I know a few collectors of vinyl records who can best be described as "completists" (although others would describe them as "completely nuts") who try to collect every variant of an album of a certain artist, no matter how small the difference.
For these people it is very important to know about how to tell different releases apart from eachother. This is something that Discogs is currently unfortunately quite bad at, especially when it comes to indicating that certain information is not present on a release.
Let's look at an example. In the 1980s Metallica released a few picture discs. Some of these picture discs were released with a barcode, and others without. For the collectors knowing whether or not a barcode is on the release really matters.
Another example would be knowing if there are SID codes on a release. In an earlier blogpost about SID codes I wrote that SID codes can sometimes indicate that a CD was released after 1994. The SID codes are often forgotten to be added, as people don't know about them, or find them too difficult to read (as they can be really small).
A screenshot of the second approach would not make any sense, so I have not included it.
The first approach is a bit fragile, as people actually have to type it in and as I have already shown in previous posts people simply cannot spell, or do not read the guidelines, so are likely going to make mistakes.
The second approach (not adding the identifier) is downright flawed, as it is unclear what it means if an identifier is not on a release page. Does it mean that the identifier is actually not present on the release, or does it mean that the person adding the release to the catalog simply did not add it?
It could look a bit like this:
Instead of having a free text field, a user adding or editing a release should also be given the choice to flag the identifier as "not existing on this release", or something similar.
Adding this information to the database (and the database dump in XML, or via the API in JSON) should (likely) not be too much effort.
Of course, if something like this would be added I am expecting a lot of wrong data, but it would make my life (doing data analysis) a lot easier. Plus, it would open up a lot of new possibilities for for example searching, but also other applications.
For these people it is very important to know about how to tell different releases apart from eachother. This is something that Discogs is currently unfortunately quite bad at, especially when it comes to indicating that certain information is not present on a release.
Let's look at an example. In the 1980s Metallica released a few picture discs. Some of these picture discs were released with a barcode, and others without. For the collectors knowing whether or not a barcode is on the release really matters.
Another example would be knowing if there are SID codes on a release. In an earlier blogpost about SID codes I wrote that SID codes can sometimes indicate that a CD was released after 1994. The SID codes are often forgotten to be added, as people don't know about them, or find them too difficult to read (as they can be really small).
Indicating non-existing data in Discogs as it is now
In Discogs indicating that something is not on a release is currently not implemented very well. There are two ways to deal with missing data:- adding the identifier and marking it, for example with "none" or "missing"
- not adding the identifier at all
A screenshot of the second approach would not make any sense, so I have not included it.
The first approach is a bit fragile, as people actually have to type it in and as I have already shown in previous posts people simply cannot spell, or do not read the guidelines, so are likely going to make mistakes.
The second approach (not adding the identifier) is downright flawed, as it is unclear what it means if an identifier is not on a release page. Does it mean that the identifier is actually not present on the release, or does it mean that the person adding the release to the catalog simply did not add it?
A better way to indicate missing data
I think that there has to be a better way than using text to indicate that something cannot be found on a release, because right now it is confusing. A better way could be achieved using icons, for example a red X or exclamation mark for information that is missing and a blue question mark for data that is unsure (for example because there are no pictures and therefore cannot be verified).It could look a bit like this:
Instead of having a free text field, a user adding or editing a release should also be given the choice to flag the identifier as "not existing on this release", or something similar.
Adding this information to the database (and the database dump in XML, or via the API in JSON) should (likely) not be too much effort.
Of course, if something like this would be added I am expecting a lot of wrong data, but it would make my life (doing data analysis) a lot easier. Plus, it would open up a lot of new possibilities for for example searching, but also other applications.
Comments
Post a Comment