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What are we missing?

johnny [staff]
Posts: 1013
Hey guys!

We totally want to be the best bass tabs website on the world, so what are we missing currently to get there?

One thing that's on my plate and is a bitch (but will be done soon):

a (possibly non-destructive) canonization of tabs: which means that one particular version of a tab for a single song will be served primarily on the songlist. Only after viewing this canonic (the correct) version we would provide a user with possible alternatives. This canonic version would not be static. E.g. there's 5 versions of a song, one is chosen to be correct, but then loudlon submits a 6th version which is arguably the most correct and has the nicest formatting. we need to find a clean way to change which version is the best.

The reason this is taking so long is that we don't want to make a mess of things.

But since there's three of us, there's more stuff that we can do. Any pet peeves (similar to the upload images problem, which was solved recently)?

Other things that we are currently focusing on:

  • The dude is revamping the request list - whenever a request gets fulfilled it will stay there with a note saying that it has been fulfilled. this might motivate others to tab as well.
  • I'm going to simplify the approval system so that other people will be able to use it. E.g. LoudLon and other tabbers would be able to approve their own tabs (and possibly others). The reason this is taking a bit long is that you have to be careful when adding stuff. Misspellings of band names often cause havoc.
  • Canonization of artists. There are some artists that are listed twice - Beatles, The Beatles. This needs to be fixed. It's a tough problem.

We're very much open to suggestions!
LoudLon [moderator]
Posts: 1938
Like you said we have a lot of misspelled/alternately spelled artist names. “The Beatles,” and “Beatles, The.” “Ozzy Osbourne,” and “Osbourne, Ozzy” and “Ozzy Osborn.” Or the copious misspells of “Lynyrd Skynyrd.” We even have two “Metallica”s, which confuses me because they're both spelled correctly.

So I was thinking, maybe we could have an artist's page, kind of like we have now where you see a list of tabs for them but add an option on that page to “submit a tab for this artist,” and when the user goes to submit the tab the template already has the properly spelled artist's name. Although this would require going through the entire archive and collecting all the various misspells to combine them under one properly spelled artist name.

Of course none of this would be necessary if folks took all of three seconds to google an artist and make sure they have the correct spelling BEFORE they submit, but apparently that's just too much work.
just3boyz
Posts: 180
I have no idea how you would do this,
but to save space, when you go to an artist,
it'll have only the most accurate tab listed there.
when you go to the bottom of that tab,
it'll have the alternate versions of the song (like it already does now.)
this way you don't have to scroll down forever to find the right version of the song you're looking for.
Imagine how much nice the Chili Pepper's page will look!
also you won't have to delete “less accurate” tabs of the songs.
They'll still be there in case anyone wants to rumuge through those.

Another Idea (which really isn't important but i think would be cool.)
is instead of doing artists songs alpabetically,
you could group them by album.
if a song on an album is not tabbed on this site,
you could have a note and a link that will take you to the submit or request page.
also if someone has a tab of the whole album,
instead of just having the ablum title there,
you could have the tab link there.
just an idea.
This already is the best bass site. Organize and add to the library. Also a little person for the site would be cool. Give it some street cred
johnny [staff]
Posts: 1013
we already have a little person (link) haha just joking!

you mean like a mascot?
Marko1960
Posts: 3143
How about a tab player along the lines of Riffstation or Guitar Pro, too difficult?
Quote:
we already have a little person (link) haha just joking!you mean like a mascot?

I guess I'm up for it..

Marko, why not just use Guitar Pro?
Marko1960
Posts: 3143
Marko, why not just use Guitar Pro?
Cos you have to find the tab then upload it to GP, which is a load of hassle, whereas you just click on one of the thousands of BBT tabs and play it instantly, also you wont clutter your hard drive.
I think you should get a little Pixie outfit for the mascot thing btw
TheDude [staff]
Posts: 287
i think the standardization of all the tabs would be the biggest hassle, to make sure they're formatted properly, or else the player would just give you rubbish.
My frustration when looking up tabs is something that Lon & others have already mentioned, the correct spelling of artists & their correct listing.
I would think things like “The Beatles” or “Beatles” would be fairly straightforward to sort out, but forgive me if it isn't.
There are instances when bands such as The Bangles when together in the 80's were known as & released records as “Bangles”. When they reformed all their albums have been released as “The Bangles”.
If i'm not mistaken I think there are records released by “Echo & The Bunnymen” + “Echo And The Bunnymen” Which do you choose?
A real headache would be Paul McCartney. You got “Paul McCartney”, “Wings” + “Paul McCartney & Wings” Do you list everying under his name?
I suppose there is no big rush to get this sorted out in 5 minutes. I don't envy you the task ahead but I think it will be a great help to all that use the site to look things up like me!
johnny [staff]
Posts: 1013
Currently we have the functionality to have an artist listed under different names.

A cool working example is that Bob Marley can be found both under B and under M (for Marley, Bob) and both redirect to the same page and same tabs.

The sad thing is that there's lots of examples where this doesn't work and they each have a separate page. We'll have to fix those.

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