One Synth Challenge #108: Diodow by HrastProgrammer (Schiing Wins!)

[wagtunes]

My current votes are ridiculously top heavy. I keep trying to spread things out, but it's not working. I may just have to cut the cord and shift everything for my absolute favorites, or just leave it like it is. I dunno.

Man, I so often feel like I want to do that.
Sometimes I do.
But often I don't because I know that despite however many times I say that my votes are relative and there is no absolute meaning to a score from me, there are still enough people who seem to believe that anything below a 3 means that it is being judged as some kind of 'bad' that I don't do it! Even though to me it doesn't mean that, if I know that the person seeing their score is going to believe that, I often choose to not use the full range, or even 2-5. Sigh.

Which is why I don't do relative voting and why this contest absolutely needs more than a 5 point scale though it's obvious after all the times I begged for one that it's not going to happen.

Anyway, I posted my criteria for voting earlier in this thread. So if everybody submits a 4 track, that's what everybody gets. I let the other voters determine who the ultimate winner will be if they want to vote relatively.

And it works the other way too. If for some reason everybody got drunk one more and couldn't put together 2 notes that sounded decent, everybody would get a 1. I'm not going to try to pick the best of the worst just to pick a winner, especially if nobody deserved to win anything that month.

Fortunately, at least for me anyway, there's always those few who just blow me away and get 5s and there are those few who did absolutely nothing for me and get 2s. I've yet to find a month where everybody knocked it out of the ballpark. And as much as I love this synth, this month was no different. There were a few tracks that I wonder if the entrants either just phoned it in or struggled so mightily with the synth that they simply couldn't do any better. Either way, trust me, we had 5s this month and we had some real dogs. And after the voting if anybody wants to ask me why I voted as I did, I'll have no problem telling them. I mean for the love of God, one track sounded like it was 2 chords through the whole thing that just went on and on and on and on. How I got through listening to it was a miracle in itself. And believe me, I get that there are some people who are going to listen to my track and hear nothing but noise. I knew that going in and have no problem if somebody tells me that's why they gave me a 1. Trust me, it's expected.

Point is, if you let relative voting dominate your thought process, you're going to drive yourself crazy. If you love a track, give it a 5. If you like it a lot, give it a 4. If you like it a little, give it a 3. If you don't like it very much at all, give it a 2. And if you downright hate it, give it a 1.

That's how I do it and it makes voting for me a breeze.

YMMV.

[zarf]

@wags, wouldn't the world just be simple and perfect if everybody thought like you

Seriously man - maybe accept that there are other ways of looking at things that are:
a) Very different to yours, and
b) Not stupid because of that

...and in case you are about to take offense which is totally not intended...

I respect your right to vote as you wish
I respect your right to think as you wish
I am not attacking you or saying you are wrong about anything, at all

Can you see how your post was basically saying to me
"Yeah, you have these problems because you don't think like me, and I'm right"


Pleaase read this in the spirit of open, honest and respectful discussion with which it is written

[TheNeverScene]

I don't think Wagtunes was saying it that way at all. He just did a bulk quote and gave his experience

No harm, no foul at all.

[zarf]

I don't think Wagtunes was saying it that way at all. He just did a bulk quote and gave his experience

No harm, no foul at all.

Hey TNS, thanks very much for sharing your perspective.

Wagtunes - If I have misinterpreted you and ranted for no good reason - I'm sorry!

[Frostline]

Man, I so often feel like I want to do that.
Sometimes I do.
But often I don't because I know that despite however many times I say that my votes are relative and there is no absolute meaning to a score from me, there are still enough people who seem to believe that anything below a 3 means that it is being judged as some kind of 'bad' that I don't do it! Even though to me it doesn't mean that, if I know that the person seeing their score is going to believe that, I often choose to not use the full range, or even 2-5. Sigh.

Well, as a person who probably does "believe that anything below a 3 means that it is being judged as some kind of 'bad" I would like to explain why I feel that way.
It is because in 'most' 5 point or 5 star or 5 whatever systems it generally runs 1-awful 3-average 5 -awesome.
Look at Amazon ratings, or eBay or any number of places where the quality of a good or service is evaluated by the public consumer.
We become accustomed to being able to quickly evaluate another person's experience with a product or service to help inform our own choices based on these 1-5 rankings.
If presented with two similar items at similar cost with similar numbers of reviews, would you choose the item with a 2 star average rating or the 4 star average?
Would you assume based on rankings that the 2 star item is inferior(bad) relative to the 4 star item?
At least when I was young the schools used a similar system of 5 but they were called grades with F=1=awful C=3=average A=5=excellent. Sometimes there would be a curve if an assigned task was either too difficult for most or too easy, but generally a F or D was still considered 'bad' even on a curve.
So for the entirety of my life I have been presented with 1-5 scales where things below the 'average' were things to be avoided, things lacking in quality or things that are judged as 'bad'.

[TheNeverScene]

Rants are always for good reason! lol

I am caught dead center in both of your voting approaches. I have weeded out giving 1's, but I've also given 5's to tracks in the past that I felt like was a bloody car crash, but for some reason I kept coming back to (but that's extremely rare, and if I do it gets a comment that reflects that).

I'm not a fan of the spec sheet, so I really try to resist opening it up.

[zarf]

@Frostline - that's a really good point about how that way of doing it is pervasive and expected. Thanks for that. What you say does make sense to me, very much, and has helped me to understand that view.

It's the clash between the perspectives that I think is the issue here.

I think both ways actually make a lot of sense. I tend to experience that people who stand by the absolute way (Wags in this case and now Frostline) - they don't seem to express any understanding that looking at it the relative way, is also a way to do it that makes sense too.

Of course I am only talking about my experience. As you all know it's really hard to talk about anything contentious without it turning into a train wreck and people getting offended or whatever - and I really don't mean to be part of that. But I still think it's something that's OK to talk about!

I would be perfectly happy if there was some kind of official voting scheme, absolute or relative. I don't necessarily think it could be done or would work better, but I'm not against the idea. I like level playing fields and transparency and good information and things being explicit not assumed etc etc

Just saying that when there are loads of good tracks - in my own subjective estimation - I like to be able to rank them in order so that the ones I feel are better get higher scores than the ones that - while still good - are not as good as the others!

Surely that is reasonable, or have I lost my mind?

And wags - I agree with you that a wider range of scores might help and I have argued for that too. If we had 1-10, and the 'absoluters' agreed that 5 was OK - that would give 6-10 to make distinctions between 'good' tracks without anyone feeling they were being told their track was 'bad'.

If I'm part of the problem here - sorry gang

[TheNeverScene]

Part of the problem? Ha, whatever All scales should go to 11!

My original post was just reflective of the tracks this month. Diodow pushed everyone in all sorts of directions and it has probably been one of the better all around listening experiences. People pulling things out of left field from a synth that had many of us bashing our heads against our desks is something special.

[wagtunes]

I don't think Wagtunes was saying it that way at all. He just did a bulk quote and gave his experience

No harm, no foul at all.

Hey TNS, thanks very much for sharing your perspective.

Wagtunes - If I have misinterpreted you and ranted for no good reason - I'm sorry!

No offense taken. All I'm saying is, if everybody would just evaluate each song in a vacuum (forgetting about every other song) it would make their lives a lot easier IF they are having problems with relative voting. If they're not, then don't change. Do what works for you. All I know is this. When I start getting caught up in the whole "This track is better than this track" crap, I drive myself nuts and don't do it anymore, especially with a 5 point system where you simply don't have enough numbers to do the system justice.

Think I'm kidding?

I'll give you an example. And no, I'm not picking on any of the competitors here. I'm just using this as an example.

I liked your track better than I liked Doctor Bob's track. But I couldn't put his track down with the 3s because I liked them better than the 3s. So I gave you both 4s. Let somebody else break the ties between you two IF in fact you're both 4s and the relative voters decide to give one of you a 3. I'm not doing that. I don't think it's fair to the person who put a 4 effort into a song to be given a 3 just because HIS 4 isn't as good as somebody else's 4. You both fell short of a 5 (blow me out of my seat) so neither got a 5.

My conscience is clear and I've saved myself a headache.

Now, if BJ would institute the 10 point system that I recommended I don't know how long ago, you'd have gotten an 8 and Doctor Bob would have gotten a 7.5 and the voting would have been more accurate. I have already illustrated (somewhere in this forum) with examples how much more accurate a 10 point system is. But for whatever reason, we're sticking with what we have. So be it. But this is the kind of system that makes relative voting a headache for SOME people. it's for THOSE people that I'm trying to offer a solution. Nothing more, nothing less. This isn't a rant. I personally don't care how anybody votes. I'm just trying to make somebody's life a little easier by offering a suggestion. Use it, don't use it, don't make a darn bit of difference to me. I'm still going to vote the way I do because a 5 point system doesn't allow me any other way to do it without driving myself crazy.

I hope this is more clear. It was not intended as a rant in any way.

[TheNeverScene]

7.5 that made me laugh

When I said "ridiculously top heavy", it's almost nonfunctional at the moment, so I need to dig deeper and be a little pickier. I don't know if I'm being subjective, relative, emotional or what. I feel like an unconventional synth needs unconventional everything else.

[zarf]

@Wags
That makes more sense to me now you've explained more. Apologies again for jumping down your throat the first time. I'm having a bad weekend and clearly oversensitive

phew, I didn't push the nuclear button by accident

I would love a 1-10 system too, for all these reasons. 7.5 is just hilarious

[Guenon]

[zarf]

Guenon

[Frostline]

I think both ways actually make a lot of sense. I tend to experience that people who stand by the absolute way (Wags in this case and now Frostline) - they don't seem to express any understanding that looking at it the relative way, is also a way to do it that makes sense too.

I absolutely refuse to be labeled an absolutist.

To be clear on the point though I do understand looking at things in a relative way, and can see the merit in doing so.
However the issue is it is human nature when presented with a multitude of relative scales (in this case 20+ people with different and unique voting criteria) that one might need to map them to the generally accepted standard scales of the group/society one is in in order to process the information unless a deeper examination of their criteria or 'scale' can be used.
I find the data sheet invaluable to this. For with that I can somewhat see into the 'relative' scale the person has used in determining their score for my work compared to the score they gave others and then map that against the scores I gave those other tracks.
Feedback is also very beneficial when being judged on a 'relative' scale so one gain some insight to the criteria used.
But without either of those things, one would lack anything to map the voters scale to other than the usual 'societal norms',an absolute scale or to the personal scale one employees themselves. IE if I give a score of 2 it means X so without any other information to know the 'relative scale' the voter used I can only use my personal criteria(or what I think the societal general criteria is) so their score of 2 for my work also means X.
And while you might not intend a score of 2 to equate to X such as my personal scale does, without implicit knowledge of what your 'relative' scale is based on how is one to know?

Just saying that when there are loads of good tracks - in my own subjective estimation - I like to be able to rank them in order so that the ones I feel are better get higher scores than the ones that - while still good - are not as good as the others!

"Loads of good tracks", does not equate to 'all are good tracks' I assume? Or does a track merely existing qualify as 'good'? Or if a track is not 'good' it must be terrible?
Where would a track fall that is neither completely terrible(a 1 score) nor quite the standard of good(which could start at 2 on a 'relative' scale)?
So while I may now know that a score of 2 from Zarf may mean my track was still 'good' to their standard, what about the other 19+ 'relative' standards?

I completely empathize with the desire to better distinguish degrees of 'good' in the voting. A scale I would like would be something like 1,2,3-,3,3+,4-,4,4+,5-,5,5+. And I actually structure my votes like that on the voting page.
But an eleven slot top weighted scale like that would probably not work for many.

I sincerely hope you do not view this as an attack on your position or on you personally. I too find this interesting to discuss and am in no way trying to imply your 'relative' scale is 'wrong' or improper or anything of the sort.

[Tj Shredder]

gif

That gif is missing its sound from Diodow - don't hide it...

voted by the way...