{"id":12440,"date":"2015-04-04T01:03:19","date_gmt":"2015-04-04T06:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=12440"},"modified":"2015-04-04T01:03:19","modified_gmt":"2015-04-04T06:03:19","slug":"czar-wish-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=12440","title":{"rendered":"Czar wish list"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings potential czars!<\/p>\n

Ultimately, if you take on the challenge to be in charge of a genre or state, you are in charge of how you want to balance the time you have between quantity and quality. If you are very careful on every detail, the stations you haven’t looked at start to age. If you work quickly, you may miss important changes.<\/p>\n

So here is my wish list of what gets looked at – your interests and priorities may differ. When looking at the big picture, if things aren’t being fixed and filled in, there wasn’t much point to being a czar. The “yes\/no” verification doesn’t need any powers to fix things. So here we go…<\/p>\n

– does the home page contain information for the station you are reviewing? If it isn’t, then nothing else matters. Many stations have very little information. If that page is not good enough, find one that is. Don’t point the URL at Wikipedia, Tunein or another similar radio station directory. We want a page the radio station maintains that is current <\/p>\n

– if this station is a simulcast (more than one station carrying identical programming all day, every day) – is that still true? This can only be done by human creatures. Look at the affiliate list or the web page and look for your station. If you can’t spot it, use the google searches (links are in the editor), or look at Wikipedia in case they have newer information. Follow your nose until you have found the truth. If you are sure the station broke away, click off the Simulcast checkbox, change the format to “no web site” and start all over describing the station<\/p>\n

– look at the “under construction” checkbox – if it is set, the automation spotted something suspicious – the station has a new owner, the call sign changed, the name of their web site changed. Assume the current information is out of date. One of the most likely reasons is the next item<\/p>\n

– has the station programming format changed? Or was it wrong to begin with – common where more than one station shares the same web page. Keep in mind that as soon as you fix the format, you lose the ability to do any more changes<\/p>\n

– is their Facebook page pointing at the right place? Facebook counts turn out to be very important to see which stations matter in your chosen kingdom. Earlier automation of this made a lot of errors – if you’re looking at KABC and the facebook page is pointing at Reece’s Pieces, cycle it (down at the bottom) by clicking No Facebook then Get Facebook. If it still thinks Reese’s Pieces is correct, Click Invalid – or find it by hand and copy \/ paste the right Facebook page and click update. You don’t need a facebook account to do this<\/p>\n

Now the less important stuff – which is designed to mostly be “point and click”. If you find yourself using the keyboard, you’re working too hard.<\/p>\n

– is there a streaming player on a station that didn’t used to stream? That’s a good find
\n– has the streaming player changed? Most have – in most cases the editor finds the change and just asks if you agree
\n– is there a web page that has a schedule or list of hosts? Again, the editor mostly will find them and just needs you to confirm it
\n– does the station have a podcast section?<\/p>\n

Here is what the editor looks like <\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The left side is where you edit – the right side is where you can interact with the station web site and where “tests” show up. Clicking the call sign on the top left next to the Update button will refresh the right side – important to do if you changed the URL to a new web site and you want to make sure it loads correctly<\/p>\n

Most of the top left section (other than the Update and Complete buttons) are information sources to try to figure out if we have the right station. The Title and Keywords help a lot if the station uses them.<\/p>\n

The Blue section is where the listen page (if present) and the player are set. The “listen page” is a page where the station lists every one of their streaming options – different bit rates, more than one station, apps for smart phones and the like. The “stream” is the option most likely to work for the most types of listeners. Even if you can’t listen to the stream, a fixed untested player is better than one that gives a 404 error<\/p>\n

The green section is where the schedule information is – more important for news\/talk stations than music, but a nice to have<\/p>\n

At the bottom is the Facebook link and network affiliation (if you’re the czar of national sports talk, for instance). There should never be a need to manually force a call sign change.<\/p>\n

Any questions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings potential czars! Ultimately, if you take on the challenge to be in charge of a genre or state, you are in charge of how you want to balance the time you have between quantity and quality. If you are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-the-guide","category-volunteer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12440"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12456,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12440\/revisions\/12456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}