• Registered: 2011-09-15

Topic: UK CD single sets

This concerns singles released in the UK as CD 1, CD 2 and sometimes CD 3.

I think it was agreed earlier that this information should be put in the disambiguation field, the title clear of any other identifier.

It's a minor issue, but some users are adding "CD1", others "CD 1" and others "CD one".

Think there should be a consensus on the correct way to input, otherwise it's a bit messy.

Also, does anyone know if there's a bot removing "(disc x)" from singles and adding appropriate info to the disambiguation field? Haven't seen one, but it could be a good idea, at least after this issue is clarified.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: UK CD single sets

It probably should be added as credited on the singles themselves; I don't think a style guideline is necessary for disambiguation comments.

Also, you cannot write a bot to automate this as many such discs are leftovers from before NGS; nothing to do with CD singles. See http://musicbrainz.org/report/SeparateDiscs

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: UK CD single sets

Problem is that some don't actually say anything on the packaging. They just have a different track list and catalog. But I think it's still important to put something to distinguish them. So I'll probably put "CD N" in the disambiguation field for now.

I'm aware of the pre-NGS leftovers, but the situation here differs slightly from the usual approach. As far as I'm aware, the majority of disc n releases are being merged together, witch is fine in under the new guidelines. Possibly bots are doing this but I don't know. In relation to these singles though it's quite important as unlike most disc n releases they need to be kept separate.

The reason I was wondering about a bot is that AFIK (with a few exceptions), everything in the singles category should be single mediums, whilst in other categories there can be multiple mediums. So you could run different processes depending on the category.

Unfortunately I don't know how to program. I was just putting the idea out there to see if anyone is doing or is interested in doing anything about it. Although if it would be quite simple I'd be interested if someone could show me how.

Is there currently a bot merging disc n releases generally? Would be laborious to have to go through everything manually.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: UK CD single sets

No there's no bots merging - it's not possible to automate such merges - it's impossible for a bot to know if two discs belong together. If it was reliable enough for a bot to know, it'd have been reliable enough for the system to automerge during NGS. Many of the 20,000 releases are probably missing one or more discs from the database entirely anyway.

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: UK CD single sets

Ah, so most of the releases on that list are lone discs, whereas those that were complete were merged during NGS, correct? But if that's the case then how come there are still release groups with disc 1 and disc 2 in? e.g: http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/51 … b49fe11724

I would have thought a bot could see "title: disc 1" and "title: disc2" with matching catalog and barcode, then merge. Why is it not possible?

I'm just interested in which changes can be automated in MB. I've noticed a lot of bots at work recently, so wondered what they could do before undertaking some lengthly and repetitive edits.

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: UK CD single sets

Alternatively, can you point me towards documentation explaining what was and was not merged during NGS, and why?

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: UK CD single sets

The barrier for merging during migration was quite high; due to the problems with release events not matching on one or more of the discs of a set - and added complexity from bonus discs. If I recall correctly, the rule was

merge to NGS release IF
1) all discs conform to old DiscNumberStyle and/or BonusDiscStyle
2) EXACTLY matching release events can be found on ALL discs (country, barcode, catalog number etc)
3) there are "part of set" relationships linking all of the discs

This has meant that things can be orphaned if (among other reasons)
a) they missed some of the "part of set" links (as this had only been around a couple of years in MB, a lot of discs, especially VA missed these links)
b) one or more of the discs had a slightly wrong release event
c) discs missing from DB completely
d) discs in a big set missing the middle of the set
e) bonus disc links were it was indeterminate how to merge them

Remember that during this process, it was not just trying to merge. It was trying to split pre-NGS releases by release event into what a release in NGS is as well.

Lixobix wrote:

Ah, so most of the releases on that list are lone discs, whereas those that were complete were merged during NGS, correct? But if that's the case then how come there are still release groups with disc 1 and disc 2 in? e.g: http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/51 … b49fe11724

Well in that case it would have been incorrect to merge - because they look like UK CD singles? So the script did exactly what it should, in noticing lack of part of set relationships, as well as differences in cat #/barcode. Those singles should have disc 1 and disc 2 removed from their names, as discussed above, I guess :)

Lixobix wrote:

would have thought a bot could see "title: disc 1" and "title: disc2" with matching catalog and barcode, then merge. Why is it not possible?

Well this is kinda what it did; but title and release event match was not deemed enough to automatically merge something. The "part of set" relationship barrier was added to ensure someone had actually looked at this data and said that it was correct. Please don't underestimate the amount of wrong data and mess in parts of the "Various Artists" landscape; especially where multi-disc releases were released slightly different across different countries. I've come across all types of mess there.

Bots tend to make changes based on confirming data with other sources. Merging is a destructive edit, difficult to undo and quite tough to confirm the data with other sources. Someone could definitely write something to suggest merges and improve the reports we have to make it easier to get through the backlog, but actually entering edits I would be quite against.

Our edit queue is already completely unmanageable currently - most edits go through unnoticed and un-voted; including human-proposed merges.

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: UK CD single sets

Ah, it all makes sense now. So basically all the releases on the list need to be checked manually to ensure they are complete, accurate and unique.

I agree that the edit queue is too large, but not much can be done at the moment. Think there was a ticket petitioning for a "subscribe to release" feature which might get more users involved in the edit process, which I fully support.

Perhaps there should also be some way to prioritise particular edits. If I'm correct, edits that fill blank data will go through automatically unless voted down, whilst edits changing data require more yes notes than no or they will fail. If that's the case then perhaps allowing some way to prioritise the latter would be useful as it wastes the inputter's time if their edits, though correct, go unnoticed and fail.

I point this out mainly as most of the edits in my subscriptions are being performed by bots, usually adding discogs and amazon links by matching data. To be honest I don't bother checking these as they are too numerous and I'd only see the same data that the bot used to verify the edit. These edits do clutter up the pages though, so it's harder to see human edits. I'd prefer to just see human edits.

Anyway, will get on with the manual editing soon.