I can’t create a new writer (i.e. artist) while creating a new work.
On the work page, I click “add relationship”, select “artist” & “writer”. When I search and the writer is not found, I don’t see “Add a new artist” at the bottom of the search field.
I can add a writer to an already established work. If I add the work without a writer and then go back to add the writer the “Add a new artist” selection shows up normally.
I’m fairly sure I’ve done this several times before. Is this a problem with the database (broken for everyone) or just my account?
When using musicbrainz it can be useful to open up multiple browser tabs to search for information.
Open up a new tab and do a search for the artist, if the artist tdoe not exist create a new artist.
You can paste a musicbrainz URL in to the relationship input boxes. So once you have found the correct artist copy the URL and this will link to the artist.
There can be a short delay between creating an artist and them being included in search so doing it this way ensures the correct artist is used every time.
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I think maybe I didn’t explain myself properly. I know how to add a new artist. My question is this: isn’t the “Add a new artist” selection supposed to appear in the list I described, and if not, why not? The search is already there, in the window I’m working on, and it makes sense that “Add a new artist” would be there as well, but that text item simply does not show up. Not having that option available at this point in the workflow doesn’t make sense.
I am also wondering if this was a problem related to the database/hosting/etc issue that happened yesterday, or if it’s always been like this. Could you (or someone) check to see if this is happening to you as well?
- Pick a recording of a song that doesn’t have a work attached to it (and where the work doesn’t exist yet). Click “Edit”.
- Add relationship: “Work/recording of”.
- Search for the work. Since it does not exist, at the bottom of the results, click “Add a new work”.
- In this window, add relationship: “Artist/writer”
- Search for the writer (if it exists, just type nonsense, we only want to see the results when the artist doesn’t exist).
- At this point, you will not see the line “Add a new artist” at the bottom of the results.
I believe this is an error or oversight within the site because you will see the text if you don’t use this particular workflow.
I think the issue is that you can only create one entity at a time on-the-fly.
What I mean is:
You’re officially editing the recording (this is the browser window)
Then you’re adding the relationship, fine and dandy.
The you’re adding a NEW work on-the-fly (ie from within the relationship editor)
At that point you’ve maxed out what the system is designed to handle. You don’t see the add new artist option because you’re already creating a new work.
You’re right that if you don’t use that work flow it solves the problem… But that’s how it’s supposed to be.
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Gotcha. Makes sense. Fortunately, I only have to do this a few times. 
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I think it could be useful to have a second level, to add stuff like this, or members for an artist you’re adding for a release, for example. But then we’d have cases where we’re adding a work to a recording, and a composer to the work, and a teacher to the composer, and a sibling to the teacher, and a group the sibling is member of, and… 
So there has to be a limit somewhere. It being that low can be annoying sometimes though 
But luckily we can always use new tabs for it.
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I was just concerned about a possible bug in the web site. Now that it’s been explained, I understand it’s a practical limitation. 
