History:Advanced Relationships Free Text Qualifiers Proposal

The advanced relationship qualifiers proposal

IdeaChampion: Gecks

The problem

We currently index Release credits via AdvancedRelationships and within those, AdvancedRelationshipAttributes. The problem with this is that EVERY credit needs it's own indexed relationship, and were a user to attempt to add something that wasn't in the system, they'd either have to let it go through the usual ChecklistForStyleChanges, ignore it and only credit information they can enter, or credit it under something else.

Even if the process of adding new ARs was easier/faster, we'd still be left with the impossible task of indexing every possible musical credit, and even then we wouldn't be able to go to the level of detail featured on some liner notes (eg, "Ebow on 6 String Guitar Tuned to AFAFAF"), or indeed represent the intersting aliases some musicians give to their instruments (eg, "Icy Inverted Crosswinds Upon Four String Zamboni" = bass).

Besides, would we even want to be able to index this level of information? The great thing about ARs is that we can get a nice read-out of every time AristA has performed guitar on a track, but were we to index every different type of guitar credit they had, we'd end up with a fractured and ultimately useless list.

But there is another way...

Free-text qualifiers

I propose we allow the input of a text qualifier during the application of an AR to a track. These would be displayed on Release pages in brackets after the Artist pages, but as

Examples

• "Gibson SG" would be input using 'electric guitar' via the InstrumentRelationshipAttribute, but the model name ("Gibson Sg") could be shown in the free-text field.
• "Icy Inverted Crosswinds Upon Four String Zamboni" would be input using 'electric bass guitar' via the InstrumentRelationshipAttribute, but the alias ("Icy Inverted Crosswinds Upon Four String Zamboni") could be shown in the free-text field.
• "Engineer at Sun Studios" would be input using EngineerRelationshipType, but the fact that s/he was the engineer at Sun Studios could be shown in the free-text field (just "Sun Studios" should suffice).

This should NOT be used to show what tracks a credit appears on. Adding ARs to specific track ranges is something that, at the time of writing, cannot be done. It should be made clear that the free-text qualifiers are not for this purpose.

Where's the line between new AR and text qualifier of existing AR?

Good question! I think this is best decided by working out whether or not it would be useful to index a particular credit seperate. Eg, if "Siberian Hamster Gong" only features on one known release, then there's no use in having the database understand it as a unique credit. On the other hand, even if a credit is common (eg "Gibson SG"), it might not neccesarily be seen as worth indexing as a seperate entity to the existing meta-AR (in this case the electric Guitar attribute of InstrumentRelationshipAttribute).

In time it might be decided that credit X is worth being a unique AR, and those credits which have been input as free text qualifiers of another AR could be scripted to the new one (where possible - obviously difficult as the same role might not have been input in the same way across different releases). This also applies vice versa - AR Y might be later seen to be not worth a seperate AR, so it could be scripted to a free-text qualifier of an existing AR.

searchable split ARs on artist page meta-ARs transition AR to free/vice discogs

The transition

Should this proposal be made live, I would suggest keeping the ARs as we have them, and allow free text qualifiers for all. Perhaps some of the more abstract/rare ARs could be switched to a free-text qualifier further down the line.