Does Discogs supersede printed discographies?

John Prine's last album Tree of Forgiveness was mastered by Pete Lyman (PL) etched in the deadwax but somebody put up on Discogs as LP etched in the deadwax. I corrected to PL (Pete Lyman) but it was changed back to LP. I gave up!

JG

 

But you didn’t get the correct information from an encyclopedia I’m sure

 

You are right I didn't! I have that LP and the credits says mastered by Pete Lyman, so his initials would be PL. The two initials PL are superimposed on each other, but the person who put the information up sees it as LP. I changed it on Discogs to PL and gave my reasons why (logical), but it was changed back to LP. Go figure!

Pete Lyman

JG

 

That applies to all download releases. You don't have to have talent to release an electronic file. You don't even have to have a label. If McCartney for instance does a podcast and makes it available on itunes is it a valid release? With or without music. Every artist could make a file available music or otherwise every day of the week

 

In response to the question posed on the heading of this thread, I have my own answer . . .

I hope not. As a supplement, maybe . . .

 

I've personally corrected so much stuff on Discogs that was just flat out wrong, and seen so much missing or miscategorized, I'd never consider it "the" reference site. It's certainly "a" reference site. I'm not sure "the" one exists.

 

Also there are physical copies of Purple Chick CDs on Discogs but the original files, free downloads, are not listed because they're boots. Once they're available on CD they're a valid entry.

The same should apply to any artist Flac / aac/ mp3 only file. Dont list it unless it gets a physical release. Shouldn't even be a placeholder.

 

For 99,9% of all albums there doesn't exist a Wikipedia entry and RYM is great for reviews, rating and opinions, but doesn't provide much discographical information.
Discogs may not be perfect, but IMO it's great and there's no better alternative.

 

That was neither the question nor the answer.

I use Wikipedia, among other sources, but WP is not "secure," i.e., it can be manipulated more easily than more reliable sources. For important subjects, I check multiple sources.

Besides, the question was, has Wikipedia made the Britannica obsolete.

No.

 

This sort of thing happened to me too. It might help to add a photo of the etched letters, but then again it might not. They are very touchy about certain procedures you have to follow, and if someone thinks you didn't do it the right way you can get downvoted, pegged as a troublemaker and put on the Contributor Improvement Program, which is like Discogs jail, where you can't make any new listings until you fix things (could be something like not following their capitalization guidelines, which incidentally are not the same as those for the English language); meanwhile you can't help but notice the many, many entries that are lazy cut-and-paste jobs with wrong or irrelevant data which somehow never get flagged.

So, in other words, mind your Ps and Qs. For all its flaws Discogs is a very useful tool but their culture is a little bit paranoid.

 

Why is that a problem? It is a purchased and usable product that allows you to listen to music you enjoyed. I want as complete and accurate a log of my library regardless of the source of the music.

 

You're not supposed to be entering or editing release info unless you own the particular release. If you get into a disagreement about a particular release's data, use this.