EP Ideas

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albummaster
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  • #21
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 14:20
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Tap wrote:
I mean we should probably address the fact that EP is an arbitrary promotional term, like you havw things like Autechre's EP7, a compilation CD that was released at the same time as the vinyl releases EP7.1 and EP7.2 (see also Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy for a similar scenario), the most significant indicator that something is an EP is from the title or promotion indicating it's an EP.

So I do think it makes sense to just have the standard we have here and leave it at that, because it's a close to meaningless term. But I do think it would help the albumcentric focus of this site to be able to distinguish things as EPs. Because there are EPs on the site now, and if we could call them EPs then we could separate them from the albums. I think you would need to put a lot of work into the rules around them though and factor in titles, category numbers, and other things so I think it'd be fair to wait on it since it's not like the chart is plagued by EPs.

Agree, 'EP' is quite a subjective label and it's going to lead to the inevitable lively debate about whether certain albums should be classed as EPs or not. Also, somewhat clouding the issue is that we already have on BEA maxi-singles, 12" releases etc which also meet BEA's minimum length requirements. Are we to classify anything that isn't an album as an EP (obviously not); and if not, how deep do we need to go with this (if we did this, how many release types should we be thinking about adding? do we need to support them all? and is there much value in doing all of this given there seems to be limited utility in the extra data?). I'm beginning to sense a can of worms.
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baystateoftheart
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  • #22
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 14:45
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albummaster wrote:
I don't see the harm in adding an option to mark some shorter albums as EPs provided they are above BEA's existing threshold and adhere to your definition of being released/marketed as EPs. Unless I am missing something, I don't think this would affect the operation of the site or significantly increase data admin overhead. (Existing/new albums would default to 'LP' (or album) but any BEA-eligible release meeting the criteria of an EP could be flagged as such).


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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash



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  • #23
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 14:56
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albummaster wrote:
Agree, 'EP' is quite a subjective label and it's going to lead to the inevitable lively debate about whether certain albums should be classed as EPs or not. Also, somewhat clouding the issue is that we already have on BEA maxi-singles, 12" releases etc which also meet BEA's minimum length requirements. Are we to classify anything that isn't an album as an EP (obviously not); and if not, how deep do we need to go with this (if we did this, how many release types should we be thinking about adding? do we need to support them all? and is there much value in doing all of this given there seems to be limited utility in the extra data?). I'm beginning to sense a can of worms.


Really? I thought all singles were banned/deleted regardless of length.

Alternatively, we could change the dropdown to say something like "special categorizations." The default could be "none" instead of "LP." That would cause less confusion.
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Romanelli
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  • #24
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 15:34
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I think, also, how much is an extra field or dropdown or other designation really going to be needed? How ultimately important is a designation that an entry is an EP?

If I see an album on BEA that I might be interested in checking out, the first thing I do is I look at the available information. On BEA and on other sites. I do this to educate myself about the album before I make a plunge. At some point in this process, I will see whether or not it is a full length album. I will know this within the first minute or so of looking into it. The only thing I can think of that a specific EP designation would affect would be how much you would pay for it. And if you pay full album price for something and it arrives and has 4 tracks and runs only 13 minutes, that's your bad for not checking it out first.

How ultimately necessary would this addition be?
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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash



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  • #25
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 16:32
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Romanelli wrote:
I think, also, how much is an extra field or dropdown or other designation really going to be needed? How ultimately important is a designation that an entry is an EP?

If I see an album on BEA that I might be interested in checking out, the first thing I do is I look at the available information. On BEA and on other sites. I do this to educate myself about the album before I make a plunge. At some point in this process, I will see whether or not it is a full length album. I will know this within the first minute or so of looking into it. The only thing I can think of that a specific EP designation would affect would be how much you would pay for it. And if you pay full album price for something and it arrives and has 4 tracks and runs only 13 minutes, that's your bad for not checking it out first.

How ultimately necessary would this addition be?


It may not be "needed," but it would be useful. It doesn't make sense to push people to other sites in cases when it wouldn't be a big hassle to provide the info here. And people like to know info about music such as whether it's an EP because they're interested as hobbyists, not just because they're looking to make an informed purchasing decision. At this point, most listeners stream anyway.
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Romanelli
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  • #26
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 17:07
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baystateoftheart wrote:
Romanelli wrote:
I think, also, how much is an extra field or dropdown or other designation really going to be needed? How ultimately important is a designation that an entry is an EP?

If I see an album on BEA that I might be interested in checking out, the first thing I do is I look at the available information. On BEA and on other sites. I do this to educate myself about the album before I make a plunge. At some point in this process, I will see whether or not it is a full length album. I will know this within the first minute or so of looking into it. The only thing I can think of that a specific EP designation would affect would be how much you would pay for it. And if you pay full album price for something and it arrives and has 4 tracks and runs only 13 minutes, that's your bad for not checking it out first.

How ultimately necessary would this addition be?


It may not be "needed," but it would be useful. It doesn't make sense to push people to other sites in cases when it wouldn't be a big hassle to provide the info here. And people like to know info about music such as whether it's an EP because they're interested as hobbyists, not just because they're looking to make an informed purchasing decision. At this point, most listeners stream anyway.


If you're streaming, then you would find your answer immediately upon going to whatever streaming site you're using (you are not streaming from BEA, so you ARE already going to other sites). And if you're getting your music for free, then cost doesn't matter. It's not pushing people to other sites...what do you do when you want to learn more about an album or an artist you find on BEA? You go to other sites. You go to Wiki or the band's website or other places to learn about the artists, the recording process, the songwriting, because the only details you are going to get here is cover art, release date and track list.

If you're a hobbyist, and you're serious enough about it to need distinction between an EP and an album, and you're NOT doing your research...are you really a serious hobbyist? BEA was not made to be a one stop for all info on an album. I have at least six different sites that I use to check out albums and artists that I might want to listen to...and I use those sites also to get information on data moderation. If you're trying to rely on BEA only to get your info, then you're missing out on a lot of things much more important than "is this an EP?".

As for "not a big hassle"...we are already doing research for full release dates for any album released after 2003 (there are still over 4700 of these backlogged that need to be fixed...not counting the ones we've researched and haven't yet been able to find). We are researching artist country of origin, compilation yes or no, making sure we get the original album art in a size and format that meets site requirements, trying to make sure we get the correct tracklist, making sure that various artist albums and mixtapes also include artist name (without its own field, so no points for the extra work), making sure that featured artists are also part of the track name (again...no points for that), trying to insure that spelling, punctuation and capitalization is done per site guidelines, making sure that the album entered is not a later reissued version with extra tracks, making sure that duplicate albums are flagged, and while newly entered albums are up to date right now, it could grow very quickly to 100 or more waiting to be moderated in just a couple of days.

There are a lot of changes coming up as well, and we don't yet know how many of these will affect data moderation, or how much work site changes will add to that. As someone who does a lot of work on the data mod side, and as a serious collector of albums...an EP flag seems to me to be something that would fall under very low priority.

My opinion,of course.
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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash



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  • #27
  • Posted: 03/16/2019 17:31
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@Romanelli

The main benefit is not finding out whether an individual release you're already interested in is an EP or not, which as you've indicated is not hard. One benefit is seeing the subheading when browsing, and by far the most significant benefit is the sortability that introducing an EP label will allow for down the road.
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