Any interest in a 'Top Songs of All Time' project dealie?

I was browsing a bunch of old vgm things around here, and I saw a project that intended to compile the top 500 video game music 'releases' of all time. It doesn't look like it succeeded or even garnered a lot of interest, but I thought it might be neat to adapt the idea slightly and just focus on specific songs as opposed to entire games/soundtracks/whatever.

Here's what I'm thinking:
- 50 song minimum, 300 song maximum for individual lists. Songs will preferably be ranked within people's lists. Obviously I tally all the points together at the end and compile the list that way. The specific minimum/maximum numbers can be adjusted.
- No remixes/doujin/arrangements (unless they're composed specifically for the game, like the Brawl soundtrack) or licensed tracks. Visual novel songs are fine. Think BSC rules.

Here's what I haven't decided:
- I don't quite know how to tabulate points. It makes sense to assign somebody's top song the highest amount of points (that might mean that, on a list of 300 songs, the number 1 song gets 300 points), but I also thought about having an option for people who don't want to rank everything (maybe assigning all their songs equal value).
- Not sure if I should involve other vgm forums or not (this is pretty much the only one I'm familiar with firsthand).
- And obviously, the final number on the finished list is still up in the air. I guess that depends on the level of interest and participation.

More to the point though: would there be interest in this? It seemed like the project I mentioned earlier didn't get a lot of participation. Plus I'm more of a lurker here than anything else, so I hope it wouldn't be weird for me to be running this thing.

So yeah, what do you all think? Any questions or concerns or feedback or overwhelming amounts of ambivalence and/or scorn?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I kinda figured the reason the soundtracks project didn't take off was actually because it seemed more complicated to come up with whole games as opposed to individual songs. Maybe I'm just weird! I also figured having a large list threshold would be better, since - like you said - most people here have listened to a shit-ton of video game music and it wouldn't be as... limiting, I guess. It just seems like people have a tough time narrowing down BSC noms every year and have no shortage of potential SOTW participants. But if you think the list would be better with a narrower scope, I can try that as well.

You certainly don't have to worry about me getting overwhelmed with data entry and points and such. I'm used to this kind of crap! My more pressing concern would be, as you said, making sure the participants are okay with the amount of songs. I can always just have no minimum song requirement (so somebody can post a list of 10 songs) but have lists with more songs be weighted more highly. I'm open to suggestions.

Above all else though, if people wouldn't really be down with it then I don't have to do it. No harm no foul. =) Thanks for the feedback (and reassurances that I wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes)!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Elorin: The ranking system might be off-putting to some people, yeah. That's why I added that caveat about potential ways to get around it, like if somebody didn't want to rank a certain number of their songs and their points could be more evenly distributed. Do you think that would be a good idea?

Taisai: Just covering my bases. Some people don't consider VNs to be a subset of video games, so I just wanted to clarify that from the getgo.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm surprised people don't seem keen on the idea of large individual lists. I can easily shorten it to, say, top 20 or 30, but I figured there wouldn't be a dearth of material to pick from, and I know that - as far as I'm concerned - I'd have a hard time narrowing it down to a number that small. A buddy of mine on another forum is doing something similar with people's favorite albums of all time, and the participants aren't having any issues coming up with a minimum of 50 and, in some cases, a full list of 300. But if that's the main thing preventing people from participating, I can still shorten it and see what happens.

The main reason I wanted such big individual lists was for variety's sake: if people only have, say, 20 songs it seems like there'll be a bunch of a 1-vote songs or, alternatively, a lack of diversity in the list. Having a small sample size like that might work if we had a bigger userbase. But again, I'm willing to see what happens.

As far as compiling the list goes, I'd be totally down with that once it's all finished. It would certainly be neat to have around and would give a degree of interactivity to the project.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Chuckster

Okay, let me rephrase: I'm not opposed to the idea of large lists. In fact, for me it will be fun. I'm just worried it may be a barrier to entry for some. On the other hand, I think it will impossible to get the necessary number of participants (read: in the hundreds) to make small lists work. Large lists may be the only way to go.

This is a pretty good point, and it seems to me that it becomes a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. We don't have enough participants to make small lists meaningful, but the size of large lists might scare off the few participants we do have.

I could always consider hosting it on multiple boards to solve that problem. Everybody gets a small list and that would increase participation and variety. Something else to consider, I guess.


EDIT: I guess this isn't really worth it based on the scope of the project I initially had in mind. Ah well. Thanks for the feedback anyway!

I was speaking idiomatically.