How to enter an audio drama into the database the best?

And I’m now objecting to it because I wasn’t told a week ago that Audio dramas have to follow the same guidelines as audiobooks (I literally asked in this thread and on IRC “Is this fine?”) and because it also really doesn’t make sense to credit audio dramas the same way as audiobooks.

take it or leave it it is up to you no one will force you to do it a set way they will just change it if it is wrong.:wink: you asked for options and we are giving it to you. it seams to me you are going to do it your way no matter what others say :slight_smile: so i wish you the best of luck with your furter edits. i have limited nolage on this subject so i gave you my thorts based on what i know and saw :slight_smile:

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I did it the default, classical way :P

Heh, that is part of why this discussion is going on, I have already made my edits because classical seemed to suit everyone, I absolutely could edit a few thousand releases to follow the audiobook scheme but due to previously mentioned reasons I’d really rather not and fix any future misunderstandings - make a style guide that picks either classical or audiobook scheme for audio dramas.

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As a cataloger I agree with this and think users of the encyclopedia would, more likely, arrive with that expectation.

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But what do the users expect? To see famous voice actors or famous writers? I think they’d even want to see both. I also think movies are just as close or closer to an audio drama than plays.

I guess I’ve been splitting the difference in the past: https://beta.musicbrainz.org/series/e2cd8e1a-c67f-42ab-ad48-b7a73a9d6ed5

I personally don’t think skipping the author on the release level is good practice/something we should change to.

As you know Avamander I’ve appreciated your additions and your hard work, but I would be wary of editing existing releases until you’ve found consensus. Almost everyone here has at some point had to change their preferred methods to suit the MB way (I know I’ve been mad about it in the past :stuck_out_tongue:), and it sucks, but it’s the only way to be able to create a unified database.

edit: A bit more to the point, following artist intent is a core tenet of MB - if the author is the main credit on the cover we would want to mirror that whenever possible.

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With Bernice Summerfield the CA sometimes only has the title :P, with many others it’s largely written “Starring {x}, {y}” and also “Written by {z}”. I’ve seen at least 90% of the cover art and voice actors pretty much always have their place on the audio dramas - even audiobooks.

I’d really rather have some kind of combined way to display both without mucking with “credited as” (because that’s hard for computers to understand - e.g. hard for media players to display nicely).

Doctor Who: Shada has been mentioned a few times as an example of the audiobook crediting type, that too actually credits more actors than the usual release: https://coverartarchive.org/release-group/4c83b9d6-5320-46c7-9a8a-a64b6b4b0405/front.jpg

I’m not sure what you mean in terms of my post sorry.

I do credit voice actors in my example, but I don’t think it’s in the spirit of MB to remove the author.

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I guess. But I’m suggested to only credit the author, which I disagree to. That applying the audiobook concept here to audio dramas is kind-of wrong and we could use some good guidelines about how to have a consistent way to credit people.

I’d suggest that Audio dramas should be credited just like audiobooks, but also add all the “Starring: {x}, {y}, {z}” and add the rest of the performers as relationship.

(Ideally there could be some UI changes to display the difference between cast and production credits but that’s a topic for another thread)

Avamander, I can understand a desire to have the voice actors as the Release Artists.
I see it as unfair that they could be hidden away on the Recording Relationships.
And that they therefore won’t be displayed by some audioplayers.
And that some proportion of newer users will have a more difficult job finding what they are looking for.
And some will not be happy with the tags they get.
And that the Release Artists will not reflect the frontcoverart.

Moderating my disappointment with such a situation is;
A belief that >80% of the benefit to most artists comes from being presented accurately and consistently in the database,
that consistency in the db is a real positive for users,
the strong presence/expectation-by-most-users of the misguided tradition of tieing performances of some types of works to the author/composer.

Could you present a bullet point summary of why your approach is is better?

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The author should absolutely be on the artist credit. Having the performers (at least the main ones printed on the cover) there as well seems reasonable, and also fits with the audiobook style, where both writer and performer(s) are credited.

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When editing always try and keep the two following principals.

  • Always try and copy the cover of the release, so if this only has the author and not the actors use this.
  • Don’t modify the database to match your style, overwrite it on your side.
    Picard is a flexible tagger and has plugins and scripting support.
    If you are creative you may be able to use scripting to achieve what you want.
    Otherwise you may be able to write a plugin that writes the tags just how you like.
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Thanks everyone. I guess I’ll add the writer as the first person credited even if it exists as a relationship.

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I’ve seen @PatriciaTegtmeier editing a couple German audio dramas.

Examples:


Artist credits include: Author(s) and audio drama adaptor with a German join phrase meaning “adapted from [a novel by]”

I find that approach quite sensible. Release (group) credits could look like this:

[Adaptor(s) adapted from] Author(s) [starring performer(s)]
or
Author(s) [adapted by Adaptor(s)] [starring performer(s)]

Actual join phrases from cover should be preferred.

Only question that remains, what about character names written on cover, include or not?

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The use of join phrases to signify some kind of relationship is quite horrible for machines to parse (also forces duplication, both a relationship and a credit, if people seeing the credits could have any idea who was actually credited), in addition to that it is error-prone for humans to enter. Practically there should probably be a slightly differing artist crediting field for audiobooks and audio dramas that would allow entering artists with proper relationship type. After that it should be up for people to get the relationships they want, be it with writers or without, with artists credited or with artists credited only on the cover, whatever, should be up to people and their software.

In general, machines should not be parsing the credits for information, other than who is credited on the release.

The relationships should have the facts, while the credits are just that: credits.

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Exactly, it shouldn’t be a thing. But current style guide makes it a thing which is horrible from data model standpoint.

Clearly people can’t even figure out what those should be like, there’s basically no proper consistency. Big Finish is literally the biggest and most consistent set of audio drama data in MB right now. In addition to that, I am not going to try and guess how people interpret the style guide, write it down properly and then start objecting to any edits.

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Style guide has very little to do with the relationships. Machines should be reading the relationships, not the credits, to figure out who wrote, who performed, etc.

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