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View Poll Results: Should we remove the Related Albums panel?
Remove the Related Albums section entirely. 2 11.11%
Remove the Related Albums section only once an album's products are linked. 2 11.11%
Keep the Related Albums section. 14 77.78%
Voters: 18. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:11 AM
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Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
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Default Should we remove the Related Albums panel?

I've been thinking about the "Related Albums" section of the album pages, and I'm wondering if it really adds anything positive anymore. Presently, all it shows is a partial lists of other albums that have an exact match of the product field. The original goal was to show the reader some albums that he may also enjoy based on certain tangible factors -- shared products/artists, classification, style, rating similarity -- but it has proven difficult to develop such a formula, and we really haven't put the time into it.

Unfortunately, what we have right now is misleading, and it has lead to some recent misunderstandings about the product field, particularly whether an original album series should qualify as a product in order to group them in the Related Albums section. Maintainability is also a concern, as there are a couple of bugs in querying the relation: there is little value in maintaining something that is of low value.

Additionally, the related album fields partially duplicates one of the functions of the linked product pages, so it may not be so missed once we have more of the albums linked up.

So, I'd like to see what you all think about one of these 2 options:
  1. Remove the Related Albums section entirely.
  2. Remove the Related Albums section only once an album's products are linked.
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  #2  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:23 AM
Cedille Cedille is offline
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How about making it polling? (...simply because the last time we had it was two or three years ago, and I miss it.)

Personally, I wish it would more expand. I'd love a tab section that we can see related albums in several ways by switching tabs; product-base, composer-base, album production-base, or even user preference base (something like Amazon's suggestion system). Some of them should be manually managed, or requires a complicated algorithm, so I know it's kinda unlikely to come.

Last edited by Cedille; Feb 18, 2013 at 07:27 AM.
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  #3  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:31 AM
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Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
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I forgot about polls. I'll add one.

I think that eventually we will want to have some more modern ways to determine and display relationships. There's some pretty cool javascript examples here.
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  #4  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:37 AM
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It's true it only shows partial list for games/animation that have loads of albums but there are cases when game/anime has 2, 3, or 4 total albums and has no product page so under these circumstances, related albums part is very useful.
I'm not really for removing it completely. Modifying or improving it actually sounds better.
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  #5  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:38 AM
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It's worth keeping simply for all those products with only a few albums.
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  #6  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 07:44 AM
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The related albums panel helps to browse around quicker sometimes. A no from me.
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  #7  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 08:05 AM
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Remove it all together until you can implement a better relational database schema, it adds nothing but page space imo. Popular series have a giant list of garbage, a large percentage of non-giant franchise things aren't even linked and thus have nothing, and the linking related albums by the string on the product field was always a bad way to do it.
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  #8  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 08:09 AM
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I would find it useful if it linked to other volumes (e.g.; Akumajo Dracula Tribute Vol.1/Akumajo Dracula Tribute Vol.2) or reprinted/different versions.
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  #9  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 08:20 AM
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Phonograph Phonograph is offline
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honestly, as said on irc (and a bit more here)

#1 -- 1 product, no link
when it's one product, the list can be acceptable (like 2 osts, op, ed singles)
but when it has a lot of albums, singles, best of etc. the "random(?)" listing can be annoying and you have to "advenced search" for the whole discography
my opinion for such case would be to add the whole listing for that one product (with the thought if there really were A LOT OF albums, there would be a product page for it already -see #3)

#2 -- 2+ products, no link
that list is totally useless

#3 -- 1+ product, link
knowing you can browse the product page, RA is pointless
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  #10  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 08:32 AM
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I like it and use it too when there are only a few albums.
A big and incomplete list is not usefull though.
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  #11  
Old Feb 18, 2013, 09:03 AM
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The Advanced Search is what gives the types of results that the Related Products box should. Until a different formula can be implemented, the box is quite useless IMO.
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  #12  
Old Feb 23, 2013, 07:50 AM
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Secret Squirrel Secret Squirrel is offline
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It looks like most people want to keep the Related Albums, though it's limitations have been acknowledged. We will have to see if we can come up with ways to improve it.
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