Development/Summer of Code/2017/ListenBrainz

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ListenBrainz is one of the newest MetaBrainz projects. Read more information on its homepage.

Getting started

(see also: Getting started with GSoC)

If you want to work on ListenBrainz you should show that you are able to set up the server software and understand how some of the infrastructure works. Here are some things that we might ask you about

  • Show that you understand the goals that ListenBrainz wants to achieve, which are written on its homepage
  • Install the server on your computer or use the Vagrant setup scripts to build a virtual machine
  • Create an oauth application on the MusicBrainz website and add the configuration information to your ListenBrainz server. Use this to log in to your server with your MusicBrainz details
  • Use the import script that is part of the ListenBrainz server to load scrobbles from last.fm to your ListenBrainz server, or the main ListenBrainz server
  • Use your preferred programming language to write a submission tool that can send Listen data to ListenBrainz. You could make up some fake data for song names and artists. This data doesn't have to be real.
  • Try and delete the ListenBrainz database on your local server to remove the fake data that you added.
  • Look at the list of tickets that we have open for ListenBrainz and see if you understand what tasks the tickets involve
  • If you want to, see if you can contribute to fixing a ticket. Either add a comment to the ticket or ask in IRC for clarification if you don't understand what the ticket means

Ideas

Create charts/graphs for user behaviour

Proposed mentors:mayhem, alastairp
Languages/skills: Python, Flask, BiqQuery, InfluxDB, data science, graphing, visualization, data architecture

ListenBrainz is preparing to stream its listen data to Big Query where anyone can have access to it in real time. From this data that is stored in BigQuery we wish to have a student build a general charting/graphing system that allows future contributors to explore the data with BigQuery. Any user should be able to craft a query that can be turned into a graph/visualization on the ListenBrainz site, with minimal effort. If a user crafts an interesting query, they should be able to open a pull request and supply the details of the query in order for the LB team to add this graph to the site.

This project requires building the behind the scenes BigQuery access, caching, periodic updates and synchronization between the ListenBrainz server and the BigQuery data store.

A way to associate listens with MBIDs

Proposed mentors: ruaok, alastairp, gentlecat
Languages/skills: Python
Forum for discussion

Last.fm is broken because of the terrible way it handles metadata (artists with the same name are jumbled into a single page; at the same time, there are often multiple pages for the same artist/album/track due to spelling variations). ListenBrainz is smarter by taking advantage of MBIDs. But there needs to be some sort of interface for identifying listens as being for a particular track (or recording) MBID. This could allow the user to identify an album they listened to on Spotify as the same one they listen to in iTunes a few days later. Then they wouldn't remain separate artists or albums in the stats due to differences in metadata alone.