I’ve managed the playlist for a show for 15+ years, and whenever I get a dropdown with auto-complete choices for a field, all 15+ years of entries for that field are there. How can I remove some of those choices?
Hi Stan, Does it look like this? That is not Spinitron’s auto-complete, that is auto-correct or auto-fill which is a feature of your browser (and/or your operating system). You can see the auto-complete drop-down behind the auto-correct box. I can’t figure out how to clear it, but I am pretty sure you can.
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I have added autocomplete="off" to the text input tags on the spin entry form (after reading this). Please let me know if you notice any improvement in Chrome.
Thanks Tom. That seems to have solved it for me. I hope stanrob was having the same problem and I didn’t hijack his query. 
Sorry to say, my problem is different (and it’s still unsolved)! I may have described it inadequately. To revisit, the problem is dozens and dozens of long-unused auto-complete choices for each field in a spin entry, except sometimes there are zero choices even though I’m starting a frequently-used entry. I would like to pare the choices. Of course I would also like to overcome the zero-choice situation.
I’m told that the problem is not spinitron’s but something I can address in my browser or OS. Here’s why I doubt that: I suffer the exact same problem whether running new or old Firefox or Chrome. Moreover, I’ve had the same problem under Windows NT, Windows XP, and Windows 7. I guess I’d better check what happens on Linux Mint and the public library’s Mac. This problem has been a growing part of my life for 10+ years.
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I think what stanrob is talking about is editing the database of choices to remove incorrect and incomplete entries, is that right? I know we used to be able to do that if we wanted to, though it’s quite a chore if you really start looking at what needs to be corrected. Croudsourced data, crowdsourced corrections.
Sybil-WORT, I believe you’re right. Remove incorrect and incomplete entries. I couldn’t have said it better. Do you (or does anybody) remember how you did it? Let’s see whether it still works.
My show is public affairs, not music. it seems like the removal chore would be bearable. I have at most several dozen removals in mind. “Song” changes for almost every single “spin,” so (1) trimming the huge database for “Song” would be useless and (2) simply emptying it would be harmless. The other fields would be handled much more efficiently with trimmed-down databases.
Please forgive my denseness. I don’t yet understand your last sentence (Croudsourced data, croudsourced corrections).
Whoa, IDK who spelled crowdsourced like that LOL. Silly computer.
Anyway, I mean that since individuals using Spinitron have entered the data in the first place, it’s kind of “crowdsourced.” And they were relying on individual users to make corrections as well. I used to do some of that way back in the first couple of years but the database of autocomplete entries is so huge now, it’s very time consuming.
In community immunity, Sybil
Thank you. I think I see now the significance of “crowdsourced.” I did not realize that the dropdown list I encounter when I start filling a field is gathered from the entire population of spinitron users, not just me. If this is so, it wouldn’t be appropriate to remove any entry without unanimous agreement by all users!
Nonetheless, in the dropdown list for some fields, I keep seeing dozens of obsolete entries that had to have come from me.
I’m wondering what kind of information is kept in those databases besides the names or phrases. Is it possible that they have hidden fields, for example one that holds the most recent date of an entry’s actual use? That one would accommodate periodic automatic purges of long-unchosen entries.
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