Notes from #MetaBrainz Meeting 2017-04-24

Freso · April 26, 2017, 12:07pm

MetaBrainz Meeting 2017-04-24

Meeting start: IRC Logs for #metabrainz | MetaBrainz Chatlogs

Agenda

Reviews
Multi‐level Picard Work tags and classical music (PICARD-1043)
MineoBot

Reviews

Multi‐level Picard Work tags and classical music (PICARD-1043)

IRC Logs for #metabrainz | MetaBrainz Chatlogs

Sophist:

I have asked to have this discussion because I think we need to make a strategic decision on how Picard tags Works in order to stay compatible and comparable with other tools and prevent Picard falling behind.
The issue has been prompted by recently introduced iTunes support for Classical Music and multiple Work tags i.e. what iTunes calls Work and Movement and what I am calling Main Work and Track Work. However this is NOT about providing compatibility with iTunes because the iTunes functionality is only a partial solution at best, and its mapping to tags is so poorly conceived. Rather the iTunes functionality has prompted other tools like Jaikoz/SongKong and Muse to try to implement multi-level Work tagging and really this is something that I think should be native in Picard.
There has been extensive discussion about this in PICARD-1043, but other related tickets are: PICARD-1049, PICARD-1050, PICARD-1068, MBS-9304. There was also prior discussion also in How to explain Works. However before everyone rushes off to read these, I will try to sum up the issue as I see it:
As we all know, the MusicBrainz concept of “work” is quite generic i.e. includes a hierarchy of works and part works as well as stand-alone works.
Pop tracks generally have only a Track Work.
Classical music often has Track Works (i.e. a part of a Movement), Movements and a Main Work, though sometimes (e.g. in Operas) Movement might be split into e.g. Acts and Scenes and sometimes there is an Overarching Work (i.e. Wagner’s Ring Cycle, or Vivaldi’s Four Seasons).
Musical Theatre often has Track Works and a Main Work.
There are probably other uses that I am not aware of.
To complicate things a bit, MB Works can have unlimited levels of “work is part of work” relationships, and whilst we can navigate our way to the top level relationship, there are no semantic attributes to tell us whether it is the Main Work / Overarching Work (if indeed these are clear cut in all cases) nor what the intermediate levels might represent etc.
Picard has for some years used the Track Work as the entire “Work” which is both somewhat simplistic and also imprecise terminology. iTunes now supports in its UI both the Main Work and Movement but its mapping to tags is poorly thought through. Jaikoz/SongKong does something similar, and wants to extend this. Muso have submitted a work-parts plugin to provide support too. I believe that Picard needs to provide better support on this, and if we agree to move forward it will likely mean some MBS development as well as Picard.

It was agreed that this was a bit much to digest and discuss at the present meeting, so it was suggested that @Sophist writes up a document of some sort and allow people some time to digest it before bringing it up again at a future meeting.

MineoBot

IRC Logs for #metabrainz | MetaBrainz Chatlogs

@Rob created a VM to host MineoBot but didn’t know at the time that the bot requires a full replicated MusicBrainz database to work. @Rob suggested running the bot on the instance hosting the FreeDB gateway instead and asked if anyone was using the instance MineoBot was currently assigned to. As no one spoke up, @Rob said he’s save a snapshot of the instance and then remove it.

MetaBrainz Meeting 2017-04-24

Agenda

Reviews

@Gentlecat

Multi‐level Picard Work tags and classical music (PICARD-1043)

MineoBot