[mb-users] Aside: Discogs "ruination"; was "The need for free and open music metadata"

[Chad Wilson]

Chris B wrote:
> all of this has almost completely destroyed the discogs moderator
> community. our questions don't get answered, and theres a constant
> flow of unwanted 'features' whilst the key problems don't get
> addressed. bear in mind that this entire feature set literally turned
> up overnight with no consultation/testing with ANY users. now the live
> data is suffering a death by a 1000 tiny cuts, and all that are left
> are the 'yes men'. the level of expertise and dedication many of the
> moderators had on discogs was astounding, but they all seem to have
> left now.
>
> it's obvious what's going to happen now - the problems are going to be
> ignored, and the voting is going to be opened up to all users, which
> would be fine if done right, but the useless interface and lack of
> logic to the voting options means that bad votes are going to be done
> to bad data. discogs will no longer be accurate, but the votes (and
> dollars) keep coming in.
>
> rant over :) it's really upsetting, though.
>
> _______________________________________________
>   
No offence meant (or intended tarring-with-same-brush), but after a 
quick (my first) read around the Discogs forums, why do the users appear 
to have become a bunch of angsty teenagers? Quick one-liner insults and 
disses to the developers left right and centre? Sure, it appears to have 
undergone a massive PR cock-up, but how did the users become so 
completely devoid of respect?

Is this just something that scale gets you a risk of eventually? Or 
direct commercial interests via the marketplace? I'm intrigued...

Normally I'd have thought a commercial operation that has value due to 
the contributions of unpaid users would have had to be more savvy, 
PR-wise, than an open source project such as MusicBrainz, so less likely 
to get into what appears such a mess.

Chad / voice