On 06/09/2012 11:28 PM, Ryan Torchia wrote:
On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 9:58 PM, Ross Tyler <rossety...@gmail.com
<mailto:rossety...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 06/09/2012 09:27 PM, Ryan Torchia wrote:
On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 4:23 PM, Ross Tyler <rossety...@gmail.com
<mailto:rossety...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 06/09/2012 12:57 PM, Ryan Torchia wrote:
Let me rephrase those then:
1) "I am used to seeing it that way" = "That seems to be a
standard way of presenting this information, and there isn't
a compelling reason to break it."
2) "Everybody else is doing it" = "Most or all other sites
are handling it this way, which indicates that other people
with prior expertise in this subject felt it wasn't
necessary, found it was beneficial to standardize it, or
found problems with doing it that made them weary of
including full side names in track numbers. We should be
cautious too."
I understand, I just don't agree. MB is not just any "other
site". Rather, it bills itself as "the ultimate source of
music information". I think normalizing the labels used for
sides and tracks on vinyl falls short of this "ultimate"
goal. I don't see any compelling problem using the labels as
presented on the release. I don't see this as being wearisome
on any editor - they can use other sites as sources and
familiar conventions but what is presented on the release is
preferred.
Except your proposal doesn't accomplish that anyway. Tracks
aren't numbered on the release as "Side A - 1", "Side A - 2",
etc.. The side designation only appears once, but you're
proposing it be prepended to every track number. That doesn't
make any more sense than numbering every track on the first CD of
a set "CD1-1", "CD1-2", etc.
And If we're striving for *absolute* accuracy, what do we do with
tracklists that aren't numbered, for example:
http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=2189018 ? If we
presented the tracklist using your method exactly as it appears
on the release, it'd look something like:
Side 3- Hey You
Side 3- Is There Anybody out There?
[...]
Side 4- The Trial
Side 4- Outside the Wall
...or how would you handle that case (in a way that is easy to
document for inexperienced users to follow consistently)?
So you think the fact that a track is unnumbered is important but
that a that a side is numbered instead of lettered is not? You
think the fact that something is unnumbered shows some artist
intent? Do you think the same if a side is
unnamed/unnumbered/unlettered? I don't. I say we are looking for
side identifiers and track identifiers and if the release doesn't
provide them that we can manufacture identifiers for them in a
normalized fashion. So, the side/track/title tuplets for you
example would be:
3 1 Hey You
3 2 Is There Anybody out There?
[...]
4 1 The Trial
4 2 Outside the Wall
No, I'm saying that it seems to me like you're treating the precise
side designation (the number "3") as important, but discarding the
fact that there are no track numbers as unimportant. Your suggestion
requires an inconsistent approach for when to copy verbatim and when
to standardize. Your answer above uses numbers for sides rather than
substituting a letter, I assume because that's how it appears on the
release (i.e. unstandardized), and then you're adding track numbers,
even though those don't appear on the release (i.e. standardized).
I'm saying that, in THIS case, neither the side designation nor the
track numbering (or lack thereof) reflects any kind of critical
artistic intent, and we can just label these C1, C2...D6, D7. (Or, IF
we had a template designed for two-sided media with some graphic
indication of side break, because the sides aren't named, we wouldn't
have to include letters at all.)
But how do we handle artist intent? Using your example, I say if
these sides were named Black and White, it would be easy
Black 1 Hey You
Black 2 Is There Anybody out There?
[...]
White 1 The Trial
White 2 Outside the Wall
Please tell me how you would handle this otherwise. I think if we
can agree on a pattern here that the pattern can be used
regardless of how sides and tracks are identified - just plug in
the identifiers into the pattern.
Using our current capabilities and assuming the sides said "Black
Side" and "White Side":
*12" Vinyl 2: *Black Side / White Side
C1 Hey You
C2 Is There Anybody out There?
[...]
D6 The Trial
D7 Outside the Wall
This also makes it clear that "Black" and "White" are the 3rd and 4th
sides of a multi-part set, which may not be clear if we don't use
letter designations in the track number field. Plus it means "Black /
White" gets translated into taggable data. It also prevents confusion
with oddball cases where the track numbering scheme actually does
include words in the track numbering. The places where data has been
standardized are clear and consistent, and we still provide the
information about how the sides are named.
I mean, really it sounds like we're all in agreement that custom side
designations should go *somewhere* in the release. I just think in
the short term, the disc name field is the most appropriate place,
while you feel the track number field is where it should go. So it's
not that big a disagreement, really.
It's beginning to look that way - I like where this is going. I still
don't like the repeating side identifiers in tracks or having redundant
side identifiers (e.g. Black and C). I have actually done something
similar to address the oddities of record-changer-friendly releases
(encode side identifiers into MB disc names) but I also added an
indication of where the flip side begins.
What do you think about this:
12" Vinyl 2: Black / White
1 Hey You
2 Is There Anybody out There?
[...]
-1 The Trial
2 Outside the Wall
Where Black and White are the side names (they could just as well be any
other identifier, A/B, 1/2, I/II or whatever) and the dash indicates a
side separator. If tracks are (significantly) unnumbered, we would just
remove the numbers and leave the dash. This seems close to what you had
suggested before with a horizontal bar separator. We would still need to
come up with a way to accommodate both a disc name and vinyl side
identifiers in the one disc name field. Not only would this scheme
support unnumbered tracks, it would also support unidentified sides
(just drop the side identifiers from the disc name).
_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-style mailing list
MusicBrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
