“The idea is basically that unless the artist somehow “represents” the smaller area and is always associated with it, it should use the country.”
It might help editors to be directed something like, “Unless you have a high level of knowledge around an Artist’s Area then use the country”.
If a editor has a one point sample that shows the Artist’s Area then the temptation is to be overly specific in selecting Area.
As i answered to you, i changed from town to country because of:
Though i agree guidelines are rather unclear… And i see more issues with current artist’s areas:
For related edits, feel free to revert, i have no problem with more specific areas, but i was just trying to stick to current guidelines…
I do know this band…
To be honest, if you don’t, and are unsure, I don’t really see any justification for this edit.
As you said, I usually don’t set ‘started in’ because that is often outside my knowledge - where a band is associated with/the area it’s active in is usually on the table (they really are two different data points).
If it’s always meant to be country, I really would prefer if we just hardcoded it, and then I don’t have to waste my time.
You miss my point here: nothing shows they are specifically tied to Dunedin, they were formed there, hence my edit, but how can one knows if they are “most commonly associated” to Dunedin ?
As explained, it makes sense for an orchestra (<city> symphonic orchestra), but for pop/rock bands it isn’t usually the case in the database.
I don’t see why this specific band is more linked to Dunedin than Elvis Presley to Memphis, or Prince to Minneapolis (though both are very commonly associated with those towns, both have main area currently set to United States).
You do well questioning the guidelines, but please don’t blame any editor on this kind of edits, they are perfectly in line with current guidelines and usage.
If you change the main area back to a specific town, just add an annotation to explain why it is most commonly associated with this location, at least until we have clearer guidelines.
Because I added the information to MB. If you are unsure, leave a comment - or leave it.
I don’t blindly remove all information that doesn’t have an annotation backing it up, and I don’t think anyone else should either. I’m sure we can agree that editors carry some degree of responsibility for their edits.
But regardless, I would appreciate it if you didn’t change more specific area information to country information as a matter of course.
Edit: I know everyone is editing with the best intentions and I don’t blame anyone for that!
I agree. One area each for main-, start- and end- area is often not enough.
An artist may have been born in one place, raised and started their career in a second place, moved to a third place where they got famous and which they represented for the most part of their body of work and then they got rich and bought mansions all over the world and never stay at one place for longer anymore.
So I think there should be:
*Noreaga/N.O.R.E. was born in LeFrak, Queens then moved to Queensbridge and represented both areas about equally in his music.
More areas to be set are especially important the smaller some specific areas are. I’m sticking to the example of Queensbridge. It’s categorized in MB as a “District”, but in fact it’s just a housing project. It is famous for being a place where tons of rappers come from and what they all have in common is that they can’t get enough of mentioning QB in their music.
The problem is: I’m pretty sure most QB rappers were born in a hospital, so “start area: Queensbridge” is almost only applicable for groups and those who got famous surely all moved out and toured the world so there is an argument that with the current guidelines their main area should be USA.
E.g. Nas who is famously coming out of Queensbridge was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and now lives in some rich neighborhood with other celebrities. I changed his main area to Queensbridge, because it would be very wrong not to link him to that place at all, but now it looks like he never made it out the hood.
I think that will always be a point of contention if it is left to the editors. Also it may change with the history of a group.
I would prefer a more automated way based on events from group original members birthplace (example: for all the same city, district, land, continent), releases (where are they released first in majority), touring dates from concerts.
The problems I see with this are missing historical data, or bands where group members change constantly and that for “bigger” names of the music business which sell/play worldwide it will not be meaningfulness. Maybe it could help to concentrate on the starting. Mostly groups keep connected to there starting area anyway.
I don’t think this would work. A group can consist of members who were all born in Brooklyn, record their albums in a studio in Manhattan and tour all over the world but still be most commonly associated with Queens.
So the logical algorithm should set the group to New York, the next common level…
Maybe the better solution is to keep boths separate? Auto generated information fields and some editable fields (with a polling count like on tags).
Another thing: Sometimes it is the question of how much this information is based on truth or image.
Or another example: classical composers which often have periodical times where they stay at an area (like George Frideric Handel or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Which area to choose? Earliest, latest, longest, most puplic?
Or David Bowies and Iggy Pops Berlin periode. I would like to be able to see such information too. So a history for area (own index tab?) would be fine.
I’m resurrecting this thread ([STYLE-855] Clarify Artist-Area and Label-Area field instructions: specific, or country, both OK? and its twin), due to an edit reversal I made.
I’d rather avoid an editing war, so I will leave the decision to others.
What I wish to emphasize, as I did in my edit note, Berlin has a very special place on the European cultural map and for many years has functioned as a haven for multinational artists, especially operating in the experimental areas.
I believe this is exactly one of these cases and this NYC artist chose to move specifically to Berlin for the above reasons, not just any German city.
The area field has nothing to do with WHY the artist is living there, and everything to do with their current operating country (or most associated country if they’re deceased/disbanded).
Here are some other edits that got approved:
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/72945872
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/72175756
Ultimately, I think this is going to be the way forward: https://tickets.metabrainz.org/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/MBS-9155
Well, maybe it should? 
I provided meaningful arguments that some artist do associate themselves with specific places. I have added hundreds of artists with location data as specific as possible. Data that is readily available, often by the most reliable source - the artists themselves. Actively choosing to generalize this is simply lost data imo.
I agree with Skeebadoo. Artists are based in a town and often get proudly associated to that town. These examples are not working all over that country, but in one location. I often set the town for an artist. This also means that the country can still be derived from it.
What concerns me about removal of accurate information is that the is no place this will stop. Germany will next be replaced by Europe.
This is a database about accurate data. I don’t see the logic at blurring that data to make it more vague.
Deleting these details means you can’t now find “bands from Berlin”. Surely this is why the Area field allows details and not just a plain list of countries?
That’s true, like the Beatles from Liverpool, Pulp from Sheffield, etc.
But isn’t this more the starting place?
I think you pick a good example there. They are termed as being “The Liverpool Sound”. Similar with Pulp from Sheffield. They were very separate to anything coming out of London.
Also the whole Madchester music scene of the 1990s. The fact these were Manchester bands is VERY important to the music style. Changing them to “United Kingdom” would not make any sense. They have zero connection to Scotland. It was about that small concentration of area where these bands were influenced an always made their music. Oasis is Manchester - not UK.
Maybe people from outside of the country do not understand the regions of a different country. But this should not mean destroying that data for those that do.
MusicBrainz is a brilliant database that can be combed for data with clever searches. We should not be loosing that richness of data knowledge. Countries can still be found when an area includes a town name. More detail is surely always king?
These areas are already set as the founding areas:
It’s not enough?
Not really because an artist could be born or founded in one area and move to a different location to create their music. Just like in @Skeebadoo’s example of someone moving to Berlin for inspiration. Music is not always about a place of birth. But music can very much be about location it is created in.
Note “created” and not “perfomed”. This is not about where someone does concerts, but about where their ideas come from when walking the streets of their home.
The main thing that puzzles me is why remove data? Why remove details? A country is still there in a place name, but the town means much more to the people who live in that country.
The biggest issue I have is not even for stylistic purposes. The issue is, json results for artist page will NOT show country when a city is used as the area. Unless the city has an ISO-3166-2 code (which very few do, as they are for state/subdivision). For example, Mobb Deep only shows Queensbridge, not United States or US-NY: https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/artist/d75d1f08-bbb8-4eae-9877-399ca9121197?inc=aliases&fmt=json
Louis Armstrong area is set to a state, so US-LA is shown:
https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/artist/eea8a864-fcda-4602-9569-38ab446decd6?inc=aliases&fmt=json
This is my reasoning for sweeping changes to area. Admittedly, Berlin has an ISO code, so I’m not sure why it wasn’t showing on MB json.
Applications that use MB data, such as Plex, use the json form for all their data. So when the json doesn’t display a country, Plex will not be aware of the country.
IMO we should not downgrade data to fit structural limitations that can be changed later. I believe this is already the MB stance for some similar situations.