Idea Factory — Bar Band Rating System
Jul. 18, 2009 12:00 in
Idea Factory
From time to time, I play bass guitar for various bands in the DC area. After one night of getting stiffed over the door, I thought of using the web to help other bands know which venues are the good ones and which are not. From there, the idea grew into making it a two way conversation — in essence, a reciprocal rating system. More details after the jump…
How The Band Would Provide Information
- Each band would register to the system. The band would have the option to register anonymously or with their own name. Signed data would be weighted as twice as important as anonymous data, on the theory that if you’re willing to stand behind your opinion, you should get more credit for that.
- The band would pick first from a geographic region, then a list of venues within that region. If the venue was not in the list, the band would have the ability to add it.
- The band would rate the venue on the following factors:
Category Detail Values Weighting Pay On Time/As Promised Yes/No 25% Hassle Factor 1-10 20% Comments Free Text n/a Fee/Door % Check Boxes n/a Person Dealt With Name/Description Free Text n/a Load In/Out Hassle Factor 1-10 10% Comments Free Text n/a Staff Friendliness 1-10 10% Hassle Factor 1-10 15% Comments Free Text n/a Perks Comments Free Text n/a Acoustics Rank 1-10 15% Comments Free Text n/a Atmosphere Rank 1-10 5% Comments Free Text n/a Size/Capacity High Range Number n/a Low Range Number n/a
How The Venue Would Provide Information
- Each venue would also register to the system.
- The venue would pick from a geographic region. Once the geographic region was picked, the venue would update contact information accordingly.
- For a given band which performed at the venue, the venue would rate the band on the following factors:
Category Detail Values Weighting Band Name Name/Description Free Text n/a Professionalism On Time/As Promised 1-10 25% Hassle Factor 1-10 10% Comments Free Text n/a Volume Level Hassle Factor 1-10 10% Damage (if any) Rank 1-10 5% Quality of Performance Rank 1-10 25% Crowd Brought High Range Number 25% split between high & low Low Range Number
General Concepts
- Each rating (band or venue) would be rated by other bands and/or venues. As bands are more sensitive to the needs of bands (and venues to venues), a band rating on a band review is weighted 50% heavier than a non-band rating (and vice versa).
- Each band and/or venue will have the ability to directly rebut a negative review on the existing review.
Problems I Foresaw
- A band and/or venue can be impersonated by either a malicious actor or a overly zealous fan.
- Music, like most art scenes, tend to fall into one of two camps: either everyone plays nice and pretends to be friends or everyone is at each other’s throats for an opening. In the first case, a true and honest review is unlikely, for fear of offending a future employer (in the case of negatively reviewing a venue) or a future headlining act (in the case of negatively reviewing a band). The latter case, everything will be negative and will be tuned out on signal to noise grounds.
- Eventually, someone (most likely a venue) is going to sue on the grounds of slander/libel and the application is going to be dragged into the affair whether justified or not.
Mitigations
- Impersonation:
- Allow for reviews to be contested on the grounds of impersonation.
- Ranking scores are recalcuated, excluding the contested entry.
- A site admin is notified about the contested ranking
- Admin attempts to contact the official band/venue for verification
- Any denied rankings are deleted
- Any uncontested rankings are restored if 30 days have passed since the initial contestation.
- “Everyone’s a friend”/”Everyone’s a foe”:
- I never did figure anything out on this one. I think it’s just endemic to the industry. If there was sufficient momentum such that it was proven that a negative review of a venue caused the venue to improve (and likewise for a band), then maybe it would work. But that assumes a healthy environment which encourages open communication.
- Liability:
- With the caveat that I am not a lawyer, I don’t necessarily think that this may be a showstopper. Under the “phone system” model, the provider of this service will be connecting people with other people who want to share their opinions. So long as the provider doesn’t actively edit the reviews, the culpability should be greatly lessened, if not eliminated.
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