Closed thread.

Why close my thread... It's an interesting debate! One worth starting. Delving into human habits with the results well worth realising. I even noticed myself doing it.

I mean why would we? Why would we click on a thread that we know is purely to listen to a track and not actually listen to it? What do we expect to find in that thread? A thread might get 100 views and only 1 extra listen on the track.

Not replying is expected, that's not the issue. It just makes no sense to click on a 'listen to a track' thread with no intention of listening. You've already clicked on it!!! Especially if there's no replies and the genre is clear. If there's other replies you might just be checking them out.
 
I will let this run awhile, provided it doesn't get out-of-hand.

Here's the deal though; it is a little kvetchy and whiny. People click on forums, links, and topics, or don't, for any number of reasons. Someone may have done it by accident, thought they were getting one thing and got another, changed their mind "mid click," or been called to the dinner table or an emergency, or 1,000 other things.

It's part of BBS/Forum life. Sometimes people respond, sometimes they don't, sometimes they think they will, then think better of it.

Don't let it get you down or measure your success by it.

GJ
 
Exactly... Plenty of reasons but i think one main one is many of us have formed pointless habits (like the accidental click... just clicking through because it's what you do). But, aren't putting any worth into that habit. If we want to build bigger better communities we need to think about these things more.

It's not really a whinny post, I'm not that bothered, I'm just very observant... I was curious, conducted a test and conclusions proven.

Take the zero replies thing (which wasn't my issue) say there's 30 new tracks with 0 replies, did non of those people want replies? Surely if they did, a few of them would of listened and replied on another but, no, nothing! I'm not on about me or mine here, bring the EDM page up, plenty of submissions 0 replies. Even from a MOD, owners perspective, this is bad. It's in their interest to reply to as many as possible. It's FP's main thing what would bring in the most return users. Most other forums view this as spam, but the main reason a producer would choose to come here.

And, when one does reply the OP might not even return (busy life, forgets they posted) or simply thank you for your comment. They lack knowledge of how to engage the listener. Why not ask the commenter what they thought about another part of your track or bounce an idea via them. This is how we build relationships, how we grow.

Going back to my observation though, 1 listen from 50/60 views seems very odd, that's a lot of people randomly clicking a thread they had no intention on doing what the thread was about. 10 views possibly but not that many. It's the same as going to the bathroom, putting toothpaste on your toothbrush but not brushing your teeth. Unless the forum gets dead views or Soundcloud doesn't count listens accurately.

It's not the same as scrolling through other subjects, where i suspect the habit has been formed, non listeners, clicking listening threads.
 
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Even from a MOD, owners perspective, this is bad. It's in their interest to reply to as many as possible.

Let's just clarify here that us mods have very little to do with the people who own and run this site, and we're doing this purely for the love of the game. Of course it would be nice to be able to respond to everything and whatnot, but basically we've been "hired" (for the princely sum of no money whatsoever) just to keep things civil, and of course to provide input on different topics when possible.
 
That's basically the same for MODs on all sites.

True. But regarding the "problem" at hand - people not commenting your music - there are, as said, a myriad of reasons why someone clicked on your thread and didn't say anything. There's an abundance of music out there. Maybe they listened to it, and just forgot to comment. Maybe they thought it was good but didn't have anything to say. Maybe they couldn't think of anything nice to say and decided to shut up. Maybe they were distracted to something else. Maybe they opened a bunch of threads into different tabs and forgot about it. It's the same for any social media platform: even if a large number of people see your stuff, only a fraction of those people will "engage", ie. say something or even just hit that eponymous like button. But that's just how it goes. Making yourself stand out from the millions of other music makers is hard.

Random tip: I got a lot of listens simply by having a track in my sig. Those tracks went from a few hundred listens to 10-20k.
 
Not commenting wasn't the issue. It was people clicking a thread, say about 70 people but SoundCloud only showing 1 listen. 69 people clicked on a listening thread and didn't listen. The ratio of listens generated to thread clicks is very bizarre. It's like going for a wee when you have no intention to do 1. Not commenting is totally expected.

The not commenting point was an extra observation by me. If we go in the EDM thread, lots of posters will have linked an upload but so many with 0 replies. Surely, as they want listens, giving feedback themselves would be better. If they want to have more exposure in a good community, the community is only good by them putting into it for others... not just their uploads. I did kind of break the 0 replies thing, as it was me that replied, so they'll now show 1.

Excellent tip about the sig but I've moved away from Soundcloud altogether.

Another thing I've come to realise. On forums, don't add a secondary point that might be related, it could over shadow what you initially outlined. People can latch on to that as being your point. I totally agree to the reason why people who listen might not comment, I'd already established those in my mind. Again... that wasn't what i was trying to open peoples thoughts too (although they should think about it and try harder at that). The stronger the community here, the more worth your track submission to it will have. The community is only strong if those submitting to it, fuel the others submitting to it's desire to return. Do people not see how that work?

The Urban thread is quite active but could do more. I myself might listen but I'm more likely to comment on an EDM style track.
 
Well, I think it's more or less the same thing, not commenting, not listening - people dropping off to do something else. It's basically the ADHD nature of the time we're living in.
 
I might be totally wrong because I'm really not a computer dude but... aren't there google bots and stuff that "crawl" forums to update their search engines or something? Wouldn't that count towards the views? I've always wondered if that was a possibility.
 
I was going to listen but my goldfish told me not to, you don't have to live with him.
That's a good observation. Interesting!

Well, I think it's more or less the same thing.
It's not the same thing, it's completely different. Thinking it's the same shows a missconnection to the core of the point. Although the ADHD is a likely contributor for a %.

Remember, it's ratio of plays to thread clicks that are the issue.

There's literally no point on the person clicking the thread. It's in that part of the forum and clearly the title. ADHD and people reacting off bad habits formed so yeah!!! There's usually nothing to see... other than listening. You'd think the only reason to visit that thread would be to do that. If the ratio was closer to 1:2 I'd understand. So pointing it out should be a helper for us all. People realising will either, not waste their time clicking on something for no reason or actually make more effort to actually listening.

"oh, i'll just click on this thread out of curiosity to see what the OP wrote about listening to the track but not listen to it"

That's what most people are doing! Unless Bots!!!
 
That's a good observation. Interesting!


It's not the same thing, it's completely different. Thinking it's the same shows a missconnection to the core of the point. Although the ADHD is a likely contributor for a %.

Remember, it's ratio of plays to thread clicks that are the issue.

But I don't think it's "completely different" - people click on threads for various illogical reasons, even "listening" threads, with no intent on listening them. And even if they do end up on Soundcloud (or comparable), there's still a bunch of obstacles: they click themselves to Soundcloud, and realize they don't remember their password or they log into Soundcloud, and instead of listening, decide to check out their own statistics. Instead of listening, they notice they have a message pending and go on reading that. They try to listen, but Soundcloud's servers act up and playback doesn't start. They listen to a bit, and decide it's not their cup of tea and stop before it counts as a listen. They listen a bit and get interrupted by a call. The list goes on – in other words, a bunch of things can happen, even when people have initially fully intended to listen your work, that actively or passively (as in they f*ck it up themselves) prohibit them, one way or the other. This is just how it is, and goes for pretty much any kind of process of trying to engage people to do something – the initial pool of people "interested" can be huge, and those that actually cross the finish line of that UX funnel is maybe a thousandth of that pool.
 
Obviously there's lots of reasons for it to be happening. We already know this because it is happening. I've been watching a lot of videos on human behavioural biology. And, others on the study of Chaos. These go into the labelling of categories, (ironically bundling things that seem similar or things that don't but do) (bad) and the patterns of collected date, depending on what level you look at them. (edit: don't let this comment side track... it's way to complex)!

Anyway... it's not the same as not commenting, as a high ratio of no replies is expected, due to people not having anything to say, weren't going to say anything anyways, just wanted to compare themselves etc etc! coupled with all the other reasons why they might not of even listened, i.e. computer crashed, rendering finished, dinner was ready, girl you met on the weekend popped up in chat. Those reasons can apply to both.

No replies, 1 reply (although this is bad for the site) is expected, very likely, unless huge efforts were made by those involved to promote this aspect and focus on it being a major selling point of the site. A ratio of 1 listen to 70 views, is retarded, not expected, but yes, did happen, so those reasons do exists.

Although it is similar... it has huge important difference, especially due to the specific point I'm trying to highlight.
 
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My suspicion is BOTS and Mods (checking content) adding a lot more to all the other reasons. Which is still a lot of people wasting their own time, unproductively. Remember... highlighting the issue isn't as such to figure out the issue but to improve the issue. Opening peoples eyes to it should only stand to A, help people not waste their time in the first place or B, waste their time productively, making it not actually a waste.
 
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