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Do you have a source for that claim? For me, random means: "I want to hear every song in this selection exactly once, chosen randomly". Random should mean unif

Do you have a source for that claim? For me, random means: "I want to hear every song in this selection exactly once, chosen randomly". Random should mean uniformly distributed and I don't care whether the same artist or album is played back-to-back. I feel like this is exactly what "shuffle" has meant for decades before some UX quack at Spotify headquarters decided they knew better.

kstenerud 7y ago
So... what you're saying is that you don't want to hear the same song too soon after hearing it before?
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  No, I’m saying I want to hear every song in the list exactly once before any is repeated. Your summary is more generous than my definition.
  - kstenerud 7y ago
    So... You'd say that my summary gets you 80% of the way there?
  - iforgotpassword 7y ago
    That's shuffle, not random. Maybe randomized. With random, every song should have the same chance of being picked, which would technically allow the same song to play twice. If you'd let the player run for a decade, every song should have played about the same number of times. But this usually leads to people perceiving the feature as not being random enough. See Spotify for example: https://www.quora.com/Is-Spotifys-shuffle-feature-truly-random-I-keep-hearing-the-same-songs-in-my-library-too-often-for-it-to-be-a-mere-coincidence-Does-Spotify-use-some-kind-of-special-algorithm-to-determine-what-song-plays-If-so-why/answer/Mattias-Petter-Johansson https://www.quora.com/Is-Spotifys-shuffle-feature-truly-rand...
    - IanCal 7y ago
      Random has a lot of meanings, and you are picking a very specific one. It doesn't have to be uniformly distributed, for example, but relevant here is I don't think there's a problem describing a random shuffle as "random". It is playing a list in a random order.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
shados 7y ago
Thats why the feature is usually called "shuffle" rather than "random". Then if you stop to think about it a bit, the expected meaning is reasonably clear.

kstenerud 7y ago

So... what you're saying is that you don't want to hear the same song too soon after hearing it before?

ilikehurdles 7y ago
No, I’m saying I want to hear every song in the list exactly once before any is repeated. Your summary is more generous than my definition.
- kstenerud 7y ago
  So... You'd say that my summary gets you 80% of the way there?
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  That's shuffle, not random. Maybe randomized. With random, every song should have the same chance of being picked, which would technically allow the same song to play twice. If you'd let the player run for a decade, every song should have played about the same number of times. But this usually leads to people perceiving the feature as not being random enough. See Spotify for example: https://www.quora.com/Is-Spotifys-shuffle-feature-truly-random-I-keep-hearing-the-same-songs-in-my-library-too-often-for-it-to-be-a-mere-coincidence-Does-Spotify-use-some-kind-of-special-algorithm-to-determine-what-song-plays-If-so-why/answer/Mattias-Petter-Johansson https://www.quora.com/Is-Spotifys-shuffle-feature-truly-rand...
  - IanCal 7y ago
    Random has a lot of meanings, and you are picking a very specific one. It doesn't have to be uniformly distributed, for example, but relevant here is I don't think there's a problem describing a random shuffle as "random". It is playing a list in a random order.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

shados 7y ago

Thats why the feature is usually called "shuffle" rather than "random". Then if you stop to think about it a bit, the expected meaning is reasonably clear.