Something broke!

The “what’s on now” and stats look broken. “Unknown” is suddenly very popular.

This entry was posted in About the Guide. Bookmark the permalink.

18 Responses to Something broke!

  1. Art Stone says:

    All fixed.

    The graph of what’s on this hour has been missing the text for about a month, and nobody noticed and or wrote. It is fixed now.

  2. CC1s121LrBGT says:

    I think people noticed but did have not noticed how to get rid of the unknowns? Is there a link to a page where we can make them knowns?

    • Art Stone says:

      There are the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns.

      The “unknowns” should have a line under it to set the host name if you’re logged in. It doesn’t connect the hour to known shows – just let’s you set the name to something

      “Volunteers” have the ability actually connect that hour to known programs – but I ended the volunteer program several years ago. Only a couple people still have access to do that.

      • CC1s121LrBGT says:

        “You will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck.”
        —–Donald Rumsfeld

      • CC1s121LrBGT says:

        I added many stations to my favorites now and have been watching for the last 12 hours. Each of the unknowns shows the same “- unknown -” – Never an underline or hyperlink… and I am logged in or I don’t think I would see my favorites.

        I had been a volunteer but never figured out how to do this.. not sure if i still have access.

        I think it is safe to say that a volunteer making a mistake on an obscure program on SRG would not be the end of world commerce as we know it… not for 5 days, not for 5 weeks and certainly not for 5 months.

        • Art Stone says:

          The – unknown – is an unknown unknown. It means there is no schedule item for that station for the current hour and no intent to add one.

          I’ve covered this before, but adding a schedule item is 1% of the total work. Once added it creates an obligation on me to continue to maintain it. Without a demonstrated demand for the type of program, it isn’t going to happen. I have 10 years of doing this and lots of stories of people “wanting” things for 30 seconds and then vanishing.

          The most specific was the guy who said “you should really add local sports talk shows”. I said I would if he agreed to test them. I went through and added every show on every major market station. Not one of them generated a single click through. Needless to say, my volunteer vanished and never did a thing to help.

          • CC1s121LrBGT says:

            It wasn’t me with the sports, but as I said before, I’ve clicked through on the Spanish sports a number of times and have yet to hear a real bullfight. 😉

            • CC1s121LrBGT says:

              In fact, to be really candid, I don’t even know what sport I am – the announcers don’t even speak frickin’ English most of the time!

          • CC1s121LrBGT says:

            I am finally starting to understand the unknowns. So if I find that one of the -unknowns- is really Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, I should do nothing- you have no intent to add the actual show for that station and that time slot. That is fine. It just wasn’t clear to me until now.

  3. popsmayhem says:

    I really miss adding what the show hosts are talking about.. That was my favorite feature, we could put some really interesting stuff in their.

    • Art Stone says:

      Perhaps I broke something then, because I don’t remember turning that off. Then again, my memory is becoming more porous 😉

      The main requirement is you have to be logged in and set the topic while the show is live. Without that “rule”, the descriptions would regress – savage is on from 3-6 PM ET live, but the bulk of his non-Cumulus affiliates carry the show at 9 PM. If someone describes the topic during the 5 PM hour, and a listener at 9:15 sets the topic, they now become out of sequence. If you click on All Streams and go to the Show page, you can add information there, but it won’t show on the current topics list as the show is a delayed broadcast

    • Art Stone says:

      I double checked (I created a new user CharlotteNC with no magical powers). As long as you’re logged in and the program is live (and isn’t set to not allow topics), it should still work.

      In a few rare cases, I’ve blocked individuals for repeatedly causing problems – the main one being confusing “topic” with “my opinion about the host”, especially if the opinion is potentially libelous

  4. Art Stone says:

    Reason on unknown known gobbledygook

    http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/28/errol-morris-on-rumsfelds-gobbledygook-a

    It would be easier to focus on what they are saying if I was seeing a picture of a test pattern rather than watching people on a WebCam

    Hey little educational test for you – take your favorite TV program and listen to the sound without looking at the picture. It’s amazing how pompous and idiotic TV is if you only listen to the sound. Radio is not the soundtrack of a television show

Leave a Reply