And this is exactly what I was talking about earlier. The mods come in and assure everybody that eMusic is listening. A number of posters say hey, this is great, let's direct questions to them. After a couple of real answers followed by a bunch of non-answers there's a week and a half of virtual silence. So the posters realize, once again, that there's no point in being polite and that vitriol is more cathartic and possibly the only way to be noticed.
Either moderate the boards for real or shut them down completely. Otherwise you get exactly what you put into it - a heaping mess.
Interesting that today Jo is back answering a question about the new Charles Bradley album.I assume the moderators have gone back to their main day job and Cathy is certainly not going there again!
The mods come in and assure everybody that eMusic is listening. A number of posters say hey, this is great, let's direct questions to them
okay, but a number of posters were also jackasses. i haven't really done a survey of it, but i remember feeling at the time -- maybe as soon as the end of the first day of moderation -- that this was a totally fruitless exercise for emusic, and if i was them, i'd discontinue (or at least retool) that part of the moderators' responsibility.
i guess the biggest issue was this encoding/sound quality gripe. now that this has been addressed, i think there's less need for moderators. i mean, people may not be happy with the decision, but a decision has been made and announced.
i guess the biggest issue was this encoding/sound quality gripe. now that this has been addressed, i think there's less need for moderators.
Heh. You may consider this jackassery on my part, but personally I'm going to be keeping that issue from dropping off the board over there. Not to in any "eMusic doesn't care about its customers" way, but as fair warning. These albums may have sound quality issues, DL at your own risk.
I thought that some of the requests/demands to the mods were inappropriate. "Let's see if you respond to this!" etc. On the other hand, if the CS wasn't so dysfunctional, people wouldn't have to be griping about such easily fixable issues on the messboard.
it isn't jackassery on your part; there's nothing wrong with raising legitimate issues. it's the "Let's see if you respond to this!," "I demand answers now!," "Time is up," the name-calling, and so forth, that upset me.
i think emusic should keep working on upgrading the sound quality of that previously-delivered content. it seems to me that if there isn't a contractual problem or a horrendous hard-cost associated with upgrading the encoding, the logistics problems presented by the project should be tolerable.
maybe as soon as the end of the first day of moderation
If you're only going to give it a day, there's no point in even trying. You're talking about frustration and anger that has been built upon for the better part of a year and a half. Even if you're only going to look at from the point of UMG forward, that's a couple months of hideous customer service on the part of eMusic. A couple days of moderation is not nearly enough to fix the damage.
Personally the fact that many subscribers have to contact CS to find out when their refresh date is, the lack of re-downloads is causing even more problems with their DLM, pricing seems to be fluctuating for certain albums, etc. leads me to believe that there are plenty of reasons for moderators to stick around. If the feeling is that the encoding is the only issue that needs to be addressed, then they can continue to ignore a public area of their website that makes their service look like shit.
I just got an e-mail that a Daniel was following me on Twitter with that screen name. Since we had been going back and forth on her just before it came in, I thought it might be you.
Daniel, I agree that a number of the initial responses to the moderators were adolescent in the extreme and likely to stay that way mods or no mods. But I also agree with thom that if you're going to try to moderate at all then the response has to be consistent and continue over time. And it ought to include responding promptly and courteously to politely expressed questions, with the rude questions either not responding or responding with studied politeness, and putting some effort into modeling a proper tone for the boards. That would not eliminate stupidity, but I think it could have an influence over time in what is a relatively closed ecology (there are not 400,000 people posting on those boards). Starting to moderate and then not communicating seems like the worst of all worlds - it justifies all the professional insulters in their cynicism and leaves folk who try to ask actual relevant questions more fed up than they were before. It's like a dysfunctional high school classroom - you can actually make progress with consistent pressure and refusal to concede to the crap, but trying something for a day or two and then retreating does worse than nothing because it not only has no effect but it further erodes any credibility you may have left.
And it ought to include responding promptly and courteously to politely expressed questions, with the rude questions either not responding or responding with studied politeness, and putting some effort into modeling a proper tone for the boards.
i don't disagree. it's just that, after a one-day sample, i felt that the latter type of question was overwhelming the former type of question. and some of the former-type questions seemed like trojan horses so that, when an answer wasn't immediately issued, the questioner turned rude/belligerent.
I'd say that a big part of the reason I feel the way I do is because they ignored several straightforward, polite questions I asked back when Sony was being introduced. Things that, had I known beforehand, would have made me feel better. But by ignoring or pretending they didn't know the answer (days before things were dropped they continued claiming they didn't know when it would happen - seriously?) it basically made it feel like they were lying to me.
That made me far less interested in telling people to shut up when they were bitching and moaning, even when I though their complaints were ridiculous. A year and a half later and their responses smack of the same "pretending not to know" attitude.
...the logistics problems presented by the project should be tolerable.
I was thinking about this the other day, and I'm wondering if that's really true...?
For 250,000 FLAC files, they'd need about 5TB of disk space, which should be easy enough these days to share among a group of computers, except that eMusic's computers are probably 8-bit IBM PC Jr.'s which don't recognize disks larger than, say, 2.1 GB, if that much. But if they can get past that issue, I'd say one minute per file is a fair (if not highly conservative) estimate of how long each file would take to re-encode. That would be about 1,440 files per day, so if they have 6 computers dedicated to the task, that's about 30 days. But first they have to set up the automation of the task, divide up the files, that sort of thing - that would require someone with technical ability, so they'd have to bring in outside contractors.
And that's just for the re-encoding itself. We don't know what form the "drop" actually took - how were these files physically delivered? On DVD-R's? That's roughly 1,200 DVD-R's, which would have to be transferred onto hard drives, and you have to figure that would take about 10 minutes per DVD for the data transfer alone, but that's also a manual task since someone has to sit there and load the DVD's. So instead of taking under 2 days on 6 computers, now you're dealing with a week or more because if you're like most people, you're only working 8-hour days. And of course, if you're like most eMusic people, you're only working about 30 minutes out of those 8 hours and the rest of the time you're either fixing up your resum
@Germanprof - as an ex teacher 0f 11-18 year olds, now teaching 18 plus at university on a part-time basis I totally back-up your point. If you are going to do something like introduce the moderators to retain order it must be consistent. By this piecemeal approach they are actually making it worse and showing themselves up for what they are
these are the people who signed Ke$ha, after all, and continue to distribute Kiss albums with almost no respect given to human sentience or brain activity whatsoever
A ha! The truth comes out. I knew something was fishy about your desert island discs!
Well, the thing is, if you're on a desert island you want disks that can be used for things like shoveling sand, putting together makeshift footwear, or protecting your private parts from roaming scorpions and sandcrabs. Kiss CDs have the added benefit of making visiting "cargo cult" worshipers from the desert island next door think you're sympatico with them, since the makeup worn by the guys in Kiss is very similar to the visual conception many south-sea islanders have of their own native gods. This can be especially handy if the visiting islanders are also cannibals, since it reduces your chance of being eaten. However, there's an equally good chance that they'll expect you to eat with them, since they'll be so impressed with your CD collection.
Regardless, I would think the last thing you'd want is to bring an album like Slowdive's Souvlaki or Emma Pollock's Watch the Fireworks with you to a desert island - they're almost useless as magical charm amulets, and with all that sand everywhere, what if they got scratched? I could never forgive myself.
I should probably have posted this to the other thread though, since it's off-topic in this one.
Comments
Either moderate the boards for real or shut them down completely. Otherwise you get exactly what you put into it - a heaping mess.
okay, but a number of posters were also jackasses. i haven't really done a survey of it, but i remember feeling at the time -- maybe as soon as the end of the first day of moderation -- that this was a totally fruitless exercise for emusic, and if i was them, i'd discontinue (or at least retool) that part of the moderators' responsibility.
i guess the biggest issue was this encoding/sound quality gripe. now that this has been addressed, i think there's less need for moderators. i mean, people may not be happy with the decision, but a decision has been made and announced.
Heh. You may consider this jackassery on my part, but personally I'm going to be keeping that issue from dropping off the board over there. Not to in any "eMusic doesn't care about its customers" way, but as fair warning. These albums may have sound quality issues, DL at your own risk.
I thought that some of the requests/demands to the mods were inappropriate. "Let's see if you respond to this!" etc. On the other hand, if the CS wasn't so dysfunctional, people wouldn't have to be griping about such easily fixable issues on the messboard.
Personally the fact that many subscribers have to contact CS to find out when their refresh date is, the lack of re-downloads is causing even more problems with their DLM, pricing seems to be fluctuating for certain albums, etc. leads me to believe that there are plenty of reasons for moderators to stick around. If the feeling is that the encoding is the only issue that needs to be addressed, then they can continue to ignore a public area of their website that makes their service look like shit.
not sure if i'm squarely addressing your question, tho.
i disagree with yr post upthread, but i'll have to circle-back to explain why.
i don't disagree. it's just that, after a one-day sample, i felt that the latter type of question was overwhelming the former type of question. and some of the former-type questions seemed like trojan horses so that, when an answer wasn't immediately issued, the questioner turned rude/belligerent.
I'd say that a big part of the reason I feel the way I do is because they ignored several straightforward, polite questions I asked back when Sony was being introduced. Things that, had I known beforehand, would have made me feel better. But by ignoring or pretending they didn't know the answer (days before things were dropped they continued claiming they didn't know when it would happen - seriously?) it basically made it feel like they were lying to me.
That made me far less interested in telling people to shut up when they were bitching and moaning, even when I though their complaints were ridiculous. A year and a half later and their responses smack of the same "pretending not to know" attitude.
For 250,000 FLAC files, they'd need about 5TB of disk space, which should be easy enough these days to share among a group of computers, except that eMusic's computers are probably 8-bit IBM PC Jr.'s which don't recognize disks larger than, say, 2.1 GB, if that much. But if they can get past that issue, I'd say one minute per file is a fair (if not highly conservative) estimate of how long each file would take to re-encode. That would be about 1,440 files per day, so if they have 6 computers dedicated to the task, that's about 30 days. But first they have to set up the automation of the task, divide up the files, that sort of thing - that would require someone with technical ability, so they'd have to bring in outside contractors.
And that's just for the re-encoding itself. We don't know what form the "drop" actually took - how were these files physically delivered? On DVD-R's? That's roughly 1,200 DVD-R's, which would have to be transferred onto hard drives, and you have to figure that would take about 10 minutes per DVD for the data transfer alone, but that's also a manual task since someone has to sit there and load the DVD's. So instead of taking under 2 days on 6 computers, now you're dealing with a week or more because if you're like most people, you're only working 8-hour days. And of course, if you're like most eMusic people, you're only working about 30 minutes out of those 8 hours and the rest of the time you're either fixing up your resum
Regardless, I would think the last thing you'd want is to bring an album like Slowdive's Souvlaki or Emma Pollock's Watch the Fireworks with you to a desert island - they're almost useless as magical charm amulets, and with all that sand everywhere, what if they got scratched? I could never forgive myself.
I should probably have posted this to the other thread though, since it's off-topic in this one.
lol i like some kiss songs.
Nereffid responding to Wanderer: - "Good old Wanderer, heroically fighting rhetoric with horseshit."
Brilliant !
From Wandy, same thread: I was just ready to submit my response -- then decided to stay out of it.