I made awhile back with some ideas, and the sputnik sound-off thread, there isn't really a place at the moment that has a list of things that need to be done (yet).

[GleamInRanks]

lotta regular user reviews are really good these days
Yeah definitely, I forgot approved reviewers weren't considered staff, stupid me.

EDIT/ Here's a suggestion:
When I browse back and forth between the fourms and the review section, I always have to log back in to the fourm section even if I'm at the review section for just a minute. A longer timer for automatically logging out of the fourms would be nice, if you understand what I'm saying (I'm bad at wording stuff, sorry.)

[Dave de Sylvia]

Log in using the orange skin (via the tab in the bottom left corner) and there's an option to stay logged in.

[Dave de Sylvia]

Any chance of having international release dates? I know Sputnik isn't meant to be a geeky music info database, and it never will be, but it is incredibly annoying to have to wait to rate or review albums, sometimes for weeks at a time, just because they haven't been released in the US yet.
Usually the international date is used and changed to the US release afterwards.

[IsItLuck?]

Concert review section, wich would consist of the same format as a regular review (setlist = tracklist, which could be an optional feature?)

Approved Reviewers should get a little more recognition than the red logo (like staff and approved have a section together? I don't know but more than just in with the regular reviews). Perhaps more approved reviewers?

Scrolling listening party on main page? (showing all of the bands in 5 second intervals or something)

[Jom]

The FAQ needs a clean-up/update.

This.

It's written and actually grammatically accurate and everything is spelled correctly and it's actually up-to-date, it's just a matter of getting it on the site.

Also, I'm pretty certain that Dave had an interview about eight months ago that never got put on the site. His Year in Review Part II article was on the site for a billion days and then there was the third article that was up for all of two weeks before the site got changed. This is all well and good, so I'm suggesting that a new link at the bottom taskbar be added for an archive. If lists and journals get an archive, then it is my hope that the things where legitimate effort is placed can have an archive, too.

Speaking of which, I still can't see the second page of comments in ANY of the interviews/articles, so if that could be remedied at some point, excellent.

I have more, but you said be concise, so I'll stop here.

Congrats on the impending graduation and ceremony, dude!

EDIT: oh you and taking the wind out of my sails go drink some guinness

[Dave de Sylvia]

Speaking of being concise, could you guys keep the non-suggestion posts to a minimum, please? It's fine if you want to expand on someone else's point, but the more off-topic posts there are the less likely mx will be to notice the real suggestions.

[IsItLuck?]

-Browsing by album along with artist? (like add a drop-down bar to pick whether you want to browse by artist or album)

-Change the minimum amount of votes for charts to 15? I mean it's not much of a big jump from 10, but at least it's enough to get a general idea of the validity of if it's good or not. <-- this idea is meh but when an album with 11 votes is ahead of an album with 700+ votes (Tool - Lateralus) it makes it a little unbalanced.

-Edit: also when you click a sound-off, could it be directed to the main sound-off page instead of the album's review?

-Edit: Take the "the" out of all bands that have a "the"

[Oddsen]

as I said in the other thread a while ago...

"I'd really like to see a page on the site where the reviewer's and the reviews of the month are listed. It'll give a little more meaning to those contests and also enhance the community and participation"

Not a big thing but this would really make those contests better

[GleamInRanks]

Possibly in the "new post" section a tab that has "My recently rated albums" or something.

[mx]

That's coming gleaminranks, in the new profile

[planewreck]

Shooting the breeze here, but maybe you should put the (newly designed!) staff reviews under the featured, above the users. Make it more obvious.

[mx]

Can't have 8 reviews in squares, it's a usability no no.

[Cesar21]

as I said in the other thread a while ago...

"I'd really like to see a page on the site where the reviewer's and the reviews of the month are listed. It'll give a little more meaning to those contests and also enhance the community and participation"

Not a big thing but this would really make those contests better

I second this idea.

Also about the staff reviews, why don't you switch what the 4 boxes on top stand for with the 2 boxes from below. Make the top 4 boxes staff reviews, and make the bottom boxes staff reviews of new realeses (or whatever the 4 top boxes are standing for) I think that'll be better cuz most of the time a week passes an the most change you see in the top 4 boxes is 1 new review. The look that it has right now, although it helps give more space to the staff, looks to big and takes too much space. I don't like it, but thats just my opinion.

Also...
I think it might be fair to do with a review neg the same thing its done with a rep neg in the forum. If you are going to neg a review make it mandatory to at least leave a litle message in wich the person can explain why they did it. That should clear up most complains, and will bring down the amount of undeserved neggin, and the situations where someone negs all of an users review just for the hell of it.

[Dave de Sylvia]

The featured reviews will rotate more often now that Jeremy is done with schooling. It's not limited to staff reviews either, it's the most "important" new releases that have reviews- by anyone.

[Cocaine]

I think it might be fair to do with a review neg the same thing its done with a rep neg in the forum. If you are going to neg a review make it mandatory to at least leave a litle message in wich the person can explain why they did it.

You can negative rep someone and leave a blank message.

[Oddsen]

I think it should say something over the featured reviews such as new releases or somthing

[The Jungler]

Genres need to come back please

[The Sludge]

Genres need to come back please
Seconded and third'd

[Eliminator]

why?

[mx]

Genres never went away?

[Dave de Sylvia]

Well instead of it saying "hard rock" or "post hardcore" over the review/band it only highlights "rock" or "punk"

[Neoteric]

You can negative rep someone and leave a blank message.No, you have to leave a message.

[Dave de Sylvia]

You don't though.

[The Sludge]

Genres never went away?
It really has no specification. The highlighting genres on the headline are nifty, but even the band pages has no specification.

[711]

Yeah, if its a jazz album, "other" is just highlighted.

[Channing]

oh mygod this istragic

[Cocaine]

No, you have to leave a message.

Orly? Check your rep.

[mx]

Ah, see what you mean

[Neoteric]

Orly? Check your rep.You can pos rep someone and not leave a message but you need to leave a message when you neg rep someone.

[JumpTheF**kUp]

Featured news articles please.

Albums of the week/month would also be pretty cool, or maybe give the Staff Picks more prominence, with a random one on the front page and a short summary?

[Eliminator]

staff picks have a whole page of their own why do they need to be featured on the rest of the iste

[Cocaine]

Well if Staff Picks had a box on the main layout more Staff would probably use it, hah.

I have to start making picks again.

[Zebra]

I wonder how many people actually pay attention to staff picks.

[Cocaine]

I wonder how many people actually pay attention to staff picks.

Me too, which is partially why I rarely do them.

[Dave de Sylvia]

Jeremy says they were the most popular part of the site when they were going well.

[Cocaine]

Jeremy says they were the most popular part of the site when they were going well.

Orly?

I'll start again, right now in fact. Since Monstrosity's drummer just thanked me for the review, they'll get the honours.

[The Door Mouse]

I think that it would be much easier to have a "next album" link on the review page.

[Cocaine]

What do you mean?

[planewreck]

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, if a band has three or more releases and they're all listed on the site, they show up at the bottom of the review so you can click on them.

[The Door Mouse]

Thank you trust. Everyone disregard my comment. And stupidity.

[Neoteric]

I wonder how many people actually pay attention to staff picks.I don't even pay attention to them and I'm on staff =|

[pulseczar]

I rarely see very many staff picks so that's why I don't pay attention to them, it's a shame staff members don't take advantage of it as it's a cool way to whore music. there should be at least small "latest staff pick(s)" section on the main page to promote it.

also, the MX rap discussion thread should be linked to in the hip hop section so it doesn't look empty in the discussion part.

[Jom]

We're limited to 2005-present albums only, which kind of sucks because I listen to crappy music and therefore don't have very many albums to pick. We've pressed to not have such a restriction, but evidently mx is worried that some shmuck will pick Dark Side of the Moon or Master of Puppets or OK Computer, which defeats the purpose, I suppose.

[The Sludge]

Just a small suggestion. Staff and Approved reviewers could have their band edits immediatly approved, I figured that since they have those titles then they could be trusted and save work for the mod's.

[Jom]

I wouldn't have a problem with that because it would give me .4 more seconds to moderate, but I think mx wants to play it safe. One of us is always on to take care of the queue, and it never gets out of control... all we do is look at it, go "yes" or "no," and the changes go through. It's not an intricate process, and changes don't have to take effect immediately, anyway. But, it's not a painful or time-consuming process, and patience is always encouraged.

[iarescientists]

Besides just being able to sort user's personal album ratings by their rating and alphabetical order, it'd be cool if you could sort it by other things like release date or genre.

[Slaapkamers]

Just a small suggestion. Staff and Approved reviewers could have their band edits immediatly approved, I figured that since they have those titles then they could be trusted and save work for the mod's.

zepdude is approved

[mx]

Staff picks actually do get a lot of attention, going by site traffic. I would like to put them on the main page, but real estate is precious. One option is putting them on genre pages if they match that genre

[The Door Mouse]

zepdude is approved

How many ****ing zepdude jokes can you make before it gets old?

[Eliminator]

where's the joke?

[FlawedPerfection]

Is there anyway to code dashes into the text on the site so I can use them in reviews. It's nothing big, but I like to use them in my writing to offset phrases and it's annoying to use hyphens or colons.

[Cocaine]

I've never had a problem using dashes?

[FlawedPerfection]

Like the double hyphen? --? Again it's really no big deal at all, but if it's an easy fix, it would be nice.

[planewreck]

I've only done this once in a review, but two dashes (--) comes out as a question mark.

[Cocaine]

I use "–" in my reviews, as opposed to "--" or "-". Hardly different than a hyphen though.

[planewreck]

oic

[The Sludge]

Just a minor suggestion... Could samethebassman become samethenewsmod since he has been bringing on the news as of late?

[Eliminator]

yeah
copy and pasting news
i dont know how he does it!

[The Sludge]

Well he's the most active person suppling the news, rather than the actual news mods.

[Channing]

i'm pretty sure the news mods were made more for deleting stupid comments and cleaning up the news section rather than copy/pasting from ultimate-guitar

[Eliminator]

i wouldn't know about the new athlete album if it weren't for samthebassman!

[Jom]

Sorry, but there aren't going to be any additions for a story scout, or news mod, or whatever you call it anymore. Ever since the regular mods were given full reign over all parts of the site, coupled with the fact that the two that we have have been MIA for various intervals, the news mods have become obsolete.

[Eliminator]

yesss story scout

[Cocaine]

Plath is more active and actually writes his own news updates anyways.

[pulseczar]

plus samthebassman misspells every news title he submits. a story scout must earn a spelling and syntax badge before graduating.

[samthebassman]

Tahnks guys.

[samthebassman]

I dont know if anybody has suggested this but what about a section on Sputnik for live reviews.

[Iai]

That was a big thing when the site was being designed, but it just fell out of favour after a while, probably due to lack of interest. Adding a section for tour dates has been talked about for an enternity though, so I guess maybe it could integrated into that.

Obvious suggestion - can we add years to the dates for reviews when browsing a user's profile? It's beginning to look a little confusing.

[descendents1]

Can adding albums be made easier (perhaps separate input boxes for each track title) because typing 1. track title 2. track title is a pain.

[La Revolucion]

Copy and paste a tracklist from Amazon or somewhere like that.

[descendents1]

Trying to make it easier for me, eh wise guy?

I'll be sure to do that next time when I find a reliable site for tracklistings, thanks.

[DFelon204409]

Sputnik should have an RSS feed. Headlines would be for music news and reviews of new releases. This would make the website a hotter blog item because everybody knows that bloggers love RSS feeds for no particular reason. They like syncing up their lives.

[FlawedPerfection]

I thought about that, except that we could link up an RSS feed to a reliable news source and they'd feed to us.

[Intransit]

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/news.php?newsid=3703

Pretty sure promo isn't allowed in the news.

[Cesar21]

I read a comment in the bugs thread and realized that the site has no "forgot your password?" kind of thing, so if you actually forget your password, what do u do?

[MyRamona]

I think the comments should be arranged in a somewhat similar style to youtube. In essence I think it'd be helpful to have a "reply to this comment option" in the comments list. This would just make replying to older comments a lot easier and more noticable to the original poster. To compliment the option you could have notifications sent to your profile when someone has replied to your comment, similar to receiving an e-mail from youtube in the same situation.

[IsItLuck?]

or just you use the quote option and actively look at the whole "my discussions" sorting routine. because I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

it's not a bad idea, but yeah.

[MyRamona]

Yeah but for some reason in the my discussions option it comes up with band threads I have never commented in, let alone even heard of........?

[Aficionado]

I think,if possible,for user reviews. When you highlight a review you should be able to see the summary in a little box to preview the review.

[IsItLuck?]

Yeah but for some reason in the my discussions option it comes up with band threads I have never commented in, let alone even heard of........?

yeah that happens sometimes.

[Aficionado]

We should organize releases for bands by sections that can be seperated like journals, my profile, favourite band etc. are seperated in our profile. For example

Live albums/DVD's/full lengths/ep's

[blackmilk]

its been suggested before mx will probably never do anything like that

[Aficionado]

A quick problem for sub-genre pages.

For ever main genre ex:metal

Once you highlight that specific genre on the main page, a whole bunch of associated sub-genres should come up. The user should be able to click that specific sub-genre as he pleases. Once he clicks it, that sub-genre's page comes up. I think it's plausible.

[Dave de Sylvia]

I read a comment in the bugs thread and realized that the site has no "forgot your password?" kind of thing, so if you actually forget your password, what do u do?

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/login.php?do=lostpw

[WomenAndChildrenFirst]

Hi everyone

I've been reading this site for quite awhile but just signed up now! Anyways there is one thing that I would like to see implemented on the main page to do with the search bar.

http://i18.tinypic.com/6cidwt5.jpg

Maybe something like that, found on myspace. However, it would allow the user to switch between searching for say Artists, Albums, Labels etc just by clicking on which field they want to search.

hope this gets considered..

- Andy

[Aficionado]

That would be a good feature if implemented.

[The Door Mouse]

Right now we wouldn't be able to search by label because non of the bands are categorized by that so it wouldn't really work with just bands and albums.

[Eliminator]

really

[DFelon204409]

Well I've been saying we should add labels for while.

[Hbp]

Can we get A Melodic Death Metal subgenre added to the Metal section of the review site?

[Aficionado]

Can we have a noise-rock sub genre for the rock section of the review site?

[mx]

How about I hear your suggestions on how the subgenres should work period. Should the pages look like they do now? Should they just be a list of bands in that subgenre? Should we use genre descriptions?

[Eliminator]

yeah wasn't that genre description thing like a year ago

[Aficionado]

Well mx, I had a suggestion regarding that in the last page...here is the topic I made.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=530647

Also, we should have genre descriptions and yes we should have a list of bands for the subgenre.

[Jom]

Well mx, I had a suggestion regarding that in the last page...here is the topic I made.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=530647

Also, we should have genre descriptions and yes we should have a list of bands for the subgenre.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14976297&postcount=4

?

[Aficionado]

Look at the post under it. I meant when your cursor hovers over the genre a list f sub-genre's appear.

[Hbp]

How about I hear your suggestions on how the subgenres should work period. Should the pages look like they do now? Should they just be a list of bands in that subgenre? Should we use genre descriptions?

I like the idea of how it is now, but I think there should be a link to a list of bands in the subgenre. It can help when your looking for bands that you migh tlike inside the specific subgenre.

[IsItLuck?]

Odds on mx seeing this are probably slim, but on the main page where it shows the most recent user reviews, could you add an askerisk or something to contributing reviewers? Either that or something along those lines.

[tribestros]

Change Contributing back to Approved.

[IsItLuck?]

only for tribestros.

[tribestros]

Yeah, you can all be Contributing and I'll be Approved.

Makes me seem more important.

Just kidding.

[Aficionado]

Change Contributing back to Approved.

srsly

[FlawedPerfection]

No.

[tribestros]

Approved sounds so much cooler than Contributing.

[Jom]

You're a music reviewer, not a client for Cash Advance. Jeremy's already explained that 'Contributing' is the typical vernacular for up-and-coming music reviewers, and so it's his desire to use that term.

[IsItLuck?]

yeah seriously.

[The Door Mouse]

2 quick things:

(1) If you trust me, I will be more than happy to run the RotMs this time

(2) Would changing my name again stop the double posts?

[Jom]

(1) Who usually runs them, anyway? I stopped running them because nobody cared, and I think Iluvatar took over, so see what he says first.

(2) Doubtful, but this bug is up on mx's list of bugs to solve, it's just a matter of him having the time to work it out.

[Angmar]

If its at all possible could it be set up so that reviews with the most pos' votes get set as the default automatically? Or staff reviews automatically? Because there are so many reviews where the default is poor quality and there are a couple problems I see with that.

A. It makes the site look less proffesional and people who come here might see some pretty bad reviews and miss out on some really good ones.
B. The writer of a superior review deserves more attention to his since he wrote the best one, this way he can earn more credit for his/her good work.
C. Staff reviews should just be set first because they are staff for a reason, seems pretty logical to me.

Anyway I can think of a couple really good examples such as the Viva Emptiness review and many others. This is of course if a feature like that is at all possible, or if that must be done manually, if thats the case than it would be a lot of work to do it all, but there isn't any real problem with people suggesting it, unless its a long process of course.