For Series we have Release group series and Release series.
The series Reclam Musik Edition is a Release group series.
The releases of this series are typically re-rereleases of former compilations.
It’s common practice to merge release groups if they are equal, even if the release title is different.
I think, it might be better to have “Reclam Musik Edition” as Release series but not as Release group series.
It’s not possible to change a Series from Release group to Release.
What to do?
Don’t merge such release groups?
Create a new Release series and delete the old one?
The only real option is to make a new Series. There is no convert option.
The example you describe is like one I made last week to link a number of Japanese re-releases together. Forever Young - MusicBrainz
I’ve “converted” a few series by copy \ paste. The bonus of having two monitors attached, but I tend to open a different web browser with the “source” series in it. When making the new series I can copy the various Release URLs between the windows.
Personally, I think the RG series is still valid, even if the name might look wonky. The Release Groups are still serialised, even if not all Releases within the RG is specifically released like they’re part of the series. I don’t see why we can’t have both.
Well, first, I’m not happy with two entity-types for series. We see that this design gives place for discussions (again) – anyway without a more detailed guidance.
IMHO it would be better to have just one entity-type (and the kind of relationship, Release group or Release, just as attribute). With this it would also be easier to change relationships for an album.
However, the DB schema is like it is.
It is also influence by the way we see release groups, i.e. what should be grouped together and what not. Also other ways of doing it might be possible (e.g. with support of new relationships for loose linking of release groups).
I’m not a friend of redundant information and just for this reason I don’t like to have it as Release group series and as Release series.
As you, @psychoadept, mentioned, later releases can break the integrity of a Release group series. This is maybe not nice at all, but maybe acceptable. [For me the original releases are typically more important.]
Since the Reclam Musik Edition series is already a group of re-releases (typically of best-of-compilations), I guess it’s the better way to have it just as release series. This re-releases have a very tight scope (own title, own cover, focused to Europe) and such a series should not bear on other, earlier (and also later) releases of the same album/compilation. In other words: With linked Release group series for “Reclam” I would not merge such a “All Time Best” release group with the original release group.
How would you handle a re-release of the re-release? Would you then add two (or more!) Releases in the same position of the series (if they can be positioned at all)?
That’s how we’ve done it in the past (for, say, CD and digital). I don’t feel either option is great, but it seems better to claim that each release is part of a series separately (even if it leads to a bit weird series displays) than to claim the RG is part of a series (if only a re-release is).
Some very different needs for the R or RG series. I have created both types in the past years, and can’t swap one for the other as the contents of the series would be different.
The above examples both from the OP and in my post can only be done as a R series. They are very specific selectively packaged releases sold only in a narrow market.
Whereas when I needed to bring together a series of RGs of Peter Gabriel gigs, that series had to be at the RG level to make sure other releases and versions were included.
Meanwhile - it should be noted that a Series is buggy anyway. It currently allows duplicates to be added to a series. The exact same Release can be listed twice.
@jesus2099 I have had duplicates in series with and without automatic numbering.
The example I posted above ( https://musicbrainz.org/series/6c71b282-5df6-40c5-9a60-81c09fa30d23 ) has two Dark Side of the Moon’s in there. And the series will soon look even more comical as it is due to merge with another series making a whole raft of duplicates for me to clear up.
Duplicates in a series are not only easy to add by mistake, but also seems to be well known about in five year old tickets. So it is not just me making errors.
@chaban made me aware of the tickets on this that are buried in the ticket system. Which is why I’ll leave this to those in the know.
I’ve just finished a merge on two series as that edit above shows. And it is even weirder in that example now. It is using an “automatic” search order. That claims to “Sorts the items in the series automatically by their number attributes, using a natural sort order.” And that ends up with a really odd list.
As I merged two series I knew I would have duplicates. But I would have assumed that they would have been in that same “automatic” order. But they aren’t. Very weird. When editing the series the list of parts is in a seemingly odd random order. Notice no real pattern as to the why of this ordering.
