How much do you care about the Spinitron Chart?

Spinitron Chart
1

The Spinitron Charts have been on break since spring this year. Should we bring them back this fall?

Producing the weekly chart is a big weekly chore for @eva. Hours of work go into fixing up all the different ways that the same releases appear in playlists. (All typographical differences must be eliminated to get accurate counts and links.) Eva understandably feels unburdened by the spring/summer chart break.

But there may be ways to reduce the burden. Maybe I can find ways to improve the software we use to produce the chart. Maybe we can find her an assistant.

And if we relaunch the Chart, I want it to be here on the forum instead of Blogger. That would allow y’all to talk about the chart and its music. That would be lovely. But Idk how many people care enough. Hence my question…

How much attention would you give to the chart if we restored it here?

  • not much
  • I might take a look from time to time
  • I’d read it most weeks
  • I’d read it regularly and join conversations about charts
  • I’d like to assist Eva producing the chart. It’s an excellent way to gain deep knowledge of music trends in non-commercial radio. :)

0 voters

Note: this is an open forum. Anyone can participate, not just Spinitron users. Feel free to pipe up.

1 Like
2

I would be interested in that discussion on best practices to make the charting process easier. I too use spinitron to craft the charts and all the variables make it a long process. I have stated my thoughts before about the gradual corruption of a database by all the variables (and the accumulation of outright mistakes). As the service and the database expands and matures I assume the maintaining (uncorrupting) of the database will take up more and more time. Perhaps there is a way to crowdsource corrections or at least suggestions for corrections.

1 Like
3

I don’t think it’s as bad as you suggest, Arbie. There isn’t much in the way of feedback so that errors multiply. This is because we only use previous fully manual entries as suggestions if the reference databases can’t help. Plus a lot of the data is coming from recognition now and that’s pretty clean.

Cleaning it up after the fact is a lot of work and requires careful attention and checking with references. Can you find volunteers to help with that? For example, a retired person who’s a fan your station might like to spend some time on that. If so, I’m willing to help train them.

We have a role called Editor in Spinitron for it. An Editor can edit all the playlists at your station.

4

Yes, in fact I think I am an editor. Now if I just had enough time… When I go through fixing incompletes (for example I just pulled up The Spritual Warriors "Ancestors EP"Spiritual Warrior (Smoke Signals, 2019)) sometimes the only difference in the Did You Mean? suggestions is time, usually by trivial amounts. A bigger problem is that most of the time when items are entered with more than one performer the databases referenced by Do You Mean? prefers One Artist - Song featuring 2nd Artist. Who goes first? That’s more of a problem for the initial entry but if it is passed wrong by our playout software Spinitron accepts it even though it is wrong. And Do you Mean? might not be able to suggest anything. I accept that a lot of the reponsibility for getting it right should be the show hosts/ the station. Easier not to make the mistake rather than fix it later. More training.

1 Like
5

Yes! And there’s only so much we can do in software. But if you know how to get the best results from autocomplete, that’s the best bet.

6

So 6 people voted in the poll and their enthusiasm wasn’t very high. But I think this say more about how many people even read new topics on this forum than anything else.

Anyway, the chart has been revived and it is now being published here on the forum. We have stopped updating the Spinitron Blogger.

I guess we ought to tell users and listeners somehow.

1 Like