History:Bad Terminology

Problems with Terminology used in MusicBrainz

• Some of the MusicBrainzTerminology is confusing for new users and should be changed.

There are a number of groups of related terminology that could be improved by changing them. In approximately decreasing order of acceptance, they are:

• Moderate / Moderation / Moderator / Automod
• "Link" for AdvancedRelationship
• CD Index ID
• Album / Release
• Karma (System)

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Moderate => Edit

• The most popular of the proposed changes; the first two points have largely been implemented on the Wiki

Tentative Summary

We try to say "edit" or "vote" instead of "moderate" were ever this is possible. It seems, however, that there are cases where you have to use the term "moderate". These are cases like "ModerationNote" or "moderator" which refer to something that has to do with both editing and voting. I thus propose to officially declare "moderate" to be good terminology if and only if it refers to both editing and voting.

Moderation -> Edit (noun)

People get confused by the terms moderator and moderate. They come from mailing lists, and moved onto slashdot type websites, where it still sort of made sense, but not really. By the time it moved here, they have simply become the wrong words.

On the current site "moderate" sometimes means to edit the data and sometimes means to vote on edits. At least the link to "Moderate" points the user to pages that mainly deal with voting (and as such are searches for edits).

Automoderation -> AutoApprovedEdit

Automoderation is usually abbreviated as AutoMod, which is ambiguous, and confusing if moderations are called edits (perhaps the short form AutoEdit could become common usage?). AutoApprovedEdit.

Moderator -> Editor

This change is parallel to the changes for Moderate and Moderation.

• While I agree that Edit is a good replacements for Moderate & Moderation, I don't like Editor as a general replacement for Moderator. After all, moderators both edit and vote. Why should they be called Editors rather than Voters? I think the term Editor should only apply to a Moderator who is making an edit (just as we refer to a Moderator who is voting as a Voter) and that we keep the term Moderator for general use. @alex

Automoderator -> AutoEditor

The term AutoModerator will probably last a while, as will its abbreviation as AutoMod.

Link -> Relationship

Please do not call AdvancedRelationships "Links". Don't say "Link type" or the like. Just say relationship.

There is even a (now fixed) Bug Report to remedy this on the main site.

CD Index ID => Disc ID

• A more recent proposal, this is non-controversial and already in wide use

CDID -> DiscID

I propose that we use DiscID in preference to CD Index ID (CDID). Someday it will be possible to generate DiscIDs for MusicDVDs, so we don't want to be tied to "CD"s. This would also avoid the use of a 4 letter acronym!

At present, I believe DiscID is used internally (certainly the EditTypes refer to DiscIDs), but CDID is often used elsewhere. --ZeroGravitas

• During the last release of the server, the references to CDID were replaced with DiscID on the edit pages --G0llum

Album => Release

• While popular, this is tightly coupled with various database change propsals like ReleaseGroups that haven't really been taken up

Album -> Release

This helps eliminate the confusion between "Album Albums" and "Compilation" or "Live" etc. "Albums", so that Albums and Singles become types of release - this is almost done in a branch of CVS, but not on the main site.

• Which CVS branch? I would guess it's a bit dated by now. @alex

A Release should eventually be able to contain multiple Discs (what are currently called Albums) in order to properly represent multi-disc releases, box sets, etc.

• So is it Album -> Release or Album -> Disc? This is where the terminlogy gets tied to database changes that will come slowly, if at all. @alex

Release -> Release Date

We currently use the word Release to indicate a release date (in a country). An actual release would include the RecordLabel and the media. Or be a replacement for 'album' (see above).

• I'm not sure what should happen to what is currently called "Release information" or "Releases", which consists of dates, countries of and possibly types (CD, Vinyl, Tape etc.) of release. --RjMunro
  • The current release information should become attributes of a Release, including other data such as ASIN, BarCodes, and other unique identifiers. --Agrundma
    • Calling them "attributes" is confusing because we currently use these for (Single, Official, etc.). I prefer "Release Data" -- not date -- because there's a country (and maybe media type, UPC, etc.) as well. @alex
  Please see ReleaseGroups for some related notes on usage of terminology, particular regarding Album and Release. As it stands there doesn't appear to be a good term for "one piece of media which contains a number of audio tracks" that doesn't have another common meaning in the music industry (Album and Release both have multiple uses). It would be nice to find a term that won't be potentially ambigious. --TarragonAllen 2004-06-07

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Karma System => Editor Rating

• People seem to agree not to use the term "Karma System", but since there is no such system in place, it's somewhat moot. Now JohnRamsay has raised the issue again, I do not really understand why. Maybe we interpret the past discussions differently? --DonRedman (pretty confused)

Karma -> EditorRating

Again, it's inherited from slashdot. It's a slashdotism, not a real use of the word. When I first showed a friend of mine the SurvivalOfTheFittest proposal, he said "Yuk... This page uses words like paradigm and Karma" and was immediately put off. This person owns a company that does things lots of design for usability etc. so he knows what he is talking about.

• What is better: EditorRating or EditorRanking? English is not my native language, so could please someone else decide by creating one of the two pages. --DonRedman Rating is a measurment. Ranking is position in a list. Ranks go first, second, third etc. There's no reason not to have both. Currently, we have several rankings on the site - top moderators ever, top moderators per week, top voters ever, top voters per week. We could use these to help generate ratings, and/or we could have rankings based on ratings. --RjMunro I'd go with 'rating' for just that reason, Rj. With ranking, someone has to be at the top, regardless of qualification. Ratings are independent of other people, just a statement of this person's qualifications. So if we are aiming at a system that rates people according to their editing skill, and voting accuracy, then rating is what we want. The rankings for top voter/editor/etc., remain great incentive to do more, though. --Jinxie Agreed 100% -- rating sounds like the right approach --Ruaok Maybe we should also have EditorRanting...! Ratings are more useful because they allow other moderators to gauge the reliabiltiy of the mod by getting a sense of the depth and breadth of the moderators edits in the past. Of course the numbers skew at either end of the spectrum. There should be a minimum number of moderations before rating starts or possible starting all mods with 100 points and max at 250 points or zero. If a time factor was introduced then time would heal all wounds moving all mods back to 100 over time. It would give those who start out misguided but who learn by trial and error a chance to not just scrap the login ID and start over. Look at the system E-Bay employs alerts all buyers to new and inexpereinced sellers and rewards the long-term consistent service providers.

What about a "member since" star (or similar) system for loyality growing/ bragging rights, instead of mod ratings, since competition among moderators is counter-productive. There are also the 'pieces of flare' reward systems that some forums use to recognize above average posters. --JohnRamsay