Introducing music gear product page "stubs"

Today we're rolling out a structural change to some music gear product pages (aka item pages) on Equipboard. We're calling them "stubs," which is terminology we borrowed from Wikipedia:

A stub is an article deemed too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject.

Conceptually, our goal is to differentiate a music gear product that is purchasable - people can buy it, people can write reviews for it - from a product that is more specialty, one of a kind, or simply just there to showcase what pro artist(s) use it without many other details.

In practice, a product on Equipboard is considered a stub with no verifiable purchase links, and no original reviews from community members. You can read our official definition here.

Some items will move out of stub status as they are filled out by the community, and some won't. John Mayer's JHS Kirkland boost pedal is a perfect example of a product that is completely unavailable to anyone outside of John Mayer, and thus cannot be purchased, demoed, etc.

A stub is also not eligible for a score or ranking within its category.

As always, curious to hear what you think!

maybe we can start moving stuff like clapton's blackie

maybe we can start moving stuff like clapton's blackie

Yup exactly! And it looks like it is that way now, from what I can see.

Also, for this first version of this, items move in and out of stub status on their own based on community reviews and accurate purchase links. It's not an on/off flag that we set.

Seems like Stubs exist mostly to solve the problem created by the new item page layout/stats and ranking system, meaning it's a way to programmatically remove items from the system that have little to no chance of ever having a populated stat sheet and decent ranking.

Viewed as a necessary component of the new item page/ranking system, I think it's an elegant solution that feels fully-realized right out of the gate. So, nice work!

Now, in the spirit of de-prioritizing entries that aren't major players, what I'd love is to one day log in to EB, search for "Stratocaster", and the top hit is THE Fender Stratocaster entry, and every artist confirmed to have played any flavor of genuine Fender Stratocaster is listed in the count for that master entry, and from there I can navigate to all the sub-categories of Strat, and see that specific model's item page, and the subset of Strat artists confirmed to have played that exact model... In other words, EB's navigation more closely matches the product family navigation hierarchy you'd find on the manufacturer's own website... Obviously this is NOT something that would need to happen for every item, or even most items, but for the biggest products out there, the ones that are pillars of the industry, I'd love to see it... and all those Strat entries marked as (Duplicate) or are color-specific... they just go away. They're no longer in the first page of search results... or better yet, they're just gone.

Furthermore... If any of those Strat attributions have been deemed "Completely Incorrect", then those incorrectly-attributed-artists don't show up on the item page.... Better yet, those incorrect attributions are also filtered out of the Artist's EB page after a certain amount of time has gone by.

If you're in the mood to marginalize entries, Subs are a great start, but let's keep it rolling! ;)

That is music to our ears my friend. Admittedly you pointed out probably the toughest problem to solve, but the very next thing we'll be working on is consolidation of duplicates on a more mass scale. It drives me crazy that there are 25 FL Studio versions/editions on the site, or 14 entries for a 72 Tele Custom, or 8 Eric Clapton signature Strats.

It's gonna be a win-win because a lot of these duplicates have interesting pro usage, or good reviews. It's just all super fragmented at the moment.

We may also have to clamp down on the notion that anyone can add any item. It's our fault really, but users still keep adding items very specific to what they themselves own, and it exacerbates the problem.

That is music to our ears my friend. Admittedly you pointed out probably the toughest problem to solve, but the very next thing we'll be working on is consolidation of duplicates on a more mass scale. It drives me crazy that there are 25 FL Studio versions/editions on the site, or 14 entries for a 72 Tele Custom, or 8 Eric Clapton signature Strats.

I'm so glad to hear this bugs you too. :) I'm sure the folks at Image-Line would love to see just one master entry for FL as well, because consolidating all those fragmented entries into one gives new users/shoppers a clearer picture of just how ridiculously popular FL Studio has become with top artists.

It's gonna be a win-win because a lot of these duplicates have interesting pro usage, or good reviews. It's just all super fragmented at the moment.

Exactly. I'm not proposing those datapoints get ditched, just folded into one item entry or (further down the road) one product line hierarchy. Easier said than done, for sure.

We may also have to clamp down on the notion that anyone can add any item. It's our fault really, but users still keep adding items very specific to what they themselves own, and it exacerbates the problem.

I don't think there would be much downside to a clampdown. Though, there might be some interesting feature opportunities within the problem too. Some of the item duplicates seem to get made simply because users want the item image to look exactly like the piece of gear the actually own... so perhaps there's a way to let users add alternate display images to an entry. So you could, for example, add your new Fender Player Telecaster to your Equipboard, and then choose to display a color other than the entry default when the item is viewed from your Equipboard, specifically.... or if you've added a bunch of crazy mods you're proud of, you could choose to display an image from your studio pics for that entry, instead of driving that user to create yet another item entry for "Customized Player Telecaster" to show off what they've done. It's annoying that people go rogue and add redundant item entries to the database, but the impulse to want to one's EB to look exactly like one's real inventory isn't necessarily an unhealthy one.