The problem: people not really doing a test, but just clicking “It Worked” because they want to be helpful. This is especially destructive when a brand new volunteer wants to make a good impression and completes 35 tests in the first hour.
One of the things I’ve had to do to discourage this behavior is to implement a minimum valid test time – currently it is based on the average test time of other testers (an obscure local host will have a longer minimum than syndicated hosts that people can recognize easily).
I’m tweaking the way the minimum works today, taking into account the number of prior tests you have done. The more tests you have done, the shorter the minimums will become.
The testing also discourages one person from running down the entire list and testing every station at once. Among the reasons I did this:
- Topics don’t get set for days at a time because doing tests on a show is the main way people set topics (you can set the topic without testing)
- Overlapping testing of more than 2 or 3 streams makes it highly likely that you lose track of which stream you are hearing is which station
- I would rather have you come back more often or invite other friends to become testers than one person doing everything
- I’m an evil micromanager
Wow. I never knew you could test more than one station at once. I usually get distracted with work and end up with 1000+ second test times. No wonder my point totals never make the charts!
But … I have test anxiety ….
I’ve made a change to the Program Check page matching what I did last night on my own internal page (my MicroManager page is similar but has more dangerous buttons to press)…
If you sort by Show (by clicking on the header), it will now sort by most popular show rather than alphabetically.
It turns out the iPhone is extremely good at testing because there are no prestream ads and the PC based players are getting more and more burdened with junk that slows the load time. The down side to the iPhone is it isn’t testing the actual stream, only that the schedule is correct.
Is the “Did It Work” link the same as the “Save Me” link? The “Save Me” link has you verify the correct show is playing but the “Did it Work” offers no option. My assumption was click the “Did it Work” if the stream for that station worked (regardless of what show they were streaming). Based on an email I received, that is an incorrect assumption. On the weekends with regular shows pre-emptied for sports, the “Did it Work” link is useless.
The only difference is Save Me! shows up after a longer period since the last test and will become Expired soon…
I agree with your weekend observation. The only time you can really test after noon (station time) is late winter after football ends and before baseball season. There is also very little interest in streaming – other than Kim Komando (and her show is trailing off) and Bill Cunningham late Sunday. Mike McConnell hasn’t been replaced, Rusty Humphries never does a live show, Bob Brinker has cut back to Sunday only… It’s becoming a desolate wasteland of infomercials and reruns.
I liked sorting alphabetically because I could find what I was looking for quickly…I really miss that!
How about one called Not Libtard?