2011/5/24 Dr Andrew John Hughes <gnu_and...@member.fsf.org> > On 23 May 2011 07:21, Frederic Da Vitoria <davito...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 2011/5/22 Dr Andrew John Hughes <gnu_and...@member.fsf.org> > >> > >> I really don't see why we want to retain all covers verbatim; I > >> thought MusicBrainz was a database, not a cover archive. > > > > Maybe because the MB database could store what IS as well as what users > > would want to be? Or because what you want is not necessarily what other > > users want. And because NGS is able to store both the standardized and > the > > printed titles. So that tracks would capture as much information as > possible > > from the physical release (no, no color info :-) ) while the recording > and > > the release would contain a standardized title. Also, sticking to the > cover > > has the advantage that it minimizes the amount of knowledge needed to > enter > > new releases in MB. And if you want to speak technically of databases, > > wouldn't normalizing track titles make them identical to recording > titles, > > which would be data redundancy, one of the bad things database designers > are > > advised to avoid as much as possible? > > > > Just because it can doesn't mean it should. I really don't see a > great value in keeping lots of data about covers. I get that > apparently some 'other users' want this, but I haven't seen a > convincing argument from them yet. >
Just as we would probably have difficulties convincing them our way of seeing things is better :-) This is precisely my point: we can have both, we can make both categories of users happy, so let's do it. There are two kinds of democracy: either the biggest group wins and minorities just shut up or each groups manages to have it's way without stepping on other group's toes. I prefer the second way, although it is much more difficult to manage. > Users have always managed to enter releases without following > guidelines, and more experienced users have just ended up cleaning > them up, so I don't see how this would suddenly make things easier for > the novices. > If NGS did not enable new things, then what would be the point? Entering data as printed seems obviously easier than delving in variously official style guides. Many users (me included) followed SGs because they thought they were official. Or missed others for lots of good reasons. I believe the Release level should be kept simple so that even novice users can enter data without having to transform much apart from capitalizations, obvious misspellings and so on. Release Group and Recording would be for more experienced users, and Work level of course for the most experienced. Note that I am not suggesting that access should be regulated. > The extra recording layer makes things more complicated, and they are > still going to enter the titles there in a non-standard way. > Sometimes, yes, you can't avoid it entirely, but saying "as printed" has much more chances of being followed by novice users who are not yet fully aware of the advantages of standardization than "as the ### Style Guides say". > Usually, a database is created to not only store information, but to > allow it to be used for some purpose. It makes it very hard to get > useful information from MusicBrainz if titles are varying based on > what someone chose to do on the cover. > Please don't mix Release titles and Recording titles. I agree we need standardization. But I am convinced this standardization can and should be limited to the more "abstract" levels. > Yes, track titles are superfluous if they are standardised to be the > same as recording titles. This is why I would just use the recording > titles in tracklists and not have separate track titles. > All I'm seeing so far is a lot of additional work being created by > these track titles (every title change now needs two edits and the new > interface isn't very speedy) and no advantages. > Aha, now we get to your real issue. Sorry, but I guess NGS is here to stay :-) > Do you have an example of where information is lost? > No, but I could try to find one, although it would be difficult. I guess in the case of tracks which were issued lots of times, there could be releases where track titles mentioned interesting but unique information. I think I remember a Jazz sampler with very detailed info, but there could be other examples. Or some release could use a separate spelling which would be normalized per ConsistentOrigilanData but might still be an expression of ArtistIntent. Sometimes we will not know if the variations, extra informations and so on are really relevant, but having the different names that a Recording or a Work was released under could be quite meaningful. Once again, I am not speaking of case variations or misspellings. -- Frederic Da Vitoria (davitof) Membre de l'April - « promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre » - http://www.april.org
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