How Annotations Work

General Principles

Annotations can be attached to artists, labels and albums. Everything said below about artist annotations apply to all three types of annotations.

Each artist can have up to one annotation attached. As the annotation is edited, new versions are created. Only the most recent version is shown on the artist page, but all versions can be examined on a separate "Show History" page.

If there is no annotation, a link is shown (at the top of the artist page) inviting you to add an annotation (if you're logged in); if there is an annotation, it is shown, with links to edit it, or to see its history.

Adding a new annotation where there was none before uses exactly the same mechanism as editing an existing annotation to create a new version; in both cases the "Add Artist Annotation" is used. For a new annotation, the text starts off blank. For editing an existing annotation, the text starts off as a copy of the previous annotation, and when you save, a new version of the annotation is created. If you like you can choose to edit a version other than the most recent, in which case you still end up creating a new, most-recent version, just using different text as your starting point (you probably want to do that as to revert some undesired modification - eg: spam).

Editing

When editing / adding an annotation, you can optionally also enter a one-line change log; if provided, this is shown both on the annotation's "Show History" page, and also in the details of the edit (e.g., on the "show edit detail" page).

Currently all annotation edits are always auto-edits.

It is not possible to delete annotations, except by deleting the host artist, though you can (of course) delete all the annotation content.

Merging and Deleting

When an artist is deleted, all versions of the annotation attached to it are lost.

When artist "A" is merged into artist "B", creating artist "BA", the behavior is as follows:

• if neither A nor B had an annotation, then nor will BA.
• if A had an annotation but B did not, then that annotation will get moved to artist BA.
• if B had an annotation but A did not, then that annotation will get moved to artist BA.
• if both A and B had annotations, then the behavior is as follows:
  • all versions of A's annotation and all versions of B's annotation are attached to BA.
  • this effectively merges the two annotations together, with an intertwined "history".
  • then, a new annotation version is created:
    • where the text is: the text of B's most recent annotation, plus some space, plus the text of A's most recent annotation
    • the change log is: "Result of artist merge"
    • the ModBot enters an Add Artist Annotation moderation accordingly.

Exceptions

Annotations cannot be attached to:

• Various Artists
• the Deleted Artist

Discussion

Track annotations could be very useful, be it for N.A.T. or for regular tracks. -- dmppanda 12:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)