Some will say that hell froze over today…
We just updated the main server with Advanced Relationships (AR)!
After nearly two years of brainstorming and several months of tinkering, the new feature is finally live! (see the release notes for details)
This new feature takes MusicBrainz into a new direction towards becoming a music encyclopedia — as opposed to a simple music metadatabase. While the server team does not believe in version numbers for the server (we prefer to use dates), this could be considered MusicBrainz Version 1.75 — its not quite MusicBrainz 2.0, but we’re getting really close. Now that we have Advanced Relationships in place we will be able to easily add on Concerts and Record Label support in future releases — that would bring us to MusicBrainz 2.0. 🙂
A few more notes about this release:
- IMPORTANT if you have a replicating server (!!): Due to a small bork-up in the release process, you must do a full import on your database to kickstart the replication process again. Sorry for the hassle! 😦
- If the site hassles you about an unverified mail address, simply log out and back in.
- If you’re adding AR links and think up new link types or new instruments/vocals, please add them to this wiki page
- How does AR change the styleguidelines? Should you still do silly things like ‘feat.’? Yes, please continue to follow the style guidelines. I’ll work with Tarragon to update them with respect to AR.
Big thanks for helping with this goes to: Dave Evans and Don Redman. Thanks to everyone else who helped brainstorm and test the new feature!
MetaBrainz Blog 
The WikiPage you linked to is messy and out of date.
I suggest to propose new relatinship types and issues with the old guidelines on the user’s mailing list instead.
(BTW, I believe that proposing new things on the mailinglist is generally preferable to dumping them somewhere on the wiki)
Damn. I meant to clean up that page.
Sigh.
*dances the happy jig of his ancestors, known as the product release polka*
Congratulations, you finally shipped 🙂 YAY!
The relations stuff looks really great, but the interface is a bit klunky. It could probably be streamlined a bit, assuming that relationships are always between two entities.
At the moment, I have to do the following:
1. go to the first object, select “use in a relationship”
2. go to the other object, select “use in a relationship”
3. click “create relationship”.
4. complete the relationship creation page.
It would be nice if steps 2 and 3 could be combined into a “create relationship with [foo]” link that would take you to the relationship creation page directly.
Similarly, for URL relationships, things could be streamlined with a “create relationship to URL” button.
Secondly, are there any plans to impute related artists from the related artists data in the future?
I decided to give this new advanced relationship stuff a chance for awhile. It’s been a month and I’m completely let down.
While I appreciate the benefit that it has to MusicBrainz: The Music Database Masterplan, it’s destroyed my ability to tag my MP3s as they were done before. Now, every time there’s a pair of artists on a track, the database is reverting from “Joe Blow – ‘This Song (feat. Jane Blow)'” to “Joe Blow and Jane Blow – ‘This Song.'” Suddenly, the MusicBrainz tagger wants to turn my tidy collection of 2000 some artists into a ridiculous mess of 2500+.
I realize I’m in the minority for wanting to avoid unique artist entries for every pair-up in my tagging. I understand that the majority of people are overjoyed they no longer have to choose one of a set to be the primary artist. I’m just letting you know that I think it bites and it’s forcing me to find another method of tagging my files.
I agree with you about the way you view the issue. I remember, long time ago, Jack London said something like “Everything positive has a negative side; everything negative has a positive side.” I also find it interesting to see different points of views and learn useful things in the discussion.
Posted by: Richard Hill at May 24, 2005 08:59 AM