Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Gil:

About the only suggestion I have has to do with non public instruments that I later find and afterwards add the Serial Number to.

Often on Ebay the original listing will not show an SN, but later on an image of the jackplate will be added, or someone will ask a question asking for the number.

Sometimes it happens when the NJ Butcher breaks up an instrument - (revealing the SN written in the cavity). I always search recently completed sold instruments to find the broken up guitar and then update the listing.

But the guitar, even though it now has an SN, remains hidden and unsearchable. It only shows up again if someone tries to enter the same SN again.

It does not show up in my collected items, since I was not the first person to collect it.

Any thoughts on how to sort this?

Also any chance that we can update abandoned register entries, the same way we can edit CI's? Sometimes I will find an instrument online somewhere with pics, when I feed it in I discover that a previous owner (who is no longer registered here) has already fed the instrument into the register, so I can't add the images I have found.

Also - kinda like Paul's suggestion - is there someway that obvious SN errors can be flagged for review?

Often if comes when someone has registered a newer instrument. Instead of leaving the date area blank (as I always do) so that the database can correctly calculate the manufacture date - they will feed an incorrect one in... The listing will show up on a search for Feb 2010 since 10-02 was entered in the date area even though the SN given is 09 44xxx. Another common error is someone feeding a year into the date area and then giving an incomplete SN. They will put 09 (the year) into the date section and then five digits (say 31451) in the bottom section.

April 1998 instruments Starting with Q1 almost always get misread as 2001 instruments... Things like this could be flagged as they are entered.

Asking the person entering it "Obvious error. Are you sure??" perhaps. Just a few thoughts.

Thanks for the info, Gil, that helped me figure out what to do!

Thanks all.

CJ:
Pending items that you can't see should still be flagged the moment you enter the serial by an ajax checker, please let me know if for some reason it doesn't work out for you, I just checked it again for a pending item (0936480) without being logged in at all and it gave me a warning as soon as I added the serial number.

Brian:

1. Unidentified items that have a serial added to them later on become regular items once my "sync script" runs, it doesn't happen immediately you change them but once my script runs they become regular items that can be searched and viewed, etc... I will look into making it work instantly so it would work like you expect it to work.
2. Do you mean instruments that were entered anonymously by a non registered user? In any case - you can just send me a PM and I will check to make sure it doesn't belong to the member anymore or to the person who added it anonymously (it's not really anonymously most of the times, these registrations usually do have a name and an email) and if it's okay - I will make it a CI.
3. I rarely saw such errors, I can add a warning if the date and serials don't match, but I can't alert on errors such as Q1 vs 01 as both valid serials and there is no way for the system to know which is the right one.

Gil:

I should take this to private mail... But just for the purposes of discussion I'll share my logic.

Here are a few examples of the kind of errors I mean

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... ear%3D2002
The SN given was 018127 and someone manually fed in the date of 2002-07. I put the correct SN in the comments field which is Q18127 made in April 1998. This is confirmed by looking at the pic of the Jackplate (which you can only read the bottom of). There are clearly only 4 numbers, so it is a pre 1999 instrument. If there were 5 digits it would more likely be a 2001.

No way to know for sure without pics, but these are also likely Q1's from April 1998
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... ear%3D2002
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... ear%3D2002
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... ear%3D2002
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... ear%3D2001

Here are some of what I mean about abandoned errors.
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... ear%3D2002
Registered in 1998 - so it can't be from 2002
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D
http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D
Registered in 2000 so it can't be from 2001

Here are a few from this year...
This one is stolen. http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D
He has filled in the date field, but has only put five digits in for the SN. The obvious fix is to add an 12 in front of the existing SN. Since it is registered as stolen, an error in the SN makes recovery unlikely.

http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D
Short one digit. Is the correct SN 01 21812 or 12 1812x More likely 2012 as he has fed in 2012-05 manually into the date field. Also a quick check of week 21 in 2001 shows they were making 360s/370s that week rather then 381 v69s. We can also see one other registered v69 from the same week 12 18623 - so i would say the most likely solve is to add an X as an incomplete SN

Here is the last one for tonight. http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D
12 227598 is the given SN which has one too many digits. The likely SNs are 12 27598 or 12 22598. More likely week 27 as RIC was making 4003ws that week. In week 22 they were making 330s.

A button or tab that says "likely error - please review" would bring these to your (or Peter's attention) so they can be flagged, reviewed and fixed.

I am grateful for the care that has been shown to the register. While it can never be perfect, just by the nature that we can only collect what is out there...

Thanks Brian.
My weekend is almost over and tomorrow I get back to work...
I will take a look at it as soon as I can and let you know if I can try and automatically prevent this from happening.

No rush at all... Let's say before the new year!