An uncomfortable past, or the inconvenient truth?

One of the most rewarding benefits of being a discogs moderator is getting to rub virtual shoulders with the rich and famous in the music business.

Errhmm… strike that last line!

Rather: One of most frustrating tasks of being a discogs moderator is having to put up with the nonsense of the wanna-be rich-and-famous in their own bedroom.

You see, fame does not necessarily equate to a reasonable degree of intelligence or skill, nor does having a record out exclude the quasi-famous from having to abide by regular rules, and nor does it automatically mean one can lay claim to the exclusive right to change the course of history (alternatively known as a set of agreed-upon lies).

Example: DJ Tony and DJ C00ldewd are good friends. They’ve known each other since C64 days. They deejay together. They bring out a forgettable techno white label vinyl slab or three under the “project” name of UniqueTeam, or something equally inventive. They’ve got their little MySpace and Facebook and Wikipedia and last.fm and AllMusic and Discogs profiles all nice and cosily set up, proclaiming greatness to the world and the web at large — especially now that Richie Hawtin played their huge “choon” once.

In fact, their future’s so bright, they gotta wear sunglasses at night.

So one day DJ Tony goes beyond mere “sampling” and knocks up DJ C00ldewd’s sister, the “featured vocalist” for the group. Tony (who always was the more skillful DJ of the two) moves on with his new girlfriend, leaving C00ldewd out in the cold and without a singing sister. DJ C00ldewd plots revenge. He’s the smarter one.

He’s pissed, and he has a mouse.

DJ C00ldewd is the one with the PowerBook full of samples and claims the “UniqueTeam” project name as his very own. DJ Tony doesn’t care. While he takes up residence at a club on Ibiza, DJ C00ldewd does the same in the dark basement of his parents’ house (with whom he’s been to Ibiza once, as a kid) and generates more tunes, making them available to a slew of netlabels and… wait, the MySpace profile! That’s gotta get changed! DJ Tony is not a friend anymore, strike him. Fuck that… in fact, DJ Tony was never a part of the UniqueTeam project… I was the brains of the operation… erase his name everywhere, he doesn’t exist (nor really cares anymore)… he never existed. Must correct Wikipedia. Update last.fm, change Facebook, and fix Discogs.

Oh? Wait… what? There’s some moderator dude at Discogs that NO-voted my correction of history? WTF?! But… but I’m DJ C00ldewd, the famous producer! I know best, and I don’t care if just eight months ago it was I who insisted that the self-righteous, lengthy and overhyped MySpace profile was accepted (in third-person form) on Discogs, complete with ten oversized pictures of me and… that other guy, DJ Tony? Who? Never heard of him, doesn’t exist. And so what if there are huge pictures of our records on Discogs and Juno where it clearly says that UniqueTeam = DJ Tony and DJ C00ldewd — complete with our hotmail.com address (which New Order’s legal department once contacted to sell us Viagra, or something).

How dare you not allow me to change history?

“The secret of Wikipedia’s phenomenal success is that anyone can edit the millions of comments, facts and statistics published on the pages of the world’s most popular online encyclopaedia. But that of course is also its greatest weakness.”

Yep! Being a moderator can indeed be frustrating; we’re pretending to smile at the face of adversity while at the same time trying to be polite, helpful and to extract worthwhile, useful and — most importantly — correct information from those hurling abuse and insults in whose very own interests we indirectly actually act.

hmvh therefore presents some of last year’s most entertaining “fan mail”:

Ive tried countless times now to add my biog to my own listing on disgigs but it alwasy gets rejected!

Do i literally put – [DJ name] – he plays records and thats it!?

I GIVE UP!!!

(I dont mean to come accress moody, I actually find this all quite funny!

Sadly, yes. If that’s what you do, then please say so. If you make out as if you’re the best thing since the invention of the compact disc, please understand if I’d be ever so slightly inclined to question that claim.

Why would you say something like that?…
Why would I be posted if I cant submit a photo?
And what precisely did you find offensive about the image that I portray?
Best
Miss [username]

An underexposed blonde who fails to understand the subtle difference between “bad image” and “blurry photo”?

RE: This is not a fan site, we’re a discography site that’s bursting at the seams. Images exist for identification purposes of the artist/s, for a full portfolio, there are other places.

Please, these aren’t mugshots. At least edit with an art director’s eye and kill images that are either bad, unflattering or too small. (Such as the principle image now up for [female singer].)

RE: Thanks for your valiant efforts nonetheless and do keep submitting whatever you may feel is worthwhile – but be prepared to be cut off at the knees if certain rules are not being adhered to.

Crack that whip.

RE: Please read and understand the guidelines http://help.discogs.com/wiki/SubmissionGuidelinesImages and you’ll see where I’m coming from.

Yes, I’ve reviewed and will submit future photos bearing the laws of Discogs in mind. Sir.

Crack that whip I will!

As far as MySpace being a record label…..Not necessarily, but more and more artists are using snocap to release their music through their myspace page. A record label is a brand created by companies that specialize in manufacturing, distributing and promoting audio and video recordings, on various formats. Myspace is the company/medium through which we distribute and promote our music. If your gonna be that technical and short sighted about this whole thing, I don’t even want to bother with you or your company.

Whip cracked, submission rejected!

Sir, boss, asshole… we get called lots of names.

It is nice to have our efforts met by thanks on occasion, too.

And make no mistake – I have total respect for what you do – so this explanation is perfectly acceptable to me :)

As I have no wish to give you additional work – I’ll simply take a clearer image and submit this instead, I can see where you are coming from completely. I have many other images which could be used – it’s just that this is the one which is being used in current pr material, so thought it would be best if it was consistent. I might have to check my monitor settings perhaps – as It may be what looks lighter on my monitor is quite dark when viewed from others – so this feedback is usefull.

I appreciate you coming back to me on that so promptly and I will get onto that as soon as I have a moment.

respect to you hmvh-san :)

(bows)

[username]

After all, how dare Discogs need to “work on the politest way of telling artists that discogs is not their fucking personal myspace or facebook page, nor does their profile need monthly updates that give a running commentary of every recent gig they’ve played and future gigs they hope to play at, and certainly not the place for their own profoundly unbiased opinion of how great they think they are or how proud their mother is of him/her/them and what a phenomenal impact they’ve had on some otherwise insignificant little (dare I say “Croatian trance”?) label or the local pub scene, and nor do we need to be given driving directions to the new eatery right next to the veggie store someone may have openened because he’s taken a break from deejaying for a while.”

In fact, how dare anybody actually be held accountable for their very own past actions?

Even in the realm of humour, people don’t always take too kindly to their names appearing as a contributor to the Kaka Sutra and its rather vulgar and questionable sexual “practices” — despite not being the butt of the joke themselves.

“What can I say, I was a freshman in college. Most of my postings had to do with computers, but I posted a thing or two to alt.tasteless back in the day – also my friend posted one of those stories, I think the broomstick one was my friend who had stolen my account as a joke.”

Under normal circumstances I’d have told the guy to piss off. The responsible thing, of course, was to remove the email addresses (and the names) of the original posters because blogging really can be a dangerous and fatal affair.

Free speech only goes as far as nobody is being exposed by any embarrassing truths.

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