Passing this along from a diligent streamer and chat listener: I do want to make you aware of an issue that I and other listeners have noticed while in the chat. I started noticing it maybe a couple of years ago, and figured out how to get around it, and truthfully didn’t think any more about it until I became aware that other listeners were experiencing it.
The problem is with the Spinitron Archive feature itself, and it only affects those in the chat, whether they’re on a phone or computer.
Most people who use the archive know that the main way to access it is to pull up the playlist page for the show in question, and then towards the top left of the page, find the little Play Arrow. Click or touch that, and Spinitron will start playing from the start of the first hour of the show. Of course, Spinitron also lets you manually adjust which hour and which 15 minute segment of that show you want to hear, but the default is the first hour.
Unfortunately, there are two keys, ‘k’ and ‘m’, that can also activate the archive. If you’re on your phone, it’s not obvious, but if you’re using a computer without a touch screen, if you hover the cursor over the Play Arrow, it will say “Play (k)”. And with the little volume icon to its right, if you hover the cursor over it, it will say “Mute (m)”.
No big deal, but if you’re in the chat and typing a comment, and you are using a combination of k’s and m’s, the archive stream will start and stop playing, and muting and unmuting, each time you type one of those keys.
And if you’re on a computer, listening to a show through its internal speakers, when the archive starts playing, you’ll hear both audio streams simultaneously, which is mind-numbing! If you’re listening to a show with your phone, when the archive starts playing, it will shut off the show you’re listening to, and just play the archive stream, which is both annoying and confusing.
I’ve cc:d Rosie on this because she and I and another one of her listeners were in the chat last night when this came up. It had actually come up weeks ago with this same listener in the chat, who was understandably very confused when “Archive Rose Lady” would start playing, or even “Archive Greg Rogan” would start playing over the real Rosie’s Rhythm Room. I didn’t put two and two together until last night, though.
Again, I’m sorry about the length, but I wanted to make clear what the problem was. It’s not a KXCI problem, I know: it’s a Spinitron problem, but it does affect the experience of KXCI listeners.
Thanks as always for being there,
