Comments that bust a zong
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@ianuarius Mar 2022
I wonder there could be a simple word requirement for a zong-busting comment.
I don't necessarily always mind them and am a strong believer that you get comments by commenting. But when many of my songs only have the one comment that busted the zong and they're something like....
"Awesome."
"Really nice."
"Cool song."
Then yea, no matter how cool I try to play it, it feels a bit empty. And that makes me think, what if those are all the comments some Fawmlings get. I don't think you should be able to comment just one character to be able to get rid of a zong. And maybe it means that we'll have more zongs on our hands longer, but here's my suggestion.
Let's add a condition on zongs...
A ZONG only gets busted if it has a comment that has at least 10 words.
I don't think we should get rid of one-word comments. They're still valuable. But if that's the only comment a song has, then it would still be a zong as far as the site is concerned.
What do you think?
EDIT: "10 words" as a rule is arbitrary, but it encourages to put some more effort into the comment. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to write a comment that says "I thought this had insightful lyrics". You still can. And it is a valid comment. But the song would still be a zong if that's the only comment on the song.
If anyone's got any other ideas, I'd love to hear them. I don't think 10 words as a condition is perfect. Far from it. But it would be better than the current system. If we can increase meaningful comments from 70% to 80%, then it's worth it in my book. Sure, it's still not 100%, but I'm not trying to argue that it would be. -
@coolparadiso Mar 2022
It is arguable that a 1 word comment just used to bust a zong might take away the possibility of a more meaningful comment for the songwriter.. not sure of the history here but it does seem there is a big push to get rid of all zongs irrelevant of the quality of the comment. Not sure of a better answer though but im not sure word limits would work ! If i zong bust i try hard to make it meaningful.
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@nadine Mar 2022
I noticed that. And I don't like leaving and receiving comments like "Wow." It gives the impression that the person didn't listen at all.
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@tcelliott Mar 2022
I like the idea of a minimum word count to qualify as busted. But I've received something along the lines of, "I enjoyed listening." That I appreciated more than some longer comments. But agree that, especially for a fawmling, that might not be the best only comment. Or a way to sort comments by number of words. We could start a new "club" in addition to zongbusting. I think @burr would have to code it in somehow in order to keep track.
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@nadine Mar 2022
Who you gonna call? ZONGbusters !!!
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@berni1954 Mar 2022
Sometimes I have played a ZONG only to find it was not to my taste at all (and I have fairly catholic tastes) - in such cases, I leave the page and don't comment, leaving it to someone who might respond better to that genre to comment.
I only comment on Zongs that I feel I have a genuine thought to add.
I can guess how dispiriting it must be if all you get are platitudes, so I attempt to be positive and note the things I was impressed by, even if it's only a single clever rhyme. Or else I relate a personal anecdote that the song has set me thinking about, etc. -
@yewnorker Mar 2022
ZUNG
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@audrey Mar 2022
I like this idea. I'm like @berni1954 I don't comment if the song is not to my taste, because it's better for someone who likes that genre to comment, but I always try to make a sincere comment when I hear or read something I like. Everyone, especially Fawmlings, deserves that, I think.
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@metalfoot Mar 2022
10 words is also a pretty arbitrary condition. "I thought this had insightful lyrics" is less than 10 words but could be a perfectly valid comment on a lyric-only post, for instance. I'd agree that zongbusting should be more than minimalism but yeah.
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@ianuarius Mar 2022
It's arbitrary, but it encourages to put some more effort into the comment. I think you understood what I said wrong. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be able to write a comment that says "I thought this had insightful lyrics". You still can. And it is a valid comment. But the song would still be a zong if that's the only comment on the song.
If anyone's got any other ideas, I'd love to hear them. I don't think 10 words as a condition is perfect. Far from it. But it would be better than the current system. If we can increase meaningful comments from 70% to 80%, then it's worth it in my book. Sure, it's still not 100%, but I'm not trying to argue that it would be. -
@metalfoot Mar 2022
Having said that-- the whole idea behind 'zongbusting' is just to let people know someone took the time to engage with their art. I don't know how you can police/arbitrarily define what is 'good enough' of a reaction on the part of a 3rd party. Maybe it's just me but even one or two word comments on my posts are enough because it shows me someone cared enough to do even just that.
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@ianuarius Mar 2022
But if you leave a one word comment, they'll still know that somebody listened to the song. It just would still be a zong.
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@elesimo Mar 2022
Off-topic, but this reminded me of a joke:
The guy's wife dies. He calls the local newspaper to put up an ad announcing her passing.
- What do you want the ad to say, sir?
He was a cheap guy, so he answers: "Jane Doe died"
- Sir, the price is the same up to 10 words!
"Jane Doe died. For sale: Corolla 2015 $25k call 555-1234" -
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@scottlake Mar 2022
This applies to all songs and all comments. It’s particularly unfair to leave a “nice” comment on a zong but also unfair on a song with only one or two comments.
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
+1 to this idea from @ianuarius! He clearly points out how, while this isn't perfect, it is perhaps an improvement to the current system.
We recognize zongs for a very specific reason...to call attention to songs that have not received adequate recognition. And, while a one or two word comment is better than nothing, it is reasonable that such a brief comment should not count as a zong bust.
With that said, trying to police comments is really difficult. I've seen rambling comments that barely mentioned anything about the song! Are they better than "Awesome song!"? I don't think so.
Maybe we just need to start a conversation here early in the challenge to encourage better commenting? Personally I feel one or two word comments are lazy and I wouldn't leave one that short. Surely you can come up with more than that? But, I do sometimes, in the heat of skirmish commenting, intentionally cut short a comment if I just received a shortie from that person! Reapeth what you soweth and all that! -
@johnstaples Mar 2022
@elesimo that is hilarious!
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@fuzzy Mar 2022
I disagree, @johnstaples.
I am at times "guilty" of leaving long and rambling comments that sometimes seem to have little to do with the song.
Do I need to be "policed"?
I don't think so.
Do I need to leave "better" comments?
I don't think so.
Or maybe I should just start saying "Awesome song!", if that is more acceptable to you. -
@vomvorton Mar 2022
Rambling comments are my favourites! If my song has inspired somebody to tell a story or set them off on any kind of interesting tangent then that makes me extremely happy.
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
@fuzzy Awesome comment!
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
@vomvorton yeah its like my cat always says, "meow" and then he tries to lead me to his bowl but I'm like "no way buddy. You already had your breakfast" and he's like "meow meow" and this goes on for like 10 minutes and stuff until he finally gets tired or I finally get tired. Also, awesome comment.
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@vomvorton Mar 2022
@johnstaples OK I guess they're not all winners.
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
@vomvorton, touché! :D
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@elesimo Mar 2022
Maybe on the GFROW (great FAWM rewrite of whenever) we could have an "adopt-a-fawling" program, where fawlings get paired with veterans. If you adopt a fawling you'd be committing to listen to their songs and leave meaningful comments, and also be available for any help they might need.
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
@elesimo that is a lovely idea! Big +1 to that!
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@fuzzy Mar 2022
Lol @johnstaples
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
@fuzzy :D
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@metalfoot Mar 2022
I mean the kibbutzing we're doing in the comments right now is the perfect example of folks who 'know' each other a little better but it's always the question (with regard to Zongs and the like) of those who are new or newer and don't yet understand the dynamics of comments and the forums for the FAWM site and might miss some of the in-jokes.
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@stephenwordsmith Mar 2022
Commenting on songs is never an entirely selfless act. There are all sorts of incentives to leave a song comment that have nothing to do with encouraging the recipient or helping them along their songwriting journey. The right to have your name listed as a mega-centurion. The sitewide push to eliminate all zongs. The well-entrenched maxim that 'the best way to get comments is to give comments'. The cultural pressure to 'give more than you get' and have a given:gotten ratio above 1:1. And even the fact that we all eventually tire of writing and producing and need something else to do with our time and energy during Feb.
What all of this adds up to is the fact that we can't equate someone leaving a comment on your song/lyric with someone genuinely engaging with your work or caring about you as a person (and thus something that should be celebrated in its own right without question). This is fine if you've got a cult following and its buried among your 55 other comments, but hurts more if you've got nothing else. I agree with @ianuarius , a perfunctory comment is no comment.
10 is an arbitrary number, sure, but if the commenter finds that, having thrown out a platitude that could apply to literally any song, they have to dig a fraction deeper and actually pinpoint something that was done well, or describe how it makes them feel, then we've turned the zongbust from a symptom of our forum culture to something genuinely helpful. And that's worth an extra 5 or 6 words. -
@fuzzy Mar 2022
Perfectly stated, @stephenwordsmith.
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
@stephenwordsmith FTW!
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@pearlmanhattan Mar 2022
Maybe tag a friend in the comment when you bust a zong along with a brief, meaningful comment?
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@frogspawn Mar 2022
@stephenwordsmith Awesome.
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@timfatchen Mar 2022
Putting a minimum word limit on a zong would be tricky programming. But here's a suggestion that would be easy to insert in the code. @burrsettles?
--You found a zong! Please take a few moments to give some feedback...but please, a little bit more than just "awesome!" or "good song!"--
[Sorry about the alter ego's alter ego;s comment. I've boarded the pond over for now.] -
@kiffa Mar 2022
I agree with the sentiment behind this suggestion but fear that too many potential commenters would be warded off by it. It *should* be every FAWMer's personal credo to put a modicum of thought into their comments, but I don't think you can (or perhaps more accurately, should) force it onto people. @timfatchen's suggestion seems both reasonable and doable.
And if we *do* set a comment length requirement, 10 words seems excessive. I mean, it only takes 3 words to say "shits weak dog". :P -
@johnstaples Mar 2022
@timfatchen implementing a minimum word limit is really not tricky at all. Whether we want to do it or not, that's tricky! :)
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@erikleppen Mar 2022
10 words is also long enough to deliberately NOT bust a zong but leave a very short comment anyway. I sometimes skip zongs if I don't think my comment is of much help or if I think someone else could explain it better, but it would be useful/nice if I could let the author know I liked their song but couldn't really say much more about it, and still leave it to someone else to actually "bust the zong". That, to me, would be the main draw for the proposed feature.
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@ianuarius Mar 2022
@erikleppen I hadn't even thought of that. Interesting.
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@scottlake Mar 2022
Quantity of words ≠ quality of words.
We know this as songwriters. Practice quality of commenting as much as you do your lyric writing.
That is all. -
@br0th3rh00d Mar 2022
I felt like I came in too hard with some of my lengthy comments that got comments about their length and I was trying to rebalance with a more 'normal' way to join in, ie amiably masking, trying not to be anti-social!
Ironic really. Nobody can ever win - because tbh moderation is just so damn hard!!! -
@wolfkier Mar 2022
A perfunctory "awesome" just to clean up on aisle ZONG really helps nobody.
10 words is a good idea. A little motto rule to hold on to.
In the past I pushed that no FAWM song should go unhugged. I still feel that way. And remember the howls of derision from the "natural selection" crew of Star Chamber old farts when ZONGbusting became a thing.. I'm glad that is past. I remember especially some "genius" saying 5% ZONGs was "God's plan".... *smh* I'm paraphrasing but there was an eyebrow raising tone of Moses' tablets from the sky in that particular post.
I aslo remember one 5090 when I joined a half dozen volunteers to devote 5-6 hours each to visit all outstanding ZONGS on the closing day. That was crazy fun but we discovered some gems, and some later to become strong FAWMers, (as welll as alot of empty songshells) that had slipped the cracks!
For my part my personal go to "moto" has for a long time been, "Post a song, Bust a Zong". We wouldn't have so many outstanding ZONGs at the end of challenges if that caught on. And there'd be a lot more newbies held on to, encouraged and discovered/befriended.
Cheers to the blind click ZONGbusters! (seen and unseen) That kind of extra care makes this community just that much greater. -
@br0th3rh00d Mar 2022
It's like we're trying to recode to be twitter almost? It might be nice to have a like button or maybe a question/voting form you can put under a song to stimulate the kind of fdeedback you's like. Maybe we could do that in the liner notes anyway? But I mean at the very least there might be polarising systems issues, with our keen will to be kind and do the right thing.
Cheekily I could say please bust this Zong (https://fawm.org/songs/137553/) with comments of the appropriate length as you see it! -
@scottlake Mar 2022
Some subreddits have a bot that kills a reply of it’s less than a certain number of words. However I think my inequality above and repeated here applies Quantity ≠ Quality.
One of the reasons I host my songs on SoundCloud is that the listener can choose to leave a remark in the timeline of the song itself. I still recall some comments from perhaps 7-10 years ago because they were specific and related to certain lyrics or melody or production. For all of SoundCloud’s foibles, it still excels at this -
@liz561 Mar 2022
I think it boils down to the commitment of the listener. Most of us who listen to the songs of others try to genuinely listen, even if it's something out of our usual realm, and find something to appreciate in that persons' effort. I have come across many songs that surprised me, enchanted me, confused me, and bored me-but I have always made an effort to comment on the lyrics, a phrase, the tone of a piece, the idea; because I would hope that someone would do that for me. I don't write songs because of the comments, but those comments are so precious in encouraging me!
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@ianuarius Mar 2022
As has been stated many times in the thread, nobody's suggesting that quantity is quality. I don't understand why we're talking about it.
Length requirement would encourage people to put some more effort into busting zongs. And I very much think that it would achieve that. I'm willing to repeat this as many times as necessary for everyone who didn't bother to read even the first post of the thread before commenting.
Also, as has been stated many times, nobody's trying to kill short comments. I don't understand why we're talking about that, either.
You can use the site exactly the way as before. The only thing that would change is that busting zongs takes more effort. So, maybe not all zongs get busted then. A sad day for statistics. -
@burrsettles Mar 2022
it's not a terrible idea to more tightly govern what sort of comment qualifies as a "zong-bust." i bet i can do some data analysis to try and determine a good threshold for this... but of course any time you start to impose limits and algorithms, folks are incentivizes to game it! :)
however, as i just posted in this forum: https://fawm.org/forums/topic/12939/
the songs page has not been updated: https://fawm.org/songs/
to help you "prioritize" songs that want/need comments, but haven't received many yet. this will prioritize 1-comment songs as well as zongs, hopefully reducing the likelihood of vapid zong-busts. :) -
@seanbrennan Mar 2022
Just took a look at the new songs page and wow, I'm here for it. Top-notch work @burrsettles! I say this prematurely having not done a *deep* dive, but this looks to be a solid step at addressing IA's concerns, which are ones that all of us in this thread have definitely felt!
I frequently leave Zongs alone for this very reason - that the bust may be the only comment a lot of songs get, and I don't always feel like "the guy" to deliver it. -
@johnstaples Mar 2022
An add-on to this...maybe comments less than 10 words don't count as a full comment in your comment total? (Hey Centurions, put down those pitchforks! It was just a thought!)
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@coolparadiso Mar 2022
Just an observation and i am not an old timer Fawm like some here just half a dozen years ! When i first came here i felt i was encouraged in March to do whatever it took to get rid of all zongs! Probably i joined that and did a very few word comments. Somewhere just by personal choice i decided to write more on zongs or not do them at all. Whats my point
This Is Fawm, the one place where the vast majority of people try and do things that benefit all! Some people still may have that view about just busting zongs! Maybe we just need in the fawm ettiquette to set some expectation on zongs, Eg on zongs please put meaningful comments don't just bust them for the sake of it! It seems like this is the sort of place that a soft touch can get the desired result! -
@johnstaples Mar 2022
@coolparadiso excellent points! Soft touch prolly works here!
Hope you are well! -
@sheilerk Mar 2022
@coolparadiso I think you just nailed it. A note in the fawm ettiquette and a reminder saying essentially what you just said when the Zong busting forum posts come out would probably be all that is needed.
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@wolfkier Mar 2022
I think wide adoption of the "post a song, bust a zong" motto I've mentioned elsewhere (at least by the concerned citizens) would go a long way towards minimizing the mountain at the end issue that comes up at every challenge. And curtail the "what do we do about it and how" revolving discussion that you could almost cut and paste from every year back to Adam.
You could add:
Post a song, bust a zong (with the respect you'd like your own zong busted)
Everything posted here starts life as a zong.
And the zong threads (incorporating commenting etiquette) should be front and center on day one rather than day 29.
A lot more friendships by chance coincidence, a lot more newbies discovered, surprised and delighted, maybe even welcomed and encouraged.
In an ideal post1/bust1 culture a ZONG wouldn't have a chance to make it down the front page of "songs", forget languishing on the zonglist for weeks.
