# Relationships across merge

**URL:** <https://community.metabrainz.org/t/relationships-across-merge/397260>\
**Category:** MusicBrainz\
**Tags:** merging\
**Created:** [September 9, 2018, 9:02am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/relationships-across-merge/397260 "2018-09-09T09:02:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![highstrung](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/highstrung/32/15259_2.png) [@highstrung](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/highstrung)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2018, 1:06am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/relationships-across-merge/397260/7 "2018-09-10T01:06:28Z")

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I just remembered there’s a [test server](https://test.musicbrainz.org) for just this kind of thing.

**Annotations** are combined, as reosarevok thought. The annotation from the target release comes first, followed by a horizontal line and then the source annotation.

**Artist credits** that are identical except for one having a date and the other no date, are merged into a single credit that includes the date.

Artist credits that differ by instrument “credited as” are _not_ merged. So if one release had “guitar: Jimi Hendrix” and the other had “guitar [lead guitar]: Jimi Hendrix”, both will appear as separate relationships on the merged recording.

Artist credits _are_ merged when one has the artist “credited as” specified and one does not. So credits for “guitar: Jimi Hendrix” and “guitar: James “Jimi” Hendrix” would result in a single credit with the as-credited name. If both source and target have ‘credited as’, the as-credited name from the target is used.

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_[View the full topic](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/relationships-across-merge/397260)._