Guidelines - For Voters

How to get the ability to vote

The ability to vote is automatically assigned based on your interaction with the site. Generally, you need to log in reasonably regularly, view releases, read the guidelines, comment correctly on others submissions, and make good submissions yourself. Basically, you need to be a helpful and positive contributor to the site.

The ability to vote is not permanent. It can be removed if you don't vote, if you make bad judgments, if you are abusive, or if the system needs to be adjusted.

How to use votes

• All votes should be based on the current Submission Guidelines. Please follow and keep up with changes in the Submission Guidelines. Guideline changes will be posted in the news forum, please check there before voting. Follow the guidelines as closely as possible. If you think there should be changes to the guidelines, please post a request in the development forum.

• The voting system is based on the understanding that the user adding or updating the information is at least trying to make an honest attempt to improve the database. Users that vandalize, remove, obfuscate, and otherwise make malicious and damaging updates should be marked 'Entirely Incorrect' AND an abuse report should be made
  
  
• Note that you cannot vote on images - you vote is only for submissions and updates!
  
  
• You can't vote on your own submissions.
  

• Votes for a newly added release should follow the table below:

Vote	Summary	How To Use
Complete And Correct	For submissions and edits that make the data exemplary	For submissions that you believe have all the information possible to enter from the release. Note that a release voted as 'Complete and Correct' may still be edited further, this is fine. No explanation is needed for this vote, but comments can still be left if required.
Correct	For good and correct submissions and edits	This is the equivalent of 'moderated', you believe the submission is correct according to the guidelines and the release itself. A release can be correct but still need more information to make it complete. No explanation is needed for this vote, but comments can still be left if required.
Needs Minor Changes	For submissions and edits that are on the whole correct, but need some small changes to make the data correct	This is used to mark a submission where only small changes are required - things like capitalization, spelling in track names and notes, track numbering, catalog number formatting, general title and track title formatting, and adding format descriptions. The voter should point out the items that need changes.
Needs Major Changes	For submissions and edits that need some big changes to make them correct	Major changes would be considered to be artist and label names that don't seem to have been checked or explained by the submitter, large problems such as an incomplete tracklist, and / or many minor errors that add up to a lot of errors in the submission. The voter should point out the items that need changes.
Entirely Incorrect	For submissions that are totally incorrect, or so incomplete or badly entered as to be impossible to judge	This vote can be used for duplicate submissions (make sure you read and understand the 'Unique Releases' concept), and for releases that are so badly done that it's impossible to judge whether they are a valid addition to the database - for example, label and catalog numbers entered in a very incorrect way. If the release is attempting to describe a unique release, and can be improved and made more correct by editing, do not use this vote. You must give a good justification in the submission comments for using this vote.

* Votes for edited release submissions follow the same pattern as add release votes, apart from the lowest vote, 'Entirely Incorrect Edit', which is for edits that are totally wrong. This vote may revert the edit, depending on how others have voted, therefore rejecting the edit in it's entirety.

Vote	Summary	How To Use
Entirely Incorrect Edit	For edits that are totally incorrect, or so incomplete or badly entered as to be impossible to judge	You believe there is nothing that can be 'rescued' from the edit. If the edit contains correct information and can be improved and made more correct by editing, do not use this vote, use 'Needs Major Changes' instead. You must give a good justification in the submission comments for using this vote. An edit that is voted as 'Entirely Incorrect' will be automatically reverted to the previous version.

Abuse

• Please be friendly when voting or commenting. As for everyone involved in the submission process, abuse will not be tolerated.

• You should report abusive users to the Database Manager using the Support Request form. Please do not get into a flame war in the submission comments

Useful resources for Voters

• The Discogs help forums.

• The Guideline Changelog

• Mozilla "Linky" extension - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/425 - Allows you to highlight a whole area of links, and open all of them at once in a new tab or window. Excellent for double checking all the links in compilation or credit-heavy submissions.

• The Unofficial Discogs Wiki

Voting on Unique Releases

Ask yourself if there is enough information that other users will be able to tell the releases apart, and tell which version they have.

As an example; Simply adding 'Reissue' to the format is not enough (if the other aspects of the release are the same), and the submission should be treated as a duplicate and 'Entirely Incorrect' voted in such a case. Remember to explain to the submitter the reason for the rejection, and point out they can resubmit it if they can explain the difference. Note that one distinguishing feature is enough to accept it as a Unique Release, for example, slight variations in the printed artwork (if images are available and / or if it is explained in the release notes), different Cat#'s etc

Voting on Remove Release requests

Releases should only be removed from the database if they are invalid. For example; they don't exist or they don't contain enough information to identify them as a valid unique release. Please see the General Guidelines for more information.