Be Excellent To Each Other

Oh bloody hell. Now corrected, Mr Flaw Pointer Outer, but thanks for not pointing out I'd originally typed "the 30st of September". I was trying to see how many stupidly obvious mistakes I could cram into one sentence.

Each group has it's own 'league', meaning there are seven songs to vote on in each group, in each week. Points will be allocated to who gets the most votes, indeed in a Eurovision stylee, with the top two at the end of the ten-week season going through to the knockout stage. Anyone can of course vote in as many groups as they like, even if they're not taking part themselves. It should all become a lot clearer once the voting kicks off. Basically, it's all a bit like a World Cup qualifying stage, only there's a slightly lower chance of ending up bitterly disappointed if you're Welsh.

I was originally planning to make it a straight knockout from the off, but it'd prove to be really annoying if you went to the trouble of thinking up loads of great songs and then went out in the first round.

and are we doing mp3s or youtubes?

Malc

Either is fine. I prefer YouTubes personally, but any way you want to go is equally peachy. Mr Chris mentioned Imeem, which is a good way to go, as it doesn't need people to download a whole song first.

I could cram a quick Flash MP3 player that we could all upload to together if you wanted to keep the names of the songs secret so people aren't prejudiced against songs because of who they're by, or anything.

Yep, that's the one I've got for you on my Big Song Wars Excel Speadsheet (Of War). So far, thirteen people have chosen songs (including me).



An inline MP3 player would be perfect. I use this Greasemonkey script to browse the content of music blogs and I know how useful they are. I'm still in favour of including track information with the songs, though. If someone really likes a song, it allows them to track it down a lot more easily, it should keep things uncomplicated when it comes to the voting - if someone listens to seven songs in a row, with no name or artist to attribute to each one, they'd likely need to listen to them again to remind themselves which ones it was they liked. That would be a bit of a hindrance when multiplied by the four groups, especially when everyone would have to check back a week later to find out the identities of the songs. But anyway, yes, an inline MP3 player would be aceness.

PM to remind me and I'll get it done.

Okay, i have immemmeemmed a song, but the embed code they provide doesn't work as it is HTML. How do i embed it here? and if I do it in a PM will Mark X be able to then embdedded into the target thread?

Oh and Mark X, good work on this!

"There's always some PM to remind me..."

Oh god now I can't get that as a lyric out of my brain.

Thanks, Duds

While I don't know if you can embed imeem tracks (it might need to extra magical trickery from Grim...), I do know that if it can be PM'ed to me I can embed it into the target thread. It's just a matter of clicking 'quote' in the PM post, and copying the quoted code. Oh, and cheers.

Speaking of Grim..., I've rejigged the draw ever so slightly. As it's not really fair on him to end up in an eight team group just because I'm an incompetent buffoon who forgot to include him in the draw, it's entirely fair for me to end up in an eight team group. As punishment for being the incompetent buffoon who messed up the draw a bit. So, Grim... will be picking up his ellipses and taking them to Group C, meaning the revised draw is now as follows:

GROUP A
-
Pundabaya
Runcle
Nik
Plissken
Nirejhenge
Mimi
Bobbyaro
Mark X

GROUP B
-
Scarysheep3000
Zardoz
Craster
Mr Russ
Mr Chris
imtypingonakeyboard
nervouspete

GROUP C
-
The Rev Owen
Kern
Zen-Chan
Grim...
Spinglo Sponglo!
Craig
Rodafowa

GROUP D
-
Shin
Sheepeh
myoptika
TsuMuch
Bluecup
WullieOoster
tossrStu

"But Mark," you're probably saying whilst standing up and waving your hand in the air. "That's not very fair on the other members of group A, what with your impeccably marvellous taste in music and all. Why, I bet you've just ordered two compilations of 1970s German Loungecore from Amazon in the past few hours. Oh man, I can't wait to hear me up some Theo Schumann Combo, and I'm sure everyone else feels the same!"

Well, life's not fair sometimes.

(I am so finishing bottom of Group A.)

so wait do I send you a mp3 by pm for my entry?

An MP3 will be fine - if Grim... is able to get an inline MP3 player going by Wednesday we can go with that, if not I can always bung it onto my YouTube account until the in-forum MP3 thing is working.

do i have to get the file from my lipod insead of youtobue now markx>?>

cant type on this stupod flat kayboard!

it's liek presisng a bit of paper in different places.

Lipod, an mp3 player sown into your face.

You can rest easy Mimi, you've already sent me a YouTube link to your chosen song, which will be fine. The tracks can be either YouTubes or MP3s, or even a jpeg of the sheet music, as long as it can be added to a thread in the forum. Of course, the easier it is to listen to your song (i.e. it can be embedded in the forum, so you don't even have to go off-site), the more likely people will listen to it, and vote accordingly.

[edit]Well, that's not working right.

Hmm...

Mark, it might be an idea to update the subtitle every now and again (or ask a mod to put updates in the news ticker), as I didn't even know the draw had been made.

Good idea, I didn't realise you could amend the thread sub-title. My bad, and my apologies.

The list of groups is also now added to the first post.

Okay, finished the online player, with handy Beex upload site.

You are truly a geek legend.

You wait for the Thursday game next week.

Aren't you about eight weeks late with that?

Yes.

Might as well have it today then. We need to backfill those two months.

I haven't written it yet.

Brilliant. Excellent work, Grim.... Is that your choice of track? I've not heard back from you yet.

Here's a heads up - I've yet to receive track choices from the following people:

Runcle
Mr Chris
Mr Russ
nervouspete
Zardoz
Grim... (unless the one if quoted above is it)
The Rev Owen
myoptika
Sheepeh
WullieOoster

I am really very impressed.

That is all

Er, no, sorry. I'll get it to you in the morning.

I am trying to upload a song to the playa, but it just is telling me to be patient. For aaaaaaages. I think I am doing it wrong, but I tried in IE and Opera, so maybe I am just not patient enough.

If you're stuck, and can plonk the song somewhere else online, I'll download it and re-upload it for you. The track I tested the playa with worked well enough for me.

It has a size limit of 12meg. You're not breaking that now, are you?

But it should still change pages and then not do anything. I'll make a quick change, as I suspect differences between IE and Firefox may be to blame.

There you go.

Sorry Mark X. I'll send mine tonight, promise.

Ooops - I shall do this tonight, Mark.

I'll do it tonight, Mark.

Ooh, that's lovely. Worked straight away this time! Cheers!

Okay, we're almost set to kick off with this - are any of the mods able to create a Song Wars subforum, or will I need to contact anyone specifically?

Plus, I'm still waiting for tunes from -

Mr Chris
nervouspete
Zardoz
and Sheepeh

- but I can add placeholder votes for their choices, and add them later. Well, hopefully, anyway.

if there added after everyone else has already been entered for voting would that not make it a bit more obvious who has posted them?

Maybe so, but that's the thing with submitting after the voting has already started - there's no real advantage to latecomers, as some of the voting will have been done by the time their tracks become an option. It's the better of the two options, if you will. Either say "no, you've missed the deadline. Now, go and sit in the corner for a week", or "tsk, come on then. You can still join the round, but there is an increased chance everyone now knows you're a closet fan of Bon Jovi*", and the second is more in keeping with forum policy of being excellent to each other.

(* Although everyone's choices are revealed at the end of voting, so that wouldn't mean too much.)

Oh, eh?

I'm meant to be doing something?

Erm...

*rummages around in his CD holder*

Give me a minute and I'll upload something.

I didn't realise I was taking part in this

Gah, sorry. Last night was a baby-related write-off so didn't get a chance to do this. Does it have to be an uploaded mp3 or can I send in a mootube or imeem link?

A youtube link is fine. Don't think there was any consensus on imeem. Because of Grim...'s excellent forum mp3 player (upload here http://www.fullonrobotchubby.co.uk/playa2) having embedded music in the post's is the way forward I'm guessing.

So sorry!

I'll get a youtube link for you now Mark X.

*Scoots*

SONG WAR SUBFORUM NOW LIVE! GO LISTEN AND VOTE!