Skip to main content

View Post [edit]

Poster: xtifr Date: May 10, 2006 9:08am
Forum: etree Subject: still some kinks to work out

Overall, the new system looks very nice, but there are still some obvious kinks to work out. The "Browse bands with MP3s" link seems to be working, but the "Browse by creator" only shows a tiny fraction of the shows. For example, first item, "...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead" lists nine concerts under "with MP3s", but only one under "by creator".

The "Browse Collection" link is clearly a search, not a browse--I'm not sure if it's mislabelled or merely unclear. In any case, it returns 34,861 results, which seems not-as-useful as it could be.

And finally, the "Browse by Subject/Keyword" returns a page which says, "Please note our prior "hierarchical keywords" feature (by using a ":" character) is not working right now so we are treating each keyword phrase as unique.]"

Overall, I'd say the system looks very promising, but these kinks are a real pain. And the biggest and most obvious problem I see is that the various bands' concerts have not yet been classified as part of each bands collections. Once that's finished, I think things will be a lot better.

In the mean time, I'd like to offer a link to the old band-browsing page, which still seems to work (although I have no guess how long it will continue to work). Those who want to browse (as opposed to search) the Live Music Archives may find this useful for a little while longer:

http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelisting-browse.php

(Note: this is the URL I scrape to create my top-bands lists and make my 400 Club/500 Club announcements. When/if it goes away, I'll have some script-rewriting to do.)

Reply [edit]

Poster: Brad Leblanc Date: May 10, 2006 9:34am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

And the biggest and most obvious problem I see is that the various bands' concerts have not yet been classified as part of each bands collections. Once that's finished, I think things will be a lot better. I noticed this too while poking around. I believe this is more of a metadata issue than a system issue - and if that's right, it should be relatively easy to sweep/fix it. I really like the "Item Manager" that contributors can use to manage their uploads. Very nice! Also I like Jon's flash player to play songs straight from the webpage.
This post was modified by Brad Leblanc on 2006-05-10 16:34:13

Reply [edit]

Poster: wjeremy26 Date: May 10, 2006 10:56am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

If it doesnt work out to be better or easier, will they put it back like it was. I have never downloaded an mp3 file off here out of the hundreds of shows i have downloaded. Why would that be the major fnx. This is the greatest music site on the internet, i really hope it remains that way. All the shows that were already on there will be back right? I have faith in these good people, so i will relax and listen to the great shows i already have for the next couple weeks, and then come back and check out the new site. I just hope that search results page isnt the only way to browse concerts by a band. I hope everybody remembers it is all about the music first.

Reply [edit]

Poster: wjeremy26 Date: May 10, 2006 11:06am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

I will say though that the chance to quickly listen to a track from the show is very nice, easy way to check the sound quality of a concert. 2 thumbs up on that one guys.

Reply [edit]

Poster: GumpyGuppy Date: May 10, 2006 9:25am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

where did browse by year go? :(

Reply [edit]

Poster: xtifr Date: May 10, 2006 9:31am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

It is still (at least for now) available through the link I posted above. I suspect that once the kinks are worked out of the new system, it will either be available again through a new link, and/or there will be even more useful ways to browse the availble shows (frankly, browse-by-year was a fairly limited set of options). :)

Reply [edit]

Poster: Jonathan Aizen Date: May 10, 2006 10:16pm
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

On a band's page:

www.archive.org/details/GratefulDead

There is a text box where you can type in the year (Find items from year)

Jon

Reply [edit]

Poster: Diana Hamilton Date: May 13, 2006 7:08am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

"Browse by Subject/Keyword" returns a page which says, "Please note our prior "hierarchical keywords" feature (by using a ":" character) is not working right now so we are treating each keyword phrase as unique.]"

The keywords thing for LMA is apparently on the to-do list, likely to require some community input when the time comes.

Reply [edit]

Poster: dgrayshn Date: May 10, 2006 9:34am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

yikes if this is anything like how the new site will be..
i don't like it AT ALL

i hope there are a LOT of kinks

i get the feeling there is a push to send users towards mp3 shows more than flac/shn... maybe im just imagining this..

Reply [edit]

Poster: Diana Hamilton Date: May 10, 2006 9:52am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

i get the feeling there is a push to send users towards mp3 shows more than flac/shn... maybe im just imagining this.. If you mean from the way the links are laid out in that one panel on the splash page, with the "browse MP3" link being toward the top of the panel with a gap, I bet that's more of a function of the pattern that the new-system splash pages have, see OSA http://www.archive.org/details/opensource_audio ). Notice also in that panel for the new LMA, there's a gap where "browse by date" would be (still working on that, I think Tracey said?). Meanwhile if you want to totally ignore mp3'ed shows, just do this search in the search box above: etree -mp3
This post was modified by Diana Hamilton on 2006-05-10 16:52:34

Reply [edit]

Poster: dgrayshn Date: May 10, 2006 10:03am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

well i feel that is still going to push people to only mp3 shows which is a shame.. also i dont like the overall feel of this new site.. searching for stuff right now is a real pain.. its like two steps backwards.. the only thing i like so far is the flash player! now thats handy now granted if the site is still being upgraded thats one thing and then this is all of course moot.. but if ur not going to be able to search by year anymore for example and every artist result is just listed out in one long page.. that is going to suck big time
This post was modified by dgrayshn on 2006-05-10 17:03:00

Reply [edit]

Poster: laptaper Date: May 10, 2006 10:56am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

And I'll wait till I fork over a bundle of time and/or cash to archive before I gripe. ;-) Thanks again for the overtime. :-)

Reply [edit]

Poster: raindogg Date: May 10, 2006 10:42am
Forum: etree Subject: Re: still some kinks to work out

I'll wait until all the kinks are worked out to gripe.
Searching a single band by year was a very useful function for me in the old format :) (suggestion, not gripe)