Poll

Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?

Yes, it's perfect.
No, I'd like it to be more streamlined.
No, I want even more information.
Not interested in matrix info.
Don't need liner notes on the page.
Other (please comment in the thread).

Author Topic: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?  (Read 15236 times)

Carl

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You can vote for multiple options in this poll, gathering info for a redesign.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2009, 11:47:23 PM by Carl »

jw

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2009, 04:56:11 PM »
I voted "perfect."  Of course perfect assumes the disco is also up to date.  I wasn't able to use the discography as a resource when trying to figure out what versions of the latest NLOTH singles I wanted.  I think Magnificent was updated later in the game (could be wrong) and Go Crazy still doesn't have info.  I had to order some singles semi-blind or go off of information people shared in the forums.

But the rest of it is fanastic.  And I remember the disco as staying current for the single releases from the ATYCLB and HTDMAAT albums.  I was able to figure out which singles I really wanted.

So aside from the recent non-timeliness and incompleteness, I find the site to be a fantastic resource that I regularly visit.

thank you!

Z000

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2009, 09:39:40 PM »
Correction: I can not vote multiple times on this poll.

God, Part II

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2009, 10:37:59 PM »
The current amount of info is very, very good (peerless, really, across the web) but sometimes I have found critical information missing from the Other Notes section found in each track/album, so they could stand to be more in-depth and comprehensive.

Carl

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2009, 11:46:06 PM »
@zoo, you can vote for multiple options on the poll - I'll clarify wording. voting multiple times would be poor form. ;)

@gp2 - what would you consider critical info in "other notes"? That's the most "subjective" part of the content and can be hard to keep in sync.

Z000

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2009, 08:00:04 PM »
Well, I can't do that either. It's a typical single-choice radial button poll, and in order to vote for anything else I seem to have to remove the vote I just cast.  Unless I'm missing something.

God, Part II

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2009, 10:06:21 PM »
@gp2 - what would you consider critical info in "other notes"? That's the most "subjective" part of the content and can be hard to keep in sync.

There are surely better examples, and I can't remember much of the specific knowledge I've sought that has been missing, but one example, just to give you an idea, is the two appearances of "Two Hearts Beat as One (Import Mix)" in the discography:

http://www.u2wanderer.org/disco/sing014.html (which features no data on this b-side whatsoever in the Other Notes section)

http://www.u2wanderer.org/disco/sing011.html (which, in reference to this b-side, only vaguely states "This mix is closer to the Kervorkian mix in sound."  But what does that mean?  It was due to Trevor's insight on this forum that I finally got clarification that this track is merely an edit of the "Long Version", not truly a unique mix)

Hopefully this gives a sense of where I think information could be clarified and embellished.  While we're taking redesign notes, I'm also compelled to note that anytime I have attempted to send corrections or additions to the discography, I never receive a reply.  Once, I sent a lengthy email detailing a rare Japanese CD that I came across at eil.com which I'd never seen or heard of before (prompting me to purchase it for the ungodly sum of $75) called BAND AID SPECIAL which, to my knowledge, remains the only official digital release of "Do They Know It's Christmas (12" Mix)" and "Feed the World" in existence.  My submission, which included full cover scans as proof of its existence, was never acknowledged or added to the site.  I would hope that these types of user-submitted updates would get appropriate attention moving forward...

Carl

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2009, 11:45:49 PM »
I know that Aaron has a back catalog at times - or it could have just ended up in a spam filter or something... if something discographyish is sent to a comments@u2w or something I tend to ignore them as I'm not really involved in that part of the site.

re: other notes... it's a tough line of how much to describe each mix/edit, related collaborations, etc.  There will be some edits etc that slip through the cracks I'm sure.  If you want to start a thread of ambiguous other notes w/ suggested corrections that'd be useful.

Aaron

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2009, 12:33:40 AM »
@gp2 - what would you consider critical info in "other notes"? That's the most "subjective" part of the content and can be hard to keep in sync.

There are surely better examples, and I can't remember much of the specific knowledge I've sought that has been missing, but one example, just to give you an idea, is the two appearances of "Two Hearts Beat as One (Import Mix)" in the discography:

http://www.u2wanderer.org/disco/sing014.html (which features no data on this b-side whatsoever in the Other Notes section)

http://www.u2wanderer.org/disco/sing011.html (which, in reference to this b-side, only vaguely states "This mix is closer to the Kervorkian mix in sound."  But what does that mean?  It was due to Trevor's insight on this forum that I finally got clarification that this track is merely an edit of the "Long Version", not truly a unique mix)

Hopefully this gives a sense of where I think information could be clarified and embellished.  While we're taking redesign notes, I'm also compelled to note that anytime I have attempted to send corrections or additions to the discography, I never receive a reply.  Once, I sent a lengthy email detailing a rare Japanese CD that I came across at eil.com which I'd never seen or heard of before (prompting me to purchase it for the ungodly sum of $75) called BAND AID SPECIAL which, to my knowledge, remains the only official digital release of "Do They Know It's Christmas (12" Mix)" and "Feed the World" in existence.  My submission, which included full cover scans as proof of its existence, was never acknowledged or added to the site.  I would hope that these types of user-submitted updates would get appropriate attention moving forward...

Hmm.  Since I've never heard of a digital release of DTKIC (12") I certainly don't remember ever getting an email from you about the topic.  Now it's entirely possible that I just didn't read something.  Can you tell me what email address it would have came from so I can search my archives?  I never throw away any email, so if I did receive it I'd still have it.  I'd like to check to make sure I'm getting your emails at the very least.  PM me if you don't want to list it on here...I've searched for any mention in my inbox for these songs and cannot find any email referencing them.

Now regularly I receive 4-5 pieces of information every day for the disco on top of numerous pieces of other u2 related junk mail.  Unfortunately most of these are scans of bootleg items these days and people asking about them before buying.  Does anyone really think "Mercy" was on a promo CD pressed five years ago?  With work and other commitments, the page has not been updated for months.  In order to do fourteen U2 shows, I took a significant amount of vacation time and traveled the world.  That's the time I typically would take to work on the site.  In 2004 I took three days off to finish things up before the launch of the website.  I am however, storing this material for future use, but unfortunately that's about all I have time for is storing it and not sorting through what is useful and what is not.  The storage bin of "to do" stuff dates back to 2000.  Some of it's been addressed, but other things still sit in limbo.  If someone contributes a significant amount of material i try to respond, and at the very least say 'thank you, it'll take a while' but granted i may not have hit everyone along the way, especially if the mail comes in when I'm not at home and don't have the freedom of an instant reply.

When will I get to updates again?  I have the by song listings up to date and on my harddrive.  I've attempted to keep those the most current part of the site.  I'm currently moving to a new apartment, and catching up on work after the tour activities.  I expect around Christmas time I will start to have some free time to work on things again, and Carl and I will be discussing options for making the data much easier to update and maintain.  As it sits right now I hand code each page that you see, maintain all the links manually, and at most use an old version of Netscape to help set some of my graphics.  It's not very friendly.

Sorry it's been lacking in updates.  Things were turning around with the release of the first couple of singles, but the tour has taken all of my attention, and that is unlikely to shift when it kicks into gear again next year.  But we will use the downtime to try to get some section of the site back up to par and hopefully introduce some means of helping things update better.  I will warn you that means that other sections are being permanently shelved for retirement...

I will thank Brad here for all his help with the news bits on the front page.  Without him, there would be very little in the line of discography information period in a timely manner.  Unfortunately, his access does not allow for updates of the discography itself, so these are just that 'front page' news bits.

God, Part II

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2009, 07:55:38 AM »
Aaron, I've PM'd you, as requested.  While we're talking, I'd like to make one critical request: with the new site design, can there be a clear indicator made of any and all releases that have been newly added to the catalog so us uber-collectors won't miss anything?  So far, the best we've got are the news updates and I'll never forget the frustration I felt with the 6/6/08 update, which mentioned the release of several new tracks, including Larry Mullen with Underworld, but never actually listed any titles!

morgan1098

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2009, 03:00:20 PM »
I like it the way it is and have been visiting it frequently for several years now.  Just update it with the latest releases and I'm happy!

Carl

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2009, 03:08:04 PM »
@morgan / gp2 - part of the reason we're updating it is so that it'll be easier to keep up to date - once all the data is in a content management system we can pull out the latest additions to a "channel/category" and display them. not sure about modified.

Aaron

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2009, 03:35:45 PM »
Aaron, I've PM'd you, as requested.  While we're talking, I'd like to make one critical request: with the new site design, can there be a clear indicator made of any and all releases that have been newly added to the catalog so us uber-collectors won't miss anything?  So far, the best we've got are the news updates and I'll never forget the frustration I felt with the 6/6/08 update, which mentioned the release of several new tracks, including Larry Mullen with Underworld, but never actually listed any titles!

Hey hey.  I had a look.  I found four email from you regarding the discography, and as you said none were replied to.  One was in 2004 regarding a broken link to the Clannad Anam album.  One was in 2005 regarding the Vertigo DVD.  There were two in 2007 regarding a broken link / mistake in title / and a question regarding the Lean on Me single.  So no, I didn't get the email regarding the Christmas promo, and I'd love to hear more.  Of the others?  Yup, they are all sitting in the 'to do box'.  They were low on the list I'm afraid, and the priority has gone to keeping up the discography with new material rather than revisiting the old.

I plan on revisiting the content as we move the site to a new format and revise and go through the information.  So i appreciate the discussion going on here.  Gives me an idea what people are using and what they are looking for - in the past the discography has been mainly built around what i personally would use it for.

Aaron

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2009, 03:39:12 PM »
oh and i listed what i had in case there were other things you've emailed about i might not have recieved.  know of any?!

as well the underworld mention points out that we need to fix our site searchability as well.  you should have been able to enter underworld and get the pages that reference things.  but our site has to be manually updated, and it appears it's been a couple of years since we've even done that...carl?  add that to the list.  better searching...

Aaron

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Re: Are you happy with the amount of information on each discography page?
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2009, 03:45:52 PM »
One further question...how interested would people be in a price guide.  as you may know, atu2.com used to run one.  And I was at one point working on staff there in the collectors area trying to bring their database up to speed (when i had much more time).  Anyway that section has folded now, but before it did, I was given the price database, and we could incorporate it.  But would anyone use it?  I often found the prices to be very dated, and it seemed to be difficult to keep up.  Something may be possible.  Just throwing it out there for discussion...would people even bother?  Or are you more like me - just searching through auctions to see what has happened recently!??