It's time to get real here [Archive]

quintin3265

Jan 21, 2010, 01:48 PM

What annoys me the most is that, for some reason, it's permissible for celebrities to auction their underwear (http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=evangeline-lilly-r*favela-lingerie) to raise money for charity; yet, when a call goes out to post remixes for charity, people start getting up in arms as if someone is making a "profit" off this endeavor.

I disagree with your statement that video game music isn't declining. I think that part of the problem is that it's more difficult to remix songs from modern games because they are already orchestral masterpieces. That doesn't mean it's impossible, just that anything added to a NES-era song is going to sound incredible by comparison. I remember how, in 1997, it was amazing to even hear MIDI arrangements of these songs. These sort of songs are available at http://www.vgmusic.com/ even now, and even though that site has not innovated substantially in years, it receives thousands of times more visitors than this one does.

I am still not convinced that there are not enough remixes out there to support a very vibrant community. When I first conceived of this site in 2009, I estimated that there were 100,000 remixes, transcriptions, covers, and verbatim MIDI files across the various sites. That doesn't include originals. VGMusic alone has 40,000, and when one counts the rejected submissions to Overclocked, there are easily 10,000 there. The VGMix archive had thousands that were lost; I have 4,999 on my hard drive alone.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the past year of development is the arrogance displayed by many "leaders" of the community. Many site coordinators, such as Chris from Square Enix Music or Tim at Squaresound, are very cordial and should be complimented for their respect. On the other hand, I will publicly state here that I have little respect for Liontamer, virt, and djpretzel. I have contacted these people multiple times in an attempt to offer something to the game music community and my messages have been ignored. Liontamer did apologize for closing a thread at Overclocked ReMix, but still did not reply to anything I said to him after that point. If any of these people is reading this message, then please prove me wrong. Even if the answer to whatever was asked was "no," whatever happened to treating others with respect and spending 30 seconds to write a reply to say so? I can see why these people were always involved in one feud or another between VGMix, Overclocked, and other sites, and they should be called out as such.

Mika

Jan 22, 2010, 01:17 AM

Zorbfish

Jan 22, 2010, 03:05 AM

The site has functionality, but no identity.

There are no real problems with the site itself, although I do have some peeves about the layout/UI, the real issue is that you have no real community. The users that do upload to your site do not generally talk here so what your left with is more of a random loosely-affiliated group of artists.

Also, most remixers have already 'cliqued up'. You showed up late to the party.
But I can't blame you for being frustrated, I've been having a tough time trying to find a VGM niche myself.

quintin3265

Jan 22, 2010, 05:37 AM

Man, I've been reading all these threads you have been making all over the internets, and you are trying way way too hard. And you also had pretty unrealistic expectations regarding the site and the first compo.

And those are my observations. I have no idea how you could make it better or busier.

The site has functionality, but no identity.

There are no real problems with the site itself, although I do have some peeves about the layout/UI, the real issue is that you have no real community. The users that do upload to your site do not generally talk here so what your left with is more of a random loosely-affiliated group of artists.

Also, most remixers have already 'cliqued up'. You showed up late to the party.
But I can't blame you for being frustrated, I've been having a tough time trying to find a VGM niche myself.

I'm not qualified to state whether I've tried hard or not - that's for other people to decide. What I do know is that one should either give it one's all or not show up to the game. Stopping halfway provides neither the benefits of saving the money nor succeeding as much as one could.

Most importantly, though, I don't believe that there were any unrealistic expectations here. Nobody disputes how many remixes there are, and if you look at how many people are posting at other sites' forums every day, getting 10 or 100 times more visitors here is not unrealistic even if the community didn't expand by a single person. The other sites have proven that such success is realistic.

Secret Squirrel

Jan 22, 2010, 06:39 AM

Starting a site and building a community from scratch is always a challenging task. It is even more difficult when there are other similar more established sites to which you are compared.

I do have a couple of specific pieces of advice, which technically I should give in private, but they've already been mentioned in the thread.

You really have to be careful about how you handle the charity stuff. While it's admirable that you are willing to donate this money to charity, and while you weren't going to profit monetarily from the campaign, remixSite stood to gain by the increase in traffic and the number of submissions, and any ensuing publicity. (This outcome was also the same goal of the remix competition.) Most of us here are pretty cynical, and will see this as an attempt to gain something from the recent tragedy. I know that big companies do this all the time, and yes they are gaining something of value in the process, and yes that is the primary reason they do it. If it weren't the case, they would just take the proper action and donate in private.

I don't really know that it's fair to publicly call out OCR staff as being unprofessional. They've been fairly busy working on their site, and issues that are peripheral to the main goal often slip. I know that I'm guilty of just that, and I'm quite behind on responding to inquires from a number of people including the OCR folks. Moreover, doesn't remixSite essentially compete with OCR for a portion of the same community? I think it's important to keep your expectations realistic concerning just how much you'd be able to work together.

Anyway, I think there's a lot of good advice in this thread. It would be a shame to see remixSite shut down, and there is probably a niche that you can fill successfully, or something that you can do to differentiate from other similar efforts.

quintin3265

Jan 22, 2010, 07:40 AM

Moreover, doesn't remixSite essentially compete with OCR for a portion of the same community?

I think this is the core issue here. I believe the answer is no, but others must believe the answer is yes. I don't see why a site that judges entries can't exist in tandem with a site that does not judge entries. Remember, Overclocked rejects 95% of its submissions the last time I calculated that.

At VGMusic, for example, I even offered to write code for them or pay them hundreds of dollars, and they didn't reply. So I agree with you that a large part of the problem is that there is a lot of arrogance and mistrust on the part of a small portion of the community that others then follow through peer pressure. It's exactly the same thing that happened to Wikipedia - because of a few vandals, they now "assume bad faith" and reject almost every edit, which is why I no longer edit there.

Perhaps the main reason people are mistrustful is because of Overclocked's history of opposing removal of songs. I'm not sure exactly who's responsible for that (nor does it really matter), but I strongly disapprove of their attitude towards song ownership. They have caused significant damage to the community by restricting artists' freedoms. Now, people assume that everyone is out to "steal" their music as a result.

Omnomnomnom

Jan 22, 2010, 08:20 PM

I guess I can only speak for myself, but a lot of the other sites (formentioned) can be quite elitist at times. They get into cliques and that's that. As is, I've seen a few familiar faces from The Shizz, who seemed to be apparent around comp time, (although most of them are actually pretty cool, at least on the IRC client) and they acted just as I figured they would. Drop onto this site for a bit, then disappear. That's cool for them, but kind've dull for this site, and I dislike those other sites because of the elitism that's inherently with them. I left, but I came here, thinking it would be something different. If this site closed, I don't really think there's anywhere to go if you're really serious about vg music and really want to evolve as an artist. I admit, I don't spend much time on the rest of the site, but it's all about small steps, both for you and us as visitors. I like where this site is headed, and I think you've done more than most, so keep it up. It's worth it - who cares what they said on other sites - it just means you're getting attention!

Aside from that... No, 9 months isn't long. 1 comp isn't enough. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS YET!! I understand you want to make a true haven here, but it's not going to happen overnight. Sites like these become respected and loved over time, but it's a long road. You're clearly passionate about this, and I love that. I know myself and a few others want good things for this site because of that. If you need attention that badly, make it a torrent site. Otherwise, stick to what your vision is, DON'T SPEND SO MUCH MONEY, and see how it goes. This doesn't have to end because of a struggle. I've already offered my hand with stuff if there was a place for it, so some of us ARE interested in the survival of this site.

*sidenote* I disagree. VGMUSIC isn't dying. Remixing, maybe I dunno, but as original artists, there's way more interest in games as a forefront of music. It'll be a huge boom over the next few years, I'm sure. The interest has increased steadily over the past few years, and due to they way the industry should progress, people will be limited to the same quality tools as eachother (or near enough) and thus we'll see a larger amount of originality in music in order to make their tracks stand out. I think the next decade or so will prove interesting. This site could be one of the first to house those artists.

quintin3265

Jan 23, 2010, 08:54 AM

Seriously, though, someone else needs to run the compo. I can't do everything. I already said that I'll fully support anyone who wants to host the first compo. That means the compo coordinator can make the rules (even enter the compo if (s)he wants), determine the guidelines, and so on. I'll fix whatever bugs come up in the compo interface and even offer a prize, as stated before. But someone else needs to take the initiative. If you'd like to volunteer, contact me and I'll help with whatever you need.

Mika

Jan 24, 2010, 10:09 AM

Most importantly, though, I don't believe that there were any unrealistic expectations here. Nobody disputes how many remixes there are, and if you look at how many people are posting at other sites' forums every day, getting 10 or 100 times more visitors here is not unrealistic even if the community didn't expand by a single person. The other sites have proven that such success is realistic.

And this is just it. There is only so much time a person can use for browsing sites of this nature, and if someone has picked OCR or whatever, they are likely to stick to that choice. Being active on a yet another site is something people just don't have the time for.

You can't just expect people to make time to be active on your site, that's unrealistic.

Also, about the money you have been funneling to the site, that's nothing new really. One of the leaders you called out, virt, ran VGMix out of his own pockets for ages.

Speaking of VGMix, I believe there are still quite a few people who are just waiting for it to come back in full gear, and don't want to get too involved in a site very similar to it.

quintin3265

Jan 24, 2010, 03:52 PM

You can't just expect people to make time to be active on your site, that's unrealistic.

I disagree with this quote. If you agree with my assertion that this site is in better condition than VGMix is, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to spend time using a better site. (If you disagree, then my argument is void). In most areas of life, for better or worse, people tend to use whatever is the best product.

I don't think there's some magical force here that makes people prefer Overclocked Remix over this site. Overclocked Remix is not a competitor to this site anyway, because its judging of remixes is very different than what happens here.

The bottom line is that if this site was useful to people, then they would use it. They would use it regardless of whether they visit any other sites, perhaps in addition to the other sites. It wouldn't be necessary to hold promotions, because people would be be downloading lots of songs and wanting to host their compos. It doesn't take more than 30 seconds to download songs.

If there were bugs, people would care enough about the site to work around them and report them, or if the color scheme were poor, they would suggest a new scheme or ignore it. It's wrong to say that some external factor is responsible for the low viewership. To prove this, in May, when the site was announced, 1200 people visited on the first day. Rather, I suggest that I or those who have helped me designed the site wrong in some way so that it's not useful enough for people to visit it, even if it's free to use.

The responsibility lies here, which is why I disagree with the quote above.

Omnomnomnom

Jan 24, 2010, 05:56 PM

Anyway, I suggest you organize an official compo, for getting both activity and to show people the system. Maybe you could even make the first place prize the ability to choose the theme of the next official compo (that may sound useless since people can create their own, but depending whether or not you get a spike in hits from an event such as this, it could be useful). I'm not sure about everyone else, but it would mean more to me if I won an official one, too...

I had this idea too, so I totally agree with Muurgh. It makes sense and adds some structure to the chaos. If you win a comp, you host the next (if you can't, it goes to runner up, etc) I don't think the person who hosts the comp should be able to participate either, for two reasons that I can think of off the top of my head.
1: They can be fairly biased about what the competition focuses on. If there are prizes to be won, I can't wager my trust on anyone not to do that.
2: You can end up with 1 person hosting and winning too often, so nobody learns from the comp or thinks they have a chance at winning, etc. There are other reasons, but I think those are the most important.

If no one else stands up, I'll host it myself, but I won't compete, I don't think it would work out well and it's against my.... ethics I guess? (I have ethics??? XD) Muurgh, any reason you can't/won't? I'm in the process of finding someone impartial who might. He might do it and I might help him with it (in which case neither of us would be competing). If you wanted to do it though, definitely say so.

The important part of all this is that we can help make the site what we want it to be. That will give us a reason to be here and Quintin the traffic he needs. I'm sure we all have issues with other sites for one reason or another, might be an idea for us to try shape this one into something worthwhile long-term, and not just for the comps.

quintin3265

Jan 25, 2010, 08:00 AM

I should also point out to whoever wants to organize competitions that, to my knowledge, there has never been a video-based competition in the history of the community.

A challenge to record bands or to create visuals for a particular song is already possible with the current code.

Muuurgh

Jan 25, 2010, 06:33 PM

I didn't think I'd have enough time, but... alright, I guess I wouldn't mind doing one.

A video compo would be awesome, by the way. If someone sets that up I'll have to purchase and relearn Jitter :D

shawnphase

Jan 26, 2010, 01:32 AM

some good points made here. i wish i had more to add other than this but its 5:30 and im exhausted. i just wanted to add that im following the discussion here and trying to give some thought towards what can be done on the end of a little less forceful promotion but still getting more users on the site. i really think perserverence with the site is important. i dont think the site has had enough time overall to develop enough of a catalog to kind of fill out a fully distinctive subniche within the community, though it shouldnt be necessary, its proving that it is and that people simply arent giving the site the benefit of the doubt in terms of the function and the form. i'll get into this a little more later.

Mika

Jan 26, 2010, 01:40 PM

I disagree with this quote. If you agree with my assertion that this site is in better condition than VGMix is, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to spend time using a better site. (If you disagree, then my argument is void). In most areas of life, for better or worse, people tend to use whatever is the best product.

You completely missed the point of what I said. It's not about which site is in better condition, or which kind of goals site has, or how the actual music gets out there, or whether sites "compete" in some way. My point was very simple, limited time.

So again, I think it was unrealistic of you to expect to pull a major userbase from the existing communities in less than a year. And even without the time factor, people are rooted in their ways, something you can't just expect to change in less than a year.

And it probably doesn't help that at least in the shizz your response to early criticism wasn't exactly golden. First impressions count a lot, and I get the feeling that a lot of people just wrote you and the site off in the beginning due to whatever problems they had and never gave it a second chance.

And while I'm still here, I might as well mention that the competition with money prizes reeked of desperate attempt to "buy" more users. And as I recall, the management of the competition was a bit shoddy as well. I won't go into details, because I don't remember them exactly.

Obviously I'm only speaking from my own experience, my view of the situation, but that's all any of us have in the end. My only real suggestion is to give it time, look back at all the negative comments you got and see if you can learn from them. Less than a year is not a long enough time to truly grow.

Omnomnomnom

Jan 26, 2010, 07:50 PM

So again, I think it was unrealistic of you to expect to pull a major userbase from the existing communities in less than a year. And even without the time factor, people are rooted in their ways, something you can't just expect to change in less than a year.

Whatever about shoddy management and such (mentioned later), Mika has an important word to say. Take any of these sites, OCR, The Shizz, etc, etc. I'm sure they put a lot of effort into making their pages. They may have felt like Quintin at some point. I for one, if I had done the same, would be pretty angry if everyone suddenly migrated to another site, be it better or worse. I'm sure many like to think that if it happened to them and their people left, they'd accept it for what it is and move on, but it's just not the case. If you put your heart and soul into a site, you'd feel wrong done by if another site came along and stole everything away from you.

Quintin, people are very loyal, even if it doesn't seem so. Some of the people's time you want a cut of, have helped build those sites to be what they are. It'll take much longer than the time you've given for a change to properly occur. People change slowly if it's natural and after a while they may naturally fall to this site as well as OCR, VGmix, etc. The remix industry isn't TOO huge, so I think most people feel at home on their preferred sites at the moment. You should allow for more time before thinking that all is lost. You've gained interest and people genuinely want this site to continue, so you're on the right path.

Mika, good points, but I don't think Quintin really wants to "buy" people so much as give them an incentive to check something out that isn't in their norm. May have just been the easiest way to achieve that. Remixers/composers are some of the most opinionated people around on the net and they will find a place they like and stick with it (as you were implying). Most people spend more time on one site over the others. Quintin wants this site to be the same homebase for people, but how do you get their attention? There's comps everywhere. There's remixing sites everywhere. I think what Quintin did worked to gain interest. He also caught the ears of the more serious people wanting to make a living of their music through the medium of video-games, for me, this is especially interesting. He's not exactly bribing people. Otherwise, there'd be no problem, we'd be here every day. :P

But I agree with you, the money would look bad from a perspective of other sites who couldn't or, more importantly "wouldn't" do the same. But then.... those sites are already in existence. The money, if anything, showed Quintin's honesty in wanting to make this site work, since he's not earning anything back. Why would he do it otherwise?

Sorry for the long post. ^_^'

quintin3265

Jan 26, 2010, 08:26 PM

There are two points I think are worth saying in reply to Om's post.

First, Mika, I still disagree with this idea of there being some sort of competition between this site and the other sites. It is a competition now, because of the way the other sites treated us, but I never stated anything about a competition months ago until site administrators made it so. If you'd like, I can post the E-Mails that I sent to virt BEFORE the first line of code was even written suggesting that we collaborate. While it is possible that people might spend less time at other sites because this site exists, isn't it also possible that the combination of all the vibrant subcommunities will cause more people to join in than any single site alone would have? I disagree that this is what would be called a "zero-sum game," where one site has to win at the expense of all the others. virt, Liontamer, djpretzel, and the VGMusic staff are closed-minded and not willing to even acknowledge that there is room for synergy.

Second, and more importantly, though, the attitude of a zero-sum game is something that seems to be represented particularly strongly in the remix community. I offer that, in many other communities, the offer of a prize, or contributions to Haiti, or some other promotion would be seen as a gesture of goodwill. Here, for whatever reason, people look highly negatively upon these and many other things. We will probably have to agree to disagree, but I assert that the reason for this negativity is because of sites attempting to usurp rights from song creators, feuds, hacking incidents by Ptrocity and others, and the Overclocked Remix administrators' promotion of an exclusive clique. I'm not convinced that the same actions, done in another genre, would have yielded the exact same response. In part, we're battling against the poor precedent set by the current big sites.

As to the issue of working hard, I see the development of the site so far as a sunk cost. If it becomes popular, then that's the best outcome. But if not, then I have a lot of other great ideas, and the opportunity cost of sitting on them is high. How about a 3-dimensional Wikipedia? It's done, the 12,000 lines of Visual Basic code is on my drives; I just have to test it more thoroughly, but I haven't been finishing the idea for a year because I've put so much time into this site. Without active effort, the site isn't going to magically take on a life of its own, and will instead become obsolete as what we now call the "competitors" continue to improve their sites. That's why I've asked people here if they'd be willing to create compos themselves.

Mika

Jan 27, 2010, 03:35 AM

Mika, good points, but I don't think Quintin really wants to "buy" people so much as give them an incentive to check something out that isn't in their norm.
I also don't think he wanted to, but this was the impression I got. Granted, it was of course coloured by whatever impression I had of quintin and the site at the time, but that's the way it went.

First, Mika, I still disagree with this idea of there being some sort of competition between this site and the other sites. It is a competition now, because of the way the other sites treated us, but I never stated anything about a competition months ago until site administrators made it so. If you'd like, I can post the E-Mails that I sent to virt BEFORE the first line of code was even written suggesting that we collaborate. While it is possible that people might spend less time at other sites because this site exists, isn't it also possible that the combination of all the vibrant subcommunities will cause more people to join in than any single site alone would have? I disagree that this is what would be called a "zero-sum game," where one site has to win at the expense of all the others. virt, Liontamer, djpretzel, and the VGMusic staff are closed-minded and not willing to even acknowledge that there is room for synergy.
[snip]
As to the issue of working hard, I see the development of the site so far as a sunk cost. If it becomes popular, then that's the best outcome. But if not, then I have a lot of other great ideas, and the opportunity cost of sitting on them is high. How about a 3-dimensional Wikipedia? It's done, the 12,000 lines of Visual Basic code is on my drives; I just have to test it more thoroughly, but I haven't been finishing the idea for a year because I've put so much time into this site. Without active effort, the site isn't going to magically take on a life of its own, and will instead become obsolete as what we now call the "competitors" continue to improve their sites. That's why I've asked people here if they'd be willing to create compos themselves.
Only competition between the sites is the time users spent in them, and it's pointless to drag the leaders in this because in the end it's the users who decide where they spent their time in.

Also, working hard, and trying too hard. Two completely different things.

Blitz Lunar

Jan 27, 2010, 04:42 AM

Also, most remixers have already 'cliqued up'. You showed up late to the party.

this is basically the problem as i see it. my impression of the site has been that it's "another game music and remix site." not necessarily bad at all, but nonetheless superfluous, as the vgm arranging community is already satiated by other sites... vgmix, R:TS, ocremix and olremix are all hosting game remixes. that's four entire sites dedicated to the same thing, which to my way of thinking is already excessive. sites work better when they focus on something specific that no other site offers -- then do it well.

and the VGMusic staff are closed-minded and not willing to even acknowledge that there is room for synergy.

i don't remember seeing an e-mail, but generally speaking we appear disconnected from the rest of the community because Mike has long work hours and doesn't have a lot of time for the site, and doesn't really engage in the wider vgm community. in fact, most of the staff don't; i think i'm the exception? we'd love to see synergy between vgmusic and other sites in future but right now it is old and broken and in serious need of redesigning, we've been making steps in that area for a long time now, but it's moving at snails pace. so about all we can do for the time-being is put a link on the front page, which i could look into for you if you like.

At VGMusic, for example, I even offered to write code for them or pay them hundreds of dollars, and they didn't reply.

yeah that's kinda annoying. again i don't remember seeing that e-mail (i guess it was sent directly to Mike?), but you should have at least got a reply. sometimes i get frustrated with how jaded and indifferent the folks there are. we turned away JDHarding when he offered to help as well, then he even set up a rival site for a couple of weeks.

quintin3265

Jan 27, 2010, 06:45 AM

Hey Blitz,

It's great to hear from someone at VGMusic, and you don't have to apologize for what others have done :)

A quick comment about the first paragraph: I'm not sure that VGMix is an alternative to this site in the state that it's in; in fact, that was one of the main motivations for creating this site.

On to the more important part, though: putting a link to the site would be great, and any help you could provide would be appreciated. Yesterday, this site was able to move up to #12 in Google's rankings for "video game music remix," above ThaSauce, and another link will help tremendously, especially from a PageRank 5 site.

But I was also wondering why there's an effort to rewrite the site if you acknowledge that it needs to be rewritten. To me, it seems like that would be a duplication of effort. The same is true with VGMix, a site that people acknowledge needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. A crazy idea would be to take remixSite's code and remixes, add VGMusic's songs, and relaunch the combined site with a shared-ownership, dual administrators model or revenue-sharing agreement. The new site could be rebranded VGMusic, remixSite, or gameremixes.com (which may be preferable because of the keywords in the domain). Then, there would be an all-inclusive community where anyone can upload MIDIs, MP3s, uncompressed music, videos, and whatever else in one place. There would be enough traffic to implement the paid promotion of remixes idea on the front page, which would cover server costs, pay for prizes for compos, and even earn the parties some money while still providing a free service to composers without Google ads. Everyone wins big, and you make money while not having to manually update the site anymore. Heck, Chris from the VGMdb might even see his traffic double.

Something big is needed to revive the video game music community, and I do believe it needs reviving. While this proposal is probably unlikely to be considered, a coming together would be of great benefit to the community, I think. The way things are now, everyone is splintered across many sites and that contributes to the "cliques" feel.

this is basically the problem as i see it. my impression of the site has been that it's "another game music and remix site." not necessarily bad at all, but nonetheless superfluous, as the vgm arranging community is already satiated by other sites... vgmix, R:TS, ocremix and olremix are all hosting game remixes. that's four entire sites dedicated to the same thing, which to my way of thinking is already excessive. sites work better when they focus on something specific that no other site offers -- then do it well.

i don't remember seeing an e-mail, but generally speaking we appear disconnected from the rest of the community because Mike has long work hours and doesn't have a lot of time for the site, and doesn't really engage in the wider vgm community. in fact, most of the staff don't; i think i'm the exception? we'd love to see synergy between vgmusic and other sites in future but right now it is old and broken and in serious need of redesigning, we've been making steps in that area for a long time now, but it's moving at snails pace. so about all we can do for the time-being is put a link on the front page, which i could look into for you if you like.

yeah that's kinda annoying. again i don't remember seeing that e-mail (i guess it was sent directly to Mike?), but you should have at least got a reply. sometimes i get frustrated with how jaded and indifferent the folks there are. we turned away JDHarding when he offered to help as well, then he even set up a rival site for a couple of weeks.

Blitz Lunar

Jan 27, 2010, 01:17 PM

A crazy idea would be to take remixSite's code and remixes, add VGMusic's songs, and relaunch the combined site with a shared-ownership, dual administrators model or revenue-sharing agreement.

djpretzel made a similar offer, except he wanted to buy out vgmusic entirely and merge it into ocremix. Mike wasn't at all interested in a merger of any kind though, I doubt that has changed. Gotta admit I tend to agree with him, it's better having smaller specialised sites rather than big catch-all style sites IMO, which I guess is what ocremix is aiming for these days. I believe a similar effect can be achieved with enough site cross-talk... maybe a video game music portal site to connect them all... dunno. there needs to be a roundtable of video game music site admins or something. I'm really the wrong person to speak to anyway :p

anyway, i'll ask about putting a link on the front page.

Zorbfish

Jan 28, 2010, 12:42 AM

Only competition between the sites is the time users spent in them, and it's pointless to drag the leaders in this because in the end it's the users who decide where they spent their time in.

Exactly. To me there are two types of sites you can build: for yourself or for others.

What you do to a site doesn't matter when building for yourself, but when you're building for others you really have to take a good hard look at the human element. As Blitz said the remix community is already oversaturated. Yes, this site does offer functionality differences but these are trumped by the culture/community aspect of the other sites' users. People will always choose an imperfect experience* if they feel they recieve something of more value in return. In the case of the remix community that could be the already established bonds that each user share on their respective "home turf" site.

Lastly you've already doomed yourself. Like it or not parts of the VGM community are very close and by naming names you've already closed off many doors; even if reconciled later. I know from experience. ;)

*Please note I do not mean to say that any existing site is by some means inferior.

quintin3265

Jan 28, 2010, 05:35 AM

With regards to the VGMusic link, thanks. In return, I'll add a link to VGMusic in the next release.

Chris

Jan 31, 2010, 05:39 AM

So let's get real and honest as you say. You say in your email that the majority of the referrals to your site quickly leave the site. The problem is therefore sadly not lack of unique visitors, but the ability to transform them into regular visitors due to deficiencies in remixSite itself. At the moment, remixSite clearly does not satisfy the masses or make a unique mark on the arrangement community. While potentially a good concept, a lot of work is needed to ensure the site is attractive enough to visitors. That requires a revamped main page, more and better content, more regular updates, constructive feedback, and the establishment of a community foundation. All of this requires much more work that may or may not pay off. Just because you've clearly worked hard on something does not automatically entitle success, unfortunately. I personally feel it is an oversaturated market and remixSite could only become successful among a niche. Furthermore, I think antagonising webmasters of other more successful communities is detrimental and will polarise fan opinion against you. Plenty of people are happy to help and advise you, but do not anticipate success if you continue the same direction. Good luck either way.

quintin3265

Jan 31, 2010, 10:23 AM

Hey Chris,

I actually took a look at the statistics again, and found that I was perhaps wrong in the issue of people not sticking around the site. Many people do not stick around; however, people who search for "video game music remix" or some similar term stay around for an average of 6 minutes. That's an eternity on the Internet. I'm not sure what that indicates, but it seems to show that people who do discover the site are impressed with it.

The problem with content of this site is that the content is provided by the users. In 2005, I wrote a blog (http://www.gamesareforchildren.com (http://www.gamesareforchildren.com/)) and it was very successful within one month of starting out. I think that's because I was able to write a long, detailed article every day. With this site, though, it's obviously impossible to write one song per day and have it be of any quality.

But even if I did write one song per day, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on the programming. For a year, I worked as hard as I possibly could, spending one or two hours every weekday and up to twelve hours a day on many Saturdays and Sundays to improve the site. There just isn't any harder I could work without missing work or skipping meals or avoiding the gym. While it is true that people volunteered to help out, and some have been very helpful, many people who volunteered have not devoted enough time to make a difference. If the site does fail, I can't say that I didn't work hard enough.

What was a major mistake was not seeing this "market" (if that's what it is) as "competitive." Many of the sites devoted to video game remixes are very hypocritical: they state that music should be free, but they don't allow people to remove songs; and they state their communities are open, as long as people follow complex rules and avoid being banned. After looking around at things, I suspect that some sites are making a profit and don't want to draw attention to their finances because of the public uproar that would ensue. I may have been stupidly lured by an assumption that those at the top levels of the community are interested foremost in sharing music, when in reality some (but not all) communities are actually for-profit.

-quintin

DarkeSword

Feb 9, 2010, 07:06 AM

What was a major mistake was not seeing this "market" (if that's what it is) as "competitive." Many of the sites devoted to video game remixes are very hypocritical: they state that music should be free, but they don't allow people to remove songs; and they state their communities are open, as long as people follow complex rules and avoid being banned. After looking around at things, I suspect that some sites are making a profit and don't want to draw attention to their finances because of the public uproar that would ensue. I may have been stupidly lured by an assumption that those at the top levels of the community are interested foremost in sharing music, when in reality some (but not all) communities are actually for-profit.

What sites do you think are for-profit?

djpretzel

Feb 9, 2010, 07:11 AM

I've worked on OC ReMix for over ten years of my life. You - and anyone else - on this thread wanna call me out for anything, do try to keep that in mind. The overall attitude in this thread is NOT one of bridge-building, but the exact opposite. If you've "lost all respect" for myself and others and we're all "hypocritical" then brother, you're gonna have a real uphill battle ever getting anyone to play nice with you, because them's fighting words.

But I didn't come here to fight. I came here to provide one sole nugget of advice, take it or leave it:

At no point during that ten year period did I throw a temper tantrum, publicly or privately, over essentially not getting enough pageviews. You really seem far more concerned with stats, numbers, pagerank, etc. than on MUSIC and COMMUNITY. Those two things should be at the forefront of your goals, not how many hits you get, or what myself, virt, or anyone else thinks. If you genuinely think you're doing something new, original, and worthwhile, and that your skills are better represented by a standalone site rather than contributing to an existing site, then continue to plow away. Get back to work, seriously. You're wasting time here, stirring up dirt, when you've got a LOT of work to do. If you truly believe in your own dogma about the existing vgm remix sites being inadequate, prove it. Don't whine about failing to prove it.

It seems to me, really, that you're far more concerned about attention, pageviews, and instantly manifesting credibility and community out of thin air by the cunning use of 1.) money and 2.) complaining. With the first strategy, you ARE gonna get some results, because guess what, a lot of mixers are college kids and/or just plain old need da money. That's not community, though, that's human nature, and it's fickle and not particularly authentic.

The second strategy, though, with the whining and the finger-pointing and the "getting real"... I'd drop it. Like it's hot.

Liontamer

Feb 9, 2010, 11:18 AM

Haha, I can assure you I've been extremely busy with life. SS has it right when he said if anything's more of a peripheral project or inquiry, we have a LOT of stuff unwillingly fall by the wayside. (Thanks for vouching for us there, SS. I'll try to touch base on our stuff too. :-)

I've been pretty inactive here and have scaled back my work at OC ReMix due to being so busy. Last September was the first time, after 5 1/2 years and 3,000 straight submissions, that I haven't been able to vote on every submission we receive. Hence being called out on January 21st and not even seeing it or responding until now.

I'll reply more later, but I've seen a lot of bad faith from quentin (no worries, I'm not personally offended, just amused), as well as several wrong assumptions, including that we're making some serious coin at OC ReMix. :-) The notion that we're hiding that we're making serious bank is awesome, but it ain't happening. :-D I'd definitely say do not sink money into anything. That's not how we or anyone else has done it.

quintin3265

Feb 9, 2010, 12:49 PM

I wanted to point out that I never stated that Overclocked ReMix makes money. I stated that some sites do seem interested more in profit than in sharing music, but I did not say that Overclocked ReMix is one of them. This assumption could be seen as an example of bad faith.

But as to bad faith, there seems to be enough of that around the community. Posting almost anything to the Shizz results in a nearly instantaneous display of bad faith. When seifer created remixed.vg, he was basically ridiculed into being banned, and in turn he saw the release of remixSite as some sort of joke aimed at him. Private messages at community websites to musicians are often ignored, and I heard that people assumed that KiddCabbage would not be paid the grand prize for Composition Combat. Some people post at VGMdb or at the Shizz solely because they hate people at Overclocked ReMix and want the site to suffer.

I suggest that bad faith had its origins half a decade ago because of arguments over song removal from sites. Whoever was at fault, artist rights are what led to the splintering of various "factions," and everyone now is hesitant to contribute work because it might be "taken advantage of" by someone else. Memories are long-lasting and rumors spread. There are people who would not submit songs to the last compo because they thought the songs were going to be used in a game without payment. When new sites sprout up, they're seen as attempting to gather music to exploit. Now, people have forgotten what the initial arguments were about and simply continue bickering with each other in various forums about minor things unrelated to music. This disagreement between you and I, in which I assert we are both at fault, is just another example of being caught up in the precedent.

I don't know how to change the issue of bad faith now that it has become entrenched, but this is the core issue with the community. If there were some step that could be taken to stop the cycle of distrust between everyone, then the video game music community would become a force to be reckoned with.

[QUOTE=Liontamer;15664]Haha, I can assure you I've been extremely busy with life. SS has it right when he said if anything'

djpretzel

Feb 9, 2010, 01:23 PM

I don't know how to change the issue of bad faith now that it has become entrenched, but this is the core issue with the community. If there were some step that could be taken to stop the cycle of distrust between everyone, then the video game music community would become a force to be reckoned with.

I'll give you a hint: You won't address issues of bad faith by vaguely accusing some sites of being profit-minded, by calling people hypocritical, or by saying you've "lost all respect" for myself or others.

If that wasn't abundantly obvious.

Just because you're not getting as much traffic as you think you should be doesn't mean there's a fundamental flaw with the community or that anything is "entrenched". Come to MAGFest... you'll see that now, more than ever, the exact opposite is true. If my failing to respond to your PM ruffles your feathers that much, you're in this for all the wrong reasons. People fail to respond to my emails all the time; I never interpret that as endemic, "entrenched" issues with the community, I basically just figure they don't have the time, or aren't interested. To assume otherwise would be to inflate my own ego - "How DARE you not respond to me! Bad faith!" - and frankly, doesn't the Internet have enough of that?

You can't play it both ways. You're here pointing fingers, citing hypocrisy, making vague assertions that some folks are in it for the money, and whining about lack of response to private messages on forums (seriously?), and at the *same time* you're claiming the moral high ground and saying you wish you could "fix" these inherent core issues & distrust you see with the community.

Forgive me, but it's a painful paradox to observe.

shawnphase

Feb 9, 2010, 01:38 PM

i dont want step on toes here, but you guys have ignored him. thats the big thing. he sent feelers out all over the community to tons of people. everybody ignored them. hes got a right to be a lil upset about that. you say you put ten years of work into ocr. your ten years worth of work in your mind and what you have given to the community is overshadowed in my eyes when you ignore people in the community that try and combine their efforts like steve tried to do what he wanted to do and what he thought was right.

i dont even know what he was asking fully in specifics, but when someone whos starting a site writes promotional email and takes time to do it and it gets ignored, i donno. personally it would make me mad. this is steve's forum to voice his concerns. you dont have a right to say he's stirring up dirt when he's just telling the truth and you dont like that its on the internet to see. thats the mistakes you've always made with your dealing with people in every skirmish ive seen you be in over the years, the fights with brendan, the fights with virt, everybody. you're too quick to write anybody or anything off.

you must have cared to read this when i brought it to your attention. you cared even more to reply instead of keeping it in and accepting it. you wrote a pretty cocky assy reply, and im not upset at that, im upset at you having simply ignored his reaching out to begin with after all this time and then you have the gall to come here and say this as the founder of ocr after i asked you to simply read. community. you dont speak of pride for community, you speak from a derision of your own integrity that you dont even see in yourself that you show others, and it makes them take you less seriously and makes your own work cornier and cornier to me.

i am honestly a little bit let down in you that you'd come here and accuse him of stirring up shit when it took how long now? over a year to even get you to acknowledge that he exists? i had to get with you and say 'hey you might want to read this'. i didnt even say you should reply. that isnt perpetuating the dirt i dont think. and hey, what do i know. maybe you really didnt see his messages.

he has had absolutely no help from within this community from anybody other than myself and another toad, and everybody else within the community, just like how you did, told him he was doing something wrong. that isnt community, thats some people ignoring another person who has the same goal they do, and why? because they dont want to consolidate effort? i donno, i really dont know.

you finally acknowledge steve's hard work and you preface it with 'ive worked on ocremix for over yen years of my life'. but how much of that work did you have help with? and how many people were actually willing to help you? that was your blessing in your being able to say now 'i did this', and i know you have a lot of pride in ocr and its honestly brought me around to the community, the longevity of it. now yure coming here and talking up your credibility like its something you built alone. but conversely, steve has had no real outside help except from me, who writes and releases music and does publication work and production work on top of helping my elderly parents and i still make that time to help him when its legitimately become a full time thing for me. but that hard work and responsibility, that falls squarely on my shoulders and i dont go around making posts about how awesome i am and then insulting other people like you did this morning. i simply give people the love and respect that i'd want given to me. you gave a bunch of negi vibes that i guess you had pent up towards steve. great.

i have so much music on his site because i believe in it. id have music on ocr im sure if i didnt feel like it was too much of a challenge to find acceptance in two people and have them be able to say whether it's hosted there. i simply havent submitted since 2003.

regardless of what steve might or might not be most concerned with out of remixsite, its only insult after the injury any sort of prophetic opinion you can give him. i wont ever insult what you've built in ocr, i will only say that in my work i can lay claim on tss and say it's my and housethegrate and ashanes work from 1997 until 2007 and forevermore now when i formed a full band, and it was more than uphilll to get where i went. but all the while i tried to help people out, answered every email, filled every order, everything.

i guess what im trying to say without starting a big fiasco or an argument with you is this; you guys work hard with ocr, but if you are going to operate with a modicum of pride for yourselves personally what you do and have it appear to be convincing to people like me or any other person in the community, you're gonna have to start reaching out within the community more. i see what you've done with ocr, i believe in it. but you havent ever showed me that you cared about it reaching its potential and its always been 'were trying to' or 'were doing'. whats been done is a lot of segregation due to the way you act and head overclocked remix.

i and others see community at ocr in terms of the musical output and the appreciation startin to slip a lil and its startin at the people at the top acting historically with their actions and words. your responses both were both all the same stuff you've said five years ago with little or no gravity in what i see because theres no positive suggestion in any of it, just insult on top of steves injury.

ive said my piece, i've tried with as little pushing and prodding to get you guys to just take a look at what steves been trying to do and its like he gets returned with opinions that what he's wanting to do isnt worthwhile from everybody because he doesnt know how to do things. if what he was trying to do wasnt worthwhile, would i spend any of my time helping him? you can plead ignorance or not knowing he's doing it, but i've told both you and larry what he's been doing over the months. ive talked to larry more in private about remixsite than i have you but still. i hope you guys arent personally offended, but i felt like laying it on the line here.

if you guys want to help him the way ive tried to for a long time, we'd appreciate it. otherwise, no further conversation or input is necessary here or no followups or anything. i doubt i'll personally be checking out this thread again unless someone msg's me and tells me they wrote a different kind of reply then the stuff i've seen from every single person who's replied here. sorry for lettin all this out, i really apologize. but it had to be said.

BahamutWC

Feb 9, 2010, 02:00 PM

I'm just going to put it like this since the point Dave made doesn't seem to be getting through.

Imagine you were busy & maximizing your time promoting an album, and someone yells at you vague accusations as if it was a crime against humanity for not responding/helping them in promoting their album (i.e. missing one PM or email), then try to guilt trip you into helping him/her, even if they had absolutely nothing to do with what you have been promoting.

Is that sense of entitlement good treatment of others, and encouraging for others to help you out?

zircon

Feb 9, 2010, 02:06 PM

OK, really, Shawn? I love your music, but you're saying that because Dave didn't answer a single PM, his ten years of work on OCR don't count? Dave doesn't even answer PMs/IMs/emails from the site staff half the time. It's not something to take personally. He runs and maintains a site that gets hundreds of thousands of visitors per month and which is partnered with VGL, Capcom, Sega, etc. Even setting aside all the external communication, there is a massive amount of internal communication that goes on. The public doesn't see even 1/10 of the stuff that we talk about internally, all of which requires Dave's time.

Yet instead of thinking "hmm, he's probably just busy, that must be why I didn't get a response", you guys jump to the worst conclusion, that he's an elitist asshole intentionally ignoring people that want to help, all because.... uh, what was the reasoning behind that? Oh yeah, he's making millions of dollars off the site. Obviously.

Speaking of this "bad faith" stuff, it's bullshit. The drama that happened 9 years ago, and which spawned VGmix, is dead and gone. It has BEEN dead and gone. Jake posts on OCR and contributes to OCR projects, along with many people from the VGmix community. OCReMixers participated on VGmix 2, when it was around. The Shizz? OCR participates in DoD all the time, shizzies post on OCR and participate in our projects, etc. OneUp Studios? We're doing a collaboration album as we speak with people that 8 years ago probably would have never considered it. OCR has an official presence at MAGfest (and has had one for.. 5 years now?) Everyone in the community has grown up. Quintin has his history wrong.

I especially don't understand the accusation that Dave isn't somehow appreciate of help he's received, but you're also grossly underestimating how much time he's spent by himself. Nobody has ever helped him with the most tedious work involved with the site, the actual coding and design, and I can attest that he puts a great deal of time to it (and, I might add, rarely if ever gets thanked.) I've been contributing to the site for years, as a judge, as a panelist at events, as a mod, etc. I can guarantee that every other person on the site staff would agree that he's NEVER been unappreciative of our help. If anything he's the first person to want to volunteer his OWN time to help promote someone in the community doing something special.

In short, these vague, passive-aggressive rants are doing nothing but digging remixSite deeper and painting its staff as petty, ignorant, and prone to tantrums. If you really want to help yourselves out, you might want to listen to Dave and apologize to him (and the rest of the OCR staff), stop painting yourselves as "victims" of the remix community, and stop throwing out false accusations.

Razakin

Feb 9, 2010, 03:08 PM

Guys, where's the love man?

And this is coming from total outsider of the whole deal, quintin, just keep building up your site especially if you're doing it for the music and shit, don't care about pageviews. Care about the music. That's the important thing in here.

Also, as people have said, you can't except all the people to have the time to read pms/mails, especially if they're running sites like ocremix.

Guys, just get into a sauna and love each other, and make some great music for me to listen. Like now.

Another Soundscape

Feb 9, 2010, 03:23 PM

Guys, just get into a sauna and love each other, and make some great music for me to listen. Like now.

*gets into the sauna with Razakin*

shawnphase

Feb 9, 2010, 04:23 PM

bahamut, what you said was just a bad analogy and i dont know how you draw a distinction like that in your mind. all i can say about that is that for me, that particular scenario wouldnt ever happen and leave it at that. i donno if you got what i wrote really.

to clarify a few things and as i already said in the last message, there is nobody at all helping steve other than me. there is no remixsite 'staff' other than steve. i am not a staff member, at one point i was going to be a staff member but when we couldnt come to contractual terms i bowed out of any of that. i honestly did not want to be staff for his or any site because i dont want to get mixed up with this kind of thing, the politics, the decisions that have to be made. but why do you think that remixsite are the victims in this? are there actually 'victims'? i dont see that..all i see is people pointing the finger saying 'you need to stop whining about how people arent helping you and umm' without really giving any constructive ideas to the guy, all but inferring that he should give up. thats when people should just straight up not say anything at all, because it makes whoever is doing the sayin look equally as bad as the one complaining.

not only is it mean, it makes me a little bit nervous and makes my stomach hurt to think that theres not enough community in the community to give a few posi suggestions and not just hatefulness.

yes, i guess maybe you guys see it as steves thinking and mindset are making himself and his site out to be a victim or maybe you dont think that his mindset in all of it has all but collapsed his hope in doing it, so in either case theres really nothing for anybody to 'dig' in or out of. he spoke some truth. i am a fairly impartial onlooker in all of this because ive had nothing to lose or gain in any of it and from both sides of the coin i can see this and agree and disagree with certain aspects of all of it.

i have done what i can for remixsite as passively as well as sincerely as possible, and ive told steve when i can or cant make an obligation to the site that i dont think is right for _me_. dont be so quick to forget or turn a blind eye to what youve seen and what you can see in life. i really have no anger or frustration personally towards dave or anybody at ocr. but i felt like i had to point out this thread, really i am just let down that there couldnt or maybe cant be a convergence of the effort everybodys put forth so that this can grow as much as it has the potential to.

im certainly not saying that dave didnt acknowledge anybody thats ever wrote him or tried to correspond, and im sure that hes answered tons more than he's ignored, but he and larry didnt reply to any of steves attempts at correspondence and i have told him and larry both privately that steve has been trying to get in touch with him before. everything that could be done to simply make communication happened, and thats what has made steve so frustrated with the situation. if you dont like that and how it happened and how its been made light of here now, thats cool. but keep in mind that unlike steve, i have a clear knowledge of ocr's history and the stuff thats happened over the years and anybody can say what they want, but i know whats happened and what hasnt. notice i havent and wont say a single utterance about money. im strictly talking about how people are being treated.

i certainly didnt say any of dave's work didnt matter either, it's not that. the very fact that you'd admit publically that he ignores your pm's when you are staff is some needtoknow basis information that nobody even questioned and makes ocr look less bad on top of the crappy stuff thats been said. my personal opinion is that if you dont want your plans at ocr continue to take as long to come together as they do then you need to start improving your communication over because real lucrative opportunities happen to everybody all the time and if you guys dont improve your communication skills and stop acting like your status quo is as complacent as you say it is. it isnt. not to me. and this is kind of what this is all about, is it not? you're admitting that he sometimes lets things slip by, but when i tell you that in my history of what i do that i have never let anything like that slip then i guess it does indeed comes off as standoffish and i can understand that, and i didnt mean for it to be that way. i wanted it to be an example of how what you're saying and what dave is doing are not the same things. i can admit and be apologetic without letting the frustration out, maybe steve isnt so lucky.

one last thing before i go, i absoltely didnt say he wasnt appreciative of the help he receives either, what i said is that he is taking a little too much credit for the sum of the whole of the work. did he not do that in this thread? that isnt an accusation. its right there in writing. he got real mean towards steve when he didnt need to even reply, and/or it could have been an email to steve privately if he had something to say to him now. but i guess maybe he wanted to say that publically to him? i really dont know man.

if it was how you were saying it is...well you wouldnt be saying in the same breath that he ignores the staff's attempts at communication. its hard to take whats said here at face value.

zircon

Feb 9, 2010, 04:38 PM

Shawn, why exactly would you expect anyone on the OCR staff to even dream of helping remixSite after being personally attacked and falsely accused? Nobody on the OCR staff has done anything to imply that remixSite is a bad idea, should be shut down, or whatever. There has been 0 bad intention from our side, though the same can't be said of Quintin.

As far as I can tell the only thing we did was let Quintin's attempt at communication fall by the wayside. And as far as I can tell, you're STILL ascribing malice to this when there was none. Again you really have no idea how busy things have been staff-side at OCR. We've undergone some fairly major changes recently and there's a giant project in the works that has taken years to develop. Larry, normally our point person for communication, got a full time job last year which has reduced his available time for OCR by a huge amount. People like me have had to step down from the panel due to life changes. The list goes on.

What I'm trying to tell you is very simple. OCR's staff has VERY limited time, especially Dave. Our internal communication is fine; when I said Dave doesn't respond to stuff from us, all I meant was that we're often throwing a hundred ideas at a time at him, and he can't possibly deal with every one. For example, in the last two weeks we've been discussing and coordinating:

* The release of the upcoming DKC 2 project (takes a ton of effort + time)
* New project guidelines and forums, the creation of a project moderation team
* The evaluation of the upcoming Teen Agent project and its release
* Promotion of a new sample library on the front page
* A Sega-sponsored contest we're running
* A project being run by Anso (can't say more)
* The secret project mentioned earlier which has taken years
* Mass Effect 2 composer interviews
* Evaluating new potential judges, creating a test batch, sending them out, analyzing their test votes
* Forum modifications and improvements such as the addition of blogs

And this is honestly just off the top of my head. Dave has to be involved with EVERY one of those things. Do you understand now why it's not surprising if emails or PMs get sent and not responded to?

shawnphase

Feb 9, 2010, 05:22 PM

i never said i didnt understand anything, and really its immaterial what i understand and dont. my mind wont be changed of how ive seen people, alot of people, treat the remixsite situation because ive seen most of it, the words and the feelings and whatever else. i wouldnt TREAT a person that way. whats moreover is that i dont even NEED to necessarily understand any of this, because ive already said i dont have an opinion one way or another about remixsite or ocr anymore, they both have their shortcomings that are not ever going to be fixed or changed unless some serious consideration goes into all of it. i have fairly reserved feelings about this scene that people dont need to know about, but from a standpoint of how steve has been treated by the community as a whole, i can say that its kinda wack.

when dave and larry scoffed in pm to me initially about remixsite when i mentioned it, that is what is surprising to me... you and dave and larry saying the opposite of what actually has been said privately here in public when different stuff was said to me in private.. thats not how people should treat one another. i make time for people no matter what because ive had to do crazy shit like people's lives and get them to hospitals via the computer.

you say your staff at ocr has dwindled, then the remaining staff's time they have to offer has dwindled down too, right? you making reparations to bring new people in? if not, and like i said, your projects will continue to take years and years to happen and its not like the mentality of ocr hasnt been anything beyond 'hurry up and wait' for the last oh what, 8 years now? i donno how it was from 2000 to 2002. you keep bringing up your shortcomings with what you have going on in ocr thats wrong as a whole while bringing up what you've got in the pipeline for years now that are legitimate good things and you're trying to represent the bad things as things to be proud of, yet when the things you guys do come to fruition its almost received with the sentiment of it finally coming together, like people didnt expect it to. is that the kind of projects you want to be involved with and have ocr be known as? i think you guys are better than that.

maybe thats not what it is at the heart and essence of it truly, but thats what i see on the outside lookin in from not only ocr as it presents itself, but how the community presents its impression of ocr in return. the majority of ocr massive proper doesnt seem to reach out beyond ocr a ton, i know there is exceptions and people who do a lot of different things.

the only thing im surprised by is how youve tried to mitigate those shortcomings you guys have as a whole with ocr and act like its unwarranted for someone to be frustrated with the organization as a whole when they are ignored repeatedly and you guys lie about it and say whatever it is you are saying to absolve yourselves of how people will view that. steve knew i was trying to get you guys to get in contact with him but nobody wanted to on your end. maybe steve could have helped ocr a fucking ton, but now you guys will probably never find out because you choose to simply not understand. as far as the projects ocr has, it sounds like you guys have too much on the plate and not enough manpower to help out with crucial details.

ill be leaving this whole dialog now, i have snow to shovel and preparations to make. steve can continue it and add anything he might need or want to say to make the situation worse or whatever it is now, i dont care a farts worth now and really, its cool. i honestly dont have any anger or anything toward anybody in this situation. i feel a ton of indifference and a little bit of sickness in my stomach for people just in general in terms of one person to another because of how people have talked to each other in this thread among other ones. what did i invest in any of these communities? my time or pride isnt at stake. the only thing i have at stake is possibly saying something that can make people see or understand one another better. my heart, thats all i've ever wanted to give anybody. i always just wanted to make a personal connection with every single person who ever appreciated my music. and maybe i'll do that in life. this line of thought and this route of discussion is getting nobody anywhere, its a waste of my time to explain it when people just want to bring up things that arent even factors and completely shun the truth and the facts of things. I KNOW how people acted in all of this, and i'll leave it at that.

Another Soundscape

Feb 9, 2010, 06:04 PM

the only thing im surprised by is how youve tried to mitigate those shortcomings you guys have as a whole with ocr and act like its unwarranted for someone to be frustrated with the organization as a whole when they are ignored repeatedly and you guys lie about it and say whatever it is you are saying to absolve yourselves of how people will view that. steve knew i was trying to get you guys to get in contact with him but nobody wanted to on your end. maybe steve could have helped ocr a fucking ton, but now you guys will probably never find out because you choose to simply not understand. as far as the projects ocr has, it sounds like you guys have too much on the plate and not enough manpower to help out with crucial details.

I haven't read through all posts but I just want to chime in on this. To be frustrated with us as an organization is okay but OCR is a not-for-profit organization doing a metricfuckton of work available for free for everyone. OCR does not owe anyone anything in any way, Dave keeps OCR alive and works on it without getting a single penny to anything else than server costs. When you come and say we're mean because we didn't help Steve start a new remix site that TO ME seem like it came out of "OCR isn't good enough".. I don't get that. This is not about being mean, we're regular people that have invested so much free time in OCR it's mindblowing. We take care of hundreds of submissions a year and the sights been running for 10 years.

What is there even to "understand"? The first I saw about remixSite was a post on the OCR forums telling people it had started and that it was another part of VGM remixing. That's great, good on ya for trying, but why should OCR help him with that? Sure, we can co-exist and it'd probably be good if people liked the concept of remixSite but I really, REALLY don't see what it has to do with OCR at all. We're not the VGM community, the people are the VGM community.

As far as manpower that's being handled. And if the "crucial details" would be responding to all PMs or helping another, newly started website get on it's feet or work together with OCR.. well, I don't know what to say. Believe me when I say there are things that are just plain more important for OCR and the community as a whole. No offense meant by any of this by the way, I hope you continue with VGM Shawn.

quintin3265

Feb 9, 2010, 06:22 PM

No.

I get lots of E-Mails every day. I work 9 hours a day, commute, go to the gym every night, make dinner, clean the house, do wash, shop, and do all the other stuff that's necessary to live, and I often feel dead by the time I'm done at night. But I still reply to all my E-Mails. It doesn't take long to reply to E-Mails, even if it's just to say that you will get back to them later. When you don't reply to an E-Mail, PM, or other method of communication, you are disrespecting the other person.

I sent this E-Mail to you, zircon, on August 24:

Hi zircon,

I've been following your work for a while, and have been impressed with
your video game music for years. I listened to every episode of the VGDJ
podcast, and you seem to remix a lot of FF6 music, which is probably my
fourth favorite game of all time.

If you haven't had a chance to check it out, in February I started a video
game music site at http://www.remixsite.org. The site is not designed to
compete with Overclocked ReMix, as it has a different purpose. Whereas
OCR judges for the best music, we let people post everything themselves.

Perhaps you might be interested in posting a song or two of yours there -
even if it's one that you released many years ago. Instead of marketing
to the existing community, we're attempting to expand it through other
channels, so people who otherwise might not hear your songs will probably
download them. You can include URLs in the description field and could
gain some publicity for your other projects.

If you have any questions, feel free to reply to this message or I'm
reachable at quintin3265 anytime on AIM.

Later,

-Steve Sokolowski (quintin3265)
steve@shoemakervillage.org

And it was received. Does this E-Mail sound like it was demanding the world? If someone had sent you an E-Mail saying that you had won a million dollars, you would have replied. People are only too busy for things that they consider unimportant.

By stating that I don't deserve a reply, what you are actually saying is that I'm less important than you are. Your time is more valuable than mine because you are somehow busier than everyone else is. I've posted comments to celebrities with thousands of listeners and they have replied within minutes in many cases.

I have to go to bed now for work, so I'll address the issue of apologies and what djpretzel had to say tomorrow.

Shawn, why exactly would you expect anyone on the OCR staff to even dream of helping remixSite after being personally attacked and falsely accused? Nobody on the OCR staff has done anything to imply that remixSite is a bad idea, should be shut down, or whatever. There has been 0 bad intention from our side, though the same can't be said of Quintin.

As far as I can tell the only thing we did was let Quintin's attempt at communication fall by the wayside. And as far as I can tell, you're STILL ascribing malice to this when there was none. Again you really have no idea how busy things have been staff-side at OCR. We've undergone some fairly major changes recently and there's a giant project in the works that has taken years to develop. Larry, normally our point person for communication, got a full time job last year which has reduced his available time for OCR by a huge amount. People like me have had to step down from the panel due to life changes. The list goes on.

What I'm trying to tell you is very simple. OCR's staff has VERY limited time, especially Dave. Our internal communication is fine; when I said Dave doesn't respond to stuff from us, all I meant was that we're often throwing a hundred ideas at a time at him, and he can't possibly deal with every one. For example, in the last two weeks we've been discussing and coordinating:

* The release of the upcoming DKC 2 project (takes a ton of effort + time)
* New project guidelines and forums, the creation of a project moderation team
* The evaluation of the upcoming Teen Agent project and its release
* Promotion of a new sample library on the front page
* A Sega-sponsored contest we're running
* A project being run by Anso (can't say more)
* The secret project mentioned earlier which has taken years
* Mass Effect 2 composer interviews
* Evaluating new potential judges, creating a test batch, sending them out, analyzing their test votes
* Forum modifications and improvements such as the addition of blogs

And this is honestly just off the top of my head. Dave has to be involved with EVERY one of those things. Do you understand now why it's not surprising if emails or PMs get sent and not responded to?

Akumu

Feb 9, 2010, 06:24 PM

If someone had sent you an E-Mail saying that you had won a million dollars, you would have replied.

I got an email this morning from an nigerian princess saying i won a million dollars

I didn't reply

Another Soundscape

Feb 9, 2010, 06:36 PM

No.

I get lots of E-Mails every day. I work 9 hours a day, commute, go to the gym every night, make dinner, clean the house, do wash, shop, and do all the other stuff that's necessary to live, and I often feel dead by the time I'm done at night. But I still reply to all my E-Mails. It doesn't take long to reply to E-Mails, even if it's just to say that you will get back to them later. When you don't reply to an E-Mail, PM, or other method of communication, you are disrespecting the other person.

You realize OCR staff has a real life and real work too right? We don't get paid for OCR?

I sent this E-Mail to you, zircon, on August 24:

Hi zircon,

I've been following your work for a while, and have been impressed with
your video game music for years. I listened to every episode of the VGDJ
podcast, and you seem to remix a lot of FF6 music, which is probably my
fourth favorite game of all time.

If you haven't had a chance to check it out, in February I started a video
game music site at http://www.remixsite.org. The site is not designed to
compete with Overclocked ReMix, as it has a different purpose. Whereas
OCR judges for the best music, we let people post everything themselves.

Perhaps you might be interested in posting a song or two of yours there -
even if it's one that you released many years ago. Instead of marketing
to the existing community, we're attempting to expand it through other
channels, so people who otherwise might not hear your songs will probably
download them. You can include URLs in the description field and could
gain some publicity for your other projects.

If you have any questions, feel free to reply to this message or I'm
reachable at quintin3265 anytime on AIM.

Later,

-Steve Sokolowski (quintin3265)
steve@shoemakervillage.org

And it was received. Does this E-Mail sound like it was demanding the world? If someone had sent you an E-Mail saying that you had won a million dollars, you would have replied. People are only too busy for things that they consider unimportant.

By stating that I don't deserve a reply, what you are actually saying is that I'm less important than you are. Your time is more valuable than mine because you are somehow busier than everyone else is. I've posted comments to celebrities with thousands of listeners and they have replied within minutes in many cases.

You were someone he had never ever talked to asking him to post his music to your new site which he knew nothing of. It was quite a generic outreach e-mail and I'm guessing you were sending it to many people, yes? He's also on the OCR staff, associated with OCR, posting remixes on OCR. Even if you don't compete with OCR in your mission, why would he post stuff to remixSite? Beyond that, do you know how many e-mails Andy gets? He's getting all kinds of requests, business mails, fan mails and so on. The fact that he didn't reply to your mail does NOT mean OCR hates you. It DOES mean you're less important to him but what the bloody hell did you expect? Him sending a bunch of remixes back to you? Get real.

I.. I really really try hard to see your problem here but it's such an amazingly small thing but it made you start a thread calling the remixing community out.. I'm sorry things aren't working out for remixSite but please answer me this, as simple as you can: What has this got to do with OCR? Why do Dave, the remixers or anyone owe you anything?

zircon

Feb 9, 2010, 06:39 PM

I get lots of E-Mails every day. I work 9 hours a day, commute, go to the gym every night, make dinner, clean the house, do wash, shop, and do all the other stuff that's necessary to live, and I often feel dead by the time I'm done at night. But I still reply to all my E-Mails. It doesn't take long to reply to E-Mails, even if it's just to say that you will get back to them later. When you don't reply to an E-Mail, PM, or other method of communication, you are disrespecting the other person.

Yes, I was like this too three or four years ago. But if there is one thing you desperately need to learn about the music industry it's that you absolutely cannot expect everybody to be like that. Take it personally all you want; it's only going to make your life miserable. There are entire books written about how important it is to delegate responsibilities in the music industry and NOT respond to every inquiry and email you get, or if you're a business owner, both of which are true for me (and really for most people on the OCR staff.)

I will tell you straight-up why I didn't respond to your email. It looks like spam. It's asking me to spend my own time doing things to benefit you and your site. What is my motivation for doing this? Why should I give you my time and get nothing in return? If anything, you're acting self-important here, as if I somehow owe you ANYTHING at all. This simply isn't how the world works. If you send an unsolicited music demo to Sony or Universal, do you know where it goes? Into the garbage. I've actually gone to networking events, had hour-long conversations with people, exchanged business cards, and driven them home, and NOT received replies to my emails to them afterward. That's how the world actually works.

BahamutWC

Feb 9, 2010, 06:44 PM

You're making assumptions on zircon's thoughts. He ignores a bunch of my messages, and I was one of the lucky few non-relatives who was invited to his wedding & attended. I guess that means I am unimportant to him.

You need to get a grip on assuming too much. It is clear you do not understand the life of a person who pushes his/her time usage to the max - if you think making accusations like that is more important than coming up with good design decisions, then ok, but don't expect anyone to give you a positive response when you act like a psycho like this.

And for the record, I work essentially 12-14 hours of generally mentally straining work a day, including doctoral research at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and get over 200 emails a day, so don't give me that crap that it's not difficult. I personally try to get on top of things, but sometimes emails do fall through the cracks - it happens. At the least I'm not going to assume the worst when I have no way of verifying the exact details without contacting the person through other social media.

If you're going to be so assuming about people, have you ever thought that it might not be them with the problem of not caring necessarily, but you being insensitive to their life? Do you care that little about other people that you are willing to assume something about them without substantial evidence?

These are honest questions.

However, as djpretzel said earlier, if you're more interested in the blame game than finetuning your website, then you have no one to blame for the lack of a community. The adage "if you build it, they will come" rings true here - the foundation is the problem, and if you want to give people a reason to visit the site frequently, then you need to spend the time & work fixing that. Otherwise, the rest is just noise to cover up your own deficiencies.

That is all I have to say about this - it'd be great if you matured/manned up, but that's up to you.

shawnphase

Feb 9, 2010, 08:57 PM

You need to get a grip on assuming too much. It is clear you do not understand the life of a person who pushes his/her time usage to the max - if you think making accusations like that is more important than coming up with good design decisions, then ok, but don't expect anyone to give you a positive response when you act like a psycho like this.

im not trying to pick a fight wes, but did you tell dude not to assume so much, then you make that same kind of assumption about how he budgets his time? thats bullshit buddy! you dont know anything about steve's main job or his secondary jobs, do you? i do. so do you even see your flawed logic here? you probably dont care, i donno why im gonna reply after i said im done. i guess its on the off chance that you'll give a second thought to the way youre acting and the way it comes off to me. you're kinda comin off like a holier than thou jerk..

And for the record, I work essentially 12-14 hours of generally mentally straining work a day, including doctoral research at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and get over 200 emails a day, so don't give me that crap that it's not difficult. I personally try to get on top of things, but sometimes emails do fall through the cracks - it happens. At the least I'm not going to assume the worst when I have no way of verifying the exact details without contacting the person through other social media.

thats well and fine for you, and im sure it is good work to do. 12-14 hours of mentally straining work a day can be tough if its physical work, but i see you on irc talking every day so i doubt its as mentally straining as you're purporting.

putting what you do 'for the record' into an argument makes you look like you have something to say as if you wanted to be bragging about it, and for the sake of argument. so like, wwwwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy.. its nocworthy as far as this discussion is concerned; when you accuse someone of something and then act like this and do the almost same exact thing you accuse them of, it kind of makes you look like you dont know what you're talking about as simply a person who might have personality traits that are considerate of others.

and hey, i dont really know for sure. i dont know you. what i saw was you comin off looking real one dimensional and falsely justified with your replies here, as youve brought up things that really have no bearing or relevance to the topic or discussion or how it fits into the big picture simply to justify YOUR opinion.

conversely to what you're telling steve, you shouldnt consider someone's perspective to the big picture of what they see an 'accusation' when other people see that 'accusation' as something that actually happened and is based in fact.

If you're going to be so assuming about people, have you ever thought that it might not be them with the problem of not caring necessarily, but you being insensitive to their life? Do you care that little about other people that you are willing to assume something about them without substantial evidence?
These are honest questions.

this rhetoric that you think you can afford to him has been sullyed by making an example out of yourself. that i believe is a fair opinion. makes you look presumptuous and inconsiderate too. if you want to deny that you're being fairly insensitive, then you'll have to agree that you are baselessly pointing the finger. thats an honest accusation to be sure.

However, as djpretzel said earlier, if you're more interested in the blame game than finetuning your website, then you have no one to blame for the lack of a community. The adage "if you build it, they will come" rings true here - the foundation is the problem, and if you want to give people a reason to visit the site frequently, then you need to spend the time & work fixing that. Otherwise, the rest is just noise to cover up your own deficiencies.

That is all I have to say about this - it'd be great if you matured/manned up, but that's up to you.

i believe steve is just used to being a little too forthcoming publically about his website rather than actually doing the nut up, shut up, and implementing the sticky-sitecentric changes ive suggested to him that would help people use and give remixsite a chance without thinking that he's a little too pushy.. but thats not gonna happen. progress there in terms of simple changes to the frontend endproduct like edit/deletion options, menu options, real simple navigation things simply hasnt happened as much as i've tried to tell steve that those things need to be changed or nobody will want to use the site, much less actually use it. in short, i've tried to help him out as much as i can to guide him in the right direction, but he keeps making all the wrong turns. so im stepping out of having anything to do with remixsite from now on.

BahamutWC

Feb 9, 2010, 11:12 PM

im not trying to pick a fight wes, but did you tell dude not to assume so much, then you make that same kind of assumption about how he budgets his time? thats bullshit buddy! you dont know anything about steve's main job or his secondary jobs, do you? i do. so do you even see your flawed logic here? you probably dont care, i donno why im gonna reply after i said im done. i guess its on the off chance that you'll give a second thought to the way youre acting and the way it comes off to me. you're kinda comin off like a holier than thou jerk..

Flawed logic? Gonna be honest here, you should go back to your first few posts in this thread for some of that - some of it can't even be made sense of.

So then, answer me this - if he maxed out his time, would he be complaining about some people not answering their emails, or would he be solving some of the fundamental design issues that plague the site? (which quite frankly shouldn't take much time to even realize) You have avoided answering this question to call out hypocrisy, even though the question was aimed at him. It's a perfectly legitimate point that has not been disproven at all.

I'll give the answer - the whining isn't productive, and if anything, it puts people off. He wants to talk about the fragmentation of the communities, and then he goes accusing people of not doing one small thing? As djp alluded to, you're not going to get any solutions by furthering accusing for no apparently purpose other than to satiate the feeling of being slighted. Putting personal feelings first over problem solving is what causes many of these problems to develop in the first place. If ego is what's stopping development, then that person has absolutely no place in complaining about others when he/she does not look into his/her own attitude(s).

thats well and fine for you, and im sure it is good work to do. 12-14 hours of mentally straining work a day can be tough if its physical work, but i see you on irc talking every day so i doubt its as mentally straining as you're purporting.

putting what you do 'for the record' into an argument makes you look like you have something to say as if you wanted to be bragging about it, and for the sake of argument. so like, wwwwwwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy.. its nocworthy as far as this discussion is concerned; when you accuse someone of something and then act like this and do the almost same exact thing you accuse them of, it kind of makes you look like you dont know what you're talking about as simply a person who might have personality traits that are considerate of others.

If you want to assail me for mentioning that, why don't you go complain about quintin doing the same? I merely provided a counterexample to his generalizations, which is certainly a valid thing to do - if someone tries to generalize based on his/her own experience, one can post any counterexample, with one's own experience or another's, and it serves as a perfect way to disprove such a claim from generalization.

I'll copy/paste the aforementioned post, which it is easy to check precedes my own.

No.

I get lots of E-Mails every day. I work 9 hours a day, commute, go to the gym every night, make dinner, clean the house, do wash, shop, and do all the other stuff that's necessary to live, and I often feel dead by the time I'm done at night. But I still reply to all my E-Mails. It doesn't take long to reply to E-Mails, even if it's just to say that you will get back to them later. When you don't reply to an E-Mail, PM, or other method of communication, you are disrespecting the other person.

I think this says it all.

and hey, i dont really know for sure. i dont know you. what i saw was you comin off looking real one dimensional and falsely justified with your replies here, as youve brought up things that really have no bearing or relevance to the topic or discussion or how it fits into the big picture simply to justify YOUR opinion.

Nope, everything I said was central to the point djp made - is he more interested in tossing out red herrings, or is he more interested in focusing on one vision without fail? Is he going to make a drastic judgment on one person or a series of people based on one human failing that isn't a crime against humanity or even a wrong? That question is for him to answer.

conversely to what you're telling steve, you shouldnt consider someone's perspective to the big picture of what they see an 'accusation' when other people see that 'accusation' as something that actually happened and is based in fact.

Actually, I'm told he outright lied about something in this thread (in particular the vague attack on OCR about being concerned about profit) - if he is going to make a claim, he needs to back it up or shut that slander up. If it's not about OCR, then say what it's about. If he won't say, then he shouldn't make a bullshit statement like that, pure and simple.

There were missed emails sure - however, zircon gave his explanation why he did not respond, and it was a perfectly valid one. However, to make the leap that quintin did? Far more broken logic than anything I've said or you have been trying to complain about. But that is the irrelevant part - the relevant part is what is he more interested in, crying about it, making vague attacks that he doesn't appear willing to back up with concrete statements (excepting the email, and that was debunked by zircon from being a grand wrong), and in general acting as if he deserves everyone's time asap, or is he more interested in promoting music above all? The design decisions sure don't reflect the latter currently, and that is what I'll leave it at.

this rhetoric that you think you can afford to him has been sullyed by making an example out of yourself. that i believe is a fair opinion. makes you look presumptuous and inconsiderate too. if you want to deny that you're being fairly insensitive, then you'll have to agree that you are baselessly pointing the finger. thats an honest accusation to be sure.

Nope, how am I pointing the finger without reason? I brought up a legitimate lesson that every person should learn, brought up only the relevant details to that lesson, and referred to why the lesson should be learned if quintin truly wants to improve the site for the long term. It is a basic lesson that virtually every successful businessman understands, and is 100% relevant here. Do you deny that quintin has a choice, to devote the time figuring out the problems he has in design, coming up with a good solution, and executing, or to throw up his hands and give up?

Anything else is noise compared to this question.

If you look deeper, you'll understand that we're giving real advice here that should he grasp and understand, could enable him to take his site further. Nobody else seems interested in giving that advice, and quite frankly, his attitude so far has been offputting from me even wanting to be willing to give this advice. However, if he's receptive, I don't want to miss a chance to give such an important life lesson, in the event he learns it because I care about people.

There is something important in hearing words you may not necessarily want to hear, but that are truthful. You don't improve for the most part without hearing that type of criticism - I am not one to baby someone only for that person to find out that he/she has been misled. I am going to point it out upfront and do my utmost to avoid the problem, and use it as a teaching point.

If what quintin wanted to hear is how to improve his site, that is exactly what djp and I gave & genuinely hope he tries to understand and learn from. If what he wanted to hear is affirmation that he made all of the right decisions, then that's not what we are about, because just judging by the end result being complained about, it clearly was not accomplished (having a vibrant community). I am not going to lie simply because he potentially doesn't want to hear the advice that he supposedly seeked out.

shawnphase

Feb 9, 2010, 11:23 PM

not gonna be bothered with reading or replying to anything in this thread anymore.

quintin3265

Feb 10, 2010, 06:11 AM

First, let's cut through all this rhetoric and get to the facts. We can't have a discussion until people start getting the facts straight.

1. I did not accuse Overclocked ReMix of being for-profit. I never stated that the site made money. Stop throwing around this statement because it is not true. Read the posts above, or E-Mail gigablah and he will confirm to you that I did not edit my posts to change what they said.

2. The first contact I had with Overclocked ReMix was not a "I'd love to help, and here's some suggestions" message. Instead, Liontamer locked the first thread I posted, basically telling me to go away. Although he did say that I could post another thread later, this is hardly a good start to a relationship. This action can be verified by reviewing the Overclocked ReMix forums from May 8.

3. I did not send form letters or copy spam to anyone. If anyone requests me to verify this, I'll post the 70 letters that I individually wrote and mailed to various artists and bands. Again, these are facts, not issues that are disputable.

-----------------------------------

I'm tired of this E-Mails issue, because it's ridiculous. The bottom line is that you, zircon, didn't care enough to reply. You say that you don't have time to reply to E-Mails, but that's not true. How do I know that? Because you took the time to visit my Overclocked ReMix profile page. The boards display the last visitors to one's profile. How do you have time to visit my profile, but yet you're too busy to reply to a simple message? If you get too many messages, why post your E-Mail address on your website with directions to contact you? Saying that the message was spam is now ridiculous, because you knew who I was since you visited the profile page. You were on IRC frequently chatting and now you also suddenly have enough time to post messages here, as soon as controversy erupts over Overclocked ReMix. Why won't you simply acknowledge that some might see not replying to an E-Mail as rude? That's all I'm trying to get at here.

------------------------------------

Now, I acknowledge that drawing attention to Liontamer and djpretzel was out of the norm. I'll even go so far as to apologize for calling out Liontamer and djpretzel in public, but Liontamer needs to reciprocate by repudiating his false assertion that I believe Overclocked ReMix makes a profit, and djpretzel and Liontamer need to acknowledge that they could have handled the situation better by replying to one message, even if it was to say no. Remember, this was three or more messages over the course of several months that were definitely received. I think this is a fair trade.

I should also address the issue of suggestions. I've implemented around a hundred suggestions from community members. However, the problem with suggestions is that they often don't agree or there isn't enough information to figure out what to do. I appreciate all the suggestions that everyone has given, but there are some things that I can't fix without more involved help. Some people have said that they dislike the graphics used on the site; however, I don't know anything about graphic design. Even if I did, though, suggestions that "something needs to be changed" about the graphics aren't helpful enough to take action. I followed the suggestions by changing the colors back in July, and people said that the new colors were just as bad.

Sometimes, there are also conflicting suggestions, such as one person stating that a button should be located at the top while another person says that the button should be located at the bottom. More frequent, however, are one-off suggestions, where one person says that something would be helpful. If you look at http://www.shoemakervillage.org/mantis, you'll see that there are hundreds of one-off suggestions. Where should I start with these suggestions? I realize that everyone is important, but it's hard to figure out whether what one person says would be useful would actually be useful to everyone. There isn't anyone who wants to work closely enough to really examine suggestions and second them for implementation, nor is there a high enough volume of suggestions so that certain suggestions are repeated over and over.

Finally, even if we had all the suggestions possible, they can only be implemented on Saturdays and Sundays because of the lack of assistance. This is why I find those who feel that "I'm not listening to suggestions" somewhat unreasonable. I'm willing to work really hard to fix suggestions, but people need to be very specific about how things should be fixed (the specific location of the button, or the color of the graphic), they need to understand that a cost-benefit analysis is performed in the face of limited time to prioritize suggestions, and, most importantly, they need to volunteer to take a more active role.

Muuurgh has already done this by organizing a compo to be held this month, but the bottom line is that people need to be willing to make a small commitment to assisting if they really want to see a non-profit site succeed. It's easy to say that the site is bad, but it will never get better unless someone or some people help out.

Koti

Feb 10, 2010, 07:51 AM

post removed, sorry

Kaleb.G

Feb 10, 2010, 09:19 AM

This thread has some lulz and much tl;dr, but I wanted to mention my opinion on working on not-for-profit projects in general: Most importantly, I only focus on making something enjoyable and unique. I don't care about where I stand amongst others. There is no competition. There is no race. I'm creating something to achieve a purpose, not to generate popularity. If the work is good, and there is a possible audience for it, it's likely to catch attention. But if it doesn't, I don't sweat; there are often fickle and intangible reasons for such a thing (e.g. a niche that is already filled). If I achieve what I want to achieve, that's what matters. Also, co-operation is not always necessary. Many great things have been created by individuals.

Obviously, since you're trying to create a community, getting people involved is important... But the site should reel them in; you shouldn't have to.

Blitz Lunar

Feb 10, 2010, 09:28 AM

Here's a summary of this ironically titled thread.

I like my summary more :( (http://www.shakal.net/lunar/temp/remixsite.jpg)

(meant jokingly!)

Akumu

Feb 10, 2010, 09:56 AM

I like my summary more :( (http://www.shakal.net/lunar/temp/remixsite.jpg)

(meant jokingly!)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/AkumuHau/gamemusicdies.png

Kidd Cabbage

Feb 10, 2010, 12:06 PM

LESS DRAMA MORE DOTA

But srsly, I'm a friend to both sides of this argument, and know people personally on both sides in this thread, and I gotta say that it's not doing ANY good to keep arguing like this. It's unprofessional and makes both sides look bad. This is coming from someone unbiased, since I pretty much like ALL of you and what you stand for in this thread.

Quintin: The OCR guys are right when they say that your public criticisms against OCR aren't helpful or professional. Burning bridges with the biggest site in the niche isn't a good way to get ahead, and while I understand it's frustrating as hell that you can't get any help from them, but there's really no obligation on their part to show you or your site goodwill. However, your apology *is* a good way to get back on friendly terms and put this behind us.

OCR: Okay dudes, your site gets how many hits a week :P ? There wasn't really anything in this forum that gets a post every few days that merits the response gotten, and having half the site's leadership come here to argue with isn't very professional - and from what I can see, doesn't actually benefit you. How would you feel about Bill Gates posting in the Apple forums about the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" commercials?

Like I said, I like both of you and I'm not trying to rift my relationship with either group here. I'd just like to point out that this argument isn't actually helping anyone on either side. We just need more <3.

http://cdn1.sbnation.com/fan_shot_images/56911/internet_argument.jpg

Monobrow

Feb 10, 2010, 01:24 PM

Just want to point out that he didn't say this on OCR. He said this all on his own website after repeatedly trying to communicate with dudes from OCR. He was venting frustrations. When you vent frustrations, it's usually because no one has taken the time to understand how you feel and you "vent" to get rid of the anger and hurt you feel, which was caused by something bad happening to you. Regardless of whether this guy was right or wrong, I don't find what he did deserving of the shitstorm that has ensued. The crime does not fit the punishment guys. Complete ostracism and segregation now? Is this really necessary?

When you put your time and hard work into something, and it's not going well, and you ask for help from people that you respect, and get all but ignored, it's going to hurt. When you complain, and those people get up in your face because you complained, what's that going to solve?

You guys are busy, we get it, all of the things you are busy with have, in fact, been bullet pointed and listed above. Understood. But apparently you dudes are not busy enough to not take the time to reply to the "negative" attention that has now become a factor in your relationship. :(

The reply that this guy got was more of a case of "I have been around longer than you and have done all these things and am better than you and you whine at me when I don't acknowledge you?" Or at least it seemed that way, especially to him. I mean I can pretty much understand how he feels now. Even if the situation has gotten so ugly... I just don't understand... I really don't get why it had to get this ugly and hurtful.

It's one of those cases where someone has a problem with somebody, and that person gets all mad that there is a problem in the first place. I hate that so much. Why not just address the issue and talk it out guys? If you don't understand, then say "I don't understand"... Not everything has to be the equivalent of a fight by the swingset after school you know? A bunch of raging bulls butting heads, comparing "portfolios" and telling everyone how important they are.

Why did all this stuff have to come into play in the argument in the first place?

I have to say, my heart goes out to this guy because I hate that feeling more than anything. I understand that you guys must not care about PR or anything, but the analogy I get here is the "not so cool kid" trying to hang out with the "cool kids" and getting the shit beat out of him for even trying... Out by the monkeybars...

The fact that this debate got so dirty doesn't surprise me, I mean most of us from this community are pretty used to it. But it is tiring to see over and over and I really think most of you are better than this. I honestly do. I mean, why do you think I've hung around for so long? Not to make this about me, because it is not... But I just really think most of you are just really cool people and all have something great to offer. I don't want to see more bad blood and feelings keep sprawling up, from bad seeds planted like this.

Old stuff has been dead and buried, but you know? It happened, and it happened for various reasons that might be repeating and coming into play here. People remember... And the best medicine for this is to not repeat mistakes, or not do things to others that have been done to you... To not sweep these things under the rug, but to keep remembering that in order for things to not happen again, we should all just remember these things and why they happened and try our best to get along with each other.

Just because stuff happened ten years ago doesn't mean it's not relevant towards the argument. It's not about finger pointing, but more about focusing on trends that have happened in the past and a need to fix those trends.

I mean reading this just shows me that so much really has not changed. I'm not saying that this guy was right or wrong, I don't know the details of your relationship, I am just replying to what I have seen from this thread, the ugliness of it, the extreme viewpoints, the black and white arguments, the completely unnecessary banter and maliciousness of it, with a tremendous lack of wanting to understand or help the situation. Lines between friend and enemy clearly drawn when it didn't have to happen this way. It's extremely depressing to watch.

::cringes::

Akumu

Feb 10, 2010, 01:24 PM

Actually the OCR representatives was nothing but professional and kept their cool.

Sadly your friends didn't, as expected

Protricity

Feb 10, 2010, 01:31 PM

Yeast is troublesome.

Monobrow

Feb 10, 2010, 01:40 PM

I don't even understand Akumu at all and have edited my post like three times to appear that I do understand, but I don't... HELP!

Another Soundscape

Feb 10, 2010, 01:42 PM

Actually the OCR representatives was nothing but professional and kept their cool.

Sadly your friends didn't, as expected

I tried.

Anyway, let me just point out that not Dave or Larry or anyone WANTED OCR staff to chime in. We simply heard there was some drama, read through the threads and some of us got so upset from what we saw that we replied. I know I speak for at least myself, Bahamut and zircon here. We're not some rude gang trying to be mean.

Also to respond directly to a question raised by Quintin, this is what sort of implied OCR was making money and you didn't, giving you some kind of moral highground:

Remember, no money is being made here. Other sites sell things and post ads, which we do not do. We don't prejudge songs and anyone is able to take advantage of free bandwidth, publicity, and disk space.

You don't have to read between the lines even :)

and finally HI GERG!

Monobrow

Feb 10, 2010, 01:46 PM

sup ansod, I made an account just to say all that crap lol

<3 to all

Liontamer

Feb 10, 2010, 02:12 PM

shawnphase

Feb 10, 2010, 03:04 PM

Here's a summary of this ironically titled thread.
im a faggot

good synopsis

Kidd Cabbage

Feb 10, 2010, 04:43 PM

Actually the OCR representatives was nothing but professional and kept their cool.

Sadly your friends didn't, as expected

I thought my friends were on both sides of the argument! D:

Anyway, I more meant Quintin. Shawn's been pretty out of line, like that last post, which was just stupid, so I've pretty much just been ignoring those.

However, as Monobrow put it, this is Quintin's forum for his site, and where he was airing his thoughts, not intended to really get to the OCR guys - and the act of really posting here and fighting is the part that I was referring to as "unprofessional." I don't mean that you guys were throwing out personal insults, like shawn's been doing, and I even agree with some things the OCR guys have said about the focus on community and music rather than site hits, but they way that this was gone about wasn't the best way that could've been gone about. There's nothing the OCR people really needed to say that couldn't have been handled over PMs and now we've got this big forum. And Anso, whether or not djp asked the rest of you in or not, it still comes off as somewhat of a bully response having half the OCR panel coming in here. :P If OCR really needed to say something in response to this thread, I'm sure that most of was said in the first two OCR posts in here by djp and Larry.

Like I said, I like just about all of you in here and I'm not trying to step on any toes. I don't know why the hell I always try to mediate shit that doesn't involve me. -_-

quintin3265

Feb 10, 2010, 04:52 PM

We could really use a thread-split of all this drama, because it takes all the focus off of the original purpose of improving remixSite.

I'm pretty laid back, so all the stuff from quintin demonizing my actions & statements is pretty out there.

I disagreed with this:

1. We allow people to remove songs if they haven't agreed to our Content Policy, but we definitely discourage removals heavily. Some people end up disliking their older tracks, but we try to be a canon of sorts for our community's development and history. djp has older stuff of his he'd rather take down, but he doesn't. It's not about locking people's music in who hate the community or anything that dramatic. No one thinks we're stealing their songs. We created a Content Policy (http://www.ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy) to have people explicitly agree that their ReMixes will permanently be hosted by us, that WE explicitly agree we can never make a profit off of their music, and that they opt out of being able to request taking them down. We do this because we don't want to waste our time & energy peer reviewing, hosting and promoting ReMixes and albums without the assurance that they're intended to actually stay on the site.

2. I'm not privy to drama you've had with the other sites, but your quote was a blanket accusation against everyone. What public uproar do you expect over a site operating for profit and who's doing that? You need to say who you mean plainly instead of being vague. The first part of your statement about song removal was obviously directed at OCR based on your earlier comments. With 3 or 4 other veiled accusations then stitched together, why be surprised that I would read into that being about OCR alongside the others? Since you're saying you don't mean OCR as profiteers, but you won't speak plainly and expect us all to read between the lines, you're playing a semantics game that I'm not interested in.

3. We're cool with promoting the work of other communities. When Game Informer interviewed djpretzel and they asked him for other sites to plug in the magazine, Dwelling of Duels immediately came to mind, because they're a great competition and community. When Paragon was attending a convention we presented at in New York, and I saw him in the crowd, I had him come up and we devoted time to promoting DoD. We do respect and help one another. Any drama that existed with virt, Mustin, The Shizz, whomever, is over with and has been over with for years. However, we are NOT a development forum for other communities and we don't expect other communities to host development threads for us either, thus why I locked your development thread and PMed you. OCR is not an outside project dev forum. We're not going to be vilified for common sense.

4. Since you're not established, if you wanted to come on our forums and plug remixSite, that's fine and you didn't need to ask us. But you're projecting a sense of entitlement that the other communities had to acknowledge you and help you develop remixSite. That didn't happen en masse, because you haven't established your site or yourself. Other communities didn't ask OCR to help it get up and running, they just did it organically. As far as contacting me, I have a lot of ways I can be reached, including here at VGMdb where I don't get inundated with messages. You should have just tried to contact me again through OCR or on Twitter or on VGMdb and not assume I blew you off out of arrogance. Another option was just making an OCR forum thread with your ideas, which would have cast the net wider for responses. I'm not saying I'm better than you, but we've all reached out to people who are busy or celebrites or professionals and ended up not hearing back. Please don't emo because you didn't hear even a no. The reality is that the onus was on you to make it happen. You did now, but it took a lot of drama to get you there. :-D

To answer your original question though from May '09, I appreciate your energy and desire to make things happen, but we are working on our own improvements to our Workshop forums for work-in-progress track development and for competitions. We've already mapped out what we'd like to do, so it would be too redundant to work with remixSite. We've really got our hands full with other projects, but perhaps try Remix:ThaSauce and see if there's any potential to collab there.

I'm glad to see that the thread has taken a turn towards the better. I'll reply to these issues below.

First, let me get the negative point out of the way, which is mostly in reply to Koli's post, not yours. If, in May 2009, I had somehow hacked zircon's account without anyone finding out and posted the exact same message (on the Shizz, where the majority of negative criticism originated), revealing the exact same site, using the exact same features and everything, the response would have been dramatically different. Everyone knows this, and I hope that some will acknowledge that. Regardless of the site's merits, people would have worked with zircon to improve it. Because I was not part of the clique that does exist (even though you don't actively promote it), the response was vitriolic criticism.

If you or anyone else has not read it, then please visit http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/topic/28322-new-video-game-music-website/page__hl__remixsite__fromsearch__1 to see what was said within minutes of the first post. The response would not have been that negative had zircon or Paragon or you posted that message. This is the "clique" mentality.

Now, onto the more positive points. One of the main topics from the earlier posts, before this whole war erupted, was that a lot of redundant work is being done everywhere and such competition isn't useful. Your suggestion to collaborate with ThaSauce is a good one, but Rama didn't reply to my messages either, so I went ahead and reimplemented exactly what he had already done. Now, there are two sites, with two interfaces, and neither one will grow to its full potential. As to the blanket statement, I made a blanket statement because it was true: there were indeed no replies from any sites.

That brings me to the most pertinent issue to this discussion, and since you are participating where Rama has not: why is Overclocked ReMix developing a whole brand new work in progress section when one already exists? It's right here. All you have to do is slap new graphics on it and integrate it with the usernames already part of Overclocked's database. I tried to tell you that over and over and over again, but you didn't reply to listen. Since you had good intentions, not replying might not have been arrogant, but it was still incompetent. If you really want to take Overclocked to the next level, then as a leader you should reply to messages simply to find out what the possibilities are, even if you decide to decline.

But that is in the past, and I will leave the offer available. If you want a "non-approved" release or work-in-progress section available for Overclocked ReMix, then it can be done in one week by merging everything from here to there and changing graphics around. I can even share with you an idea to gain revenue and attract attention from professional game companies while still allowing everyone to download and upload music for free.

If the expected happens and things stay the course, the sites will likely compete for "non-judged" remixes. As with Rama, double the work will be performed. Divisions will grow. Each site will get fewer visitors. There are already people here who spend time here solely because they hate Overclocked ReMix. As a side effect, fewer people will visit the VGMdb. That's the shame of the remix community - everything is done twice or three times, when working together brings traffic to not just the sites involved, but also auxiliary sites that benefit from a strong community. Kaleb said what I've been trying to say since the beginning: if these sites are not for profit, then what does anyone have to gain by competing?

quintin3265

Feb 10, 2010, 04:58 PM

Here's a summary of this ironically titled thread.

-

-

(They did not actually say the last part, and because they are in fact the opposite of rude and uncaring and so on, they did not want to tell you off which is why they ignored you up until now and are writing huge posts trying to explain things to you.)

-

There was some more text in there, but most of it is tears and an argumentation style that would rank up there with the best of christian apologists.

Bonus feature! The future:

This show has been brought to you by Besser Wisser - The Difference is Drinkability and Harley Davidson - The Only Motorcyle Worthy of Being in My Basement.

I have to step in the negative things again for a second and just state that this post is appalling. There's a difference between talking about E-Mails and bullying people around. I dare you to say that stuff to someone's face.

Stop making fun of shawnphase. He isn't involved with the site and doesn't deserve to have to listen to this trash. I have no respect for people who make themselves feel good by mocking people not involved with the site from behind a computer screen. If you post anything like this again, then I'm going to ask Chris to have you banned.

shawnphase

Feb 10, 2010, 06:25 PM

oh, IM out of line? yes, im out of line because i said this conversation means very little to me from the beginning. you guys gave steve a bad shake and nary none of you can admit it.

but hey, keep on with this discussion if you guys have more grievances to air with him about how he's pushy, how he doesnt treat people objectively, whatever else you wanna say about the guy. you might as well be accusing yourselves of it. i havent even read any of it since maybe the first or second replies of page 2, thats how much it means. ive been shoveling 20-50 inches of snow out of my street so that i can get to katsucon and perform. thats what this music means to ME.

and just so i can humor this thread and the crappy opinions in it, i'll say this: i deleted 50 songs from remixsite, im out of the situation. whatever good might come of it, well i guess that remains to be seen. you guys can help this guy and maybe be a shrink and make it a point to him that he needs to not be so pushy, not be telling people they need to run compos like he tried to do with me. and maybe he'll listen. if he doesnt then whatever. i dont really care, im prawn shase dude. my plans that i have for what i want to do, im doin em.

namaste dudes

DarkeSword

Feb 10, 2010, 08:33 PM

if these sites are not for profit, then what does anyone have to gain by competing?

Nobody is competing. :confused:

Koti

Feb 10, 2010, 10:47 PM

was talked some sense into, sorry for trolling. your site is really good, i just think this thread was done in the wrong way and you can't demand stuff of people or be 'offended' so easily
good luck with the site in the future

KyleJCrb

Feb 10, 2010, 11:34 PM

If you or anyone else has not read it, then please visit http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/topic/28322-new-video-game-music-website/page__hl__remixsite__fromsearch__1 to see what was said within minutes of the first post. The response would not have been that negative had zircon or Paragon or you posted that message. This is the "clique" mentality.

The difference is, Paragon (not so much zircon, to stick with your examples) is a respected member of The Shizz. Newbies rarely get treated well on forums where the community is so entrenched. The response to your post there is pretty much par for the course for almost ANYTHING at The Shizz, especially when it's posted by someone who hasn't shown themselves to be involved with the community they've built there. Shizz can be a harsh place if you're not prepared and haven't adjusted to their mentality, and I'm really not surprised at the responses there. That's just how they are.

shawnphase

Feb 11, 2010, 12:17 AM

http://tempsoundsolutions.hotdogstorm.com/pics/backpedal.jpg

http://tempsoundsolutions.hotdogstorm.com/pics/alltrolld.jpg

Koti

Feb 11, 2010, 01:33 AM

Who's trolling now? :rolleyes:

Make some more 'last posts' and don't forget to tell everyone how you don't care, please.

i deleted 50 songs from remixsite, im out of the situation
http://tempsoundsolutions.hotdogstorm.com/pics/backpedal.jpg

quintin3265

Feb 11, 2010, 05:44 AM

The difference is, Paragon (not so much zircon, to stick with your examples) is a respected member of The Shizz. Newbies rarely get treated well on forums where the community is so entrenched. The response to your post there is pretty much par for the course for almost ANYTHING at The Shizz, especially when it's posted by someone who hasn't shown themselves to be involved with the community they've built there. Shizz can be a harsh place if you're not prepared and haven't adjusted to their mentality, and I'm really not surprised at the responses there. That's just how they are.

That does not make this response right, though. Just because something is the way it is doesn't mean that it should be that way. While most Shizz members reading this thread will undoubtedly agree with your point of view, 9 out of 10 people from the outside world would likely have a different opinion. I disagree with the Shizz members in that everyone should be a respected member of the community, unless (s)he does something to prove otherwise.

The Shizz is, indeed, a nasty place. I tried to talk some sense into people in a thread that shawnphase posted a while back titled "stop junking up the Shizz," but people simply ridiculed what I had to say. That's why I stopped posting there unless I absolutely have to. They may not want to change, but I also don't have to be a part of that hatred either.

It's really a shame. If this site fails, it will be my last project that involves the Internet, and I'll probably try making a film next. While cliquishness exists in real life, outside of middle school I've never met people like some of the posters in that original May 8 thread on the Shizz. The Internet has so much promise, but it also seems to bring out the worst in people :(

As to shawnphase's comment about compos, I want to reiterate that I can't do everything in the two (sometimes one) day(s) per week that are available. Other people need to organize compos because I can't fix bugs in the site and organize compos at the same time. Besides, what kind of community would it be if I'm the only person who ever posts anything?

Mika

Feb 11, 2010, 06:29 AM

I really like this thread now.

DarkeSword

Feb 11, 2010, 07:16 AM

It's really a shame. If this site fails, it will be my last project that involves the Internet, and I'll probably try making a film next. While cliquishness exists in real life, outside of middle school I've never met people like some of the posters in that original May 8 thread on the Shizz. The Internet has so much promise, but it also seems to bring out the worst in people :(

Not trying to offend you here, but I don't think you're cut out for the Internet. I read that original thread on Shizz and I didn't really see anything all that bad, mostly just polite indifference. Mostly people were just saying "oh another one?" and giving you feedback about your color scheme. The only person giving you a hard time was Seifer, and if you know anything about this community, you know that Seifer is pretty much an ass. I don't think anyone likes him.

With any community--internet or not--it's important to establish yourself as a member, to establish a reputation, etc. If you just show up and start talking about your brand new site and asking people to help you, the reaction will be "Um, that's nice, but who are you and why should I help you?" And that reaction is right.

Why should anyone want to help you if they don't know you, if they can't trust you to get the job done? I'm not saying that you can't get the job done--I mean, you wrote a whole website that pretty much works, right?--but you're an unknown quantity. So why trust you? You haven't really given people a reason besides showing up with a website that you made, and even then, "Beware of strangers bearing gifts." I mean, the last time someone made a new community site, it turned out to be a phishing scam and a load of passwords were compromised.

It's not about being part of a clique, it's about being part of a community. It's about being known, having a good reputation, having a good history, and being trustworthy. People can't trust strangers and they can't have confidence in someone they don't know.

You said something before about how if zircon had posted the exact same thread, he wouldn't have been met with what you perceived to be ridicule, and you attributed that to cliquishness. That's way off-base. Andy's not part of the "clique," he just has a track record of doing things in the community. He's on OCR's staff, he's an established artist with remixes and his own albums, he has his own samples business, he directed a massive remix album for FF7, etc., etc. People would respond differently to him because they know what he's about. Same with me; I've done a load of stuff. Same with a lot of people in the community. With you, not so much; and NOT because you're not "in the clique." You're just not known.

Anyway I kind of went off on a tangent, but this is the advice I give people when they want to start some kind of project over at OCR: "Establish yourself in the community first. People can't work with you if they don't know who you are. Take part in the community; review remixes, give feedback to WIPs, get involved with projects, be a guy that people want to work with first. Then go ahead and start your project and ask people for help." That's the same advice I have for you.

__

As for your site, I have a lot of criticisms, but here's my main one: if it's a video game remix website, why are you allowing people to host original music? Why should I go to your website to get video game remixes if every song on your front page is marked as "Original Song."

I don't care how hard people wish for this to be true, but VGM is not a genre, and if a song isn't used in a video game, it's not video game music.

You need to decide what you want remixSite to be; do you want it to be a site dedicated to video game remixes, or do you just want it to be glorified file-hosting for whatever an artists doodles in FLStudio? Right now, it's the latter, and there are plenty of other, better music file-hosting sites out there (e.g. Tindeck).

Another thing: put music first. Don't make me scroll down to see the music. The first thing I see upon visiting the site shouldn't be a big box listing all the features; that's why websites have "about" pages. The first thing I should see is a list of the latest tracks. Don't make me scroll.

Also: don't focus on money. Hosting costs aside, you shouldn't be in this for the money, and you shouldn't be trying to use money to get people involved. Everything the community does, the community does for the love of the music, not for cash prizes, swag, and ad revenue.

Lastly: focus on listeners. OCR owes so much to it's artists, but it owes just as much to its listeners. They're why we're so huge. On the public face of remixSite, you should be focusing on listeners. Pimp out the latest tracks and encourage reviews, develop and advertise features that listeners can take advantage of. Sell the site to artists after registration.

__

Anyway, I said a lot, and hopefully you take it to heart. What it really all boils down to is that you should stop taking things so personally. You haven't been wronged or slighted; just treated as any unknown would be treated. Grow some thicker skin, take the crap in stride, and just do what you want to do.

quintin3265

Feb 11, 2010, 07:52 AM

Not trying to offend you here, but I don't think you're cut out for the Internet. I read that original thread on Shizz and I didn't really see anything all that bad, mostly just polite indifference. Mostly people were just saying "oh another one?" and giving you feedback about your color scheme. The only person giving you a hard time was Seifer, and if you know anything about this community, you know that Seifer is pretty much an ass. I don't think anyone likes him.

With any community--internet or not--it's important to establish yourself as a member, to establish a reputation, etc. If you just show up and start talking about your brand new site and asking people to help you, the reaction will be "Um, that's nice, but who are you and why should I help you?" And that reaction is right.

Why should anyone want to help you if they don't know you, if they can't trust you to get the job done? I'm not saying that you can't get the job done--I mean, you wrote a whole website that pretty much works, right?--but you're an unknown quantity. So why trust you? You haven't really given people a reason besides showing up with a website that you made, and even then, "Beware of strangers bearing gifts." I mean, the last time someone made a new community site, it turned out to be a phishing scam and a load of passwords were compromised.

It's not about being part of a clique, it's about being part of a community. It's about being known, having a good reputation, having a good history, and being trustworthy. People can't trust strangers and they can't have confidence in someone they don't know.

You said something before about how if zircon had posted the exact same thread, he wouldn't have been met with what you perceived to be ridicule, and you attributed that to cliquishness. That's way off-base. Andy's not part of the "clique," he just has a track record of doing things in the community. He's on OCR's staff, he's an established artist with remixes and his own albums, he has his own samples business, he directed a massive remix album for FF7, etc., etc. People would respond differently to him because they know what he's about. Same with me; I've done a load of stuff. Same with a lot of people in the community. With you, not so much; and NOT because you're not "in the clique." You're just not known.

Anyway I kind of went off on a tangent, but this is the advice I give people when they want to start some kind of project over at OCR: "Establish yourself in the community first. People can't work with you if they don't know who you are. Take part in the community; review remixes, give feedback to WIPs, get involved with projects, be a guy that people want to work with first. Then go ahead and start your project and ask people for help." That's the same advice I have for you.

__

As for your site, I have a lot of criticisms, but here's my main one: if it's a video game remix website, why are you allowing people to host original music? Why should I go to your website to get video game remixes if every song on your front page is marked as "Original Song."

I don't care how hard people wish for this to be true, but VGM is not a genre, and if a song isn't used in a video game, it's not video game music.

You need to decide what you want remixSite to be; do you want it to be a site dedicated to video game remixes, or do you just want it to be glorified file-hosting for whatever an artists doodles in FLStudio? Right now, it's the latter, and there are plenty of other, better music file-hosting sites out there (e.g. Tindeck).

Another thing: put music first. Don't make me scroll down to see the music. The first thing I see upon visiting the site shouldn't be a big box listing all the features; that's why websites have "about" pages. The first thing I should see is a list of the latest tracks. Don't make me scroll.

Also: don't focus on money. Hosting costs aside, you shouldn't be in this for the money, and you shouldn't be trying to use money to get people involved. Everything the community does, the community does for the love of the music, not for cash prizes, swag, and ad revenue.

Lastly: focus on listeners. OCR owes so much to it's artists, but it owes just as much to its listeners. They're why we're so huge. On the public face of remixSite, you should be focusing on listeners. Pimp out the latest tracks and encourage reviews, develop and advertise features that listeners can take advantage of. Sell the site to artists after registration.

__

Anyway, I said a lot, and hopefully you take it to heart. What it really all boils down to is that you should stop taking things so personally. You haven't been wronged or slighted; just treated as any unknown would be treated. Grow some thicker skin, take the crap in stride, and just do what you want to do.

I read more about tindeck, which I had never heard of before you posted about it here. Good find.

The site seems like an interesting concept, but I'm not sure why you said that the site is better than this one. For example, tindeck doesn't track views and downloads per week; it doesn't host the original lossless files; it doesn't have images for each song; it has limited profiles; it provides no support for revisions, and it doesn't even have a rating system. And tindeck probably doesn't have the underpinnings for quick expansion that remixSite does. The inferiorities of remixSite seem mostly in the area of ordering of pages, link placement, and navigation, which are one-day fixes once the way they should be fixed is figured out (and you've already made a suggestion).

Exiting the video game remix community entirely may be the way to go.

Let's assume that I put up a copy of remixSite, with the VGMdb integration disabled and the site available for uploads from all genres. That addresses the focus issue. Do you say that tindeck would still be better than remixSite in that instance?

Omnomnomnom

Feb 11, 2010, 07:57 AM

You need to decide what you want remixSite to be; do you want it to be a site dedicated to video game remixes, or do you just want it to be glorified file-hosting for whatever an artists doodles in FLStudio? Right now, it's the latter, and there are plenty of other, better music file-hosting sites out there (e.g. Tindeck).

I mostly agree with your other comments, but this one is a little one-sided. I don't want to remix tracks unless I particularly feel like it, but I DO want to write music for computer games. I was having a conversation with Powellman about this and we kind've thought it would work well to have a site dedicated to original music that people would like to see used in a game. Though music of any genre can be placed in games, it seems that many think game music just isn't what it once was. Why else are people still remixing Final Fantasy 7 and Megaman tracks? It's not just nostalgia. If any sort've attention was to be received from actual companies, a dedicated site would be a way to go. I'm not suggesting RemixSite does this, since the site is already up and running, but I wouldn't think that people should be discouraged from producing original music. If it's good, I'd rather hear more from that artist than anyone's cover of anything.

zircon

Feb 11, 2010, 09:14 AM

I mostly agree with your other comments, but this one is a little one-sided. I don't want to remix tracks unless I particularly feel like it, but I DO want to write music for computer games. I was having a conversation with Powellman about this and we kind've thought it would work well to have a site dedicated to original music that people would like to see used in a game. Though music of any genre can be placed in games, it seems that many think game music just isn't what it once was. Why else are people still remixing Final Fantasy 7 and Megaman tracks? It's not just nostalgia. If any sort've attention was to be received from actual companies, a dedicated site would be a way to go. I'm not suggesting RemixSite does this, since the site is already up and running, but I wouldn't think that people should be discouraged from producing original music. If it's good, I'd rather hear more from that artist than anyone's cover of anything.

There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Quintin, as Dave has already pointed out, you seem far more concerned with numbers (track downloads, views, whatever) than the music itself, and your latest post just reinforces that assertion. Both of them are absolutely right when they say that you need to focus more on community and the MUSIC, and not numbers. If you're just making a website that is a file dump, you're not going to have a community, because you'll have no focus. I know because I did this way back (www.soundtempest.net, now something completely different.) Tindeck has a clear, singular purpose. It posts MP3s. People can link to their MP3s easily and there's an integrated player right there.

Could you duplicate that functionality? Yes, but why would you want to? I contend that people don't really care about track views, downloads or ratings very much. When you talk about those features, track images, ratings, revisions etc., you're talking about the icing on the cake. You need something substantial FIRST, a novel concept to build around. Simply hosting video game remixes and original music is not really novel enough.

DarkeSword

Feb 11, 2010, 09:24 AM

Let's assume that I put up a copy of remixSite, with the VGMdb integration disabled and the site available for uploads from all genres. That addresses the focus issue. Do you say that tindeck would still be better than remixSite in that instance?
Really, all that, and the only thing you took away from it was "TinDeck is better?"

I only used it as an example; if you think TinDeck is better, fine. I'm not going to make a judgement based on a hypothetical either way at this point.

My point is, you can't say you're a VGM remix site and then allow people to upload original music too. It dilutes what you're trying to do. Hell, the name of your website is REMIX SITE. So where are the remixes? Front page has original music. Why should I listen to those? These are questions visitors ask themselves.

Omnomnomnom

Feb 11, 2010, 09:58 AM

Zircon: There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.

I think we agree, we're just looking from different perspectives. I didn't really imply anything otherwise. And I have to also agree both you and Darkesword about honing in on the actual vision of the site. Catering to both remixers and original artists is apparently more tricky than one would think. I have to say, if I had original music that I intended for a game, and I had a choice between "RemixSite" and "COMposed" (which I just made up) I would choose whichever was directed more towards original music, just as a remixer would look to a site dedicated to remixing. But when the site caters to both equally, it's a bit unrewarding to post something, since you can't be sure what the community is really geared towards.

If it really had to come down to a choice, I'd make an original composition site over a remix site, since there's already sites out there for remixing. No covers would be allowed on the site too (so I see where you're coming from with the title being "RemixSite") . The problem would still be with pageviews and numbers though, worse so, so I don't see RemixSite making a change like that. But if RemixSite went the other way as you seem to be suggesting, I'd be gone. Interest dies for me after that, so honestly, I don't see a change like that working.

quintin3265

Feb 11, 2010, 10:47 AM

There's nothing wrong with making a site dedicated to original music that is basically supposed to be "game soundtrack-esque" but I think Darkesword's point is that remixSite is ALSO hosting VG remixes. And it has "remix" in the title. So, the identity is confusing and it ends up just being a file dump. I would also say that people DO just remix games like FF7 and MM2 primarily due to nostalgia, and secondarily because older games had more melodic music, thus making it easier to remix compared to modern game soundtracks. But I don't know what that has to do with anything.

Quintin, as Dave has already pointed out, you seem far more concerned with numbers (track downloads, views, whatever) than the music itself, and your latest post just reinforces that assertion. Both of them are absolutely right when they say that you need to focus more on community and the MUSIC, and not numbers. If you're just making a website that is a file dump, you're not going to have a community, because you'll have no focus. I know because I did this way back (www.soundtempest.net, now something completely different.) Tindeck has a clear, singular purpose. It posts MP3s. People can link to their MP3s easily and there's an integrated player right there.

Could you duplicate that functionality? Yes, but why would you want to? I contend that people don't really care about track views, downloads or ratings very much. When you talk about those features, track images, ratings, revisions etc., you're talking about the icing on the cake. You need something substantial FIRST, a novel concept to build around. Simply hosting video game remixes and original music is not really novel enough.

Well, but you're missing that it was novel enough for VGMix, and that site was incredibly successful. Compare what VGMix could do and what this site can do, and you'll see that this site does more than VGMix ever did with fewer bugs and many fewer security issues. This site was actually conceived in 2005, when VGMix had problems, though it wasn't implemented for four years. Yet, during that time, something happened to eliminate the usefulness of that site. I think it's that video game music remixes are on the decline, and that Ommmmm is exactly right: it's hard to remix Final Fantasy 13 music that's already performed by a full orchestra. Yes, a lot of people may have shown up at MAGFest, but people are remixing the same tired old Chrono Trigger music from what's going on two decades ago. I'm tired of hearing Chrono Trigger remixes and I don't download them anymore. There's nothing new in the community, which is why it is slowly dying out. Look at how the Shizz has degenerated into pointless rubbish and how nobody talks about music there anymore.

The "Tindeck 2" concept that I proposed above may have been misinterpreted. It involves exiting the video game music community entirely, and allowing people from all genres to post original music only. The advantage of that concept is precisely that there wouldn't be any forums or community. It would be a for-profit venture that doesn't require a community to succeed. It's not expected that anyone from here or Overclocked ReMix would use the service, although they would certainly be welcome to do so. The original remixSite could be left online if someone else took over its management, of course.

I hear the suggestions to focus on either remixes or originals, but will doing so really be useful to people? If only five people find the new site useful, then it's not worth the effort. Stats are important, because there's no reason to waste effort on what's not useful to people. While there are a few dedicated musicians involved with this site currently, I don't see a huge influx of video game artists converging on the site no matter what changes are made. There needs to be a core group of dedicated contributors to help out with such a change. I'm open to and want to hear someone prove me wrong, of course.

DarkeSword

Feb 11, 2010, 12:03 PM

I think it's that video game music remixes are on the decline, and that Ommmmm is exactly right: it's hard to remix Final Fantasy 13 music that's already performed by a full orchestra. Yes, a lot of people may have shown up at MAGFest, but people are remixing the same tired old Chrono Trigger music from what's going on two decades ago. I'm tired of hearing Chrono Trigger remixes and I don't download them anymore. There's nothing new in the community, which is why it is slowly dying out. Look at how the Shizz has degenerated into pointless rubbish and how nobody talks about music there anymore.

Sorry, but you're flat out wrong. Video game music remixes are not on the decline. We get more and more submissions over at OCR every day, and people are always trying to start some new album project to get a ton of remixes out. New artists are always emerging.

We also get our fair share of submissions from new games. Just because music is orchestral doesn't mean that people aren't going to remix it, and there's still a lot of lo-fi melodic music coming out on platforms like DS, PSP, and in the downloadable markets. There's no shortage of new material to remix, and people are tackling it with gusto.

Also, you need to stop looking at the Shizz as indicative of the overall health of the community. You want to get your finger on the pulse of the community? Look at OCR and DoD; those are the hubs of activity, and they're still going strong, putting out fresh material all the time, from both new and old games.

So let's REALLY get real here and get to the heart of the matter: you gotta stop playing the blame game. Stop blaming the community for declining, stop blaming other sites for dissing you by not replying to your emails, stop blaming other people because they're making you do everything by yourself.

EDIT: I was under the impression that DoD was more of a VGMix/Shizz thing than just a Shizz thing, in which case, you need to look at Shizz and OCR both to get a pulse on the community.

Koti

Feb 11, 2010, 12:48 PM

I really don't mean to troll but it's just crazy how this discussion goes on... So you think videogame music is dying, you don't like the remixes that are being made and think the 'too popular' sources have become too old to listen to new mixes of, you don't like the remixers and happily talk trash openly about other sites, and you don't actually have a passion to make any specific site other than "something useful" (a.k.a. something popular (a.k.a. something that pulls nice stats)).

Looking at that, your people skills (on the internet, in any case) and way of reasoning, but also your website, I'd recommend either lending / selling your programming skills to someone else with clearer goals, or pursuing some of those other things you already suggested (offline would probably be safer in case you're not going to accept how things / people are online).

Man, remixsite is, in my opinion, a damn well made website in and of itself. If it wasn't for the 'why am I seeing originals when I go to remixsite' issue and if it was represented and 'PR'ed faaar better it could've been popular. It's just a shame you've dropped the ball on everything but the coding and perhaps the competition(s) (though public voting on a cash prize compo is not going to attract or build a community) and really make it worse with every post, incredible waste.

Oh well, last post from me (real last, not shawnphase last), the OCR guys are doing a better job at being civilized and explaining things, though it's a shame their busy asses even have to.

zircon

Feb 11, 2010, 12:49 PM

As Darke said, the remix community is more vibrant and exciting than ever. I want to point out that we've actually had to implement new guidelines on OCR simply to manage the sheer number of projects that have sprung up lately. On top of that, we've had partnerships with companies like Capcom and VGL, blurring the line between fan work and pro work. There's no better time to be a part of this community.

Well, but you're missing that it was novel enough for VGMix, and that site was incredibly successful. Compare what VGMix could do and what this site can do, and you'll see that this site does more than VGMix ever did with fewer bugs and many fewer security issues.

And YOU'RE missing that VGmix 2 existed back in what, 2004? A lot can happen on the Internet n 6 years. Furthermore, it was *just* VG remixes, not original music too. VGmix 2 was unique because it had the whole RPG system. It definitely had its flaws, but the way they encouraged feedback, good reviews and community was definitely novel. Your site is just a repository of random music with no focus and view/rating counts. There are a LOT of music hosting websites that can offer the same kind of thing. How can you not see the difference here?

The solution isn't to give up, blaming people on the way out, it's to figure out something that the VGM community could really use that is UNIQUE. In my opinion, put your effort into original video game music OR video game remixes. Stop trying to do both. The former has never really been done well so that is potentially exciting.

shawnphase

Feb 11, 2010, 03:41 PM

steve is beyond wrong. i've msg'd him on aim with 5 or 6 different screen names telling him how wrong he is, even beyond all of this dialog. this guy, he's never gonna understand what anybodys got to say to him, because he cant admit his faults. this is a failed attempt at trying to talk some sense into a complete ignorant person when they dont want to hear it.

believe me, i've tried harder than i ever should have, and i wouldnt expect or want anybody to work with this piece of work ever because of this thread that i told him not to make.

KyleJCrb

Feb 11, 2010, 10:31 PM

Way to go, shawn. Defend the guy and remixSite here for the first two pages, then pull a fast one and start bashing him instead. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

quintin: I don't disagree with your view on The Shizz (I also don't post there anymore myself for similar reasons), but even if we both don't think that's how they should be, none of us are going to change what's been ingrained into that community.
I also agree with Darke that if you're basing your view of the overall community by looking at The Shizz, you're definitely looking in the wrong place. The Shizz in itself isn't even about game music anyway: It's about the indie music scene of Phoenix, AZ. The Minibosses section sees extra activity due to the fact that it's DoDs home base, but DoD competitors don't really have to be a contributing member of the Shizz community to participate. The Shizz overall doesn't have very much to do with the game music scene and isn't indicative of the health or interest of the community. The game music scene is alive and quite well: OCR is a good indicator, as there are nearly 30(!) remix album projects in progress right now over there. DoD has healthy interest every month, as well, and not a month goes by where I don't hear about a new western or doujin arrange album being released. There's plenty of activity and I don't think the scene has been more alive and interesting than ever right now. Old standbys Chrono Trigger is still getting a lot of remixes, but I'm seeing a lot of people pick up on lesser-known games as well, and there is still plenty of untouched material out there in older AND newer games.
Remixing is more popular and interesting than it ever has been, but I just don't think remixSite has been positioned to take advantage of that. Music hosting sites are a dime a dozen these days, so remixSite needs to refocus on how to make it worthwhile to the artist looking to host there.

quintin3265

Feb 12, 2010, 04:34 AM

shawn:

What you have posted here is libel.

To make it clear:

1. shawn never told me "not to post this thread."
2. I never said that "OCR won" a war that had been going on for a year, or that the whole purpose of the site was to destroy Liontamer.
3. I am not employed by the government. Check with the Office of Personnel Management if someone wants to verify this.

You're entitled to express your opinions, but stop making stuff up out of thin air. While some might see this as "feeding the trolls," I want to make sure that it's clear what the facts are.

Gigablah

Feb 12, 2010, 04:39 AM

My apologies for not responding sooner. At VGMdb, we're a happy bunch of nerds. Therefore, I have decorated this forum with some rainbows in an effort to make everybody a little more cheerful.

Enjoy!

Akumu

Feb 12, 2010, 04:42 AM

This finally got real

Mika

Feb 12, 2010, 05:33 AM

I totally just blocked that rainbow picture, part of it makes the text pretty difficult to read.

Though maybe that's a good thing.

Akumu

Feb 12, 2010, 05:41 AM

have you noticed when you only post short messages it's kinda dark and cloudy? :( sad

shawnphase

Feb 12, 2010, 07:32 AM

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAha

Omnomnomnom

Feb 12, 2010, 08:16 AM

Argh, my VISION!!!!! I'm hungover and this is the first thing I see. >.<

sgtrama

Feb 16, 2010, 09:46 PM

Now, onto the more positive points. One of the main topics from the earlier posts, before this whole war erupted, was that a lot of redundant work is being done everywhere and such competition isn't useful. Your suggestion to collaborate with ThaSauce is a good one, but Rama didn't reply to my messages either, so I went ahead and reimplemented exactly what he had already done. Now, there are two sites, with two interfaces, and neither one will grow to its full potential. As to the blanket statement, I made a blanket statement because it was true: there were indeed no replies from any sites.

Wait, what now?

iono what's goin' on here, but my Google Alerts tells me stuffs goin' on here. I haven't gotten an e-mail from you since the remixSite thread first showed up. Sorry if I missed something?

I thought the last e-mail I got was kind of a "end of conversation" e-mail. I'm kind of dumb about that stuff sometimes. I do see you were asking if I'd be interesting in helping, and I gotta tell you I don't know 2 shits about PHP, I kind of fumble my way through it, which is why I directed you elsewhere off the bat. I'm not help to anyone unless they need some fancy CSS, and I pretty much have my hands full doing all that for my 3 sites which are under CONSTANT renovation now a days.

As for INDIRECTLY helping, I link to remixSite on the mainpage of ReMix:ThaSauce, I've integrated remixSite links onto the artist master list (http://remix.thasauce.net/artists/4/) (profiles inc...even though only like 4 people have'em right now, 1 being me), and I plan on taking the site as seriously as you guys do for as long as you do, because that's how I'd expect others to feel about me.

I would like to say though, that I have done everything I have done, by myself, and I not have asked for, nor gotten, any help from anyone at any time. Honestly, I don't really expect anyone to help me, and if no one ever does, that's fine with me. My site will grow so long as I keep taking care of it, people keep using it, and other people keep hearing about it, and I absolutely 100% fully believe that if I love my site as much as I can, and keep at it, it'll be everything I want it to be for as long as I want it to be.

That's really how you should view your site. A little acknowledgement is nice every now and then, I'll give you that; it's good to know that you have people that stand behind you in what you doing, so you know that you're not in it a lone. Because I know, sometimes it might feel like you're working on this website that just isn't going to be as big as you want it to be, but you gotta keep with it. You're doing a service for people, and so long as you keep listening to people, and giving them what they want, they WILL come.

As far as remixSite and ReMix:ThaSauce (http://remix.thasauce.net) serving similar purposes, as it seems like that's what you're suggesting, you're wrong. ReMix:ThaSauce was made to serve a function similar to that of OCReMix, on purpose. I like OCReMixes format. I like songs to not have ratings, and for me to be able to control quality control. People will have their qualms, I'm sure, but it has hardly come up yet. I have no intention of ReMix:ThaSauce ever serving a similar purpose as remixSite, nor do I have any intention of building another site with a similar function. It's just not my prerogative.

I'm happy to indirectly support you guys in any way I can, and I'm happy to keep posting links and directing traffic your way. I'd appreciate it if you did the same for me, but even if not, I'll survive. I promise.

Edit: OH ONE MORE THING, if you look at the R:TS artist profiles, I've integrated a each artists' individual RSS feed (they're kind of hidden on OCR, but if you know where to look, you kind find'em). I'd LOVE to do this for any other site I can. Being able to to link to their profile is one thing, but being able to show LIVE updates is a totally other piece of awesome. Just a suggestion :D.

You will note that I haven't integrated remixSite's RSS into my master-mixes theme, and there's a reason for that, similar to why I don't have arrangement stream on there, and why I'm weary about having kwed on there: Given the nature of your updates, I don't really want the mainpage feed to be flooded by any 1 source, not for too long anyway. It's nothing personal :x. Individual artist feeds broken off onto their own artist pages (for me) would be GREAT though.

Dually-noted: ReMix:ThaSauce doesn't have individual artist RSS feeds yet...I know...like I said I sux at PHP gimme some time, ok? :((((

Erm, gonna edit this again because, after going back and reading some of the comments in length, I think there might be a fundamental misconception of what exactly I'm doing, and why I'm doing it the way I'm doing it.

ReMix:ThaSauce was made specifically with the intention of having another site with a similar function to that of OverClocked ReMix. The principle difference between the 2 sites is that ReMix:ThaSauce accepts songs that're closer to the original source tunes, that might not have overtly stellar production, that're maybe too simple. Just songs that're still enjoyable that wouldn't necessarily make it on OverClocked ReMix. That is to say, songs submitted to R:TS DO get evaluated and songs DO get rejected. Mainly I'm looking for things to where people just really need to develop their mix more, as well as their musicianship. Or stuff that's just blatant original with drum loops over it or that kind of stuff. We have a quality control system set up, and songs RARELY go to the QC queue, it does happen from time to time. In addition, even if a song DOES go to the quality control system AND get rejected I STILL offer them a chance, if someone can present a decent case, for their to be a rejection veto. No one has ever exercised it, but the option IS THERE.

Basically what I'm trying to do with ReMix:ThaSauce is I'm trying to have a place where people can submit video game remixes that they had fun making, that other people would have fun listening to, while not alienating others. I realize some people like ratings so they can only listen to the BEST stuff and know what to not download, but I'm with DJP to where I believe every song I post SHOULD be listened to, and that's why I posted them. I believe in every mix, and every mixer on my website, and I won't give any one of them priority over anyone else. Everyone is equal. EVERYONE is special. While I do feel like people should have something to work toward, and something to strive for like getting a song on OverClocked ReMix, I also want to make sure they know that as much as they feel it is their privilege to have a song posted on ReMix:ThaSauce that it is tenfold my privilege for being chosen to share your song with others.

If ReMix:ThaSauce's function cross's over with anyone's, it's OverClocked ReMix and OverLooked ReMiX, and I'm SPECIFICALLY targeting songs that wouldn't get on OverClocked ReMix for whatever reason (which is the point). There IS some spill-over from time to time. I could care less, really. Exclusive tracks are cool to have, but the reason I MADE the site is so that I could give people a place to have their music heard. If someone has the same song on OverClocked ReMix, ReMix:ThaSauce, remixSite, and OverLooked ReMiX good for them! They're maximizing their potential! All I'm trying to do is to help artists whom, I felt, really needed a little extra push, and I think I've done a great job. This is why I wanted to make sure I have links to everyone's profile on all the sites, and why I'm in the process of sending out e-mails to collect as much information on artists as they want to share with others. This way they can get exactly the kind of recognition, for ALL their works, as they deserve. Also: I've recently become co-admin of OverLooked ReMiX as well and will be looking to do similar things there.

Anyway I hope that clears up any misconceptions. I feel very strongly that a site where anyone can upload tracks as they see fit, with ratings and the whole shabang is something necessary that the community really does need; especially with VGMix being defunct forever now. That is what I said to you when you first made your thread on OverClocked ReMix, and that's why I've continued to support what you're doing. However this is not the direction I decided to take ReMix:ThaSauce, nor is it the direction that will ever be taken.

quintin3265

Feb 17, 2010, 06:13 AM

Wait, what now?

iono what's goin' on here, but my Google Alerts tells me stuffs goin' on here. I haven't gotten an e-mail from you since the remixSite thread first showed up. Sorry if I missed something?

I thought the last e-mail I got was kind of a "end of conversation" e-mail. I'm kind of dumb about that stuff sometimes. I do see you were asking if I'd be interesting in helping, and I gotta tell you I don't know 2 shits about PHP, I kind of fumble my way through it, which is why I directed you elsewhere off the bat. I'm not help to anyone unless they need some fancy CSS, and I pretty much have my hands full doing all that for my 3 sites which are under CONSTANT renovation now a days.

As for INDIRECTLY helping, I link to remixSite on the mainpage of ReMix:ThaSauce, I've integrated remixSite links onto the artist master list (http://remix.thasauce.net/artists/4/) (profiles inc...even though only like 4 people have'em right now, 1 being me), and I plan on taking the site as seriously as you guys do for as long as you do, because that's how I'd expect others to feel about me.

I would like to say though, that I have done everything I have done, by myself, and I not have asked for, nor gotten, any help from anyone at any time. Honestly, I don't really expect anyone to help me, and if no one ever does, that's fine with me. My site will grow so long as I keep taking care of it, people keep using it, and other people keep hearing about it, and I absolutely 100% fully believe that if I love my site as much as I can, and keep at it, it'll be everything I want it to be for as long as I want it to be.

That's really how you should view your site. A little acknowledgement is nice every now and then, I'll give you that; it's good to know that you have people that stand behind you in what you doing, so you know that you're not in it a lone. Because I know, sometimes it might feel like you're working on this website that just isn't going to be as big as you want it to be, but you gotta keep with it. You're doing a service for people, and so long as you keep listening to people, and giving them what they want, they WILL come.

As far as remixSite and ReMix:ThaSauce (http://remix.thasauce.net) serving similar purposes, as it seems like that's what you're suggesting, you're wrong. ReMix:ThaSauce was made to serve a function similar to that of OCReMix, on purpose. I like OCReMixes format. I like songs to not have ratings, and for me to be able to control quality control. People will have their qualms, I'm sure, but it has hardly come up yet. I have no intention of ReMix:ThaSauce ever serving a similar purpose as remixSite, nor do I have any intention of building another site with a similar function. It's just not my prerogative.

I'm happy to indirectly support you guys in any way I can, and I'm happy to keep posting links and directing traffic your way. I'd appreciate it if you did the same for me, but even if not, I'll survive. I promise.

Edit: OH ONE MORE THING, if you look at the R:TS artist profiles, I've integrated a each artists' individual RSS feed (they're kind of hidden on OCR, but if you know where to look, you kind find'em). I'd LOVE to do this for any other site I can. Being able to to link to their profile is one thing, but being able to show LIVE updates is a totally other piece of awesome. Just a suggestion :D.

You will note that I haven't integrated remixSite's RSS into my master-mixes theme, and there's a reason for that, similar to why I don't have arrangement stream on there, and why I'm weary about having kwed on there: Given the nature of your updates, I don't really want the mainpage feed to be flooded by any 1 source, not for too long anyway. It's nothing personal :x. Individual artist feeds broken off onto their own artist pages (for me) would be GREAT though.

Dually-noted: ReMix:ThaSauce doesn't have individual artist RSS feeds yet...I know...like I said I sux at PHP gimme some time, ok? :((((

Erm, gonna edit this again because, after going back and reading some of the comments in length, I think there might be a fundamental misconception of what exactly I'm doing, and why I'm doing it the way I'm doing it.

ReMix:ThaSauce was made specifically with the intention of having another site with a similar function to that of OverClocked ReMix. The principle difference between the 2 sites is that ReMix:ThaSauce accepts songs that're closer to the original source tunes, that might not have overtly stellar production, that're maybe too simple. Just songs that're still enjoyable that wouldn't necessarily make it on OverClocked ReMix. That is to say, songs submitted to R:TS DO get evaluated and songs DO get rejected. Mainly I'm looking for things to where people just really need to develop their mix more, as well as their musicianship. Or stuff that's just blatant original with drum loops over it or that kind of stuff. We have a quality control system set up, and songs RARELY go to the QC queue, it does happen from time to time. In addition, even if a song DOES go to the quality control system AND get rejected I STILL offer them a chance, if someone can present a decent case, for their to be a rejection veto. No one has ever exercised it, but the option IS THERE.

Basically what I'm trying to do with ReMix:ThaSauce is I'm trying to have a place where people can submit video game remixes that they had fun making, that other people would have fun listening to, while not alienating others. I realize some people like ratings so they can only listen to the BEST stuff and know what to not download, but I'm with DJP to where I believe every song I post SHOULD be listened to, and that's why I posted them. I believe in every mix, and every mixer on my website, and I won't give any one of them priority over anyone else. Everyone is equal. EVERYONE is special. While I do feel like people should have something to work toward, and something to strive for like getting a song on OverClocked ReMix, I also want to make sure they know that as much as they feel it is their privilege to have a song posted on ReMix:ThaSauce that it is tenfold my privilege for being chosen to share your song with others.

If ReMix:ThaSauce's function cross's over with anyone's, it's OverClocked ReMix and OverLooked ReMiX, and I'm SPECIFICALLY targeting songs that wouldn't get on OverClocked ReMix for whatever reason (which is the point). There IS some spill-over from time to time. I could care less, really. Exclusive tracks are cool to have, but the reason I MADE the site is so that I could give people a place to have their music heard. If someone has the same song on OverClocked ReMix, ReMix:ThaSauce, remixSite, and OverLooked ReMiX good for them! They're maximizing their potential! All I'm trying to do is to help artists whom, I felt, really needed a little extra push, and I think I've done a great job. This is why I wanted to make sure I have links to everyone's profile on all the sites, and why I'm in the process of sending out e-mails to collect as much information on artists as they want to share with others. This way they can get exactly the kind of recognition, for ALL their works, as they deserve. Also: I've recently become co-admin of OverLooked ReMiX as well and will be looking to do similar things there.

Anyway I hope that clears up any misconceptions. I feel very strongly that a site where anyone can upload tracks as they see fit, with ratings and the whole shabang is something necessary that the community really does need; especially with VGMix being defunct forever now. That is what I said to you when you first made your thread on OverClocked ReMix, and that's why I've continued to support what you're doing. However this is not the direction I decided to take ReMix:ThaSauce, nor is it the direction that will ever be taken.

Great! It's good to see that you stopped by, and even better that we can talk about things without immediate negative comments. If everyone were like you, the Shizz would be a better place :)

First, I added a new bug at http://shoemakervillage.org/mantis/view.php?id=197 dealing with the RSS feed issues. This bug shouldn't be difficult to fix, and should be available in the next release. Thanks for the suggestion. If you have any others, feel free to register an account and add more bugs to the system.

I think we both agree that people need a place to post their music without judging being required. I also agree that, like with Overclocked ReMix, this site is not in competition with ThaSauce. Overclocked ReMix differentiates itself by prejudging remixes, while ThaSauce posts remixes manually through a different process. There are merits to each type of system, and I'm really, really glad that you don't see a need for competition like I believe Overclocked ReMix has. I'm going to implement all the RSS feeds that you suggested and, when you get your feeds implemented, I'll add ThaSauce's songs to remixSite's feeds. The artist RSS feeds will be implemented by this weekend.

Most importantly, though, I was wondering if you might be interested in participating in the "experience" system as described in "Moving Forward." ThaSauce can offer exposure to artists who would like to spend experience to highlight their artist profiles on the front page. If you were to agree, people would have their profiles highlighted prominently on ThaSauce by spending remixSite experience, and you would be reimbursed in cash at whatever the current valuation of experience points is. This arrangement could encourage people to visit ThaSauce, would earn you money, would give remixSite artists more options, and would increase the value of experience points at remixSite.

We would have to wait, however, until it is proven that artists will contribute enough songs, reviews, and pay money to get enough experience into the system before implementing this. Please feel free to comment in the "moving forward" thread about the experience system if you are interested in being a part of it.

Mika

Feb 17, 2010, 06:39 AM

Jeez dude, you really need to drop the Shizz blaming already.
Shizz is just fine, you just didn't know what you were getting into when you started posting there.

Kidd Cabbage

Feb 17, 2010, 12:37 PM

Yeah, I love the Shizz.

shawnphase

Feb 17, 2010, 07:39 PM

agreed. this guy..

Omnomnomnom

Feb 17, 2010, 07:42 PM

Shizz is just fine, you just didn't know what you were getting into when you started posting there.

Like 4chan for music...? o.O

shawnphase

Feb 21, 2010, 03:38 PM

not really, the shizz was around before 4chan.

Mika

Feb 21, 2010, 04:54 PM

And Shizz is also more awesome.

shawnphase

Feb 21, 2010, 05:15 PM

shizz shares stuff other than virii too. but i guess the stuff the shizz shares is pretty virulent too.

Blitz Lunar

Mar 4, 2010, 12:18 PM

sorry to bump this thread. i imagine you guys would rather see it disappear.

quintin: i asked about the possibility of adding a remixsite link back on january 28th. it's now march 4th and i've still had no response on the matter. so unfortunately all i can say is "sorry, we can't do it." this is what i'm up against... something like this should be totally trivial. it is highly frustrating. rather than leaving you hanging i thought i'd let you know. if i were you, i wouldn't bother linking back to vgmusic.

Kidd Cabbage

Mar 4, 2010, 02:53 PM

NO THIS THREAD LACKS RAINBOWS

Omnomnomnom

Mar 4, 2010, 07:58 PM

Okay, sorry, but everyone stop for a second. This is really annoying me. It seems like everywhere we go, we get the same shit. Not the reps or admins, but the people. Everyone is guilty here, in their own way. Allow me to explain... though I'm sure I've made no angel of myself, I can only speak from my own point of view...

Quintin wants a site for everybody. I guess his original intention was as honest as anyone's, and that he really just aims for the end goal, then asks the people interested, ways to achieve it. Hence asking well respected people in the community, who've done it before to help out. I would to. Hence giving a reward for writing a good track. Everyone should have one. The way things were put across, I agree, might seem wrong. But everything new has it's difficult time.

OCR want the same thing as remixsite, only in this scenario it seems their reputation is being tarnished because of events that are personal to individuals and people who are the select few. As if all their effort and hard work amounts to nothing because someone on another site says so. OCR, nor any site wants to be the end of the stick, and so I commend OCR and anyone who wants to defend themselves against attacks, which it seems, in this case, have been unjust. Not necessarily uncalled for, but have been misdirected or misunderstood. However, I don't see the need to fight in this manner. It seems... over the top.

I must also draw attention to the things people have said on both sides about "us in the middle", perhaps unknowingly, but still. To say that "no one has helped" or "no one ever helped, except blah" is just not cool. Even if it slipped people's minds that it's everyone included who makes a site live, it's not okay. Without us simple people, you have nothing, and in turn, we need you. It's not just the admin or the guy who currently makes music for games, nor the guy who leads the forum. It needs to be inherent in anyone who tries to give people a home, to say that they're welcome there. And OCR, the Shizz and RemixSite, at least, have all hurt "the people" in their own way. I'm guilty for helping this thread start by not being more active on remixsite.

This shit happens and is to be expected. If anything, can we at least agree that no one wants anyone else to fail, but also, are not responsible for that unsuccess. Can we at least agree also, that some people are trying to do their best to make a site live, but those who choose not to join are not responsible for that site dieing? After all, I think this whole thread is more a shout to the community here than it is an attack on anyone else. Words were said, regrettable ones. But let's be mature and forget them together. If this scenario ended up badly, I'd lose faith in everyone; RemixSite, OCR, the shizz, vgmix, every music site on the net. Everyone. No one needs to get bent out of shape about this.

And at the very least can we agree that no one wants to hear less music, but more? All these problems are pretty much meaningless to me except THAT ONE. I want more John Williams, more Nobuo Uematsu, more Yoko Kanno, more John Barry, more Pendulum, more Offspring (early days) etc, etc. I want good music to return. I think everyone here has that goal, and everyone has their own idea of that.

So let's stop arguing and let's just get there. Scientists of music if you will.

Omnomnomnom

Mar 6, 2010, 03:46 AM

eh woops.... was totally legless when I posted that. >.< Thought this was getting bumped for negative reasons, hahahah. I shouldn't be allowed on the net when drunk. >.>

quintin3265

Mar 6, 2010, 09:34 AM

I think that a lot of people might have skipped the first few posts in the thread and only read the later pages when they first posted. I stated that, in general, the Overclocked ReMix community was not interested in helping, and that, specifically, several people did not respond to messages, but there was no intention of stating that specific people were obligated to help. What I did, and still, believe that people are obligated to do is to reply to calls and messages, even if it takes a while to reply, to let the sender know whether the recipient is interested. If one receives a wedding invitation, it's disrespectful to not reply, for example, even if you have no intention of attending. It's not like I had already E-Mailed them ten times and they repeatedly said "no" every time.

Also, though, you bring up one of the core issues that I forgot to mention: this idea of "my site" versus "your site." When all the sites are for free, it shouldn't matter which site is "mine" or "yours." That's why you'll never see me refer to the site as "my site" anywhere in any post in these forums. While this obviously is not the case now, and I myself declared that I would make this site closed source in response, I had originally hoped that the community was simply interested in sharing music in the easiest way possible, not in where the music is located or who helped share the music.

I mean, what was the point of competition when nobody had any intention of making any money?

shawnphase

Mar 7, 2010, 09:56 PM

that wedding invitation analogy? nowhere near accurate or even worthwhile. allow me to make a working analogy.

to use a proper analogy, its as if a really annoying kid in your neighborhood gets a special gold edition copy of mckids, signed by tommy t himself, wants to ask every kid he knows to come over to his house to play mckids by coming over and knocking on the door, and after a short while the kids who's houses you go to start having their parents answer the door and tell you they're not there.

but then to take it a step further and really show the scope of how this analogy fits with the situation, you keep coming back with the same corny game because you think you want to play and youre under the impression that people want to play with you, but you forget the fact very quickly that you knocked on dude's door way too many times and way too often, threw too many tantrums, and generally didnt act or treat people right.

do you get it now? it doesnt matter what game it is, what matters is you getting cross with the parents, saying you're going to go home and take your game to people's parents, when all in all the game wasnt even that fun. it damn sure didnt do anything to prove that it wasnt corny and cheesy like a bag of 3d doritos.

sorry, but a spade's a spade. not trying to flame either, but your logic is all crossed up and i think you should see how it appears to someone who was both inside and outside what you're trying to do.

Omnomnomnom

Mar 8, 2010, 06:59 PM

Though I agree with you about the wedding invitation... everything you said was from the perspective of a child, not an adult... how can you speak for kids man? :P

what matters is you getting cross with the parents, saying you're going to go home and take your game to people's parents, when all in all the game wasnt even that fun.

Yeah, okay, I get that. That RemixSite wasn't that good and that Quintin shouldn't be pissed that people didn't do anything to help it build? Oh wait.... sounds more like a sandcastle and not a game. Takes people to build it, no? I don't go to sites based on computer game music in order to "play" as such. I go there, because "playing" will be my job. If I get to write music I know people will love? Its something I live for and I would get to have fun doing it. I don't go to RemixSite because Quintin wants me to. Nor do I go there for the hell of a site. I go there for my own reasons. Which are totally different seemingly to your's, OCR's, even Quintin's. And that's okay.

To argue on your point, this playground does not report to the "parents". We're all adults here (at least mostly, or we try to be) and we talk to eachother in open debate because we're able to deal with the comeback. Quintin had a problem, and I agree, had I been on the opposition, I'd be blanking him, maybe. Depends. If I were him, I'd see things from his perspective. Most likely. Let's not get angry and stupid here. He wants his site to "fit in with the other kids", and yet somehow be unique. Help it, don't hinder it! Right now, this seems very like internet bullying on a scale I've never seen. Quintin shouldn't have brought up this post, but then again, the response has been less than "okay".

So really, it comes down to perspective. If this site fails or not means nothing to me in the long run. But I'd rather see it succeed, since it seem to me that he's doing something honest and something he's passionate about. So far, no other place has given me this opportunity.

shawnphase

Mar 8, 2010, 08:13 PM

i was just making a similar analogy, i find it hard to believe that the sentiment of the analogy is lost with you or him or anybody. it certainly isnt internet bullying, its just driving home a point which is lost with the guy that he probably is not gonna ever get. put it this way, just about everything steve has said in this thread could be easily disproved with pm's he's left me over the last 6 or so months.

theres a lot of stuff he's said in this thread that simply doesnt add up with what he's said to me in private, and if i wanted to go through the thread dissecting his points one by one im sure i could do it and then you could say it's 'internet bullying'. this certainly isnt that. i just call it a spade and i dont find it much tougher then that. put it like this if it's lost on you since we're on the analogy tip now: if you worked for someone you had doubts about and you saw them saying one thing in public and consistently doing or saying a different thing in private, how long would you put up with it before you got fed up and said something about it? it's the same thing that he's trying to call other people out on. like the title of the thread says, 'its time to get real here'. this is kind of whats going on here and i could let steve's own words speak for themselves, or i could say them in my own. if i let his words say it, i think people would jump all over me for it when the truth of it is that hes talking out both sides of his mouth and absolutely not being honest. i'll give him a chance to reply, and depending on how he replies, i'll be able to most undoubtedly refute what he has to say, even with his own words, because he's got himself all mixed up like 311 at this point. i have the pm's to prove it. i dont want/need to bust a dick move, but you shouldnt trust nefarious people. the last thing the dude had to say to me was that i let ocr win. that alone speaks volumes about his character and what he's sayin. time to get real here.

he saw stuff wasnt going the way he was hoping to see it in his best case scenario, so he intentionally went out of his way to ostracize himself, and it wasnt an immediate thing. what does that tell you? i dont think i need to say much more here.

Kidd Cabbage

Mar 8, 2010, 08:45 PM

We're all adults here (at least mostly, or we try to be)

I'm not and I don't try to be and screw you too. ):<

Omnomnomnom

Mar 9, 2010, 07:43 PM

@KiddCabbage; Are you sure you're not supposed to be a comedian in life? :P

@Shawn; Sorry if I offended you in my last post at all, didn't mean to. Okay, you say your stuff very well... but I believe what I see and test to be true. Hearsay doesn't really get anyone anywhere. If you really want to prove what you're saying, then show us what you saw. Let us make our own mind up, like you did. Hell, you obviously seem serious about this, I doubt anyone will treat you badly for speaking what you believe is the truth. *scratches head* I don't even know when/how this got to this stage.

shawnphase

Mar 10, 2010, 05:43 AM

its all good man, i didnt take any offense at all. the only reason i am not posting the real damaging pm's in this thread is because of the site itself and for you guys, believe it or not i do want you guys to have some faith in this guy if you can after all is said and done. hell, i did for a long time. however, he pushed and he pushed with all the same stuff that had no bearing or importance.

i will post one pm exchange here that just goes to show you that steve's scope of control in his endeavor is something that if you guys who use the site want to see a change is going to have to conversely change as well, and without bringing this up like everybody feels compelled to do but without hitting the nail on the head and really proving the points is gonna be lost on the guy. after all, it is time to get real here.

so here is one solitary example. steve will probably continue to ignore me, but im sure he will read what i say which might get the point across to him, but ultimately whether he realizes it and decides that he wants to make these changes for the good of the site that its really up in the air for all of you guys.

Sent 21 October 2009 - 03:09 PM
Hey shawn,

I think we should shut down the IRC channel for remixSite. There aren't many people there anyway, we don't have time to monitor the channel, and we should get people using the forums before the IRC channel. It's only a drain on resources, it's diverting our attention from more important things, and has the potential to provide negative publicity if bad people show up there.

What do you think?

-Steve

Sent 21 October 2009 - 06:02 PM
i dont know what you mean by shutting down the irc channel. i am only person in there, and i am always in there, are you asking me to not idle in #remixsite anymore? what is there to shut down if nobody at all but me uses it. just leave it there, in case anybody at all ever comes into the irc. people who use efnet might see it and use espernet. its really non-issue to me honestly.

how do you shut down an irc channel with one person in it? how is it a drain on resources to simply idle in an irc channel and say hello to people who happen to come by? for the record, i never left the irc channel, i have ops and control of the channel as well. so do you see why maybe he wanted to shut it down? i think it could be because he didnt have control of it. it was out of his scope of what he felt was important, but at the same time, it was important enough to shut down, maybe because of the control aspect, maybe just poor judgement, any which way you could imagine it, this is just one example of why its time to get real here.

as long as the real issues here continue to be kept hidden or unspoken, i cant really say that there will be any growth. by all means steve, chime in if you feel like you have something you'd like to clarify. somehow i dont think theres really anything you can say about this. again, this is just one example, but its a good harmless example of how you get what you get out of steve sokolowski and how what you get, you've got to fight with him about. im certainly not trying to raise any issues that i wouldnt expect any other person to raise with me, but if he gets it and learns from his mistakes that would be the best case scenario in all of this and while im still holding out hope when i probably shouldnt be anymore, i'd like to think that my nearly 8 months worth of effort i gave the guy would be enough to warrant being able to voice my opinion.

Muuurgh

Mar 10, 2010, 03:47 PM

I'm not even going to pretend that I read this thread. But I will say this after scanning the last few responses and being mildly intrigued by the possible revealing what seemed to be dark, hidden secrets:

I see nothing wrong with what Steve did in asking you what you thought about cutting off the IRC channel. If I created a site and was putting my hard earned money and time into it, I would want to be a part of every facet of it. That means that I would want to be in the IRC channel, but since I'm focusing on developing the site, I'm going to not worry about the corn tonight and give my attention to making my steak well so that my guests will be happy (since we've been using analogies). Maybe he thought you as a resource could be better using any time you spent in IRC doing other things. Hell, I probably would have suggested ditching IRC for now myself.

But whatever. Why aren't we just moving on from this? Let the people who want to stay stay and be on your way. I'm sorry you wasted eight months on a project with someone who was, in your eyes, managing things so poorly and was controlling. What is revealing this stuff going to do? Sure, you'll let off some steam, but is it worth putting even MORE time reading this forum and posting these long criticisms when you could be doing something else? That's advice I would give anyone, so don't think I'm trying to make you upset. I wish you well, and wish that this thread would stop being bumped above stuff relating to the music some of us are trying to make.

shawnphase

Mar 10, 2010, 04:30 PM

its not really all that much skin off my back to type a message to something that needs to be said, especially when he went against my wishes to post this thread, molested my pm box (after i asked him not to), ran around with my prize like some voodoo shit straight outta district 9, prawns, battlemechs, 8 months, blah blah blah. i could and have gone on and on and there is no moving on in it. dude will not learn no matter what.

anyways, here's how this thread ends. since steve started this thread, and it went sour/ugly/whatever, here's the last pm he sent me (again, i asked him not to send me pm's and contact me directly or through email, i wanted to try and do things regarding the site professionally, but yeah. you get where im going with this):

Hey shawn,

After spending an hour today, I was able to come up with a plan for action on this site. Feel free to comment with what you think.

1. On Sunday, I'll determine how many songs were posted during the time period of the Haiti earthquake promotion, make the donation, and post the proof at the Shizz, as stated. <------NEVER HAPPENED!

2. After that, I'm not going to post here any more, because any posts about remixSite just keep getting such negative feedback that it's a waste of time. Posts about anything else that I make are usually ignored or receive one-line responses that are unintelligent or have little to do with the topic. <---DIDNT HAPPEN! THATS TWO

3. On Monday, I'm going to put out press releases to the 50 or so press release sites about the new compos feature. <---THE HAT TRICK! YOURE 0 FOR 3 STEVE!

4. I'll reply to anything that's posted on the remixSite boards, and will push the changes that are waiting in the development area out to the production server on Monday. <--HERE WE ARE, KNEE DEEP IN BULLSHIT, YOU'VE PUSHED TWO BUGGED OUT BAD BUGFIXES. THANKS FOR THAT.

5. At that point, I'll do nothing and wait. If traffic increases, songs are posted, compos are organized, or there is a more positive reaction at other forums, I'll resume development. Otherwise, if March 1 or March 15 rolls around and traffic continues to decline below the current levels of 20 visits a day (only 5 of whom stay on the site for more than 5 seconds), then I'll cancel the hosting contract. Then, I can look into a different genre or attempting to sell to a corporation that is trying to develop music software. <--HMM, DO NOTHING AND WAIT. SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN. AT LEAST THE COMPOS ARE HAP-OH WAIT! THATS THE COMMUNITY'S DOING! GOOD GAME HERE, STEVE HAS DONT HALF OF >ONE< OF THESE 5 **FIVE** POINTS THATS HAPPENED GOOD FOR THE SITE IN HIS FAVOR, AND IT WASNT EVEN SOMETHING HE HAD TO DO! well steve, it's march 10th. can you give us some concrete numbers? you certainly arent doing all that much with the site for the site's good, sending out buggy versions. not even a rollback or nothing during that time, when you actually have people on the site and using it? this PM was sent on JANURARY 22ND. its MARCH 10TH. the part about selling the site to a corporation? cmon, if that was the intent, you'd have to be stupid to not do it at ANY point, hell, sell the site as remixsite to a corporation? god forbid i put any ideas in anybodys brain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is hardly the ideal plan that I (and probably you) envisioned last year. I had planned to someday create a game remix site as long ago as September 2005. Sometimes, though, you have to cut your losses and move on to things that might be more successful.
Later,
-Steve

no, this certainly is not what i hoped for.

and just to show that this is a totally amicable, happy end here, he finally wrote me back, in pm, in an appropriate place! i guess he can finally get things right!

shawn, I don't want to hear anything more from you about how people perceive me or what's wrong with me or any of this other stuff. I've never complained about who I am and you're not a doctor and I didn't ask for your help.

Leave me alone. Stop contacting me in any way, and I'm not going to read anything you send me after this. I don't want to talk to you ever again, period.

well the feeling is perfectly mutual, its all good. i wont waste another keystroke of my time that i could be using programming a module or a ds-10 or doing mad libs. this is all this is anyways. but here is where this thread ends. all that needs to be said is right there. anybody who wants to support this guy, go ahead. he operates like a weird broken robot though. that it and thats all. anybody who sees me at a con or an expo or at any kind of show or festival, feel free to punch me in the balls and say thats for 'its time to get real here' on remixsite forums, that is totally a free one on me and i'll always honor it.

anybody who has somethin to say after this, i dont care if you're mod, human, cyborg, whatever. you'd be a fool to bump this thread again. i say this with total respect and dignity in the name of dod.