User:Nikki/Recording lengths

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Since User_talk:Reosarevok/Recording_Issues is really not helping us decide what to do about MBS-2021...

Note: This page doesn't refer to standalone recordings. They don't have tracks and therefore don't have track length which means the lengths can only be entered manually. If you want to get rid of standalone recordings entirely, that's something separate from what we're trying to solve here and is a whole new can of worms. Make your own proposal for that if that's what you want.

Should recording lengths ever be calculated automatically from track lengths?

Yes - some or all of the time

No - editors should always enter them by hand

Should recording lengths be editable?

Yes, always

Yes, but only when there are multiple tracks

No, always calculate them automatically when there are tracks

If recording lengths should only be calculated automatically some of the time, when should it happen?

Vote for both if you like, they're not mutually exclusive.

When there isn't an existing recording length

When the recording only has one track

...

If recording lengths should always be calculated automatically from track lengths, how should the length be determined?

I don't care, just calculate them from track lengths somehow

Sort the releases (e.g. by status then by date) and use the first available length

Take the mean average of the lengths

Take the (rounded to avoid decimal durations) median length

  • Hawke (talk) — Note that the modal track duration will not work if no track duration is more common than the others, e.g. (4:03, 4:05, 4:06, 4:07)

Take the modal track time

  • OliverCharles (talk) 10:33, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I’m slightly partial to my more complex solution jacobbrett (talk) 10:46, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • LordSputnik (I also think we should be able to select which track time to use, as jacobbrett says. Perhaps use the modal time by default, but allow edits to select the track time to use.)

...

Other views

Favour track lengths from tracklists which are supported by a discID

  • Take the mean of track lengths which have a supporting disc ID. If none, do whatever. monxton

There is no spoon^wrecording length

ocharles thinks that abolishing the concept of recording lengths entirely is the way to go.

  • I'm not actually quite sure what you mean by this -- I could see you meaning any combination of: the implementation-concern "don't store this in a database column", don't return it in the webservice, don't display a unified time for recordings, actively discourage people who assert that recordings have an associated time. #4 seems pretty drastic; 2 and 3 are essentially the same thing but for the WS versus the site; and #1 is of course an implementation concern. So, I suppose you mean the combination of #2/#3, which also seems sort of implementation-y -- so, could you clarify exactly what you mean here? It seems like I'm missing the relevance at this stage of the discussion :) Ianmcorvidae (talk) 10:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree for recordings on releases, but before we can do this, we need to improve the standalone recording situation. Kepstin (talk) 20:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree entirely. Recordings are probably going to be mixes. We can only really make an educated guess at the mix length, and there's no real use for Mix length when we have track lengths. LordSputnik

Pull recording durations from acoustIDs, if possible

It’d be nice to have acoustID (or something) as a secondary support for recording durations, since not all releases have a discID (and this will only be more true in the future)