A report on a few bugs, important missing features, and odd new features

- esc4p1st sa...
- Användare
- 19 jul 2008, 13:08
A report on a few bugs, important missing features, and odd new features

I have a number of comments regarding the functionality of the new website, some of which I really hope will be responded to quickly.

Events

I had extremely high hopes for the new version of the event system, but apart from the more powerful listing and search features, I see no improvements. Adding events is still, in my opinion, the weakest point of the whole site. And two seemingly small features have been removed, making it much more difficult to maintain quality in the event calendar, something I have invested a significant amount of time in.

First, I can no longer see who created an event. If the event information is correct, creating it helped the Last.fm community, and a lot of people are understandably curious about the creator. As a subscriber, I know that events I've created have led many users to visit my profile, some of whom I have even befriended.

On the other hand, those who create bad events (duplicates, with duplicate/incorrect venues, with fake artists etc.) tend to create more than one, so knowing who they are not only makes it easier to locate other bad events, but also enables us to set repeat offenders straight.

Furthermore, I can no longer edit venue details. I'm assuming this is temporary though, but the sooner it is enabled, the better.

Streaming

The new player definitely looks good, but I don't want to use it, for the same reason I never used the old one: I wan't to be able to leave the page on which I started playing music. Not being able to direct streams from the website to the desktop client means streaming loses most of its appeal.

I said "looks", since the new player only plays one song at a time (I vaguely recall the old one not having that restriction). This is useless. If it's meant to increase ad exposure, at least enable continuous play for us subscribers.

Miscellaneous

I discovered that recent tracks aren't recent at all anymore, which I find to be a major privacy concern. I'm not paranoid about having my recent tracks shown, but I don't see how you could possibly justify making what I listened to on New Year's Eve publically available. That data should be restricted to each user.

I've noticed a bug with artist aliases that causes an incorrect alias to be used when looking up certain albums and songs, e.g. View of a Burning City by The Appleseed Cast. I came across it when trying to show my love for that track, upon which the mistagged artist without the definite article was added to my library.

You have also added wikis for tracks, which I don't really understand. I don't see more than a small subset of tracks having any meaningful information added to them, while many other wikis will be abused. That is unless, of course, you intend for us to use track wikis for adding lyrics...

Finally, I won't be joining the reactionaries although I understand them: the layout still looks half-finished and the functionality of the new site is hardly production quality yet, so it should've stayed in beta a while longer. The Library and the real-time updates make up for a lot though.

[quote][b][user]esc4p1st[/user][/b] sa: I have a number of comments regarding the functionality of the new website, some of which I really hope will be responded to quickly. [b]Events[/b] I had extremely high hopes for the new version of the event system, but apart from the more powerful listing and search features, I see no improvements. Adding events is still, in my opinion, the weakest point of the whole site. And two seemingly small features have been removed, making it much more difficult to maintain quality in the event calendar, something I have invested a significant amount of time in. First, I can no longer see who created an event. If the event information is correct, creating it helped the Last.fm community, and a lot of people are understandably curious about the creator. As a subscriber, I know that events I've created have led many users to visit my profile, some of whom I have even befriended. On the other hand, those who create bad events (duplicates, with duplicate/incorrect venues, with fake artists etc.) tend to create more than one, so knowing who they are not only makes it easier to locate other bad events, but also enables us to set repeat offenders straight. Furthermore, I can no longer edit venue details. I'm assuming this is temporary though, but the sooner it is enabled, the better. [b]Streaming[/b] The new player definitely looks good, but I don't want to use it, for the same reason I never used the old one: I wan't to be able to leave the page on which I started playing music. Not being able to direct streams from the website to the desktop client means streaming loses most of its appeal. I said "looks", since the new player only plays one song at a time (I vaguely recall the old one not having that restriction). This is useless. If it's meant to increase ad exposure, at least enable continuous play for us subscribers. [b]Miscellaneous[/b] I discovered that recent tracks aren't recent at all anymore, which I find to be a major privacy concern. I'm not paranoid about having my recent tracks shown, but I don't see how you could possibly justify making [url=/user/esc4p1st/tracks?page=285]what I listened to on New Year's Eve[/url] publically available. That data should be restricted to each user. I've noticed a bug with artist aliases that causes an incorrect alias to be used when looking up certain albums and songs, e.g. [track artist=The Appleseed Cast]View of a Burning City[/track] by [artist]The Appleseed Cast[/artist]. I came across it when trying to show my love for that track, upon which the mistagged artist without the definite article was added to my library. You have also added wikis for tracks, which I don't really understand. I don't see more than a small subset of tracks having any meaningful information added to them, while many other wikis will be abused. That is unless, of course, you intend for us to use track wikis for adding lyrics... Finally, I won't be joining the [url=/group/Bring+back+the+old+Last.fm]reactionaries[/url] although I understand them: the layout still looks half-finished and the functionality of the new site is hardly production quality yet, so it should've stayed in beta a while longer. The Library and the real-time updates make up for a lot though.[/quote]

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- tourneur sa...
- Användare
- 19 jul 2008, 13:38
Good post. Definitely agree with the event creator info.

[quote][b][user]tourneur[/user][/b] sa: Good post. Definitely agree with the event creator info.[/quote]

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- Spark_and_Spark sa...
- Användare
- 19 jul 2008, 13:44
I'd like to add that the "Vote on the correct name for this artist" is gone. Is this coming back?

[quote][b][user]Spark_and_Spark[/user][/b] sa: I'd like to add that the "Vote on the correct name for this artist" is gone. Is this coming back?[/quote]

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- fijam sa...
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- 19 jul 2008, 14:00
If I could add my 2 cents here, playlists seem to be completely broken for me, i.e I cannot even save one.

[quote][b][user]fijam[/user][/b] sa: If I could add my 2 cents here, playlists seem to be completely broken for me, i.e I cannot even save one.[/quote]

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- leoJP sa...
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- 19 jul 2008, 14:17
What is the library for?

[quote][b][user]leoJP[/user][/b] sa: What is the library for?[/quote]

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- esc4p1st sa...
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- 21 jul 2008, 08:26
Spark_and_Spark: The voting was used to evaluate the data set obtained from their new fingerprinting technology. I think we can safely assume that they've gotten all the feedback they need, and will soon put the system to use.

leoJP: The library contains your complete listening history. I like it, mainly as an aid for remembering what songs I like most by different bands.

But the bad events are piling up for my local event calendar, and I'm putting off flagging them until we get the event creator information back or there is official word that we won't.

[quote][b][user]esc4p1st[/user][/b] sa: [user]Spark_and_Spark[/user]: The voting was used to [url=http://blog.last.fm/2008/03/25/fingerprinting-and-metadata-progress-report]evaluate the data set[/url] obtained from their new fingerprinting technology. I think we can safely assume that they've gotten all the feedback they need, and will soon put the system to use. [user]leoJP[/user]: The library contains your complete listening history. I like it, mainly as an aid for remembering what songs I like most by different bands. But the bad events are piling up for my local event calendar, and I'm putting off flagging them until we get the event creator information back or there is official word that we won't.[/quote]

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- Tecfan sa...
- Abonnent
- 21 jul 2008, 09:06
leoJP said:
What is the library for?

I hope you noticed that you can DELETE any SONG you've played from whatever artists. you can also delete all your plays from the artist if you'd like.

Next week, you'll be able to delete tags, just like with the songs.

and also, you can choose what playlist you want to have on your profile

Do you like experimental crap? Listen to my music: Tecfan, it's free.

[quote][b][user]Tecfan[/user][/b] sa: [quote][b][user]leoJP[/user][/b] said: What is the library for?[/quote] I hope you noticed that you can DELETE any SONG you've played from whatever artists. you can also delete all your plays from the artist if you'd like. Next week, you'll be able to delete tags, just like with the songs. and also, you can choose what playlist you want to have on your profile[/quote]

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- esc4p1st sa...
- Användare
- 24 jul 2008, 17:11
Thank you to the staff member who responded to this so quickly - the creator is now listed on event pages, and venues can be edited.

As to the streaming, I noticed that the settings show a note after my preferred option:

Play music in the Last.fm software (NOTE: Track previews will still play on the site.)
I dont precisely remember the URL's that the client used, but lastfm://track/[track-id] seems reasonable. However, when I try to stream my favorite song through lastfm://track/89618977 using the track ID I found on its page, I get a weird error message:

The Last.fm servers are temporarily overloaded, please try again in a moment.
I suspect this means that the feature has been disabled for licensing reasons, even for subscribers. Could someone confirm that? If so, it is really a shame.

[quote][b][user]esc4p1st[/user][/b] sa: Thank you to the staff member who responded to this so quickly - the creator is now listed on event pages, and venues can be edited. As to the streaming, I noticed that [url=/settings/website]the settings[/url] show a note after my preferred option: [quote]Play music in the Last.fm software [size=7](NOTE: Track previews will still play on the site.)[/size][/quote] I dont precisely remember the URL's that the client used, but [b]lastfm://track/[track-id][/b] seems reasonable. However, when I try to stream my favorite song through [url=lastfm://track/89618977]lastfm://track/89618977[/url] using the track ID I found on [url=/music/Moving+Mountains/_/Ode+We+Will+Bury+Ourselves]its page[/url], I get a weird error message: [quote]The Last.fm servers are temporarily overloaded, please try again in a moment.[/quote] I suspect this means that the feature has been disabled for licensing reasons, even for subscribers. Could someone confirm that? If so, it is really a shame. [/quote]

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- BillStrange sa...
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- 24 jul 2008, 19:55
Updates to my personal music numbers.

As an artist I pay a lot of attention to how many listens I'm getting on each song.
I can see my friends have been downloading and streaming a tune, but the site is not updating how many plays it is receiving. This is with scrobbling on.
This is very frustrating as I have asked a lot of people to check it out and it looks like no one is listening, but I know they have.

Bill Strange

[quote][b][user]BillStrange[/user][/b] sa: As an artist I pay a lot of attention to how many listens I'm getting on each song. I can see my friends have been downloading and streaming a tune, but the site is not updating how many plays it is receiving. This is with scrobbling on. This is very frustrating as I have asked a lot of people to check it out and it looks like no one is listening, but I know they have. [/quote]

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- mkei sa...
- Användare
- 24 jul 2008, 20:07
I think the problem you are experiencing is a general problem across the board with updating the data. There's been similar problems in updating the number of group members for a group, and the recent activity of a group. I know that my group recent activity hasn't updated since tuesday mid-day.

This is something that I'm sure they are aware of and working on.

Weather Vane

[quote][b][user]mkei[/user][/b] sa: I think the problem you are experiencing is a general problem across the board with updating the data. There's been similar problems in updating the number of group members for a group, and the recent activity of a group. I know that my group recent activity hasn't updated since tuesday mid-day. This is something that I'm sure they are aware of and working on.[/quote]

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- BillStrange sa...
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- 24 jul 2008, 20:45
Thanks,
I'll stay optimistic

Bill Strange

[quote][b][user]BillStrange[/user][/b] sa: Thanks, I'll stay optimistic [/quote]

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- Kerensky97 sa...
- Moderator
- 25 jul 2008, 00:26
I definitely agree with seeing event creators. It also needs to be easier to add new events (add events from artist and venue pages for that artist/venue).

But I disagree with track wikis. I like them, I agreed when they were first requested as a new feature and I'm glad their finally on the site. Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.

All comments reflect the views of the poster and not of last.fm or it's management.

MusicBrainz How-To - Small Fish, Big Pond

[quote][b][user]Kerensky97[/user][/b] sa: I definitely agree with seeing event creators. It also needs to be easier to add new events (add events from artist and venue pages for that artist/venue). But I disagree with track wikis. I like them, I agreed when they were first requested as a new feature and I'm glad their finally on the site. Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.[/quote]

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- Babs_05 sa...
- Abonnent
- 25 jul 2008, 02:08
Kerensky97 said:
Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.

Is that what they're for? I like it! So can we all contribute? Can we c+p from Wikipedia itself, as that has a lot of this sort of information. eg song was covered by X, it was used in film called Y, etc.

NNME Feb NNME Archives My Gang Albums 10 Chiller Cabinet Arctic Circle

irepli - mobile internet search Central Point: where artists and listeners meet

[quote][b][user]Babs_05[/user][/b] sa: [quote][b][user]Kerensky97[/user][/b] said: Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.[/quote] Is that what they're for? I like it! So can we all contribute? Can we c+p from Wikipedia itself, as that has a lot of this sort of information. eg song was covered by X, it was used in film called Y, etc.[/quote]

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- Goenitz sa...
- Användare
- 25 jul 2008, 03:53
The month changer in the "another date" section of the events search system is STILL BROKEN. I'm spending 30 minutes doing something I was able to do in less than 10 before the layout switch.

Would it kill you to fix such a small thing, lastfm?

[quote][b][user]Goenitz[/user][/b] sa: The month changer in the "another date" section of the events search system is STILL BROKEN. I'm spending 30 minutes doing something I was able to do in less than 10 before the layout switch. Would it kill you to fix such a small thing, lastfm?[/quote]

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- maz35 sa...
- Moderator
- 25 jul 2008, 10:50
Babs_05 said:
Kerensky97 said:
Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.

Is that what they're for? I like it! So can we all contribute? Can we c+p from Wikipedia itself, as that has a lot of this sort of information. eg song was covered by X, it was used in film called Y, etc.
Since there are no real guidelines to track wikis as yet I'd say thats exactly what they are useful for. Detailing things like if its a cover whose song they are covering or if the're are multiple versions of the same song by that artist those could be detailed too. It could be anything barring the lyrics really as long its presented in the usual unbiased wiki way.

Now not all tracks will have any detail that comes to mind either but thats fine for the section to left blank .

esc4p1st said:
I discovered that recent tracks aren't recent at all anymore, which I find to be a major privacy concern. I'm not paranoid about having my recent tracks shown, but I don't see how you could possibly justify making what I listened to on New Year's Eve publically available. That data should be restricted to each user.
I like that new feature, but I'm a stats freak who like as much data of my listening habits as I can get my hands on. Be even better if it was date searchable though.

The Tag Appreciation Society | The Last.fm Mass Tagger

[quote][b][user]maz35[/user][/b] sa: [quote][b][user]Babs_05[/user][/b] said: [quote][b][user]Kerensky97[/user][/b] said: Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.[/quote] Is that what they're for? I like it! So can we all contribute? Can we c+p from Wikipedia itself, as that has a lot of this sort of information. eg song was covered by X, it was used in film called Y, etc.[/quote] Since there are no real guidelines to track wikis as yet I'd say thats exactly what they are useful for. Detailing things like if its a cover whose song they are covering or if the're are multiple versions of the same song by that artist those could be detailed too. It could be anything barring the lyrics really as long its presented in the usual unbiased wiki way. Now not all tracks will have any detail that comes to mind either but thats fine for the section to left blank . [quote][b][user]esc4p1st[/user][/b] said: I discovered that recent tracks aren't recent at all anymore, which I find to be a major privacy concern. I'm not paranoid about having my recent tracks shown, but I don't see how you could possibly justify making [url=/user/esc4p1st/tracks?page=285]what I listened to on New Year's Eve[/url] publically available. That data should be restricted to each user.[/quote] I like that new feature, but I'm a stats freak who like as much data of my listening habits as I can get my hands on. Be even better if it was date searchable though. [/quote]

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- Babs_05 sa...
- Abonnent
- 25 jul 2008, 13:35
maz35 said:
Babs_05 said:
Kerensky97 said:
Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.

Is that what they're for? I like it! So can we all contribute? Can we c+p from Wikipedia itself, as that has a lot of this sort of information. eg song was covered by X, it was used in film called Y, etc.
Since there are no real guidelines to track wikis as yet I'd say thats exactly what they are useful for. Detailing things like if its a cover whose song they are covering or if the're are multiple versions of the same song by that artist those could be detailed too. It could be anything barring the lyrics really as long its presented in the usual unbiased wiki way.

Now not all tracks will have any detail that comes to mind either but thats fine for the section to left blank .

Great, thanks. :)

esc4p1st said:
I discovered that recent tracks aren't recent at all anymore, which I find to be a major privacy concern. I'm not paranoid about having my recent tracks shown, but I don't see how you could possibly justify making what I listened to on New Year's Eve publically available. That data should be restricted to each user.
I like that new feature, but I'm a stats freak who like as much data of my listening habits as I can get my hands on. Be even better if it was date searchable though.

I'm afraid I agree with esc4p1st. I think that level of detail should be for owners only. Viewing old charts for other people should reveal nothing more than the date.

Talking of detail - I notice we can no longer see when we tagged tracks, we just get a month. I remember it being a date stamp, I seem to remember it had the time too. Anyway, I'd like that back please. Owners eyes only, ideally.

NNME Feb NNME Archives My Gang Albums 10 Chiller Cabinet Arctic Circle

irepli - mobile internet search Central Point: where artists and listeners meet

[quote][b][user]Babs_05[/user][/b] sa: [quote][b][user]maz35[/user][/b] said: [quote][b][user]Babs_05[/user][/b] said: [quote][b][user]Kerensky97[/user][/b] said: Alot of songs have histories more interesting than the artist.[/quote] Is that what they're for? I like it! So can we all contribute? Can we c+p from Wikipedia itself, as that has a lot of this sort of information. eg song was covered by X, it was used in film called Y, etc.[/quote] Since there are no real guidelines to track wikis as yet I'd say thats exactly what they are useful for. Detailing things like if its a cover whose song they are covering or if the're are multiple versions of the same song by that artist those could be detailed too. It could be anything barring the lyrics really as long its presented in the usual unbiased wiki way. Now not all tracks will have any detail that comes to mind either but thats fine for the section to left blank .[/quote] Great, thanks. :) [quote][quote][b][user]esc4p1st[/user][/b] said: I discovered that recent tracks aren't recent at all anymore, which I find to be a major privacy concern. I'm not paranoid about having my recent tracks shown, but I don't see how you could possibly justify making [url=/user/esc4p1st/tracks?page=285]what I listened to on New Year's Eve[/url] publically available. That data should be restricted to each user.[/quote] I like that new feature, but I'm a stats freak who like as much data of my listening habits as I can get my hands on. Be even better if it was date searchable though. [/quote][/quote] I'm afraid I agree with esc4p1st. I think that level of detail should be for owners only. Viewing old charts for other people should reveal nothing more than the date. Talking of detail - I notice we can no longer see when we tagged tracks, we just get a month. I remember it being a date stamp, I seem to remember it had the time too. Anyway, I'd like that back please. Owners eyes only, ideally.[/quote]

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