Editor Pick Guidelines

First off, thanks for helping out with being an editor on ccMixter. Few things are more important on ccMixter than making it easy for the casual listener, podcaster, film director and other consumers of music to find the great music on the site. Don't be confused, the job of editor is crucial to this site.

Here are some guidelines for making this feature function to its stated goals:

How to Pick

Go to a track's upload page. There under the download buttons you should see a link called 'Editorial'. Click it and the rest should be self evident.

To edit a review later do the same thing.

If for some reason you want to delete it, do the same thing select the 'delete' checkbox before hitting submit. (There is no UNDO after you delete.)

What to Pick

Try to think of the pool of music on the site in two pots: in the first pot is all the music that you think is fantastic according to your taste and sensibilities; in the second pot is the most likely music to be used in a podcast or other music consumption context.

The perfect editor's pick is the one that is in both categories. Let your taste be the first criteria, don't pick something you don't love. But just as important is to pick something that you know that programmers, DJs, podcasters and film scorers will appreciate.

The bottom line: please always try to keep in mind that this feature is not so much about sharing your taste of music like you would in an audio blog or WebJay playlist, but instead a way to guide serious music consumers to the absolute best music on the site. The goal of ccMixter is to push open music to as wide a public as possible.

As of this writing, the edpicks listings are sorted by the date they were uploaded, not when you picked it, so picking older tracks will not show up on the left sidebar or very high in the Picks page. Someday this will be fixed but for now you should keep it mind when selecting a pick, you can still do it, it just won't get the same attention as something actually on every page on the site.

Writing the Review

The most important part of the review is the first several words. These are the one that show up under the title and artist on the 'Picks' page so they have to be descriptive of the actual track, not your emotional reaction to it.

Good opening lines:

• Funky, upbeat and fun throughout...
• Sombre and touching with a hint of morose...
• Driving rock beats, like U2 but better...

Not so good opening lines:

• What can I say? joemixter is great...
• Wow! Impressive and fantastic...
• A triumph on every level...

After that you're on your pretty much on your own. Try to make the review descriptive and tempting. Mention genres, well known artists or moods that seem appropriate. Some other random considerations are to spread things around, especially to hot new ccMixters, but that's all secondary to the points made above.

Thanks again, happy picking.