Which Radio stations are added to the Radio view? Which ones *should* be added?

[owldown]

It isn't clear to me which radio stations are added to the list in the Radio view. The behavior seems to vary widely among providers.

Observations from the beta version of the server:

Soma.FM

For this provider, every single station that the provider lists in the Browse view is automatically added to the library, and also shows up in the Radio view. Users must opt-out of stations from the provider by removing them from the library, but this seems to be irreversible - after doing so, there is no way to add that station again as they are removed from both the Browse view and the Radio view.

RadioBrowser

For this provider, the Browse view lists every station available, and users can add individual stations to the library, which then show up in the Radio view.

Tune-In

For this provider, the Browse view lists only the stations that the user account as added to their Tune-In library in the Tune-in web interface, external from MA. The same stations are automatically added to the listing in the Radio View.

Radio Paradise

For this provider, the docs say "The Radio Paradise provider doesn’t add stations to the ‘Radio’ tab by default." , but it does indeed add all six of the stations listed in the Browse view automatically to the Radio view list, similar to the Soma.FM behavior. Everything available is added automatically to the library.

From this sampling, it seems there are three categories of behavior

• All stations are listed in the Browse view, and stations the user adds to the library in MA appear in the Radio view
• All stations are listed in the Browse view, and all stations are added automatically to the library and to the Radio view as well.
• Only externally selected stations are visible in the Browse view, and the same list is available in the Radio view.

As a user, I'm not sure what to expect when adding a provider. My preference would be that I am in control of the Radio view listing by opting in, and I can opt in from the Browse view for some providers, and I can opt in externally from some providers that offer user accounts. Stations would be in the Radio view because I chose to list them there, not because they exist.

For providers that don't offer external user accounts, I wonder if it would be helpful to standardize the behavior, so that all internally managed radio providers are opt-in, or all of those providers are opt-out instead of the current situation of unpredictable behavior that doesn't even match the documentation.

[OzGav]

Yes it is provider dependent. You have fixed the radio paradise page which was due to a change in the provider behaviour. Whether stations are added automatically comes down to how many stations a provider has and whether the user has already made a selection decision. For example, tune in pulls in stations that a user has previously deliberately selected. Radio browser has thousands of stations so they are not going to be all added. Radio Paradise only has six and based on user feedback these are now added automatically.

[owldown]

So it is inconsistent between players that offer no external account-based station selection, based on a threshold of how many stations would be too many, where 6 is not too many, 43 is not too many, and thousands are too many?

For folks that want to control the number of radio stations in their Radio view, it seems then that the only solution is to remove unwanted stations from the library within MA. This still leaves the problem of that station disappearing (forever?), with no way (that I can see) of adding individual stations back.

For example, if I want to have only three of the 43 Soma.FM stations, I add the Soma.FM provider, then remove from library the 40 other unwanted stations. What if I later decide I now wish to add one of the removed stations?

They don't reappear when synchronizing the provider manually from the Providers view for both the Soma.FM and Radio Paradise.

Reloading the provider from the settings view seems to not work consistently between providers - for the Soma.FM provider, reloading makes all removed stations reappear (and now I would need to remove the 39 unwanted stations again). For the RadioParadise provider, reloading does not make the removed stations reappear. Neither seems to have a mechanism for adding some of the removed stations.

Are these behaviors both correct? As a user, it feels unpredictable. I would expect similar behavior, and at least some way to add back a removed station.

[OzGav]

You should be able to browse to Somafm and add the station to the library

[owldown]

I just attempted to do that, and it doesn't work (using the beta version of the server). After removing a Somafm station from my library in the Radio view, it also has been removed from the Browse view of the provider.

Adding to the inconsistency among providers theme, that method does work for the Radio Paradise provider. Stations removed from the library are still available in the Browse view, and can be added to the Library and thus the Radio view.

Is that a bug in the SomaFM provider, or is that the expected behavior? How is it supposed to work? It seems the only way to get a single Somafm station back after removal is to reload the provider, which adds all of the stations back to the library.

Are there guidelines for provider developers on what the expected behavior should be, or is that left for the developer to choose?

[OzGav]

Yes it would be a bug. I’ll have a look at it when I get a chance. Expected behaviour should be picked up in PR review.

[owldown]

Issue filed here: #5013

[OzGav]

You didn’t need to but sure

[owldown]

Okay oops.