discogs marketplace?

I'm not sure how it figures out which names to link up some of the performers to (in cases where there were multiple same-name entries tagged with (1), (2), etc.); but looks like it did a fairly good job(?) I don't know who some of the performers are, just the famous ones.

Nice. I have no idea what this is. Anything on youtube?

Not that I can find.

I'm not sure how it figures out which names to link up some of the performers to (in cases where there were multiple same-name entries tagged with (1), (2), etc.)

It doesn't do this at all, the submitting user has to! So (eg) are you sure that it's the same Tom Watson who played with Mike Watt, the same Girl Friday that appear on the Cheese Compilation cassette, the same Bill Bowman who drummed in a Seattle psychobilly band, and the same Alexis Hall who sang on a variety of deep house records in the '00s?

(If not, and the same band member doesn't mind being pestered, might be worth checking the credits you're not sure on...)

I’m only sure about Tom Watson and Mayo Thompson. How do I separate the others from the linked entries, if that’s recommended? (I didn’t think I made any affirmative choice to link the names to certain same-name options, I just clicked on them to check them out.)

(In the case of “Dewey,” I didn’t click on anything at all, as no identical names were presented; so I’m not sure these choices were made by me.)

Also, I’m pretty sure it’s not the same group as appeared on that comp cassette; not sure why it linked up with that, either (as opposed to either of the other identically named artists).

Was I supposed to choose the Artist Name “Girl Friday (4)”?

https://support.discogs.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004051893-Quick-Start-Guide-For-New-Contributors

I have put discogs on hold until I have more disk space

xp I did consult that, believe it or not! Think I found the section in the Full Submission Guidelines to fix the artist name thing.

The database only knows what you tell it - if you enter Dewey or Girl Friday as names, it will link to Dewey or Girl Friday if those names already exist.

Was I supposed to choose the Artist Name “Girl Friday (4)”?

Type it, rather than choose it. When you submit, it will tell you that this is a new artist, ask you to add a note to that effect in Submission Notes, and require you to tick a box before it will process the addition.

Sorry, "type it" is what I meant. OK, I've made a few adjustments, now that I get the "adding numbers in brackets" thing. This is probably as good as it's going to get. I don't know for sure that the "Alexis Hall (2)" I linked to is the same performer -- but it seems like a reasonable assumption, given the date and recording location of her other credited release. I'll leave the others as linked -- two are definitely correct, others seem like reasonable assumptions, and the few "?"s (like "Dewey") don't seem worth creating fresh entries for.

Somehow, "Girl Friday (4)" doesn't come up when you search by artist -- but there's a full record for that group, complete with bio, which I accidentally linked to upon first choosing "(4)". So I amended to (5), and got the prompt that I was creating a new Artist record (as desired(.

Going to bed, a hero.

waving a flag in your honour

Happy to see Dewey gettin' his dues

you will certainly not be the first person who has listed a release with erroneous credits, it happens, there is a whole community of editors who will get around to it at some point and in the meantime it doesn't matter -- the important thing is to get the release up to share w/ the world as a reference, to document, the details can be ironed out later

There must be some that will never be “verified”; as the performers are relative unknowns, and it would take considerable research to sort out whether (say) this Jane Smith is the same as that Jane Smith?

And in those cases, I guess the question is whether it’s better to lump them all together in a single entry (even if not likely accurate), or keep adding a (2), (3), (4) etc. every time a new Jane Smith comes up?

need a librarian to weigh in

The main epistemic principle with a crowd sourced database is to strongly discourage all assumptions. Unless you're fairly sure your Jane Smith is an existing Jane Smith profile you always add a new one. As budo jeru says it can be sorted out at some point. Like a crossword some additional information can help make connections apparent.

The unsitance on verifiable fact (within reason) drives some people crazy - even stuff you might think is self-evident strictly speaking requires some corroboration, but it's a solid approach if a database is to have some credibility as a resource.

*insistance

Reverb LP shuttering at the end of Feb. Disappointing for me as the platform increased my sales anywhere between 30-50% depending on the month. Boo.

Aw man, that's a drag.

so ebay is busily telling us it's still open for business, which i assume means buying and selling online is not yet everywhere on pause (quite the opposite)

as i will very soon probably have a LOT of time on my hands (not in a good way) i am happy to get my head round putting my vinyl online (sometime music-writer since the early 80s, roomful of records in varying states of repair lol) -- so what is BEST PRACTICE currently, with lockdown and all. is it simply OK to carry stuff every day to the nearest post office? are there other options?

(when i was researching how to get my kickstarter book out into the world last year i discovered that the UK post office will do home pick-ups of large numbers of parcels, but my publishers suggested a much cheaper solution via their distributor)

i'm asking abt the UK here tho others itt i guess wd like to know similar abt the US and elsewhere

i actually cancelled the three orders i was getting ready to ship and i took everything else i was selling down. still lots of people wanting to buy stuff, but i don't really want to have to visit the post office any more

^^^ yeah I'm done for at least a month or two

that's what i thought (unless there was some clever unrisky workaround i didn't know about). it makes sense for me to do all the tiresome data-entry work during this slack period i guess

yeah that's a good idea, very time-consuming but I am so glad I did it

if you know the weight you can print postage slips from paypal or discogs (at least you can in the US, I assume this is the same in the UK). My CD sales have def tapered off during the past few weeks; but my friend has a massive vinyl haul he's selling off on discogs and there's been no slowdown there for him.

ABE does postage slips yes, so i assume the ebay or paypal postage slips work too. plus CDs you can pop into a postbox.

but how does you friend get their vinyl into the mailstream?

take a hacksaw to your nearest postbox under cover of darkness, you just need to widen the slot by about 4 inches

"well i do consider it essential, officer"

I’ve had a few LP sales since our Bay Area shelter in place order was issued.

I had no trouble at the post office- there was barely anyone there save the employees.

I brought disinfectant wipes or gloves and felt safer there than going to the grocery store for instance.

And yes if you have a postal scale and a printer you can just drop off to minimize risk. Considering my likely reduction in income very soon, I’m listing more than ever and all too happy to continue sales.

It's an ideal time to get cracking with the data entry, but be warned: Discogs sales are in freefall right now. So expect a slow start.

There are no current restrictions on using the UK postal service, unlike in some other countries, so that's good.

I made my first sale to a trusted friend, on the understanding that he'd leave positive feedback in return for a private refund; he was also a useful guinea-pig for my packing strategy. That way, I got to start listing with a 100% feedback rating, rather than with an unstarred "New Seller" rating.

Also in the name of initial feedback-building caution, I only sold within the UK for the first month or so. Less risk of things going awry.

The pricey stuff sells faster than the cheap stuff, so it makes sense to start with the pricey stuff. Then again, I held back on the biggest treasures until I'd become established.

Clean and partially play-grade all your vinyl. Don't just visually grade, otherwise you'll get tangled up in returns and refunds and bad feedback. For ultra-high volume sellers, like stores, there's no other option, but you'll get more orders if you can maintain your 100% record. As a buyer, bitter experience has taught me only to buy from 100% sellers if at all possible.

When grading CDs, be ultra-cautious. NM really does have to mean completely unblemished in every way. It's amazing how picky CD buyers can be. I've almost never had a vinyl grading disputed, but it happened a few times in the early days of selling CDs. Why they care about this stuff is anyone's guess, but there you go.

I don't do CDs at all. I advertise cleaning with an RCM, and package well. After a year & a half, I've got 100% positive feedback over 139 ratings. I feel good about that. I don't have a lot of high value treasures, so my sales always seem really random. What I miss right now is Reverb LP, where I always did good businees with middle of the road greatest hits comps and perpetually popular albums. That platform really connected to people who were new to vinyl, whereas Discogs I get sales only from seekers and the occasional super picky bargain hunter. Anyway, it's a hobby...

I miss Reverb LP too. Transactions were so much easier.

Posties making noises about being unhappy still having to carry non-essential mail. Not to guilt-trip anyone (far from it), but still a moral data point to take into account.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/25/uk-postal-workers-plea-for-limit-to-non-essential-deliveries-royal-mail-coronavirus

Mike - that initial feedback strategy could result in an insta ban, just FYI.

I never bought anything on Reverb LP (maybe that was the problem?), but it was always fun to browse on, and the layout for shops was excellent, with the condition & pressing info right out there.

I assume the margins weren't worth the hassle. Also when Reverb got bought by Etsy, my first thought was "they're going to scuttle LP" and sure enough...

I think Reverb tried to offer the same level of support to music buyers as they do for gear and realised the scale is unmanageable at the level of profit for small individual items. That's my theory for why they pulled it.

xp

that makes a lot of sense. I was always surprised at how easy it was to get a hold of them. I think I sold maybe a dozen records and someone emailed me as my personal account manager

i bought a ton of shit off reverbLP twice, when they were running large percentage sales (like 25% or something, maybe it was higher).

Sparkle Motion, what's your Discogs sellername? I'll check your stuff out.

huh I had never even heard of reverb until it shut down, maybe I mixed it up with “reverb nation” or whatever

Why they care about this stuff is anyone's guess, but there you go.

the site I was reminiscing about last week was GEMM

GEMM was like some byzantine text adventure. I was never quite convinced that anything on it represented a real world object.

i bought lots of stuff from sellers there. it went away, right? then was kind of replaced by musicstack which I assume is still around

xpost to akm & anyone interested: I'm on Discogs as Good Records Oakland
https://www.discogs.com/seller/GoodRecordsOakland/profile

I strive to be the most fun you can have on Discogs... anyone here who has a shop, post it so I can find you!

Oh shit I totally forgot about musicstack