[Sonicelf-devel] Rating songs...

[Chris G. <ch...@il...>]

Okay, so here's the ideas I've got so far:

- Index all the MP3's on the site by inserting a 32-bit unique-ID into =
the ID3 tag of every file that's added to the database
- Give users the ability to raise or lower an album's rating from -8 to =
+8 points (one point at a time).
- Same ability for songs inside the album. The reason I wanted to do =
this was so that people could suggest good albums, but also show which =
songs on the album are best. So when you view an album, instead of being =
sorted in the order of the tracks, it would be in the order of coolest =
songs. :)

Weightings:
-----------------
Rank/Ranking is the order in the list of "Best albums".
Rating is the number from -8 to +8 that each user assigns to an album or =
MP3.

The basic idea is that all albums start with a rating of 0. As users go =
about rating and listening to songs, their Rank can increase or =
decrease. An album with too negative a rank should be invisible to =
users. If it's invisible to everyone, we should probably nuke it. :)

The idea is to relate the tastes of users, so that they can =
automatically view "top singles", "best albums", "best tracks in an =
album", etc.

Anything that makes two users' tastes similar will add to ranking. =
Anything that users' tastes opposing will decrease the ranking. If two =
users hate everything the other one hates, then obviously they won't =
want to see any of the other's albums. :)

[ Examples: ]

To make the following examples simpler, User A is the person viewing a =
list of albums on the site (sorted by ranking), and User B is any person =
on the site who can influence the rankings.

- Since User B listens to 80% of the same songs User A does, slightly =
increase the weightings of all the songs User B listens to (amount of =
incrase varies based on the percentage similarity).

- Since User A's album ratings are 80% the same as User B's, increase =
the weight of all albums rated by User B and slightly increase the =
ranking of all albums listened to by User B. (and vice-versa)

- Since User A rated 80% of albums uploaded by User B highly, increase =
the ranking of all albums uploaded by User B.

- Since User A rated 80% of albums uploaded by User B very low, decrease =
the ranking of all albums uploaded by User B.

- If there are many opposing ratings between two users, ratings will =
have very little weight between them.

Also, I think the weight of each different statistic (i.e. albums a user =
listens to, albums a user has rated, ratings by a user on your albums) =
on an album's rank should be a user-defineable setting. The default =
might be: 20% albums users have listened to, 60% albums they rated, 20% =
what they think of songs you uploaded.

If you didn't like that, It could be changed to: 100% user ratings, and =
0% what people listen to and 0% what they think of your albums. :)

This system is a little complicated right now, so I'd like to trim it =
back to things that can be implemented easily. I do think we shoud =
collect as many statistics as possible about a user though, so we can =
add new things later, or tweak current things.

=3D Chris Gahan =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
  (ch...@il...)