CcMixter

ccMixter uses ccHost, an Open Source project sponsored by Creative Commons to build web infrastructure to support legal media sharing and remixing.

This page is to support ccMixter's use of ccHost:

General

• CC-only portal: everything is CC-licensed
• Notes: Runs on CcHost, supports Sample Pool API
• Size last updated 20071006.

Communication

Press Releases

Winner Announcements

Roadmap / Timeline

Procedures

Setting Up a Contest

Syncing Magnatune DB

Administration

Restarting CC Mixter

Daily Administration Tasks

1. Read all forum posts -- look especially for:

a. People reporting bugs/issues

b. Flame wars

2. check out all uploads -- look for:

a. Illegal media

b. Mis-labled uploads ('sample' is really an a cappella)

c. un-attributed remixes (uses samples from brad sucks but doesn't mark it as such)

3. handle requests/posts to cchost list

Regular

1. ccHost releases

2. mixter contests: at this point we can assume there will always be at least one contest in some stage of production -- currently we have the LisaD contest wrapping up and the Copyright Criminals one ramping up

3. Special projects: CC folks (like Mia and Mike) generate special deals/projects that need some kind of attenion.

4. Overall quality music quality management on mixter - this is a vague one but I spent a fair amount of time on a personal mission making sure the music on mixter was actually good -- reviewing/rewarding real musicians/producers who upload.

Contests

Setting up a Contest

The process of creating a contest is basically like a wizard, admin fills out some forms and a new virtual root is created with the relevant tabs ('submit', 'entries', 'winners', etc.) the tabs visibility are controlled by the dates of the contest.

The 'submit' tab is a form that knows how to add tags 'contest_entry' and the contest name (e.g. 'free article directory')

There is a 'submit entries' tab that only admins can see that mark the uploads as credit protection and the admin can additionally mark the upload as the 'main source' or an extra upload (for stuff like loop libraries or a cappellas, etc.)

the only part that's not automated is tagging the winners with the 'winner' tag (which I wrote a scriptlet for but that needs editing in the winner's names and song title to work, so it's easier to just use the admin screens for each song and click on 'winner' under 'system tags')

It's all pretty self evident except for this last part which could probably stand to be part of a how-to faq on the wiki (which is the next part I added)

>>I guess the relevant pages for Magnatune were
>>http://ccmixter.org/contests/magnatune/loops and
>>http://ccmixter.org/contests/magnatune
>>
>>Were these pretty much custom creations for the Magnatune contest?
>>

The contest 'about' tab has the default behavior of showing the contest description, logo and with relevant dates including online polling information. If there is an online poll for the contest, the current results/tally is shown here. On Mixter we replace this default with our own beautiful contest home page.

The 'sources' tab has the default behavior of listing out all uploads with the 'contest_source' tags.

http://www.ccmixter.co.za/yfm/view/contest/sources

for Magnatune we replace the default behavior with a completely custom engine because none of the source was actually on the site. We publish the source to that in CVS but (up until now) isn't really part of the mainline cchost installation.

> One other dumb question -- how did Magnatune "receive" the entries. You
> just pointed them to http://ccmixter.org/magnatune/view/contest/entries
> or did you package them in a zip or something else like laptop repair parts?

All contest entries end up in their own tree on the server (under the local server path './contest/contest_name/user_name' as opposed to './people/user_name' (aka contrib). This lets you just zip up or ftp point or whatever to just that directory.

For magnatune I wrote a script that, at one minute after the deadline, zipped up the contest root and ftp'd the result to John's server[uslifeinsurancecompanies.com .]

Release Procedure Post-Contest

The contest process is mostly automated except for the final stage of publicity.

• Make release page
• test links
• make release text
• send off release text to be checked by contest sponsors
• update website
• update winners (contact them)
• submit release to release outlets