[mb-devel] Edit groups

[Bogdan Butnaru]

Hello!


Today I ran again into a problem I noticed several times before, and
it motivated me to write this. The problem is that when someone makes
a moderately complex tracklist-changing edit (e.g., reorder some
tracks, or add some in the middle), using the "edit all" page, the
edit is split into many "elementary" edits.

I assume the idea is to be able to vote each change individually.
However, while the editor can see the entire "changelist" in a single
spot, but for the voters it's almost impossible to figure out exactly
what's going on, let alone if there are any errors. Even more, if
voters make a mistake and only approve some of the changes, the final
state of the release will be pretty much unpredictable, really.

I'm curious if the developers think it's feasible to add some support
for this kind of situations, before I enter a ticket. Here are some
variants, in increasing order of usefulness (and, I assume, of
difficulty):

  A) The easiest (no changes needed) is to simply create a new
release, and delete the wrong one instead. However that (1) may be
much more complicated if ARs and release dates and such are involved
and (2) is strongly discouraged by voters, so it won't work very well.

  B) For edits passing through the "edit all" page, we could add an
option at the end that says "treat this as a single edit". If the
option is picked, the edit is displayed and voted on as a single unit.
The option would be selected by default for edits that change track
numbering.

  C) Just as in suggestion (B), we could group only the
_tracklist-changing_ edits of the "edit all" page in a single edit.
Thus, if I do a big edit on a release, we'll get a vote each for a)
release status. b) release language. c) release dates. d) tracklist.
The grouping of the track-list edits should only happen when the track
numbers are changed, or maybe optionally (to allow simple "guess all"
case-edits individually).

  D) For all individual edits that originate in a single "edit action"
(i.e., those that get a "This edit is first/last in a series of X"),
add an option to "see the big picture". For instance, we could replace
the note with a link to "see the whole edit series" that shows a page
identical to the one editors get right at the end of an "edit all"
session (minus the "enter edit" button). If would be nice to be able
to vote on this "big picture" page, too, on all edits in the series at
once.


What do you think?
-- Bogdan Butnaru — bogdanb at gmail.com
"I think I am a fallen star, I should wish on myself." – O.