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{{DISPLAYTITLE:MusicBrainz Style Guidelines}}
= Preamble =
This page outlines the official MusicBrainz Style Guidelines.


== Getting started ==
NOTE: This is an attempt to figure out how to structure the style guidelines
# [[/Principle|Style principle]]
(post NGS). It is written as a Table of Contents, the aim is to:
## [[/Principle/Error correction and artist intent|Error correction and artist intent]]
# [[/Old style practices|Old style practices]]


* Give a recommended reading order for new users, following this TOC they should learn the basics of adding new releases by only reading the first few wiki pages linked to in this TOC.
* Merge various smaller guidelines into larger, more coherent documents.
* Seperate edge cases and exceptions from the core guidelines in such a way that (see also my notes further below):
*# The core guideline stands out, and is easily understood and remembered.
*# The edge cases don't get lost in a structureless mess where only guideline lawyers can find them.

The page titles used here are not final, but should give you some idea of what my aim is. Suggestions welcome ofcourse. Some conventions used:

: text following a title gives a short summary of what the page linked to should contain.
: text between 〜wave dashes〜 gives current official style guideline pages which can be merged into the page mentioned.
: 【nikki's comments】

= Roadmap =

step 1. This document was written by kuno, aka warp. I am discussing these issues with other people on #musicbrainz-devel (DONE).

step 2. When we're happy with it, I plan to present it to the StyleCouncil, to discuss with a larger group of people.

step 3. When the StyleCouncil is happy with, we can start writing the actual guidelines. I just want to start at the beginning, and get these pages written one by one, at first just the guideline without any examples and edge cases. (though we can copy/paste examples and edge cases from the current guidelines where applicable).

step 4. The previous step should have resulted in a almost complete set of official guidelines. The only thing left in this final step is to add or trim examples and edge cases where needed (which is just mb-style going back to doing what it always does :).

NOTE: I've removed any mention of works from the TOC below, at some point along the way we have to figure out how works are actually used and add a guideline for that too. Perhaps Classical will first get a works guideline, before we can extract a useful more general guideline for all releases.

= Proposed "post NGS styleguide" table of contents =

== Getting started ==
# Quickstart
#: contains a summary of the guidelines, reminiscent of http://web.archive.org/web/20070106165630/http://musicbrainz.org/style.html .
# Style Principle
#: 〜I think we can merge in ConsistentOriginalData〜
# Adding a new release
#: should be added last, when the guidelines are done, more below.
== Detailed guidelines ==
== Detailed guidelines ==
# [[/Titles|Titles]]
# [[User:kuno/Style/Track and release titles|Track and release titles]]
## [[/Titles/OC ReMix series|OC ReMix series]]
# [[User:kuno/Style/Recording and release group titles|Recording and release group titles]]
## [[AbbreviationStyle]]
# [[/Artist|Artist]]
## [[ExtraTitleInformation]]
## [[/Artist/Sort Name|Sort Name]]
# [[/Release Group|Release group]]
### [[FeaturingArtistStyle]]
### [[RemixStyle]]
# [[/Release|Release]]
## [[SubTitleStyle]]
# [[/Recording|Recording]]
## [[MultipleTitleStyle]]
# [[/Work|Work]]
## [[SplitReleaseTitleStyle]]
# [[/Series|Series]]
# [[User:kuno/Style/Artist|Artist]]
# [[/Place|Place]]
# [[/Event|Event]]
#: Deals with how to pick a name for the artist, LegalName, performance name, this can be based on the current ArtistName page, but with rewrites due to the changes of NGS, also links to PerformanceName and other relevant ARs. Also touch on gender, country, etc.. though these should be mostly self-explanatory and hardly mentioned in the guideline itself.
# [[/Aliases|Aliases]]
#: 【a lot of the current guidelines are aimed at not creating new artists, when that won't matter anymore, because we'll be able to link as many artists as we like】.
# [[/Artist Credits|Artist credits]]
## [[SortNameStyle]]
# [[/Relationships|Relationships]]
# [[User:kuno/Style/SpecialPurpose|Special Purpose entities]]
## [[/Relationships/URLs|URLs]]
#: This should really be called "Special Purpose", as this is the page which collects all the special purpose artists/labels/etc.. so they don't clutter up each of the other pages. I don't like a title which starts with "Special Purpose" though, it isn't clear to new users what is so special about them. So, we need a better title, "Unknown and Untitled" is better IMO, but doesn't fit all the things I would like to collect on this page. Suggestions welcome.
### [[/Relationships/URLs/Lyrics whitelist|Lyrics whitelist]]
#: 〜merge in SpecialPurposeArtist, NoArtist, UnknownArtist, SpecialPurposeLabel, though perhaps we should keep artist and label separate〜
### [[Other_Databases_Relationship_Type/Whitelist|Other databases whitelist]]
# Release
# [[/Unknown and untitled|Unknown and untitled]]
#: use this for things like release type/status/language, release events and any other release-related stuff
## [[/Unknown and untitled/Special purpose artist|Special Purpose Artist]]
# Release Groups
## [[/Unknown and untitled/Special purpose label|Special Purpose Label]]
#: A guideline describing which releases should and shouldn't grouped in a release group.
## [[/Unknown and untitled/Special purpose track title|Special Purpose Track Title]]
# Relationships
# [[/Specific types of releases|Specific types of releases]]
#: Most relationships have enough information on the page which documents their use, and don't really need guidelines in addition to their regular documentation. The only things I can think of now are:
## [[/Specific types of releases/Pseudo-Releases|Pseudo-Releases]]
#:# the cover AR because I see a fair amount of edits which don't take into account that you're not allowed to link to certain things -- though perhaps it would be better to solve that on the server itself (don't allow links to be added we don't approve).
## [[/Specific types of releases/Soundtrack|Soundtrack]]
#:# other url links because they're a bit fuzzy.
## [[/Specific types of releases/Theatre|Musical Theatre]]
#:# the current track relationships will need updating because these will be moved to recordings and/or works
## [[/Specific types of releases/Live bootlegs|Live bootlegs]]
#:# some of the release relationships will move to release groups
# Specific types of releases
## [[/Specific types of releases/Broadcast programs|Broadcast programs]]
## [[/Specific types of releases/Audiobook|Audiobooks]]
## Soundtrack
## [[/Specific_types_of_releases/Remixes_and_mashups|Remixes and mashups]]
## Classical
# [[/Classical|Classical music]]
## LiveBootleg
## [[Style/Classical/Release/Title|Release / Release group title]]
## 【Audiobooks?】
## [[Style/Classical/Release/Artist|Release / Release group artists]]
## ... anything else?
## [[Style/Classical/Track/Title|Track titles]]
## [[Style/Classical/Track/Artist|Track artists]]
## [[Style/Classical/Recording/Artist|Recording artists]]
## [[Style/Classical/Works|Works]]
# [[/Miscellaneous|Miscellaneous]]


== Language specific guidelines ==
== Language specific guidelines ==
These pages cover guidelines for a particular language and the countries in which the languages are spoken. They primarily cover capitalisation, but also include guidelines for punctuation, transliterations and sortnames.
I would prefer to move any language specific stuff to seperate pages, which will remove a bit of clutter from some of the regular guidelines, and makes it easier for someone who just starts working in a particular language to see clearly in what areas that language differs from our main guidelines.
# Dutch
## Capitalization standard
## Sortname
## anything else?
# German
## Capitalization standard
## Sortname
## ...
# French
## ...
## ...
## 【stuff like [[Credit_Translations/French]] could probably go in the language sections too】

= Post NGS styleguide "Adding a new release" page =

NOTE: This should not be a guide on how to add a release. It is a tutorial on how to read and apply the guidelines when adding a typical (pop) release.

It should deal with the basics, possibly as a step by step instruction for a particular album which happens to touch a few interesting guidelines.

* Release title (link to CapitalizationStandard)
* Track titles (use an example which neccesitates linking to AbbreviationStyle or FeaturingArtistStyle, reiterate CapitalizationStandard)
* Choosing / adding the artist (Point out the difference between the legal name and the artist name used on the release)
* Quickly explain the remaining stuff (release type, language, label etc..)

Actually, the above probably contains too many links to other style guidelines, should decide which of those are important and which of them can wait... and
write the most readable introduction to the subject. Or described two releases instead of one, introducing some interesting guidelines on the second example.

Probably mention that certain releases have different rules and conventions, linking to Classical/Soundtrack styles.


= Seperate edge cases and exceptions from the core guideline =

I want to have some way to clearly seperate a core guideline from the examples and edge cases. A bit similar to CC has a human readable and a proper legalese
version of their licenses, although the seperation should not be that drastic.

I would like some help from our user interaction / graphic designer volunteers on how to improve the layout of the style pages. We don't have to limit ourselves to what we can do within wikipedia, I think we have some more control over the rendering of the transcluded versions. Perhaps we can get a consistent look & feel for each of the guidelines with some nice icons and bigger text for the proper guideline.


# [[/Language/English|English guidelines]] ([[Style/Classical/Language/English|English in classical music]])
Another idea would be to have the example and edge cases sections collapsed on page load, with an easy way to expand them (nikki mentioned wiktionary doing this for translations).
# [[/Language/Transliterations|Guidelines for transliterations]]
# [[/Language/Catalan|Catalan]]
# [[/Language/Chinese|Chinese]]
# [[/Language/Czech|Czech]]
# [[/Language/Danish|Danish]]
# [[/Language/Dutch|Dutch and Frisian]]
# [[/Language/Estonian|Estonian]] ([[Style/Classical/Language/Estonian|Estonian in classical music]])
# [[/Language/Finnish|Finnish]]
# [[/Language/French|French]]
# [[/Language/German|German]]
# [[/Language/Greek|Greek]]
# [[/Language/Hebrew|Hebrew]]
# [[/Language/Hungarian|Hungarian]]
# [[/Language/Italian|Italian]]
# [[/Language/Japanese|Japanese]]
# [[/Language/Latin|Latin]]
# [[/Language/Latvian|Latvian]]
# [[/Language/Lithuanian|Lithuanian]]
# [[/Language/Norwegian|Norwegian]]
# [[/Language/Polish|Polish]]
# [[/Language/Portuguese|Portuguese]]
# [[/Language/Romanian|Romanian]]
# [[/Language/Russian|Russian]]
# [[/Language/Slovak|Slovak]]
# [[/Language/Spanish|Spanish]] ([[Style/Classical/Language/Spanish|Spanish in classical music]])
# [[/Language/Swedish|Swedish]]
# [[/Language/Turkish|Turkish]]
# [[/Language/Vietnamese|Vietnamese]]
# [[/Language/Yiddish|Yiddish]]


To re-iterate why these changes are need, I want to achieve the following:
# The core guideline should stand out, must be easily understood and remembered.
# The edge cases shouldn't get lost in a structureless mess where only guideline lawyers can find them.


{{StyleBox}}
= Old style practices =
[[Category:WikiDocs Page]]
We should have a page which talks about old style practices, e.g.
[[Category:Official Style]]
* Using "(disc n)" for disc numbers
* Using "(disc n: Foobar)" for disc titles
* Putting release event information in the annotation
* Putting release variation information ("European", "Japanese", "iTunes") in the annotation (replaced with release comments)
* "A & B" collaboration artists
* Using the "part of a set" relationship and/or entering in separate discs as releases
* Earliest release track-track relationship (deprecated since recordings that are the same should be merged)
* Earliest version track-track relationship (deprecated since they should normally be the same work, although there will be some cases where we'll need a more specific relationship)
* ...

Latest revision as of 12:31, 10 March 2023

This page outlines the official MusicBrainz Style Guidelines.

Getting started

  1. Style principle
    1. Error correction and artist intent
  2. Old style practices

Detailed guidelines

  1. Titles
    1. OC ReMix series
  2. Artist
    1. Sort Name
  3. Release group
  4. Release
  5. Recording
  6. Work
  7. Series
  8. Place
  9. Event
  10. Aliases
  11. Artist credits
  12. Relationships
    1. URLs
      1. Lyrics whitelist
      2. Other databases whitelist
  13. Unknown and untitled
    1. Special Purpose Artist
    2. Special Purpose Label
    3. Special Purpose Track Title
  14. Specific types of releases
    1. Pseudo-Releases
    2. Soundtrack
    3. Musical Theatre
    4. Live bootlegs
    5. Broadcast programs
    6. Audiobooks
    7. Remixes and mashups
  15. Classical music
    1. Release / Release group title
    2. Release / Release group artists
    3. Track titles
    4. Track artists
    5. Recording artists
    6. Works
  16. Miscellaneous

Language specific guidelines

These pages cover guidelines for a particular language and the countries in which the languages are spoken. They primarily cover capitalisation, but also include guidelines for punctuation, transliterations and sortnames.

  1. English guidelines (English in classical music)
  2. Guidelines for transliterations
  3. Catalan
  4. Chinese
  5. Czech
  6. Danish
  7. Dutch and Frisian
  8. Estonian (Estonian in classical music)
  9. Finnish
  10. French
  11. German
  12. Greek
  13. Hebrew
  14. Hungarian
  15. Italian
  16. Japanese
  17. Latin
  18. Latvian
  19. Lithuanian
  20. Norwegian
  21. Polish
  22. Portuguese
  23. Romanian
  24. Russian
  25. Slovak
  26. Spanish (Spanish in classical music)
  27. Swedish
  28. Turkish
  29. Vietnamese
  30. Yiddish


Style
Overview
Title Style
Entities
Relationships
Classical
Special Cases/Misc.
Languages