I have always been under the impression that the release group-URL “discography entry” relationship is reserved for links to the artist’s or the label’s official discography, meaning that the URL linked must belong to either the artist or the label.
I am discussing with another editor who has added fandom.com pages to RGs using that relationship (Edit #137927162). Can someone clarify if that’s the case?
The official word is missing from discography entry definition indeed, but all examples are official and there is the alternative fan page relationship, for non official links.
This has been my understanding too.
For now, I will start using fanpage relationship type.
However, I don’t think we should make any assumptions unless/before the official wiki page clearly states the “official website” in the official definition. Let’s respect the community’s official definitions and try not to add on our own assumptions based on experiences and “common sense/practices” as much as possible.
To me, the relationship type - whether it’s a discography page type, or a fanpage type, doesn’t make a big impact at all. Especially in the cases where there is no “official discography webpage” ever available for that particular release group, I don’t think it is a hard-no action to put the unofficial discography webpage into “discography page” category.
I am in favor of rewording the definition in the documentation to include “official website”:
“This link points to a page for a
particularrelease group within a discography that is maintained by its artist or label.”
Pinging @reosarevok
For me, the term “fan page” always implied a page which presents and reviews (or even worships) the discography of an artist.
A discography page on the other hand is more about the facts and background information, regardless of whether it is an official or fan-created one. In my experience, the official discography pages are most often less useful than the fan-curated ones even.
But maybe I’m wrong and such unofficial discography pages should rather be requested to be allowed as other databases?
“fan page” also does not exist for releases 
So it’s not currently a workable alternative.
The RG level version of this does specify a bit more about “a sub-section of the main artist/label site”, which is of course the most likely kind of discography page / entry.
That said, I would personally not have a problem using this relationship for something like “artistnamediscography.com” which is maintained by fans. Something like http://www.thecurerecords.com/record.aspx?id=3167 seems sensible to use as discography entry, and adding an other databases whitelist option (which involves code changes) for a page for just one artist seems over the top.
There are many non-official websites that hold far superior discographies. That Cure site is a good example. Also KLF have some good unofficial ones. Especially as they had disappeared for so long there was nothing official around for them.
Last month I was working on some Lee Perry edits and this was invaluable: https://www.roots-archives.com It covers bootlegs and unofficial release as well as official ones.
One of my heaviest used is a Pink Floyd one: The Pink Floyd Discographies Page He goes way beyond what any Sony official page does. I use his Discography links on Release pages. His details matches MB levels of releases by year and country. Whereas Sony’s official site just want to sell you the latest thing.
The trouble is that many “official” band pages are invested in the current day. And it is the fans who are interested in the details of the past. True not all fan database are accurate, but as we all know from our addictions here we spend time checking details.
It is not a judgement of value, I don’t think official pages have better content.
It’s just interesting to know if it’s official or not.
I don’t see the point in having two relationships if we can use either one, upon feeling.
If it was not created to distinguish official vs unofficial (fan), then I don’t know what for.
If we don’t care, we can merge these two relationships into one.
That is easy to spot by clicking on it. You can tell by some of the editors here. The fan made sites often tend to get to a much geekier level than something made by a label. Collector vs Salesman… I know who I trust more 
If it’s enough, we could label all instruments as instrument, and by clicking on it you would see if it’s a guitar or a drumset.
For instruments, it’s very important to have this level of precision.
But for discography pages, if it’s not important to have this level of precision, then let’s have only one relationship suptype.
As we have 2 subtypes, official vs fan, we should use both accordingly.
@jesus2099 I can tell that you don’t use this type of link. 
As @reosarevok said, there is only one type to choose at Release level
I guess at Release Group level the more generic Label discographies work as they lack the details of the Release level ones that this thread drifted into.
I didn’t know there was a discography relationship at RG level, BTW. It may be a recent addition.
So, doesn’t it seem that fanpage should be merged with discography, at release and release group levels?
Until seeing this discussion, At Release Group level, I would have seen “Discography” as something that is part of a list with details on the release. And “Fan page” being a fan explaining the background to the album and details about the making of, instruments, singers, lyrics, etc. Different types of details. One a list, the other a description. Or at least that is how I have used them.
This is also why to me a “discography” sits better at the Release level, and “Fan Page” at the higher Release Group level. One points to an exact release version in time, the other describes what I am listening to.
I’ve been using review relationship for these. 
Maybe we do have too many relationship types. 
Haha - it is just there is always a grey area. To me, a Review is what someone thinks about an album. Something opinion \ critical. Which is slightly different to a Fan explaining the background \ how its made of an album.
In some ways it is not important if things are in the exact correct box, but if I will learn something new by reading that link I will thank you for adding it.
Yes, we can all keep on doing as we are used to.
At least we should stay consistent
Let’s focus on release groups, not releases, since that’s what the discussion is originally about. The discussion so far has raised different ways to distinguish discography pages from fan pages, but again, the official documentation lacks these descriptors. And it’s the lack of documentation that has led to inconsistencies in editing, which we should fix.
These are things we need to clarify in the documentation:
As @reosarevok said, the discography entry relationship alludes to “cases where the site is not just a sub-section of the main artist/label site”, which implies but doesn’t clearly say that the relationship requires an official URL. The fan page is clear that the URL must not be official.
This discussion that was brought up is entirely different from the definition of official vs fan-made above. Neither documentation pages have specified this distinction. Whether a page is detailed enough to be considered a “fan page” or a fan-made “discography page” is very subjective. This definition of fan pages and discography entries also assumes without good reason that official pages will never provide the same level of detail as pages made by fans.
The reason these two relationships are confused, is because the discography entry relationship is mainly defined by the content of the URL, while the fan page relationship is defined by the creator of the URL. Since these are different aspects to the definition, the difference between the relationship seems trivial. As @jesus2099 said, there doesn’t seem to be a need for two relationships.
IvanDobsky’s suggestion is a good one, but why single out fan pages when official pages can also sometimes give this sort of detail? Such official pages are neither discography entries (because they have more detail than a discography entry) nor fan pages (because they’re not fan-made) - there’s no place for these URLs in MB.
For what it’s worth, my understanding of the “fan page” relationship at the RG level is the fan equivalent of “official homepage”, not “discography entry”. I’d use that for a page dedicated specifically to that RG and that RG alone.
