MH FEATURED POLL #50: How often, in a year, would you like to see a new Trade-Off hosted?

[beni 2149]

How often, in a year, would you like to see a new Trade-Off?
 

 

To submit a poll for the MH POLL OF THE MONTH, P.M @beniwith your poll question, choices, and state whether it's multiple choice or not.

[indigo 389]

I voted for six. Six times is quite nice, that's the current amount anyway, right? Or is it four?

Edited September 4, 2016 by indigo

[beni 2149]

20 minutes ago, indigo said:

Six times is quite good, isn't that the current amount anyway?

 

Yes, that's right. Six times. Every other month, so the next would be in October for anyone else wondering.

[CAT5 9075]

If the plan is to get more people involved and get more people to host the tradeoff, why not increase the volume of tradeoffs a bit? I chose 11 months (excluding December, which seems to be a universally busy month) because I think with proper planning, it could be done. There seems to be plenty enough tradeoff ideas to go around and I think this would allow for more specific and varied themes, especially since not everyone will participate each month.  For instance, as things are, most of the tradeoff themes are kept rather broad - which is great, but I think if there are more tradeoffs, that could give hosts a bit more leeway, and they don't have to feel like they're alienating certain users with a more specific theme, since users will have even more chances to participate in future tradeoffs.

 

Not to mention, It might also boost the overall morale of the forum if there's always an event going on. You could have people submit their tradeoff ideas, assess the idea, and if it's approved, add said person to the hosting queue. If someone doesn't want to actually host the idea that they submitted, there's enough staff around that someone on board should be willing handle the hosting duties. If 11 tradeoffs a year is overkill, then chop it down a bit, but I don't think increasing the volume a bit more could hurt either!

 

Just a few thoughts!

[plastic_rainbow 2162]

i personally think having a trade-off every other month is good enough~ ^^

i only ask for one thing, the halloween/horror trade-off theme for october must stay every year.

[The Bread Wolf 231]

I haven't voted yet because I haven't even participated in a trade-off yet, but I wanted to point out a thing:

 

On 05/09/2016 at 8:04 PM, CAT5 said:

For instance, as things are, most of the tradeoff themes are kept rather broad - which is great, but I think if there are more tradeoffs, that could give hosts a bit more leeway, and they don't have to feel like they're alienating certain users with a more specific theme, since users will have even more chances to participate in future tradeoffs.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. For people like me, who have a very limited quantity of music in their library, taking part in a trade-off is difficult, but if the themes of the trade-offs are rotating often, there's a bigger chance that we can pull off a decent mixtape at least once or twice a year. 

 

I would also like to mention, that it's not all about what kind of mixtape we'd like to make, but also what kind of music we'd like to listen. Some people, like moi, are pickier than others and certain themes just don't resonate with them as much as others and again, quicker rotation of themes will give users a better chance to find something that they think they'd like to listen to. (Like the reasons why I didn't participate in the Christmas trade-off are 1. I don't have christmas-y tracks, and 2. the reason I don't have christmas-y tracks is because I bloody damn hate christmas songs, and it doesn't change whether they're sung in Japanese or not.)

[Axius 2019]

On 9/5/2016 at 3:04 PM, CAT5 said:

If the plan is to get more people involved and get more people to host the tradeoff, why not increase the volume of tradeoffs a bit? I chose 11 months (excluding December, which seems to be a universally busy month) because I think with proper planning, it could be done. There seems to be plenty enough tradeoff ideas to go around and I think this would allow for more specific and varied themes, especially since not everyone will participate each month.  For instance, as things are, most of the tradeoff themes are kept rather broad - which is great, but I think if there are more tradeoffs, that could give hosts a bit more leeway, and they don't have to feel like they're alienating certain users with a more specific theme, since users will have even more chances to participate in future tradeoffs.

 

Not to mention, It might also boost the overall morale of the forum if there's always an event going on. You could have people submit their tradeoff ideas, assess the idea, and if it's approved, add said person to the hosting queue. If someone doesn't want to actually host the idea that they submitted, there's enough staff around that someone on board should be willing handle the hosting duties. If 11 tradeoffs a year is overkill, then chop it down a bit, but I don't think increasing the volume a bit more could hurt either!

Hello. I heard about trade offs i never knew what they are can you explain this. Thank you.

[suji 8317]

@Axius Tradeoffs are when you exchange playlists with someone and then review your partner's playlist. There will be two deadlines posted - one for when you're supposed to have your partner's playlist, the last one for when you must have your review of their playlist posted on the forum. 

 

Your playlist can be either a Youtube playlist or a collection of songs you have on your computer. All these songs must correspond with the tradeoff theme (such as if you were to make a playlist for a brutal-kei tradeoff - brutal vk songs only). Your partner will be chosen by the tradeoff host, you must exchange playlists privately (via PMs, etc. - You must communicate with your partner) and you will have about a week or so to do that (depending on what the host puts for the deadline. You will then review each song from your partner's playlist and it must be posted before or on the final deadline date. If your review is going to be late for whatever reason, please put up a notice beforehand.

 

If you have any more questions, please let us know! We'd love to see you participate in a tradeoff sometime! They can be pretty fun while you're able to expand your musical tastes!! 

[The Moon 989]

cancel them all please x 

[Axius 2019]

12 hours ago, suji said:

If you have any more questions, please let us know! We'd love to see you participate in a tradeoff sometime! They can be pretty fun while you're able to expand your musical tastes!!

Ahh thank you for informing me i might participate in these in the future whenever i have the time. I would definitely wanna expand on music.

[Mamo 1172]

I've been following the trade-offs for quite some time but honestly I think it's pretty obvious that we don't need to have them more often, let me explain why.

 

Let me start by saying that I've never participated but I have observed and for me personally the reason I never sign up is because most people are usually extremely late on their reviews or don't send them in at all in some cases. Take the current anime ost trade-off for example, everyone had until Feb. 25th and  now it's Mar. 6th 9 days later and still many people haven't written their reviews.

 

It seems many people like creating mixes but not so much reviewing them. And yes I get that life happens and stuff but imo an entire month still should be enough time and if not and you know that your prone to life events interfering or if your usually busy, then I don't think you should sign up in the first place.

 

If this wasn't such a common occurrence then I wouldn't care as much but this is litterally every trade-off. I don't want to risk creating a mix and writing a review only not to have my mix reviewed in return.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Mamo

[CAT5 9075]

37 minutes ago, Mamo said:

Let me start by saying that I've never participated but I have observed and for me personally the reason I never sign up is because most people are usually extremely late on their reviews or don't send them in at all in some cases. Take the current anime ost trade-off for example, everyone had until Feb. 25th and  now it's Mar. 6th 11 days later and still many people haven't written their reviews.

 

It seems many people like creating mixes but not so much reviewing them. And yes I get that life happens and stuff but imo an entire month still should be enough time and if not and you know that your prone to life events interfering or if your usually busy, then I don't think you should sign up in the first place.

 

As someone who has both hosted and participated in the majority of the trade-offs here, I think that's a bit of an overstatement.  There definitely is an issue with certain users not submitting reviews, but I'd argue that those users exist within an extreme minority and are the exception, not the norm. The majority of participants usually do submit their reviews, even if they're late. For the small percentage of users that don't follow through, we've enacted a blacklist (though I admit that we need to be stricter about enforcing that).

 

Using the current anime trade-off as an example is not a good idea. I specifically altered the rules for this trade-off, making things much more involved than they usually are.  So I went into this expecting that many users would not make the deadlines. And it's ok if they're late, as long as they follow through within a reasonable time frame. Furthermore, you can't use the dates like that either because there are specific variables that have not been taken into account. For instance, the review deadline was the 25th, but the deadline for sending out mixes was on the 18th - which is only one week apart. Some users did not send out their mixes until after the 18th, so the members that received their mix late had even less than a week to write their review (if they wanted to fulfill the technical deadline). So when you take those factors into account, you realize that no one has had a month to write their review, because they haven't even had their mix that long.

 

Indeed, life is busy for most of us, so we do try to give a bit of leeway with these things. Because at the end of the day, this is just for fun - it shouldn't be a chore. However, you are absolutely correct to say that people should know what to expect when they sign up for these trade-offs. If you can't fulfill the commitments, then don't sign up.

[Mamo 1172]

21 minutes ago, CAT5 said:

As someone who has both hosted and participated in the majority of the trade-offs here, I think that's a bit of an overstatement.  There definitely is an issue with certain users not submitting reviews, but I'd argue that those users exist within an extreme minority and are the exception, not the norm. The majority of participants usually do submit their reviews, even if they're late. For the small percentage of users that don't follow through, we've enacted a blacklist (though I admit that we need to be stricter about enforcing that).

I agree that's why I said, "in some cases" when I was referring to people who don't send them in. I was more talking about the issue of tardiness. 

 

21 minutes ago, CAT5 said:

Using the current anime trade-off as an example is not a good idea. I specifically altered the rules for this trade-off, making things much more involved than they usually are.  So I went into this expecting that many users would not make the deadlines. And it's ok if they're late, as long as they follow through within a reasonable time frame. Furthermore, you can't use the dates like that either because there are specific variables that have not been taken into account. For instance, the review deadline was the 25th, but the deadline for sending out mixes was on the 18th - which is only one week apart. Some users did not send out their mixes until after the 18th, so the members that received their mix late had even less than a week to write their review (if they wanted to fulfill the technical deadline). So when you take those factors into account, you realize that no one has had a month to write their review, because they haven't even had their mix that long.

Yeah true I guess the current trade-off isn't a great example lol 

 

21 minutes ago, CAT5 said:

Indeed, life is busy for most of us, so we do try to give a bit of leeway with these things. Because at the end of the day, this is just for fun - it shouldn't be a chore. However, you are absolutely correct to say that people should know what to expect when they sign up for these trade-offs. If you can't fulfill the commitments, then don't sign up.

I'd very much like to sign up for the next one but yeah even though the risk is low I don't want to be left without my mix getting a review. TBH I don't even want to deal with someone being a week plus late either, although in this current trade-off's case I would understand after you explaining it to me. But really I would love to participate because I have many bands in my library (non-visual kei) that have never been featured in a trade-off at least as far as I know.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Mamo

[suji 8317]

and that's why I'm never participating in another trade off ever again x

[The Bread Wolf 231]

On 6.3.2018 at 8:39 AM, CAT5 said:

So I went into this expecting that many users would not make the deadlines.

May I ask, why make a deadline if you do not expect people to meet the deadline? It's a bit silly, isn't it? Why not set it for later so that EVERYONE has enough time to do their work by the deadline? I mean, technically you've got 2 months for that since the trade-offs are hosted bi-monthly? Give them a couple of weeks to make their mix and a month to review them. That would set the expectations where they should be, no? If one person gets their review earlier, hooray for them and party on, yeah? But if they don't, then it's not a loss or a breach in rules. I always say keep low standards and be happily surprised when they're exceeded.

 

I mean seriously, if people are given plenty of time to do something and they attempt to do it at the last minute and THEN something comes along... yeah, that's kinda their fault, not their trade partner's. With the kind of systems where you'll just pat on the head someone who misses the deadline, you're effectively punishing the ones who keep their schedule in check, which seem to be the thing Mamo and suji are pointing out.

[Mamo 1172]

11 hours ago, The Bread Wolf said:

Give them a couple of weeks to make their mix and a month to review them. That would set the expectations where they should be, no? If one person gets their review earlier, hooray for them and party on, yeah? But if they don't, then it's not a loss or a breach in rules. I always say keep low standards and be happily surprised when they're exceeded.

I like this idea a lot. I approve 👍

 

11 hours ago, The Bread Wolf said:

With the kind of systems where you'll just pat on the head someone who misses the deadline, you're effectively punishing the ones who keep their schedule in check, which seem to be the thing Mamo and suji are pointing out.

Yeah that's how I feel actually and I'm glad you said this because I'm not sure if I did a good explaining. lol

Edited March 9, 2018 by Mamo

[platy 3018]

17 hours ago, The Bread Wolf said:

May I ask, why make a deadline if you do not expect people to meet the deadline? It's a bit silly, isn't it? Why not set it for later so that EVERYONE has enough time to do their work by the deadline? I mean, technically you've got 2 months for that since the trade-offs are hosted bi-monthly? Give them a couple of weeks to make their mix and a month to review them. That would set the expectations where they should be, no? If one person gets their review earlier, hooray for them and party on, yeah? But if they don't, then it's not a loss or a breach in rules. I always say keep low standards and be happily surprised when they're exceeded.

 

I think this makes a lot of sense and should be taken into consideration for next trade-offs. Since most barely manage to meet the current deadlines, just extend it to the usual amount of time it takes for people to actually get them in. If even with that change they still are late then there's really no excuse.

[Mamo 1172]

18 hours ago, platy said:

 

I think this makes a lot of sense and should be taken into consideration for next trade-offs. Since most barely manage to meet the current deadlines, just extend it to the usual amount of time it takes for people to actually get them in. If even with that change they still are late then there's really no excuse.

Will you be hosting? If so and we use @The Bread Wolf's idea then I may just sign up this time.

[platy 3018]

49 minutes ago, Mamo said:

Will you be hosting? If so and we use @The Bread Wolf's idea then I may just sign up this time.

I'm not sure yet who will be hosting the next trade off. But I will discuss the possibility with the MH staff. 

[Mamo 1172]

On 3/6/2018 at 3:39 AM, CAT5 said:

As someone who has both hosted and participated in the majority of the trade-offs here, I think that's a bit of an overstatement.  There definitely is an issue with certain users not submitting reviews, but I'd argue that those users exist within an extreme minority and are the exception, not the norm. The majority of participants usually do submit their reviews, even if they're late. For the small percentage of users that don't follow through, we've enacted a blacklist (though I admit that we need to be stricter about enforcing that).

First let me say that I initially thought that it was essentially true that the number of users who weren't submitting  reviews for the trade-off's was extremely low. I decided since @CAT5admittedly said the staff could be stricter about enforcing the black:list, to look through every single trade-off myself just to see if there were any outliers. The results I found were SHOCKING and show a real problem with users simply not submitting reviews at all for the trade-offs. Out of 24 trade-offs 15 had at least one and often more users who didn't submit reviews. That's counting the current trade-off where all users submitted reviews. 

 

What was more disturbing is in some cases when users hadn't  submitted reviews they were called out,  while others were overlooked. Even more disturbing is some users who hadn't submitted reviews were allowed to participate again and in some cases went on to not submit a review for another trade-off.

 

Here's what I found, trade-offs are listed on the left:

Quote

Smooth Criminal @Lestat
Smooth Criminal @saishuu
Life Giving あなたはもう一度やった  (Now known as @Aferni )
Life Giving @Hakoniwa 
POST APOCALYPTIC @Ro plz 
POST APOCALYPTIC  @yuugure
Mystery Mix 3000 @crossparallel
Mystery Mix 3000 @Original Saku
#FEELS @Takato
Anything Haunted @SwampMan
Anything Haunted @ghost
Summer trip @colorfuljinsei
Summer trip @herpes 
Summer trip @eiheartx
Best Of @nullmoon
Best Of @doombox(Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs)
Decade Of Love @herpes(Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs) (And later went on to not submit a review in another trade-off.)
Spring themed @Manic
Spring themed The MAD Stallion (Now known as @Ro plz) (Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs) (And later went on to not submit a review in another trade-off)
Spring themed @Pho (Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs)
Love Letter @Aferni (Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs) (And later went on to not submit a review in another trade-off)
Remembering 2014 @Peace Heavy mk II(Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs)
Remembering 2014 @greeeeen
Remembering 2014 @Mabuta
Remembering 2014 @Sakura Seven
Remembering 2014 @paradoxal
Favorite Soundtracks @Peace Heavy mk II (Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs) (And later went on to not submit a review in another trade-off)
Favorite Soundtracks @Original Saku (Disturbingly went on to participate in several more trade-offs) (And later went on to not submit a review in another trade-off)
Favorite Soundtracks @sweetholm 
Free-for-all @Miasma
Free-for-all @Biopanda 
Free-for-all @ricchubunny

Edited March 18, 2018 by Mamo

[The Moon 989]

i'm illiterate and thus cannot write a review x 

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

I'm still working on that Remembering 2014 review, please wait and continue to support me onegashimasu!

 

 

 

I also don't think I've done many, if any, trade-offs since then, knowing that I am inconsistent with following up. If it will make you feel better, I'll sign up for the next one and Cat5 can publicly tell me "NO"

Edited March 20, 2018 by Peace Heavy mk II

[saishuu 3220]

waiting for my next warning for abusive behavior for missing a review (even though life got in the way during that one and I'd never missed one of the tons of others I took part in, but who cares)

On 17/03/2018 at 9:05 PM, Mamo said:

I decided since @CAT5admittedly said the staff could be stricter about enforcing the black:list

also Black:List was a band

[Chi 2624]

[disturbingly intensifies]

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

Imagine having so disturbingly

much time that you create a list over people who didn't finish their reviews 👀