Moog Gear (and users) at Alternative-Electronics.com

[Alternative Electronics]

Hi everyone,

Awhile back I posted a link here to a gear website I run, http://www.alternative-electronics.com, where I've done my best to list the music equipment used by various synth/industrial/idm/ambient/etc artists and bands in a single place. I also have a page set up for Moog gear at http://www.alternative-electronics.com/ ... urers/moog, where you can easily see which of the bands listed on my site use Moog equipment (and which Moog gear is most popular, not a surprise that the original Minimoog is #1!). Since I got some relatively positive feedback here I thought I would let you know about a major update to the site.

This week I finally put the user submission system online, where visitors can add new gear and bands themselves. Since most of you probably know more about Moog gear than I do, it would be great if you could share that knowledge on my site under the "Contribute" section (http://www.alternative-electronics.com/contribute).

The user submissions system is still relatively new so please let me know if you find any bugs/errors in it!

Taylor

[ClockworkRobot]

No mention of Rick Wakeman and Yes on the minimoog page?
Tangerine Dream too ?

[Mr Arkadin]

Well that's what the Contribute section is for, get to it...

[Alternative Electronics]

I've made a note to myself to add Rick Wakeman and Tangerine Dream when I have time but unfortunately no matter how many bands I add manually, there will always be thousands more I don't know about. As Mr Arkadin pointed out, that's the whole point of the new "Contribute" section.

[Mr Arkadin]

Have to say I tried contributing but I had to keep putting in cross-references in and it wouldn't accept any of the URL's I tried and gave up. Isn't my word good enough?

[Alternative Electronics]

It wouldn't accept the URLs? It's supposed to verify that the URLs you enter as a source are "valid" (as in they are actually a real webpage) but maybe there is a problem with that. I'll look into it. What were you trying to add? In the meantime maybe I could just add it manually myself.

And yeah I concede that the user submission system is a bit complicated since I required users to cite sources, but I think if anyone could just say that any band uses any piece of equipment then there would be the possibility for a lot of incorrect information to end up on the site. Look at Vintage Synth Explorer - lots of their "famous user" information is just wrong.

[Mr Arkadin]

Initially I was trying some Wiki links. Then I thought maybe as Wiki can be tampered with too (although it does have citations at least) that perhaps you required a better source. So I tried some others. None would be accepted.

In this particular case I was trying to add stuff to Gary Numan as there are many errors in the discography (I'm happy to send you a list) and lots of synths missing. In his case I was reading the record sleeve notes since 1979 so I know all the equipment he was using and have even met one of his engineers in subsequent years and know his live keyboard player quite well too, so in this case I actually feel my word is better than an internet citation.

[Alternative Electronics]

I thought about what you posted and have reworked the submission process so that citing a source is no longer required. I haven't fully tested it out but you should be able to enter submissions now without a URL to back up your gear claims - just enter a short explanation of your first-hand experiences in the comment field. Theoretically other users have to vote and approve your submission but I'll approve it automatically as soon as I see it's been entered.

Wiki links are fine as well. I had a script running to check if the links entered were valid (as in they were an actual website, the content didn't matter) though I guess this wasn't functioning properly and was not letting your links through. I've disabled it now.

Thanks for helping me get the bugs worked out!