Categorization makes a total mess

I'm really pissed-off ;-(

Honestly I can't see what's the logic behind this strange and obscure categorization.

Perhaps the system is not intelligent enough to detect a synthesizer from an expander or an expansion soundboard.

All that said, after having lost time to insert all my gear, in alphabetical order, now, after categorization, everything is messed up.

Why studio monitors and some expanders have gone into "Other Gear" category? This is literally impossible to understand.

I'm going to cancel my account... I won't invest any more time in this time consuming website

Hi there!

I'm sorry about the confusion. In your Equipboard page, do you see the Categorize Your Gear button?

https://i.imgur.com/xp8FOYf.png?1

You need to click that, and in the menu that pops up just select Studio Monitors as one of the sections you want. When you add that section, the monitors that ended up in "other gear" should place themselves correctly under Studio Monitors.

https://i.imgur.com/3HluNcF.png

Unless you specifically say you want a section, things default to going into Other Gear.

I know it's a little confusing, we'll have to come up with some better documentation.

Sorry to bother you again, but the mess remain and is untolerable.

I still have some expanders under the wrong category. For instance Yamaha MSP-5 are in the wrong category. To have an idea, please have a look to my instrument list.

Perhaps the user should select the corresponding category for the instruments inserted, instead of trusting an artificial intelligence that's everything but intelligent.

Hi there!

I'm sorry about the confusion. In your Equipboard page, do you see the Categorize Your Gear button?

https://i.imgur.com/xp8FOYf.png?1

You need to click that, and in the menu that pops up just select Studio Monitors as one of the sections you want. When you add that section, the monitors that ended up in "other gear" should place themselves correctly under Studio Monitors.

https://i.imgur.com/3HluNcF.png

Unless you specifically say you want a section, things default to going into Other Gear.

I know it's a little confusing, we'll have to come up with some better documentation.

for starters, the content here is suer generated, so its just possible that some of the the gear was literally placed in the wrong category by the user who added it to our database in teh first place. I too have an extensive equipboard and there are still a lot of miscategorized items on it and they're msotly due to human error (although some, like guitar speakers, are due to us not ahving created a special category for them yet). In the case of the studio monitors, that's human error. See if you can go in to edit the category of the offending item and correct it yourself. If not, I'll do it for you because I know I have that ability. Whether its a lack of specific categories or a pile of gear miscategorized by uninformed users, I tend to think of this stuff as 'growing pains'. When I joined the site it was much smaller and much different. Its proposed scope was even wider than music but tis practical focus was almost entirely guitar-centric. As Equipboard has grown and changed its been a struggle for our admins to keep up. often tehre are problems thatw e can't be aware of until someone like you points them out. I'll let Gchiaren or Michael take over from ehre.... but you may want to see if you can edit gear categories yourself. I really don't remember if that's a moderators-only feature.

Thanks for stepping in Jim.

Yup Jim's totally right, some of the stuff is mis-categorized at the ITEM level which means it won't end up in the right category on your own Equipboard. The Yamaha MSP 5 for instance should be under Studio Monitors: http://equipboard.com/items/yamaha-msp-5

wavesequence, I see you deleted items from your board - I apologize again for the confusion!

(vedo che sei Italiano ... anch'io! Ciao :)

Ciao gchiaren Italians are everywhere :D

Anyway, my IQ is still lower than 210, thus I can't edit instrument's categories to adapt them to the ones I think are right. Again, I'm still wonderting why an Emu Proteus 2000 went under Studio Equipment.

Perhaps all the categories should be re-thought from ground up, because I saw certain Roland Expansion Boards associated to two different catogories... This is really mind boggling and devastating.

Until categories aren't fixed, I don't think I'll fill my my gear list again. It's very frustrating, although it's more or less 75 components, seeing that all your work disappears just clicking "Categorize Your Gear"

Thanks for stepping in Jim.

Yup Jim's totally right, some of the stuff is mis-categorized at the ITEM level which means it won't end up in the right category on your own Equipboard. The Yamaha MSP 5 for instance should be under Studio Monitors: http://equipboard.com/items/yamaha-msp-5

wavesequence, I see you deleted items from your board - I apologize again for the confusion!

(vedo che sei Italiano ... anch'io! Ciao :)

again, user generated content... there are kids who see the name of a piece of gear on someone's gear lsit and create an item for it just toa dd it to their favorite musicaian but they're not clear on what it reallly is or what it actually does. They're great at spotting who sues what but terrible at knowing ANYTHING ABOUT THE GEAR OR MUSIC IN GENERAL. They're kids.. ignorant, evil, snotty, but we need them. They're willing to post 20 times a day and update all this stuff. I can't keep up with fixing all their goofs though. if when you spot one you tell me I'll try to clean it up as soon as I can', man. Some of thema re really extreme but if its not an item I've had cause to look at on equipbaord I haven't noticed. Someone needs to tell me. you shoulda seen the fender amps on here at one point. It was nuts. I sat down and fixed it all amp by amp based on the circuits. Got everything consolidated, named systematically and categorized right... took me a couple days. Maybe longer. And those are vitnage fender amplifiers. Something ubiquitous, beloved by pretty much all guitar players thate ven kids can absically identify. But they were totally jacked up. Now look at somethign esoteric like roland expansion boards... I'm a huge synthesis guy, but I'm not into those particular instruments so I know almost NOTHING about them, let alone their add-ons... what's some teenager going to know? See, I'm an adult so if I don't know or want to elarn I won't post, but a young person? That's asking a lot. Then you have the total goofs like miscategorizing a popular pair of direct field yamahas... WTF? Can't explain that. Some of our users may have a high gear IQ but their actual IQ is maybe not so high... what can I say? Some people are just fuc ups.

Listen, don't let it boggle your mind and certainly don't be devestated over it... its only music gear. if you notice some goofs by a few numbskulls? let us know so we can fix it. By the way, I just fixed your Yamaha monitors and they're now categorized correctly. Someone got lazy and didn't click through all the pull downs when they added them. Either that or they were added so long ago that there weren't as many sub-categories because the site was TINY. Equipboard is progress, not perfection.

Thanks for your patence, Jim. I understand what the hell can be behind managing a website like this.

I reenter my gear again and, if I see some inconsistencies, I'll let you know.

just post your issues in this thread and I will do my best to resolve them all in a day or two

Very kind of yours! By the way I just finished to insert all my gear, at least for now.

I'll let you know asap what are, IMHO, the inconsistencies I faced.

its cool, we're all Italian to some degree in this thread (I'm a 4th generation Italian American, Toscana and Abruzzi), we gotta stick together.

Well, my origins are Sicilian, but my parents were born and got known in Verona, then moved to Treviso and since 1969 I have been living in a town close to Venice.

its cool, we're all Italian to some degree in this thread (I'm a 4th generation Italian American, Toscana and Abruzzi), we gotta stick together.

Maybe, before reassigning a category to a certain piece of gear we should provide also new categories. For instance, keyboards and synthesizers lack "expanders" category, i.e. keyboards without a keyboard.

A subcategory could be also "Expansions board" that are installed into synthesizers and expanders.

For this reason, SR-JV80-02, 04, 10 and 11 can't be in Software Plugins and VSTS category

On the other hand, all the other soundboards that are in "keyboards and synthesizers" category should be moved to a new subcategory called "Expansions board".

Yamaha BC-3 at present is in "keyboards and synthesizers" category, but is a keyboard accessory.

Studio Equipment category is not for Emu Proteus2000 - MIDI and audio Interfaces are correct for this category.

AudioTechnica PRO8HEcW is a microphone but was enclosed into Studio Equipment category.

Effects Pedals: Yamaha FC3 and FC-7 made me laugh. Alesis Midiverb 4 is not an effect pedal.

Other Gear: JBL-LSR10, LSR305, Yamaha MSP-7 Studio and MSP-5 Studio are studio subwoofer and monitors respectively

Roland JD-990, Roland M-GS64, Yamaha MU90R and Korg M1REX are expanders Roland SR-JV80-07 is an Expansion Board for synth and expanders Roland SR-JV80-09 is an Expansion Board for synth and expanders

SM-Pro Audio Q-Amp is a heaphone amplifier

Hollywood Strings is a virtual instrument...

That's all for now...

Why I inserted multiple new instruments and my IQ remains always the same?

yeah, we don't have a separate category for modules, just modular... I'm a big tabletop and rackmount guy since I had a kid and space became an issue. Keybaords take up space. Anyway, yeah we need a Modules and Expanders section. That's beyond my authority to implement though. Gchiaren would have to.

In the meantime expanders and synthesizers can share the same category... But what it's completely wrong are some Expansion boards or certain expanders into "Other Gear" and so on. At present some categorization is completely out of phase.

tell me which ones are showing up as 'other gear' and I'll fix them all today

EDIT: I think I found all your problem gear and applied a temporary fix ;-) We'll see about improving the categories. I think we need a 'tabletop and rackmount' category and maybe one for "Preset synths and ROMplers" for so-called expander modules without keyboards (no one uses that midi expander term anymore, but I remember when that was the talk of the keyboard and electronic music rags when general midi took over stages and studios so I get where you're coming from... took me a sec though because at first when you said expanders I thought you just meant roland expansion cards for their romplers... but as far as I'm concerned I don't see why a rompler rakc unit can't be in synths, its kind've a presets sampler/synth, I dunno... maybe its just my opinion based on how I use MY personal gear)...

Thanks for stepping in Jim.

I fixed all the item categories on his gear when he added it all back but when I view his Equipboard some of them (many of the accessories/keyboard/expansionboards&sound libraries) are still showing up in the wrong categories there even though when i view the item its in teh right place.... this is your end , man... help the dude out ;-)

you know, the more corrections I make the more I realize the taxonomy on our gear database is pretty scattered. I can really see how it grew up from humbler beginnings. I wonder if you shouldn't take the site down for a few days and retool the whole system in the enar future. Just gog round up and really approach it logically.