Electronic.Discogs credit guidelines updated
As of today, 9th of January, the credit guidelines for the electronic genre here at Discogs have been reviewed and brought into line with the guidelines for the rest of the genres. This means it is now possible to list the main artist as producer or for any other role.
If you are updating an electronic.discogs release with new credits, I would like to request that you take the time to input all credits for that release at the same time. It is worth taking the time over.
You can view the updated [url=http://help.discogs.com/wiki/SubmissionGuidelinesCredits]credit guidelines[/url], and also check out the [url=http://help.discogs.com/wiki/SubmissionGuidelinesCreditList]credit list[/url] if you haven’t before.
I think capturing as much information about releases as possible is a good thing. As it’s already been stated, just because it’s displayed a certain way now, doesn’t mean it can’t be displayed in another way in the future. Changing the was information from a database is displayed is the easy part, getting all of the information in the proper structure is the key. I personally think that’s the direction we’re headed. Although, I absolutely agree that we need to be moving towards a resolution on the issues that have been brought up, especially around the “messy artist pages”, while getting all of the right information in the right places.
Stating the obvious, echoing what’s already been said. I know.
LOL !
Told yall years ago we needed to start our own site – stuff like this is just the tip of the gigantic bullshit ice berg
The point is well taken that we need to tidy up the artist pages, thanks for all the positive ideas which will be taken on board. I already realized that, for example, the list of different variations of the same release on artists pages was getting messy and that needs some radical thought and programing to clean it all up. I am confident that some well applied filters will sort out the credit overload, and will look at other enhancements to sort out issues brought up.
The last Discogs needs is yes men, it needs more focused critique like above that offers resolutions to issues brought up with the expansion of the site and display of the data.
Fair point. I just don’t like you personally.
Yesman? Ask Cthulu or Mayday whether I’ve been long pushing for improved credits, often arguing strongly with them over updates. I’m not claiming credit for their introduction, but I’ve been very vocal about wanting full artist credits, production credits for members, etc. Full self-production credits (where the credit is exactly the same as the artist) I don’t care about, but since when does supporting changes to the system I’ve wanted since I got started submitting count as being a bloody yesman?
Mayday and Cthulhu have been perspicacious as ever. Unlike Don I don’t see that a flood of yesmen is what the database structure needs. And, to be fair, all forums are the right place to diss anyone.
[u=0x00] – anything wrong with donnachas comment? he didn’t raise himself to any position, so why is there a need to blame him? – keep your expressions for the chat forums – here it’s the wrong playce for a mod to diss others…
Well I did refer to reverting my own submissions……I really meant items in my collection…..
it’s funny, you know, that everyone is so annoyed about what is going to happen, mainly to _their own contributions_ but also that is good, that someone cares about what they have submitted. Most people don’t, and that to me is a big problem with this database. as nik said at the top of this topic
[i]If you are updating an electronic.discogs release with new credits, I would like to request that you take the time to input all credits for that release at the same time. It is worth taking the time over.[/i]
hopefully this can be a chance to _audit_ the 400,000+ electronic releases, fix up the cat# (get rid of all the leading zeros in them and so on).. get those older submissions up to the standard of the newer submissions… maybe even fix up the “messy” major labels…
at any rate though, out of the thousands of users here at discogs, only about 30 of them even care/bother enough to come in here and argue about what’s going to happen to discogs… that really says something…
btw, I really sympathsise with mayday on this carl craig example, I really do think some kind of “self-produced” tick-box would be a better way to go
Oh yeah, you’re the new breed, donnacha.
I wish I hadn’t fucked off apathetically a year ago so I could do it precisely now.
All due respect Mayday and Cthulhu, but you really remind me of people I’ve worked with over the years – the online pioneers, if you will, the people who got things up and running. These same people were the ones who couldn’t deal when things moved on, when more people became involved, when sites expanded and grew and their control over things loosened and disappeared. I understand the position, but it’s the nature of the beast and more often than not, the pioneers leave to do something else.
Gotcha, mayday. My principles nowadays are as strong as Discogs’ consistency. ;)
[i]but also, if you’ll excuse me, who have far less experience in the moderation/edition fields than a lot of moderators and said editors (not a criticism, only a fact – thanks to the stats). Editors who, by the way, are leaving the ship one after the other, as are some esteemed moderators.
[/i]
nik & teo probably have a less narrow view on things, in contrary to some editors & mods, which seem to be too involved in their business, but forgetting about that a database, linked to a community is developing constantly – it’s been some days now, that discogs was ELECTRONIC only (maybe that’s why some of the established oggers retire) – it’s now about time to find the most satisfying compromise for ALL when deciding on new setups – i respect your work and maydays too, but in recent time it seemed, that both of you were not able contribute/work as team players in conjunction with all the other mods or teo & nik.
@ cthulhu….I did think long and hard about resigning my editor status for that very reason, to quickly correct back stupid rankhunting edits on my own submissions. And with the sheer volume of updates I make, it was pretty damn useful! It wasn’t just for the reasons I posted on the Mod forum at the time, but there was little point in going into more detail then.
But I do hold stong principles, and if rules are being changed that I do not agree about, I felt I had no choice to either get stressed out about it and take it out on submittors and fellow mods, or be a hypocrite and toe the line, so the only decent thing [b]for me[/b] was to resign. I’m not making any comparison with you btw, just waffling on….:))
Anyway sod it, I’m wasting my breath here. I’ve said enough. I just wanted to raise the issue that was all.
[i]vargind wrote:
“is it just me or is this not quite as big a problem as you are all complaining about because currently if an artist is the main artist and is also the producer or appears on that album, their credits _DO NOT APPEAR_ on their page, except for the release itself ???
or does that only work in rock and hip-hop ??? (and jazz too I think)”[/i]
I have no idea if that works in Rock and Hip-Hop, but that isn’t the point, aren’t you refering to same name artist/producer credits?
The point is adding what one may call the main artist name as a producer, in my example Carl Craig, to all his other 13 aliases. In this instance they would appear as production credits on the main artist page (they do on Hip Hop btw), and that will bloat these pages out exponentially. They need to be filtered out by default or by being able select to view or not.
I’m with mayday and kk, obviously. I’d spend hours to comment, but what for? That would be time lost.
Simply want to address this: “either a) nothing gets done or b) the site is run by a massive committee, neither which I believe is the best way forward”
This “massive committee” were less than 10 people: the editors, mostly trying to stay on the same wavelength among themselves, mostly trying to also stay tuned with the moderators. Now, Discogs is ruled by [i]2[/i] persons: teo and yourself, nik, both of which might have a better view of the database structure, but also, if you’ll excuse me, who have far less experience in the moderation/edition fields than a lot of moderators and said editors (not a criticism, only a fact – thanks to the stats). Editors who, by the way, are leaving the ship one after the other, as are some esteemed moderators.
Anyway, the very experience tells me that whatever I say will not change anything. Simply know how much I disagree with that and so many other things that Discogs went through. If I do not resign from my status, it is only out of egotism: I want my collection correct and if someone tries to update it, I want to be able to process it or not. I have hardly touched the rest in months and, from the look of things, it does not seem I will ever be doing much work here anymore.
This has been discussed and N-voted before, but with the current changes it would be nice if the DB becomes more or less open source, so we can use every kind of filter we like. Would be quite easy to implement in a digital DB.
[i]Filtering MUST now be the top priority.[/i]
Yes.
So now:-
1. All data is allowed (in order to filtered).
2. Decisions will be made on how it needs to be filtered.
3. [u=Teo] does the changes to the GUI.
We only have potential problems until the changes are made.
Nothing to get upset or worried about.
Mayday wrote:
[i]”Do we really want all artist pages to look like the Not On Label or Major record label pages? With credits going on for ever?
Less can mean more in a database like this. Nobody wants to click through hundreds of releases just to locate the one we are looking for, since we already have concise lists that cover this atm .but sadly soon to be redundantly long unless something is done about it.
Filtering MUST now be the top priority.”[/i]
I agree with Mayday, in that it’s very important to maintain the useability of the database. Especially in this expanded discogs I can already see big problems where albums are realeased in many different countries and with all reissues over possibly a long period of time their maybe 30/40 releases of the same album and in the case of particularly prolific artists this would make things extremely complicated.
Think about some rock or jazz artists(Duke Ellington)
is it just me or is this not quite as big a problem as you are all complaining about because currently if an artist is the main artist and is also the producer or appears on that album, their credits _DO NOT APPEAR_ on their page, except for the release itself ???
or does that only work in rock and hip-hop ??? (and jazz too I think)
[i]”Actually, thinking about it on the way home from Philly today, how about this; two separate areas on the artist’s discography page —
Self/Group Production:
…. this would contain all the releases where the producer is the same as the main artist, or the producer is a member of the main artist.
Other Production:
…. this would contain everything else that the artist did production-wise that didn’t relate to his own work or his group’s work.
What do you think, Mayday, would that be a decent way to sort them out?”[/i]
Although its not a bad idea in itself (and I havent heard it suggested before either), if nothing else but that is done, then it would be of major benefit.
But IMHO we already have this “Self/Group Production:” section.
Its called [b]Releases:[/b]
Sorry if I sound facetious, but this IS like re-inventing the wheel. Work, and a LOT of it, for little or no benefit.
Do we really want all artist pages to look like the Not On Label or Major record label pages? With credits going on for ever?
Less can mean more in a database like this. Nobody wants to click through hundreds of releases just to locate the one we are looking for, since we already have concise lists that cover this atm .but sadly soon to be redundantly long unless something is done about it.
Filtering MUST now be the top priority.
I don’t see why the system should not be able to handle anything, after all the servers have had major upgrades in the last year
And excuse me, but Teo is making a lot of [b]$$$$[/b] on the sales, so if he needs more power, BUY SOME! There is now no excuse for lack of processing power or bandwidth and that must not be a driver in any decision making process.
Don’t let the tail wag the dog!
Donnacha
That’s why I’m arguing that Electronic music needs different rules. Different horses for different courses.
Although woudn’t notes cover your cases?
BUT IF like I keep on saying, that we can have FILTERS, just like we do already for GENRES, then you can play with different permutaions of line ups like you suggest you want to do.
@ jape & Corne, I think perhaps just aliases then not groups
Some numbers I’ve just worked out to demonstrate my concerns.
At the moment there are 641 individual Carl Craig releases and track appearances under a total of 14 different aliases. All self produced.
There are 19 production credits relating to other artists for whom Carl has produced a track or so.
If you include prod credits, that list of 19 jumps to 660 credits thus making his page unusable as a source for discovering those works.
I think others have mentioned as well, but if [b]Writer[/b] credits are valid, then you HAVE to index that ASAP, since it looks ridiculous that they appear on appearances section, making it look as if an artist has made an appearance on HIS OWN record!!!!!!! LOL or rather :(
another question about the new crediting rules:
I read in more threads that credits have to be made as they are on the release. How to deal with producer-duo’s/trio’s etc, which are often credited with there real names, not with their “team” name.
For example: [a=Foster & McElroy], which are always credited with their full names.
Looks quite good indeed. But I foresee a problem here. If you make the most recent release the one which puts the current members in the artist profile, how do you deal with:
– members, still in the band, which didn’t participate on the last release ? as they will be automaticcaly [[x]]’ed.
– what’s the bands last release? as not all releases have the exact release date, but only the year of release.
Looks good to me indeed. I hope it can be fixed asap.
It might be a bit late for this, but organising things like [url=http://help.discogs.com/ticket/397]this ticket[/url] would help with that. Currently, it might be a bit messy crossreferencing the information in the alias/member fields to sort them out that way.
Once again, while that may apply to mainstream dance music, it doesn’t fit with synthpop, industrial or EBM – all electronic styles that are largely band based.
I dont know much about this but i just wanna share my opinion about the producer thing. I think its a really pointless idea too have producer credit in electronic. I mean he is already credited as an artist, why should he be credited as a producer also, everyone already knows that he is the producer.
It was good before too only credit the co producers because thats the intressting part. otherwise just write in the notes that for ex paul van dyk has produced this track not make a credit for it.
[i]How about if the alias/group links are already in place, then the system will not display that Producer/Writer blah blah credit on the artist page because it knows they are one and the same person (ie alias)? Then you will have ALL the new credits and subsequent links you want (which have replaced the previous notes credits) but the pages will not get cluttered and we will be able to navigate an artist page properly?[/i]
Yeah, I thought about that too, but I think it might be difficult to implement (and take up too much calculation time), because you not only need to look at aliases, but also at group members, if the production credit goes to individual members.
Would be better if there would be a check box next to each “Credit” line for “[x] Link”, which is always unchecked for “Written By” but can be checked for other credits.
That seems like a workable idea. You should get brainwaves more often ;-)
“So, whereas previously, it was fantastic to be able to go to a member of a group and then see all their solo works, now the pages will show everything they have ever done, making it impossible to see solo work at a glance without going into every individual release to find the ones that do not relate to their group.
[i]You mean, aside from looking under that section that says “Releases:”?[/i]
LOL you never even understood what I was getting at then.
Take [a=BFC]. If you add producer credits to [a=Carl Craig] then the Producer credit section for [a=Carl Craig] will include [a=BFC] releases! I don’t want that since it will then be impossible to see what production work [a=Carl Craig] has done that are NOT his own work ie production on other artist releases. THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL THING. Please don’t pretend that info is being added that is not already there!
HOWEVER, whilst making my breakfast this morning, I had a brainwave!!!
How about if the alias/group links are already in place, then the system will not display that Producer/Writer blah blah credit on the artist page because it knows they are one and the same person (ie alias)? Then you will have ALL the new credits and subsequent links you want (which have replaced the previous notes credits) but the pages will not get cluttered and we will be able to navigate an artist page properly? It may be just a data presentation thing, and if it turns out that it can be presented better as result of these changes then that is good news indeed.
I’m not averse to moving forward. I don’t want anyone thinking that I’ve got my head buried in the sand as I DO want this site to move forward. It’s just that the consequences of these rules are very serious and I have not seen any evidence that something is being planned to counter the effect.
[i]Why not a “self produced” box to tick…and a “self produced” category on the artist page..[/i]
Great idea! And one which addresses the *display* of the data, not the data itself.
It could work in exactly the same way as the Unofficial Release tick box. On the release itself, it would be best to have a separate line with “Self-Produced” (or whatever tag we decide to give it), not on the same line as the Style, like the Unofficial tag is currently.
[u=teo], [u=nik]: how easy would it be to implement something like this?
[u=kompressorkanonen], I share your point of view. This is exactly how I feel about it.
From purely a electronic Discogs point of view (mainly techno, trance, hardcore, lots of house etc. where the artist is always the producer) it just wrecks what we have been building here. Can hardly wait for the [a=Tijs Verwest] profile with all [a=DJ Tiesto]’s production (And Mixed By, and Arranged By, etc) credits for his own tracks. That has nothing to do with the way data is displayed, that’s just what you will get, period.
From an overall point of view it is probably a logical decision, but locally (and probably still the biggest part of Discogs) it will create a mess. But like I said earlier, it is probably a sacrifice that has to be made. At least I will continue to contribute to this site as a moderator/editor, and I hope that this isn’t the last change that is going to be made, as the situation will be far from perfect. Further than it was before this week, as well.
^^ thanks for your efforts kk !!
well said K. Too bad it was too much for you. Hate to see you go. :-(
Sorry..forget that. Just read Nik’s opening comment again…there will be millions of new updates..
Seems a shame to lose you KK… but I thought that producer creds in electronic were only going to apply to new submissions, not to updates? If so, will there be that much extra work for moderators? (extra artist pages, yes no doubt).
Yeah, that might work.
For the record – if a sensible solution is found on this matter, I could perhaps adjust my view somewhat, maybe even get modding again (provided anyone wants me, and that I once again could justify spending as much time here as I’ve done in the past).
But as it stands – no.
Why not a “self produced” box to tick…and a “self produced” category on the artist page..
Change doesn’t necessarily equal evolution. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? I have opposed self-crediting in e.cogs since day one and seeing as I find it impossible to enforce a rule I’m strongly against, I have (as of today) quit my position as moderator for the site.
I can’t see that neither objectivity nor “listening to the community” has actually been particularly prominent in this case; either way, with the current database structure, this rule leads to creations of thousands upon thousands of unneccessary dummy artist pages that simply duplicate existing info which is handled perfectly well by the real name/members part of the artist profiles – as well as countless rankhunter updates.
As an example of what I find incredibly unpractical – if I want to find out if prolific artist X actually produced something for anything else than his own projects, it’s going to be near-impossible to find that entry under the “Production” listings, as that will be swamped with his own releases, and with the current way info is displayed, where main artist isn’t listed on those releases on the artist release page, it is going to be some task to locate it.
Furthermore, both the amount of data that need updating now, as well as the policy that “only explicit credits on the release itself should be listed”, mean that these credits will be scattered about in the electronic part of the database in a completely arbitrary fashion for (possibly) years to come, and the consistency that we worked our asses off to accomplish will once again be completely overthrown. For example, if the full version of a release has explicit credits printed and a licensed release on a different label (or indeed a promo version) does not, the latter should not have producer credits listed if I understand correctly; now is that really very clever?
As for the arguments that “it’s easy to write a script to fix these things” or “the way the data are displayed can be changed”, perhaps at least [i]some[/i] work could have been done [i]prior[/i] to this decision to see how easy it actually is? This decision seems very hurried and not very well thought-out to me.
And as much as I can understand the reasoning that all crediting rules should be similar for all genres to make things easier for submitters and mods alike and make the whole database appear more consistent, the fact that genres differ in nature can make it a pointless effort to try to harmonize them. (Consider all the possible minefields that classical.discogs will imply, for example!) As azzurro correctly pointed out, electronic music is quite unique in the fact that producing, performing and composing is the same thing in most of the cases; the only exceptions that I can think of are those borderline cases synthpop, hiphop and disco (the styles that started to seriously push the limits of discogs’ original “electronic only” profile and created the demand for other genres to be included three or four years ago). My guess is that in 80 or maybe even 90% of the cases, the producer and the main artist will be the same in e.cogs. Is it really necessary to duplicate the info on these three or four hundred thousand or whatever releases? And on a final note, I must say that I am quite annoyed by the fact that it’s these later genres on discogs that suddenly have created this problem; when discogs was electronic-only, this was never really an issue. When hip hop suddenly not only allowed but [i]demanded[/i] producer credits in all cases – which was never discussed with the electronic mods btw – I don’t think anyone realized the implications this would have in the long term. To me, this sudden change is very representative for how the original vision of discogs has become so blurred that it’s almost unrecognizable now.
Please note that this isn’t a personal attack on anyone but as I have spent countless hours to help build this site (as have many many others, don’t get me wrong) I feel entitled to have an opinion and express it whenever I see fit. Either way, I’m extremely happy that I won’t have to deal with the “edit release” updates for which the floodgates have now been officially opened. Good luck, mods.
@ [u=mayday] – I would think it’s nik’s job to listen to the community & imply whatever is good for the db on an objective view, wether he likes it or not. I have huge respect on such decissions – moving on! instead on insisting on the same for ages… maybe you should take a bite of this mentality too… (you’re way to clever to remain just for the cause)
As Jooles says, it’s all about the data.
Hacking the data or the rules in order to get the display correct is grabbing the wrong end of the stick. It is absolutely vital that we let the right data get into the right fields without hindrance. We then worry about display, filter, and searches after we have the raw data in the right place. From my recent mod update email:
[b]It is important to think of the raw data and the way it is displayed as two separate things. There may be ways the data is displayed that are not optimal at the moment. However, if the raw data is correct (and in the correct field), it is reasonably trivial for Kevin to make changes to the site code to change the way things are presented. This is worth bearing in mind when dealing with changes to the rules – it is better we change the rules fast and let the display catch up, rather than letting the way the data is displayed affect our perception of the rules.[/b]
This is why I insisted on all credits going in the credits field, for example.
@ [u=mayday] – whatever I said in Glasgow, I am fairly certain I didn’t make any solemn promise to you regarding this rule. I may have said something like “I don’t think that’ll happen” or whatever. Anyway, I reserve the right to change my mind or rethink my approach. There is a shed load of things to deal with here, so there is a point where it is my role to stop listening to what others say and make a decision about what needs done. Otherwise, either a) nothing gets done or b) the site is run by a massive committee, neither which I believe is the best way forward.
I think one of the most exciting things about the information here at Discogs is precisely that we can change the way it’s displayed, look for deeper connections, improve the views. There are a whole load of updates in mind for the display of the information. The one thing I can guarantee is the display of the information won’t stay the same!
[i]However, this is just an issue of *display* or *presentation* of the data, not the data itself. The data itself is the most important in my opinion. The more complete and detailed the data itself is, the better. The challenge of how to display that data comes afterwards.[/i]
Agree 100%
It’s all to do with scale. The presentation does not work with the scale of data now being entered. What is needed is a GUI that the user can customise to display as much or little information as you want.
@azzurro – the whole rationale for the electronic restrictions started to fall apart before the introduction of the other styles.
It may have made sense for “dance” music (techno, house, electro, etc.), but not for band-based electronic music. Synthpop, industrial, EBM – the full credits system makes perfect sense for those as much as for rock.
I agree to some extent with mayday, in that the artist pages are now often appearing “cluttered” with seemingly too much information, often duplicated, which makes it difficult to navigate. This is a direct result of expanding Discogs to include more genres. With each new genre, we realize that the current system isn’t quite appropriate, so it’s a constant challenge trying to a) add data, but at the same time b) clean up the way data is displayed.
However, this is just an issue of *display* or *presentation* of the data, not the data itself. The data itself is the most important in my opinion. The more complete and detailed the data itself is, the better. The challenge of how to display that data comes afterwards. For example, I could see Discogs possibly displayed in a tabular way, with a main artist page containing the biography, profile, alias and In groups info, along with images, on the first tab. Other tabs for each Role could take you the subsections of that artist’s work. It might even be possible to choose in your Preferences, which tab you prefer to see when you browse artists. Or choose between either a tabulated view or a “all info on one page” view. Or, how about just displaying hyperlink headings for Production, Appears On, Tracks Appear On etc, and clicking on those links expands the page? I’m sure there are loads of ideas like this out there, and it’s just a question of teo working on the display.
At the end of the day, I guess it’s our own personal choice which issue we feel is more important, the display of the data, or the completeness of the data itself…
That is ofcourse not going to happen, that is exactly how those credits have been treated in electronic Discogs before.
@ Jape
It’s indeed kinda strange that the origin of discogs, the lectronic part, is changed for consistency with the other genres. Therefore, IMO, it’s still strange to add production credits as the main artist. I’ve got some releases with the following notes: Written, produced, mastered and arranged by “Artist”. So that should give already 4 credits for the same artist.
IMo, it’s almost impossible to use the same guidelines for all these genres, since for electronic, most tracks are completely made by one and the same person, sometimes in their bedroom, while for rock there is a band, they go to the studio and a producer makes a song of the things they play.
IMO, producer etc. should be creditted only when it’s a) a different artist (and not a different alias) then the main artist or b) extra producers (not co-producers), but someone who joined the main artist during the production, like G-Spott is doing for DJ Jose on his solo-releases.
Maybe we need a new role for that; Producer [Extra] or something… which should be used as some used the co-producer before, so when he joined the main artist as producer
what appears on the artist pages and what not – should be a question of the back end programming (and the user should be able to skip on/off what he wants to see / what is linked) and not a question of what is entered as credit on the release pages
that programming could be better for sure
With DJ_PC. As you know, Mayday, I’ve been pushing for proper credits virtually since I started submitting. There are some more filters needed (technical roles like Engineer and Mastered By need to be taken out of the Appears On section), but, other than that, this system is far more useful. Particularly for bands with shifting line-ups, I look forward to the stage when I can, for example, see what Psychic TV albums Alex Fergusson played on from his page, or what Black Sabbath albums featured Ian Gillen or Glenn Hughes. It’s a database, that means there should be no such thing as too much information.
@[u=mawiles]: There is a Nic Chagall solo release coming up :)
But good things you are pointing out. A lot of pointless pages will be created if you want to credit artists exactly as how they are credited on the release. Don’t have a solution for you, ‘tho…
@[u=mayday]: you are very right. Good metaphor btw. The thing is that you (and I) look at discogs from the original point of view, Electronic Discogs. It used to be all nice and tidy. Then, lots of new genres have been built around it and the whole thing grew far bigger, so apparently it is a sacrifice that has to be made.
…
This is sad day for Discogs, as the usefulness of groups and aliases is finally destroyed.
So, whereas previously, it was fantastic to be able to go to a member of a group and then see all their solo works, now the pages will show everything they have ever done, making it impossible to see solo work at a glance without going into every individual release to find the ones that do not relate to their group.
This will make the database far less user friendly for collectors who want to discover new music by artists they like, [b]quickly and easily[/b].
Using the example of Danski & DJ Delmundo as mentioned in the post above, where the user is desperate to credit every VB release with that credit, when that is done, it will be impossible to see all their work that is NOT related to that particular group (in this instance VB). Their page will just show everything. Ditto for all their aliases.
[b]This will hold true for ALL artists and ALL aliases.[/b]
I don’t personally give flying fuck about that particular shit Euro trash artist, but already for a lot of artists I do love, their pages are looking messy, undoing years of hard work making the database clearer and more easy to use.
This is important because the groups and aliases are currently working as a filter, which is essential when an artist makes more than one type of music style.
[b]Especially so when they make it under their real names[/b]. Or make guest appearances on other projects.
At least when they were credited on the notes, you could still see everything they did, but on the on the [b]search results[/b] not the artist page. The search engine is now amazing for that sort of thing, as we can now use boolean searches which can finally search on info in notes.
TEO, you have constantly failed us to include filters as requested now 18 moths ago, so that we can finally split up all joint groups. At least if there a was a filter, I could then look at an artist page and filter out the group work that now appears thanks to these redundant credits. I used to just click on a group if I wanted to see that.
NIK you are spineless, as you said [b]to my face[/b] in Glasgow that this day would never come. Clearly you are not a man of your word.
I DO understand that you both wanted the rules harmonised, but I think this is akin to a one legged man chopping off the good leg to balance things out. Shame on you both.
hahaha, after whole Vengaboys debacle which I discussed in the forums at length some time earlier this year, I can finally credit [a=Danski & DJ Delmundo] as the producers. but can I do it without Euro House purists getting angry??? :)
What about notes like “Written and produced by Michael-Lee Bock aka DJ Lee”?
Producer, Written By – [a=Michael-Lee Bock] or Producer, Written By – [a=DJ Lee] ?
What about “Produced by Marco & Dirk Duderstadt”? Enter them as Producer – [a=Duderstadt] or seperately?
What about well-known producers? Should we always use artists as listed?
For example consider the Essential DJ Team: [a=Nic Chagall], [a=DJ Errik], [a=DJ Wave]
The notes on the records mostly credit them with their real names, but we used to use their pseudonyms. [a=Nic Chagall] and [a=DJ Wave] haven’t even released anything and didn’t do any remix under their pseudonym. Is it useful to use [a=Claus Terhoeven] and [a=Andre Wevers] then?
What about cases like [a=De Donatis]? He is credited on records with his full name Tommaso De Donatis. Would it be useful to use [a=Tommaso De Donatis], since [a=De Donatis] is pretty unique?
Need answers for these cases for upcoming updates by me.
so, for electronic releases, what do we do if the producer credit on a release is for the artists real name or an alias of that artist??? create a new entry in the database for them ???
to use an example that’s come quickly to my mind, all [a=It’s Always Last Tuesday Somewhere] releases say “produced by [a=Males Kort]” which is an alias of IALTS
I have had mods more than once tell me to add credits to compilations when they _don’t_ actually appear on the release in front of me – and I think that is against the spirit of submitting accurately using only things you have in front of you ! very open to mistakes…
In those cases where a compilation contains an exclusive track, however, I believe that all credits should be listed for that track. Which could result in compilations with lots of credits for some tracks and minimal credits for others.
@ mawiles:
Same goes for me. But I still think that some credits are welcome on compilations, like vocalists etc. especially when they are no regular members of the group. about written by, producer etc. They’re not really needed, but when I hear a track on a compilation, I want to see who did the vocals and not search the releases for that track (which is maybe on a release with a different title) to find it at the end.
Maybe there should be made difference between credits allowed on compilations. I think: vocalists, instruments, unless they’re band members, maybe producers should be allowed, and the others only for complete releases. It’s true that I don’t have to see on every compilation where U2 appears on that Bono did the vocals, The Edge did the guitar etc.
Otherwise, you should actually also don’t allow remix credits, if it’s not mentioned ;)
But, as long as this discussion goes on, I’ll stop updating credits om compilations.
It’s not even clear whether “3 or more MUST go in the credits section and 2 or less MUST go in the tracklisting” is an actual rule, or just certain moderators’ interpretations of what is written in the submission guidelines. I don’t think the intent of the guideline was ever to be so strict, but that’s the way things have been heading, thanks to mods who don’t distinguish between “should” and “must”.
Maybe the answer might be to take out the 3 credit rule on compilations? Still put the credits in if you want to, but “release wide” credits wouldn’t apply (as its not really a release in that sense)…
Well then, I’ll stop adding credits to compilations.
It has been a feature of my updates to add credits from other releases. But it was hard work on compilations and took a lot of time. I only did this because I thought, credits were preferred on equivalent tracks.
I agree, here’s an opposite to Jooles example, where I gave up trying to figure out what was global or not – [r=479425].
Great to see this big step towards getting some consistency across genres.
What [u=mjb] said above about the [b]3 or more tracks[/b] rule is especially pressing to get firmed up in Jazz, Soul/Funk, Rock and Latin genres where, especially on compilations, it looks clumsy. There’s already been quite some discussion in the Jazz mod forums, and [u=MONK] has opened [url=http://help.discogs.com/ticket/1214]ticket #1214[/url] for it.
i don’t think you want mastered by anyplace but the original. CDs are mastered as a whole, aren’t they? i would have thought the Dat (or whatever) they get sent with the track on is unmastered.
Well there are users who list any credit they find on the original release on compilations as well, which is not very useful imho. If you see a track on a compilation, it’s not that hard to look up the 12″/CD5″/CD/LP release and the credits, is it? And do we need the Mixed By, Mastered By, Written By credits on every appearance of a particular track?
On compilations that consist of 1 or 2 CD’s it’s not that much of a problem, but people do this on 4xCD trance compilations too, you know :)
I think if we stick with the credits which are given on the compilations, it will work out in most cases. On the millionth Best of the 70’s compilation you don’t get no credits and you don’t need them. On Donnacha’s example they could be interesting and are indeed given in the booklet.
Compilation credits can be very useful on more underground stuff – they can show nicely the criss-cross nature of some groups – like here [r=597407] (and many of these were the first credits) – as well as showing a range of bands, many of whom didn’t continue – like here [r=597128]. Particularly now, if there are obsessive compulsives like me :-), they add artists to the db that make it easier to get credits right when others are entering them on other releases.
There is a lot of work still to do to these guidelines, I want to really boil them down as much as possible. I am happy though that the direction we are taking with them is the right one regarding the future usability of the information.
The compilation problem is an interesting one. No one had ever seen there would be some problem there, but now it really is right there in our faces… I would agree that extensive credits on compilations where the material has been released before could well be excessive. I was talking with teo earlier about the same redundancy issues with multiple releases of the same material. With a bit of thought and some clever programing, it should be possible for us to somehow make this part of the process more efficient!
[b]If an extra artist appears on three or more tracks of a release, they should be listed in the main Credits section of the form.[/b]
This still needs clarification. Is it a “should” or a “must”? If someone needs to be credited on only 2 tracks of a 3-track release, must the credit be placed in the tracklisting?
Wow the credit guidelines are clear and simple at last!
Hope there won’t be too much of a kerfuffle about it.
Good work.
Good stuff!
Perhaps it’s time that this [url=http://www.discogs.com/forums/topic?topic_id=69331]Sticky[/url] was removed, eh?
>>> Gecks:
I agree. I saw this one coming in a couple of days ago:
[url=http://www.discogs.com/changereq?id=1265627]waste of time[/url]
Seems like an awful lot of work with very little use. It’s even possible to track down all the bandmembers’ roles an add them, but it’s just not interesting when you’re looking at a compilation. Indeed, if you want to know the details you’ll be able to find the original releases in discogs.
It would of course be a different thing if the cd contained previously unreleased songs. Like many soundtracks.
Perhaps we can soon get an official guideline concerning this issue. Now many people are wasting their (and mods’) time.
thanks, I also find version 1 more consice.
so I’m off updating some stuff now :)
The old credit-guidelines contained a part about joining multiple roles vs. joining artists, if I remind that correctly. This part is now missing. I think it’s not clear what I mean so here is an example that riddles me at the moment:
I want to update a release that credits instruments/artists as follows:
Produced, Mixed and Arranged by Taino Leon and Santos.
Vocals, Guitar, Bass by Taino Leon
Drum Programming by Santos and Taino Leon
(amongst other roles)
so, please tell me which version is right to use in Discogs.
Version 1:
Producer, Mixed By, Arragned By, Drum Programming – Taino Leon, Santos
Vocals, Guitar, Bass – Taino Leon
Version 2:
Producer, Mixed By, Arragned By, Drum Programming – Santos
Producer, Mixed By, Arragned By, Drum Programming, Vocals, Guitar, Bass – Taino Leon
Thanks for the answers [u=nik].
I wasn’t planning on making any updates where I just change “-” in “to”. I’ll leave that for the rankhunters. But it’s important to know for any future updates.
well IMO there’s not much point replicating credits for every instance of the song – if they are added to the main albums/singles (where they almost certainly will be credited fully on the liners anyway) then they are in the place you are most likely to look at.
crosslinked credits are useful, but once you know artist Y did X on Song Z, then it doesn’t really matter that this performace was also on umpteen VA comps.
OK, thanks.
But now, what about other artists than the main one. for instance vocalists. It was accpeted when I added them to compilations, while they don’t appear on the cover there.
Is that also not allowed anymore?? that will make ogs look like a hell sometimes. You have to search all releases / appearances of an artist to see if there is any extra artist. Also cause different versions of a 12″ (on different labels) don’t use the same credits some (or most??) times.
[i]”This means it is now possible to list the main artist as producer or for any other role.”[/i]
So now, (almost) every electronic release can (should??) be updated with the producer credits?? doesn’t that give a hell lot of double -entries. One on the release / track appears on section, and one on the producer section??
Or am I wrong??
ie CD1-01-CD1-03… that would create “CD1 to 01 to CD1 to 03”
can be done with regular expressions to script that with sucess, but I also don’t believe that will happen one day
Yeh, there would have to be some thought put into it. This is the reason it was changed to ‘to’. At some point in the future, we will get it sorted out. the whole point of this, for anyone who is wondering, is to make this field machine readable (the computer can understand it) so we can run as-yet-unthought-of queries or functions on the data, and get back meaningful results.
Answers to [u=corne_mo]’s questions:
[i]- when combining credits, for example: Produced By, Mixed By : artist A, the artist will get a link on his page in the appears on section. (afaik the scripts will be adjusted so they are able to split the credits in future).
But what will happen when you combine a linked and a unlinked credits, for example: Vocals, Written By: artist B ? Is this release linked are not ???? And how to deal with this atm ???[/i]
Combined linked and unlinked credits will work properly – with a release like that, vocals will be credited as “appears on” and “written by” is not credited.
[i]- the new guidelines say groups of tracks must be joined with the word “to”. Almost all older entries use “-“. Must these all be manually updated, will teo write a script for it, or is it even necessary ??[/i]
Kevin can write a script to do this. It isn’t a pressing issue ATM, and if any other updates are happening, it’s cool to change it to a ‘to’, but not as an update by itself thanks.
Great!
Looks good. But before I start updating, please give me some answers to my [url=http://www.discogs.com/forums/topic?topic_id=84454#1107087]questions[/url] concerning the new system !!!