Server Updates

“Add Disc ID” moderations, and Annotations.

Changes mainly of interest to MusicBrainz Users

“Add Disc ID” Moderations

Whenever a disc ID is added to an existing album, it is now tracked
via an “Add Disc ID” moderation.  This applies both to disc IDs added
via the “CD lookup” interface (in which case the moderation is credited to
whoever performed the lookup), and also to those added as a result of a
FreeDB lookup (which fall under the “FreeDB” moderator). 
“Add Disc ID” moderations are not used in the case where
an album and a disc ID are added at the same time.

Annotations

Annotations allow you to add notes to artists and albums. 
See How Annotations Work
and the Annotations FAQ. 
Thanks to Matthias Friedrich for building the foundations of this feature.

Bugs and RFEs Closed

Dave Evans

Slowly updating the Documentation

Alex has been copying the documentation from the website into the Wiki. The idea behind this is that the documentation on the website is partially dated and structured in a way that does not reflect the way new users come to MusicBrainz any more. I have now joined him in his effort of RestructuringTheDocumentation. This … Continue reading “Slowly updating the Documentation”

Alex has been copying the documentation from the website into the Wiki. The idea behind this is that the documentation on the website is partially dated and structured in a way that does not reflect the way new users come to MusicBrainz any more.

I have now joined him in his effort of RestructuringTheDocumentation. This is the second restructuring that this Wiki experiences (the first was the general RestructuringTheWiki).

Continue reading “Slowly updating the Documentation”

Lucene based tagging update

I previously mentioned that Lucene rocks — well, that is not giving it enough credit. I’m working on the guts to a Lucene enabled Picard tagger, and in doing so I have created a simple script that chewed through a given set of mp3 files and attempts to match them up with MusicBrainz. My friend … Continue reading “Lucene based tagging update”

I previously mentioned that Lucene rocks — well, that is not giving it enough credit. I’m working on the guts to a Lucene enabled Picard tagger, and in doing so I have created a simple script that chewed through a given set of mp3 files and attempts to match them up with MusicBrainz.

My friend Vee once gave me a CD full of hip-hop music to give to my GF. I took one look at it and stared in shock! What a mess — not many id3 tags, mostly no album names at all. Lots of friends vs friendz problems — much slang used in inconsistent ways. Ick!

I ran this through the old tagger a while back and it matched roughly 30% of the tracks. I’ve been using this set of files to tune the new tagging engine and once things got cached into memory, it chewed through over 100 files in under 7 seconds:

60% matched: 64 files matched, 41 files with suggestions, 1 files not matched.

60% !! Check the results for yourself!

And of the 41 files that have suggestions at least 80% of them have the correct match in the top 3 closest matches. I’m floored — it works so well, and there are a number of improvements still left to make. The downside? You need the 700Mb lucene index on your hard drive. That’s going to be more than 250Mb to download. 🙁 I’ll have to work out the right combination of BitTorrent, caching, and P2P solutions to tackle that minor issue.

But this is really stunning!

Try out the latest server features

I’ve opened my development box up to the world – you can see what I’m working on at http://dev-mb.djce.org.uk/.  The mb_server I have running at the moment, for example, implements “Add Disc ID” moderations.  Play nicely!

I’ve opened my development box up to the world – you can see what I’m working on at http://dev-mb.djce.org.uk/.  The mb_server I have running at the moment, for example, implements “Add Disc ID” moderations.  Play nicely!

Saturday Morning News

Wow, that’s a lame title.  I couldn’t think of anything better :-/  This is a general-purpose update as to what I’ve been doing of late, so no single title seemed appropriate, except “What Dave’s Been Doing Lately” (and I think the title I finally went with is more punchy). Read on for general babble about … Continue reading “Saturday Morning News”

Wow, that’s a lame title.  I couldn’t think of anything better :-/  This is a general-purpose update as to what I’ve been doing of late, so no single title seemed appropriate, except “What Dave’s Been Doing Lately” (and I think the title I finally went with is more punchy).

Read on for general babble about what I’ve been doing lately, and a random thought about the best way of getting feedback about server development.

Continue reading “Saturday Morning News”

Lucene web service

In the last two weeks I managed to combine working on MusicBrainz, creating a new open source project and earning money to pay the bills! This is quite rare these days, so I am pleased all around. As some of you may know, I have been doing contract work for CD Baby. When Derek, the … Continue reading “Lucene web service”

In the last two weeks I managed to combine working on MusicBrainz, creating a new open source project and earning money to pay the bills! This is quite rare these days, so I am pleased all around.

As some of you may know, I have been doing contract work for CD Baby. When Derek, the owner and lead geek at CD Baby, asked me what MusicBrainz does for searching, I launched into a long cheerleading rant about Lucene. I managed to convince Derek that Lucene is the way to go, and to convince him to sponsor the open source development of the new Lucene Web Service. Luckily Derek agreed that as long as the project was going to be available under the BSD license that he would agree to open source the work.

Triple cheers for Derek and CD Baby please!

So, the web service is now done and I’ve applied for a new project on SourceForge — once that is approved, I will release the source code for everyone to check out. I’ll post another message here when that is complete.

If you’d like to check out the working web service, try this link.

TRM Database Pruned

The TRM database has been pruned again, making the system much faster and more reliable again.

At about 1930hrs UTC on November 4th the TRM database
was “pruned” again (see the previous time
for more information about this). 
This time we removed all TRMs apart from the ones attached to
MusicBrainz tracks, where the TRM had been looked up at least once. 
This is a slightly more aggressive prune compared to the previous time. 

The TRM database is now about
40% of the size it was before, which (like last time) means that
it now fits easily into the server’s memory, so the server as a whole
runs quickly
and reliably.

Blog spam attack

In the last 24 hours this blog has been attacked by nasty porn spammers. I’ve erased dozens of spam comments and trackbacks. 🙂 I’ve turned off trackbacks for now ( 🙁 ) and I will add comment captchas later today to try and stop this crap. Anyone have a good suggestion on how to manage … Continue reading “Blog spam attack”

In the last 24 hours this blog has been attacked by nasty porn spammers. I’ve erased dozens of spam comments and trackbacks. 🙂

I’ve turned off trackbacks for now ( 🙁 ) and I will add comment captchas later today to try and stop this crap. Anyone have a good suggestion on how to manage trackback ping spam?

Non-profit application filed

At long last, after many hours of work and months of time passing, I’ve FedEx’ed off the 1023 Application to the IRS. The 1023 form is the tax-exempt application to the IRS — once we get an advance ruling on our status (the final ruling will come many months down the road) we’ll be able … Continue reading “Non-profit application filed”

At long last, after many hours of work and months of time passing, I’ve FedEx’ed off the 1023 Application to the IRS. The 1023 form is the tax-exempt application to the IRS — once we get an advance ruling on our status (the final ruling will come many months down the road) we’ll be able to conduct business as a real non-profit and start handing out tax-deductible receipts for the donations we receive for MusicBrainz.

I feel confident that we’re well setup — this is mainly due to the excellent guidance I’ve received from Randy Heinig at Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum Perlman & Nagelberg LLP in Chicago. Thank you very much Randy for all your patience, hard work and thorough understanding of what MusicBrainz does!

Hopefully this will also mark the point where I can spend a little less time on the non-profit and start hammering out more code for MusicBrainz — it’s sorely needed. But before I dream of that, we still need to announce this new venture. Stay tuned for more on that!

Editing Guidelines on the Wiki

After moderating my way into the top five moderators / top ten voters, I’ve decided to slow down my moderating, and spend more time trying to provide advice and help for new moderators. On the Wiki, I’ve been working on a collection of pages that I hope will form the basis for Editing Guidelines that … Continue reading “Editing Guidelines on the Wiki”

After moderating my way into the top five moderators / top ten voters, I’ve decided to slow down my moderating, and spend more time trying to provide advice and help for new moderators.

On the Wiki, I’ve been working on a collection of pages that I hope will form the basis for Editing Guidelines that complement the current Style Guide. Where the Style Guide tells you how entries should look when they are done, the Editing Guidelines are intended to tell you the best way to get there.

Continue reading “Editing Guidelines on the Wiki”