Letsbeef Improvement Proposal
 

This is a list of my proposal to improve Letsbeef from an in-site context.

We know a lot of modifications need to be done as far as coding, mobile-friendly etc etc but this is strictly to improve / make the site more appealing.


1. Usertitles Deleted

So im in two minds over this point, so my proposal is one of these two options:

A) All usertitles, besides staff title & HoF'er are removed, and only titles won as of Jan 2022 onwards will be awarded (This is to work along side a much more reduced tourney schedule which i'll propose later).

B) All usertitles are to receive an expiry period of 5 years. This excludes HoF & staff titles.

A section can be put on a users profile (in place of the award system perhaps) to permanently display usertitles.

I think when you see 20+ people with 5 titles apiece it reduces the desire to win them. When i started on this site 5% of users had titles, now it seems like 50% do.


2. Reduced Tournament Schedule

I think we should strip it back to the basics. Two tournament max a year, One a Grand Championship perhaps?

I think we need tournaments to become more special and unique. If you have one / two every month it gets too much.

I think one tournament a year should definitely have a cash prize.


3. Forum Cleanse

Ive started this discussion here: https://www.letsbeef.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172808

Strip the site back, make less forums, less clutter.


4. Close the Unranked & Exclusive Battle Sections

Again, too much clutter, and never used.


5. Audio Battles - Written Only

Freestyle battles are generally abused i find, let's make all battles officially written. Less drama that way.


6. Cypher Sections Reduced

Audio section closed (Audio cyphers are pretty much tracks right?)

Text section reduced / changed. A solo most votes top 20 list, a solo most recent top 20 list. Thats it.


7. Rankings Reset

Again im a little torn about this, but i think as of Dec 31st 2021 the ranking should be frozen (and moved somewhere for prosperity, HoF perhaps?) but ultimately reset as of Jan 1st 2022 to encourage the active members to get involved.


8. Ratings Removed on Battles & Tracks

Everyone rates every track a 10, every cypher a ten etc etc, lets get rid of them. I think an upvote / downvote system would be just as effective.

And with battles, i think you should vote for a winner only. Rating i think are redundant when an expo is already required.


9. No Title / Name Reinstation Upon Account Deletion

Simply - If you request your account is deleted, you lose the username and titles permanently. Deleting accounts is a massive issue for the site, i think we need to curb the occurrence of it as much as possible.

Perhaps signing a disclaimer upon account registration would help.



Have a think and drop your feedback on these points. There is still time to save LB, but perhaps some bold actions are needed.

1/

Section 9 added.

1/

How to make concentration camps better; add plant pots to the cells.

I agree with most of this.. Might as well throw some change around but like you said titles should be showcased on the users profile aside from hof and staff.

Cheers Phe

What would happen to our exclusive battles? Could we just make our exclusive battles ranked battles and add them to our regular records?

cool.

I dig the opvote/downvote idea!!

If thats plausable i think it would make the most sense

Alright dope.. I dont see any of this being bad for LB

Definitely put tournament titles on profiles. Maybe leave Grand Champion, Hall of Fame, & Staff

I've always thought there should be a time period between battles. Similar to boxing to stop a thousand battles a week/day or people just voting for credits. The anticipation dies when a guy's constantly dropping battles.

What if we had a system where you can only battle once a month or week. People would look forward to reading battles from someone they don't see fludding the text/audio arena. And PPV cards would be doper.

^I've always wanted something like this because for example, if EtH has 5-10 open battles, ill get bored of him quickly even though the first one entertained tf out of me.

1 GC per category a year. 1 text, 1 audio.
Secondary titles go to profile.

Remove the track section (or keep it for diss tracks & battle beats only) to free up space on the site.. Guys should be promoting and building their own Soundcloud, YouTube, or whatever platform they have as musician and I think the LB track section is just a waste of plays. I'd rather a person listen on soundcloud than LB which is why my library is deleted.

Punk pretty much nailed it

I agree with most of what RULE and Punk are saying, and if we’re really getting an overhaul I’m quite excited about what that means for LB.

I do have some minor tweaks on this I’ll suggest later but taking time to think them through for now.

I'm against the change 5: Audio Battles - Written Only

While many people are clearly bullshitting, as someone who genuinely freestyles I'd appreciate a section for my raps. Freestyling is my favourite thing about rapping, and I shouldn't have to compete against people who wrote their shit out ahead of time and memorized it. Keep the two categories, if people want to cheat, that's on them and their own honour. Besides, you can usually tell anyway.

Audio cyphers are completely broken but I agree with you and Punk on a lot of points

I agree with Plus1elf on the audio shit but most people write their shit and claim its a free anyway

Thanks for putting some thought into this. I'll add my two pennies in color.
In addition to these changes, I think the staff should be drastically reduced and trimmed as well. The only mod I would consider adequately active is Kiwi, and I don't even know how active he is these days. You guys might also want to review your infraction/punishment system, because I see a lot of bans when there is barely anybody here. I'm not saying to lower your standards as far as what you let slide, but reconsider the severity in light of how active the overall site is.

:monkey:

I genuinely am surprised you guys are taken into this so easily.

This is literally a 14 year old forum website, with absolutely zero change to the design or functionality incoming, and absolutely zero money/work going into recruitment and advertising.

Literally not a single thing mentioned in this thread changes the site in the slightest.

PS. "Deleting accounts is a massive issue for the site, i think we need to curb the occurrence of it as much as possible" LOL.

Agree with most of this but i'm on the fence with wiping peoples records though, like you mentioned moving somewhere else, how about keeping them on the person profile page and instead of having the exclusive rankings that used to also show on a persons page, use that spot (with exclusive battles being removed) to show the members new rank per the reset?

So on the left of their pro-page will display their rankings from sign up to reset and then beside that on the right their new/current rankings...?

As for titles people have won, can keep them on their pro-page as well and have them removed from forums posts and battles?

Other than that, pretty solid. :high:

From my experience, the site puts pressure on new talent to keep it active, while simultaneously treating them as if they are insignificant .. just my 2 cents :pimp:

Got an hour before the Scotland game so let's do this;

The only reason people hated user titles is because there were so many that it diminished the championships for others. In like 2021, people like me winning titles is why the titles have diminished. If some nobody wins a title because only 3 people are in a tournament, their title isn't diminished because Meta4 also has one.

It's absolutely dumbfounding that you imagine LB in 5 years and the biggest concern to you is whether or not someone from 10 years ago still has a title. Imagine us 5 years ago from now and look at what it's become. Do you actually see ANYTHING in 5 years?


You probably can't run a 32 man tournament on LB, even running one a year. Every single tournament has like 10 people posting at most. It doesn't matter whether it's Scheme or One Bar cause no one cares either way.


Sure, it'd make the forums look busier maybe, but people don't use any of those threads right now so it wouldn't drive any traffic.

Again, as you say, never used. Therefore it's not causing any negatives. Therefore removing it wont result in a positive.

Makes no difference really. Probably the only possible thing you could have result from this is the only few freestyle battlers leaving.

Reduced? I've not seen a text cypher with a vote on it since like 2009, and any one that did have one had it from me as I was farming credits.

Delete all their battles. Show them how it feels.

Genuinely the only half decent idea.

What if your account gets deleted for being mean to RULE? EDIT: Also the delete button has never been necessary. GDPR doesn't apply to LB. Firstly, we're not signing up with sensitive data. Secondly, even if we did, no website in the world allows you to pull the plug and straight delete. You can request your data be removed.




But really, it's just nonsense man. Firstly, you can't implement half of this. You have no power or ability to remove sections or ratings etc. Your big mandate is to request coding...from X...who's said he's been doing this shit for 5 years. I dunno what it is about their family but lying about v4 is absolutely insanely a family trait at this stage.

LB is done man. You gotta accept it. We don't get new members and those who somehow do stumble across the website don't even understand how to use it because they, and I'm not exaggerating, might not have been born when LB was created. LB's design is from 15 years ago. I joined LB when I was 14 years old, like a tonne of people on here.

There's next to no successful forum sites on the world now. It's still probably the only coded battle site, but no one's looking for text battle sites themselves. You would have to physically bring the site to the people, and drastically change the product you were bringing first.

I imagine this will frustrate you, probably because half of those ideas up there were mine. I bitched at you for fucking years about usertitles, and forums, and the unranked section. But look around man. Nothing you propose will increase membership. At the absolute most, it will slow losing members, and we're already not retaining members so by the time you get X to do something, you want to preserve LB in a year's time?

Unless someone wants to buy a website that X admits operates at a loss fueled purely off of nostalgia and name alone, then LB isn't ever going to improve from right now. Today is the best it'll ever be again, right now.

Im new here...just some friendly advice
 

If you want to increase site participation.....

That may mean actually being involved in every post or thread..

Comment on the new folks who arrive so they stick around...

You can't have tourney's without people...so focus on the one factor you need.

Draw more people in...

It's plenty ways to do it......

Thing is...most of the folks moved over to facebook battle groups..

So how do u get those folks back...

Run facebook ads...build the community back up...

Ask folk to return and make it more active by actually participating n being active yourself.



Good luck....so far...ive seen battles with barely any votes....the site looks dead but u get the right ppl posting consistently....it will draw in more talent...

Folks need inspiration and look to sites like these to find folk to inspire them to write or help them improve..


So inspire folk....


Make folks wanna come back because it is dope shit being posted here daily...


Just some friendly advice from someone who has been around longer than most of you.

Ive seen sites die off but this one is still around so keep it from dying off..


It will take a combined effort from all of you...

Not just the mods.....everyone who posts here...


U want someone to vote on your battle...then vote for other battles..

U want ppl to check you out...then check other folk out...

Salute...

Stfu........

All valid points!

NOBLE, the guy who posts twice a year and hasnt battled since 2012 yet still blames the users for the site not improving despite 14 years of no leadership. Amazing.

Eth is upset that I gave someone else props for making what I thought were valid points. Sad.

You have LITERALLY had one battle, at least on this account, in 6 years. Yet you blame the members for the state of the site. Fuck outta here you clown.

You're a fucking liar who's not as smart as he thinks. I'm literally exhausted from correcting your lies over the years. I have never blamed the members for the state of the site. I have suggested there are things we can all do to make things better as a community. That's not the same thing as blame. You went on my page to see when my last battle was before posting that I hadn't battled since 2012, and you couldn't even get that right. Go check again. Beside pointing out the fallacies in what you're saying, what's more astonishing is the fact that we're only having this back and forth because you got mad I gave Meticulous props for his response after you told him to stfu. Do you realize how lame that is?

"Things we can do". Who's this we? Your last battle before this week was half a decade ago (and yes, half, cause you text battled in 2015. I believe "Go check again" was your words?

You've been banging your head against the wall for almost 10 years. You believed in the admins, we told you it was dumb, we were proven right....so you then continued to believe in the admins. I swear if X came back for 2 weeks you've be telling us to stay patient because v4 is coming. You've been saying the same dumbass shit for literally a decade now, and despite never once being proven even slightly right, you continue along the tracks. Even now, instead of being like "Yeah the site's fucked without X doing something" you still have the audacity to blame the members (the same ones you havent been a part of in 6 years). Kick rocks jabroni.

You still can't get it right. Lol.
First you said I haven't battled since 2012, (9 years ago), now it's 6 years ago. My last audio battle (which might actually still be open since voting has been so low) was started last year (but I guess audio doesn't count). Since the text battle you see on my page from 2015, I've posted a few tournament battles (but I guess those don't count either). And besides the asinine assumption that battling (or text battling) is the only metric of activity on the site, everyone knows (except for the absolute newbies) that I was a long time admin of this site who intentionally chose to battle seldomly so as to abstain from any conflict of interest or to have any skewed results because of my influence. I created a multi (Iron Mike), which you know about, to battle under for that very purpose, and I stopped battling under Iron Mike once it became common knowledge it was me. I have also battled under other multis you don't know about. With that being said, I only stepped down as admin within the last two years, and I was fully active till then, battling or not battling. So yes, I still maintain you're a fucking liar who can't get your stories straight. I normally ignore you but I've got time today. Keep it coming. I'm going to give you a full diagnosis.

I agree with most of what RULE posted

I do think the track section should be kept simply because we have track makers from the past that have posted and don't come online anymore and it kind of takes away from what they've done cats like Mars, Stotty P, Relly, Punk, myself etc. and then the ratings could go away

I think secondary titles could go on profiles and the main ones like Grand Champ and HOF should stay on forums etc as they currently are.
Which would give the GC and HOF titles more prestige imo.

1 GC for each category would be nice like Audio and Text.

As for a cap on battles, not sure how I feel about that, not sure if that would help activity, as there aren't many battles to begin with....

I don't think titles should be reinstated after account deletions.

@RULE or any mod, feel free to move all irrelevant posts, including my back and forth with Ethan, into a new thread. I don't want the bullshit to get in the way of the topic. Let's stay focused.

Ethan LMFAO, sounds like the name of a kid who wears scarfs and shit talks on CoD all fuckin day.

This all is very much entertaining. People have joined, people enjoy this stuff...the problem is the power bestowed upon the mods & FVC... i can name atleast 10 very active members in the last month that logged off bc of mods/FVC voting power. Trust is in the wrong hands.

Lmfao @ the mods killed the place.

Dudes about to mention how AfterThought and Murderous Swag ran barzooka off the site

This is the only thread with posts on it in like 2 years and you want to delete them lmao stfu.

You were admin until2 years ago? Awesome, cool, you were wrong though. You told us a million times and you know you did, that V4 was coming. To stay patient. That there was shit happening the behind the scenes that we werent privy to and that we just needed to have faith and relax. You said this for 10 years. How long do we have to stay patient exactly? Cause not a fucking thing has changed and the site has went EXACTLY like guys like me and Pulse told you. Instead of trying to take action, you guys just sat around telling everyone to stop complaining. Now the site is dead as fuck and you guys think proposing coding changes that X wont do and deleting usertitles is going to make a single bit of difference.

For you guys who cosign all of these, please explain to me how that gets us new members to a 2007 designed website that doesn't have any form of promotion or advertisement. If any of you can answer me that, I'll jump on board and work full time for LB.

Wtf does any of that have to do with improving the site???
Takin about titles and cyphers. And making audio battles all written...smh

---------- Post added at 11:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:04 AM ----------

HOW ABOUT CHANGE THE LOOK OF THIS BITCH...SHITS BEEN THE SAME FOR OVER A DECADE AND A HALF.

AND WHOEVER DECIDED TO HAVE VOTING POWER SHIT AND LET THE MODS HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE PEOPLES VOTING POWER, COMPLETELY KILLED THE BATTLES..A BATTLE THAT CAN GO EITHER WAY DOESN'T HAVE A TRUE OUTCOME DEPENDING ON WHO VOTES. THERE AINT THAT MANY ACTIVE USERS AND I CAN BET A LOT OF EM DONT EVEN HAVE ANY VOTING POWER.. ALL IT TAKES IS AN ARGUMENT WITH A MOD AND THEY GO AND CHANGE YOUR SHIT...IM ONE OF EM. I HAVE 0 VOTING POWER.

AGAIN...MODS KILLED THIS SITE.

I said move the irrelevant posts to a new thread, I didn't say delete it bitch. Are you capable of not exaggerating or lying about shit? I said v4 was coming a "million" times? An actual million....and you counted?
Yes, I had told people V4 was coming, but I didn't say it for 10 years, nor a "million" times. You're also right that I said I was privy to work that was being done behind the scenes, and it was work that the whole site would soon be privy to when X eventually posted this: https://www.letsbeef.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167234
Was I wrong when I said V4 was "coming soon?" Yes! It's still not here (or may never be). Did I intentionally mislead folks into thinking V4 was coming? Absolutely not, because I had every indication to believe it was. It's called inductive reasoning.
You, on the other hand, act like you're allergic to any sort of positive outlook and you feel the need to attack anyone who says anything remotely close to "we can do something."
We all know what's mostly needed are coding changes which only X can do or give someone access to do. RULE is just trying to help by suggesting changing titles and tournaments. It's something he can do in his capacity that helps a little. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Punk had some good ideas too of things we can do without X. Again, nothing wrong with that. You act like unless the design from 2005 is changed immediately, nothing anyone does to try to improve the user experience for what it is has any point.

DOPE to see you putting an effort towards change, so here we go...





1. Usertitles Deleted

Agree with stripping user-set titles (including mine) but it doesn't seem fair to people who won recently. Only compromise I can think of is to show the titles you've won on your profile (with links to the battle/thread you won it in) and hide them on battles & forums. Only the latest GC & Secondary Champs should be visible, everyone else will have there's displayed on their profile & stats section. Of course show HoF & Staff.


2. Reduced Tournament Schedule

2 seems too little, seems like people would only login during those 2 tournament months. What about 4? so 1 every quarter, 1 GC & 3 secondary tournaments? Concept, Scheme & Rookie or Tag-Team (phase out One Bar).




3. Forum Cleanse

Agree 100%, LB's needed this for years now.


4. Close the Unranked & Exclusive Battle Sections

Again, 100% agree. I know coding is an issue but if there's a way to simply delete the Section (so new battles can't happen) but keep people's Exclusive battles & records, I think that would be the best solution.


5. Audio Battles - Written Only

Don't know how I feel about this one, audio freestyles are pretty much the backbone of the audio section so taking it out would pretty much guarantee only Text-To-Audio converts would prosper and leave behind a lot of audio-only users. I'd say just leave it alone for now.


6. Cypher Sections Reduced

Agree with simplifying both sections but cutting out Audio cyphers would suck for up-in-coming audio artists would are looking for feedback on a track they haven't decided is good enough for a track yet. IDK, while activity is low, it doesn't seem like a priority at this point.


7. Rankings Reset


Don't agree with resetting them but hiding them on forums would make it cleaner plus incentivize people to check out people's profiles / encourage activity.



8. Ratings Removed on Battles & Tracks

Agree, it pains me to think of the countless FVC votes breaking down exactly why a verse is a 6 instead of a 7 BUT it would be a lot easier. Keep the requirement to write a comment though and not just "FV VB Good shit y'all" comment.


9. No Title / Name Reinstation Upon Account Deletion

Agree 100%, it's not fair to the thousands of battlers who's opponent deleted their account and now they can't read their old battles. I'd still keep them in the HoF & Stats section though.


:high:

And it STILL didn't happen, so you were wrong that V4 was coming.

But many of us knew it wasn't coming. And time after time you said it was, and you knew super secret behind the scenes shit. Now here we are, probably 13 years after X announced V4 the first time, probably 9 years after Pugz announced it the second time, probably 5 years from when X announced it the third time. And after ALL of that, you still have the dumbassery to say "Or MAY never be". MAY? Bitch it's been June for 13 years get that May shit outta here.

Because we've done something. I've done something. I've never been wrong in a single thing I've said about the site and it's trajectory. Hell half of RULE's suggestion in post one, like tournaments and usertitles, are shit I argued with you about like 7 years ago. But we're WAAAAAAY past that being any sort of importance. It's just so stupid that you think "do something" are these small things. You guys are throwing paper in the bin thinking you're saving the world while X sits there and and pumps a China amount of smoke up all your asses.

But X isn't going to do them. We KNOW that. Like what's the point in suggesting shit we KNOW isn't going to be done? Why not wish for a site overhaul, 10mil in advertising and Conceited to come and run the site if we're wishing for shit we know isn't going to happen?

Punk had some good ideas for things we can do without X? Bitch Punk quit the site cause it's dead as fuck. If Punk thought those ideas would have kept them here, he'd have done them when he was the best mod on the site in 2020 and half kept this shit bumping by himself. He knows this shit has a 2005 design. Improving the user experience is improving the user experience for the 10 active members of the site. LB needs NEW members, not to make tournaments a little bit more fun for Mister Jon Flako and whatever Lockhart's new multi acc is.

My ideas were just things I'd like to see happen. I dont see myself battling again because I don't feel the site will be the way it was ever again.. I'm fully aware that the site won't pick back up but I can say last year was pretty fun with the small amount of members we had but thats because of discord happening.

We're getting the registrations, the new members, etc. Thats not an issue and hasn't been for the past idk how many years. The issue is keeping people. We don't have an App, as eth said we have the same design since I guess the site has started, the updates page thats stickied hasn't been touched in 4 years.

I like everyone on the site so don't take this the wrong way at all. But legit no one thats been using this site for all these years is motivated to get shit rolling.

As much as you guys bash my friend over here saying he's negative, only brings bad news, shits on others for trying to "help the site", is he wrong? He's just not gullible enough to believe a conversation that we've been having since V4's first announcement. What I DO notice EVERYTIME that everyone fails to mention is that He supports every sign of an actual update if there's some sort of proof given, not just words typed. For example, look in the thread NOBLE posted. People always claimed it was Eth & I making the site worse yet we've always been present with honest feedback with zero trolling involved if you showed us the proof.

I enjoy being a mod and helping out when someone needs me. At least for those who still enjoy battling and doing things I used to enjoy doing. I dont mind being here for them.

Even when I was all about making site changes, I knew in the back of my mind that if im only a mod and im the hardest worker on here, the site will only go as far as IM able to take it.