Fan mail

Some fan mail truly cracks me up!

Discogs is a cross-functional site. People use it for all sorts of things.

Some use it for research, some use it to showcase their personal music collection, and some use it to buy and sell stuff. Other users are here just to chat with like-minded gear heads.

To many, it’s a hobby. It’s a small community.

Then there are those dedicated ones who delight in identifying IFPI codes and CD matrices to help nail down the exact date and location that a CD or record may have been pressed, authoring the most informative articles about pressing plants and recording studios while other users make concerted efforts to identify and profile every artist they can.

Take, for instance, a guess at how many British rock guitarists named “John Smith” there are and then understand that no one John Smith is more relevant, important, topical or “bigger” than another simply because of a numerical suffix.

Not every user understands this measure of disambiguation — least of all John Smith himself who might suddenly show up to claim otherwise and cause chaos in the database.  Heads butt, egos clash, guidelines get quoted, and once the dust has settled you might receive an unexpected friendly message from an entirely different John Smith:

I just wanted to thank you personally for all you’ve done to help rectify the situation with my [name redacted] hijacker. It certainly is a horribly common name (hence my later adoption of the [name redacted] monicker, mainly as a stand up and writer now). Massive thanks for your help and dedication to authenticity.

hey man, sorry if i was a little bitchy in my comment for that [redacted] release. i was having an.. interesting day. thanks for voting on it. cheers

…which is nice. We try to do our best.

Discogs is 4½ months older than Wikipedia. As is the nature of both beasts, contentious disagreements tend to take place “behind the scenes”, tucked away in release histories, or sometimes in forums because, as I wrote to a new user recently, this is a team effort. We thrash things out until it reaches a stage of maturity where we can all say “yes, that looks about right, mark as ‘correct'”. None of us are professionals (daytime jobs aside), we’re all amateurs at this.”

I saw you tried and I want to ask your adress ´cause being nice you win a record…. thanks for try to loose your time helpin people who don´r read to guidelines, I´m perfectly aware that this kind of network is it full of repress pc nerd have nothin better to do then don´t help and use this kind of think to feel power… one day the rules will turn against them!

Actually, we’re just a bunch of music lovers who do our best to reflect verifiable details, neutral descriptions, and create readworthy profiles. Discussions usually stay civil but sometimes can get heated and lengthy — so much so that you receive a message like…

You on the other hand are like a “Discogs Daddy” and I half expected/hoped you to take my side but you didn’t and like I said I do see your logic..

Occasionally, it’s John Smith himself who sends a polite request to help him/her write up an acceptable profile, or…

Just spoke to [name redacted] who told me of your history with [name redacted] and Discogs!! Just want to say thanks for representing us, and we appreciate it greatly.

As a matter of fact, we appreciate it so greatly that we’ve decided to start a monthly feature on the most active [name redacted] head in the month. And we’re gonna start it with you :) Will do a feature on our website, where we can link to your discogs account, or if you have anything that would do you more benefit that you’d like us to link to then let me know and we’ll do that.

Well, nothing ever came of that but hey, you’re welcome!

Other times you get called upon to mitigate accusations of plagiarism when text like this shows up:

”In 2010 he has been suspected to have plagiarized almost every melody or pattern used in tracks and remixes he has produced.”

You’ll never know what to expect in your mail box. It’s happened that I got requested to add glowing reviews (by others) under my name,  or submit items on someone’s behalf.

I refuse.

Not all fan mail is friendly, though. Sometimes things get ugly.

I will send the worst fucking energy to you
Fucking bastard.

History revisionism gone bad!

hey , man , fuck your fuck , speak french va te faire enculez , ta bien compris ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,c ‘est notre passion , tu es un batard , fuck bastard , stupid , man ,,,,,,,grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Gnashing of teeth ensued.

You are really so serious or just trolling?
Leave your computer, go outside and cool down asshole.

Here’s my favourite:

SO, I GAVE BIRTH TO 8 KIDS!! SEVEN ARE WITH MY HUSBAND DJ [name redacted]!! SO? THAT DOESN’T STOP ME FROM SINGING DOES IT?HE(MY HUSBAND) GOT TWO BASTARDS OUTSIDE OUR MARRIAGE WITH [name redacted] TOO!! HOW RELEVENT IS THAT? WHY ARE YOU HIDING YOUR FACE AGAIN? SHOW YOU REAL FACE I CAN KNOW WHO THE HELL I’M SUING!! WHY ARE YOU HIDING BEHIND CARTOON CHARACTERS AND STUFF!! CAP LOCK = FREEDOM OF SPEECH!! IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT OPEN YOUR SITE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY!! MAYBE YOU ARE HIDING BEHIND THE LIZARD FACE BECAUSE YOUR REAL FACE IA PROBABLY UGLIER? IDENTIFY YOURSELF IF YOU DON’T HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE FROM THE WORLD!!

My in-box is almost empty. My “fan mail” folder has been cleared and waits for input because, as I’ve said before, this year I’ll be spending much time on Discogs.

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