When we brought Curator-requested pushes back at the start of June, we made a promise: language communities of all sizes would get a fair turn at the Jukebox mission. Eleven weeks on, we've been having a look at how that's going, and honestly? It's going rather well!
11 weekly pushes since June
55+ languages served
1,500+ songs added to the mission
100% of them requested by you
Every week, Curator push requests come in through the dedicated form. We carefully check the results against everything we've pushed before so nobody gets the same song twice, then build the week's batch. There's only so much room in each one, so every week includes careful decisions about what is and isn’t pushed.
Now, the obvious approach would be to follow the numbers and push whatever gets requested most. We actually do something closer to the opposite!
Before each batch, we count how many previous pushes every language has appeared in, then work from the bottom of that list upwards. A language that's had one turn, or none at all, is prioritized, and languages that have been featured generously in previous pushes is more likely to receive a well-earned rest.
It’s a simple principle, but these decisions aren’t always easy. Some of our busiest language communities send in hundreds of requests and still end up with a modest slice, because that week belonged to another language community who'd been waiting longer. If that's been you, thank you for your patience! It's the whole point of the scheme. It's about giving back to a community that has given us so much and making sure everybody gets their share of the thanks!
Since June, community-requested songs have gone into the mission in more than 55 languages. Some of these include Basque, Māori, Icelandic, Haitian Creole, Sanskrit, Marathi, Western Panjabi, Dotyali, Javanese, Sundanese, Venda, Lingala, Nepal Bhasa, Norwegian Nynorsk, Sardinian and Chichewa which, unfortunately, received relatively few pushes before the scheme was reintroduced.
Some of these languages have tens of millions of speakers. Some have far fewer. Every single one of them is on the list because an active and engaged member of our community asked!
Which brings us neatly to as ask of our own! If you work in a language that hasn't turned up yet, we would absolutely love to hear from you. A language with nobody sending requests is the one gap we can't spot from our end, and it's exactly the sort we're hunting for.
If you’re a Curator, you should already have access to the form where requests are made. If you don’t though, reach out to us on Slack and we’ll set you up!
Thanks for eleven brilliant weeks of requests. Here's to the next eleven and many more! 🎵
