Discogs

If you've noticed, we're not the biggest fans of a website called "Discogs", but what is it and why do we not like it?

What is Discogs?

Discogs is a database and marketplace for music enthusiasts. Its mission is like ours: to document the history of music via user contributions. They were also known for having a good seller's fee, though with the recent economic troubles, they've had to raise it for the first time in many years. Its database is quite robust and attracted all of us who needed to document our work from the Yugo Wars and the Balkan folk scene in general. So why does it have a 2-star rating on Trustpilot and why did we have issues with the website?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

That is Latin for "Who watches the watchmen?" and is a very relevant phrase when encountering Discogs moderation and other "veterans" of the Balkan space of Discogs. When it comes to anything that is produced domestically, it seems that the quality of submissions and their moderation is consistent. When it comes to anything foreign, it is the complete opposite.

One of the most common flags for a "needs changes" around 2022 wasn't poor data quality or a fake j-card; it was the lack of capitalization. This was done not by a collective effort, but by one mod over something they could have corrected themselves. When making these minor corrections, there was radio silence from moderation for a few months before someone had to resort to reaching out to them so they can mark it as "correct".

If Savez had a nickle for each time BalkanMapper was a target of a harassment campaign on behalf of Discogs' moderation team, it would have two. It is not much but it is certainly strange that it happened twice as in 2023, a veteran of the Yugo war tape community, BalkanMapper was targeted for submitting "photoshopped fantasy releases" following his approval for removing a release he didn't realized was photoshopped. Instead of an open conversation, the moderation team acted in an unprofessional manner, removing submissions from BalkanMapper while admitting that they themselves were not familiar with releases in the region. Ironically, the covers used were publicly available on YouTube channels that uploaded Izvorna music which was usually done to credit themselves or to deter rights owners. These uploaders doctored their own scans. This was the second harassment campaign as the first was a moderator seemingly targeting every single submission of BalkanMapper's to check if the spelling was correct. This resulted in a temporary ban which when concluded, left BalkanMapper and Generacide disillusioned with the site. They are both currently inactive members of the database.

What makes that debacle so confusing is that a user who has submitted worse remains relatively unscathed. A part-time community member known as rafialqodri11 uploaded various Balkan albums with little-to-no information as if Discogs was the Lost Media Wiki. These releases used pictures from the SuperTon YouTube which were in poor quality and he blatantly admits this in the Notes section. According to Discogs, submissions must be from a copy you own and nothing from the internet. As a matter of fact, this rule is what got BalkanMapper banned in the first place. However, this user is allowed to continue to contribute and to this day, none of these poorly done contributions have been flagged.

In 2022, a moderator commented "tracks no exist" on a submission of Ne dirajte njega. When messaged directly for a clarification, the moderator copy-pasted a rule that made things more convoluted and complicated. It turns out "tracks no exist" meant that the credits for the written-by credit needed a simple conversion for the tracks from CD to cassette format. It was simple clarification that not only was needlessly complicated but also a fix this mod could have done themselves.

In 2023, a discogs user said some colorful remarks to community member JAWSP under a review of the album Svima njima пиздa materina Special Song From Slavonia. This user also asked JAWSP what their opinion was on a certain race. This user, despite their remarks that would normally warrant a ban on the platform, continued to use the site unscathed. Their latest contribution was an image uploaded around April 2024, though it is not known if the user was banned or is currently inactive. Where was Discogs moderation?

On the 22nd of January 2024, a user would upload a fake release with a clearly photoshopped cover. This release used a moniker of Billie Eilish known in Balkan meme circles, "Biljana Ilić" and its submission author had a profile picture that should have caught the eyes of moderators. The submission stayed up for nearly six months until community member RandomAtribute20k flagged the submission for removal. Again we ask, where was Discogs moderators in all of this? Many were eager to pile onto one user over the same thing the previous year, only this time this submission was copied from a real album. This information is not hidden as if you look at the submission notes it says "copied to draft; from release 5023100".

The inconsistent moderation is not just a problem that is exclusive to our sector. It seems that other people have had a similar issue.

File limit for nothing

Discogs has a file size limit of 4MB but no matter how big the image is, you're stuck with the preview size that at maximum is 600px. This ends up making full scans of VHS covers and CD releases virtually unreadable. Unfortunately there is no way to access the original file size of the image, which is strange considering that forums and wikis will allow you do just that. Some users have even resorted to using external sites like Imgur or even Google Drive to host the original full resolution scans. You might as well resize your scans to the 600px limit.

Other Notes

Many on TrustPilot, Reddit, and on Discog forums have complaints regarding the lack of accountability from the platform. Some pertain to scammers on the website with no protections in place and some pertain to being banned without a reason. In most cases, Discogs does not respond and in one alleged case someone was flagged for filing too many tickets when it was Discogs that led them to a loop of filing.

Their dedicated mobile app is an over glorified selling app as you are unable to check submissions or edit them. Attempting to do so will boot you to your web browser of choice.

With the recent UI update to Discogs, users can no longer make master releases on the fly by checking duplicate releases and compiling them. They instead have to go to the master release form and put in their release numbers. There are times where the site will not load a discography and there are times where the page will 404.