Brian Schweitzer wrote:
My sense of what's been said, and some thoughts on how maybe we can
move forward:
We would like all ARs to be meaningful.
We would like everyone to agree on just what any given AR level implies.
We would love if all release level ARs applied only to all tracks, but
we are in agreement that:
1) This isn't true for many of those release level ARs we already
have, and
2) Many liners simply don't present enough info for us to be able
to say this, so either
a) This info ends up being put in annotations, where it is
much less
useful from a database and discographical point of view
b) This info ends up in release-level ARs.
3) AR info ought to not inherit from releases to tracks, nor be
assumed to do so.
4) ARs fall into three groups:
Type 1) Some ARs apply best at only the track level, if there's
solid info to support that it does apply to that specific
track, but
end up in release-level ARs as "fuzzy" data when the
specific
track(s) are unable to be (yet) identified.
Type 2) Some ARs apply only at the release level, and not to
any track, and are not ever "fuzzy" at this level.
Type 3) Some ARs can apply at either level - photography,
liner notes, production, etc.
So what if we take the list of release and track ARs, and work out
which ARs are each type? (And which ARs maybe don't make sense to be
at one or the other level, or which ones, such as the missing track AR
"has libretto by", need to be added so that ARs truly can be added at
the proper level.)
Type 1 ARs are always fuzzy if at the release level.
Type 2 ARs are then by definition non-fuzzy.
For Type 3 ARs, add a (by default unchecked) checkbox "This is a
non-fuzzy AR" for them on the add/edit AR screen so we can identify
which ones are at the release level because they belong there, and
which ones are at the release level because they're waiting on better
info to allow them to be migrated to the track level?
This way, "Joe Blow newer editor" can add ARs from the liner in his
hand, at the release level, and MB benefits by having some better
discographic info than we had before. "Jane Smith expert editor" who
has the drummer's notes, or the session history, or whatever, can look
at the ARs and easily identify which ones may need cleanup. Jane
Smith also can edit the ARs to mark any that are correct at release
level (and not track level) as "non-fuzzy".
So then we do get the best of both - editors still have it easy to add
ARs. We all end up with a better understanding of what any given
release level AR means. Editors who would have added only a release
level AR if it applied to all tracks now would be actually adding all
the track ARs instead. And editors and users using or working on
release level ARs can look at those ARs and know which
production/liner/etc ARs are *for* the release, and which ones just
are being "stored" at the release until they can be moved lower when
better data is available.
+1 from me too. Kudos to Brian - lovely stuff.
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