Jansaw
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Canada

Saw this on Bitshifter's facebook today. A bunch of people over at Discogs (yes I know) have been engaged in an interesting conversation about whether or not NES cartridges should be included in their database. Spoiler: they decided against it and removed what existed. They get into concepts like recorded music vs sequenced music, representations of previously created sound waves vs representations of instructed sound waves, etc.

Several people make good arguments for and against this decision, so I suggest you read it all before coming to conclusions. Kind of similar to what we've read many people talk about in the past, but on another forum, and affecting a different community and their infrastructure.

http://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/52a … 54d867e3d7

TylerBarnes
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Dallas, Texas

It's interesting and amusing to see people so adamant about this topic.

I fall on the side of the mods to be honest. There is certainly a clear and obvious distinction between audio data and instructional data. If their rules are against sequenced instructions then it doesn't really belong. Same reason I don't get upset at OGRemix for not allowing chipmusic. They have a specific vision for the type of media they want to host/offer and have made a rule to support their vision. It isn't really about how good something is. It's about consistency within their database.

That all being said NES cart albums are amongst my top interests, and it is a shame to see it rejected. Heck, I'm working on a NES cart album myself actually. wink

Last edited by TylerBarnes (Dec 11, 2013 10:02 am)

kineticturtle
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Matthew Joseph Payne

Why doesn't someone just start a special discogs-style site for cataloging "album on a cartridge" releases?

cartogs.org "mapping the history of chipmusic"

TSC
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

I thought the whole point of a cartridge album was to say "fuck you contemporary music distribution."

On the other hand, these discussions always focus on/argue semantics on both sides. Musicians annoy me.

PROTODOME
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UK
TylerBarnes wrote:

Same reason I don't get upset at OGRemix for not allowing chipmusic.

Actually OCRemix (if you mean OCRemix) does accept chipmusic, at least some chipmusic. I remember there being a pretty heated thread about it. The rule was there to discourage those super rad '8-bit' MIDI-rips.

herr_prof
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Unsubscribe

That's why the Internet sucks. It's being coded and curated by pedantic strawmen. Your jobs are being a freaking librarian, and it seems being a arbritator of culture fulfills their academic power fantasies. If their database skills arent enough to handle the 30 some odd entries NES carts would generate, 700,000 odd entries from XM mods or whatever that is their problem, but obviously their chief goal is to be some sort of collectors jerkoff haven dedicated to the scarcity and rarity of their medium collections, and is not interested in being a method of recording the history of audio media.

Last edited by herr_prof (Dec 11, 2013 3:36 pm)

PleaseLoseBattle
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Clermont-Ferrand, France
herr_prof wrote:

It's being coded and curated by pedantic strawmen.

So true.
Arguing over semantics seems pretty futile. Also, there's a lot of lame/unrelated stuff on Discogs. Audio format bother them, while some horrible french football fans hymn exists within their data : http://www.discogs.com/Pacemakers-Group … se/4970601

I never liked Discogs, although some friends involved in the punk/rock or punk/hardcore scene have collections worth several thousands of $. I've always thought that it's elitist, incoherent and useless. Vinyls collections don't need Discogs.

arfink
Offline
Minneapolis

@herr_prof Librarians have been and always will be pedantic curators. It's in the job description. That's why, for example, your local library probably doesn't have copies of Hustler or Playboy on the shelf with the Western light novels and dusty encyclopedias.

Brother Android
Offline
TX
kineticturtle wrote:

cartogs.org "mapping the history of chipmusic"

So I guess we'll be talking about an artist's "cartography" from now on? I'm not complaining.

Last edited by Brother Android (Dec 11, 2013 3:53 pm)

TylerBarnes
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Dallas, Texas
PROTODOME wrote:
TylerBarnes wrote:

Same reason I don't get upset at OGRemix for not allowing chipmusic.

Actually OCRemix (if you mean OCRemix) does accept chipmusic, at least some chipmusic. I remember there being a pretty heated thread about it. The rule was there to discourage those super rad '8-bit' MIDI-rips.


Hmm, I see. All I really remember is getting descouraged from joining when I read:

"...employing nothing but basic tones or "chiptunes" is discouraged."

herr_prof
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arfink wrote:

@herr_prof Librarians have been and always will be pedantic curators. It's in the job description.

Yea but a physical librarian has real world acquisition costs that support this mindset. The costs for data storage are approaching zero on a byte for byte comparison, what if the Internet Archive Decided to stop collecting certain websites? It would lose credibility, as does Discogs with lameduck decisions like this.

Jansaw
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Canada

The thing that gets me here his is that NES, gameboy, etc releases are so obviously musical works. the first thing I see when I load their site is "Discover new music." The first paragraph of their About section:
"We're on a mission to build the biggest and most comprehensive music database and marketplace. Imagine a site with discographies of all labels, all artists, all cross-referenced, and an international marketplace built off of that database. It's for the love of music, and getting closer every day."

I understand that the MODs are doing what's logically best for the site, but at the same time... I don't understand that. Some of the MODs in that forum have stated that the infrastructure of the site would need changing if they would start accepting sequenced releases, and have asked for feedback on the issue, so that's hopeful for the future.

I mean... it's just another site that catalogues music, so whatever. It's just too bad that it's one of the biggest ones out there and at this moment they can't see these releases as music. But hey... they're "getting closer everyday."

Last edited by Jansaw (Dec 11, 2013 6:35 pm)