Sunday, November 28, 2021

Letter to an unknown user

Dear dot,

I have to call you like that, because you always leave only one . as eMail address in your tickets. Well, everyone is free to write to us anonymously, but if you flood us with tickets like you have been doing for a few weeks, you might as well make yourself known.

Of course we would like to process every ticket quickly and enter it into the database, but we are only a small group of editors (and most of them also have a time-consuming job) and are sometimes a bit overwhelmed by the flood of tickets (currently 77) in our inbox.

We would like to ask you about the one or other ticket, but we can't because we don't have an address. Therefore, we would like to ask you to out yourself to the editors. We don't bite (at least very, very seldom) and we don't give addresses to sneaky data collectors who then want to flood you with spam.

Much of what you sent is well researched and I think you have what it takes to work as an editor for COVER.INFO with the appropriate guidance. With the time you have spent on your tickets so far, that would be easy. I would like to ask you that. But it is not possible, because of – see above.

So far we only have the chance to work on your daily incoming tickets with pearls of sweat on our foreheads, with the hope in our hearts that you will make yourself known.

Think about it and write to ame@cover.info.

/AME

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

We are half-millionaires!

No, no – not financially, what should we do with so much money? Since October 11, 2021 11.00 p.m. we have 500,000 songs in our database! Especially in 2020 and 2021, thanks to our loyal followers and hard-working editors, the database has grown a lot, so that the database has now reached this number of songs which can be related to each other as original songs, cover and alternative versions, quotations, samples and medleys.

At the launch of the new version of our website in May 2018, there were just over 400,000 song entries that we transferred from the old system. Since that time, besides adding new songs, we have been in the process of reviewing and completing these old data. Almost 32 % of the total song collection has now been checked and provided with correct sources. 67,917 songs are originals, of which almost 52 % have already been checked.

Since the rebuild, there are also data sets for artists (performers and authors) in addition to the songs. There are currently 153,522 artist records in the database, of which almost 35 % are verified.

As you can see, despite the diligent work done so far, there is still a huge mountain of tasks left. Therefore we are grateful for every hint that brings errors or incomplete records to our attention. Please use our forms ("Report error / contribute")! 

At the bottom left of the song entry you will always find the date when the entry was created and when it was updated (except in the mobile view).  If you find a date before May 2018, this is a hint that the song entry has not been edited yet. If you send us a contribution with links to sources and YouTube videos for these songs, this is already a big relief for us and helps to improve the quality of the database.

So let's go for the next half million! We are looking forward to your feedback.

Meanwhile we are already working on a new software version to be able to present COVER.INFO in an improved design and functional range. This is also necessary because we can't get our compiler to work for the current program version.

/AME, TWA

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

We are testing a new search

From now on you can enter performers and titles at the same time when searching for a song, for example "madonna american pie".

We are currently testing a new form of search. Until now it was only possible to search for exactly one artist or song title. From now on all search terms can be searched in the combination of performer and song. However, you can still search for a title or artist separately.

Search terms must be complete, spelled out words. Word fragments are no longer found, unlike before. For example, searching for "george gersh" to find George Gershwin will no longer work.

Since we are still testing and adjusting, the behavior of the search may change a bit in the near future. We will report any significant changes here.

/TWA

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Donation appeal for a faster server (updated)

Dear friends of music,

we are very happy about the high traffic that our website had in the past year and the first months of the new year. By the end of March 2021, the database has grown to almost 482,000 song entries and over 145,000 artist entries.

As nice as these results are, however, they have a somewhat unpleasant side-effect you may have noticed – the site has become noticeably slower at some times.

This is simply due to the fact that in 2018 we first chose the cheapest tariff of our web hosting company which of course has a limited range of services. Since we are now repeatedly reaching its limits, we decided to purchase an upgrade from our hosting provider towards the end of April.

This is of course not for free, so that the monthly costs that our association COVER.INFO n. e. V. for the operation of the site will more than double. At the moment these costs are not yet covered by the membership fees, so we call on all friends and users of our site to support us at this point with a small donation.

Even 5 or 10 Euros from some users will help to close the funding gap, larger donations are of course also welcome. You can donate to our association account, which is managed by Thomas Wagner for the association.

Account holder: Thomas Wagner
Bank: Commerzbank
IBAN: DE07 8204 0000 0108 9788 00
BIC/SWIFT: COBADEFFXXX
Purpose of use: Donation COVER.INFO n. e. V.

BezahlCode
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You can also send us money via PayPal.

As we are a non-profit organization, it is not necessary to have a donation receipt in order for the donation to be recognized in Germany in the tax return. But if you still need a donation receipt, we will of course issue such a paper.

You can look forward to a noticeably better performance from the end of April and we would be happy to receive recognition in the form of donations.

Axel
Member of the board responsible for finances COVER.INFO n. e. V.

Update from May 3, 2021: The faster server is up and running. We thank the first donors. However, the financing of the more powerful infrastructure is not yet secured in the long term.