Quote:
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.