STYLE-1033: Guess case and "The" in artist names

MusicBrainz Style
Tags: #<Tag:0x00007f510d63aaf0>
#1

Hi!

This came up recently again as a bug report, so thought I’d finally ask about STYLE-1033. Currently our English guess case has a special-cased exception where it leaves “The” in artist names uppercased (because of stuff like “Artist and The Band”, I expect). There’s been at least two bug reports about “broken” guess case for artists, though, so this is clearly unexpected for at least some users. Should we remove this special-casing and have “the” be lowercased by guess case in artist names like elsewhere?

Keep in mind this is not any guideline change, the point is not “it was meant be uppercase before and we are thinking about changing it be lowercase now”. There’s probably multiple cases where “the” should be lowercase, and multiple where it should be uppercase. It’s just about what the Guess Case button does.

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#2
#3

I’d say “yeah, drop the capital T”. A lot of the time that “the” is only there to make it easier to say the band’s name and “the” isn’t even in that band name.

But it is okay, what ever you decide will be WRONG to someone so I’m getting my Flaming Pitchfork sharpened up.

You forgot to add your Poll to get your votes.

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#4

hmmm… maybe it’s right to lowercase “the” in artist names - since if it is a separate entity the artist should be split up anyway…

But as I wrote on the ticket, it varies. It’s Artist intent too.
Ivan: pls no pitchforks :​(

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#5

I was wondering if it was made on purpose or not, I would say lowercased as:

  • Different behavior for same function creates unecessary"complexity" for users and will always generate questions/debates about it
  • Difference could be accepted if it was totally respecting the guidelines, if it cannot better to have same behavior

By the way on same topic

  • Is it normal that the letters get always lowercased after a “Left double quotation mark”?
  • Is it made on purpose that short prepositions got capitalized if they are the last word of a title?

Thanks

#6

No and it bothers me as well.
I first Guess Case, then only then, change quotes. :wink:

Yes per Style/Language/English.

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#7

Can someone add a ticket about the quotes issue, if it doesn’t exist yet? :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#8

BTW @reosarevok, sorry for driving the point further off topic but maybe a priority would be first to fix discrepancy between Guess Case and Aa buttons.
It’s seems they surprisingly don’t user the same source code:

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#9

Hello,

Seems also to bug after a “(” when I use on this release https://musicbrainz.org/release/9d935ec0-4dc3-437e-b301-cc4dc589fdd4 the “c” from Cut the Trap always get in small

#10

Normal, it’s a key word, like edit, remix, version, mix, etc.
We cannot always guess if it is the key word meaning or part of the title.

It would may be nice if Guess Case would mark the fields it has modified, for review before submitting the edit.
Like the yellow background of some userscripts.

1 Like
#11

oh yes indeed, my mistake, should have better go to bed and wait morning to write my msg.’

+1 for the yello color applied on parts changed