Lukáš Lalinský wrote: > > I'd rather not add a site-specific AR for this. They don't seem to > provide any valuable data. Discographies are from AMG (but apparently > they use MB data too, but they don't promote it), videos are from > YouTube, concert dates are from Eventful. If anything, I'd prefer to > link to the source sites, not to a mashup. If this is just for money, > we can automatically link to their search. >
A bit late but to get back to this. When the BBC AR discussion came up I was thinking the same thing, combined with the thoughts of Paul Bryan earlier in this thread. While the BBC link was acceptable because of having reviews (come to think of it, we could have just used to 'has review page' AR), in which direction do we want MB to go? The goal of MB is/was to be/become a comprehensive music information site. Imho this meant that MB was the site which provided as such info as possible, being an actual source for the end user. By introducing ARs to mashup sites, we would be moving to a portal style site more and more. Is this really the direction we want MB to go in? Becoming a data provider to (mashup)sites instead of the actual information site we would be providing the data to? Other signs of this, almost insecure, posture of MB comes to show in different forms: - The MB introduction on the main page: 'MB is...that attempts to create...'. No, we don't attempt, we _are_. - ARs to sites with similar goals like Discogs, MusicMoz, fan and discography sites. Yes, these links are handy to have for editors as a confirmation source but we should have the info on those site in MB itself. There would/should be no need to go to a different site. (makes me wonder if we shouldn't just hide those ARs for normal users) All this is just something to ponder about. What are we? In what we are we different now compared to the initial goals of MB? What do we actually want to become now? In which direction do we want to go? I'm not sure where I want to go with this, I just thought these concerns had to be expressed because I assume I won't be the only one having them. Showing a bit of confidence on the site wouldn't hurt. It might even increase the enthusiasm of the editors and possibly potential customers. Yours, Age _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
