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Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam,

If I change the names of artists on my Album List.txt to make things look nicer will it screw everything up?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

John
Moonbeam,

If I change the names of artists on my Album List.txt to make things look nicer will it screw everything up?


Not at all. Just be sure to do it for all entries for a particular artist so that artistdisplay works properly. For instance, if you have some entries listed as "Cure, The" and others listed as "The Cure", typing artistdisplay("The Cure") will only list the latter.

The only thing you must avoid doing with the 'Album List.txt' file is changing the order of the albums, as that would change their position in the saved results matrix.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam,

Thanks so much for your program. It has been fun playing with it.

I had an entry that I accidentally populated with too many fields. After fixing it, I am getting an error message every time I enter Source("Album Ranker.txt"). The error reads:

Error in rep(0, add) : invalid 'times' argument

Any idea how to fix this so that I can get back to ranking?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Schwah
Moonbeam,

Thanks so much for your program. It has been fun playing with it.

I had an entry that I accidentally populated with too many fields. After fixing it, I am getting an error message every time I enter Source("Album Ranker.txt"). The error reads:

Error in rep(0, add) : invalid 'times' argument

Any idea how to fix this so that I can get back to ranking?


That leads me to believe that it believes "add" is a negative number. Would you mind typing add into the R Console and telling me what it says?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam
Schwah
Moonbeam,

Thanks so much for your program. It has been fun playing with it.

I had an entry that I accidentally populated with too many fields. After fixing it, I am getting an error message every time I enter Source("Album Ranker.txt"). The error reads:

Error in rep(0, add) : invalid 'times' argument

Any idea how to fix this so that I can get back to ranking?


That leads me to believe that it believes "add" is a negative number. Would you mind typing add into the R Console and telling me what it says?

Heh... I tried to type it, and it's creating a smiley, so I have to describe it.

The number "1" in brackets, followed by "-1"

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

So happy with this program Moonbeam. Not only do I love it for the ranking purpose, but I've been meaning to trim down my digital collection and maybe even my physical collection but I always was hesitant. I think this gives me a real definitive answer about how I really feel about certain albums.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Schwah
Moonbeam
Schwah
Moonbeam,

Thanks so much for your program. It has been fun playing with it.

I had an entry that I accidentally populated with too many fields. After fixing it, I am getting an error message every time I enter Source("Album Ranker.txt"). The error reads:

Error in rep(0, add) : invalid 'times' argument

Any idea how to fix this so that I can get back to ranking?


That leads me to believe that it believes "add" is a negative number. Would you mind typing add into the R Console and telling me what it says?

Heh... I tried to type it, and it's creating a smiley, so I have to describe it.

The number "1" in brackets, followed by "-1"


That means it believes that you want to delete an album. Is that correct? If so, I'll have to give you special code for that which I am just now developing. If not, you can send me the 'Albums List.txt' file and a description of where you edited it and I can fiddle around.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

John
So happy with this program Moonbeam. Not only do I love it for the ranking purpose, but I've been meaning to trim down my digital collection and maybe even my physical collection but I always was hesitant. I think this gives me a real definitive answer about how I really feel about certain albums.


Indeed, some of the results are rather surprising when I use this program. Glad you're enjoying it!

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam
Schwah
Moonbeam
Schwah
Moonbeam,

Thanks so much for your program. It has been fun playing with it.

I had an entry that I accidentally populated with too many fields. After fixing it, I am getting an error message every time I enter Source("Album Ranker.txt"). The error reads:

Error in rep(0, add) : invalid 'times' argument

Any idea how to fix this so that I can get back to ranking?


That leads me to believe that it believes "add" is a negative number. Would you mind typing add into the R Console and telling me what it says?

Heh... I tried to type it, and it's creating a smiley, so I have to describe it.

The number "1" in brackets, followed by "-1"


That means it believes that you want to delete an album. Is that correct? If so, I'll have to give you special code for that which I am just now developing. If not, you can send me the 'Albums List.txt' file and a description of where you edited it and I can fiddle around.


Thanks for the offer, Moonbeam. I just went ahead and reinstalled after saving the album info elsewhere. That fixed things. Again... great program!

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam- What would be the best way to put my results on a spreadsheet?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

John
Moonbeam- What would be the best way to put my results on a spreadsheet?


Typing the following code will allow you to export the results to a txt file, which can then be opened in a spreadsheet:

write.table(display, file = "Ranked List.txt", sep="t", row.names = FALSE)

It has trouble exporting things like umlauts, so Björk comes out as "Bj鰎k", but it works otherwise.

Edit: Arg! For some reason, this forum won't allow you to display the backslash as text, probably because it thinks you want to use it for some command or something. Anyway, immediately before the "t" in "sep = "t"" there should be a backslash, so "sep = {backslash}t"

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Perfect. I was expecting a difficult process but that's easy as it gets.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam, just wondering, does the program like to compare albums near each other in rank? Because today I've compared every album about 3 times, and all three times, my #2 and 3 albums (Abbey Road and Are You Experienced) were compared.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Listyguy
Moonbeam, just wondering, does the program like to compare albums near each other in rank? Because today I've compared every album about 3 times, and all three times, my #2 and 3 albums (Abbey Road and Are You Experienced) were compared.


Eventually, yes! As the point distribution spreads, the matchups will feature albums nearer each other in rank, on average.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Hi Moonbeam

I've just had the same problem as Schwah. I realized there was a double entry in my Album list (Pearl Jam's "Ten"), but when I deleted one of them in the Album list the ranking loop didn't work anymore and i had the same error message as schwah.
Does that mean that I can't delete any album from my Album list ?
Thanks in advance ! I'm having lots of fun with your program !

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

nicolas
Hi Moonbeam

I've just had the same problem as Schwah. I realized there was a double entry in my Album list (Pearl Jam's "Ten"), but when I deleted one of them in the Album list the ranking loop didn't work anymore and i had the same error message as schwah.
Does that mean that I can't delete any album from my Album list ?
Thanks in advance ! I'm having lots of fun with your program !


I'm working on an updated version of the Album Ranker file with the ability to delete an album as well as some other behind-the-scenes improvements. I can send you a text file with the delete option in the meantime if you like.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Thank you Moonbeam. I'm leaving tomorrow for 2 weeks so I'll probablt wait for your update. I had a back up so I can still have my daily dose of 1-2 !!

Is it possible, instead of deleting, to replace one album with another without changing its place in the album list or will it screw up the whole thing as well ?

PS : when your update is ready, will we have to reinstall everything and start our ranking from the beginning or will it be possible to update the program without deleting existing data (rankings) ?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

nicolas
Thank you Moonbeam. I'm leaving tomorrow for 2 weeks so I'll probablt wait for your update. I had a back up so I can still have my daily dose of 1-2 !!

Is it possible, instead of deleting, to replace one album with another without changing its place in the album list or will it screw up the whole thing as well ?

PS : when your update is ready, will we have to reinstall everything and start our ranking from the beginning or will it be possible to update the program without deleting existing data (rankings) ?


The 'Album List.txt' is pretty delicate, as it dictates all of the ranking history. So if you delete an album and shift every other album up, these shifted albums will inherit the ranking history of the albums that were in their new places! I wouldn't advise simply replacing it with another album, either. Who knows if this replacement album would have won or lost the previous matches?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

I accidentally deleted my list somehow... I'm going to start over, but I was wondering if that next update you are working on is coming soon or should I just start over with this current version?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

John
I accidentally deleted my list somehow... I'm going to start over, but I was wondering if that next update you are working on is coming soon or should I just start over with this current version?


Oh no!

I'm nearly ready to post the new version. I was hoping I could hear from Henrik about how he would modify the artist ranking formula for different lengths of song and album lists before doing it, though.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Luckily, I was looking in the wrong folder and I found the list. So, with the new update, I know I'll be able to use the list, but will we have to start the ranking process over?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

John
Luckily, I was looking in the wrong folder and I found the list. So, with the new update, I know I'll be able to use the list, but will we have to start the ranking process over?


The new program should integrate smoothly with your old list. The main differences at this point will be:

*Ability to delete albums within the program
*Half the run-time after exiting the comparison loop
*Improved random comparisons (in the sense that the list should "converge" to truth faster)

If Henrik gets back to me, I'll also have an option for ranking artists based on an album and song list. There are a few kinks to work out yet (I don't know how to handle 2 different artists with the same name - any suggestions?), but it's getting there.

I could upload the new Album Ranker, but I think it would make more sense to upload it with a Song Ranker and Artist Ranker at the same time. Hit me up on Facebook if you'd like me to give you just the Album Ranker.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

I'll be definitely interested by all 3

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

I did something really stupid, so now my list is all messed up. Is there a big red button i could press?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam
If Henrik gets back to me, I'll also have an option for ranking artists based on an album and song list.
Have you ask me about this before? I'd of course be happy to help you out with whatever you need.

My dream application is a feature in Spotify. That if you shuffle a playlist you could actively listen and compare each song with the previous song and then tick one of the buttons "better" or "worse".
- if you tick "better" and song B is behind song A in the playlist, song B would automatically move up to the place just ahead of song A
- if you tick "worse" and song B is ahead of song A in the playlist, song B would automatically move down to the place just behind song A
- otherwise no changes to the order of the playlist
Then song C is compared to song B and so on...

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Zorg
I did something really stupid, so now my list is all messed up. Is there a big red button i could press?


Could you be more specific? Did you choose the wrong album and want to correct it, or is it something more serious?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Henrik
Moonbeam
If Henrik gets back to me, I'll also have an option for ranking artists based on an album and song list.
Have you ask me about this before? I'd of course be happy to help you out with whatever you need.

My dream application is a feature in Spotify. That if you shuffle a playlist you could actively listen and compare each song with the previous song and then tick one of the buttons "better" or "worse".
- if you tick "better" and song B is behind song A in the playlist, song B would automatically move up to the place just ahead of song A
- if you tick "worse" and song B is ahead of song A in the playlist, song B would automatically move down to the place just behind song A
- otherwise no changes to the order of the playlist
Then song C is compared to song B and so on...


I was hoping you would give me advice about how to apply a modification of your artist ranking formula to these lists based on the number of albums/songs they have.

For instance, if a person has a list of their top 400 albums and top 1000 songs, how do you think the artist formula should apply? More specifically, I know AM uses 3100 to fill in gaps where artists have fewer than 6 albums/songs. What would you recommend in such a case?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Moonbeam, do you think you can have your program ready soon ?
Because the AM poll is coming up, and I was hoping your new program could help us.
Do you really need to include this artist formula if there is a specific artist ranker program ?
I mean this artist list based on their albums and songs doesn't really reflect one's taste about artists. An artists is much more than the sum of his/her albums and songs. ANd what to do with artists who are from the pre-album era ? NO, I think an artist ranker program would be much more intersting that taking a lot of time with a biased formula. But of course that is my modest opinion.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

I agree with Nicolas that the artist rank is more than the sum of albums and songs. One thing is if the artist writes his/her own songs. If not, I suppose that for most people the credit is spread between the writer and the performer. Then there's live performances and so on...

I also feel that for personal use the AM artist ranking formula weighs the top songs too high. For me personally, an artist with say 6 songs in the 2001-3000 region would beat an artist with one song in my all-time top 10 but nothing else that I enjoy. As plenty of people have already used the AM algorithm, I am surprised that no one has mentioned this before.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

OK, I'll put up the revised version of the Album Ranker soon and leave the Artist Ranker for now.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

back in april, i posted some details about a system i was developing for creating a list of favorite songs, using itunes data and excel.

since that time, i've done some slight tweaking with the formula(s), but the idea has essentially remained. however, now, the resulting value is based on a combination - well, multiplication technically - of what i refer to as 'coefficients' (decremental values based on how recently a song has been played), and 'milestones' (a fibonacci-sequenced system based on the number of days a song has been in my library).

all in all, i'm happy with it. and so far, i have 29 weeks of charting data! now, it's just a matter of minor tweaking here and there. but I'd like to get a general feel for something:

how much time do you gents typically let pass before a song (or album) is eligible for your personal lists? a month? 90 days? none?

my general rule, for the sake of my system, is 180 days, but now i'm leaning toward 100. curious to hear some opinions on it.

thanks
-sire

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

sire
back in april, i posted some details about a system i was developing for creating a list of favorite songs, using itunes data and excel.

since that time, i've done some slight tweaking with the formula(s), but the idea has essentially remained. however, now, the resulting value is based on a combination - well, multiplication technically - of what i refer to as 'coefficients' (decremental values based on how recently a song has been played), and 'milestones' (a fibonacci-sequenced system based on the number of days a song has been in my library).

all in all, i'm happy with it. and so far, i have 29 weeks of charting data! now, it's just a matter of minor tweaking here and there. but I'd like to get a general feel for something:

how much time do you gents typically let pass before a song (or album) is eligible for your personal lists? a month? 90 days? none?

my general rule, for the sake of my system, is 180 days, but now i'm leaning toward 100. curious to hear some opinions on it.

thanks
-sire


Songs and albums can immediately be put in my database.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

OK, pals and gals, here is a link to download the latest version of my Album Ranker program.

If you already have been using the program, all you have to do is replace the old "Album Ranker.txt" file with the new version, and proceed as normal. It should be compatible with your old "Album List.txt" file and the "Albums.RData" file. Do not replace your old "Album List.txt" or "Albums.RData" files.

The main differences between the old version and the new version are:

*The program is faster. The program should produce all of the necessary vectors and matrices for displaying the customized lists in half the time.

*The way albums are selected for comparison is better. I ran simulations of the old method and the new method and found that the newer method converges more quickly to the "true" list. It also should get rid of situations where albums either very high or very low in the list are only compared to the same album every time.

*You can delete albums from within the program. This is the tricky bit. Because the program uses information from 2 places (the "Album List.txt" file and the "Albums.RData" file), deleting or resorting albums from the text file will cause the vectors and matrices to be mismatched with the album order in the RData file.

Thank you to John and nicolas, who were kind enough to road test the new version and highlight bugs in the system. It should be ready to roll without any problems.

Please let me know if you have any feedback or are looking for extra features. A version 3.0 can be forthcoming if need be!

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

When I type source(“Album Ranker.txt”) the program reponds:

1. Error in as.vector(x) : subscript out of bounds
2. Error in eval.with.vis(expr, envir, enclos) :
object 'overrated' not found

Can you please help? Thanks. I have just replaced the Album List.txt with the new version.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Octopus
When I type source(“Album Ranker.txt”) the program reponds:

1. Error in as.vector(x) : subscript out of bounds
2. Error in eval.with.vis(expr, envir, enclos) :
object 'overrated' not found

Can you please help? Thanks. I have just replaced the Album List.txt with the new version.


Eek! You were supposed to keep your old "Album List.txt" and replace "Album Ranker.txt". Do you have a backup copy?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Sorry - I did replace the 'Album - Ranker.txt' - my post was incorrect.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

I'm sorry to bring up a rather old thread, but I would really like to just say how brilliant this program is. Let me give an example: I've never really known what my favourite TV on the Radio album was. It's always been a tossup between Return to Cookie Mountain and Dear Science - I'd probably edge it to Cookie. So then I did a couple of comparisons on the program and this was a part of the results;

120 TV ON THE RADIO - RETURN TO COOKIE MOUNTAIN 2005 -3.73 77
127 TV ON THE RADIO - DEAR SCIENCE 2008 -4.02 76

This program just GETS me. It's so so so so soooo good. Thank you so much Moonbeam!

One last thing; is it ok if I edit the stars rating?

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Octopus
Sorry - I did replace the 'Album - Ranker.txt' - my post was incorrect.


I'm sorry for missing this post! I don't know how that happened. Can I ask further questions, if you're still interested?

Did you use the first version of the program to generate a list? Have you saved a backup copy of it? If so, you can send it to me in an e-mail if you like (ian_renner [at] yahoo.com) and I can fiddle with it.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Zorg
I'm sorry to bring up a rather old thread, but I would really like to just say how brilliant this program is. Let me give an example: I've never really known what my favourite TV on the Radio album was. It's always been a tossup between Return to Cookie Mountain and Dear Science - I'd probably edge it to Cookie. So then I did a couple of comparisons on the program and this was a part of the results;

120 TV ON THE RADIO - RETURN TO COOKIE MOUNTAIN 2005 -3.73 77
127 TV ON THE RADIO - DEAR SCIENCE 2008 -4.02 76

This program just GETS me. It's so so so so soooo good. Thank you so much Moonbeam!

One last thing; is it ok if I edit the stars rating?


You're welcome! I'm so glad that you and others have found use out of this program. It's been a fun exercise to create and share.

You can definitely edit the stars column of the 'Album List.txt' file if you like. The only impact it will have is to adjust the Rating for each album.

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

Yeah, thanks Moonbeam for the great list program! I've been spending the last few weeks with it myself and I love it to bits. I feel like I'm being encouraged to make instinctual comparisons, rather than worry about all the "number crunching" nonsense!

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

hey Moonbeam

i can't delete anymore

This is what I get

delete("sea change")
Are you sure you want to delete NA? (Y/N):Y
Erreur dans `$<-.data.frame`(`*tmp*`, "ID", value = 1:589) :
replacement has 589 rows, data has 590

Do you have an idea ?

PS : same error shows in another folder I've created with another distinct ranking program

PS2 : In both projects, I have given albums a number of stars like 4.5, 3.25, 4.3, instead of absolute values. Is that why deleting doesn't work ??

Apart from that everything is working fine

Re: The list-making workshop : sharing our list-making methods

F... me !

it was obvious and i didn't see it ! the NA thing ! i forgot that the album name was case sensitive !

and I have lost one hour trying to figure out what had changed since the last time it worked !

sorry

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