Adding and updating information in Discogs is an interactive process.
While it is surprisingly easy to sign up and then begin populating the database with new entries or to edit existing ones, it is also just a matter of time before another user or “voter” comes along to see what a rookie user has been up to. There might be questions.
Errors get pointed out, advice is given, links to the relevant guideline are provided – and it is usually no later than this when our new user realises his efforts have a very human audience after all.
He is not alone. There’s someone looking over his shoulder.
Voters, as unpaid data checkers, Grammar Nazis, and Guardians of the Guidelines assume honest intention on the part of the user by default. Vandalism gets reverted post-haste.
Everybody was a clueless noob once. We understand, and we’re here to help. Honestly!
Suddenly the user realises that his edits are subject to “peer review”, much in the same way that you wouldn’t expect Jesus Christ’s Wikipedia entry to stand unchallenged for too long should a random individual modify it to read that he was a green-eyed transvestite from the Pleiades star cluster. Discussions take place in the (non-public) submission notes or the (public) forums, and they usually stay civil and pragmatic.
The Discogs database is neither a personal blog nor a social media site.
Its just that im used to other sites such as soundcloud and bandcamp where I have total control so it took me a while to fully understand how this works here…
Most users are grateful for the guidance, learn from their mistakes and then go on to use and enjoy Discogs in whatever way they do. Indeed, many even become “voters” themselves and the cycle repeats. This is normal.
Occasionally you, as a voter, even receive a thank-you message from a fellow user.
the bottom line this place is fun,fun and fun first but very educational and entertaining too. As rookies it is warming that kind folk like you and others here that we have chatted too are often happy to lend a hand.
Personally i really enjoy adding to the library and making a contribution by and large. Who knows we may be helping new rookies in the years to come
Wanted to thank you for the feedback on the Image Upload Review thread,it is appreciated.
I wanted to thank you personally for your extremely helpful and much-needed guidance through the rather tricky process of submitting a new title (that had somewhat confusing origins). Your help and suggestions were direct and straightforward, allowing the entire procedure to work as a learning experience. Your help was much appreciated.
This article is not about those users.
This article is about unsolicited and unfriendly messages. Fan mail, like this:
Yes , it’s scan know scan . As you worry about it you piece of shit ?
Simple one-liners like “you’re a fuckin loser” are hardly uncommon and not worth saving — let alone poking fun at. There will always be cross-cultural idiosyncrasies, common misunderstandings, and people who need to blow off steam. Some users are snowflakes.
Well bully for you, thank you for pointing that out, I give you 10/10 for content and 0/10 of tact and deplomacy, I’ve changed it now but I hope I don’t get another message from you as I think you are rude!
Here’s a message I got after I downloaded, listened to, and corrected the items that the artist (or someone related to her) originally entered in a very poor manner.
Neutral??? Pahahahaha. That’s a joke. You call a woman who you don’t even know sexually repressed and then say a cover art is skew? shitty? I am amazed that something as minor and unimportant as a cover art could affect your life so much. Discogs operates as what exactly? As a site full of miserable trolls slagging off artists or as a site that provides music release information and a place to buy and sell music?
Your life must be just as shitty as you are being an internet troll.
Nor would I be the only one. Many voters receive similar messages. Some have entire (digital) albums dedicated to them while most try to maintain calm in the face of adversity.
i speaking very good english
was my bad sorry i didnt watching exactly what you wrote
i tellin neosoul information in database is all wrong
the artists all exists the tracks,too but the track titles all incomplete and never came as vinyl out for air plan promo etc.
you can remove all his information he left on discogs database why he not show pitcure etc. i know many artists and i can Guarantee you this stuff doesnt exists on white lable vinyl that is bullshit
I read your conversation with Pokemon and is not nice to talk to someone when you can not answer you. I have no language problems and even the CIP issue. When large numbers of roosters singing is never a day. And then anyone can make mistakes is human nature.A copy and paste of an already made response. A little question arises but you do not you ever?
Pokemon? WTF is this guy on about? WTF is this guy on?
After politely asking how I could be of further help, this arrived:
Hello. If you do not understand the problem is yours, I also do not understand what you say and I have not insulted anyone. Are a civilized and educated. Who tells you to spend time with me? Certainly not me. And I do not need help of groups and forums are the chicken coops. A please use a vocabulary.
Then there was the guy whose large-scale piracy operation got exposed:
you are an annoying troll who thinks it’s your job to patrol this site
And here are the rantings of the first user I had to actively block:
i’m not in some seedy little basement with my trousers keeping my ankles warm and i have an actual life. Seroiusly though you should seek some medical advise. Poor little sausage. I hope they don’t ban you though obviously means an awful lot to you, but i know the administrators for discogs aswell as social media take comments like ‘I’ve been too busy J***king off to that profile picture of yours’ serously these days, i mean its pretty border line isn’t it?
Let’s keep the looniest message for last. It’s priceless. It came in response to questions about a string of very strange and suspicious items entered in a short space of time.
My mother and her sister drove me to Michigan in a Volkswagen when I was 5 years old. The ride made me throw up and neither my mother or her sister either said a word to me about the operation. I got wise to it because I watched a Lobotomy operation on the TV when I was living in Laguna Hills in 1996. After seeing this and, after reading that Ritalin was usually prescribed to people with lobotomy, I concluded my operation was real. Dr. Keith Lane in SLC, told me he couldn’t see that I had been lobotomized but, Dr. Harold Valery in Long Beach, CA said it was entirely possible. Dr. Valery had a Diploma in his office from N.Y.U. so I asked him about it. I was born in New York City and lived there until 1962. Dr. Valery said it was very common for children to be lobotomized in New York City in the sixties.
I’m the same person that Madonna and Van Halen refer to as Jimmy or Top Jimmy. I got in the wreck referred to in that music because I was driving my mother’s car and she tried to send me to a loon bin.
If i’m a liar then I’m Satan so please grow up.
Phenomenal!
A few years ago I wrote that 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. I was wrong.
There was a more than a hint of sarcasm in that line. Welcome to the madhouse.
Image credits: See individual attributes
