Link Wikipedia And MusicBrainz

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Revision as of 13:09, 17 February 2019 by Donalhunt (talk | contribs) (Amended the "Linking from MusicBrainz to Wikipedia" section which was out of data and ignored the preference to use Wikidata and not Wikipedia going forward.)
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Wikipedia is an online wiki-based encyclopedia in multiple languages that is dual-licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 License (CC-BY-SA) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). It contains many articles on bands and other artists. This is a short draft describing the possible collaboration between MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.

Linking from MusicBrainz to Wikipedia

Since 2015, the preference is to link to Wikidata (not Wikipedia) which serves as a bridge for all languages. You can use the Wikidata relationship to add relationships between artists, labels and albums and their Wikidata URLs.

See https://blog.metabrainz.org/tag/wikidata/ and https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Relationships/URLs for additional information.

Benefits of linking from MusicBrainz to Wikidata

There are a number of benefits:

  • Changes to Wikipedia page names causes broken links across MusicBrainz (more common than you would think). Use Wikidata IDs ensures changes a link to a canonical identifier that will not change in the future.
  • Wikidata supports multiple languages so MusicBrainz can link to the same language in use by MusicBrainz users.
  • The BBC (see BBC Teams Editing MusicBrainz) uses MusicBrainz to generate tracklists, discographies and artist profile info on its music website, bbc.co.uk/music. Adding a relationship between an artist and a Wikidata URL automatically generates a biography on the BBC site e.g. Miles Davis.

Linking from Wikipedia to MusicBrainz

Linking from the English Wikipedia to MusicBrainz

At the English Wikipedia, use the following templates to link to MusicBrainz objects (ALLCAPSWORDS are arguments):

  • {{MusicBrainz artist|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFARTIST}} (link)
  • {{MusicBrainz release-group|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFRELEASEGROUP}} (link)
  • {{MusicBrainz release|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFRELEASE}} (link) (link to the earliest release when using this)
  • {{MusicBrainz track|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFTRACK}} (link) (link to the earliest release when using this)
  • {{MusicBrainz label|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFLABEL}} (link)

and these ones to link to the MusicBrainz wiki:

  • {{MusicBrainz wiki|PAGENAME}} (link), (good for the references/external links section)
  • [[MusicBrainz:PAGENAME]] (better to use in the middle of a sentence)

Linking from the Polish Wikipedia to MusicBrainz

At the Polish Wikipedia, use the templates:

  • {{MusicBrainz artist|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFARTIST}} (link)(adoption)
  • {{MusicBrainz release-group|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFRELEASEGROUP}} (link)(adoption)
  • {{MusicBrainz release|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFRELEASE}} (link)(adoption) (link to the earliest release when using this)
  • {{MusicBrainz label|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFLABEL}} (link)(adoption)

Linking from the German Wikipedia to MusicBrainz

At the German Wikipedia, use the templates

  • {{MusicBrainz Künstler|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFARTIST}} (link)
  • {{MusicBrainz Album|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFALBUM}} (link) (link to the earliest release when using this)
  • {{MusicBrainz Label|id=PERMALINKCODE|name=NAMEOFLABEL}} (link)

Linking from the French Wikipedia to MusicBrainz

Please don't link from the French Wikipedia to MusicBrainz - French Wikipedians are against it. It's still perfectly OK (and encouraged!) to link from MusicBrainz to the French Wikipedia, just not the other way around.