Holy Radical Redesign, Batman!

[utterlylinda]

OK...so what is the homepage now? When I hit the logo (which is oddly palced) I'd expect to go to the homepage. What I get is the Just For You section, which I guess is supposed to be songs that come from what used to be my subscription panel. Except that I can't tell who did what to the songs (bumped, commented, uploaded,etc.). So there isn't as much of an advantage to getting to the hot page any more.

Things are confusing at best, and the trend towards less info continues. I generally like to look for the positives...so...I guess I can say there is plenty of room to improve on this new iteration. The look is ok with me (although some skin options where we could personalize color options would be welcome), but the trend towards less interaction is disturbing, and hopefully temporary.

I want my tuneboxes and a nice big blank wall to write on. With no penalty for repeat messages up to say...50...or 100. I *want* to hear from artists with new uploads dadgummit.

On a selfish note...I see that I'm not the only one who can't post to forums any more.

[Evonity]

Exciting, frightening or much ado about nothing: at the First Bumps tab on your Stats and Achievements page, there's now some kind of status message, saying: "0 bumps required for the next discovery". Could this mean that soon we have to meet certain criteria to fb something, instead of just wait long enough?

[BabbleGrabble]

I'm not sure if this already came up, but I just noticed that if you hover your mouse over the logo (upper top-right) you get the users currently listening statistic (although we're now even less likely to ever reach that elusive moshpit achievement).

[The Upstairs Room]

As an artist, I've been tremendously disappointed with all the site changes. I joined back in March or April, when the site was in my opinion perfect the way it was... since then, it's been nothing but feature after feature taken away or soiled by imperfection.
Current Negatives:
1) First and foremost, the lack of an Artist Leaderboard. My favorite part of the site was checking out my rankings and the rankings of other artists from time to time.
2) The lack of point values on the progress bars. It's much less precise.
3) My artist page now shows my 5 most bumped songs, rather than 3 that I choose for it to feature. I can no longer determine what listeners see when they come to my page, including new songs or ones that have fewer bumps that I wanted to be given more attention.
4) No tuneboxes. :'(
5) A 250 letter maximum for wall comments.
6) The "Just For You" page coming up automatically when you visit the site. Hitting the homepage is now much less of an honor for artists, since these tracks are getting less exposure.
7) Number of Users Online is gone. No way to know how close the site is getting to the long-anticipated possibility of a Mosh Pit badge.
8 ) You can no longer see updates from artists or listeners you've subscribed to. As someone else on here pointed out, subscribing is virtually pointless now.

Current Positives:
1) Songs can still be favorited and bumped.


If thesixtyone continues to implement changes so frequently and with such little appeal, I'm not sure if I'll stick around much longer... I really miss the way it used to be.
_________________
~The Upstairs Room~

[BabbleGrabble]

[utterlylinda]

It is always hard for me to comprehend the basic operating procedure of t61. To me it is just nuts to make a major design change and at the same time remove a bug forum. If one person posted about a bug in a forum it could save going through hundreds of emails on the same topic.

But then I think an active forum where changes are discussed would be a valuable resource for a beta project. Not the excruciating responsibility of communication that it seems to be thought of here.

I also think that having an open forum for discussion would give a much better view of what all of the users think of various changes. Those of us who disliked some of the restrictions on wall space and other communications were told that it was demanded by other users that something be done about too much wall spam. But I don't recall that being a major concern in the forum. By using an email address (that quite frequently goes unanswered) they can choose which problems they wish to address and support their positions with mail that agrees with them. The lack of visibility in complaint handling makes me suspicious that there are lots of complaints.

But I keep forgetting that they don't really seem to want feedback about how we like the changes. They only want to know if the changes aren't working properly in all of the browsers.

On another track...
Apparently there is a difference between your position on the leaderboard and your points neighborhood. I have less points than my level (14) is supposed to have (thanks to those elusive 10,000 missing points and my weakness for revival meetings) but I am ranked higher (472) than all of those level 13 guys that are getting close to 14. But when they show me my neighbors I think they show me people whose points are similar to mine (651-660). I assume this because I can't really see how many points they have. So...if you level up you should be able to jump up the leaderboards quickly over all of those on that level who have sunk below the level's starting point. Maybe. I think.

[Revelation]

[mathman_mr_t]

arcadia's posting to the blog here deserves a careful and thoughtful reading.

[Evonity]

That was a very good story arcadia wrote. I already commented under it, that I don't understand why people choose to leave, instead of making themselves listened to.

I have two other side notes:
1: Not every change was bad, neither in design nor on gameplay. The three really big mistakes they made so far, were degrading community features, not developing useful features for artists (even degrading these as well) and refusing to properly interact with their critics. I don't know if this leads to a decline of popularity, but it surely didn't lead to an increase.

2. I spot a trend where listeners and artists quickly become passionate fans, but feel more and more not welcome as time goes by. The more they climb up in the level system, the harder it becomes to continue their success. There probably are a few things to say for handicapping the more experienced members, but only to a certain extend, not beyond that, as t61 does. Whether it has something to do with the peer network I'm in or not, I encounter too many people feeling really pissed off by what used to be the first or second love of their life.

, causing a structural lack of growth and eventually good music.

[mathman_mr_t]

[Evonity]

Earlier today I wrote a short story for my blog, about The Hydra by Gas Station Robber. Not because I consider myself a good critic or an excellent writer, but because I love that song so deeply. I'm just an ego blogger, but the story is yet another quality link to some great music and that's all I want. Helping promote the music that I love myself.

It made me realize that even without the game I would love The Sixtyone for all the fabulous music that is shared by the greatest musicians around. Even without the game to me T61 would still be a great music sharing site. As long as songs like the one I wrote about arise, I'll stay. So above all I would hope that the developers make sure that artists stay happy with the site.

One final remark before I leave these discussions for what they are: Samuel Hsiung and James Miao should be VERY, VERY, VERY grateful to have all these members who spend so much time, either as listeners, artists or critics, on T61. They should finally realize that they're not the only ones who are putting a lot of effort in the project.

[mathman_mr_t]

@evonity

i think you know that i am not far from you in my feelings about the 61. the difference, i think, is that i believe i can find 95% of the music i find on the 61 on other sites and if the founders are determined to make the 61 into just another internet music site, which is what it seems like to me, then what reason do i have to stay with them and try to get my friends and relatives to join and work hard to promote songs on the site and here? i was a paying subscriber to last.fm before i found the 61 and i could certainly use my connections there to promote artists as well as i can here and at least there i wouldn't have to put up with my bitter memories of what once was and what might have been the way i do at the 61.

rant over, sorry i went on so long.

[ImOnlySleeping]

[arcadia]

I updated my apparently famous blog post if anyone's interested. Any jaded t61 fan--and even more importantly, every jaded t61 artist--should check it out, as I've got a plausible alternative for you. Might not be perfect, but I think it's worth a shot.

And to everyone who's made me feel so welcome here at MaxBumps and formerly at thesixtyone, I want to thank you sincerely. It's been so much fun getting to know and bumping with all of you. I hope you consider coming to CherryPeel with me.
_________________
Let's be friends.

[Evonity]