Backstage collaboration on wikiloops

Hey there, wikilonians :)

Today, I'd like to offer some info about what's happening in the wikiloops engine room lately, talk about some things the "average visitor" will probably not be aware of, and mention some folks who really deserve recognition for keeping the project on track.
On a side note - the invitation & promised information about the wikiloops member meeting 2015 is "live" [url=http://www.wikiloops.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=737]here[/url]

Let me start with some things that have been going on lately:
[b]One of the major concerns about 2015 on the 'loops is what webmasters call "scalability"[/b] - and the idea is quite simple:
Imagine, you own a bar, which turns out to become a somewhat hip place, attracting more and more people every weekend.
You'll be quite happy to notice that at first, and you'll be willing to hire some more bar personnel to cope.
At some point the place gets so crowded that the situation becomes hard to handle, people have to wait forever to get a drink, so you'll have to take a decision: Either, get a doorman who keeps out half of the tourists, or expand the size of the bar.

The idea of scalability is the latter approach - a scalable bar would ideally grow along with the number of customers, offering the right size to make the place look crowded and lively while allowing you to serve anyone quickly.

We all know there are no rubber buildings to rent, and moving your bar to a bigger location every month is also no good strategy... renting the local sports arena ahead of time might have the desired effect of being able to cope with huge lots of people, it might feel a little strange to pay the rent for that when there's just a few locals hanging around on a Thursday night.

Looking at the visitor growth rates of the 'loops, I do have all reason to believe that we'll need a bigger "venue" in the course of 2015, so what I have been dealing with lately is coming up with a "Plan B" scenario to make sure we will not experience a "your favorite bar is closed and will be re-opened in a bigger venue in four weeks"-situation.

Those who have read the 2014 budget report will know we have very little overhead to rent any arena-sized servers, so I have been investigating options to expand our "bar" on short notice, and on a "on demand" basis.
All I can say so far is: [b]I'm quite positive there will be a "Plan B"-solution ready in time[/b], chances are it is going to get quite costly.

There are many great things about the wikiloops "bar" (I'll just stick with the picture, it fits too well) - starting with the awesome live music, the free entry, the colorful mix of people one can meet here... but as in real life, most people who come in don't care much about the concerns of the bartending team.

[b]We obviously wanted to offer an open stage for musical collaboration[/b], what I would like to inform about today is the second area of collaboration happening on wikiloops, who's participants really deserve some "thumbs".
Just as in the on-stage collaboration, everyone is welcome to join the "[b]backstage collaboration[/b]", let me give you some examples:

- sometimes, helping out is as easy as informing the bartender "hey mate, one of the lightbulbs in the men's room just died, go and have a look!" - I'd like to give explicit thanks to [b]jmrukkers[/b] and [b]bleymehl[/b] for sending in precise and easy to follow error reports of that kind - I have been able to solve a lot of small issues based on their hints.

- I have to admit it: As a musician and trained as a social worker, I know as much about running a bar as the average bar owner knows about recording upright bass.
Every now and then, some members approach me with questions and ideas, and it is not rare to find out they can contribute valuable expert knowledge.
I'd like to give explicit thanks to [b]hurzel[/b], who -as the first person besides me- took a look into the way we store the "supplies" of wikiloops.
I spent about two weeks of restructuring the database after he had taken a quick look and pointed out some bottlenecks, with the effect that we can serve our visitors about 15% quicker than before - or 15% more guests at the same speed.
That's just one recent example of what can be achieved by working together - lets not forget about the translation helpers, the promotion advisors, the legal experts and graphic designers who have given a hand to improve wikiloops on the way!

- last, let me offer insight into one more aspect of the backstage collaboration, which is probably the least obvious and most touchy at the same time:
[b]A huge part of what people like about wikiloops has not much to do with technical aspects at all. [/b]
Setting up a webserver where people can download mp3s is a set-and-forget job,
creating the positive social experience that is needed to motivate people to contribute and engage with each other is a totally different ballgame.

It is always a treat to see how many of our new members actually recognize the spirit of the wikiloops community, which is indeed different from what you will find on most online platforms.
[b]To say the least, that is not a coincidence[/b], but the result of many hours of thinking, analyzing and great caution when developing wikiloops features, which all contribute to the users overall experience.

There is a wealth of options at hand which would have dramatic effects on the way people perceive wikiloops - some may seem rather tempting at first, others come with a bad manipulative taste right away, let me give a few examples:

- if wikiloops would offer contests or pretend to be the place where we celebrate the very best players and send home those who need to practice some more, this would be a different place, with a few "winners" and a lot of "loosers".
- if we'd allow people to bash each other with destructive feedback without some moderator quietly stepping in to inform & (where needed) enforce that this is not tolerated around here, wikiloops would look a lot different.
- if we set up an automatism which could make sure every upload receives at least five thumbs by some "members" (those could be programmed, who would be able to tell?), the user experience of new members would be even better!

I hope its needless to say that my last example is of the "bad taste"-kind, still [b]it does take someone to make the right decision in such matters[/b], and it would be naive to believe that those aspects didn't have a strong impact on the long-term success of this platform.
Chances are a competition platform might be more successful financially, so its [b]not uncommon to have to weigh philosophy against business success[/b].

I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to [b]Lutz, OliVBee, Wade, Uloisius, Rickplayer & Kimbo[/b], who have been helping as invaluable advisors in these matters. We have spent a huge amount of time discussing several improvements and options, and I am very glad about the feedback I am getting.

As some know, I actually have a few different characters enrolled on the loops to be able to slip in without the huge "that's the Admin!" notion, and it is always interesting to "sneak in" with a piece of music as anyone else would, to stay in touch with how a regular user experiences wikiloops. Of course the experience is different from when we had 50 members nowadays, but I still like the way it is :)
When someone started a forum thread on "[i]what if wikiloops was a village[/i]" some time ago, I couldn't help but smile, thinking:
Funny, from my point of view, wikiloops IS a village, with its own social structure, ruleset, firefighters, neighborhoods, tourists & inhabitants... It just takes an email address to get a piece of land here, and people grow a lot of amazing fruit by working together, and because it is fun :)

Thanks to all who make this possible, hope you enjoyed the read!






Village stats:
21.812 members
28.398 tracks by 1023 musicians