The wiki page says pseudo-releases exist as a alternate tracklist. Providing a pseudo-release would allow people to tag releases that is the entire work in a single file.
Eagerly waiting for that
Something that works for audiobooks doesn’t work for Audio dramas and podcasts?
It’s not a book though, the voice actors are who turn the written text into something we can enjoy.
It is now quite clear this hadn’t been discussed properly previously and maybe we should get this sorted out properly right now before we dig ourselves deeper into crutch of a solutions that really don’t correspond to what the database schema should correspond to.
And I thought maybe I could get to uploading podcasts
Yes, I agree it needs to be discussed. This is why I am here and talking
It is also why I tried to point you to the previous examples when starting on this as I am also a big audio drama fan.
The Good Omens example above is a very good example. Please stop assuming I am talking about books - I really am not. I do genuinely know the difference. Both Adams and Pratchett have huge outputs of both books and plays. BBC Drama has a huge audio only output.
Yes, I agree that works need to be used more. But remember that this database started from data from CDs and expanded. So at the core you have to also remember those users. Otherwise there would be no data.
If you look at the Douglas Adams examples some of the complexity starts to show up. A book is written once. Then gets read out loud a couple of different times. Then a play gets created of it. Which is then released more than once. And as it is released it is chopped up in different ways in different areas…
Yes, I work more at a track and recordings because I also started into MB from the CDs.
And lets please not get distracted by podcasts as that is also totally different.
At the store you will find the Terry Pratchett audio dramas all listed under P for Pratchett. They are not scattered around the store under the performers. Whatever system is created needs to honour the current system too.
Well, they’re works that might not have a writer, that are similar to an Audio drama because of the amount of people and acting, I’d say they’re similar.
Podcasts tend to be non-fiction - i am splitting this distraction into a separate thread… keep the podcast ideas separate please as they are a very different idea. They also have clear style guides already… see broadcast
It is true, I’m thinking maybe we need Audio drama category releases to return data to taggers a different way? Then we could enter data correctly - all the right Works, Releases, Release-groups and Series (and subseries).
Any time you run forward you have to consider the current users.
We’d all love everything to fit into a perfect database, but trouble is the world doesn’t always fit.
The database is access remotely by many people through the api and other tools. Many of them won’t even know we created an Audio Drama type yet as that is so new. So expecting them to all change how they ask for the Artist is a bit of an extreme wish.
The Release Artist has always been that Author. This does not stop the work being created and then the Writer correctly credited at a Works level too. But is is not more constructive to start with what we have here already and morph from there?
The Audio Book does “Author narrated by Person”. Changing Audio Drama to “Author performed by actors” brings in both standards at the same time.
I have to go out, but I have many examples in the Douglas Adams side where you see the same recordings remade and chopped up in different ways. Works get tricky as some recordings may be split into dozens of parts on one Release, but a single part of on other releases.
There are many headaches to address to make this consistent. But throwing out everything and starting again is not really a good option.
So what we need is an extra artists field to “Audio Drama” releases named “Performers”? If I opened an issue about this would you be a proponent?
That is why I’m suggesting the exiting API should lie by default to not kill any taggers.
Sometimes it’s the only way :/ but I hope this is not true. Right now your suggestion to me is kind-of like this, made those initial releases and stuff and it seemed fine (to other people) and now I’d have to create so many edits to remedy this - it’s just annoying to everyone who would have to review them because most of them would end up in review queue.
The “Artist” field is describing a credit, not who’s actually performing (or otherwise involved) with the recording or release—even though that is who is far most often credited.
So you think too that people performing should be placed into relationships and the writer credited only?
Maybe there’s a better solution here than continuing the crutch (for taggers) and hiding big of part who actually make an Audio Drama enjoyable? The API responder most certainly already does transformations on the data, it wouldn’t be too hard to make it first check if the release has an author, return that as an artist, if not then return the Artists.
Not sure how that will work. If a function call has been returning the Artist of “Good Omens” for the last decade as the Author of the book, how will it know to start “lying”?
This ^^. That is how I have understood it from the guidelines.
No “tagger” would create a pseudo release as they have something to “tag”. But please don’t turn this into some attack on taggers. Lets us stay focused. I am pointing to the API that is used by many different people to look up data here. And Audio Dramas have always previously returned the Author as shown on the cover. As shown in the store it was sold from.
Lets please drop the “tagger” word from the discussion as it is not about them. It is about the data already here at MB for the past decade and more.
I want to work with you and others at finding a happy solution.
Even with your Virtual Releases as you have added them the shop is crediting the Author.
Release is a CD, A LP, A Cassette, An actual thing. And people refer to that thing in certain ways.
When the BBC lookup the barcode of a Dr Who release it should be returning the same data it has returned for the past decade that would have the Artist set in the same way it always has been.
It is at Recordings and Works level the Performers come in. As @Freso is also confirming.
Just thought of an even better example. Shakespeare and his plays. When his play is performed as an Audio Drama on the Radio it is the writer who is credited as the main Artist. And the actors are the performers.
This is like the Terry Pratchett \ Double Adams examples I gave earlier.
The Doctor Who series is an interesting one as it has many writers that change over the different series. Though each series tends to have core writers. And these are very important to the fans.
If something is to be designed to update the style guide it must cover the many differing examples we already have in the database.
I am pointing to the API that is used by many different people to look up data here. And Audio Dramas have always previously returned the Author as shown on the cover. As shown in the store it was sold from.