discpedia

Some of the articles on the site could be valuable and useful, but I'm not sure if it's completely redundant. 

Either way, it's gonna take a lot of work with an active community to get up to par to please all the pedantic asshats on the internet.  Good luck!

Thank you for the first reasonably constructive comment  . I also completely agree, it will take a lot of time and could likely be a complete waste... And definitely, basically all the information is elsewhere, except for what I added in from my own personal experience (that was my own thought process behind the wiki). But, I figured, what the heck 

I would vote, but I came up with truffle fries too. So, out of spite.

To be fair, there are a lot of horribly written entries. But, what I wrote or edited, at least, makes sense.

the whatty dutty?

http://discpedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:AllPages

 

every time I see this thread I think of the Expedia dot cooooooom jingle

it's a damn curse.

It's more sell-able than you think

We finally made it!

Sorry, sticking with Shaqogs

Why is everything "discogs but better"? If you compare yourself to something else chances are it's a shitty version of that something else.

huh?

Okay.. you don't have to keep posting if you don't want to. Every now and then I decide to see if someone posted anything and lo and behold..

 

Ironically, the more you complain, the more traffic you're driving to the thread and the site.

how are folks who get all up in arms at people who actually listen to records because "value!" and "mint!" not self-righteous?

I don't see anyone getting up in arms except for the people here.. saying it's "not collecting" because it's not the way you do it.

This is exactly why we all prefer Discogs. Seriously.

Everyone here hates people who treat records like a collectable. We buy vinyl because we want to play it on our turntable. That's it. We all used to buy NEW records for $12 a pop. Then the collectable vinyl market picked up and everything is two or three times the price, pressing plants are backed up with endless low quality pressings of all of those collectable records you hunt for. Limited releases get snatched up by people who will turn around and sell it on eBay for four times the price.

We are utilitarian. Our skills are finding where to buy some new album for the cheapest price, or haggling a low price for a used record.

Discogs and this forum cater to that utilitarian mentality.

And that's perfectly rational. At the same time, people who treat them as collectibles aren't intentionally trying to make life for you difficult. They just enjoy them.

Again, there are a lot of similarities and dissimilarities between what I'm seeing are two distinct types of collectors. Ironically, though, 'record collector' implies that records are collectible in the first place.

& collecting a wall of sealed records isn't?

I don't think you know what self-righteous means

Touche. But I looked up Jacob Bannon and his stuff doesn't come up on findartinfo.com so what do they know?

I think you were right about that.. Well first of all, just because a website has a few sale prices, that doesn't mean it's similar to Popsike. Records were pressed in the billions while original artwork is one of a kind.., so it's really comparing apples and oranges.

That's the whole point I think I was trying to get across--that it would be a center for education and advice sharing as well as smaller details, if that's what people want to share. Discogs doesn't treat albums like collectibles, but more like mass produced merchandise (which is technically what they are). At the same time, though, it takes some of the skill out of record collecting.

...Though apparently that's not what people here are interested in. Why educate yourself when you can just look everything up in a catalog?

if people are collecting sealed records, then they aren't record collectors. they are simply 12x12" art collectors.

..this seems a little self-righteous to me

People don't care to know how to grade or identify pressings when they're only in it for the money. The best record dealers were record collectors first, not the other way around.

That's not entirely true.. But I follow. What are you saying the problem with this idea is?

I also like how the discussion from Saturday was all about the sonically superior pressings, now it's about sleeves and missing ink and 50 year old sealed Beatle records that no one wants to "devalue." But what do I know, I'm all about that hyperbole.

Funnily enough, "all about" is pretty much hyperbole... But yeah, that's the spectrum of record collecting.. from sonically superior pressings to identifying sealed Beatles records.

 

Whoever else said whatever else about not keeping records sealed, I agree. I did not realize there were such stark contrasts between different types of record collectors. At the same time, you can't deny that there are those out there who appreciate sealed records. 

 

That being said, I haven't been keeping tabs on this forum, and for whatever reason people are still continuing to post...

This is kind of the problem, though and why the internet is ruining record collecting. Now everybody is interested in the business side, when that was only a fraction of the collecting world before. Pre-internet, one had to learn how to identify different pressings, labels, significant artists, etc. You had to get familiar with everything to be good at buying records to sell. Now, everyone is an "expert". And that's bad because you have millions of people selling "minty" copies of records on ebay that are far from mint. People only care about the monetary side so that it benefits them to make money, not learn how to properly grade, identify first pressings from original pressings, etc. There isn't a art popsike to look up values. The last thing record collectors need is another site that tells them the value.

Isn't that kind of why a knowledge-based website, such as a wiki, would be good, not bad? I'm confused because this is what I was thinking the potential benefits would be.. teaching how to grade, identify pressings, etc. I'd actually written a couple articles about grading and identifying pressings.

There is a comment section on EVERY release page.  You can leave any kind of tip or note you want on there.

 

But there is over 6 million different releases listed on that site...I think they have quiet a bit of detail already that is going to be hard to compete with.

 

I mean its a site with a large following compared to a random site you made one night when you were drunk....

Like I said before, I never intended for it to compete with anything... I think that is the problem in the way a lot of you are looking at this. It would just be another resource with potentially useful information. I think tools work best when they're used together. I just thought it might be good to have information that is normally scattered all in one place. Instead of there being a crazy amount of comments attached to release pages, maybe one article that compiles all that information.

 

For example (maybe this is more specific to "Introducing the Beatles," but I can think of similar situations... among other things):

 

1. You get a SEALED "Introducing the Beatles." Right off the bat, pretty much all of the benefits of the Discogs list are thrown out the window because you wouldn't want to devalue the sealed record by opening it (another difference between different collectors). You can't look at the disc, so how can you tell if it's authentic? There are a couple references to George's shadow, but there are counterfeit releases with the shadow as well. What do you do?

 

2. You get a SEALED "Introducing the Beatles" and look up a guide or an article. Under the "Authentication" category, there's a tip about the "E" on the back cover. Now you have your answer. You go to Discogs, eBay, or Popsike and find what they're selling for.

 

...I wasn't drunk, and all sites have to start somewhere. It looks like you have a blog yourself... I personally can't understand the usefulness of a website that just displays a different album each day, but surely there are people that do if you're continuing to develop your site.

you know if there isn't something on discogs you want...you can just add it....like another pedia site.

Where would you put in a tip about the second "E"? Or that disc and covers aren't related?

 

I don't know, I just feel like there must be a reason why I've never found Discogs useful, and that there are probably others who feel similarly. Maybe not here... but from all the scattered articles I've read about specific aspects of certain records, etc.

 

For example, there are tons of articles like this:

 

http://www.high-endaudio.com/softw.html

 

It's full of very useful information... but it's also horribly written and very poorly formatted. It's the first result on Google, so it must be a popular website or webpage (ie there are people actively seeking the information in the article).

I searched "Beatles" in the forums, and after finding a lot of confused people posting (wondering what they have, its value, etc.), was directed by this link to variations of "Introducing the Beatles": 

 

http://www.discogs.com/lists/Introducing-The-Beatles/136193

 

 

There are a lot of problems with this list... Maybe I can't find it, but it looks like the album sleeves shown don't have disc pictures and there are a few disc labels without jackets. There are no authentic stereo editions logged except for a rare example with a gold "stereo" stamp instead of a banner. There are two discs described as either "hard to judge" or "possibly genuine" (both are obviously genuine by the way...). Actually, one is a rare 45 label variant that occurred when VJ records ran out of 12" LP labels.

 

One of the things that people seem to be confused about here is that discs and their sleeves were made separately and put together as was necessary. All of the listings attribute a label style to a particular sleeve... but this is completely incorrect.

 

One of the easiest telltales is a patch of ink that is missing on the back cover from the second 'E' in "A Taste of Honey." This is general knowledge that can be picked up from guides or experience... but doesn't appear to be an easily accessible tip on Discogs (maybe it is somewhere hidden in a forum thread).

 

These are for me, the reasons that I never used Discogs and always referred to other, more specialized sites (ie online guides, and then to archives such as Popsike and eBay sold listings)

You're right. When I was thinking of 'collecting' per se, I was thinking of what it meant to me. And that's mainly finding old, desirable, original releases, etc. For example, I try not to collect reissues. From what I've seen online there are plenty of people out there who think of it that same way (mainly who I've encountered on eBay--I suppose more of a collectible site than Discogs, which is more of a vinyl-listener-collectors' site) and that's why there are sporadic articles released here and there. But it seems like everyone here (and what seems like a majority of 'collectors') is most interested in, for example, using vinyl as their main music medium instead of CDs, etc.

 

Clearly, there's a lot of overlap, but at the same time a lot of differences.

Yes. You can also look it up by the title and year listed on the jacket.

I guess it's just a difference in what you're collecting, but I think 99% of the albums I own don't have a bar code or some sort of date designation.

 

I'll look into that app, though. Sounds like it could come in handy.

re: checking the going rate of used records in large quantities: that cratedigger app exists. all you do is scan the barcode and it gives you recent / up to date pricing on said record. super easy, super quick. no wiki needed.

I've never heard of that app.. Sounds really interesting though.. it's probably somehow connected to Discogs. Do you mostly collect albums with bar codes? I think they started using codes on albums sometime in the 70s.

 

Still, if I were selling a big crate of records I wouldn't be too happy having someone go through and scan each of them. 

Very funny jokes. I don't know why anyone wouldn't respect you now.

By the way, it's a ban from posting, not viewing the page. I think it's pretty funny that you checked though.