I’m taking my first tentative steps to editing the MB database by practising on the test server. I figured that as I’m not yet fully confident with the concepts of recordings, works, releases and release groups, I’d start out on the test server first and add an entire album there first, just to make sure that I’m doing this all properly before I make any major edits to the main MB database. I’m intending to start with the first track from my Jamendo playlist, which I have already made my first minor edits to the artist on the main MB server.
However, when I searched for the the artist on the MB test server, I saw the name of the artist in the search result, but when clicking on it I came to a page saying…
Artist Not Found
Sorry, we could not find an artist with that MusicBrainz ID. You may wish to try and search for it instead.
I assume this error is coming up because the test server doesn’t contain a full copy of all data that is already in the main MB database. However, as there is already an entry for the artist on the test server, identified by the id 91a87b1e-b600-490d-8517-e6c77b393f5f, I presume I will be unable to add this again as a new artist, and there are no options for me to just edit the existing entry.
I was hoping to be able to just duplicate the few minor edits that I have already made on the main MB server, over on the test server, and continue from there with the rest of the edits I have planned, doing the rest first on the test server so that I can get a feel for the relationships between entities in MB. But how do I go about adding a new artist if one already exists but isn’t editable on the test server? Sorry, I’m a bit confused here.
One advantage of editing the live database is you’ll have plenty of people here to help you. Especially if you post for assistance in the forum. Yeah, there are a few grumpy people who will shout at you for mistakes. Ignore them as they are probably having a bad day. (Though do go read any guidelines they may point at)
We all need to learn somewhere. And I have learnt far more by cleaning up a mess I caused, than I did getting everything right first time.
Yeah, it is confusing the first time you start working on the database, but you’ll soon get in the swing of it.
As you are adding small volume releases you won’t upset anyone with mistakes. Yeah, if you waded into a big band name and started editing a release everyone else owned you’d here more complaints. Start in the small corners and you’ll be able to edit quietly in your own time.
(Oh and “Hi” from the other side of this small rock we all live on )
Thank you for that sagely advice Ivan. So I’m taking from it that I shouldn’t be too concerned about using the test server to practice in first then, huh? I’m not too keen on the idea of getting “shouted at” for my early attempts at good faith edits, and I was hoping to avoid that by sticking to the test server at first. However, I can see the logic in your comment above: as long as I’m not flailing around in the deep end and getting in the way where the strong swimmers are trying to do their laps, I should be fine. Thanks again for that.
My guess is that the search results on the test server are reflecting the live database, but the test server has older data. If I try to add an “Andrew Maze” artist on test, it doesn’t prompt me with the ‘artists by the same name’ warning that it would give in the main database. So I think you could create a new artist in test, but I don’t know if that would help what you are trying to learn. Alternately, pick some older (in database terms) artist to practice on.
You shouldn’t be too worried about getting shouted at. In my experience most editors here are kind to newbies and understand that there’s a learning curve.
From what I spotted in the welcome thread you are aiming to add smaller artists. So that is ideal for learning with. You can start with a few simple releases and then flesh out the data as you go along. When you are in a smaller artist \ label you are going to disrupt less people if you make a mistake.
Personally I started by uploading a few CDs through Picard. Just to get a basic release together. Got told off a few times for not following the style guide, but then started to understand that too.
I then found a few disks not in the database which also had missing artists. A small little Hip-Hop guy which meant I could fill him in slowly, artwork uploaded, relationships worked out. All having a little go each day until I had a complete entry.
I’m joking about being “shouted at” - just can be a bit confusing what someone means. (I remember a few arguments about using that special apostrophe… hehe, but then I was also having a bad day and I can be stubborn too.)
If you are unsure of anything just try it out, and when confused come in the forum and ask. There is often some kind of logic behind most things. There is always someone around who can walk you through.
Just don’t try and learn it all in one go.
I always thought the Test Server was for testing scripts and apps and stuff like there. I didn’t realise it was supposed to be a training ground. Seems like it would end up with a lot of wasted effort putting things on the server there first.
Well, that didn’t last long, haha. I’m too afraid to make any more edits to the main MB database now! I added my first Release from Jamendo to MB, following the directions on the YouTube video (here), but it ended up an unmitigated disaster! Somehow one of the track timings was copied throughout my entry as the Artist’s name, corrupting the Artist name for each track, corrupting the Artist name for the Release, and corrupting the Artist name for the Release Group!
After some subsequent edits and some advice from people on IRC, I am left with a string of corrective edits in my history that I really don’t want to see, and don’t want the world to see either! I’m contemplating just deleting all my edits from today and starting again, but this time on the Test Server first, as I was originally intending to do. However, I see that even cancelling my edits provides the option to leave an edit note, so I assume all those corrective edits are in there forever now, and no amount of deleting will ever remove them, is that right?
You’re right. Cancelled edits are not deleted; they are simply marked “cancelled”.
But you’re wrong too! You’re wrong to feel bad or self-conscious about it. We’ve all had things go awry. It happens. As long as the end result is that you’ve added good data, nobody should have anything to say about it except “welcome to MusicBrainz.”
As @Freso has to remind me once in a while, be bold!
Thank you for that Alex. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I was striving to get this right from the start. I was not expecting my history page to be filled up with all these corrections from fixing “mistakes” that I didn’t even make! It seems like there was some sort of parser error or something from when I was filling in the track list, and now I’m not confident that this won’t happen again every time I enter new data into the database. Could it be something to do with the browser that I’m using? Or is it a problem with the website and the parser script itself? Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t anything to do with any lack of care on my part. I took every effort to make sure my first major contribution was correct, yet it still went wrong.
We’ve all had things go awry.
Thanks for the way you worded this, and not just saying “We all make mistakes.” I’m sure this wasn’t a mistake on my part, when I was trying so hard to do this correctly.
Those are not mistakes - they are training steps. We all do it. It is how we learn the little oddities of the system. I’m also somewhere on that Asperger’s Spectrum so know how jarring it looks to have those stats looking “bad” like that. But really, it is not bad. It is training. How else will you show improvement?
Perfection needs to be learnt and polished - it is impossible to achieve in your first edit. And you would be an incredibly boring person if you never made mistakes.
)
I added my first Release from Jamendo to MB, following the directions on the YouTube video (
