Album purchase links
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Site News, Newbies, Help and Improvements
Forum Name: Help us improve the site
Forum Description: Help us improve the forums, and the site as a whole
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=68213
Printed Date: March 03 2025 at 23:02
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Album purchase links
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Subject: Album purchase links
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 10:50
|
As you know, band pages and album pages on PA have these built-in search engines for E-Bay and Amazon that display for us a lot of entries in order for us to have an easy shopping. Also, bellow the two search engines we can also find More places to buy .... music online (with links to Gemm and Doug Larson) and Buy ... & Prog Rock Digital Music online (with links to Amazon MP3 and eMusic). Unfortunately, for many less known bands, with weak distribution, the links and the search engines can't provide actual products of that band, and prove themselves pretty useless, especially the search engines who fill the page with irrelevant results and make the page look ugly. My suggestion is to implement the option for the users to add direct links to where the albums can be bought. I don't know how important the existing search engines and "buy" links are for PA, and I'm not suggesting to scrap them, at all. But I think that giving users the ability to add direct links (and maybe write some comments, too, like practical advice on how to buy there or what's his satisfaction with that seller) would give more accurate results and would give a real chance to small, underground bands. What do you guys think? |
Replies:
Posted By: NotAProghead
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 11:30
|
Good idea, but some problems are possible:
1. Duplicated links. 2. Non-actual links, if after some time the given store does not offer pointed albums. 3. Links to illegal downloads (who can guarantee they will not be added?) Who will monitor these things? ------------- Who are you and who am I to say we know the reason why... (D. Gilmour) |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 12:01
|
Excellent observations. For 1., one solution would be not to admit more than one link for the same domain. However, that may be a problem when the same site sells both vinyl and CD, for example, so that's two links for the same domain. But I think it is possible to set up a system to recognize the link if it was previously submitted. I mean, I'm that it is possible, I'm not sure if that would be easy. 2. usually webstores don't delete a product page, they only add an "out of stock" notice. For both 2. and 3., I think that regular users can do a good monitoring for this, just like they do for duplicated albums, wrong album info or album cover, dead videos, etc. And any Special Collab could update the links based on user reports. |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 13:41
|
I use (and most norwegians) use CDON.NO for bying CDs and our biggest music store Platekompaniet (Rocordcompanie)is actualy quite good on progrock, not that they have a prog section but they have all the famous and also some rare bands at farly low prices (but most KC and Genesis have shockingly high prices) |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 14:00
|
The built-in search links pay for the upkeep of the site and maintenance of the servers. Unsolicited links don't and would be open to spam and abuse. There is also the extra work involved in maintaining the links across 5,400 band and 28,500 album pages (validation, removal of dead links etc.) ------------- What? |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 15:10
Whenever I buy from CDON the guys at the post office break the CD cases.  |
aginor wrote:Posted By: tuxon
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 15:46
For lesser known bands I generally go to the bands homepage and try and buy from there.
I never buy through the links from PA, occasionally I buy from the band site
------------- I'm always almost unlucky _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Id5ZcnjXSZaSMFMC Id5LM2q2jfqz3YxT |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: June 09 2010 at 16:32
happend to me as well and when I orderd In the Glass House it took over Half a year for it arived in the mail  , maybe becouse they had to import it but enyhow and then they are rude enough to send me an Late Fee bil when they are so d**mn slow to get it shipped and put to my mailbox so I dont know when it arrives. and I don't have the time to sheck the mailbox evvery day to see if it have comed (i have also a bahceleor degree to take care off) |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 10 2010 at 06:57
Hey guys, For this kind of discussion I made http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=64422&PID=3518765#3518765 - this thread some time ago  |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 10 2010 at 07:11
I didn't know that, sounds cool. As I said, I wasn't proposing to scrap them. However, for many underground bands, the search engines don't pay nothing because the albums don't appear on eBay or Amazon, so - the engines show only irrelevant results so no one is clicking on them - the engines show nothing at all So my idea is to supplement the search engines, not to lose them.
Adding purchase links would be an option in the "Add new album" and "Edit this entry" facilities and we know that, even though they are open to any registered user, they were never spammed (spammers target the forum) and the abuse was nothing that we couldn't handle (mainly bootleg additions, dubious compilations, etc.)
The answer is: volunteer work. Just the like rest of work on PA is done. If I add an album, it's no big deal to also paste a link for direct purchase. Sometimes, when it's a free download album, I paste the link in the "Release information" field. I wasn't asking for a run-through of all the PA database in order to add purchase links, I was proposing to have this facility for those who want to use it. |
Posted By: Kestrel
Date Posted: June 15 2010 at 02:50
| I can see this being nice for the smaller bands as harmonium.ro said. I think one great example would be www.progquebec.com. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: June 15 2010 at 02:54
|
it's a very good idea, PA's curse is its volume of artists |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 14:18
|
Interesting. Would it be manageable by ADMINS/Collab. only ? I mean the list would be protected for spam reason... ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 14:33
|
If we have the direct purchase link as part of the album information, then any user can add the link and also any user can edit out spam and / or abuse. From what I know this facility hasn't been spammed so we could give it a try. Also, I think that making it possible to add multiple links would be a good idea, and the same for differentiating between links for digital download purchase and purchase of the physical album. Thanks for taking this into consideration M@x |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 15:33
|
Nope. Can't get behind this one. Any user who can edit a link can edit in a spam / abuse. We spend enough of the day editing spam links out of the forum - to have them littered through 30,000 random archive pages is a fricking nightmare in the making. Any hacker could write a routine to do this in minutes.
I also don't see the advantage in giving these suppilers free advertising. ------------- What? |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 15:41
|
^ But users can already edit, and they don't spam - I didn't see this point being contradicted! And by placing a link to purchase a product you're advertising the product, not the seller.  Recently a guy from a band I am friends with visited his band's PA page. He was horrified. It was difficult for me to explain him what are all those commercial links that flood their page. At first they challenged him visually, then they bothered him because none had anything to do with his band. After that he asked he asked me to set up the proper links if I'm an "insider", and left. I thought he was going to be amazed and thankful, at the end I was feeling like an idiot... This is why I started this thread. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 15:52
They don't spam because we are not inviting them to come here and advertise their products - we don't make it easy to add links into any editable part of the database.
This will be a user editable link - it's an open invitation for abuse and misuse for anybody to add a link to wherever they like without verification/approval of the site owners or administration.
If you are advertising where to buy a product then you are giving a free advertisement for the person selling it. There is no ambiguity or clever playing with words here - if someone is selling the album they are the seller, if they are not paying for the link then it is free.
You could have passed his question on to someone who could explain it for you. ------------- What? |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 16:19
But if we implement what I'm asking there would be nothing new from what we already have now. So if we don't invite spammers now we won't be inviting spammers then. The links will be inactive, so the target won't receive any traffic from them. Links can be already added like that - I added myself download links for free released to some of the albums I've added. Was there any harm?
I see, you were stressing the free., not the advertising. So what you're saying is that no selling of prog albums should be done through PA if there's no profit for PA? I thought PA was a database, not an intermediate. 
Ouch, am I expressing myself so bad today? What I meant is that I did explain him very well the situation, he just didn't think the PA page was doing his band much good. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 16:28
You've twisted that ass-backwards, but yeah, okay - why sell albums at all? Is that our job too?
------------- What? |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 18 2010 at 16:32
| ^ That would be perfect, we'd get rid of those huge product search engines. |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: June 25 2010 at 09:28
|
^ DEAN is right about the fact that the space is reserved for advertisers who pay to be listed there or propose sales re-distribution fees. This is some of the ways PA use to pay the hosting and related costs.
I also understand harmonium.ro who elaborate about how PA's job is too list things but those new external sellers should be found on the artist sites, myspace or others, I suppose !? It would be a under-estimate job to wish to have PA replace all the informations related on a specific artist, even artist themselves don't maintain timely their own pages. There is another issue, what if artists discography is not listed on Amazon, Ebay, GEMM, Doug Larson's Imports, LoudTrax.com, eMusic.com ? That is very possible and an actual issue. 2 ideas (we can elaborate):
Let me know. M@X ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: June 25 2010 at 09:57
I think this is the best compromise: it provides only restricted access (hence no headaches for the Admins) but makes it possible for small bands to have an extra promotion. |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: June 25 2010 at 15:01
|
Great then , there is 1118 artists with no results from Amazon.com. I have the list, how should we proceed now ... ? ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Tsevir Leirbag
Date Posted: June 25 2010 at 15:15
Then, why don't we make this facility only available to Admins/Special Collaborators/Collaborators/Prog Reviewers AND Artists
Well, when I write biographies, I usually (try to) contact the artists for informations. We could just ask them for a link to purchase their albums as we ask them for information. That is, of course, if their albums are available.
For artists that are already here, it could be done on a voluntary basis. Collaborators that wish to add links for artists could do it. ------------- Les mains, les pieds balancés Sur tant de mers, tant de planchers, Un marin mort, Il dormira - Paul Éluard |