Organizing Torrents on The Traders' Den - Suggestion

[chalcedony]

I'm new to the Traders' Den, but not new to downloading live, non-copyrighted music via bit torrent. I'm glad to see that this site is expanding in membership, etc., but what is its vision for organizing torrents over the long term? Perhaps I'm missing something, but I can find no way to easily view catagories of past torrents without doing a search for a specific artist, or manually viewing lists and lists of torrents to see if any are of interest to me.

I would highly suggest that a way to catagorize torrents, according to the style of music they contain, be implemented. That way, if a member was interested in "jazz", "classic rock", "heavy metal", "singer-songwriter", "punk", etc., it would be a whole lot faster and easier to get to a torrent of interest. Without mentioning any names, we all know another premier bit torrent site out there (membership capped at 100,000), which organizes torrents according to musical catagories. I have found their method easy to use, and I believe that the Traders' Den could adpot a similar organization of torrents, based on the model used on that site. Some redundant catagories could be eliminated (theirs are extensive), but overall, it makes for much, much easier navigation. At a certain point, when the Traders' Den has been around long enough, the current method of organizing torrents will become unwieldly, and will not serve the members. Why not start organizing torrents by musical catagory right now?

[retired]

This has been discussed in the past....We have no interest in having categories by genre and most of us actually don't like the fact that one of the other big sites has too many categories with the same artist being in multiple genre's.

Audio & Video are in separate forums and a quick search of an artists name pulls up everything ever seeded relating said artist.

[U2Lynne]

I can't really add too much to this. We have discussed it before and one of the problems is the whole thing of people putting Band A into Category 1, 5, and 6 all based on what they feel like. So, in order to find all the band's torrents, you need to look through all of those categories.

DIME is much, MUCH bigger than this site. I think they have about 10 times as many active torrents as we do here. If they have 20 categories, then we have already broken this site into two categories that are just as large as any one of their categories - audio and video.

[Chachi420]

heh...at DIME, "Bob Dylan" shows up in just about every catagory

[LeonJackson]

Agreed. Dime's stylistic categories give me ulcers. Some music fits into several categories simulatenously, some defies any category, and most people are genre-illiterate anyhow; it's a real problem. I love that the Den simply sorts into Audio and Video. It works for me.

[chalcedony]

Originally Posted by U2Lynne

I can't really add too much to this. We have discussed it before and one of the problems is the whole thing of people putting Band A into Category 1, 5, and 6 all based on what they feel like. So, in order to find all the band's torrents, you need to look through all of those categories.

Actually, you are misinformed. On Dime, navigation works on several levels at once. You can do individual artist searches in the same way you can on this site, and every torrent (active or dead, your choice) will come up in the search for that particular artist, from multiple musical catagories, all on one list. So you see, it's not at all about pidgeonholing music, defining music, judging music - it's about ease of navigation. Apparently, many people on this site have issues about labeling music. As I said, I'm new here, and I didn't know this idea was hashed out before. It honestly never occurred to me that having seeders decide what catagory their torrents would be listed under was a hot button issue. Sorry if I offended anyone.

[U2Lynne]

Originally Posted by chalcedony

Actually, you are misinformed. On Dime, navigation works on several levels at once. You can do individual artist searches in the same way you can on this site, and every torrent (active or dead, your choice) will come up in the search for that particular artist, from multiple musical catagories, all on one list. So you see, it's not at all about pidgeonholing music, defining music, judging music - it's about ease of navigation. Apparently, many people on this site have issues about labeling music. As I said, I'm new here, and I didn't know this idea was hashed out before. It honestly never occurred to me that having seeders decide what catagory their torrents would be listed under was a hot button issue. Sorry if I offended anyone.

Don't worry, no offense taken at all. I can understand you liking that system and wanting it on other sites. Who knows, we may end up doing that here. I just haven't felt the need to do it quite yet. We do allow you to sort just audience, or soundboards, or FM, etc here, which is something DIME doesn't do (nor do they differentiate between Audio and Video). We are using different software on each of the sites and we do what is easiest with that software.

[mike1061]

No offence with a question.
It's just that you will find people with different answers. Me, I couldn't care less what catogory things are in. I ignore that completly. Maybe one of the reasons is I like lots of kinds of music. At Dime, blues (my favorite) has a lot of acts that I consider no where near blues.
I check in here every night, I log onto the tracker, and see what's new. If the title looks intresting, I click on the link. That way I never miss anything, no matter what catagory it's under.
Thanks Mike

[tuneman55]

I think we have enough here (sbd,pre-fm,aud aud ,pro...etc) that is all the seperation needed. to many categories get things lost in the shuffle. people willo put the same artist in all the different categories.

[dementrium]

I find sometimes useful to categorize torrents according music styles á la DAD. For instance, I discovered a lot of good sheize just glancing those torrents tagged as "Avant Garde". Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to venture into those just looking at the band/artist name.
According some logic posted in this thread (re: just do a search on the band name), how on earth I'd a do a search on something I don't know? (This is a site to not learn about music, you say. Right, I accept that).

One of the main aspects I'm forever grateful on the couple torrent sites I'm into is to discover new music.

Could be an improved categorizing system than that of DAD. For example, let the poster to tag the band/artist into more than one category (no matter how accurate he is, that's impossible).
Categories would be there to be just a hint.

That's my 2 pesos.

EDIT: forgot to say I also find very useful the audio/video separation here.

[rhinowing]

yeah, what about a tag system like youtube or flickr have

[vladsmythe]

[rspencer]

Please no, not like DIME. The categories are a nuisance to me, since there's no control over what goes where.

As an example, I just did a search on "The Cure":

Gothic Rock, Alternate, GOSPEL?!, Pop, Kraut Rock, Irish Folk?!, West Coast (of England?), New Wave, Southern Rock?!, Skiffle, Latin Music...

And that was just in the first 50 of 222 torrents. I've tried to use it, occasionally just browsing say the Psychedelic torrents, but with no control over what category a torrent gets placed in the feature ends up fairly useless.

[vladsmythe]

Originally Posted by rspencer

Please no, not like DIME. The categories are a nuisance to me, since there's no control over what goes where.

As an example, I just did a search on "The Cure":

Gothic Rock, Alternate, GOSPEL?!, Pop, Kraut Rock, Irish Folk?!, West Coast (of England?), New Wave, Southern Rock?!, Skiffle, Latin Music...

And that was just in the first 50 of 222 torrents. I've tried to use it, occasionally just browsing say the Psychedelic torrents, but with no control over what category a torrent gets placed in the feature ends up fairly useless.

[Five]

see here:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...ad.php?t=48887