@Release: So nice hearing from you again... Nothing offensive to your words dear Release, in fact what you suggested is very interesting. What about the chatroom? I think we are forgetting the role we can play to a new RR. There can be nights of roleplay there. Drinking contests, mystery games etc that would grant XP or icons and banners.

Yes, the chatroom needs more space and visibility! And we can build on that to make online roleplaying possible as well. I think there's a built in dice-roller in there at the moment too We definitely need more things to do when we're online. More fun things to do will make more people to log in more frequently and then we'll grow. We're struggling a little at the moment

I like some of the requests I've seen and I suppose the magnitude of change depends upon the ultimate goal of the site: If it is the wish to have users log in more frequently and participate more, would it be worth it to rebrand the site? I'll pretend that I haven't been a part of this site for awhile...let's say I'm a new user and I see "Radio" in the title. My first impression is "Wow, that's great, some fantasy music to listen to while I work!" Or, "I can get some great music ideas for my role-playing sessions!" But how many might not see the further potential? Sure, there are those who will use the forums for promoting their new music, for sharing fantasy stories, for participating in the occasional group role play, etc., but those practices have diminished over time. What will it take to change that? With music being its primary service, I fear what could happen again if that service crashes. Sure, loyal users like myself will wait it out because this service is so unique, but I wonder how many others feel the same way. In addition to its music service, perhaps the site can also add RP tools, fantasy novel reviews (not just in the forums), casual games, achievement badges, etc. The music service could still be a major offering, but the site would have plenty of other service offerings to avoid "putting all your eggs in one basket" and would keep the community engaged. It could also wait out the storm of any service failures because there are other offerings to take their place for awhile. But I also know the addition of these services takes money (which implies more ads or donations, more staff, more payroll or volunteering, etc.), tons of time and effort, and there is plenty of good competition out there in the RP market. So if the site must keep its current format and work on a limited budget of time/money and remain a grassroots effort, then I think the following could definitely be a start:

* Badges and possibly unique avatars, art, store discounts, interview opportunities (see below) for achieving XP levels.

* Badges for frequency/magnitude of participation in the various mediums (forums, chat, guilds, etc.). These badges also earn you XP.

* Badges for contributing creative content (unique ones for music, art, stories, custom widgets, RP content, etc.). Earns XP.

* Badges for winning/placing in contests. Earns XP.

* Interviews and articles not only on composers and famous folk, but also on some of the more esteemed users, donors, founders, etc. Where are they from? What are some of their thoughts on fantasy music and how it has evolved or can evolve, or should it remain more "traditional"? What are their other hobbies and passions? Where would they like to see the site go?

* Ramp up the guilds and perhaps even add various projects for the guilds to accomplish to improve the site. Essentially, you earn your keep in the guilds (just like a real guild): They aren't there just to say "I'm a member!" It's a way to volunteer and contribute your skills. XP and other perks earned here, especially access to unique content.

I'm sure I could go on and on (and some of these things have been covered by others) but, of course, things have to be realistic. It's easy to throw out ideas when I'm not the administrator of the site, but I thought I'd give my opinions.

Excellent ideas Truthseer! Yes, I/we have ambitions to grow outside of the radio quite a lot. We'll just have to take a step at a time. I love the idea of the badgets and that's something I've been planning for for some time already. The guilds definitely need a purpose and your ideas are great, they need participation. Otherwise there's no need to be in the guild Now that Spotify has grown to a big player in the music streaming field I think it's safe to work with that service. I have ideas and plans for playlists with RP-related playlists, even possibility to vote for our community's best RP-playlists, etc. This will also help out if our main radio service goes down a little at occasions. There are almost no limits on what we could do! Keep your ideas going Truthseer, we need all of them!

I like your analytical approach to problem solving, Truthseer.

We should define what we want this website to achieve. Is it concentration on the music: the number, quality, perhaps choice with playlists or various channels to fit some RP sessions better. Or maybe creating a music and/or RP loving community. Maybe there already are such communities that it would be better to try to merge with.

Anyway, the problem Truthseer spotted is people coming for music and not contributing or even not recognizing the ability of the website to do so. (1) Some people probably listen to the radio through a playlist file and have no idea what's going on on the website. (2) Others open a webplayer and don't care to read news or check out forums. (3) Some people come to forums, but face a limited feedback and go away eventually.

To bring people together, you would need to:

1) Make audio announcements on the radio stream. This will be annoying, therefore it's a viable option only if there are multiply channels, where the main channel is the one with announcements. Once people hear the announcements and decide to switch a channel to their favorite type of music, the majority of them by moving away from the main channel will again not listen to the announcement - therefore you only have a one shot with this and that's why the following point should take precedense:

2) Create an algorithm which supplies you a music you like, based on how you rate tracks. The algorithm would play the tracks based on tags, genre, mood of the music, it's author and the number of your friends who like it. It would basically mean, that you precise the tags you want to ban (for example maybe someone is distracted by articulate singing and would rather listen to a voiceless music or film-music-styled choirs), and maybe some he wants to boost for a higher chance to be played. Also, while he would rate tracks, he would automatically increase the chance to play these tracks in future, as well as increase the chance to play other tracks of the same author and tracks which were liked by the same people who liked this track. Liking a track would also mean it'll have more chance to be played for your friends.

This of course is not possible with the streaming server and would need to be implemented by webplayer's ability to play any track on demand. I mean here a technical ability - some song authors don't want people to be able to listen to their music for free, but are willing to give the license to radios, as that's a kind of advertisement - if you liked the track and want to hear it again, you have to buy it. Therefore if there would be an ability to pick a single track, different for every user, but it would be hidden on the server side on e.g. PHP backend (web server), then a semi-passive hybrid could be made, something between custom playlist building and a typical radio, where, as explained above, you could ban not liked songs, bands, themes etc. and only increase chance to hear favorite music, and music similar to it.

3) Once point 2) is done, the community should eventually emerge, but having a clear vision of what is the purpose of the community, other than listening to music, if any, will help to catalyze it.

Sorry for a little bit chaotic post.

Updated 27 June 2016 (13:41)

Thank you for your feedback, Lord Elrond and Etherlord! I wholeheartedly agree with Etherlord in that, if RR concentrates on the music, then tools must be built around tailoring the music to the user. I'm a computer-science major and would consider myself an intermediate-level programmer with some definite appreciation for algorithm writing and the challenges inherent with it. But I think tying such algorithms to the way you rate tracks is brilliant. It gives usefulness to track tags beyond manual searches. You can also extend tag usage to forum groups, RP sessions, or any other tools utilized by the site. Thus, I could get notifications on groups and users who have similar tastes in music (based upon both tag usage and track ratings), and thus spur me to reach out to those entities and get the chat and forum rolling. Track ratings add some fuzzy math to the algorithms, while you also have the ability to binary a tag with "always allow" or "completely ban." My philosophy in any design endeavor would be to "synergize" as many service offerings as possible (while being realistic) to get the most use out of them. If someone likes a track, allow him or her to forward that track to others (via messages or chat) from the web player; click on a tag to perform an immediate search of other tracks, artists, forums, groups, guilds, polls, etc., with that tag; show a "suggested" rating on tracks (much like Netflix does with their movies and shows), etc. Essentially, expose other services with the interface that most users will be employing. Perhaps even an integrated tutorial or tutorial video could be made. When I complete my formal education I hope to actually assist with the development of such tools!

I think "always allow" doesn't make sense, because what would it do? It's not like the algorithm takes a track and decides if it should play it or throw it away and in this case the "always allow" tag would block the algorithm from throwing it away. "Favorite" tag makes more sense.

I was thinking of a simple algorithm, where, for example, once a track finished playing, the PHP script would randomize a number between 0 and 5.

0: Play a favorite track - randomize a number again to choose one of the tracks.

1: Choose one of favorite tags, then again randomize a number to choose a tag, and then again randomize a number to choose one of the songs with this tag.

2: Randomize a number to choose a random friend, and then again randomize a number between 0 and 5 to pick on of these options.

3, 4, 5:... Well, I won't be describing it precisely right now, you get the idea.

Ad 2 - notice how this way you could actually get a song that is a favorite of your friend's friend! Or a friend's friend's friend... That's possibly infinite recurrence actually, but in given example the chance for every next level of recurrence gets 5 times smaller. A special feature could be to even display how the algorithm got to choose a song that is being played right now.

It would be easy to code it, for example you could create a table favorites with columns: user_id, song_id, fetch a number of rows for a given user_id, randomize a number with this range and pick the song_id, done. Efficiently stored, Efficiently read (well, multiple reads, but happening rarely - every one or two minutes or so).

It would also be easy to expand, for example to replace simple options presented above with weighted options, because if you have only few favorites, it should have much lower chance of being randomized than other options.

The important point is, that you can't choose a song to play - that could possibly violate some artists' licenses who agreed to play their tracks in a radio. However, by favoriting and rating songs and artists and albums, and even friends (e.g. you rate how compatible your friend's music taste is with yours) you can indirectly decide (by increasing chance) to play some tracks.

I think this is a very neat idea with huge potential ($$$ millions $$$), unless it's already implemented somewhere, which wouldn't surprise me much. Technically, I'd say it's only a small challenge.

Updated 29 June 2016 (22:08)

Yes, "Favorite" is better wording, though I was thinking of "always allow" from this standpoint: Let's say you really enjoy #ambient music, and you've rated X number of songs. But let's say you've rated most of the #ambient songs you've heard with a rather low score...not because you dislike #ambient music, but because the songs you happened to listen to weren't to your liking (perhaps you're very picky). If you happened to rate them low, then a certain algorithm may lessen your chances of getting #ambient songs, and thus they come up infrequently. The "always allow" toggle would stop penalizing the #ambient tag, but may still affect other tags (if the song has multiple tags). But, yes, you would have to resolve situations where one tag is banned and another is always allowed. So "Favorite" is better and a ban would always win. Certainly, tracks would have to be indirectly chosen. I would also propose that there be a certain threshold for weights (e.g., never greater than say, 25% for picking a singular method such as favorite track, tag, or choose-a-friend to determine a song). As you said, a variably weighted option could help prevent users from rigging the system by strategically banning tags, by selecting certain favorite tags (some tags may be used much more frequently than others), by purposefully not adding friends or adding only friends with certain tags/tracks, or by selecting a very limited number of favorite tracks. And if the user is completely deficient in one of those areas and that method comes up, then they simply get a random track. I also think the user should always be able to opt out of the algorithm and simply go random...a simple 'random' button should do. Indeed, this is already a unique service and layering with other unique and valuable provisions only makes it more attractive and marketable.

Updated 29 June 2016 (23:01)

I was thinking of weighting chances for options on server side, but giving a user an option in form of some sliders to decide what to prioritize would be pretty neat. In regards to the ban/favorite conflict you describe: let's say the server first randomizes a mode and picks a 'song search by tag' mode. Then it randomizes a tag among all the tags you rated or favorited (where higher rated tags have more weight in randomization). Once a tag is chosen, the server will randomly get a song with this tag and then check if it's not banned. I think even at this point randomization could be 'weighed', because there could be something... (this is going into a dark territory of no longer having a simple algorithm, but is it really so complex?) ... there could be something like 'tag relevance', where users could vote to add or remove a tag and based on that one song would be considered 10% techno and 40% dark, another 90% film music and 20% dark etc., so once a 'dark' tag is picked, then more dark songs are more likely to be picked.

I think this is a fruitful brainstorm for some potentially great features (server side and possible limited user interface)! I'm curious to others' input.

A Webcomic Idea? Truthseer, I have read some of your posts in the forum and I whole wholeheartedly agree with your statements. I am (if) a member of the illustrators guild and been honest have had pretty much nothing to contribute for a very long time (no challenge for the members to do anything). So yeah in short I agree with what you said. I would like to add that it "may" be an idea to talk to people like Rob Balder from Erfworld, And Giant in the Playground RP comics that i would recomend reading to anyone whom enjoys Roleplay and stats etc, so therefore I suggest somehow to tie in hyperlinking to these sites, like add a tab to page of "Recommended Comics related to fantasy such as this site employs" Regards Dylan/Tadayoshi.

Hey, Etherlord, I'm working on placing these ideas into an outline and possibly even a bit of pseudocode. Once I have something together I'll PM you a link to it. I'll likely have it together this weekend, as I have some appointments to take care of this week.

Hi, Tadayoshi, I'm familiar with Giant in the Playground, though I admit I haven't kept up with the Order of the Stick comic in several years (probably around the time D&D fourth edition came out and I got a bit jaded with D&D/WotC and their discontinuing the Open Gaming License for further editions...so Pathfinder pwning them and practically single-handedly causing D&D Next was pretty funny to me). Still, obviously that was completely beyond GitP's control and the comic was quite amusing to me. Erfworld was a bit out there for my tastes, but people who enjoy fantasy in its broadest terms just might enjoy it. Perhaps some collaboration could be made with existing authors and the promotion of their comics. I would offer that practically any fantasy-related medium would be a candidate for collaboration and/or ideas. As for the potential of an in-house webcomic, I and others would appreciate and recognize the creativity and incredible endurance behind such an endeavor. But I also recognize it's a difficult thing to get "right" and the burnout factor can be very real (I remember Rich Burlew having to take frequent breaks). For something like that to be very successful, there has to be someone who considers it a labor of love and who is a wellspring of ideas. Still, perhaps that would be a great use for the Illustrator's Guild! After all, I imagine the guilds were created to utilize fan creativity to keep things improving and evolving. Each fan could contribute his/her own work or even collaborate, and the site users could determine for themselves which works they'd like to see more. You'd have a continuous "testing" ground to perfect your craft. It would also be a pretty nice feather in RR's cap to find some nice talent (even if they get recognition outside the site, as well) and generate some great works.

Greetings again. Truthseer I funny enough have had nothing to do with DND itself or anything related, though it has had a massive impact on tabletop fantasy games and wont deny that Order of the Stick is largely based on such things. What i was thinking more of is to have a "Spotlight" page or "List of" page of webcomics that relate to the theme of this Site. Or pretty much what you said Also it might be best if I remove myself from the Illustrators Guild as I have not contributed much if not nothing. And would like for someone to take it on. Though I would not mind giving some of my time to drawing things for what you suggested. Yeah it is very very easy to burn out doing such things like our own comic etc. So it may be best to wait if anyone was to take on such a mountainous task to wait till the revamp is down of the site if I read correctly. I'll keep an eye out if anyone here starts such an endeavour Kind Regards Tadayoshi. ps my sentence structure is a bit poor at times sorry

Oh in regards to the Chat Room, would it be a good idea to have it like a side bar on the right hand side on the main page? that could be minimized or like chatango maybe? Crazy i know haha.

Great idea with the chat room! That should be possible, and we need some more action there

I like your idea, Tadayoshi, the chat room is very tucked away and it would be nice to see it from the main page. Sometimes the room posts have already been flushed before I remember to get back and check it. Etherlord, I sent you a message concerning ideas for the play algorithm.

Thanks for responding to the idea. I have thought of another idea is another tab for a Page of Audiobooks to free listern if the permission is given and able to buy if not. So we could listern to such things as LOTR, Hobbit etc. Cause sometimes I myself would like an alternative to music and would like to listern to a book instead whilst i do housework and all that fun stuff and perhaps link some of them in via Youtube and all that jazz. Just another crazy idea I assure you P.S I am sure you already know that some werido has posted some chinese stuff over the place. Anyway have fun and keep safe, Tadayoshi

To speed things up, are we all accepting a temporary step back in functionality to get the new site up and running? In order to get a version 1.0 and get this slow wagon moving, I think it would be better get something smaller rather than getting it all at once (which probably won't happen too quickly). What do you think? Radio, rating music, XP and forums will be intact of course.

Posted by ElrondTo speed things up, are we all accepting a temporary step back in functionality to get the new site up and running? In order to get a version 1.0 and get this slow wagon moving, I think it would be better get something smaller rather than getting it all at once (which probably won't happen too quickly).What do you think? Radio, rating music, XP and forums will be intact of course.

It's all good as long as it stays on the air. Those long periods of radio silence made me sad.