Quite recently OpenStreetMap got itself a quick contribution app StreetComplete, I’ve used it a bit and I find it a really quick and nice to use.
I was thinking though, has there been any discussion about creating a similar application for MusicBrainz? There are quite a few report categories that could be verified quite quickly. Even voting could be done. What do you think?
Have a dig around in the search as there is a MusicBrainz app that someone is bringing back to life for the GoogleCode thingy.
Here it is:
That isn’t meant for contributions though? Or is it?
Maybe I misunderstood what you mean by “contribution”.
The StreetComplete app seemed to be something to allow a user to add to the OpenStreetMap database. That was the point of the old MusicBrainz app. And what Picard does for PC\Mac\Linux. It allows users to add data to the MusicBrainz database based on their collection.
I pulled up that link to the person working on the app as I thought it sounded useful. If the app is going to be talking to the database and adding releases then it seemed a sensible place to expand.
It’s not really what Picard does. Picard can do that—natively by “lookup disc” to submit Disc IDs or via plugins like “Add Cluster As Release” (I guess it can also do ratings and collection management?)—but it’s not really its main function by any stretch. Its main function is to fetch data from MusicBrainz for the user to utilise for file tagging purposes.
In the same vein, the new Android MusicBrainz app will not have support for doing MusicBrainz edits. Maybe tags, ratings, and collection management—as those are the things that the API/WS allows to submit “edits” for.
To return to the topic:
I’ve been using Street Complete myself a fair bit, and have been thinking a lot about how to make something similar for MusicBrainz. One of the strengths of Street Complete is that you’re out there. You’re on the street you’re being asked whether it’s lit or not and whether its surface is asphalt or gravel or concrete slabs. This is one of the strengths of Street Complete as I see it: it connects to the environment you’re in in the moment.
How can this be translated to MusicBrainz? Should it ask questions about the music you’re currently playing? Should it ask questions about the music you have on your phone? Based on your listening history (if coupled with your ListenBrainz profile)?
And what questions should it ask? “Is this artist male, female, non‐binary or other?” “When was this artist born?” “Is this a person or a group (or something else)?” “When was this release released?” All of those questions shouldn’t really be answered without a source in the edit’s edit note, which you can’t really easily provide while on your phone. For Street Complete this is easy: the source is that you’re on the street and you know how asphalt looks different from concrete slabs and you can see that there are lit street lamps that are throwing light on the path/road.
What it could maybe do is ask questions such as “what genre is this?” “What mood does this convey to you?” – which could feed into folksonomy and genre tags in MusicBrainz and/or maybe be hooked up with feedback for AcousticBrainz; “Is this more happy or more sad?” “Does this have vocals or is it only instrumental (or only vocals/a cappella)?” “Is it acoustic?”
I would really prefer a mobile friendly MB website.
It’s cross platform and de facto always up to date.
One doesn’t exclude the other. Street Complete is not a general purpose OpenStreetMap editor, just like a “BrainzComplete” wouldn’t be a general purpose MusicBrainz (or other Brainz) editor.
It does not exclude but if effort is given to an app, that effort is not given to the website. 
Indeed, quite a few things require quite a bit more work than an app could allow. Though, crowd-sourced validation (but not accepting) could work for things like cover art and relationship edits (“Does this IMDB link look correct to you?”, “Is this cover art correct?”) - not so that every contributor gets a vote but that there’s an extra row that says something like “Large majority (99%) agree this is the correct cover art”.
The AcousticBrainz idea sounds nice.
I’m thinking that suggestions are planned feature of ListenBrainz - in theory a contribution app could be a nice method of providing feedback about suggested releases.
Only if you assume that this is a zero sum game. Our GSoC student working on an Android app now would not have otherwise been working on the website—their mentor is not an MBS contributor, but someone we found from the community with Android app development skills who could help them. Any work going into that Android app does not detract from any work going into MBS. If they stopped working on the Android app, there wouldn’t suddenly be more developer resources for MBS.
Contributors contribute what and how they feel like contributing. If someone wants to write a “BrainzComplete” app, that’d be wonderful! No one here has suggested the current MetaBrainz staff should be involved with this, we’re only discussing how’s and if’s and why’s—someone will have to pick up the mantle from this discussion if it ever is to see the light of day. (See also: VideoBrainz discussion.)