About five months ago @PamPurrs suggested the idea of building an Index of User Videos. A place that a user could point others to so they could see all of an individual users videos without having to sift through the forum.
Something along these lines.
@BadAssBassGal.Jen
URL for Video 1
URL for Video 2
URL for Video etc…
@BadAssBassGuy.Jim
URL for Video 1
URL for Video 2
URL for Video etc…
This idea pre-dates the 50 Songs Challenge and was directed at organizing an index for the Post your covers! thread. This would have been a big job for someone to put together and an even bigger job for a single person to maintain.
Now that the Post your covers! thread is over 4,000 (!) posts and the different song threads for the 50 Songs Challenge has about 1,100 (!) posts, the idea of one person building and maintaining this index has become impractical.
Here are some ideas for making this happen.
Start a new topic called User Video Index and leave it up to each user to add a post they can go back and update for themselves. It wouldn’t be as organized, if we do it this way, but you could use the search function and put in User Video Index @username and find someone’s videos that way.
If Discourse (the forum software BassBuzz uses) has a Wiki feature or plugin of some sort and @JoshFossgreen was interested in implementing it. We could use something like that to build the index.
Any other ideas for making something like this work are welcome.
For those of you that post videos, does this sound like something that would be helpful?
Great idea. I do my best to put the list of all the videos for each 50 Song Challenge song in the bottom of the first post in that song’s thread. Hopefully that is useful for what you are arranging.
@Mike_NL Good find! I thought I had seen wiki functionality as part of Discourse but a cursory search didn’t turn up anything.
It’s not a full featured system but I think it would be sufficient for what we’re trying to do. For instance, there are no protections in place to keep multiple people from modifying the wiki post at the same time. If two people attempt to do simultaneous modifications, one of them is going to lose their changes.
What it does is show who is currently modifying the post. That should be enough to warn people to wait till one person is done before starting to make changes.
Oh I’ve noticed. You’ve been doing a great job managing the 50 Songs Challenge threads.
This isn’t meant to supplant your work there, since listing the videos at the top of each of those threads acts as a resource organized by song.
My only concern is eventually there will be 50 separate song threads (51 if you including Hysteria as a capstone song) with hundreds of videos. And that only includes the people going through it right now.
So, my thinking was two fold.
How do we create an Index resource organized by user?
How doe we continue supporting organizational resources after the initial creator moves on?
Part of my thinking on this is the BassBuzz YouTube Video Guide. Far more people have used that than I ever expected. If I move on or something happens to me, how can it be maintained by those that come later?
The Wiki Post feature that @Mike_NL linked to would work for both of those questions.
It would allow us to set up and more easily manage an Index of User Videos.
It would allow for converting forum posts into wiki posts so that others can manage them.
Hey gang! So there are a couple things to discuss here:
Eric’s Youtube Video Guide: If @eric.kiser is ever unavailable to keep maintaining that, we can easily turn it into a wiki that other (trusted) forum members can edit using Discourse’s wiki function. So I think that’s all good for now, and I can tweak its status when/if needed.
User Video Index: This is a bit trickier. There’s no automatic, foolproof way to do this, that I know of. The Discource Wiki post function seems like it’d be of limited help. Some ideas I have to maybe tackle this:
Create a User Video Index subcategory on the forum, where everybody who wants to index their videos creates their own topic (following some standard format like “[username] - User Video Index” or whatever) and updates it as they see fit.
Have one mega topic, editable by anybody wiki-style, where people can update their section ← this seems like a non-solution, because that’s basically what “post your covers” is already, and it’ll just balloon up and be unsearchable
One mega topic, with each user creating their own post and maintaining it ← also seems like a non-solution, because it’s impossible to stop well-wishers from posting “wow, nice cover” etc., which is very sweet but instantly clutters the topic
So my best bet is the first bullet above - unless someone has a better idea, which wouldn’t take much!
Hit me with your thoughts, ideas, and we can make a move on this if we find a decent solution that we all like. Thanks!
I would expand that with that suggestion I threw at you some months ago, with some sort of practice log. Keeping the 1st post as the “cover page” with all the relevant stuff being updated there.
THIS IS ONLY A TEST FOR AN UPCOMING PROJECT. THE IDEAS DISCUSSED HERE ARE NOT IN EFFECT YET.
I’m still trying to get all the kinks worked out.
Welcome to the User Video Index - FAQ!
Where you will find answers to all of these GREAT frequently asked questions…
What is this?
How does this work?
This sounds hard. Is this hard?
I’m trying to play Bass! Not forum organizer.
How does this help me?
How does this help the community?
How does this help beginner Bass players?
Does it have to be videos?
Why is this organized… like this?
How can I participate?
How do I keep it updated?
And…
What else makes this so… stinking… cool?
What is this?
As the forum has grown there have been a number of different topics inviting users to post their own video or audio of them playing. Some of those topics have grown quite large. To a degree that it has become very difficult to find a specific video. This index is meant to keep an organized record of all those videos.
How does this work?.
When you post a video in a topic you also post that link on your personal page in the User Video Index category.
In an effort to keep the index as user friendly as possible, it is not intended to replace any other category or topic. For instance, you would not post your cover of House of the Rising Sun in this category and expect to get any feedback from the community. Instead you should post it in Song 7 - “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals. Then you would go to your personal topic in the User Video Index and either add a link to your post in Song 7 - “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals or just copy the same link you used when you posted it over there.
This sounds hard. Is this hard?
Not at all. Whenever you post a video, you add few more clicks and a copy-paste and you’re all up to date.
If you want to see what it looks like, click here… “@JoshFossgreen - User Video Index”
I’m trying to play BASS! Not forum organizer.
Dude! I get it. Playing Bass is a lot better than almost anything else. However, this is a community and sometimes it helps for people to get organized to keep a community running smoothly.
How does this help me?
It gives you a central reference point for all the videos you post. Regardless of which topic they may have been originally posted in. It’s a single stop for you to review your work and see your progress. It’s also a centralized place where you can point others for them to witness the depth and breadth of your BadAss-ed-ness.
How does this help the BassBuzz community?
None of us got to where we are, alone. Sometimes we help others and sometimes we need help. This index is a testament to the community we have all worked so hard to build. As much as it will show the progress and accomplishments of the individual, the collection, taken in its entirety, shows how far we have come as a community.
How does this help beginner Bass players?
One of the big things for new bass players (or players of any instrument) is trying to gain some perspective on what all this hard work will accomplish. It helps to answer the question, “What will all this effort really allow me to achieve?” By putting together this index, I think it will give a pretty good answer to what it means to go from Beginner to BadAss!
Does it have to be videos?
Nope. Not at all. If you have audio without video, that is perfectly acceptable. We had to call it something and since most of the music users post is in video format, that’s where the name landed.
Why is this organized… like this?
It’s organized the way it is for two reasons; searchability, and distribution of effort.
If you want to find anyone’s videos all you have to do is click on the search function, type in User Video Index and the @Username for the person you’re searching for.
By having each person manage their own videos it keeps from placing too big of a burden on one person.
How can I participate?
I’m glad you asked. It’s simple! Just join by creating your own Topic in this Category following the below format.
Topic Name:@Username - User Video Index
Category: User Video Index
Body: Add links to all your videos, one per line, or every other line, or use bullet points, or whatever you like.
How do I keep it updated?
You can go back to the original post and use the EDIT feature, at any time, to add new links to your videos.
What else makes this so… stinking… cool?
If you go into your profile, there is an option to post a Featured Topic that shows up anytime someone looks at your profile. You can add your @Username - User Video Index topic to your profile. So everybody can find your videos from there also! Whaaaaaat? Now, that is cool.
Thanks to everyone for your help in doing this. If you have any questions or think of something I’ve missed, leave a comment below.
The only thing that is a bit weird to me is that you will get a lot of duplicate posts. For example, when I do a 50 song challenge I’ll post a video in the songs thread and then post the same video in my user video thread. People that are browsing unread topics will see it come up twice. Not a big deal, but just something that comes to mind.
You caught me. It was getting so long I worried I was creating a wall of text that would just make people’s eyes bleed and I hadn’t figure out how to tackle explaining that part.
The intent is for you to edit the original post in your “@JT - User Video Index” topic. Editing a post won’t cause it to show up. If you add a post to your topic it will.
I put this part in to cover that but I haven’t figured out how to explain the intent to keep what you’re talking about from happening.
For this to work all updates need to happen in the original post. If people start adding posts for new entries instead of modifying the original post it’s going to become too messy to be usable.
Part of my concern with doing it this way is that, invariably, people are going to post replies in these threads. Which is fine, unless the updates also end up being posted as replies. At that point it will look like any other thread and this attempt at organization becomes moot.
Okay, I just had a thought. @JoshFossgreen if you lock a topic, no more replies can be made. That would solve the reply problem. But, can the originator of a topic still edit the original post on a locked topic.
My first guess would be, No. But, if they can that would simplify some of this.
If a test is required, feel free to lock this topic and I’ll see what it will let me get away with.
Ah, didn’t think of that. So what we really want to do is if we are posting it in another thread, then just edit our OP in our video thread and add it for reference. If we AREN’T posting it in another thread then add a reply to our video thread and add it for reference to the OP as well. Then it both situations people get notified only once of a new video. Sounds good to me.
Assumes our threads aren’t locked of course. I don’t mind a discussion about videos in our threads. I think that makes sense to me. For some, this may be the only place they put their videos and receive feedback. As long as the OP is updated, I don’t see an issue leaving them unlocked. Just my opinion of course.
