Every once in a while, people ask us, “How can I contribute to MySwar?” and we offer piecemeal answers each time. Of late, we have been asked this question a lot, and it makes sense for us to give a holistic answer.
In most cases, the people who ask this question have already contributed or know that they can contribute to MySwar by:
- Becoming subscribers
- Purchasing BollySwar ebooks
What they really want to know is how they can contribute with their time, knowledge and expertise. Here’s how.
The starting point is to become a registered user on MySwar if they aren’t already because everything that follows requires them to be logged in.
Submit Data Corrections
MySwar is a work-in-progress database. We have been made painfully aware over the years that, while it is probably the most comprehensive catalogue of Hindi cinema and Hindi film songs, it is far from perfect. There are plenty of errors and omissions in it. So, if you come across a missing film or song, or a wrong piece of information, let us know through the Feedback page. We update the database promptly once we have verified the submission.
Submit Trivia
The next time you come across an interesting piece of information about a film, song or artist, submit a trivia on the relevant album or song page. Given the vast amount of incorrect and often made-up information floating around on the internet, we ask that users share information from reliable sources:
- Interviews with artists or people close to them
- Books
- Articles written by credible writers, in well-known publications
Do include links to the source of the trivia. Often, users submit trivia without providing a reference. In such cases, we perform due diligence to verify the submissions and do not accept those we can’t.
Submit Videos
MySwar attempts to provide links to YouTube for every Hindi film song. If a video is missing or if the existing link is dead or wrong, users can update the YouTube link for the song. Here, we ask the users to provide links from official or verified YouTube channels when possible. These could be song videos from channels like Shemaroo, Ultra and T-Series or they could be the links auto-generated by YouTube for music labels like Saregama, T-Series, Zee Music Company and so forth.
Update Raagas
We undertook a process to update the Raagas of as many Hindi film songs as we could but there are still many for which we don’t have this information. If you are knowledgeable in Hindustani and/or Carnatic classical music, do submit the Raaga information for songs when possible.
Rate Albums and Songs
The popular playlists feature is a favourite among many MySwar users. These playlists are generated based on the song ratings of the registered users of MySwar. Any song whose overall rating (sum of all user ratings divided by number of ratings) is three or more (out of five) is automatically included in these playlists. Each additional rating helps ensure wider representation and reduces biases.
Content Moderation
We review each user submission described above (except the user ratings, of course). The submissions are accepted only after we have reviewed them. At times, we edit the submissions to improve their quality.
Leave a Reply