Handling name of transgender artist

[jesus2099]

@outsidecontext

if we could set multiple artist credits on a release

Kind of like alternative tracklists:

MBS-4501

[Deleted_Editor_2077726]

I’d say that outsidecontext has made a good compromise here, until a better solution is available.

[justcheckingitout]

@briaguya

while imdb does list Elliot Page’s deadname on the juno cast page, it doesn’t feel like deadnaming

Wait. Not so fast.
Today Juno has the “credited as”.
That is not IMDb policy (unless they’ve seen the error of their policy and changed it again).
But considering that there is a Ellen Page profile that didn’t exist a week ago, it is now blank, and all Elliot Page credits display the “credited as”… I would be willing to bet that someone had a copy of Juno and added the missing Ellen Page credits. And then, through a series of merges, the “credited as” remained.

Even with the “credited as” appearing today, the page for Elliot Page does not appear in search results for Ellen Page.

.

But now, comparing that to MB -
True, MB and IMDb display “credited as” differently. IMDb appears as “Person 2 (credited as Person 1)”, whereas MB displays only “Person 1” with the link (and hover text) showing “Person 2”.
And, to me, that is fine. They are different places with different purposes. They shouldn’t have to do things the same. That is how MB handles name changes.
Think of it - someone changed their name. Artists do it all the time.

[briaguya]

@Syknro

Wouldn’t the best way to handle this is to change their name and gender to their new one, and have all new releases follow that name, while retaining the old name but in the “credited as” as field, also adding their old name as an alias?

my earlier reply touches on why that isn’t ideal. using “credited as” on a release hides all mention of the non “as credited” name on the release page

that feels like deadnaming, as it is directly referring to the artist by their deadname

@outsidecontext

It might not be totally perfect, but what do you all think of the following proposal? For all releases, that had been both available under the names Patricia Taxxon and Eric Taxxon:

1. Set all recording and release group credits to “Patricia Taxxon”
2. For existing releases keep their credits as they are
3. Add a new release with the opposite name.
4. For releases that get credited to “Patricia Taxxon” and have been available before set the release date to 2019-08-20 (that’s the end date of the “Eric Taxxon” alias).

i’m not a big fan of this for a few reasons, @outsidecontext already mentioned one

@outsidecontext

I’m myself not really happy with the idea of duplicating all the releases, as I don’t actually think the release changed or it was indeed re-released, rather we are correcting the metadata.

also, the date on the updated release would feel incorrect, as it’s not a date related to the release, but instead when the artist stopped using their deadname

my proposal

as a stopgap:

• Set all recording, release group, and release credits to “Patricia Taxxon”
• Leave the deadname alias on the artist page as is
• Add a note to the annotation about Patricia originally being credited by deadname

then:

• figure out a technical solution for using “credited as” without creating release pages that refer to artists by deadname alone (unless you hover)

benefits:

• no dupes
• keep searchability (aliases with end dates still work for search)
• no losing data, as it will be in the annotation (and edit history)

[TrollDecker]

Think of it - someone changed their name. Artists do it all the time.

Yes, but under completely different circumstances. A trans person’s name change isn’t some Ferry Corsten-esque whim, it’s a process of abandoning what they were expected and raised to be, against who they really were, and having to be referred to by their deadname is often seen as a denial of their true selves by others, and believe me, having to see my deadname on official documents and bank statements is pretty numbing, as is the biases and stereotypes that more often than not come with being perceived as male as a result of my deadname when communicating with others.

[briaguya]

@justcheckingitout

@briaguya

this discussion goes beyond musicbrainz though

Should it though?

yes, musicbrainz is a public site that anyone can browse. we should try to ensure data is presented in a respectful way

@justcheckingitout

The data we keep doesn’t need to be representative of how we speak to one another on the street. It needs to fill the purpose.

this isn’t data layer, it’s presentation layer

if “credited as” was displayed as it is on imdb, the fact that the deadname is a historical name would be obvious

…but that’s not

@justcheckingitout

how MB handles name changes.

so i proposed finding a technical solution that would allow for more respectful presentation of “credited as” data, and a stopgap solution of moving data from a structured field that is presented disrespectfully, to a freeform field that where the data can be respectfully presented

@justcheckingitout

Is that really something we’d approve of. Is that really the voting opinion we want - a bunch of non-active members who happen to have accounts and were rounded up solely because they shared a similar thought process.

that means someone on MB saw an issue that wasn’t getting enough attention, and now there’s a discussion happening about how to change that. seems reasonable to me.

also, using scare quotes around transition is disrespectful.

[aerozol]

That this hasn’t been picked up by staff yet is crazy. @Freso? @reosarevok? Just make a call/raise it to wherever it needs to be, a polarised community discussion like this is just plain harmful.

@justcheckingitout

Artist X may have a dozen name changes throughout their career, but anything before the “transition” needs blocked?
Seems silly.

That is a total mischaracterization of the situation, deadnaming is a very specific case that is pretty much unrelated to other artist “name changes”.

@justcheckingitout

It needs to fill the purpose.

What is the “purpose” in seeking out trans artists and making edits that could be harmful to them? Do you have a collection with a lot of trans artists that you are trying to tag?

[jonny7]

I want to comment on the two proposals made by @outsidecontext and @briaguya. I favour the former’s proposal with some caveats, but let me first explain what I don’t like about the latter.

Having a singular release with some kind of “credited as” solution, doesn’t reflect the current state of the release. Patricia Taxxon’s releases right now are solely credited to that name. Maybe a satisfactory technical solution for this specific case is possible, but this seems unnecessarily specific to me. It’s also not clear to me how this approach could be translated to physical releases then.

Onto the approach I favour. While I agree that having duplicate releases is a bit unfortunate, this seems like the only decent solution to me, if the old data is to be retained in the DB somehow. Technically no new release took place, but a lot of major things about the release changed (not only the credit but also purchase/download URL). I can see both sides here. Maybe to acknowledge the fuzziness of the situation, the new release could have the same release date as the original, just with all the data adjusted. I would certainly find it weird seeing all those releases of her’s showing up in the same year when browsing my music collection. This approach is also directly compatible with this situation happening for a physical release.
I share @briaguya’s concerns about deadnaming via the “credited as” field, though. Even if the “withdrawn” status for releases is introduced, it doesn’t feel quite right. So my question is, would it be possible to adjust the web interface, so that instead of just printing the direct credits, it does what IMDB does (X (credited as Y))? This might be a bit annoying visually on releases where, for example, the artist name and credit only deviate in capitalisation, but I think it would be worth it. Defaults like this matter a lot, since anyone who intends to build some application on MB, is going to look at how the project handles its own dataset first for inspiration.
The only thing I’m not sure about is if on the original release, the original download/buy URL should be kept. It is kind of deadnaming, though it was an important data point for the release, and more generally I’m not sure if dead links like that should be kept at all.

[draconx]

@jonny7

The only thing I’m not sure about is if on the original release, the original download/buy URL should be kept. It is kind of deadnaming, though it was an important data point for the release, and more generally I’m not sure if dead links like that should be kept at all.

When a URL relation is no longer valid, which would presumably be the case for the official websites for a “withdrawn” release, it should be marked as ended, with the relevant end date if known.

[briaguya]

@jonny7

would it be possible to adjust the web interface, so that instead of just printing the direct credits, it does what IMDB does (X (credited as Y))?

i think that is one possible way to address the technical solution part of my proposal

i also think that might make a bunch of other releases look really messy (Artist A (credited as artist.A) feat. Artist B (credited as b), Artist C (credited as C the Artist), and Artist D)

since the “credited as” field is plaintext and doesn’t link to aliases, there’s no way for the frontend to know when it’s appropriate to use the “credited as” name exclusively and when it’s not

i think a way to tie aliases to “credited as” would allow for flexibility in presentation.
for example, an alias could have a:

• “hidden” mode, where credits could appear as “Artist name [info]” where [info] links to the alias
• “credited as” mode, “Artist A (credited as B)”
• “replace” mode, where the alias is used exclusively.

all current “credited as” strings could become aliases in “replace” mode, as that is how those strings are currently presented. then, we just switch the deadname aliases to something other than “replace” mode and all those credits would be displayed respectfully

[bsammon]

@outsidecontext

I’m myself not really happy with the idea of duplicating all the releases, as I don’t actually think the release changed or it was indeed re-released, rather we are correcting the metadata.

Personally, I think of an artist re-labelling a bunch of digital releases with a new name as being pretty much the same as reissuing a CD/record with updated packaging containing a new name. Of course the obsessive collector who likes to collect a dozen or more different variations of the same release might feel differently.

@jonny7

So my question is, would it be possible to adjust the web interface, so that instead of just printing the direct credits, it does what IMDB does (X (credited as Y))?

Rather than wait to be sure of a consensus in this thread, I went ahead and created a ticket requesting functionality for this: https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/MBS-11741
I think (most?) everyone in this thread should be able to comment in that ticket.

[aerozol]

@bsammon

Personally, I think of an artist re-labelling a bunch of digital releases with a new name as being pretty much the same as reissuing a CD/record with updated packaging containing a new name.

A trans artist doesn’t necessarily relabel or reissue anything. Transitioning is often an public acknowledgement that they were always x person. Being ‘deadnamed’ can put a transitioned individual in danger from others, as well as trigger dysphoria, which is connected with tragically high suicide rates. The ‘lie’ is often considered to have been the dead name, which was one upon a time used to put society at ease/keep an individual safe/allow them to function in society.

The above doesn’t apply to every person who transitions, it is a generalisation of a possible experience. Also that is my laypersons knowledge of the issue, I am very happy to be corrected.

This difference between ‘relabeling’/changing an artist alias and the issue of deadnaming lies at the core of this discussion - otherwise I would agree and we totally would just apply the MB guidelines for re-issues.

[outsidecontext]

@justcheckingitout

The data we keep doesn’t need to be representative of how we speak to one another on the street. It needs to fill the purpose.

And I’d argue currently it doesn’t. If I look at https://patriciataxxon.bandcamp.com/ I see a lot of releases by Patricia Taxxon. If I’d like her music I might download it, all will appear as being credited to Patricia Taxxon. I might not even know her under any different name. Now I look this up on MB and I see that: Patricia Taxxon - MusicBrainz

This shows a totally different representation. It’s not just misrepresentation of the current situation, it is also bad and messy data. Above have been some suggestions on how we could deal with that, both within the current technical constraints and possible technical enhancements.

So, what is your proposal to fix the data? What do you think of the proposals so far?

[jesus2099]

@jonny7

the new release could have the same release date as the original, just with all the data adjusted. (…) This approach is also directly compatible with this situation happening for a physical release.

I don’t know if I got it right but no, the new physical release date cannot be the original date.
It must be set to the date when this new version was released in shops.

[outsidecontext]

@jesus2099

I don’t know if I got it right but no, the new physical release date cannot be the original date.
It must be set to the date when this new version was released in shops.

It is a bit tricky here, really, and not as clear as it might look first. Technically those releases have not been freshly “released in shops”. They had already been uploaded and released on the digital stores before. They kept their IDs, track lists, audio files etc. The only change was the “artist” tag being updated. The joy of digital only releases

I can see both arguments. The more I think about it the more I am convinced that we actually should have only a single release with the new name, and if it was released originally under a different name mention it in the annotations (until we get a better way to note that). But I’d personally be ok with the two release solution if the majority would find this the better representation. I find it more messy really.

[jonny7]

This proposal is only meant for this particular case with a digital release. Physical releases are different of course.

[briaguya]

@outsidecontext

@jesus2099

I don’t know if I got it right but no, the new physical release date cannot be the original date. It must be set to the date when this new version was released in shops.

It is a bit tricky here, really, and not as clear as it might look first. […] The joy of digital only releases

even in the case of a physical release that has deadnames in ink, we shouldn’t use the deadname in the “credited as” field. i know this goes against standard policy, but until MB can present those credits in a way that provides proper context and respects artists it’s deadnaming.

i don’t see the two release solution as providing a solution to that, there would still be pages showing out of context deadnames

as for digital releases that get updated, i think we’re running into the ship of theseus (edit: if only we had 4D releases)

[mmirG]

Catalogers having to do ethics as well as fitting analog realty into digital boxes - good to see.
I’m very much on the side of “Don’t harm people, a recorded music db is just not worth harming people over.”

Well I’m on that side or get back to it usually if I just walk away from the keyboard for a day or a few months.

[highstrung]

We currently have a work-artist relationship “previously attributed to”. What if we did something similar for digital releases? In this case that would mean a single release with Patricia Taxxon as the release artist, and a “previously credited to” relationship to “Patricia Taxxon credited as Eric Taxxon”.

[chaban]

@highstrung

We currently have a work-artist relationship “previously attributed to”. What if we did something similar for digital releases?

Unfortunately it’s not meant to be used that way and there are already problems with misuse:

STYLE-1867