Author: reosarevok

Style update, 2015-06-02

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Ok, so the “have a report every two weeks” thing didn’t work out very well lately. But things have been happening anyway, so here’s all that has happened in the last few months!

Guidelines for artists have been updated for what is and is not a different artist (since now relationships can also have credits) and for areas (main artist area is still somewhat fuzzy because it is a fuzzy concept, but at least there’s something now).

Also new (although most parts were just moved into it from existing guidelines where they didn’t really fit) are the guidelines for artist credits.

The English guidelines got cleaned up a bit, but without major changes (only the addition of a section on “O’Clock”).

The alias guidelines got updated to take into consideration the “primary for locale” option, and got a section for sort names (based on the old guidelines for label sort names, which were removed since labels themselves no longer have sort names).

Some indications on barcodes were added to the release guidelines.

The ability for work-work relationships (like “part of” and “version of”) to have dates was removed. Dates should be on the appropriate artist-work relationships, in most cases (like “arranger” and “translator”), and works which get new parts added / removed should be counted as different parent works to begin with.

“Different bootleg recordings of the same concert” was added to the list of things that should be in the same release group.

The guidelines mandating expanding abbreviations like “Vol.” and “Pt.” have been removed (the special exception of “feat.” has not changed). Titles should, in general, follow the release/track title. The only standardisation left is for series: see the series numbering guidelines.

Some basic work guidelines have been added, both for when to set a type and for when (and when not) to add a disambiguation comment.

Apart from that, a fair amount of relationships and release formats have been added and some sites whitelisted. See the full list below for details.

Bug

  • [STYLE-427] – Style/Artist hasn’t been updated for areas
  • [STYLE-524] – "Personal label" has the wrong cardinality

Improvement

  • [STYLE-149] – Update "Artists with multiple names"
  • [STYLE-203] – Add a "In homage to" relationship to works
  • [STYLE-228] – Allow grouping of multiple "identical" bootlegs w/ different titles
  • [STYLE-431] – Add "marketed by" release-label relationship
  • [STYLE-436] – Add castalbums.org to the Other Databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-447] – Add treble/boy soprano as a vocal type
  • [STYLE-453] – Add "Pathé disc" format
  • [STYLE-472] – Add operadis-opera-discography.org.uk to the Other Databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-487] – Remove honorary titles from artist names
  • [STYLE-492] – Add "printed in" release-area relationship
  • [STYLE-508] – Clarify the barcode field guideline when the scanned value differs from the numerical value
  • [STYLE-511] – Add SMDB to "Other Databases" whitelist
  • [STYLE-515] – Reorganise and clean up Style/English
  • [STYLE-522] – Create a basic Artist Credits style page
  • [STYLE-523] – Update Style/Aliases for "primary for locale"
  • [STYLE-527] – Work-work relationships shouldn’t allow dates

New Feature

  • [STYLE-437] – Add VHD as a media format
  • [STYLE-439] – Add Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) as a media format
  • [STYLE-442] – Add classicalarchives.com to Other DBs whitelist
  • [STYLE-446] – Work-Event rel: Premiered at
  • [STYLE-450] – Add Copy Control CD (CCCD) as a media format
  • [STYLE-451] – Add Videogam.in to the Other Database whitelist
  • [STYLE-475] – Add artist-place "organist" relationship
  • [STYLE-479] – Add artist-artist teacher relationship
  • [STYLE-483] – Add "incidental music" work type
  • [STYLE-498] – URL whitelist request : mvdbase
  • [STYLE-512] – Add an artist-artist "composer in residence" relationship

Task

  • [STYLE-393] – Drop "EP" attribute from the "single from" relationship type
  • [STYLE-404] – Update series (volume number, etc) guidelines now that we have series
  • [STYLE-414] – Add Spirit of Rock to the Other Databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-441] – Add guideline which covers artists in work disambiguation comments
  • [STYLE-444] – Add a relationship type for linking recordings to their corresponding music videos
  • [STYLE-445] – Add a relationship type for artists featuring in videos
  • [STYLE-491] – Add guideline about where to set a work type
  • [STYLE-496] – Other DB: Traditional Tune Archive (tunearch.org)
  • [STYLE-497] – Other DB: FolkWiki; folkwiki.se
  • [STYLE-500] – Ability to link to bandsintown.com
  • [STYLE-501] – Add "has BookBrainz entry" relationship
  • [STYLE-513] – Add SHM-SACD as a medium format
  • [STYLE-514] – Clarify how "o’clock" should be capitalised in English
  • [STYLE-516] – Add a relationship for linking artists to their tours
  • [STYLE-517] – Update Theatre guidelines to remove link to deprecated Opera guidelines
  • [STYLE-518] – Approve MusixMatch as a lyrics source
  • [STYLE-521] – Label sortname guideline needs updating

Style update, 2015-02-11

New updates to style are here! We gave proper definitions to “social network” and “online community” (and while doing that we split last.fm from “social network” into its own type). Also added a few formats and other types, a few relationships, and removed the ultra-specific “Promo Only” guideline (which is now in the label annotation as guidance, like for so many other labels in MusicBrainz).

Improvement

  • [STYLE-279] – Add "Place of Worship" as place type
  • [STYLE-323] – Last Fm not a social network
  • [STYLE-334] – Add IMDb links for works
  • [STYLE-411] – Demote the Promo Only guidelines to label-specific guidance
  • [STYLE-425] – Add a general Shellac/78 rpm format

New Feature

  • [STYLE-415] – Add "Review" URL to events
  • [STYLE-428] – Add a "revised" artist-work relationship
  • [STYLE-430] – Add a "Musical" work type

Task

  • [STYLE-402] – Improve online community and social network relationship types
  • [STYLE-423] – Add Flexi disc as a medium format

Style update, 2015-01-27

Small update this time. Two main changes – a few more pages are now linkable as “other databases”, and a lot of small guidelines related to titles have been condensed into the Titles guideline instead.

Improvement

  • [STYLE-229] – Add Biblioteka Piosenki to the otherDBs whitelist
  • [STYLE-358] – Add Québec Info Musique to the "other Database Whitelist"
  • [STYLE-412] – Simplify the text of the Featured Artists guideline

New Feature

  • [STYLE-238] – Add viola.linneanet.fi to the other databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-386] – Add "Ted Crane’s DanceDB"
  • [STYLE-387] – Add "The Dance Gypsy"
  • [STYLE-390] – Whitelist Mainly Norfolk

Task

  • [STYLE-406] – Style/Titles duplicates guidelines

Style update, 2015-01-13

It’s been, well, a bit too long, but here we go with a new entry of “What has changed in Style”!

The two bigger changes to previous usage here involve pseudo-releases and live bootlegs: Pseudo-releases should only contain basic data in most cases and bootlegs should only be renamed if they have no title.

Improvement

  • [STYLE-165] – Add Russian text to Style/Language/Russian
  • [STYLE-408] – Add a “Play” work type

New Feature

  • [STYLE-292] – Add “Licensee” relationship
  • [STYLE-374] – “Founded” Artist-Place relationship type
  • [STYLE-388] – Add {instrument/vocal} to Event-Artist performance relationships
  • [STYLE-400] – Add a release-area (and place?) “manufactured in” relationship
  • [STYLE-403] – Add “formerly attributed to” work-artist relationship

Task

  • [STYLE-342] – Define how pseudo-releases should be used
  • [STYLE-391] – Postponed Events
  • [STYLE-405] – Update live bootleg style now that we have events and places

Sub-task

  • [STYLE-103] – Update once audiobooks style is passed

Style update, 2014-12-03

After skipping a fortnight because of concentrating on the schema change release, here’s the next edition of the style update, with all the changes from the last month. Most of the changes involve adding new medium formats and new place/area relationships, plus making changes and additions related to the new schema change features (events and data tracks).

The biggest change this month is the addition of a classical music titles guideline. This deprecates the old Opera Tracks guideline, and basically just provides a certain amount of standardisation while keeping mostly true to the on-cover titles.

Improvement

  • [STYLE-221] – Add Data CD format(s)
  • [STYLE-354] – Add a new medium format "dts Audio CD" for CD’s that are encodes as DTS streams
  • [STYLE-367] – Add an attribute for performing time to event artists

New Feature

  • [STYLE-344] – Style for classical track titles
  • [STYLE-356] – Add a "part of" event-event relationship
  • [STYLE-371] – "Subseries" relationship (needs MBS-8055 to actually work)

Task

  • [STYLE-349] – Update special purpose track title for data tracks
  • [STYLE-350] – "Engineered at" Place relationship
  • [STYLE-351] – Release group official website wording causes it to be misused
  • [STYLE-352] – Add relationship types for setlist.fm
  • [STYLE-357] – Add event type "clinic"
  • [STYLE-359] – Merge "Videotape" into "Other"
  • [STYLE-360] – Add Playbutton as a medium format
  • [STYLE-361] – Add music card as a medium format
  • [STYLE-363] – Add VinylDisc as a medium format
  • [STYLE-364] – Add DVDplus as a medium format
  • [STYLE-365] – Add 3.5" floppy disk as a medium format
  • [STYLE-366] – Add Edison Diamond Disc as a medium format
  • [STYLE-368] – "Edited at" Place relationship type
  • [STYLE-369] – Disable dates for event relationships
  • [STYLE-370] – Place(/Area)-Recording rel: produced at
  • [STYLE-379] – "remixed at" place-recording/release relationship type

Style update, 2014-11-03

As mentioned when the new style process was announced, at a similar time to every server release post we’ll be publishing a list of what’s changed in style during that period.

The first period of two weeks (or three, in this case) under the process has passed, and these are all the style-related issues that have been accepted and implemented during it. Most of them are very small (mostly adding sites to the whitelist for the Other Databases relationship) although a couple are new relationships or relationships being extended to more entities.

No changes to the guidelines themselves have happened during this period.

  • [STYLE-211] – Allow new allmusic.com release links
  • [STYLE-250] – Add finnmusic.net to the other databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-251] – Add pomus.net to whitelist
  • [STYLE-256] – Add fono.fi to the other databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-269] – Add mixing and mastering to area relationships
  • [STYLE-307] – グラスレ（grass thread／yunisan） as Artist and Label “Other DB” relationship
  • [STYLE-308] – ジャパメタ（japameta） as Artist “Other DB” relationship
  • [STYLE-312] – Add “Deutsche Nationalbibliothek” to whitelist for other databases
  • [STYLE-328] – Add leader/concertmaster artist-release/recording relationships
  • [STYLE-337] – Add IMSLP relationship to artists
  • [STYLE-338] – Add Stage48 Wiki to the other databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-339] – Add CiNii to the other databases whitelist
  • [STYLE-340] – Add NDL to the other databases whitelist

New Guidelines for Recordings

We got this from Ben, who has been in charge of taking this discussion forward:

Since the beginning of the year there has been a lot of discussion about recordings and what exactly they should be used for. After several meetings on IRC and a couple of huge topics on the style mailing list, we’re finally ready to bring in a new definition for recordings, and new style guidelines to go with it!

The new recording definition can be viewed at http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Recording

And the accompanying style guidelines are at http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Recording

The new guideline brings significant changes to the way recordings should be used, so all editors dealing with recordings should take the time to read it.

As a short summary, recordings are now never produced solely through copying or mastering. This means that recordings shouldn’t distinguish between different masters of some audio – in general, a recording will correspond a particular mix or edit. In addition:

– AcoustIDs and ISRCs have been removed from the guideline – they are mostly irrelevant for managing recordings under the new definition.
– Guidelines for audio channels have been introduced.
– Existing guidelines have been expanded.
– Several in-depth examples have been added to explain how recording should be used.

Also, as a result of these changes, the recording-recording remaster relationship type and the artist-recording master relationship type have been deprecated.

Thanks to everyone who was involved on mb-style and in the IRC meetings for your excellent ideas and contributions!

Announcing libmusicbrainz4 releases 4.0.1 and 5.0.0

Andy Hawkins says:

Hi,

I am pleased to announce two new versions of libmusicbrainz:

libmusicbrainz-4.0.2 has been updated to take account of changes made to the server on 15th May 2012. Some interfaces are now marked as deprecated, as they have been extended during the work.

Full documentation is available here:

http://metabrainz.github.com/libmusicbrainz/4.0.2/

The release can be downloaded here:

https://github.com/downloads/metabrainz/libmusicbrainz/libmusicbrainz-4.0.2.tar.gz

(MD5 checksum 5ff62abeca00fdad1bb3a8f99065ae61)

libmusicbrainz-5.0.0 has been introduced to enable the library to be more easily included in Debian due to a conflicting package name. It is identical to libmusicbrainz-4.0.2, with the following exceptions:

1. All include files are now in the musicbrainz5 directory

2. You should now link against libmusicbrainz5 (-lmusicbrainz5)

3. All previously deprecated functions have been removed.

Please note that all future work is likely to only occur on the 5.x library, so this should be used wherever possible.

Full documentation is available here:

http://metabrainz.github.com/libmusicbrainz/5.0.0/

The release can be downloaded here:

https://github.com/downloads/metabrainz/libmusicbrainz/libmusicbrainz-5.0.0.tar.gz

(MD5 checksum 3396e0c66cfacfa1f32abc7cfdbcbe13)

As ever, please report any issues in JIRA at

http://tickets.musicbrainz.org

under the project ‘libmusicbrainz’.

If you have any questions, please post them in the musicbrainz-devel mailing list. I will also attempt to be available on the #musicbrainz-devel IRC channel on Freenode.

New Style Leader and Updated Proposal Process

Nicolás Tamargo (reosarevok) is replacing Kuno Woudt (warp) as style leader. This will allow Kuno to fully concentrate on development, and also allow our other style leader Nikki to dedicate more of her time to testing changes and make it less likely for us to have botched releases.

We are also updating the proposal process, and tying it to the Jira tracker, to avoid the manual updating of the proposal table and problems with two people using the same proposal number by mistake. The updated system is at Proposals – the huge table there has been moved to Proposals/History