Posthumous tribute gear - valid or not?

We had a case where Fender Jimi Hendrix strings were submitted to Jimi Hendrix's page. Members of the community jumped on and flagged it as completely incorrect, but I wanted to bring up an idea.

Could this type of thing be solved with a tagging system for submissions? Via tagging, I'm thinking a submission like the one in question can be tagged as "Sponsored" or "Tribute" (or we can come up with a better word for it).

We know there is a portion of people who visit the Hendrix page to get encyclopedic knowledge of what exactly he used, but I also think a portion of people would see these strings as a sort of "sound like Hendrix" option. After all, there's a reason signature gear is created posthumously.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

I think it would depend on how the tagging system was implemented. At the moment, all we have are the gear categories, and those are expressed uniformly for all artists... now we'd have a situation where an item would theoretically be in the "tribute" gear ghetto for Jimi, but could legitimately be a game-worn item for a more contemporary artist.

Are you proposing that tags would be per-artist rather than database-wide?

At a gut level, as a community member, no, I don't want posthumous tribute gear that the artist never used live or on-record sharing space with items that legitimately earned their place in an Artist's profile... for exactly the educational concerns you mentioned... but if there needs to be a way to help sell licensed tribute SKUs like this here, some kind of "tribute" marker to separate these items from the game-worn stuff would be great.

Are you proposing that tags would be per-artist rather than database-wide?

Yes exactly, per artist (or more specifically per specific submission). It could be part of a larger tagging system that would include things like "Used live," "Used in studio," and whatever else might be interesting.

Are you proposing that tags would be per-artist rather than database-wide?

Yes exactly, per artist (or more specifically per specific submission). It could be part of a larger tagging system that would include things like "Used live," "Used in studio," and whatever else might be interesting.

The larger tagging system you mention could be interesting, but feels like something further out in the roadmap from here on the ground. As an example, just this week I twice tried to submit gear to an artist, only to find out that exact gear was already logged, and I didn't find/see it in my initial sweep of the Artist's profile... in both cases the gear I missed was wayyyyy below the "show more" fold for its category... something to help this type of profile navigation feels like a more immediate need...if tagging could be the answer, and I think tagging could indeed play a role, then, as a user, I'd welcome it...

...but, the scope of the problem that kicked off this thread feels pretty limited to me, personally. Licensed posthumous gear is fairly specific to the rock and blues guitar market, and the # of departed artists whose estates permit such things is pretty small:

(in no deliberate order)

1. Hendrix
2. Cobain
3. SRV
4. EVH?
5. BB King
6. Bob Marley
7. George Harrison
8. John Lennon
9. Dimebag Darrell

and likely a dozen or so others. Other than this latest entry with the Jimi strings, how often does the posthumous guitar gear problem/opportunity pop up here?

Edit: updated list to include a few more artists whose estates surprisingly allow posthumous signature gear

NO NO NO! a dead musician can't use something after her/his death.... posthumous endorsements are a matter for estate lawyers, not equipboard

FUCK THIS BITCHES. its the music business, not business now featuring 1% music... I'm sick of this way of thinking.

FUCK THIS BITCHES. its the music business, not business now featuring 1% music... I'm sick of this way of thinking.

This is our collective dynamic tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qv7k2_lc0M

This is our collective dynamic tonight.

that's pretty much it

Here's my take:

• If the artist was actively involved in the design process and put his hands on it, I'd say it's valid. For example, Malcom Young's signature Gretsch was released posthumously, but he lived to play the final prototype.
• If the artist was actively involved in the design process but he never put his hands on the final product, as with Randy Rhoads and the RR1, then I would deem that invalid. Only the previous prototypes could be submitted to him.
• If the artist was not actively involved in the design process and never put his hands on the final product (especially when the product was developed and released after his death), then I would say that the item is certainly invalid. Hendrix's page is cluttered by such items.

I agree with pkennethk and jimmarchi1 that tribute items probably should not go on the artist's page. Perhaps there could be a separate section on the page for tribute gear, one that does not add to the artist's gear count. It would probably be best to make it a switchable view. The current view would be labeled something like "Used by the Artist", while the other would be labeled something like "Inspired by the Artist".

At the same time, I wouldn't want to see the artist pages be crowded by such items; it would certainly confuse people who already incorrectly submit tribute gear to artists. At the very least, a "Tribute" tag for the item itself, rather than the submission, could be implemented. When one goes to submit such an item to the nominal artist, it could flagged with a warning like "This has been marked as a tribute to the artist. Please make sure before submitting that the artist has used the item or was involved in creating it. Remember: The artist's name is not enough." The artists would need to be attached to the item beforehand for the flag to work, but that just makes the whole flag system redundant.

Both of these ideas mean more work for the admins and extra steps for all users. At the end of the day, if someone wants to sound like his/her favorite artist, he/she won't quite get there with tribute gear. It's better to showcase what the artist actually used so that aspiring performers can get a better sense of what they're looking for.

• If the artist was actively involved in the design process but he never put his hands on the final product, as with Randy Rhoads and the RR1, then I would deem that invalid. Only the previous prototypes could be submitted to him.

RR1 is a great example that I was previously unaware of. Fender Jagstang is another one in this same category. I feel the same way you do: regardless of artist level of pre-production involvement, she/he/they need to have lived long enough to use the commercially-available version.

"Used live" and "Used in studio" are both good ideas. However, couldn't that simply be specified in the submission description?