History talk:Linking Different Artist Names Proposal: Difference between revisions

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Latest revision as of 22:15, 28 August 2016

Discussion About Relating Different Artist Names

  • Status: Attention.png This is the original discussion that led to the proposal for LinkingDifferentArtistNames. It has been copied here from MusicalAssociationRelationshipClass, where it originally happened. This page is generally pretty messy, but I am not sure, whether it contains stuff of value, so I did not want to delete the discussion


don't know where to add this, I searched a long time to find the page you added it to DonRedman, but with no luck.

so instead I paste my email here:

ah yes, and I wanted to say about relationships clusters, I don't think they're that bad...
as long as each member of the cluster links to *every* other member in the cluster aswell. I think that when one or two members aren't *fully clustered* is when the problems start. IMHO it is much more problematic to have lines of links in an arbitrary (compared to what we want to *explain* with the AR's) order to *solve* the relationships-cluster "problem"
  • basically. some things in life *are* in clusters. such is the complexity of families and musical relationships. mo

if one takes a look at the relationship list. it is separated into basically "musical relationships"

such as 'performance' 'remixes' and 'composition' and "non-musical relationships"

like 'production' 'has miscellaneous role on' etc
AFAIK this is true for artist-album and artist-track

my point is that the not directly musical list has several detailed and inscrutinous listings. all separated and defined

while we seem to think this is fine that we have a dozen 'has production by' 'has artwork done by' relationship types, (which is fine, I mean its information that is in most CD booklets these days) however we seem to be 'saving the pennies and letting the dollars fly' when it comes to *direct* musical artist relationships, for instance the artist-artist relationships pull down list is incredibly short.

the artist-album/artist-track is quite better, but the argument on the mailinglist seems to be "we already have 'X artist is X thing' type relationship why add 'X artist is Y thing' ?"

I know I'm talking like a confused chicken here and I apologise. but what I'm getting at is this:

adding more than one relationship for artist-artist that means that this person is the same person, where only the wording differentiates isn't a *bad* thing

how about this:

(we already have) artistX performs as artistY - artistY [don't remember the reverse text right now]

how about we REadd

artistX is the legal name of artistY?

on idea to handle this is to do something with attributes like

  • artistX is the {legal} {birth} name of artistY

perhaps making both possible isn't a bad thing. or maybe only one could be chosen, and you *had* to pick one,

like instruments!

so you could have direct relationships:

Lester Warren Dingbat is the legal name of Lester Dingbat & DJ Dingbat Warren (and reverse, I don't need to list them, you know them)

Lester Dingbat also performs as DJ Dingbat Warren - DJ Dingbat Warren also performs as Lester Dingbat

Lester Warren Dingle is the Birth name of Lester Warren Dingbat - Lester Warren Dingbat's birthname is (has birth name?) Lester Warren Dingle

note, only link birth name to legal name, and only if they are separated.

if legal and birth name is the same :

Housen Foo also performs as Master Foo

Harry Housen is the legal/birth name of Housen Foo & Master Foo

with this formulae it should be simple; as long as the 'legal/birth' name is some obscure thing that is recorded for the option of it.

as is the case of 'Elton John'

it quickly becomes difficult when someone releases things under their legal/birth name *as well* as other made up names. but all names are still linked, even if it is *correct* that "Harry Housen also performs as Housen Foo"

the only problem I can see here is that if legal name and birth name are separated *and* has releases under both *and* also releases under a pseudonym (with direct no link between the releases under birthname and the releases under pseudonym)

but I think its a sizeable compromise.

if not. please add some ideas and review this.~mo

  • Can I paraphrase this to see if I understand? You're suggesting we have more types of "also known as" relationships. This could either be done by having new relationship types, or by adding attributes to the existing "performs as" relationship. This is to separate out official names used by the government, and stage names just used to promote artists. Other types of alternative name I can think of are "maiden name" and "also known as" (where this is not a stage name), but these probably don't require separate types. Here's a ridiculously complicated expanded example, trying to show all of these points, for your Lester Dingbat example. Entities and relationships are shown under each life-event. The big design suggestions here are that all official names should relate to the first birth name, but all stage names should relate to the official name appropriate for the time they were used. Sometimes this leads to having to awkwardly split a relationship... 1968 Born "Lester Warren Dingbat" * Artist "Lester Warren Dingbat" 1969 Family starts calling him "Wally Dingbat" after a highly amusing incident. * Artist "Wally Dingbat" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" is/was also known as "Wally Dingbat" (1969-1991) (NOTE: possibly irrelevant, but this is what people backstage would call him) 1987 Convicted for fraud after claiming social security under the name "Lester Warren". * Artist "Lester Warren" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" is/was also known as "Lester Warren" (1987) (NOTE: probably irrelevant for a music database) 1988 Released "Been Caught Fraudin'" under the name "Lester Dingbat" * Artist "Lester Dingbat" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" has/had stage name "Lester Dingbat" (1988) * Album "Been Caught Fraudin'" by "Lester Dingbat" (1988) 1989 Released "The Dingbat's Back" under the name "Big D" * Artist "Big D" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" has/had stage name "Big D" (1989-1990) * Album "The Dingbat's Back" by "Big D" (1989) 1990 Came out as a transexual, changed stage name to "Sissy D" * Artist "Sissy D" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" has/had stage name "Sissy D" (1990-1991) (NOTE: still called "Sissy D" after 1991, but that's related to a different official name) 1991 Sex change operation, official name changed to "Lesley Dingbat" * Artist "Lesley Dingbat" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" changed name to "Lesley Dingbat" (1991-1992) (NOTE: reverse wording is "had birth name") * "Lesley Dingbat" has/had stage name "Sissy D" (1991-1992) (NOTE: this relationship only runs until 1992, even though she was still using "Sissy D" until much later, because it relates to an official name that only existed until 1992) 1992 Changed official name to "Sissy D" as a publicity stunt for new album "How The Other Half Lives" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" changed name to "Sissy D" (1992-1993) (NOTE: the name "Sissy D" is both a stage name and an offical name in different contexts, but always the same record in the database) * Album "How The Other Half Lives" by "Sissy D" (1992) 1993 Changed name back to "Lesley Dingbat" since "Sissy D" looked silly on her passport * "Lester Warren Dingbat" changed name to "Lesley Dingbat" (1993-1995) * "Lesley Dingbat" has/had stage name "Sissy D" (1993-1994) (NOTE: two different relationships relating identical entities, just with different dates, similar to band membership) 1994 Released new album "International Dingbat" under stage name "Lesley D" * Artist "Lesley D" * "Lesley Dingbat" has/had stage name "Lesley D" (1994-1995) * Album "International Dingbat" by "Lesley D" (1994) 1995 Married Harry Housen, changed her official name to "Lesley Dingbat-Housen" * Artist "Lesley Dingbat-Housen" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" changed name to "Lesley Dingbat-Housen" (1995-1997) * "Lesley Dingbat-Housen" has/had stage name "Lesley D" (1995-1997) 1996 Released "In Love With Harry" as "Lesley D" * Album "In Love With Harry" by "Lesley D" (1996) 1997 Changed her official name to "Lesley Housen", thus ending the proud Dingbat line * Artist "Lesley Housen" * "Lester Warren Dingbat" changed name to "Lesley Housen" (1997-) * "Lesley Housen" has/had stage name "Lesley D" (1997-) 1998 Released "Greatest Hits" as "Lesley D" * Album "Greatest Hits" by "Lesley D" MatthewExon

Mattew, I think (am not sure as yes, your example *is* ridiculously complex ;) but I think you hit the finger on the nail (erh..)

this is what I want with my example. that we relate every performance name to base legal name(s), (legal name(s) to a birthname when those are not the same) and performance names to eachother.

with the example you give here, if such a thing really *did* exist it would *be* that ridiculously complex no matter what shape we tried to do it in.

about splitting relationships awkwardly..

I don't think it's that awkward. what exactly is a performance name? is it not just a synonym of sorts for a legal name? when an artist changes their legal name but not their performance name (and then back again, as your case) the performance name *should* reflect this move with its AR-links.. or did I misunderstand?

I like your "changed name to" reverse "is the birthname of" type however :).

lets try to see how this form will work with some known complicatednames-artists in the database, how about testing:

  • Elton John
  • Walter/Wendy Carlos
  • 2pac

I'm really keen on this idea :)

As a side PS note I think Wally Dingbat and Lester Warren should just be aliases for the birthname & and performance name(s) they relate to only. as AFAIU he/she didn't release any albums under those names (this requires having duplicate aliases or simply 'cheating' by using Wally Dingbat [1] and Wally Dingbat [2] which since it isn't a viewed or tagged (yet) name shouldn't break the database)

~ mo

  • OK Mo, agreed all round. This should be worked up into a proper AdvancedRelationshipTypeProposal, along with some style guidelines and (hopefully simpler) examples. I'll do this sometime if you don't get to it first. Your point about aliases seems correct: the other day I noticed the "Incomplete Names" part of ArtistAlias, which seems to be doing the same basic thing. --MatthewExon
    • Matthew, please do it, then mail me/irc me, the page/link etc. (I'm much better at adding to/fixing at stuff on pages than starting them) ~mo