Another round of digging into SID codes. Before you read this it is highly advised to first read part 1 about SID codes.
In the first part I wondered how many releases have SID fields defined, but have something in there that isn't an actual SID code. For that it is important to know what a valid SID code actually means.
"The SID Code consists of the letters 'IFPI', followed by either four or five additional characters, which may be alphabetical or numerical [...]"
which seems very clear. There are a few extra restrictions: the additional characters in the mastering SID code always have to start with "L", and mould SID codes cannot use the characters "I", "O", "S" or "Q" (it is unclear from the document if this is just for mould SID codes, or also for mastering SID codes).
With that background information I (partially) adapted my scripts and ran a few tests. I cut people some slack when it came to spaces, dashes, capitalization and even using the florin currency symbol ('ƒ') instead of a regular 'f'.
Using the latest Discogs dump (data up till November 1 2017) I found 19227 releases with Mastering SID Code fields that are in need of a fix. This is how they are distributed over the data:
For the Mould SID Code fields I found a similar number of releases that were wrong (15623 releases):
However, when also allowing for "I", "O", "S" and "Q", it looks a bit different (9143 releases):
Why the distributions for Mastering SID Code fields and Mould SID Code fields don't look the same: I have no idea.
What I do know is that it will be a tough job to fix all of these releases, as very few of them have pictures where you can actually read the SID codes.
In the first part I wondered how many releases have SID fields defined, but have something in there that isn't an actual SID code. For that it is important to know what a valid SID code actually means.
Valid SID codes
According to the IFPI specifications this is a valid SID code:"The SID Code consists of the letters 'IFPI', followed by either four or five additional characters, which may be alphabetical or numerical [...]"
which seems very clear. There are a few extra restrictions: the additional characters in the mastering SID code always have to start with "L", and mould SID codes cannot use the characters "I", "O", "S" or "Q" (it is unclear from the document if this is just for mould SID codes, or also for mastering SID codes).
With that background information I (partially) adapted my scripts and ran a few tests. I cut people some slack when it came to spaces, dashes, capitalization and even using the florin currency symbol ('ƒ') instead of a regular 'f'.
Valid SID codes in Discogs
One problem with the SID codes on releases is that they are so incredibly small, that I often need to use a magnifying glass just to read them. Therefore I was not very optimistic when starting to check these codes and expected many errors, especially with the Mastering SID Code field as there is an extra restriction: there has to be a "L", which can very easily be misinterpreted as "1" or "I" if the SID code is almost unreadable.Using the latest Discogs dump (data up till November 1 2017) I found 19227 releases with Mastering SID Code fields that are in need of a fix. This is how they are distributed over the data:
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| Mastering SID Code fields with wrong value |
For the Mould SID Code fields I found a similar number of releases that were wrong (15623 releases):
 |
| Mould SID Code fields with wrong value, strict checks |
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| Mould SID Code fields with wrong value, relaxed checks |
What I do know is that it will be a tough job to fix all of these releases, as very few of them have pictures where you can actually read the SID codes.
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