RE: CANCELLED!! THE LUCKY ONES - etc
Hello @musicforsteem,
I figured I would leave a comment here with my thoughts on judging retention as opposed to musicianship. I think this is an excellent idea for making the contest fun in the short run, but it is not going to incentivise musical ingenuity, and this will have a negative impact in the long run. If all that is judged is how many performances are posted (or how many comments are left), musical performances will no longer focus on the music, as much as earning tickets with as many performances as possible. First of all, this will have a negative impact on Steem because the performances being posted will not be attractive to outside communities. This will be because it will frustrate many of the musicians you are seeking to recruit (Those who perform professionally, or are studying to perform professionally). Competition is often something which shows skill in the musical world, and not judging musicianship is basically making their skills (and any professional quality they may strive for) worthless. One thing that is the same throughout the serious musical world (from the Russian piano competitions to America's Got Talent) is that the judges are looking at the skill of the performer. I think Steem is a perfect place for amateurs and professionals alike because even if not every performer wins, there is still great chance for a large audience to follow each performer with upvotes and praise. If it is just a lottery, there is no reason to try any harder than the bare minimum. That is not going to attract professionals at all. A music competition needs to be competitive.
I will also point out that I think it is a mistake to make commenting on other posts such a large aspect for competing performers. While I understand the hope that it will demonstrate commitment, I think regular submission to the contest demonstrates commitment enough. I think there should be separate focuses on trying to build an audience and recruit performers. I can tell you that many performers might be discouraged by such a time commitment being so incremental in a contest. While we all love Steem, this platform is not going to grow if we expect participants to be 100 percent in it. No musician is going to be able to earn any thing close to a full salary through Music for Steem, and requiring that much commitment is really going to scare them away.
I will end by saying that Emma and I really don't care about the change in rules. We are making these performances for fun, and will continue to do so. Neither of us really have the time to seriously compete in this new system anyway.
Hi Chris! We really appreciate your time to comment on here. Your thoughts are valuable to us.
I will start with why the sudden change: We were getting fewer and fewer entries, and feared the competition would die quickly if we didn't act swiftly. People know we don't operate the @steemcurator02 account anymore, and my ego couldn't handle it that it would be clear that most are not here for their passion but for the rewards.
The part that we judge on musicality will still remain of course. And you are right this should be the main event. Of course, we want to attract as many GREAT talents as possible to the competition. Our dreams for the contest are likely as high as yours, and we couldn't wait to go full monty on this.
Next, we feel that we are almost on the plateau of "inside recruitment", as we only get about 2 to 3 new artists a week and not the best retention rate, except the die-hards you see in the leaderboards every week :) This would make it a circle jerk and to be honest, a dozen will win in rotation and who is interested in that for the long run?
We can change the rules of the contest whenever we like, so obviously we will take your feedback seriously and rethink it again, no problem!
We like it to have more entries per artist, as 1 a week is nothing. This would improve their skills dramatically cause it forced them to practice every day, so we should get better and better performances each week. Of course, only 1 song of each artist would make it in the top X each week.
Just be on the lookout for new updates :P
Thanks!
@ciska @cmp2020 @musicforsteem I think its time to make the contest winner based on the category. Then in form of award. Like Grammy Awards for every category in the contest. This we can call "Steem Music Award".
For example, there will be a winner for all engagement and frequencies of their music entries into the contest. Maybe the winner for the award of the most popular star?
Then another category is for quality. The best quality one winner. So this could be steem awards' winner for the most quality performers ?
Just an idea to integrate all the ideas into unity so everyone can win.
Hi babe! Thanks for your thoughts! Those categories are part of the plan as written in our vision plan for MFS. We want that, but as we got no response on sponsorships and not enough entries in each category we just postpone it until we get enough for each category.
We know from the beginning of July that we wouldn't operate a large curator account anymore. So the plan to "pay" team members with upvotes to help grow this and to divide the work was not on the table anymore.
Nice you joined the discussion :D