How Editing Works

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Revision as of 12:46, 9 June 2006 by WolfSong (talk | contribs) ((Imported from MoinMoin))
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See also the ModerationFAQ or the ClassicalMusicFAQ on our wiki.

Moderation Philosophy

The MusicBrainz moderation system is designed to give MusicBrainz users the power to update and maintain the database. Maintaining a comprehensive database for popular music is a large task, and MusicBrainz will depend on its users to spot mistakes in the database and then to take the initiative to correct these errors.

The data in MusicBrainz has been collected from a number of places including the EMusic collection, metadata submitted via FreeAmp, the CD Index database, and freedb.org data. While some of these data sources are better than others, there will always be mistakes in the data in MusicBrainz.

I hope that the people who use MusicBrainz will take it upon themselves to look up a few of their favorite artists and then make sure there are no mistakes in their artists metadata. If MusicBrainz can get up to 10,000 users, each user would only need to check out and update a few artists in order to clean up the entire database.

Moderators should familiarize themselves with the Style Guidelines that define how to organize and capitalize the data in MusicBrainz. When other Moderators vote on your suggested changes, they will judge your changes against these guidelines. Please refer to HowToVote.

Moderation Guide

To edit (change) the database, follow these steps:

  1. Create a MusicBrainz account and log in. Anyone can create an account. We don't ask for any private information, so there is no chance for us to give this information to anyone! One thing we do ask that all users of MusicBrainz follow the CodeOfConduct.
  2. Search/browse for your favorite artist and view the releases by that artist.
  3. If you spot a mistake, a typo, or a mis-classification click on the Edit/Move/Add link next to the incorrect/missing data item. If you are not logged into MusicBrainz (see step #1) you will not see these edit links.
  4. The edit links will take you to pages where you can edit/add the information for that artist. On the edit pages you will find further instructions and links for StyleGuideline popups that will provide a guidance for your editing participation. Please read and follow these guides -- they are important in order for the entire database to have a consistent look and feel. If the edit page has more than one field that can be edited, but not all fields need to be changed, just leave the correct fields alone.
  5. Once you click on submit on the edit/add pages, you will be taken back to the album/artist page that you just came from. A moderation request will be entered into the database, and if you click on the View Mods button at the top of the page you will be taken to the artist or release moderation search page for that release/artist. If you click on the left sidebar Moderate you will be you will be able to view/vote on all open moderations in the database.
  6. The default moderation page lists all the moderations that are currently pending. Please vote on other people's suggestions to edit the database. This is as important as making changes to the existing incorrect data. Each row in the moderation table will contain information about the suggested change and what it will be changed to. Once you have made a vote your Voting page will show how many peope have voted yes and no to the suggestion. You may only vote once on a change and you may not vote for your own modifications. Once you have voted you can change your vote between Yes, No and Abstain.
  7. For all of the modifications that you have not voted on, you may select the Yes, No or Abs radiobutton for Yes, No or Abstain. You can go down the list of moderations and vote for each by selecting the appropriate radio button and then clicking on submit at the top of the page. If you are not sure about a modification or you have no idea if the suggested modification is correct, then simply abstain from the vote.
  8. If 3 people unanimously vote for or against a suggested change, the change is immmediately accepted or rejected, respectively. If the votes are not unanimous the system will wait for 1 week and then accept the suggested change into the database if the simple majority of moderators voted yes. If the vote fails to achieve a simple majority it is dropped from the moderation table without being applied to the database. Some moderations, such as the add album moderation, will add data into the database at the time the moderation is entered into the system. If such moderations get voted down, the data that was entered for the moderation will be removed from the database.
  9. The default moderation page shows new moderations, but you may also view your past votes or your past moderations by selecting the Old Moderations and My moderations links at the top of the moderation table. The expiration times show on the moderation page are in GMT.
  10. If you find yourself in a position where you have made a mistake. You can remove your own edits by going to your open moderations which is found on your profile page. Delete mod will remove your edits within an hour after you select it. The text will change to show you're decision to delete the edit. This is much quicker than choosing to delete from the artist page. Since this creates another Moderation process.

Auto Moderators

Automoderators are moderators who have made a large number of contributions to MusicBrainz, and some basic moderations made by automoderators are not required to be voted on by other moderators. The following moderation types are automoderations:

Add Album, Add Album Annotation, Add Artist, Add Artist Alias, Add Artist Annotation, Add Relationship, Add Relationship Attribute, Add Relationship Type, Add Track, Add Track (old version), Change Track Artist, Convert Album to Multiple Artists, Convert Album to Single Artist, Edit Album Attributes, Edit Album Language, Edit Album Name, Edit Artist, Edit Artist Alias, Edit Artist Name, Edit Artist Sortname, Edit Relationship, Edit Relationship Attribute, Edit Relationship Type, Edit Track Name, Edit Track Number, Edit Track Time, Move Album, Move Disc ID, Remove Relationship Attribute, Remove Relationship Type, Remove TRM ID

The policy for suggesting more automoderators is as follows: Any automoderator can suggest a new moderator to be promoted to an automoderator. The suggested moderator must then be endorsed by two other automoderators. Once endorsed, the automoderators have one week to vote on the promotion of the endorsed automoderator. A simple majority is required to be promoted.

Any moderator who suggests or endorses a moderator cannot vote on the new moderator. The suggesting/endorsing/voting will happen in the mb-users mailing list and should be facilitated by the moderator who suggests the new moderator.

Get Moderating!

If you're ready to get moderating straight away, go to the moderation page. If you'd like to participate in the moderation process, but don't know where to start, check out the moderation suggestions page. 

This is a WikiDocsPage which will eventually replace http://www.musicbrainz.org/mod_intro.html. It is MaintainedByDonRedman and MaintainedByRobertKaye.
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