Hi everyone!
I wanted to let you know that during the week of 17 January, 2022 (so, this week) we are running a documentation sprint (or “DocSprint”) for MetaBrainz projects. That means that we’re trying to dedicate the week to documenting as much undocumented or badly documented stuff as possible, from “what do we do if our CEO is hit by a bus?” to “what are the different entities in BookBrainz for?”.
There’s a list of things we’re already planning to document on a Google Doc. If you know of other things that should be documented, but aren’t, please add them to the document as suggestions so that we can look into them (you should have the right to suggest changes), or just comment here.
This doesn’t only apply to MusicBrainz, but to all different projects and to the organization itself 
So feel free to offer whatever crosses your mind!
4 Likes
See title. Have you invented time travel? Or should that be DocSprint 2022?
4 Likes
Thanks! The documentation for the documentation sprint has now been corrected! 
6 Likes
LB should have a guide for getting MBIDs and cover art linked to a listen, since it might not seem as intuitive to people who have never used MB.
BB and MB should have “what is the right Unicode character” pages with links to relevant discussions.
There should be more mentions of the MB search page having barcode and catalog number options, since they are out of the way.
4 Likes
Lovely!! Added a couple of things that may or may not fit the brief, accept or decline at your leisure 
last I checked, there’s nothing in the MusicBrainz documentation about work types, like Incidental Music and such. the only place I’ve found those descriptions is on the Create New Work pages. frankly, what we’ve got hasn’t helped me figure out if parts of a soundtrack are incidental or not… Wikipedia isn’t much help either tho… 
I also second Video Game style that @aerozol added to the doc (or so I assume) 
edit: ooh, maybe a guideline for livestreamed events~ both events and recordings would likely be needed, at least for those that are available after the fact. I also propose standardizing on a timezone, at least for [Worldwide] events.
1 Like
Editors amass so much lore about record labels, streaming services, digital music shops, and useful websites. This valuable information needs a home.
Discogs, Allmusic, Bandcamp, Spotify, HDtracks, 7digital, Musik Sammler, Beatport, and so many other sites and services should have wiki pages. Do you know the trick for getting high-quality cover art from Allmusic? Do you know how to find barcodes on Bandcamp? Do you know when to trust an Amazon release date? If you’re searching for the best cover image available for a CD release, which sites should they check first? Second? Third? Every whitelisted site should have wiki documentation that explains what it is and how to make good use of it.
There should also be wiki pages for documenting best practices for importing releases using third-party tools. Even if a tool isn’t officially supported by MetaBrainz, we can still document it in the wiki. What’s the most efficient way right now to import a digital media release? How can I find the catalogue number for a digital release? How do I know if data from Discogs is accurate?
A wiki page about a particular record label could document things like known catalogue number formats, resources for finding relevant data, best practices, and a to-do list of known errors and missing data.
A wiki page about Audible could say that Audible audiobooks always get a separate release because Audible adds idents to the recording (such as “This is Audible” at the beginning of US and UK releases). It could also recommend that editors set Audible as the distributor. I submit a lot of audiobooks, and I’ve noticed that I’m the only person who’s ever added Audible as the distributor of a release. If that’s the best practice, it should be in the wiki. If not, then the wiki should explain why. kellnerd recently showed me how to get high-quality cover art for Audible releases. That should be in a wiki page about Audible! 
7 Likes
I agree with a lot of these suggestions, but that’s a thing that users who use the sites are much better at than us in the team For example, I don’t use Audible and would not know where to even start with such a page!
Maybe start a thread for this, create some basic stub pages and do a call for help filling them in?
6 Likes