I’ve gotten several vague complaints about the testing process – I’ve been doing a bit more testing this weekend, and think I experienced the problem others have seen. I’m mulling over the possible solutions.
Here’s the deal – if a schedule item has not had a test in a long time, then you can’t directly launch the link without doing a test. This is happening a lot more, as the mega-testers have taken the hint that I want more people testing, not 2 or 3 people doing all the work.
Back in April, I created “opt in tracking”. If you don’t “opt in” to allow me to track what your computer does, you go directly to the station and no log record is made that you tried to listen to a station.
When you announce a test worked, I look to see if you actually did listen, or you just clicked on “it worked” to make the testing requirement go away. If you opted out of tracking, there is no record that you listened, therefore, I force you to do the test again. There is no way out of that loop.
Does that explain what anyone else is seeing?
By the way, being the evil person I am, I implemented the “industry standard” for opting out of all tracking over the weekend. If you use firefox, go to the Privacy options under Tools and choose “Tell Web Sites I do Not want to be Tracked”, and come back to the web site. 🙂
Generally, I test a station (usually logged in as Hesperus) that is streaming one of the programs I’m interested in hearing. In such a case, I will select a station that needs testing and report my results. I don’t go out of my way to test, and I don’t shirk the chance to contribute. My problems usually occur when I get into an impossible-to-go-on situation within the testing regimen, and thus cannot (as far as I can tell) complete the test. When this occurs, I don’t know what to do next and so just drop it and go on to another station. This is why, in another post in another thread, I suggested a small dialogue box designed to tell you what happened when nothing else fits. I still think that makes sense.
Oh, why Hesperus there and Piquerist here? When I noticed that the Guide was still up and not moldering in the grave, I started using its fine service again as Hesperus; I could not, however, post to the blog as Hesperus for some reason. So, I created Piquerist in order to play in this sandbox. It’s either that or my split personality.