The NinSheetMusic Redesign Suggestion Thread: Site features

[Jamaha]

I guess most of you are aware of the infamous NSM website upgrade which I've (supposedly) been working on for a few years now. But in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me clarify:

The NSM website itself is seriously outdated and needs some kind of upgrade, both in the server side of things (e.g. database improvements) and just features in general. As I'm the guy responsible for doing that in addition to being unable to finish any kind of large projects, the said updates haven't really been coming along. Once I'm done with studies this semester, I should be able to give this yet another try.

However, before I rush headfirst into the coding aspects of this, I should really plan the whole thing. In addition, I'd like to hear your opinions (as crowdsourcing seems to be the popular thing nowadays) on what kind of features you'd like to see on the site. I'll be creating a couple of topics for different areas of planning. What I'd like you to do is to post some new ideas and also discuss ideas which have already been posted.

This topic is for the actual features and functionality of the site, meaning ideas about the actual functionality of the site. I'll post some ideas below to get things started.

• The big one: Improved upload system. Removing the need for the submission topics where people have to post their arrangements. Instead they can use an upload form to add their arrangements to the queue, where uploaders can easily approve or reject them.
• Same for requests. The ability for arrangers to fulfill a request by submitting an arrangement. Maybe even an option for "being worked on" to let the user who made the request / other arrangers know that the request is being fulfilled.
• Sheet archive improvements. This is also something I'd like to see improved. At least something like browsing by series/console/arranger. Also search function, obviously. The ability to rate sheets would also be a possibility.
• To power all the previous features: Forum integration. Allowing you to use your forum account on the main site as well, to access these features.
• One feature I've been thinking about is the ability to link your YouTube videos of you playing to the arrangements. This would give people viewing the sheet another way to listen to it while also letting people promote their YouTube videos here.

I guess those are the main features I've been thinking of so far. Many of them also need to be refined further, for example the sheet archive structure is an important one.

But with that, let's get planning!

[Yugi]

A user based average difficulty level.

So practically, next to each arrangment, are five stars, one being that the song is really easy as an arrangment, and 5 being rather hard, or a virtuoso level.

When a user votes for how hard it is to play an arrangment, they click on one of the five stars and the currant score is re-averaged to compensate for that score. Say 2 people have voted on an arrangment, one 2, one 3. They average the star rating, and the average (3) is there for everyone to see.

Sound good?

[Dude]

It's a nice idea, but maybe we should make it so guests can't rate them though, or something like "You need 50 posts in our forum to rate songs."

We don't want a bunch of people just waltzing in and messing up our rating system, right?

[Jamaha]

That would be the plan, hence the forum integration. Registration should be enough to prevent people from trolling while still not being too annoying for legitimate users.

[Dude]

Oooh, how about a system to see what users rated which songs?

[SlowPokemon]

A set rating should be decided by the forums before posting the arrangement.

[Dude]

I kinda like Yugi's version better.

surprisingly.

[SlowPokemon]

Frankly, I think that idea sucks. You're going to have people who have been playing for ten years rate it easy and noobs rating it super hard. We as a community should decide the difficult level.

[Dude]

ok then how about a proficiency level option where users can rate themselves as piano players and make some complicated algorithm or something? will that make you happy?

[FSM-Reapr]

What if we vote for the ratings and the option that got the most votes is the official rating?

[SlowPokemon]

ok then how about a proficiency level option where users can rate themselves as piano players and make some complicated algorithm or something? will that make you happy?

No need to be a dick. I'm just saying that a rating system like the one Yugi brought up seems to be flawed. Moderators who know a lot about music, such as Olimar, could discuss with the arranger and get some opinions from the community on the difficulty.

That is, if this is something we definitely want to implement.

[Bubbles]

What if we vote for the ratings and the option that got the most votes is the official rating?

This would probably work the best. There are some people who are amazing piano players, and some who are just beginners, but for the majority they should view the sheet the same difficulty. Or we could have a key somewhere, saying that 1 star = one hand/simple rhythm, 5 stars = fast/jumping chords/etc

[Jub3r7]

No need to be a dick. I'm just saying that a rating system like the one Yugi brought up seems to be flawed. Moderators who know a lot about music, such as Olimar, could discuss with the arranger and get some opinions from the community on the difficulty.

That is, if this is something we definitely want to implement.

The problem with discussing each and every sheet is the fact that we have 2184 to go through, though.

[Dude]

The problem with discussing each and every sheet is the fact that we have 2184 to go through, though.

And eventually, progress on that will slowly die away with time... As we've all seen before.

Yugi's way involves a lot less work on the administrative part and gives more freedom to users, which I like.

[SlowPokemon]

I will agree with that. Administration here is pretty unambitious and it'll be done better if put in the hands of users.