Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

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wanaka3
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Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by wanaka3 »

Hey there, I have been reviewing my Library on line and have noticed that every now and then there is a CD in the Library I don't have e.g. Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris Dogtag #11217. The CD attached to this Dog Tag in my CDpedia is Wrecking Ball - Bruce Springsteen. So when I remove the tag in CDpedia and then re-Contribute the Selection again, it comes up with the same dog tag. (some examples do change the dog tag and all is ok) I guess the other option is Mirroring the selection, but I don't want to write over someone else's entry. Any thoughts
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Alex
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Alex »

Make sure you check the following numbers, any of them could cause the match (even if the artist is different):

1. UPC
2. ASIN
3. Freebase
4. discID

These numbers are supposed to be unique but might get assigned to the wrong entry if people are not careful.

If none of these is causing the issue, check that both entries have the Artist assinged correctly.
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by wanaka3 »

Hi Alex thanks for this. A couple of questions. If, as is the case the recording is old vinyl and doesn't have a matching UPC or ASIN and these are blank (which most of them are) will the entry match to the closest in DogHouse thus giving me the wrong entry, i.e. mine is vinyl the doghouse is CD. If so how do i work around this?

Second, is there a Freebase number somewhere as I don't seem to be able to find it.

thanks again

Chris
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Alex »

Yes, you will get a CD match by default if the media doesn't match. We completely understand that CD and Vinyl are 2 very different formats and different products, but we needed a default format and CD proved the most popular for CDpedia users. We also felt it was better to give you a match, even if the format is different, than no match at all and let you decide.

I'm afraid we don't make a distinction when it comes to formats because none of our users ever asked for it. I know this may seem shocking to serious vinyl collectors, but what most of them do is match the entry and make the necessary changes on their local CDpedia collection. To me, there isn't enough distinction between the vinyl and CD albums I've owned over the years to justify creating a new entry for each format, but keep in mind I'm not a collector, in fact, all of my music is digital, yet I leave it labeled as CD because it doesn't make a difference to me, I'm only interested in the band or artist and the tracks themselves.

Of course, if the distinction is important for you, then by all means, create them as different entries but I honestly don't see the need to upload them to the Doghouse since we would be duplicating data in the database.

You're absolutely right about Freebase, right now it's used internally only, unless you downloaded a lot of your entries from Freebase don't worry about it.
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by wanaka3 »

Hi Alex, thanks for the reply and I probably agree, but I may have awoken the nerdy collector in me, especially with the introduction of the online library. You may want to consider the distinction in the future as the release of special editions in vinyl that do differ from cd seems to be common, as well as older vinyl being different from newer cds. In reviewing doghouse this seems to be a distinction a number of contributors are taking.
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Alex »

Hello Wanaka,

This is something we could look into adding, but I would need some more data before I can push it up the queue. Personally, I'd be happy to add it for you, because tha'ts the kind of company we are: we like to keep our users happy :D

However, as you are no doubt aware, there are always things in the pipe and our to-do lists keep getting longer and longer so we need to prioritize everything.

What do you mean by this?
In reviewing doghouse this seems to be a distinction a number of contributors are taking.
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by wanaka3 »

Hi Alex, thanks for the reply. Yes I would be interested in Vinyl being separated from other formats, as I am buying a bit at the moment, some released on Vinyl only. What I meant by comment quoted below, is that from reviewing or moderating some entries, other DogHouse users are also entering making vinyl specific entries. Understand this will go in the queue if at all.

thanks again Chris
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Waldbaer »

I'm not really sure if I understood the discussion in this thread correctly, but it seems you don't want to separate the entries of editions in different audio formats in the CDpedia. Well, of course I see the problem concerning the size of the database, but I really support the request to make different entries for e.g. CD and Vinyl editions of the same album. Here are some reasons:
- Consistency to the other pedias, especially DVDpedia: There are separated entries for e.g. DVD and BluRay editions and even different editions of the same media type of the same movie.
- The editions may be quite similar in some parts, but the media is very often not everything they differ in: There are different covers and often other track lists, at least the side separation of vinyl has to be different than on a CD just for technical reasons. Not to mention the different attitude between buying a vinyl edition and grabbing a cheap cd at the checkout to save shipping cost...
- all the pedias are for collectors and collectors are precise. Of course everybody is different in his level of preciseness, but the database has to be as precise as possible since not-so-precise-detail-info-grabbers just ignore correct info they don't need, but the other way round is just very much work for every single one. And the databases' purpose is to make this easier, so don't decide against this just for speed and size reasons.

To reduce duplicate entries, you'll need other techniques e.g. easy flagging of duplicates from within the pedias and a merging view for moderators that highlights the differences between two entries and has buttons like "delete" "(delete and) merge (Dogtags)" "not the same (remove duplicate flag)". Oh and of course more guidelines for moderators and tips for users to make their entries better...
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Alex »

Thanks Waldbaer,

The main reason we never added this was because no one actually asked for it. So now we have 2 votes for it so far, that's good to know, it helps use prioritize.

By the way, for moderators there is already a merge duplicates for all the pedias, including CDpedia.

1. Go to the Albums moderator's page
2. Select Titles -> Show duplicates
3. It might take a while for the page to reload because for CDpedia we create the duplicates database on the fly
4. You will see a list of duplicates ordered in pairs
5. Click on any Compare icon (the 2 little square arrows below the column labeled "Compare") to compare 2 duplicates
6. There you can compare the information side by side, including image
7. By default the smaller dogTag will be selected as the master, but you can select whichever entry looks best to you by clicking the Radio box next to "Master"
8. Click the merge button at top to merge information or click delete on either entry at the bottom of the page if the entry is not useful

And you're right, we do need more Moderator guides we just haven't had the time to create them. It would be great if some of our more experienced moderators would like to chip in and create some right here in the Forum as Finewine has done for the Online Library for example.

I've already added in my To-Do list to make the change to differentiate albums based on their Media. Give me some time to add this and thanks for weighing in on the issue.
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Waldbaer »

Hi Alex,
thanks for the info!

The duplicate editing in the online database is quite near to what I imagined. Thanks for showing it to me, I'm not sure if I had found it by searching myself... what takes us back to the problem that we need to guide new moderators more. Hopefully we'll have some time in the future for this. :wink:
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Alex »

Hi guys,

Good news, I was able to implement the distinction between CD and Vinyl formats for CDpedia on the doghouse.

Now, if you submit an entry that already exists as CD but your format is Vinyl (and vice-versa) it will get inserted into our database so you can have different versions of the same album.

If you want to give this a try and had alreayd submitted some albums to the Doghouse you can:

1. Remove the dog tag for the selected albums by choosing them and then going to Doghouse-> Remove Dog Tag menu
2. Submit them again.

Let me know if you run into any problems with this new feature.

Cheers.
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Waldbaer »

Sounds great, thanks! :)
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by Alex »

I've added the steps to use the Duplicates moderator page to the Moderator Guide.

I've also added a more complete example with screenshots here (there's a link at the bottom of the moderator's guide as well).
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Re: Confusion with Dog Tags, Artists and Titles CD

Post by wanaka3 »

Thanks Alex this works well, and I am now working through my vinyl. The duplicate feature is also nice and works well. Thanks again.
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