History:Style Guideline

Style Guidelines

MusicBrainz has a lot of formalized data. But in all these formalized fields you still type plain text. In order for the database to be in a good shape, we have agreed on a certain style in which to write this text.

Note that the StylePrinciples of MusicBrainz state:

1. Follow ArtistIntent.
2. If 1 is not applicable, use ConsistentOriginalData.
3. If both 1 and 2 are not applicable, follow the StyleGuidelines.

OfficialStyleGuidelines

• This is a Wiki version of the OfficialStyleGuidelines which outline how the data in MusicBrainz should be formatted and organized. Being a WikiPage it is more detailed and contains discussion, questions (and answers :-). (This section is currently being worked on, so beware!)

CapitalizationStandard

• How to capitalize album and track titles. Since June 2004 we are working towards InterNationalization. This will give us language specific standards. See CapitalizationStandard for a list of available standards.

ClassicalStyleGuide

• For classical music (or any music, where the composer is taken as the principal artist) different style rules apply; and different problems arise. These are all addressed in this section containing ClassicalMusicFAQ, ClassicalStyleGuide and ClassicalStyleGuideDiscussion.

ProposedStyleGuidelines

• This is a place for new style guidelines to be proposed and discussed. ProposedStyleGuideline.

More

• If you have a question regarding an OddRelease you might want to look for it in AdditionalMetadata. If you find it there your question might already been answered. If you do not find it, you can ask on the MailingList. When your problem has been solved, please list your solution there to help others that come after you.
• You might also want to look at InformationOnEditing which explains how different edits work etc.
• The MisencodingFAQ deals with data where something went wrong with the CharacterEncodings and what to do about it.