And I like Eye of the Tiger.

That said, I do agree that automatic music on a web page is an old convention and I thought it had been largely done away with. However, it doesn’t really affect my opinion of the contest and I do hope that people can look past it and build cool MOCs.

Like most people, I do more than one thing with my computer at a time. Some of those things make sounds that I need to hear. Telling me that I should just turn off the sound when a web page hijacks my browser to make noise is a really inappropriate response to what is fundamentally a bad design decision that is inconsiderate to visitors. It’s like telling me to shut my windows on a hot day if I don’t like the fact that someone’s parked in front of my house and started blasting music.

If you must automatically play music on a web page, you need to provide obvious controls that allow visitors to turn it off. Otherwise you’re going to alienate a lot of people–even people like me who might actually like the song you’re playing if I wasn’t being forced to listen to it over my own music and notifications.

^ Your call, but it strikes me as unwise to drive away visitors because you thought it was neat to make everyone’s browser play “Eye of the Tiger”–it’s the sort of thing I’d expect to see on a MySpace page, not a community web site. I may be the only person who’s complained, but I guarantee you I’m not the only person hastily hitting the back button or closing the tab.