I don’t see anyone suggesting to change how White Label tracks are named. They stay as they are. Untitled is untitled.
This is just one release that has been renamed in a digital reissue. Only this version of the release has gained some names. Not unusual for reissues.
What Discogs do is not really relevant to MB. They have many guidelines very different to MB.
The guidelines tell people to do this if the tracks get an title elsewhere. Special purpose track titles are not to be applied on a release basis. This is very clear right now and if the guidelines are to be updated, this would require a lot of work. And since I’m an active editor in this genre, that becomes my work. I don’t want to do that work. Do you or any editor in voting yes for this want to do that work?
Please read this previous reply again, it quotes the current guidelines about special purpose track titles being general, not on a release basis.
You can’t filter MBz database by genre effectively. The untitled guidelines are pretty similar.
3.2.4. If there is no track information, or other source of a title, or if other sources point to the release being untitled, use Untitled.
Pretty much identical to MBz except a different formatting for untitled, and it also covers [unknown] as [untitled].
You keep quoting guidelines about when something is “untitled”. This release has added titles to the Bandcamp reissue. So this specific version of this release on this media has track titles.
You seem to be getting confused and having a different argument about changing the track titles of different releases. I agree that an untitled release is an untitled release. If they were selling the vinyl then it would stay “[untitled]” as there are no titles on the product.
If someone added that vinyl to the database, it would take precedence on the naming as it was the original release and all the Recordings would change to [untitled]. But the Bandcamp digital media release would still retain its titles as listed. If anything, the quote you are repeatedly posting about “If the artist gives the track a name somewhere else” would contradict that and suggest not to use [untitled] at all on this release due to the Bandcamp titling.
I own Bandcamp releases where there are five tracks all called “untitled”. In this release they instead chose to type names based on the vinyl sides and how reviewers have talked about the tracks. That seems an intentional choice to me.
I see nothing here that would cause a change of any guideline or a need to re-edit anything else. Sorry if I am come over in any kind of confusing way. Maybe I am not helping the discussion as I seem to be talking in circles.
Using [untitled] if there’s no tracklistings on the actual release would require every single test press, promo release without tracklistings to have [untitled]. Same for releases that have titles elsewhere, such as on a website. To necessitate this, it would require changing the untitled tracklisting style.
Using numbered titles without specific intent verbatim on Bandcamp/other digital retailers would require both changing the artist intent guidelines and the untitled tracklisting.
These are both things you are arguing for, if I’m correct?
That is indeed the case. I’ve told you this multiple times. Special purpose track titles are not context specific. If this is “A1” on the Bandcamp release, it’s “A1” on the vinyl release with ideally an annotation telling you where the titles are sourced from. [untitled] means it has no title anywhere.
The issue is whether filling in a required field on a digital retailer with a vinyl number is enough artist intent to consider it a title.
The reviews you mention and that I’ve quoted mentions the positions, but they do not put them in quotes, like they do for regular track titles.
The B1 is a trippy, textural beat that’s funky enough to nod your head to.
No quotation marks anywhere, referring to the track as the B1.
How else to explain the incredible, 14-minute “Reviens la Nuit,” which builds to a delirious hi-NRG climax with the strength and speed of an endurance runner, staying captivating and dynamic throughout?
First other review I found on Resident Advisor, using quotations for an actual track title.
This review does not consider those to be track titles. They consider them positions to know what track they’re referring to. There is actually a field in MBz for track positions already, and that’s not the title field.
I agree these techno tracks are somehow untitled.
But.
These guidelines are there to make our editor life easier, when there is no printed titles. When something has to be made up by editors, because we cannot have empty title fields in MB.
Here we do have printed titles, even if they are fake in your opinion, we still have them available on the official release page (Bandcamp).
In our case, the thing that makes our life easier, as editors, as someone who wants to refer to a track for review, for rating, etc. is to use the fake titles provided by the official page.
When a guideline is making things worse in such a specific context, then I don’t think it should be blindly applied.
They are guidelines only, and editors, as humans, maybe should adapt to the best approach according to context?
Wouldn’t just recording disambiguations serve the same purpose, then? I’ve added those sometimes but I don’t really bother with it most of the time.
I’m considering the context, and the context here isn’t that different from other cases. In fact, it’s so common that I fear a new precedent will be set which would require me to edit a lot of releases. As an editor who edits this genre often (I made the original edit to change this to [untitled]), I’m not very excited about having to go back to the hundred of releases I added and looking for placeholder titles on digital issues.
That’s probably not a personal concern for anyone else who has voiced other opinions in this thread, who I don’t really recognize as editors often adding releases in this genre where this context is very common (as I’ve mentioned multiple times, common enough to have it’s own guideline). I could be mistaken, but I would probably assume the work changing all these releases won’t be made by the people I’m talking to in this thread. I’m not saying you can’t have an opinion without being an active editor, but please consider how much work you’re asking active editors in this genre to do with this precedent.
I had a look at discogs for this release, was interesting as you kept referencing them…
That 3 year old edit has stood unchallenged. Looks the same as is being done here. The vinyl is just “untitled” five times.
NO ONE is suggesting you go edit other releases. NO ONE is setting a precedent. Seven people are talking. That’s all. We all do huge amounts of edits in different obscure genres. (Between the editors in this thread there are over one million edits 
) I see editors above who I know all do a lot of work in different areas that always goes uncredited. So please don’t think anyone is telling you to go change anything. These aren’t just noobs playing with the rules.
As @jesus2099 says, a guideline is just that. A guideline and not a rule. I see no changes happening here.
No one is suggesting you have to go to every release you have edited and hunt out alternate titles. I see nothing in the guidelines that would suggest that. Just use the data you have to hand. The guideline just suggests if a more common title is in use, then it gets used. In this example that is not the case. We have a release that started out untitled, and later has had a re-issue with A1, A2, B1 titles. There is nothing setting a precedent here.
Can you please clarify this and leave a note on the edit saying that you think that this edit should not be taken as a precedent to edit other releases? It would be very helpful, since various edit discussions are linked as precedents by other users all the time, and it would be nice knowing that it didn’t apply this time so that nobody cites it in the future. Thank you very much.
That release has no votes on correctness on Discogs and is not to be trusted over their guidelines.
Of course if it’s acceptable for one release then it is acceptable for the others.
I think what Ivan meant is, don’t worry, you don’t have to fix all the releases in the world.
It will never be the case either way ([untitled] or officious title), there will always be any kinds of things to be fixed in thousand of releases.
You should be relaxed about it, we just fix what we come across (through collections, interest in a field, etc.).
(post was edited to remove off topic rantings)
Honestly, I would probably see this release as being [untitled] since it’s just a digital version of the vinyl and just entering A1 or whatever looks less weird than entering “untitled” by hand, which barely anyone ever does. I’ve seen plenty of 1, 2, 3 track titles in Bandcamp and I would never consider those intentional track titles, unless I know for a fact that’s how the artist calls them.
That’s the point. Weird.
Why going with weird track titles ([untitled]), on those releases where we have something less weird provided? 
Ok but enough weird stuff for me anyway, I don’t edit techno and am not interested in download albums. So it’s fair that I’m not concerned. I spent too much time on this, already.
Maybe just count the likes and see what approach seems most liked.
(post deleted by author)
Can we stop all of the back and forth personal rubbish from all sides. It is not needed. Please focus on edits not people doing the edits\voting\comments.
This thread is getting weird.
Yeah well this topic is more or less stalled without consensus.
No one was convinced either way…
Deleted my off-topic posts and it would be nice if everyone else followed suit by editing or deleting them so that no posts have to get flagged. Cheers.
This is being voted on again:
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/101055542
For context:
Understandably, people feel that his deciding vote is questionable.
I think these are technically [untitled], as MusicBrainz understands it.
e.g. if you told the musician you loved their song ‘B1’, they would just look at you funny.
On the other hand, with digital I’m a big fan of leaving things as the artist has set it. I think it’s useful for findability and identification to have an untitled recording and have ‘B1’ etc in the digital tracklist.
I would probably lean towards [untitled] for MB guidelines… or abstain, more likely! (voted to revert the sketchy edit though)
P.S. I would not expect someone adding stuff to Bandcamp to use MB terminology, to identify artist intent. We would have very few [untitled] digital tracks if that was the case!
P.P.S I was going to message one of the people involved in the project to see if they really did think ‘A1’ etc was the name of the song, but I don’t believe that’s really the point people here are making, so I’ve left it for now
I think they would be very much less puzzled if you told them you love Ghostride the Drift B1 rather than if you told them you love [untitled] or even Ghostride the Drift [untitled].
But I think you would agree that the song itself is probably not called ‘B1’?
I agree though that ‘B1 from X album’ is a useful way to identify an untitled track! And that it would be useful for MB to allow tracklists to display the more useful title.
